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 28 of 182 · 20 per page

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  At first she had a little trouble getting the hang of it because the image hopped around, but then she learned to move slowly, and she found she could see into the haze very far away. There was a red Mustang convertible on one tower, with a sunbathing woman on top of it wearing a red bikini bottom and no top. On top of one green crag a naked man had painted a billboard with large letters that said, “Show Me.” “There’s a couple in this direction,” said Ned. “Looks like they’re doing stuff.” Henriette swiveled her binoculars around. “Yeah?” “Yeah, the man’s got his johnny-stick out, I think. Yeah, the woman’s jerking it. Wow, fast. Now she’s blowing him. He’s having fun.” “Where? Dang, can’t find it,” said Henriette. “Way over there. I’d say he’s going to pop the oyster pretty soon.” Finally she found the right angle. The man was holding himself up off the chair with his hands, and the woman knelt between his splayed legs. It was difficult to see at this distance, with the colors gone all blue and pale, but she thought she saw the woman’s lips relax and a gush of sperm flow back down over her fingers. Ned made a little noise. “What did you think?” he asked. “Very nice,” she said . “Did you like to see her sucking on his bone?” Ned rubbed her shoulder in a friendly way. “Uh, sure. Have you got another quarter? Let’s find out what else is up here at the roof of the world.” They scanned the horizon. “Another couple!” said Ned excitedly. “Oh, boy. He’s doing her real nice. Mmmm-yeah, her boobs are jumping around. Jesus mama.” He shifted the direction of his scope. “And there’s a AR-24 Pornsucker ship!” He pointed excitedly. “See it? Out on a mission, sucking that pornstarch. You can tell it’s an AR-24 Recon/Pornsucker because of the red tips on its wings. That’s the giveaway. You can always tell.” “Mm,” said Henriette. She wasn’t listening. She’d swiveled her scope and was looking intently off to the south. “Mountain zebras,” she said, in a small intense voice. “A herd. Two of them are getting ready to mate. How on earth did they get so high? Oh, they are such nimble climbers.” “Where?” Ned was panning unsuccessfully. “Way way off, about halfway down a crag, on a little ledge. See them?” Henriette pointed, then hunched to see more. “No, I’m not seeing them,” said Ned. “Damnation!” “Keep hunting, you’ll find them. The female is holding her head down. Ooh, she’s backing up. The male’s penis has dropped. It’s big but it’s hanging. It’s practically dragging on the ground. I don’t see how—ooh, her pussy is literally steaming. And his balls are huge and luscious.” “I’m still not seeing it,” said Ned. “She wants it. She’s switching her tail around. She’s a hot stripy-assed zebra bitch in heat, and she wants him now.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  Then she felt flummoxed. “You two have met, I think,” she said. Lila wanted to wind things up. “And we will help you find Dave,” she said. “But now it’s time for you, Shandee, to go to your hotel and check in. Tomorrow you’ll do the Penis Wash for real. I’ll watch over Dave’s arm back here, if you don’t mind. He’s such a heartbreaker, isn’t he? I do love a veiny hand.” “I think I’ll take Dave with me, if that’s all right,” said Shandee, a little crisply. “Of course, hon,” said Lila. “And Ruzty, thank you for being our teaching aid. I really think you’re going to have to adopt a sideways stance at the cumshot competition. ” Ruzty sat up—his penis, fortunately, had subsided. “Yes, I will stand almost sideways,” he said. “But I will still make my come go quite far that way, I think.” “Good for you,” said Lila. “And thank you, Zilka, for your tips, and let’s see if we can get Ruzty in on tomorrow afternoon’s penis scrub with the other men, if there’s a slot, and we’ll put Shandee on the main station, okay?” “Is this how I should be dressed tomorrow?” asked Shandee. “Just a man’s shirt and crocheted leggings?” Everyone nodded enthusiastically. Ruzty couldn’t take his shining eyes off her. “Oh, I almost forgot the most important thing,” said Lila. “Tomorrow, if you’re inclined, go ahead and stroke the men’s penises. Make them feel good. But gently. Do not ever, ever jerk them through to a climax. If you do, their enthusiasm will flag, and they won’t spend their life savings on activities here at the House. Scrub, don’t tug.” “Scrub, don’t tug, got it,” said Shandee. “I guess I’ll get back to the hotel now.” Like never before, Shandee felt the blood slamming in her bursting clit. She was beside herself. She had to get somewhere private. “See you soon, Ruzty,” she said, putting every emotion she had into her good-bye smile. “See you,” said Ruzty. Zilka took her to the hotel room. Shandee said good-bye to her and closed the door and took off her clothes. She pulled out Dave. “Oh, Dave, I missed you so much,” she said. “I want to sit on your hand so bad. Can I sit on your hand?” Dave’s fingers wiggled yes. Shandee positioned his hand on the corner of the bed, and she sat down on it and crushed her pussy into his fingers and worked her hips in circles. “Give me a couple of stiff fingers up there, Davie,” she said. She felt them slip up inside her, and whoo that was good!

