Excitement

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.

Page 163 of 182 · 20 per page

• From The Principle of Desire (2013)

  “Feet up.” When she lifted one foot, then the other, Ed whipped the shorts away. He ran his hands up the backs of her thighs, stopping with his hands just below her ass. She wore boy-cut lace panties, and he seemed to appreciate them because he kept stroking where the lace stopped and skin began. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he confessed. “Well, if it were me, I’d start with a butt grab. But I’m pretty direct. Fondling works, too.” She felt his laughter, a swoosh of hot breath against her hip, just before his lips grazed over her skin. “Take your shirt off, wench.” “Wench? Seriously?” He hauled off and smacked her on one butt cheek, startling her in the best way. “Yes, seriously. Take your shirt off.” She obliged, while he spanked her on the other side too, then pulled her underwear down so he could place his hands over the marks he’d made. He squeezed, letting his fingers dig in, until she squirmed and winced. Like hell he doesn’t know what he’s doing. “Bra, too. Your ass is gorgeous, have I mentioned that?” “It’s not as good for a girl’s as yours is for a guy’s,” she contested. And earned a fresh set of spanks for her trouble. “Just move it upstairs, wench, before I make you fetch me a tankard of ale.” “You’re so medieval when you’re topping.” She led the way upstairs, trying not to appear too eager. Ed followed and ushered her into his bedroom, bypassing the light switch and walking to the window instead. When he adjusted the blinds, the streetlight near the window illuminated the room in atmospheric bands of light. “The bedspread your mom got you for Christmas?” It was brown and gold brocade, in sort of a filigree pattern. It looked exactly like she’d expected. The set appeared to include a matching bedskirt, shams, and decorative throw pillow. “Yeah. Hang on.” He swept the whole mess off the bed onto the floor, leaving behind only the sheets and one pillow in a normal pillowcase that must have been hiding somewhere under the rest. “Okay. Middle of the bed. On your back. Oh, and I borrowed some stuff from Ivan. He explained it all very thoroughly before he let me take it.” She positioned herself on the bed, but she wanted to stop and applaud. Ed wasn’t exactly topping but he was trying, and it was so cute it made her effervescent with delight. It remained cute while he was carefully and oh-so-conscientiously securing her to his brass headboard and footboard with borrowed leather cuffs and lengths of chain. It got significantly less cute, however, when he procured a big mesh bag from under the bed. A big mesh bag full of wooden clothespins. Beth recognized Ivan’s color coding system, which ran from purple paint for the loosest and least painful clips up through the rainbow to red for the clips you never wanted to touch your person.

