Desire

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  What a hungry little mouth she had, devouring my liquid heat, running the tip of her tongue around my clit in luxurious circles, waiting for it to swell to unbearable proportions before sliding her lips over and breathing on it, lapping at it, sucking on it. Tiny yelps issued from her throat, vibrating over my whole sex, in time with Ralph’s diligent pull-and-pushing on the deep-set dildoes. “You can’t imagine what you look like, can you, you little trollop? Kneeling here being fucked in both holes while you eat pussy as if your life depended on it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a slut to compare with you. I'd love to introduce you to my friends.” A long, starved moan buzzed between my thighs; I signalled Ralph to slow down. I didn’t want her coming just yet. Noticing the man’s bulging trousers, I gave him permission to masturbate, pulling her head closer to my crotch, mashing her mouth up against my clit, using my other hand to twiddle with her sore little nipples. Advanced Corsetry dD “Next time you pull a stunt like this, young lady, I'll spank your arse for you,” I promised her. She sighed, her tongue in a frenzy now, her bottom wiggling furiously, while her whole body worked at relieving itself on the twin phalluses. ‘The three peaks came in rapid series, one rising as another fell. First Ralph roared and splashed his seed all over her bum and thighs, then, as it dripped downwards, she caught the perfect configuration of dildo and nerve-ending and howled on to my clit, triggering my own explosion. For a few minutes, the three of us were slumped together like felled skittles, panting and enjoying the stars that circled our heads. Ralph was first to tuck himself in and button himself up, leaving my naughty little customer to fall sideways. I wiped my thighs with a tissue and patted down my skirt, thinking that now was the time for private catalogue photography. She was flushed and sweating; her mouth glistening with my spendings; her bottom and thighs sticky with Ralph’s spunk. Her cheeks were still rudely thrust apart by the large dildo, and the strap still cut into the middle of her cunt lips. Her nipples were more like cherry stones than cherries now‘and one high heeled shoe hung off her heel. She looked a mess; a gorgeous dirty feast of a mess. “We need photographs,” I told Ralph, and he nodded. Her name, it turned out, was Jess. Her modelling and catalogue work for me is much admired in corsetry circles these days. And if you gain my trust, and ask me very, very respectfully, I might just show you my private collection. Royal Adam Berlin