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  You’re kneecapping. The harder you try to pull toward him, and the harder he tries to pull toward you, the more it forces your legs apart. It’s sad, really. Then he sees your hand going fast and you start to go, ‘Ooh, mm, ah, mm, oh,’ and your brow goes all furrowy, and your eyes go all glittery, the way they are now, you throw your head back, exposing your swanlike neck, and just when you’re at that moment when you’re starting to feel yourself come, suddenly you really desperately need him inside you, and just at that moment the scarves come loose and Charles Dickens is there—I mean the bar pianist—and you feel his dick find you, and it starts to push and to muscle its way in, slowly at first, and then wom, oh shit, he’s slamming it up there, old twinkle fingers is in you, and his hips are humping, it’s out of his control.” Cardell did pelvisy things on the bar stool. “Ngong, bong, ung, fung!” Jackie closed her eyes and smiled. “Well,” she said, “you’ve made little missy pussy just a little bit horny, baby, because you talk dirty, and I sure do love a bar pianist.” “Good,” said Cardell. Jackie held her head still, averted, listening to the songs; then she relaxed and got a sad look. “They play their hearts out in hotel bars where nobody can hear the twelve clever things they’re doing with the harmony.” She pointed. “See the big brandy snifter for tips there on the top of the piano? Not much in it.” “So maybe we should casually drop a ten-spot in the snifter as we walk on by.” “When?” “When we leave together in about ten minutes to kiss and look into each other’s eyes while we fondle each other and tie colorful scarves around our knees. Oops, did I say that?” “Hold on.” Jackie squinted and grabbed his arm again. “I think it’s coming.” Again she pushed back on the bar stool and turned red. A vein stood out in her neck. “Get behind me again, and slide your hand in my pantyhose and hold it right at my pussyhole.” Cardell obliged, cupping her bush, which was slick and swollen. “Good,” she said, “this time it’s really happ—” Her throat squeezed to silence and she made a strained pushing sound, turning even redder. “Now! Uhhhhh!” Something heavy and smooth and warm fell into Cardell’s cupped hand. “There you go,” she said, straightening and sighing with relief. Cardell pulled his hand from under her skirt. He was holding an egg. It was silver in color. She handed him a bar napkin. “Wipe it down.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  Can you get rid of it?” “Hey, hey,” said Ruzty, looking nervously from Dune to Hax. “I cannot help you,” said Hax to Dune. “Only women.” Dune snorted, then repented. “Sorry, I’ll be nice,” he said, and he looked back at Shandee. “So can your arm lover hear us chatting?” Whereupon Dave’s arm flipped the bird at him. Dune chuckled and said, “I guess so.” He picked up the copy of Contemporary Crochet and began flipping through it. “Oops, dicks in hammocks,” he said. He handed the magazine to Hax, who grunted and put it down. To be conversational, Shandee asked Hax how he got there. “A fine woman came up to me on the street where I sell my belt buckles,” answered Hax. “She asked me would I like to go to a handjob festival.” “You as well!” said Ruzty. “Me, too,” said Dune. “Smackdown. Longest cumshot wins the prize.” “It’s a cumshot contest at a handjob festival?” said Shandee, puzzled. “Goodness, that’s rather crude.” “Maybe it is crude, or maybe it’s very beautiful for some people to see a healthy man showing all his healthy ways by letting a woman shake her boobies for him and pull out all his jizm,” said Hax. “Five thousand, I could pay off my motorcycle,” said Dune. Shandee stood. “Guys, please look away for a moment, I have to change.” The three men looked politely away while Shandee took off her jeans and pulled on the leg warmers. Then she took off her shirt and put on the men’s shirt, buttoning three of its buttons. “Okay to look now,” she said. “Ta-dah.” “Nice!” said Hax, sitting up. Dune sprawled and smiled, lifting an eyebrow of approval. Ruzty blushed. Dave’s arm drummed his fingers. Zilka reappeared. “Director Lila is ready to talk to you,” she said to Shandee. Together they went into the inner office. There was an oscillating fan going. Director Lila was on the phone, toying with a banana in a fruit bowl. “Well then,” she was saying, “we’ll just suck it all out. If we have to we have to.” She hung up. “Shandee, sweetheart, I’m sorry it’s so hectic today. And this must be Dave’s arm. Yes, yes. Aren’t you cute together. May I?”