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  We started with the 50s wing of dorms and made our way backward around the hexagon—she pushed open the back windows while I looked out and made sure no one was walking by. I’d never been in most people’s rooms. After three months, I knew most people, but I regularly talked to very few—just the Colonel and Alaska and Takumi, really. But in a few hours, I got to know my classmates quite well. Wilson Carbod, the center for the Culver Creek Nothings, had hemorrhoids, or at least he kept hemorrhoidal cream secreted away in the bottom drawer of his desk. Chandra Kilers, a cute girl who loved math a little too much, and who Alaska believed was the Colonel’s future girlfriend, collected Cabbage Patch Kids. I don’t mean that she collected Cabbage Patch Kids when she was, like, five. She collected them now—dozens of them—black, white, Latino, and Asian, boys and girls, babies dressed like farmhands and budding businessmen. A senior Weekday Warrior named Holly Moser sketched nude self-portraits in charcoal pencil, portraying her rotund form in all its girth. I was stunned by how many people had booze. Even the Weekday Warriors, who got to go home every weekend, had beer and liquor stashed everywhere from toilet tanks to the bottoms of dirty-clothes hampers. “God, I could have ratted out anyone,” Alaska said softly as she unearthed a forty-ounce bottle of Magnum malt liquor from Longwell Chase’s closet. I wondered, then, why she had chosen Paul and Marya. Alaska found everyone’s secrets so fast that I suspected she’d done this before, but she couldn’t possibly have had advance knowledge of the secrets of Ruth and Margot Blowker, ninth-grade twin sisters who were new and seemed to socialize even less than I did. After crawling into their room, Alaska looked around for a moment, then walked to the bookshelf. She stared at it, then pulled out the King James Bible, and there—a purple bottle of Maui Wowie wine cooler. “How clever,” she said as she twisted off the cap. She drank it down in two long sips, and then proclaimed, “Maui WOWIE!” “They’ll know you were here!” I shouted. Her eyes widened. “Oh no, you’re right, Pudge!” she said. “Maybe they’ll go to the Eagle and tell him that someone stole their wine cooler!” She laughed and leaned out the window, throwing the empty bottle into the grass. And we found plenty of porn magazines haphazardly stuffed in between mattresses and box springs. It turns out that Hank Walsten did like something other than basketball and pot: he liked Juggs . But we didn’t find a movie until Room 32, occupied by a couple of guys from Mississippi named Joe and Marcus. They were in our religion class and sometimes sat with the Colonel and me at lunch, but I didn’t know them well. Alaska read the sticker on the top of the video. “The Bitches of Madison County . Well.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  “I don’t want you to be late to work, dear.” She nearly pushed Hugo out the door, and when he started back for his umbrella, she grabbed it and ran to him holding it out. Once he was in the elevator, she rushed to the terrace. On the street below, Rupert was backing Cleo into a parking space. Hugo strode from the building and hailed a taxi only six feet away from where Rupert was leaping over the passenger door of his little roadster. Hurry, Hugo, get in the cab. He stepped in just as Rupert dashed to the front door. She watched Hugo’s taxi turn the corner, then ran to buzz Rupert in. [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] They emerged from the Holland Tunnel as from the birth canal, the sky expanding into a huge blue dome filled with puffy clouds. The land stretched out from green fields to forests and hills. She had dressed in shades of purple, the color of new consciousness, with a violet wide-brimmed hat and scarf to protect her face and hair in the open convertible. Rupert looked dapper in a dark blue wool coat and a Tyrolean hat. She imagined they were two vibrant, romantic characters from a Frank Capra road movie running away together. Cleo chugged past lakes, farmhouses, grazing sheep, and storybook churches. When, at 9 p.m., Rupert pulled the car into the parking lot of a motel, her body was still chugging forward. He told her they would have to register at the motel as Mr. and Mrs. Pole. She felt a rush of pleasure at the sound of Mrs. Pole. Stop it, she reprimanded herself. This is just casual. It is not meant to last. Rupert said, “You’ll need a wedding ring.” She caught herself visualizing hands clasped with Rupert, each with matching wedding bands. She reminded herself sternly that she was already married, even though she never wore the engraved gold band Hugo had placed on her finger decades before. Years ago, she’d told him it no longer fit comfortably. “I bought you a ring from Woolworth’s for you to use on the trip,” Rupert announced. He dug the band from his coat pocket and placed it in her palm. “You shouldn’t have,” she teased, slipping on the almost weightless ring and waving it in front of him. “Mrs. Pole is ready.” As they were finding their bungalow, Anaïs spied a pay phone. “Oh, Rupert, I need to phone my publisher.” “At this hour?” Rupert eyed her doubtfully. “Yes, he gave me his home number. We have to reschedule some meetings. He said to call whenever I got to a phone.” After calling Hugo collect to assure him she was fine, she returned to the motel room to find Rupert already in pajamas sitting up against the bed’s headboard, studying a map in his lap. She bathed and, wearing only her silk nightgown and the cheap wedding band, cuddled up to him.

• From Cultish (2021)

  As professional labor became central to Christian life, the ability to call yourself a skilled, hardworking breadwinner indicated that you were a member of God’s elect. So the “spirit of capitalism,” with all its high highs and low lows, embedded in most Westerners’ value systems. So much capitalist vernacular—from the “sacred” stock market bell to the “almighty dollar”—continues to have religious overtones . . . a ghost of the Protestant Reformation. By the 1800s, the Protestant ethic had spread to America, but it had evolved a touch. Now riches weren’t perceived so much as a gift from God, but as a reward for independent achievement and a sign of good character. This revised Protestant ethic stressed ambition, tenacity, and competition, which jibed with the rise of industrial capitalism (defined by mass manufacturing and a clearer division of labor). The nineteenth century also saw the rise of a philosophical movement called New Thought, which gave us popular self-improvement ideas like the law of attraction. During this time, rags-to-riches stories like Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper and Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations emerged as best-sellers. The first “self-help” book—aptly titled Self-Help —was published in 1859 to blockbuster success. It opened with the line “Heaven helps those who help themselves” and claimed poverty to be a result of personal irresponsibility. This new mind-over-matter attitude that you could control your own destiny, that you could govern everything from your career to your physical health just by believing in yourself, contributed to what we now think of as the American Dream. Over the course of the next century, the Protestant ideal changed once more with the rise of big American busines s: Carnegie Steel, the Rockefellers’ Standard Oil, Chicago’s Union Stock Yards meatpacking district. In the twentieth century, independent success and competitiveness were downplayed as it became admirable to get along with your coworkers, hobnob with them, and work your way up the corporate ladder. At this stage, New Thought could be found in books and courses on how to become a great company man: How to Win Friends and Influence People , Think and Grow Rich , and The Power of Positive Thinking were all published between 1935 and 1955. Throughout the mid-twentieth century, the message that happy thoughts and a healthy ego could make you rich swept America’s churches. The Power of Positive Thinking was written by the famous minister Norman Vincent Peale, who ran a conservative Protestant church in New York City called Marble Collegiate. There, Peale preached the “prosperity gospel” to a congregation of mostly wealthy, influential Manhattanites—including, and especially, a young Donald Trump. (By no coincidence, Trump grew up to become a hard-core MLM enthusiast.) Known for his inspiring self-help oratory, Peale evangelized sentiments like “Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that,” and “Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities!