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  I soon got my arm round her and kept kissing her till she told me she had never known a man so greedy of kisses as I was. It was delicious flattery to me to speak of me as a man and in return I raved about her eyes and mouth and form; caressing her left breast I told her I could divine the rest and knew she had a lovely body. But when I put my hand up her clothes, she stopped me when I got just above her knee and said: “We’d have to be engaged before I could let you do that. Do you really love me?” Of course I swore I did, but when she said she’d have to tell her father that we were engaged to be married, cold shivers went down my back. “I can’t marry for a long time yet”, I said, “I’ll have to make a living first and I’m not very sure where I’ll begin.” But she had heard that an old man wished to adopt me and everyone said that he was very rich, and even her father admitted that I’d be “well fixed.” Meanwhile my right hand was busy: I had got my fingers to her warm flesh between the stockings and the drawers and was wild with desire; soon mouth on mouth I touched her sex. What a gorgeous afternoon we had! I had learned enough now to go slow and obey what seemed to be her moods. Gently, gently I caressed her sex with my finger till it opened and she leaned against me and kissed me of her own will, while her eyes turned up and her whole being was lost in thrills of ecstasy. When she asked me to stop and take my hand away, I did her bidding at once and was rewarded by being told that I was a “dear boy” and “a sweet” and soon the embracing and caressing began again. She moved now in response to my lascivious touchings and when the ecstasy came on her, she clasped me close and kissed me passionately with hot lips and afterwards in my arms wept a little and then pouted that she was cross with me for being so naughty. But her eyes gave themselves to me even while she tried to scold. The dinner bell rang and she said she’d have to go, and we made a meeting for afterwards on the top deck; but as she was getting up, she yielded again to my hand with a little sigh and I found her sex all wet, wet! She got down out of the boat by the main rigging and I waited a few moments before following her. At first our caution seemed likely to be rewarded, chiefly, I have thought since, because everyone believed me to be too young and too small to be taken seriously. But everything is quickly known on seaboard at least by the sailors.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  To my way of thinking, anyone who devotes his energies to anything but the service of God is a complete blockhead.’ She thus developed the habit of going to Rustico at frequent intervals, and saying to him: ‘Father, I came here to serve God, not to idle away my time. Let’s go and put the devil back in Hell.’ And sometimes, in the middle of their labours, she would say: ‘What puzzles me, Rustico, is that the devil should ever want to escape from Hell. Because if he liked being there as much as Hell enjoys receiving him and keeping him inside, he would never go away at all.’ By inviting Rustico to play the game too often, continually urging him on in the service of God, the girl took so much stuffing out of him that he eventually began to turn cold where another man would have been bathed in sweat. So he told her that the devil should only be punished and put back in Hell when he reared his head with pride, adding that by the grace of Heaven, they had tamed him so effectively that he was pleading with God to be left in peace. In this way, he managed to keep the girl quiet for a while, but one day, having begun to notice that Rustico was no longer asking for the devil to be put back in Hell, she said: ‘Look here, Rustico. Even though your devil has been punished and pesters you no longer, my Hell simply refuses to leave me alone. Now that I have helped you with my Hell to subdue the pride of your devil, the least you can do is to get your devil to help me tame the fury of my Hell.’ Rustico, who was living on a diet of herb-roots and water, was quite incapable of supplying her requirements, and told her that the taming of her Hell would require an awful lot of devils, but promised to do what he could. Sometimes, therefore, he responded to the call, but this happened so infrequently that it was rather like chucking a bean into the mouth of a lion, with the result that the girl, who felt that she was not serving God as diligently as she would have liked, was found complaining more often than not. But at the height of this dispute between Alibech’s Hell and Rustico’s devil, brought about by a surplus of desire on the one hand and a shortage of power on the other, a fire broke out in Gafsa, and Alibech’s father was burnt to death in his own house along with all his children and every other member of his household, so that Alibech inherited the whole of his property.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  In short, with one exception I have nothing to complain about, and the exception is this: that my husband is much older than myself, and consequently I am ill provided with the one thing that gives young women their greatest pleasure. And because I desire this thing no less than other women, I long ago made up my mind that since Fortune has been so unkind as to give me an elderly husband, I would repair her omissions myself, and devise the means of winning solace and salvation through my own efforts. So that my enjoyment therein should be no less complete than in other matters, I have decided that our Pyrrhus, since he is more worthy of my love than any other man, should supply my needs with his embraces, and such is the love that I bear him, that I am never content except when I am gazing or musing upon him. Unless I can forgather with him very soon, I firmly believe that I shall die. And therefore, as you value my life, you must acquaint him with my love in whatever way you think best, and ask him on my behalf to favour me with his company at such time as you shall go to fetch him.’ The maidservant willingly agreed to carry out her mistress’s instructions; and at the first opportunity, having taken Pyrrhus aside, she conveyed the lady’s message as best she could. Pyrrhus was greatly astonished to hear it, for he had never had the slightest inkling that the lady was in love with him, and suspected that she had sent the message in order to test his loyalty. So without mincing his words, he abruptly replied: ‘Lusca, I cannot believe that these words have come from my lady, so be careful of what you are saying. Even if they really did come from her, I cannot believe that she meant me to take them seriously. But if she did, I should never dream of doing such an injury to my master, who already honours me more than I deserve. So take care never to speak to me of such matters again.’ Not to be deterred by the severity of his tone, Lusca replied: ‘Pyrrhus, if my mistress commands me to speak to you of these or any other matters, I shall do so as often as she tells me, whether you like it or not, and all I can say is that you are an obstinate fool.’ Feeling somewhat galled by the answer that Pyrrhus had given her, she returned to her mistress, who, on hearing the result of her mission, simply wanted to lie down and die. However, a few days later she raised the subject once more with her maidservant, and said: ‘Lusca, as you know, an oak is not felled by a single blow of the axe.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Matters standing thus and Rustico being more than ever inflamed in his desires to see her so fair, there came the resurrection of the flesh, which Alibech observing and marvelling, 'Rustico,' quoth she, 'what is that I see on thee which thrusteth forth thus and which I have not?' 'Faith, daughter mine,' answered he, 'this is the devil whereof I bespoke thee; and see now, he giveth me such sore annoy that I can scarce put up with it.' Then said the girl, 'Now praised be God! I see I fare better than thou, in that I have none of yonder devil.' 'True,' rejoined Rustico; 'but thou hast otherwhat that I have not, and thou hast it instead of this.' 'What is that?' asked Alibech; and he, 'Thou hast hell, and I tell thee methinketh God hath sent thee hither for my soul's health, for that, whenas this devil doth me this annoy, an it please thee have so much compassion on me as to suffer me put him back into hell, thou wilt give me the utmost solacement and wilt do God a very great pleasure and service, so indeed thou be come into these parts to do as thou sayst.' The girl answered in good faith, 'Marry, father mine, since I have hell, be it whensoever it pleaseth thee;' whereupon quoth Rustico, 'Daughter, blessed be thou; let us go then and put him back there, so he may after leave me in peace.' So saying, he laid her on one of their little beds and taught her how she should do to imprison that accursed one of God. The girl, who had never yet put any devil in hell, for the first time felt some little pain; wherefore she said to Rustico, 'Certes, father mine, this same devil must be an ill thing and an enemy in very deed of God, for that it irketh hell itself, let be otherwhat, when he is put back therein.' 'Daughter,' answered Rustico, 'it will not always happen thus;' and to the end that this should not happen, six times, or ever they stirred from the bed, they put him in hell again, insomuch that for the nonce they so took the conceit out of his head that he willingly abode at peace. But, it returning to him again and again the ensuing days and the obedient girl still lending herself to take it out of him, it befell that the sport began to please her and she said to Rustico, 'I see now that those good people in Capsa spoke sooth, when they avouched that it was so sweet a thing to serve God; for, certes, I remember me not to have ever done aught that afforded me such pleasance and delight as putting the devil in hell; wherefore methinketh that whoso applieth himself unto aught other than God His service is a fool.'