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  I’ve got mulch to spread.” “I’m a portal, silly,” said Loxie. “I thought you’d figure that out by now. Come into my van and I’ll show you my pussy. That’s the hole you’re looking for.” Cardell Goes to the Laundroma t C ardell put on a black corduroy jacket and went to the laundromat at 18th Street and Grover Avenue. A woman was peering into the dryers. “Do you know which dryer leads to the House of Holes?” she asked, giving him an appraising look. She was pretty in an ethereally wavy flaxen-haired way. “Well, I was told it was the fourth dryer from the end,” he said. An old man spoke. “It is indeed the fourth dryer from the end,” he said. “But stay away from the House, both of you. Lila will suck you dry. You ever heard of King Nynus?” Cardell shook his head. The ethereal girl nodded. “That was me. I wasn’t a king, but I was rich. I had a harem with eighteen women, each lovely in a different way, and I spent my days eating watercress sandwiches. Now that’s all gone.” “What happened?” asked the ethereal girl. “Debts. I couldn’t get enough of the summertime Tit Swarm. That’s when they put a lot of women in a dark room and tell them, ‘Okay, tops off, girls, it’s a tit swarm!’ Then they let in one guy—me. The speaker says, ‘Man entering, repeat, man entering,’ and then the man gropes around, feeling everyone’s breasts. It’s so damn much fun.” “What do you do now?” asked the flaxen girl. “Now I sit here and tell people never to go to the House of Holes.” “You’re kind of a naysayer, you know,” said the flaxen girl. Her curiosity piqued, she opened the door of the dryer and peered in. “See anything?” said Cardell. “Looks pretty ordinary to me,” she said. “It’s not ordinary,” warned King Nynus. The girl climbed in and pushed with her fingertips against the back. Cardell stared at the pockets of her jeans. “I think I found the way,” she called excitedly. Then suddenly she disappeared. “Don’t let it close up, hold it open for me!” said Cardell. He climbed in after her, but when he pushed on the back it didn’t budge. “It’ll be shut for a while now,” said King Nynus. “They never listen.” “Damn,” Cardell whispered. “Don’t worry, you’ll find a way in.” King Nynus pulled a small vial from his pocket. “Let me give you this.” “Thanks, what is it?” “It’s a powerful aphrodisiac. Lila sometimes sprinkles it in the water at the House of Holes. That’s one of her little secrets. It’s made from Prince Bohuslav’s beard.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  Mmm, so natural. She’s not ashamed. She just aims her big swollen privates toward him and lifts her tail and winks her anus. She says, Hey zebra boy, have a look at this.” “Where? God! Where? Shit. You want some wine?” “Thanks.” Henriette took a sip and touched the cord wrapped around her legs. She felt zigzags of black-and-white zebra energy pouring into the flesh of her thighs. She looked over at Ned, who’d gone back to scanning the horizon anxiously for sex. She flipped up her skirt and pulled down her panties to let the air cool her pussylips. Ned missed it. Henriette squinted through the scope again, watching the zebras. “They’re so beautiful together,” she said. “Oh, boy, his penis has flipped up now, my god, is it hard, and big. Big black zebra cock. Now he’s up on her! He’s holding on to her. Oh my god he’s stabbing that big thing in—oooh, that’s big. Oh, Ned, if you’ve got a dick somewhere on you, stuff me with it, this is your chance.” Ned leapt up, fumbling with his pants, breathing the clean thin crazy air. “Here it is, baby.” He slid into her with bone-hard assurance and began bucking and slapping against her backside. “Oh, that’s good, Ned,” said Henriette. “Mm.” But it was too much too soon for Ned. “Woops, can’t hold it!” he said. “Sorry! Aaaaaah!” Henriette was still watching. “He’s down again, he’s done, he’s done, looks like a little clear dribble from his cock, poor old mountain zebra, he’s shot his balls, and it’s all over—but she’s still keyed up!” The quarter dropped in Henriette’s binoculars, and she looked up. Her gaze rested on Ned’s down-pointing cock, shiny with juice and come. “I got carried away,” said Ned, panting . Henriette waved at the couple on the nearest crag. “I think they watched us.” “What about you? Can I, er, lick you?” “That’s sweet, Ned, but no thanks. My clitoris is resting right now. I think I might want to give the Pussyboard a try. Will you ride down with me?” “Sure.” They descended in silence. Henriette flung her panties out the gondola’s window and watched them disappear into the clouds. Krock was waiting at the Pussyboard launching area, which was built like the decking at the top of a ski jump. He unwound the Cable of Induhash from her legs and helped her take off her jingly belt. Ned and Krock lifted her so that she could strap herself into the harness, which pulled her thighs apart. “Breezy,” she said. “This will go fast or slow on the cable according to your control,” Krock said, showing her the control stick. “You’ll want to go fairly slowly when you first skid down into the lake because the fluid is warm and it’s heavy, not heavy like molasses but almost creamy.” “Is it toxic?” asked Henriette. “It’s inert,” said Krock. “But still, I wouldn’t drink it if I were you.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  Now grab your cock and get it in its comfort zone, honey, and do just what you want to do with it. I’m going to screw myself with this screwy fucker, I’m going to—hooo. I’m going to let it go in till my asshole muscle locks on the—almost, almost—handle’s—there it is—narrower part. Hoh, it’s locked in. Hoo yeah. Fuck. I’ve got this shiny silver screwdriver pointing straight out my ass, I wish you could see it.” Cardell scanned the room for reflective surfaces. He thought he could almost see some of what was going on behind him in the curve of a glass vase filled with colored sand. “Me, too,” he said . “Well, do the next best thing and jerk your bull cock while I abuse myself with this thing, just jerk and jack and pound it like you love to do every single day and night. And if you can, tighten your buns again so I get something to look at besides your arms and elbow moving, although I must say they’re nice arms.” “Okay.” He breathed little panting breaths, his hips rocking as he flummoxed his beatstick. “I’m going to take a moment to check in on my nipples now. Yep, crinkling up nice. And now I’m going to—oh, lord god—pull the handle out, because that empty feeling feels so good, when I feel my ass closing down again, I tighten it on itself, and it’s suddenly all, like, empty but concentrating hard on its memories, all the nerves in a huddle, and when it goes tight that always makes me want to work my clit, like right na-ha-ha-how! But then when I do my clitty, that makes me need to feel my ass tingle again, so I’m going to circle it with my fingers and feel it go soft again and oh, god, I need something in my cunt now. I think I’ll shove this tube of Push in my cunt, oooh!” “I’m jacking, Betsy, you’ve got to know I’m jacking it now.” “Back up toward me, I need to feel those balls when I come. I need a heaping handful of hot hairy balls! Don’t turn around.” Cardell backed toward her and stood with his legs parted and felt her hand enclose his balls and tug on them. “Big warm balls,” she said. “You’ve got a lot of come in these, I can tell.” “I’m close, Betsy!” “Come all over my coffee table, baby, just shoot it every-where.” “Betsy, no, I can’t come on your coffee table! Those are your husband’s hiking magazines. ” She spoke in a quiet voice. “You’re right. Then close your eyes tight and turn around.” “Okay.”