• From Laid and Confused: Why We Tolerate Bad Sex and How to Stop (2023)

  I was twenty-one and had just moved to Brooklyn. I was wasted, floating back from a night at some West Village bar/club, waiting for the train that would take me to the L that would take me to my tiny room in East Williamsburg by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. There I would often fantasize about jumping from my lofted bed onto the wooden floor, hoping to injure myself just enough to get out of work but not enough to be hospitalized. I was a sandwich maker at a café for affluent people by the river. I sliced deli meats and spread harissa aioli and pickled beets until my calves ached, flecks of ham gathering in my bra, all to sustain an unpaid magazine internship and some weekend nights out where I hoped to have sex with someone rich enough to buy me drinks but not rich enough to fetishize my lifestyle. The bar/club, notorious for the horniness of its clientele, had not been fruitful that night. I had acquired the number of a jovial man who, to this day, is listed in my phone as “Greek the Club,” but I’d reached the point of the night where something shifted in me physically and moved me toward home. But swaying on the subway platform, a little past midnight, I caught eyes with a man across the tracks who seemed tall. I was still feeling flirty in my Forever 21 bandage skirt and disintegrating black combat boots, and he was clearly still feeling flirty in his, well, couldn’t see that far, there were two tracks between us and my contact lenses had expired years ago. But we waved at each other and alternated looking down coyly. Feeling bold, I mimed out my number with my hands—Four. Eight. Four—and he typed it into his phone. Just as I finished the last digit my train whooshed down the tracks, and I floated to the next station. When my service returned, I received his text and texted back my address, telling him to come over. He was a firefighter visiting a friend from out of town, I learned. As I trudged down Graham and my buzz continued its march toward exhaustion, I tucked my phone into my purse, acquired a bodega bacon egg and cheese, and slipped into bed with it. Twenty minutes later, brushing miscellany like assorted pencils and sandwich foil off my sheets, I spotted my phone lighting up out of the corner of my eye. “I’m here.” Who the hell? What? Ooooooohhhhhh. I peered out my street-level window and an entire human man was standing there. I didn’t recognize him. Then the night came trickling back like a cinematic montage of girls on Molly: lights, Greek the Club, Jägerbombs, Flo Rida, hobbling across Meatpacking cobblestones, subway, Four. Eight. Four.

• From The Erotic Engine (2011)

  “Today’s perspective is that porn is a legitimate marketplace,” Znaimer told me. “Vast billions are at stake and so major investments can be made, sometimes even for tasteful, beautiful, sort of glossy or erotic things. In 1972, material was quite grotty and fairly difficult to come by. I was determined to do it, and I knew I needed provocative marketing, so I thought I’d call it ‘The Blue Movie’ just flat outright. Then with a week to go, Marilyn Lightstone, my gal [and now wife], said to me, ‘Now c’mon. You’re not really planning to show hard X, right?’ And I said, ‘Of course not,’ and she said, ‘Well, truth in advertising, it’s not blue, maybe it’s baby blue.’ She used the words Baby Blue, and I grabbed that.”

• From The Girls (2016)

  Any irritation was softened by Suzanne’s return. She gusted into the kitchen, breathless. “The guy gave Russell the truck,” Suzanne said, her face bright, casting around for an audience. She opened a cabinet, rooting inside. “It was so perfect,” she said, “ ’cause he wanted, like, two hundred bucks. And Russell said, all calm, You should just give it to us.” She laughed, still residually thrilled, and sat up on the counter. Starting to crack her way through a bag of dusty-looking peanuts. “The guy was real angry, at first, that Russell was just asking for it. For free.” Roos was only half listening, picking through the makings of that night’s dinner, but I turned off the faucet, watching Suzanne with my whole body. “And Russell said, Let’s just talk for a minute. Just let me tell you what I’m about.” Suzanne spit a shell back into the bag. “We had some tea with the guy, in his weird log cabin house. For an hour or something. Russell gave him the whole vision, laid it all out. And the guy was real interested in what we were doing out here. Showed Russell his old army pictures. Then he said we could just have the truck.” I wiped my hands on my shorts, her giddiness making me so shy I had to turn away. I finished the dishes to the sound of her snapping open peanut after peanut from her perch on the counter, amassing an unruly pile of damp shells until the bag was gone and she went looking for someone else to tell her story to. —The girls would hang out near the creek because it was cooler, the breeze carrying a chill, though the flies were bad. The rocks capped with algae, the sleepy shade. Russell had come back from town in the new truck, bearing candy bars, comic books whose pages grew limp from our hands. Helen ate her candy immediately and looked around at the rest of us with a seethe of jealousy. Though she’d also come from a wealthy family, we weren’t close. I found her dull except around Russell, when her brattiness took on a directed aim. Preening under his touch like a cat, she acted younger, even than me, stunted in a way that would later seem pathological. “Jesus. Stop staring at me,” Suzanne said, hunching her candy away from Helen. “You already ate yours.” Her shape on the bank next to me, her toes curling into the dirt. Jerking when a mosquito swarmed by her ear. “Just a bite,” Helen whined. “Just the corner.” Roos glanced up from the chambray mess of cloth in her lap. She was mending a work shirt for Guy, her tiny stitches made with absent precision. “You can have some of mine,” Donna said, “if you be quiet.” She picked her way to Helen, her chocolate bar craggy with peanuts. Helen took a bite. When she giggled, her teeth washed with chocolate. “Candy yoga,” she pronounced.