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  Hard, soft head of his cock so warm, insinuating, knocking at the door of me. The head of his cock pressing between the lips below feels so good, I want to scold him for being in such a hurry. But the 520 C. Sanchez-Garcia thing is in and it is moving. Going in, knocking against the last skin of my virginity that will never be renewed again. Ow! — oh... Fear. It is so fearful to be pierced, knowing it will not come again. It is so right. Inside. Inside me. More! Stay. Stay there forever. His belly slapping, slapping down, his weight on top of me, panting, his breath in my ear, his hand behind my head, clutching hard my hair, and his other hand under me, squeezing my ass. My hips pushing up, shuddering, to welcome his thrusts. He knows. He would not dare to put his face, his neck so close to my teeth before, but he knows and he is making love to a woman now, not a white evil mannequin. He believes. His body and his manly way with me tell me he believes there is no danger in me now and I am a woman and I am his woman. He stops moving, hanging. I am tormented and suddenly he bangs at me hard, as though his body were a cudgel. “Unh!” he yells. “Unh!” I receive him. He hovers over me, holding himself up by his palms and feet so that nothing touches but his cock inside me. “Nuh!” He lets himself down hard and bangs me with his whole body and I feel it all, his slick cock, his belly, the pine needles sticking in the skin of my back. I feel all of it. His cock is the stake, his belly the hammer and I am slain and in bliss. “Please,” I whisper. “Unh!” Again, the stake thrusts and the hammer of his belly strikes with my legs splayed wide. He hovers over me, his face just inches from mine, smiling, looking into my eyes and I am the one hypnotized by him. I am his slave and in this moment I would do anything for him. I would do anything to make him want me more. His eyes staring fearlessly into mine. My young white American boy. He would never kill me now. I remember — I remember now, this is how babies are made. Now that I am ordinary, will we have a baby tonight? We will be a real family like any family and he will mow the lawn for me and I will taste the food I cook for him. So yl I take his thrusts which are coming hard, angry, fierce. In a rhythm with a tormenting pause at the end of each blow, just long enough to make me yearn for the next. Strengthening. Yielding. Impatient. Amnesiac. Deep. Hard. More! Do it! Don’t stop. Do it to me! Faster. ‘Together. Confused. Astonished. Harder! Do it!

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  She lay on the sofa and said, “Strip for me, baby.” Which is something I would normally ask a woman, but I’m half-French and half-Spanish, with too many male hormones to argue with a pretty woman who wanted me naked. No, I did not dance around, put on a show. But I didn’t rush either. I tried to act cool although I was simmering. My dick was up like a flag-pole and just as hard and she licked her lips when she saw it. “My turn,” she said, getting up. “Unzip me.” I unzipped the back of her dress, sat and watched. She put on quite a show, wiggling out of her dress, moving to the windows to undo her bra. She dropped it, just as she’d dropped her dress, turned and came back. Her breasts were C-cup, with small nipples, nice and pointed already, and light pink areolae. She stepped out of her high- heels, put her right foot up on the sofa and undid her right stocking. “Be a good boy and pull it down for me, honey.” _ I was staring at those breasts as I obliged, trailing my fingers down her long, smooth leg. The left leg was next and, with the front of her panties right in my face, I kissed her silky crotch, feeling her pubic hair beneath. She dropped the garter belt, put her hands behind her head, arching her back. I reached up and lightly traced my fingers up to her breasts, caressing them, rolling my index fingers around her nipples. I drew my hands to her panties and pushed them down She Gleeked Me 307 slowly, kissing her stomach, belly button. Her bush was soft and a darker shade of red. She shoved me back, stepped out of her panties and went down on her knees. She kissed my thighs on her way to my dick. Her tongue flicked its tip and it throbbed in response. She kissed her way down to my balls, kissed each and licked her way back up to the tip. Miss Alice Grey pulled the hair away from her face with one hand, grabbed my dick with the other and sank her mouth on it. I felt her tongue moving back and forth as her head worked up and down. Jesus Christ! I pumped back, fucked her mouth for a full minute, before she got up, sat on the sofa, turned and wrapped those incredibly long legs around me. I stared at her open pussy, moist already. I kissed her inner thighs, kissed her silky bush, kissed her thighs again as she writhed, slowly grinding her hips in anticipation. My tongue brushed her pussy lips and she gasped. I licked and her grinding turned to gyrating. I worked at it and she responded, bucking me, gasping, making mewing sounds, then crying louder.

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  “T want you to take me to Rio,” she said. “De Janeiro?” “Is there another Rio? I need protection and [ll pay you ten thousand dollars, American, to sail with me on a Brazilian ship, tomorrow night. Get me to Rio and you can come back, if you want. I need a bodyguard.” c I looked at her body and said, “You’re telling me?” We did it again, this time on my bed. It was her fault. I was a goner as soon as I unzipped that dress, so don’t blame me. Women used me a lot. Bless their souls. Alice Grey was a fairly predatory lover, reaching for the pleasure, knowing she was giving it back. She kissed hard and fucked hard, bouncing me like a toy atop her. Coitus brought out her strength. She was louder this time and cursed. My first girlfriend did a similar thing. Elvira wasn’t as predatory, a good Catholic girl, but she could curse. Alice started with “Fuck me “That’s what I’m doing.” Here’s a lesson for men. When they start cursing, you’re not supposed to respond. Just let them vent. Alice pinched me hard, so I shut up. 1? “T want dick! Fuck! Screw me! Fuck my pussy! Inside! Fucking harder! Slam your balls! Dick! Dick! Fuck me!” I obliged, like an obedient boy. Lying in bed after, Alice curled against me, a light rain tapping against the bedroom windows, I tried to figure her out. ’'d been too busy wrestling with her body to wrestle with the idea she might be a lunatic. When she woke, I planned to question her. I mean, what 314 O’Neil De Noux the hell was all this, sending me on wild goose chases and now Rio de Janeiro? Then again, ten grand was ten grand and I'd be holed up on a ship with that body. I thought of the black widow. Not the spider but the woman in the paper. Red-headed woman from Canada. I’d looked up Westhope on the map. It was only about five miles from the Canadian border. What if it was the woman curled in my arms? How did she put it — “ten thousand dollars, American”? What other dollars could we be talking about? Canadian dollars, maybe?