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  Yes, if that’s what you most want to do, yeah.” “Oh, that’s what I want to do, you bet it’s what I want to do. See, I get reading these paperbacks about the dark devilish men from New Orleans with their hungry eyes and their long southern python cocks that are always ready to ransack a loving woman’s asshole, and while I’m reading I put my feet on the arm of the couch and I just feel that cool air on my cunt’s pussyhole, and I put two fingers in there and, slimp, I taste it, and then I kind of pet my clitty with my thumb, like this, ooh. I like to keep everything growling and purring as much as I can. My left hand’s for my ass, my right hand’s for my cunt and clitty. Separation of powers.” “Phew, I need a rearview mirror.” “Don’t you turn, now, Card, you just listen while I devastate my ass for you. Whooo! Oh, it’s going to go in slow. Nice and slow. I start to push it in a little and then I stop—not yet, cause I like the push part so much, and I circle it around the outside some where the choirboys sing because it feels so good on the outside and my asshole starts to melt and depuckerize and get all soft and willing and ready for this big hard screwdriver handle that I’m about to—ooooooof, there it goes in. Screwdriver’s going in. Awwwll.” “Is it all the way in?” “No. I can feel the edgy parts, the facets. It’s about an inch in. I wish you could see my cunt staring at the ceiling, Card. My cunnyhole is just looking straight up, and I’m holding the metal part of the screwdriver. I can wiggle it a little bit, that feels good. Ooh. ” “You’re making me nuts!” “Stand up and slip off that bathing suit. I want to see your ass while I keep pushing and jiggling on this thing.” Cardell’s suit dropped to the ground, and he kicked it so that it billowed and landed on a bowl of shells. He flexed his asscheek muscles, trying to look as buff as possible. She said, “You’re a hairy candy-bun boy, aren’t you? Can you show me your asshole?” “What? No.” “Why not?” she asked. “I’m not into that,” said Cardell. “This is about your ass, not mine.” “Nonsense, just show it to me, bun boy, bend over. Give me a good look. Come on.” Finally, Cardell bent and opened his asscheeks for her to have a look. “Oh, Card, that’s one tiny hairy asshole you got. Very discreet. What’s the matter, you’ve never shown anyone your asshole before?” “This is outside my comfort zone.” “Good, well, good.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  You put the handle of the screwdriver into one finger of this glove and hand it back it to me.” “Right now?” “Why not? Here’s your drink. I’ll just take up my usual assplay position on the couch.” “This is where you usually play with your ass?” “Yes, I like to do it in the living room because it’s nastier that way.” “I got it. Here.” Cardell handed her the glove with the screwdriver in it. “I figured go with the middle finger.” She smiled. “Ah, the long fuckfinger of the night. Tried and true. Don’t turn around, now! You can’t look, you horny boy. Now.” He heard sounds. “I just pull up my dress and scooch down, and then I just squirt a whole mess of Push on the screwdriver finger, like so, mmhm, get it all ready, and then some more right around my asshole, mmhm.” “What’s ‘Push’?” “It’s a kind of organic lubricant. Really thick but really slippery. Magic stuff. Unscented. Ooh, I’m tingly now. And one thing: I’m not a fan of the word ‘enema,’ but let me just inform you that I’m very clean.” “You mean you squirted a bunch of warm water up your butt and all that?” “I did, used the syringe and the old red two-quart bottle. It was my grandmother’s hot-water bottle. She was a pretty wild lady. Passed it down to me. I used to fill it with hot water and hump it on cold nights. Now, though, mmm. I love to get savage with my ass, but it’s got to be squeaky clean. I hate shit, just hate it.” “No, I agree, shit’s bad. It’s not good.” “So now you want me to fuck myself in the ass while I play with Monsieur Twinklestump?” “Who’s Monsieur Twinklestump? A sex toy?” “My clit.” “Oh. Yes, if that’s what you most want to do, yeah.” “Oh, that’s what I want to do, you bet it’s what I want to do. See, I get reading these paperbacks about the dark devilish men from New Orleans with their hungry eyes and their long southern python cocks that are always ready to ransack a loving woman’s asshole, and while I’m reading I put my feet on the arm of the couch and I just feel that cool air on my cunt’s pussyhole, and I put two fingers in there and, slimp, I taste it, and then I kind of pet my clitty with my thumb, like this, ooh. I like to keep everything growling and purring as much as I can. My left hand’s for my ass, my right hand’s for my cunt and clitty. Separation of powers.” “Phew, I need a rearview mirror.” “Don’t you turn, now, Card, you just listen while I devastate my ass for you. Whooo! Oh, it’s going to go in slow.