• From Vision Quest (1979)

  Barney’s is on the west side of the Columbia, right where 395 crosses and heads north along the river for a short way before it meets the Kettle River and follows it into Canada. Barney’s is to the loggers and farmers and mill workers who live along the river what The Shack is to the car-business people in Spokane. We pulled in, got some gas, and stood looking at the river. And it really was a river. It was lower than I’d ever seen it, low as I’d hoped it would be. I felt like running across the highway and down the bank to stand beside it, but I controlled myself. We’d planned to eat breakfast, and I wanted to catch my grandfather before he left for the day and ask him if he’d like to drive down and visit the falls with us. “Mornin’,” I said to the waitress as she looked us over for signs of California hippiness. “Say,” I said, “we’re up from Spokane, looking for my grandfather, Harry Swain. Has he been around?” “Harry was in here yesterday,” she said, smiling. “You’re not Bert’s boy?” Bert is my uncle. “No,” I said. “I’m Louden, Larry’s boy.” “Larry’s boy!” she said. “I thought Larry’d be a grandfather by now.” “Not that any of us knows of.” I smiled real big. “How did Harry look?” “Got a gut on him,” she said. “But he’s lookin’ a lot better lately.” “That’s good,” I said. Rural people are a little nicer to you if they know you have some local roots. That was late August and absolutely the last time I could rationalize eating like a regular human being. I told myself I’d chow down until we got back home. And chow down I did: ham and eggs, a chocolate malt, and hot apple pie with cinnamon sauce and ice cream. I weighed 165. If I looked a plate of ham and eggs in the eye right now, my stomach wouldn’t even growl in recognition, it’s been so long. “This ham is incredible,” Carla said. “Look at the eggs,” I said. “Look at the color of the yolks.” “They’re a lot darker,” she affirmed. “That comes from chickens what gets exercise,” I said through the deep golden yolk in my mustache. Egg yolk can really give body to a sparse mustache. “Chickens what eats gravel and bugs. Chickens what lives in chicken yards and not no little cages.” I had become pretty rural in my excitement to get down to the river. We caught Grandpa Harry just as he was leaving. I saw the old green jeep pulling onto the highway, so I laid on the horn. We turned onto his road and stopped right beside him. “I’ll be damned,” he said, and laughed. He always laughs when he first sees me. It’s as though it’s wondrous to him that I can make it all the way up from Spokane by myself.

• From The Erotic Engine (2011)

  “The ‘why’ is it’s built into our creation, it’s God’s Great Gift, it’s the world’s most interesting subject, it’s fucking,” he said. “Fucking is fun and fucking is forbidden in many cultures, lots of religions seek to control it, and so the social strictures can sometimes be extremely grievous for long periods of time. So, at every stage, as soon as people can make symbols, create pictures, they make pictures of fucking. So, it’s the abiding, fabulous thing. Think of where human life would be if we didn’t eat and we didn’t fuck. The answer is, there is so much cultural confinement of this natural impulse, it has to find expression in art or in some kind of media reproduction. And then, since the history of media is about getting closer and closer to the real thing, the interest in sex and the utility of sex in leading that charge will never be exhausted.”

• From Cultish (2021)

  Omg of course I’ll talk about it! I did a diet program last year called Optavia. And that shit was legit a crazy cult.

• From Bright Lights, Big City (1984)

  The kid comes running out from behind the fountain. “I want a taste.” “Shit,” he says. “Who you think you are—John DeLorean? You be buying a half. I’m telling you it’s good.” The classic standoff. His salesman’s smile is disappearing. You suddenly realize you are about to be ripped off, but you hang onto the hope of a buzz. “Let me see it at least.” He walks behind the tree and opens the packet. You’re buying some kind of white powder and the weight looks about right, not that this means much. You give him the money. He stuffs it in his pocket and backs off, watching you as he retreats. As long as you are relatively secluded you figure you’ll try some. You use your office key for a spoon. The first taste is like Drano. The second time you’re ready for it, and it’s not so bad. Still, it feels like your nose is emitting sparks. Whatever the stuff is, you hope it’s not lethal. You hope there’s something South American in the mix. After bumping yourself up again you fold the packet. You think you can feel a lift coming on. You want to go somewhere, do something, talk to someone, but it’s only eleven-thirty in the morning and everyone else in the world has a job. Much later, near midnight, you return to the office. Tad Allagash is with you. You are both in high spirits. You have decided that you are better off without that piss-ant job, that it is a good thing you got out when you did. A longer tenure in the Department of Factual Verification would have eventually resulted in an incurable case of anal retentiveness. You’re well shut of the place. This conclusion does not absolve Clara Tillinghast of her many crimes against humanity, and particularly against you. Tad casts it as a matter of honor. In his part of the country these matters are settled with horsewhips and ivory-headed canes. He says the caning and horsewhipping of libelous editors has a long, dignified history. The present case, however, calls for something more subtle. The better part of the night has been devoted to devising and executing the proper response. Part of the plan involved getting in touch with Richard Fox, the hatchet man, and telling him some of the nasty secrets to which you have become privy after two years at the magazine. You were inclined to let it slide, but Tad appealed to your fighting spirit. He placed the call and got Fox’s answering service. He left a message, calling himself Deep Shoat, an inside source, and promised major revelations. He left Clara’s number. You proceeded to phase two. The nightwatchman nods at your employee ID card and tells you to sign the book. You sign in as Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton. Tad explains that your errand is urgent; First Amendment issues are at stake.