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  But this was all familiar ground. Her right hand was itching to embark on its new adventure. First she cupped his balls, then meandered down to the ridge between his legs where her cunt would be, stroking him there until he squirmed and cooed. Her finger crept lower, into the Valley of Darkness. She advanced slowly, unsure of his response. She’d never done this before, with anyone. Bobby inched his legs wider. Apparently he was ready for adventure, too. The terrain grew hotter, faintly moist. When she touched a tender little knoll of flesh just above his asshole, he moaned, a ghostly sound, as if he were melting away. She began to tap him there, like she tapped her own clit. The moans became a song. His cock twitched and pulsed, as hard and smooth 4s marble between her lips. Zoe’s finger marched onward into the forbidden zone. She traced his secret little mouth with her fingertip. The ring of muscle tensed then pushed open, beckoning her inside. She pulled away, smiling at his groan of disappointment. Quickly moistening her finger with spit, she pushed the tip up through the doorway. Bobby took her in with a soft “ah” of surrender. From here on her journey presented a new, physical challenge. Bobby was virgin-tight, like a leather glove two sizes too small, and she didn’t want to hurt his tender flesh. She wiggled her fingertip gently to open him, to test if he was ready for more. Bobby was beyond speech, but his moans were eloquent enough. Now, with each down stroke of her lips on his cock, Zoe pushed in a little deeper, her finger dancing sinuously inside the tight little mini- dress of his asshole. Bobby’s whole body trembled and his cock seemed to swell even thicker, like an over-ripe fruit, strained to bursting. He pawed at her shoulder, the signal to pull off and finish him with her hand. _ But Zoe’s lips refused to release him, and she realized the rest of her, too, was no longer afraid. She wanted only to have him inside her when he came, just as she was buried inside him. Bobby cried out and his muscles clenched, milking her finger as he shot his spunk 60 Donna George Storey into her throat. Instinctively she swallowed it down, so busy in her attentions to his cock and asshole she hardly tasted it. But she did get the chance to savor the last drops: cinnamon, cumin and cloves mixed with sun-drenched meadow grass. In truth, it wasn’t bad at all. Zoe rose to her knees, eyes sparkling with triumph. And what did Bobby think of the wild things she’d done? She didn’t have time to ask because he immediately pulled her down on top of him and whispered into her neck, ““You’re the best ever.” Lying in his arms, Zoe realized that she must make a queer picture —acurvy girl wearing boy’s briefs.

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  Or have they? The wood stove is cold, dormant for the summer. I stand up and go over to the bookcase against the wall and retrieve the box of matches then sink back down into my chair. 378 Rose B. Thorny I slide the cover open and extract one lucifer. The rasp of it against the box arouses me and the head igniting makes me catch my breath. The brandy helps, but this? A tide of warmth surges inside me, as I stare into the flame transfixed, until it threatens to singe my fingers and I blow it out. I toss it into an empty candy dish by the lamp then strike another. One by one, I light the matches, clench the muscles in my cunt each time, savour the throbbing then blow it out, until there is little pile of blackened sticks in the dish. Little charred stick houses. Canvas Back Craig J. Sorensen I love Ollie’s Bargain Outlet. I don’t go there with anything specific in mind, but I never know what I'll find. Still, when I needed a Chilton’s manual for my twenty-year-old Swiss cheese Chevy Suburban I found one for two bucks. They live up to their motto at Ollie’s. Good stuff. Cheap. Before I start sounding like a commercial, let me explain. It was long after my red period. I was working big, deep gallery wrap canvases in bold colors. I~was obsessed with an abstracted form that implied the motion of tall frass in a field on a windy day. I called it, rather pretentiously, my wheat period. My current high- relief impasto technique and taste for pricey Sennelier oil paints left little of my limited funds for anything else. It might have more aptly been called my ramen noodle period. But every man has his limits. For the third morning in a row I'd woken up with a gouge in my ass from the spring that stretched through the cover of the fleabag queen bed I’d found two studios before. I was finally pissed enough to do something about it. Enter Ollie’s. I decided to give it a shot. Maybe they’d have a queen mattress in my price range. Luckily they did. “Can I get some help with it?” “Pick up for customer.” The pimple-faced teen’s voice echoed in distorted strains through the cavernous space. He pulled back from the microphone and looked out into the store. “Little Leeny will help you.” Little Leeny was neither. She stood around six feet tall and had atlas shoulders. But her face was sort of pudgy and girlish with _ skinny lips atop a deep chin. Her eyes matched the dark sapphire posts through her left nostril and her long earlobes. She bound her bright red hair tight atop her skull so it splashed like a red gerbera daisy from its bright green band. She didn’t linger like the other 380 Craig F. Sorensen