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  Lila made a conceding nod. “You don’t want to be leaving them soapy,” she said. “And you can scrub them all over, not just their crotches, obviously. But try not to spray directly in their faces, unless they want you to.” “I think I’ve got the basic principle,” said Shandee. “Can I see how the gloves feel?” Zilka handed them to her, and Shandee put them on. She winked at Ruzty and began an aerial simulation. “So I spray him all over, fffffff, and then I suds him up, like this, and I suds around all over his nice chest and his stomach and I suds all around his thighs, and higher up, and I get to his balls, and I suds his cock, like this—” “Look at him,” said Zilka. “And look at his cock, wow.” Ruzty’s cock was leaning dramatically to one side. “Oh my goodness, our boy’s got a banana cock!” said Lila. “That’s why I am shy,” Ruzty said. “When it gets hard it curves sharply to the left. Almost a full ninety degrees when it’s very hard, as it is now. It has been true my whole life. Once I had a girlfriend who said it was my progressive penis. But actually I’m a libertarian.” He lifted it to show them. It was heavy and hard, like a shepherd’s crook. “It can straighten some, you see? I am trying to overcome many years of embarrassment because some women say that they like a strong curve.” “Oh, some women love a curve,” said Lila. “Am I right, Shandee?” “Sure, I guess,” Shandee said. But she was in shock. She hadn’t seen that many penises in her life, and she had never seen one shaped like that. It was extreme, and it was extremely exciting. Also there was something distracting happening low down on her leg. She looked toward the floor. Dave’s arm was gripping her ankle and squeezing it fussily. “Oh, I’m sorry, Davie,” she said, “did you crawl all the way over here from my bag? Oh, my dear. Isn’t that sweet. I’m sorry.” She gave the sponge mittens back to Zilka and lifted Dave’s arm. Then she felt flummoxed. “You two have met, I think,” she said. Lila wanted to wind things up. “And we will help you find Dave,” she said. “But now it’s time for you, Shandee, to go to your hotel and check in. Tomorrow you’ll do the Penis Wash for real. I’ll watch over Dave’s arm back here, if you don’t mind. He’s such a heartbreaker, isn’t he? I do love a veiny hand.” “I think I’ll take Dave with me, if that’s all right,” said Shandee, a little crisply. “Of course, hon,” said Lila. “And Ruzty, thank you for being our teaching aid. I really think you’re going to have to adopt a sideways stance at the cumshot competition.”

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  The warm wind sang in the gorse. “Thanks for telling me,” said Shandee. “I guess it’s time for me to take you to the Penis Wash, eh?” The Penis Wash happened in a concrete-floored room. Five recessed floor tracks emerged from five openings in one wall, their low archways covered by flaps of cloudy plastic. Men lay face up on massage tables that rolled slowly forward on the tracks. Drifts of foam moved on the shiny wet floor. A sound of clinking filled the air; the massage tables were being drawn forward by loops of chain under the floor. The soap smelled wonderful. Each woman had a washing station, with several pedals to control the spray of water. “The right pedal is soapy water, the left pedal is rinse water,” said Zilka. “Enjoy.” She left. Shandee tested the sprayers and the pedals. The water was warm. A man emerged through the dangling plastic flaps and was slowly pulled toward where she stood. A preliminary curtainlike blast of warm prewash water drenched him, and as he reached Shandee’s station and came to a stop, he lay dripping, strapped to the table, his eyes closed. Shandee looked at the other women, who were all busily spraying their men. The speakers were playing something without words and with lots of twelve-string guitar. She cleared her throat. The man opened his eyes and smiled at her. “Hi,” he said. “Hello,” said Shandee. “Welcome to the House of Holes. I guess I’m supposed to spray you. Are you okay with that?” “Yes,” he said. He closed his eyes again, and she sprayed him all over with soapy water and then began scrubbing down his chest with her orange sponge mittens. She reached his genitals and scrubbed his short, thick penis, which lay against his stomach, lengthening, and his balls, which were warm and heavy and loose. Then she scrubbed down his legs and back up to his balls again, trying to maintain a professional frown. She noticed as she straightened that his penis was no longer lying back, but was now pointing diagonally at a corner of the room. She sprayed, rinsing it. And then, with a clink of dragger chains, the massage tables lurched into motion. “Bye,” she said. “Bye, thanks,” he said. Another man emerged through the flaps. She washed his penis. Then another. Most of the men lay quite still. One tried to grope her, and she said, “Oh, stop it,” and sprayed water in his face. More men to be washed. She was really starting to get into the rhythm of it. Just when she felt relaxed, Ruzty appeared. He was propped up on an elbow, looking around for her. When he came through the flaps he broke into a relieved beaming smile. He wasn’t quite so muscly as some—built more like a snowboarder than a bodybuilder—and he lay with one knee up. “I’m so lucky to see you,” he said. “I’m lucky to see you.