• From Real Sex for Real Women (2008)

  I agreed with Luke—Kelly did need to be more direct, but so did he. I suggested to Luke that he share his anxieties with Kelly rather than bottling them up. I challenged him to respond to Kelly’s questions with at least three different adjectives. So, for example, if Kelly asked, “How was your day?” instead of simply responding “Fine,” Luke would have to think of three appropriate words, such as “stressful,” “hectic,” and “nerve-racking.” This would open up Luke’s emotions to Kelly so she wouldn’t be in the dark about the source of his behavior or moods. I also asked Luke to pay more attention to Kelly in the form of compliments, emails or texts during the day, and kisses and cuddling upon returning home. Kelly’s homework was to initiate sex with Luke at least two times before their next visit to me. I suggested she should send him an X-rated email at work, so he could anticipate seeing her for the rest of the day. Little steps like this can be empowering for women who are shy about making sexual requests. And, since Kelly’s sexual advances hadn’t been getting through to Luke, I asked her to tune in to the things he considered sexual cues. This included wearing sexy lingerie and playfully touching and teasing Luke. What happened Kelly and Luke really enjoyed doing the exercises and said they had become closer than they had been in years. Luke got more sensitive to Kelly’s sexual cues and she, in turn, became more overt. And Luke said, “Now, instead of avoiding sex I’ve started treating it as a way to relax.” Check in with each other Long-term couples can’t expect their libido to be constant. If you notice your partner seems less interested in sex than usual, gently ask them about it. There’s no replacement for direct communication, even in the oldest and most familiar of relationships. Releasing your Inner VixenEvery woman has an inner vixen. Who is she? She is the no-holds-barred, carefree, confident, brave, and sexual woman who lives inside all of us. She believes in the power of pleasure, high heels, and red lipstick. She can make an old T-shirt and messy hair look sexy. Men are in awe of her and women envy her—and that woman is you. Perhaps you haven’t seen your inner vixen since high school or your last pregnancy. But even if that is the case, she is ready and waiting for you to unleash her once again. Rediscovering your sex appealUnderneath the routine and rush of life—and whatever your body-image issues—there is a sexy, seductive, happy, and powerful woman inside of you. Your inner vixen doesn’t necessarily have a perfect body—she is there to encapsulate your seductive potential, and to push you to come up with new ways of displaying it. But how do you get back in touch with your inner vixen, or discover her for the first time?

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  Indian Opinion was getting more and more expensive every day. The very first report from Mr. West was alarming. He wrote: ‘I do not expect the concern to yield the profit that you had thought probable. I am afraid there may be even a loss. The books are not in order. There are heavy arrears to be recovered, but one cannot make head or tail of them. Considerable overhauling will have to be done. But all this need not alarm you. I shall try to put things right as best I can. I remain on, whether there is profit or not.’ Mr. West might have left when he discovered that there was no profit, and I could not have blamed him. In fact, he had a right to arraign me for having described the concern as profitable without proper proof. But he never so much as uttered one word of complaint. I have, however, an impression that this discovery led Mr. West to regard me as credulous. I had simply accepted Sjt. Madanjit’s estimate without caring to examine it, and told Mr. West to expect a profit. I now realize that a public worker should not make statements of which he has not made sure. Above all, a votary of truth must exercise the greatest caution. To allow a man to believe a thing which one has fully verified is to compromise truth. I am pained to have to confess that, in spite of this knowledge, I have not quite conquered my credulous habit, for which my ambition to do more work than I can manage is responsible. This ambition has often been a source of worry more to my co-workers than to myself. On receipt of Mr. West’s letter I left for Natal. I had taken Mr. Polak into my fullest confidence. He came to see me off at the Station, and left with me a book to read during the journey, which he said I was sure to like. It was Ruskin’s Unto This Last. The book was impossible to lay aside, once I had begun it. It gripped me. Johannesburg to Durban was a twenty-four hours’ journey. The train reached there in the evening. I could not get any sleep that night. I determined to change my life in accordance with the ideals of the book. This was the first book of Ruskin I had ever read. During the days of my education I had read practically nothing outside text-books, and after I launched into active life I had very little time for reading. I cannot therefore claim much book knowledge. However, I believe I have not lost much because of this enforced restraint. On the contrary, the limited reading may be said to have enabled me thoroughly to digest what I did read. Of these books, the one that brought about an instantaneous and practical transformation in my life was Unto This Last. I translated it later into Gujarati, entitling it Sarvodaya (the welfare of all).