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  Owen stood before her, no longer on the verge of tears, as if feeling beyond what tears could tell her. He offered himself as a desperate applicant, without any other options, beyond all embarrassment. “Please,” he said. “Please. Use me.” At first, Isabel didn’t know what he meant. Then she realized that she was fighting knowing and did not resist as he came closer, in fact placed her hands at his hips to help. Soon he was near enough to whisper, “Anything you want. All for you. Use me.” As he undressed her, he discouraged her doing anything in return, shaking his head or murmuring “rio” when she as much as raised a hand to touch him. She felt she was being prepared — anointed, that was the word — for some ceremony, saw herself in a Roman movie scene, a princess stripped, bathed, and placed naked under robes by female slaves — though, in that case, they would be careful not to caress her, not wishing to offend, they would be killed if they were caught, and, moaning, Owen was stroking and kissing every inch of her he could, after he removed her one good white shirt (which she had feared that morning looked as un-ironed as it was), then her bra, her skirt and, as he placed her with her help upon his — slightly cold — leather couch, her underwear (it had been too warm that morning to wear tights). Still fully dressed, he moved, a supplicant, down her, and she spread her legs, not sure but daring to assume that’s what he wanted. Then he said softly but she was almost sure, “I want to lick the alphabet on your clit,” and that’s what he did, speaking each letter ~ before he formed it (with surprising efficiency) upon and across her, something she suspected he had seen in a porn film, but a good and imaginative one that she had missed. By the time he licked the three lines for the stems or the arms or whatever you call them of the “E”, she came, feeling more naked even than she was, though this was how he’d wanted her, she was only obeying him by allowing him to submit, or something. 160 Laurence Klavan

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  She pulled Harry’s socks to her elbows, fabric groaning. Wearing the socks like filthy gloves, she began petting her pussy, at first with one hand, then two. The flow of her movements gave the garments grace, and Harry’s horn surged upward, straining dangerously close to her oiled thighs. “Put my panties in your mouth,” she moaned, head back, eyes fluttering wildly behind closed lids. Harry did as he was told. “You fucking bitch,’ he said, sucking the panties, tasting, biting, chewing. He knotted the bra around the base of his cock, trapping the blood, engorging the organ, creating a bottled symphony of power and come. “You’ve helped me to be a man again,” he said. “Shut up, bitch.” “You’ve helped my family in ways you don’t even know.” “Shut up, cunt,” she snapped. Her hands moved sensually, slowly, then quickly like a woodsman learning to love a tree. Her covered fingers were the tools, her pussy the soft cherry. She kept busy, pressing her clitoris and spreading the folds. Harry’s leathery mitt cranked his cock forcefully, the clips of the bra chafing his balls. Their respective trees teetered, then picked up momentum. She fell as Harry fell. “Bitch,” they muttered in unison. Her mouth opened, then locked. A trapped scream bled out in a staccato chirp. “Uh. Uh. Uh. Ah. Ah. Ah.” Harry spat out the panties, then wrung them around the head of his cock, bulbous and purple, true royalty once more, a rising Colonel. “You whore!” “Oh, sugar!” Her leg bucked, and the chair rocked back. She tried to quell the gush with her hands, but the spray was determined, and those The Hamper Affair 495 juices that didn’t immediately saturate the dirty sock-gloves covered Harry’s face. “B-b-bitch!” he stuttered, himself a victim of orgasmic eruption, the seed discharging from his weapon like double-ought shot. Globs of gooey man-love stuck to the smoothed crease behind her extended leg, the place where thigh meets ass, the place where lips dote, and fingers lose themselves. When the crack and splinter of the fallen trees had settled, the woman dressed herself in a robe and then stretched out on a velvet couch. Harry tied his shoes, lips fixed in a permanent grin. Cody had told his father to wear a suit. After he’d parked the car in front of the home of his slightly estranged but always loving daughter, Harry stepped on to the sidewalk wearing his finest three-piece. “Laura!” He waved. Laura stood on the porch flanked by the children. Cody held his father in a steadying gaze. Heather, making no effort to mask her disgust, stared off in the distance. Laura, fresh from the beauty salon and wearing a green dress professionally stitched from the infamous tablecloth at her son’s request, stodd tall and open, eyes kind, if not a bit weary. “Its great to see everyone together,’ said Harry, moving to embrace the children. Cody stepped up and accepted the arms of his father.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  A folly, a delusion, a weakness that crumbled before that hunger. And Angela was only a few miles away. She went up to her room and unlocked a drawer from which she took the little white case. Then she slipped the case into her jacket pocket. 4 She found Angela helping her maid to unpack; they appeared to be all but snowed under by masses of soft, inadequate garments. The bedroom smelt strongly of Angela’s scent, which was heavy yet slightly pungent . She glanced up from a tumbled heap of silk stockings: ‘Hallo, Stephen!’ Her greeting was casually friendly. Stephen said: ‘Well, how are you after all these weeks? Did you have a good journey down from Scotland?’ The maid said: ‘Shall I wash your new crêpe de Chine nightgowns, ma’am? Or ought they to go to the cleaners?’ Then, somehow, they all fell silent. To break this suggestive and awkward silence, Stephen inquired politely after Ralph. ‘He’s in London on business for a couple of days; he’s all right, thanks,’ Angela answered briefly, and she turned once more to sorting her stockings. Stephen studied her. Angela was not looking well, her mouth had a childish droop at the corners; there were quite new shadows, too, under her eyes, and these shadows accentuated her pallor. And as though that earnest gaze made her nervous, she suddenly bundled the stockings together with a little sound of impatience. ‘Come on, let’s go down to my room!’ And turning to her maid: ‘I’d rather you washed the new nightgowns, please.’ They went down the wide oak stairs without speaking, and into the little oak panelled parlour. Stephen closed the door; then they faced each other. ‘Well, Angela?’ ‘Well, Stephen?’ And after a pause: ‘What on earth made you send that absurd telegram? Ralph got hold of the thing and began to ask questions. You are such an almighty fool sometimes—you knew perfectly well that I couldn’t come back. Why will you behave as though you were six, have you no common sense? What’s it all about? Your methods are not only infantile—they’re dangerous.’ Then taking Angela firmly by the shoulders, Stephen turned her so that she faced the light. She put her question with youthful crudeness; ‘Do you find Roger Antrim physically attractive—do you find that he attracts you that way more than I do?’ She waited calmly, it seemed, for her answer. And because of that distinctly ominous calm, Angela was scared, so she blustered a little: ‘Of course I don’t! I resent such questions; I won’t allow them even from you, Stephen. God knows where you get your fantastic ideas! Have you been discussing me with that girl Violet? If you have, I think it’s simply outrageous! She’s quite the most evil-minded prig in the county. It was not very gentlemanly of you, my dear, to discuss my affairs with our neighbours, was it?’ ‘I refused to discuss you with Violet Antrim,’ Stephen told her, still speaking quite calmly.