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  Do you see how full they are and how ready they are to glue themselves onto your knob? Hm? See how ready I am to take that big stiff fleshbone and jerk it off onto these soft full lips?” The penis went boing, boing. She said, “I bet you’re crazy to see my tits, too. You can’t stand it, can you? See that? That’s my right tit. Sometimes I squeeze it a little bit. Sometimes I pinch my nipple through the fabric, mmm, like that. Sometimes I spank my tits a little bit, like this. Ouch, bad titties. They like to be spanked. Are you married?” The penis nodded. “How many kids?” Polly asked. The penis waggled three times. “You monstrosity! Three kids you’ve got? And you’re here hanging out of this hole in the wall? Can you see me?” The penis nodded again. “High-tech, are you, you sick demented voyeuristic plaster-fucker!” She was amazed. It was like his penis had a telescoping action—the more she taunted and reviled it, the more it kept adding intermediate sections. It was like a subway improvement project. And it had these knobby veins all over it. She couldn’t resist holding it, so she pinched the skin right underneath its head, and the whole penis immediately leapt away like a shying racehorse. “Don’t fight me now, shitbird,” she said. She pinched the skin again, harder, and rolled it between her fingers so that its monocular eye gazed crazily around the room. And then she said, “You want me to jerk you off now?” She really did want to wank that dick off—really wanted to jack the whole dick, from the head to the base, right off. She began fast-jacking it, using her egg-beating skills. And when her right hand got tired she switched to her left, and then she switched back to her right, and then she said, “I want you to come right here.” She touched her lips, pouted them, and resumed cock pumping, and when she looked down she could see something major happening with his ballsack. It was lifting, the prune elevator was going up, and there was serious wrinkling, and she knew that meant he was almost there. She rested for a second and then moved her hand very fast and said, “Right here on my tongue, Chief.” She pulled hard on his dick, and she could hear the Chief thump into the wall on the other side. “Let all that blookie out, slutfucker,” she said. She opened her mouth as wide as she could, and she felt his whole body course down into his penis.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  Rimsky-Korsakov?” “One moment!” said Rimsky. “And now, my cock, too!” There was another resilient stiffness against her toes. Luna pushed back with both feet and felt both cocks standing hard against the composers’ taut bellies. They both seemed surprisingly fit for musicians. “How’s the music going for you?” Chuck murmured into her hair. “It feels good to have two stiff Russians pushing against the soles of my feet,” said Luna, smiling up at him. “Good,” said Chuck. Then convulsively he whispered some-thing in her hair that she didn’t catch. “What’s that?” “Nothing.” “No, Chuck, please tell me what you said.” “I said, ‘I wish I could fuck you in the mouth with my cock and come all over your pretty lips.’” “Woo, Chucky.” Luna got a melty feeling in her shoulders. She turned and squashed her face against his lap, inhaling his warm cocoa-bean smell through his dress pants. The smell went right to her head. “Hurry, because this pussy cradle is feeling way too good.” Out flopped the enormity of Chuck’s dick, poking stiffly between his white shirttails. It came to rest on her lips. “Jesus, that’s a nice dick, Chuck. My god. Rimsky, Alex, don’t stop!” She bucked against the pussy cup. “Nnnnnng! This is way too good! ” She threw her head back and opened her mouth for Chuck’s cockness. “Fuck my mouth!” she said. Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov were squeezing her calves and doing mad cocky things at her toes. “My penis is coming right now!” moaned Borodin. “My penis is coming, too!” said Rimsky-Korsakov. “Oh god, Chuck, I can’t hold back much longer,” said Luna. “Stuff my mouth with that fucking beast!” She ground her pussytwat against the crotchy holder, lifting her hips high to hold the moment in suspense. “Nnnnng-aaaaa!” She let her orgasm wave crash down just as she felt two hot blasts of white Russian semen drizzle against her toes. “Phew,” she said, breathing deeply, but she wanted more. She pulled her legs from the holes. “Now really fuck me, Chuck. No pussy cradle. I want to feel you inside.” Chuck turned the chair around. “You ready?” She nodded, feeling the Russian sperm cooling on her feet. Chuck’s thundertube of dickmeat started sliding in.