• From Real Sex for Real Women (2008)

  [image file=image_rsrc3BW.jpg] Rear assetsWith your man’s knees bent and his legs spread, kneel astride him and lower yourself onto his penis. Don’t put all your weight on him. For his comfort and yours, maintain some of your weight in your legs by keeping your knees bent and your legs taut. You now have the power of a woman-on-top position combined with a doggy-style view for his pleasure—the perfect position for both of you. [image file=image_rsrc3BX.jpg] Figure-eightThis is a breathtakingly easy and orgasmic position for you, because it puts you in complete control of the thrust and angle of penetration. Your man lies flat on his back with his knees bent before him. You sit astride him on your knees, and lean back against his thighs. Sit comfortably on his penis, then gyrate your hips, grind back and forth, or swirl your pelvis in a sexy figure-eight motion. Use this sexy technique whenever you are on top to slow things down and inject an added sense of playfulness into your lovemaking. [image file=image_rsrc3BY.jpg] Eye-to-eyeLean back on your arms and enjoy an intimate lovemaking session gazing into your lover’s eyes. Your man should sit with his legs slightly bent before him and one arm behind. Seat yourself comfortably between his legs, with your legs behind him on either side. Your partner can use his free hand to caress your thigh or your breasts, or to stimulate your clitoris. In return, you will be able to rock and rub your lover to a divinely close climax. [image file=image_rsrc3BZ.jpg] “L” is for loversSit down on top of your partner, facing to one side. Your body should be in the shape of a capital “L,” with your legs to one side of his body. Gently move your pelvis in a figure-eight motion. This builds up pressure on your clitoris and stimulates his frenulum deep inside your vagina. Meanwhile, he can lie back, enjoy, and caress your bum. Alternatively, you can stay still while he bounces you gently up and down on his penis. [image file=image_rsrc3C0.jpg] Merry go roundFor a different twist on woman on top, try doing a complete 180-degree turn. To get into position, lie on top of your man. His head should be at your feet and your feet at his head. You may need to straddle him and then slowly rotate. In this position, his penis will feel surprisingly different than it usually does. Use your muscles to squeeze it, then wriggle your pelvis to create different rhythms. [image file=image_rsrc3C1.jpg] Top upEnjoy the control of being on top coupled with the comfort and ease of the missionary position. Have your man lean back on one arm, with his legs open in front of him. Sit down on top of him, then recline so that your legs are in front of you and behind him. Use a pillow under your shoulders for comfort. Lie back, enjoy, and clasp hands while he rocks back and forth inside of you.

• From The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones (2006)

  Vietnamese food can be great in Texas, or Minneapolis. But Vietnamese food in Vietnam, when outside the window it's Hanoi—a slice of an apartment building with faded, peeling facade just visible across the street; women hanging out laundry; the chatter of noodle and fruit vendors coming from one flight down; the high, throaty vibrations of countless motorbikes; Madame's two daughters giggling upstairs, perhaps laughing about the freakishly tall, unbelievably hungry American who sits downstairs, ineptly struggling to eat Mom's still-bone-in chicken with chopsticks—at such times, Vietnamese food tastes even better. Linh is happy. We're getting into shots of nep moi now, the vicious, delicious Hanoi rice vodka, and everybody at the table is in a festive holiday mood. Chris and Lydia finally put down their cameras and join us hungrily at the table. When we are finished with this, there will be tea, and Madame's award-winning blend of fresh roasted coffee, and 555 cigarettes, and Madame's lighter-than-air, crunchy coconut macaroons. Tonight, as the camera crew and I sit in comfortable rattan chairs at the Bamboo Bar of the drenched-in-history Metropole Hotel, drinking vermouth cassis and reviewing the day's events, we will all smile, and nod silently to one another—maybe uttering an occasional "Oh yeah!" to commemorate the day's events. We know we've got it good. We're happy to be alive. And still in Vietnam. DECODING FERRAN ADRIA EVERYBODY WANTS IT. "It's the most magnificent book you can find—anywhere in the world," says Eric Ripert, chef of Le Bernardin in Manhattan. He's talking about Spanish chef Ferran Adria's mammoth cookbook El Bulli 1998-2002, the first of three volumes that will track backward the development of recipes and procedures at the famed Spanish three-star restaurant. Currently available only in Spanish and Catalan, costing about one hundred seventy-five euros and weighing in at nearly ten pounds (with its accompanying guidebook and CD-ROM), it seems more the mysterious black monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey than a cookbook. It is also the most talked-about, sought-after, wildly impressive and intimidating collectible in the world of professional chefs and cookbook wonks. If you're a hotshot chef, even if you can't read it, every minute without it is misery. Science-fiction and space-travel metaphors come up frequently when discussing it. "There's no cookbook like it. I love the fact that it's like Star Wars," says Wylie Dufresne, an unabashed fan of Adria whose WD-50 menu in New York was unapologetically created under the controversial Catalonian chef's influence. "He's going backward!" (The next book will cover the years 1994 to 1997.) "We're all looking at Spain. And Adria's ground zero." For years now, I'd been hearing from chef friends about their experiences at El Bulli. Some, like Sydney's Tetsuya Wakuda, had clearly had life-changing experiences. (He immediately set about designing an upstairs "laboratory/workshop" along the lines of Adria's.) Others, like Scott Bryan of Veritas, were dazzled but confused by the experience.