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  Not even the gods are able to prevent it, for he becomes their very self ( atman ).” 63 It was a defiant declaration of independence, a political as well as a spiritual revolution. The Kshatriya could now cast aside his dependence on the priest who dominated the ritual arena. At the same time as vaishyas and shudras were climbing the social ladder, the warrior aristocracy was making a bid for the first place in society. Yet the Upanishads also challenged the Kshatriya martial ethos. The atman had originally been Agni, the deepest, divine “self” of the warrior that he had attained by fighting and stealing. The heroic Aryan drive eastward had been motivated by desire for earthly things—cows, plunder, land, honor, and prestige. Now the Upanishad sages urged their disciples to renounce such desire. Anyone who remained fixated on mundane wealth could never be liberated from the cycle of suffering and rebirth, but “a man who does not desire—who is without desires, who is freed from desires, whose only desire is his self ( atman )—his vital functions do not depart. Brahman he is and to brahman he goes.” 64 New meditative techniques induced a state of mind that was “calm, composed, cool, patient and collected”: in short, the very opposite of the old agitated Aryan mentality. 65 One of the Upanishads actually described Indra, no less, living peacefully as a humble student in the forest with his teacher and relinquishing violence in order to find perfect tranquillity. 66 Aryans had always considered themselves inherently superior to others; their rituals had bred within them a deep sense of entitlement that had fueled their raids and conquests. But the Upanishads taught that because the atman, the essence of every single creature, was identical with the Brahman, all beings shared the same sacred core. The Brahman was the subtle kernel of the banyan seed from which a great tree grows. 67 It was the sap that gave life to every part of the tree; it was also the most fundamental reality of every single human being. 68 Brahman was like a chunk of salt left overnight to dissolve in a beaker of water; even though it could not be seen the next morning, it was still present in every sip. 69 Instead of repudiating this basic kinship with all beings, as the warrior did when he demonized his enemy, these sages were deliberately cultivating an awareness of it. Everyone liked to imagine that he was unique, but in reality his special distinguishing features were no more permanent than rivers that all flowed into the same sea. Once they left the riverbed, they became “just the ocean,” no longer proclaiming their individuality, crying “I am that river,” “I am this river.”

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  “But how did you do it!” we wanted to know and he gave us his whole experience. “Girls love kissing,” he said, “and so I kissed and kissed her and put my leg on her, and her hand on my cock and I kept touching her breasts and her cunny (that’s what she calls it) and at last I got on her between her legs and she guided my prick into her cunt (God it was wonderful!) and now I go with her every night and often in the day as well. She likes her cunt touched, but very gently”, he added, “she showed me how to do it with one finger like this” and he suited the action to the word. Strangways in a moment became to us not only a hero but a miracle-man; we pretended not to believe him in order to make him tell us more, but in our hearts we knew he was telling us the truth, and we were almost crazy with breathless desire. I got him to invite me up to the Vicarage and I saw Mary the nurse-girl there, and she seemed to me almost a woman and spoke to him as “Master Will” and he kissed her, though she frowned and said “Leave off” and “Behave yourself”, very angrily; but I felt that her anger was put on to prevent my guessing the truth. I was aflame with desire and when I told Howard, he, too, burned with lust, and took me out for a walk and questioned me all over again and, under a haystack in the country we gave ourselves to a bout of frigging which for the first time thrilled me with pleasure. All the time we were playing with ourselves I kept thinking of Mary’s hot slit, as Strangways had described it, and at length a real orgasm came and shook me; the imagining had intensified my delight. Nothing in my life up to that moment was comparable in joy to that story of sexual pleasure as described, and acted for us, by Strangways. MY FATHER. Father was coming: I was sick with fear: he was so strict and loved to punish. On the ship he had beaten me with a strap because I had gone forward and listened to the sailors talking smut: I feared him and disliked him ever since I saw him once come aboard drunk.