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  They fed some coins into the slots of their sightseeing scopes. Henriette frowned, looking through the chrome-hooded viewer. At first she had a little trouble getting the hang of it because the image hopped around, but then she learned to move slowly, and she found she could see into the haze very far away. There was a red Mustang convertible on one tower, with a sunbathing woman on top of it wearing a red bikini bottom and no top. On top of one green crag a naked man had painted a billboard with large letters that said, “Show Me.” “There’s a couple in this direction,” said Ned. “Looks like they’re doing stuff.” Henriette swiveled her binoculars around. “Yeah?” “Yeah, the man’s got his johnny-stick out, I think. Yeah, the woman’s jerking it. Wow, fast. Now she’s blowing him. He’s having fun.” “Where? Dang, can’t find it,” said Henriette. “Way over there. I’d say he’s going to pop the oyster pretty soon.” Finally she found the right angle. The man was holding himself up off the chair with his hands, and the woman knelt between his splayed legs. It was difficult to see at this distance, with the colors gone all blue and pale, but she thought she saw the woman’s lips relax and a gush of sperm flow back down over her fingers. Ned made a little noise. “What did you think?” he asked. “Very nice,” she said. “Did you like to see her sucking on his bone?” Ned rubbed her shoulder in a friendly way. “Uh, sure. Have you got another quarter? Let’s find out what else is up here at the roof of the world.” They scanned the horizon. “Another couple!” said Ned excitedly. “Oh, boy. He’s doing her real nice. Mmmm-yeah, her boobs are jumping around. Jesus mama.” He shifted the direction of his scope. “And there’s a AR-24 Pornsucker ship!” He pointed excitedly. “See it? Out on a mission, sucking that pornstarch. You can tell it’s an AR-24 Recon/Pornsucker because of the red tips on its wings. That’s the giveaway. You can always tell.” “Mm,” said Henriette. She wasn’t listening. She’d swiveled her scope and was looking intently off to the south. “Mountain zebras,” she said, in a small intense voice. “A herd. Two of them are getting ready to mate. How on earth did they get so high? Oh, they are such nimble climbers.” “Where?” Ned was panning unsuccessfully. “Way way off, about halfway down a crag, on a little ledge. See them?” Henriette pointed, then hunched to see more. “No, I’m not seeing them,” said Ned. “Damnation!” “Keep hunting, you’ll find them. The female is holding her head down. Ooh, she’s backing up. The male’s penis has dropped. It’s big but it’s hanging. It’s practically dragging on the ground. I don’t see how—ooh, her pussy is literally steaming. And his balls are huge and luscious.” “I’m still not seeing it,” said Ned.

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  Augustine fell among the Manichees because they were there with their questions when he had been reading the Christian scriptures, to which he had turned when inspired by reading Cicero in the course of his studies. This series of maneuvers seemed perfectly reasonable at the time and could be taken so. Manicheism was a new-age religion in its time, fashionable, exotic, with an up-to-date brand of humbug. Augustine, falling in with that crowd in Carthage, had the feeling of being just a little ahead of his time and among the true elite of his world. Orthodox Christianity had become the state religion, but what Augustine knew best was the very lightly Caecilianized native African Christianity of Tagaste. Against that background, the devout and slightly priggish Manichee (and we have to know Augustine’s capacity for priggishness) could sniff persuasively at the orthodox tolerance for the “Old Testament.” The church that should be the bride of Christ was like, for the Manichee, a shameless hussy, cherishing the letters and love tokens of another woman’s husband—the god of the Jews.89 When they say that, we have to hear the specific sneer of ancient Christian anti-Jewish polemic, attacking the old-fashioned god and old-fashioned religion that Christianity had left behind. Augustine’s affair with Manicheism took him from his early university days to the time of his first great professional success. His narrative in the Confessions would have us believe that he quickly saw through the intellectual shallowness of the cult and lingered passively and curiously, finally drifting away to wait for something else to turn up. He admits to sticking it out for nine years before breaking with them,90 even if he fudges the count. He wants us to imagine the long, slow falling-away from the enthusiasm of the moment just short of age nineteen, when he fell in with the sect, until the time when, rising twenty-nine, he met the Manichee leader Faustus and found him unable to answer some probing questions. But until at least about age thirty Augustine lived among and participated with the Manichees in their rituals, and it was only after almost a dozen years, in 384–85, on his appointment to the imperial chair in Milan, that he finally broke with them and fell back into the habit of going to church with the catholic Christians he found there.