• From Vision Quest (1979)

  The glans penis is about half as round as the faces of the four pubescent boys who lap wondrously at it. I’m reminded of one of Otto’s road-trip Boy Scout reminiscences: “Shit,” Otto said. “It’s just like sucking on your finger.” The guy says he’s leaving tomorrow, but that he’ll be back in a couple weeks. He’s sorry we can’t get together. He has a guest coming. He’ll leave the tray in the hall. I consider listening at the door when I make my pickup rounds. Downstairs, Sally informs me that she’s heard Lemon Pie is a queer. She’s checked the register and his name is . . . I tune her out. It’s none of my business. Tuning her back in, I hear he’s from Walla Walla. Somehow it’s good to know that homosexuals come from someplace besides San Francisco. I decide not to listen at the door. In fact, the morning crew can get his tray. I’m feeling pretty good, generally. I take all stairs two at a time. I loft the heaviest trays of dirty dishes to my shoulder, balancing them on my fingertips, flexing my fingers frequently, exercising those unsung muscles of a good grip, the interossei and lumbricales. I reflect upon the tracks a good grip will leave on wrists and upper arms. Dishes brush my ear. Turkey gravy, bits of dressing, peaks of burned meringue deck my hair. Each time I see Sally for a new order she picks the garbage off my head. Elmo and I arm wrestle. I beat him both arms. I bounce on my toes while Elmo runs the charcoal brick over his grill. His tools are cleaned and put away in their slots in the cutting board. It’s about time to head home. I’ve never been more in touch with my body than I am at this weight. I swear I can hear the valves of my heart open and slam shut. Oxygenated blood swooshes through my arteries. It sounds like the Seattle monorail. Leukocytes and erythrocytes politely line up at my capillaries: “Be my guest!” “No, no. After you!” they say. My highly energized state strikes Elmo as comical. Wiping the grill a final few times with his burlap rag, he looks up at me and smiles. “You get you some teeth, you be a totally tuned man,” he says, chuckling. “You about a yard off the floor. Best be sure you come down on that Shute.” I smile and dance and hold my palms up for him to punch. He throws a combination, blowing out his nose each time his fist smacks my palm. The veins bulge beneath the tattoos on Elmo’s forearms. He was a lightweight fighter in Chicago in the 1940s. He’s the only black adult I’ve ever known, besides teachers and coaches. I’m sure glad he got out of boxing with his brain intact. Sally looks up from balancing her till. She’s already pulled the velvet cord across the doorway.

• From Hot Daddies: Gay Erotic Fiction (2011)