• From The Fixed Stars: A Memoir (2020)

  There’s something I want to talk about, I said. I’ve been feeling really down. Maybe you could tell. You’ve seemed off, even when we were at the cabin, Brandon said. He glanced over at me. You remember how I felt last summer, after jury duty? I can’t seem to make it go away. You mean how you felt about that lawyer? he asked. Not just her. I sort of talked myself out of thinking about her. It made me feel nuts. But now I keep noticing other women. The lesbian moms at June’s school? Yeah, I said. I can’t stop thinking about it. Remember when you asked me last summer if I had to do something about this? You mean hook up with a woman? Brandon asked. Yeah. But I don’t want to be with a woman like me—not, like, a straight married woman who’s just “curious.” What do you mean? I want to know what it’s like to be with a woman who loves women. It just—it doesn’t interest me otherwise. I paused, trying to decide if I should say it, and then I did: I want to know what it’s like to be with a lesbian. I don’t know how I feel about that, he said. That seems really different. I stared at the dashboard. What if you fall in love? he said. Isn’t that what you’re saying you want? Am I? Surely I don’t want actual love? I don’t want to fall in love, I said. I don’t plan to fall in love. That’s not what I want. Because I really don’t think it’s okay to fall in love with someone else, he said. That’s not what I’m talking about. I just said that. But what if it happens? he asked. I mean, I hope it doesn’t. It doesn’t have to. I paused, considering. Then I said, But I think, you know, being with someone else—maybe even falling in love with someone else—doesn’t have to change my love for you. I don’t think it’s right to fall in love with someone else, he said. I didn’t reply. So we would open up our marriage, he said. Yeah, I think so. I really don’t think it’s okay to fall in love, he said. You don’t have to, I said. We get to decide what this looks like. We get to choose. We could buy some books about open relationships and read them together. I’ve been looking up stuff online. I don’t know, he said. I don’t know. You can date other people too, I said. I mean, I know how dumb monogamy is, he said. But I never expected you to be the one to want an open marriage. I know. Me neither. I think I would feel okay if you only dated women, he said. No other men. I don’t want to date other men. We watched the road for a few minutes, not saying anything.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  Half an hour later I saw she was in my room tidying up; I took thought and then went up the outside steps. As soon as I saw her, I pretended surprise: “I beg your pardon”, I said, “I’ll just get a book and go at once; please don’t let me disturb you!” and I pretended to look for the book. She turned sharply and looked at me fixedly: “Why do you treat me like this?” she burst out, shaking with indignation. “Like what?” I repeated, pretending surprise. “You know quite well”, she went on angrily, hastily: “at first I thought it was chance, unintentional; now I know you mean it. Whenever you’re talking or telling a story, as soon as I come into the room you stop and hurry away as if you hated me. Why? Why?” she cried with quivering lips, “What have I done to make you dislike me so?” and the tears gathered in her lovely eyes. I felt the moment had come: I put my hands on her shoulders and looked with my whole soul into her eyes: “Did you never guess, Kate, that it might be love, not hate?” I asked. “No, no!” she cried, the tears falling, “love doesn’t act like that!” “Fear to miss love does, I can assure you”, I cried, “I thought at first that you disliked me and already I had begun to care for you”, (my arms went round her waist and I drew her to me) “to love you and want you. Kiss me, dear” and at once she gave me her lips while my hand got busy on her breasts and then went down of itself to her sex. Suddenly she looked at me gaily, brightly while heaving a big sigh of relief. “I’m glad, glad!” she said, “if you only knew how hurt I was and how I tortured myself; one moment I was angry, then I was sad. Yesterday I made up my mind to speak, but today I said to myself, I’ll just be obstinate and cold as he is and now”—and of her own accord she put her arms round my neck and kissed me, “you are a dear, dear! Anyway, I love you!” “You mustn’t give me those bird-pecks!” I exclaimed, “those are not kisses: I want your lips to open and cling to mine” and I kissed her while my tongue darted into her mouth and I stroked her sex gently. She flushed, but at first didn’t understand, then suddenly she blushed rosy red as her lips grew hot and she fairly ran from the room. I exulted: I knew I had won: I must be very quiet and reserved and the bird would come to the lure; I felt exultingly certain!

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  “You look at me strangely!” she said swinging round from the long mirror with a challenge on her parted lips. I made some inane remark: I couldn’t trust myself to speak frankly; but natural sympathy drew us together. I told her I was going to be a student and she wanted to know whether I could dance: I told her I could not, and she promised to teach me: “Lily Robins, a neighbor’s girl, will play for us any afternoon. Do you know the steps?” she went on and when I said “No”: she got up from the sofa, held up her dress and showed me the three polka steps which she said were the waltz steps too, only taken on a glide. “What pretty ankles! you have”, I ventured; but she appeared not to hear me. We sat on and on and I learned that she was very lonely: Mr. Mayhew away every night and nearly all day and nothing to do in that little dead-and-alive place. “Will you let me come in for a talk sometimes?” I asked: “Whenever you wish”, was her answer. As I rose to go and we were standing opposite to each other by the door, I said: “You know, Mrs. Mayhew, in Europe when a man brings a pretty woman home, she rewards him with a kiss—” “Really?” she scoffed, smiling, “That’s not a custom here.” “Are you less generous than they are?” I asked and the next moment I had taken her face in my hands and kissed her on the lips. She put her hands on my shoulders and left her eyes on mine: “We’re going to be friends”, she said, “I felt it when I saw you: don’t stay away too long!” “Will you see me tomorrow afternoon?” I asked: “I want that dance lesson!” “Surely” she replied, “I’ll tell Lily in the morning.” And once more our hands met: I tried to draw her to me for another kiss; but she held back with a smiling—“tomorrow afternoon!” “Tell me your name”, I begged, “so that I may think of it.” “Lorna” she replied, “you funny boy!” and I went my way with pulses hammering, blood aflame and hope in my heart. Next morning I called again upon Smith; but the pretty servant, “Rose”, she said her name was, told me that he was nearly always out at Judge Stevens’ “five or six miles out,” she thought it was; “they always come for him in a buggy”, she added. So I said I’d write and make an appointment and I did write and asked him to let me see him next morning.