  Anyway, Daddy Draden and I meet online, start chatting—he lives only an hour away—and one night our planning comes together, and I’m watching the clock, a little drunk on Jack, and the snow’s coming down, hard enough that I’m afraid he’ll cancel, but there’s the knock at the door I’ve been waiting for. And that’s how I see my Dad for the first time. I open the door and shiver; I’ve followed his orders and am wearing nothing but boxer shorts because they turn him on. He’s standing on the stoop in the snowfall. He’s dressed in black work boots, black jeans, black T-shirt, black leather biker jacket and biker’s cap. He looks down at me and grins—he’s a good foot taller than me. “Damn, boy, you’re even hairier than I thought!” I look up into his dark eyes and grin back. “Good to meet you, Sir. I hope you like my fur.” Draden nods; we shake hands. I invite him in, offer him Jack. He wants beer instead. I keep drinking bourbon, because I’m scared and excited and I always like a little buzz going when I submit to a Top, especially a new one I don’t know real well yet. Don’t take long before he’s wrapped a short chain around my neck and padlocked it, so I guess I’m his for the evening. Then he’s behind me, holding me close, one big hand clamped over my mouth, the other tugging my tits. I’ve already told him online that my nips are my ON buttons, and he wastes no time taking advantage of that fact. I love the pressure of his hand over my mouth; I love the pain building up in my chest; I love this feeling of being mastered by an older, larger man. We’re on my bed now, frost feathering like maidenhair ferns across the bedroom window, the spruce trees outside covered with white. We’re both naked. I don’t know it now, but this is a scene I’m going to be jacking off to for the next half a decade. Draden has me on my elbows and knees. My hands are tied together and anchored to the headboard with a short rope-tether. I’ve got my hairy butt in the air; Dad’s strapped a ball-gag in my mouth and I’m drooling like a motherfucker, head down in the sheets while Dad kneels behind me, puts on a rubber and lubes us up. It hurts bad at first—I ain’t that used to being fucked, and Dad’s got an eight-incher and thick to boot—but soon enough we’re rocking together, back and forth, he’s thrusting in and out, I’m grunting like the happy pig I am. Dad cums up my butt; I cum in his hand about the same time. We snuggle, and oh, god, is that sweet, to be held so tender by a man who’d used me rough like a whore only minutes before.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  Rita even hoped that Theresa might be willing to participate in one of Rita’s favorite fantasies, although she held serious doubts about the wisdom of acting out in erotic role playing a scenario that would horrify her in real life. She finally decided to tell Theresa about the fantasy that always had the power to excite her. In it she’s a svelte, sought-after stripper working in a tawdry nightclub overcrowded with gawking men. Out of the throng a beautiful woman appears, takes her hand, and leads her to a secret back room. There she lies on white satin sheets, aching for this strange women to worship her body, to kiss her everywhere with unbearable sensuality. Luckily, Rita and Theresa took readily to the imaginative joys of erotic role playing and shared a similar style: rather than acting out every detail explicitly, they preferred to focus on simple symbolic acts as fantasy stimuli. It was obvious to both that their newfound freedom dramatically improved their sex life. Two similar dilemmas; two radically different outcomes. In Seth’s relationship his CET was excluded, resulting in a welcome improvement in tenderness and intimacy. The lesbian couple, in contrast, overcame pervasive political pressures and exploited “incorrect” imagery for fun. Somewhere in between are countless other couples who never overtly discuss their CETs yet become reasonably adept at sensing the private turn-ons of their partners and providing complementary movements, postures, and words to stimulate the lover, without openly acknowledging what they’re doing. THE DANCE OF INTIMACY AND PASSIONAll erotic couples share a special skill: they are able to adapt gracefully to new challenges. The more I study long-term couples, the more impressed I am by their versatility and creativity. Often these couples surprise themselves with the solutions they discover through trial and error. When newer couples hear about the compromises and adaptations made by more established ones, they may feel discouraged. They don’t yet understand that while countless good relationships exist, ideal ones are figments of the imagination. An example might be a couple who, after years of struggling with incompatible living habits, decide to live separately while actively maintaining their connection. Once they are freed of constant petty conflicts their intimacy improves. One of the most widespread and destructive myths is that healthy couples have a consistent sex life. Human sexuality didn’t evolve to be expressed with clockwork regularity, a fact that becomes increasingly obvious with the passage of time. Rare are couples who don’t experience dry spells, especially in today’s two-career, high-stress households. The way a couple responds to these inevitable fluctuations has a greater effect on the long-term viability of their relationship than the dry spells themselves.

• From Between the World and Me (2015)

  But now your mother had gone and done it, and when she returned her eyes were dancing with all the possibilities out there, not just for her but for you and for me. It is quite ridiculous how the feeling spread. It was like falling in love—the things that get you are so small, the things that keep you up at night are so particular to you that when you try to explain, the only reward anyone can give you is a dumb polite nod. Your mother had taken many pictures, all through Paris, of doors, giant doors—deep blue, ebony, orange, turquoise, and burning red doors. I examined the pictures of these giant doors in our small Harlem apartment. I had never seen anything like them. It had never even occurred to me that such giant doors could exist, could be so common in one part of the world and totally absent in another. And it occurred to me, listening to your mother, that France was not a thought experiment but an actual place filled with actual people whose traditions were different, whose lives really were different, whose sense of beauty was different.

• From The Ultimate Guide to Orgasm for Women: How to Become Orgasmic for a Lifetime (2011)

  Energy is what keeps us alive. That’s why we often feel good after we have allowed a strong feeling to flow through us, when we’ve just had a good rant, or chopped a lot of wood, or had a great orgasm. We feel more alive. We feel energized. All energy is basically life-force energy. When this life-force energy is heightened, speeded up, intensified, life becomes brighter. We are always looking for that which brightens and enriches; that search is part of being alive. We find it in sex and in the expression of feelings, but we also find it in politics, in music, in sports, in art, in raising a family, in a casual exchange with a friendly person on the street, in watching a good movie, in planting a garden and watching it grow, in the deeply rewarding intimacy with someone we have known and loved a long time, in a delighted child’s laughter, in a glorious sunset, in ocean waves smashing on rocks. Whenever we are deeply moved by something, whenever we really believe in something, whenever we feel passionate about something, we experience a sense of rightness, which is very exciting. The energy of the excitement that we are tapping into in any of these situations is the same energy as sexual excitement. Like sex, we can experience this excitement alone: looking at a beautiful view, climbing a mountain, hang gliding. Or we can experience it with others: when a group of people feel it together the energy is amplified; there is a group euphoria that results in a special kind of bonding. The sense of unity that we experience when we participate in a political rally, sing in a choir, or play team sports is the same unity that we experience when we are in love and having great sex. The problem is that it usually happens so unconsciously that we fixate on whatever happens to bring up the feeling. One person might experience it having sex, and another might experience it at a political rally. There is a sexual high from singing in choir, for instance; erotic is not quite the right word but it’s something like that. I used to feel it much more in rehearsals. Having the audience there was a distraction. Singing in rehearsals was breathtaking. —JOANI BLANK