• From Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (2020)

  Wives were tasked with meeting husbands’ every sexual need, but it was the responsibility of women and girls to avoid leading men who were not their husbands into temptation. What counted as appropriate modesty depended on one’s location in the evangelical subculture. In certain homeschool circles, women wore dresses that fell below the knee and fashioned their hair in long, unadorned styles. Other evangelicals defined modesty more liberally. But wherever evangelicals drew the line, women were judged for their failure to uphold the ideal. Evangelicals had far less to say about male modesty. Instead, they emphasized the rewards that awaited boys who waited. A message of delayed gratification was at the heart of purity teachings for adolescent boys. Since wives served to gratify male desire, men only needed to wait until marriage to be rewarded with “mind-blowing” sex. Such promises were the stock-in-trade of evangelical youth pastors in the 1990s. In the words of purity evangelist Josh McDowell, God was not a “cosmic killjoy.” After all, God created sex.40 McDowell, an evangelical pseudo-intellectual who first made a name for himself writing popular books on Christian apologetics, helped launch the purity movement. In 1987 he published Why Wait? What You Need to Know about the Teen Sexuality Crisis , and he followed this purity primer with a VHS video series. In the early 1990s he joined with Christian rock band Petra to promote his purity message. It was an odd pairing, the middle-aged father figure who appeared onstage at rock concerts mixing in dad jokes with frank talk of sex and venereal disease. But it all made sense within the larger evangelical culture.41 A decade after McDowell’s book appeared, Josh Harris helped transform the purity message into something cool for the younger set. Harris was the son of pioneering Christian homeschoolers—his parents helped establish the Christian homeschooling movement, and his father’s 1988 book, The Christian Home School , was a Christian Booksellers Association bestseller. Harris got his start as a teenager publishing a magazine for fellow homeschoolers, and in 1997, at age twenty-one, he published his magnum opus, I Kissed Dating Goodbye . Influenced by the writings of Elisabeth Elliot, Harris introduced a generation of young Christians to “biblical courtship,” the idea that fathers were charged with ensuring their daughters’ purity until their wedding day, at which point they handed unsullied daughters over to husbands who assumed the burden of protection, provision, and supervision. The book became the bible of the purity movement, selling more than one million copies. The purity movement received strong support from evangelical institutions and organizations. The Christian homeschool community helped fuel its popularity, and the Southern Baptist Convention was home to True Love Waits, one of the most influential purity organizations. (Three years before Promise Keepers rallied at the National Mall, 20,000 evangelical teenagers showed up to pledge their sexual purity as part of the True Love Waits campaign.) Countless local churches promoted purity teachings, and purity culture found expression in an array of consumer products.

• From The Fixed Stars: A Memoir (2020)

  She was twenty-nine. When I told her I was thirty-eight, it felt like a dare. Her last girlfriend, she smiled, was thirty-nine. We fiddled with the straws in our drinks, stayed for two hours, walked around the corner for Malaysian food. She’d come out a few years ago, she said; like me, she’d felt straight before that. Then a year ago she came out again, this time as non-binary, gender-nonconforming. I liked how easily she said it. When she turned to speak to the server, I gawped at her: the line of her jaw, angular and delicate, and the confident slash of her brow. At each corner of her mouth a soft crease ran perpendicular to her lips, and it gave a tiny fullness to the flesh there. I wanted to suck on it. We closed down the restaurant and walked out to my car. The rain had let up, and she handed me the paper bag of leftovers. The street was busy, cars sluicing us with rainwater as they sped by. Can I walk you to your car? I asked, depositing the leftovers on the seat. She pointed us up a side street and we went, shoulders knocking through our coats. I couldn’t look at her. When we got to her car it was raining again. There was a slope to the sidewalk, and I was below her, which was perfect, because now we were the same height. I asked if I could kiss her. We both started to giggle, shy now, and she put her lips on mine. I opened my mouth to her, searched out her narrow hips under my hands. I could feel her start to smile as I kissed her, and I pulled her closer, flicked my tongue along the inside of her cheek. I liked the taste of her mouth, like fried rice and clean water. The rain was coming down steadily, ice-cold on the back of my neck, and the nylon of our raincoats scritched-scritched. Can I see you again? she asked, and I said, Please. I pressed my pelvis against her. She whispered into my teeth, threw her head back, and laughed, did a giddy soft-shoe. I wanted her to be more aloof, hot and distant—a gun for hire, for sex. I wished she liked me less. When we were soaked, she offered to drive me back to my car. We clambered into hers, and the windshield wipers squeaked to life. Heat blasted from the dash, and I rubbed my hands in front of the vent. When she pulled up behind my car, I found I didn’t want to get out. I looked at her, and she turned in her seat, and like horses we nuzzled, touched our faces cheek to cheek.