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  Augustine was delighted to confront Volusianus; he’d held similar ideas about Jesus himself while at Milan, not long before his conversion, and so he was able to situate such a “pagan” just outside the Christian boundaries, but close enough to be the welcome object of persuasion and dialogue. Augustine leapt to respond in two ways: first, by his series of letters to Volusianus and Marcellinus. Here Augustine tried to play the part Ambrose played in his own life—encouraging Volusianus to go away and read Paul and the prophets, while professing himself too busy for more conversation.489 Such aloofness suited Augustine, not least because a figure as elevated as Volusianus might have been difficult to approach, especially in the aftermath of the Melanie/Pinian debacle. But Augustine had grander ideas. The book that Augustine soon began (City of God—De civitate dei) was addressed to the lesser of his correspondents, Marcellinus, but it was a book of great ambition. It would unfold over the next decade and a half in twenty-two books. Augustine’s best reader was the vicar of Africa (second to the proconsul in rank), Macedonius, who read some of the first books in 414 and exclaimed in a letter: I read your books…. They grabbed me, snatched me away from my other business and shackled me to them—for god was kind to me. I didn’t know what to admire in them first: the priest, the philosopher, the historian, or the orator. They draw in even the general reader to keep reading until he’s finished, and leave him wanting more…. You used the example of the recent calamity [at Rome] to strengthen your case, though I could wish you hadn’t had the chance. But since that’s where the foolish complaints came from, truth had to take its arguments from there.490

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  Someone in Milan—he won’t tell us who, because he later came to disapprove of the man220—put in Augustine’s hands what he calls those “books of the Platonists” (Platonicorum libri), Latin translations of what were probably selected treatises of the third-century (neo-)Platonist philosopher Plotinus, and perhaps some materials by Plotinus’s editor and biographer, Porphyry, as well. Those books, with their refined spirituality and high intellectualism (made, doubtless, more mysterious and perhaps more enticing by being translated badly into Latin from dense and difficult Greek), had a paradoxical effect on Augustine. They set fire to his imagination, but that fire then kindled into a true blaze only when he took the ideas he found there with him to read the Christian scriptures. We should pause over this curious turn and feel its oddness. The narrative Augustine gives in the seventh book of his Confessions captures the puzzle well: You got for me (by way of a certain man all swollen with monstrous arrogance) books of the Platonists translated out of the Greek into Latin, and there I read, not to be sure in these exact words but in this sense all the same, with many and various arguments, that in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and god was the word. He seems to think that what he found in Plotinus was nothing more and nothing less than the doctrine found on the first page of the Gospel of John, stopping short of the “word made flesh.” But a greater strangeness lies here. A young man, reader of many books, searcher after truths, dabbler in arcana, falls upon books that change his life, and he lets them change his life—and then he resists them and finally leaves them behind, in favor of books that had been there whenever he wanted them all his life. Even then, what the Platonists drove him to was, he claims a decade later, the study of Paul’s letters. What he was thrilled by in the neo-Platonists was their account of mystical rapture, and Paul was the preeminent Christian authority on that subject, having been taken up to the third heaven (see 2 Corinthians 5 and 12) to see things that no one else had seen.221

• From Shunned (2018)

  My salary had increased twofold since I’d joined the department. I was making more money than I’d ever dreamed of, more money than Ross made as a garage- door salesman. We agreed to pay off the credit card we’d used to fund our kitchen remodel and buy a new car. Because it was Thursday, and I’d committed to be more regular attending meetings, we deferred a celebration and went to the Kingdom Hall, something I outwardly agreed to but secretly resented, attending in body only, to please my husband. Throughout the meeting, my mind wandered again, reveling in my promotion. I imagined the members of the Board sitting around a large oval table, each dressed in a navy pin-striped suit, hearing a lengthy reading of my accomplishments, then nodding their heads in approval and one by one using their Montblanc pens to sign on the dotted line. I didn’t tell anyone at the Kingdom Hall that night about my promotion because I didn’t know how to bring it up without sounding like a braggart. Truer still, I didn’t want to spark worry among the friends who had already expressed concerns when I traveled on business and missed meetings. The next day, Nick Marshall made a point of stopping by my office to congratulate me. “Well deserved,” he said. He had never mentioned our doorstep conversation. I’d found myself in the occasional meeting with him and his staff and continued to feel an appreciation for who he was as a person, how he handled complex matters with fairness and integrity. It was impossible to think of him as doomed, which made me a complacent Witness—but I preferred this new, compassionate acceptance I was developing for so-called worldly people, and the growing sense of belonging I felt among my coworkers. In spite of my new resolve, as the months slipped by, the headiness and new demands of my job made it hard to focus on the Watchtower and Awake! magazines I slipped into my briefcase each week. On a flight to Chicago, I tried to muster interest in an article titled “Is There Only One True Church?” then cast a glance across the airplane aisle, failing to see the harm in these people of varying beliefs. The flight attendants began the cabin service. Most of the passengers were quiet or engrossed in their own reading. It was difficult to imagine the faceless hooded riders on black-winged stallions coming to take them out. I struggled to reconcile those images with the compassionate Jehovah I’d grown up with. Life no longer seemed so black and white. Perhaps our differences could teach us something besides condemnation.

• From Shunned (2018)

  Within four months, John was asking me for help beyond the scope of my administrative role. “What do you mean, conduct the training?” I asked. Of course I knew what “conduct” meant, but I was hanging on his every word, alert to grasp the meaning he ascribed to it. “I mean lead one of the training sessions,” he answered. “Coast is pulling together two hundred fifty of their staff for two days, and Nancy can do only one day at a time. You’ll watch her do the training one day, you’ll take good notes, and the next day both of you will be running the training simultaneously in meeting rooms right across the hall from each other. They simply don’t have a meeting room that is large enough to accommodate everyone that day, so we need two trainers.” Nancy was the training manager who traveled to other bank headquarters to instruct their staff in how to sell our services and fill out the legal forms. I just sat there looking at John, trying to absorb the request and his confidence in me to help him through a desperate situation. “Linda, Coast Federal is our biggest account, and you probably know this program better than anyone. You’ve seen every element of the training from beginning to end. You handle yourself well. I know you can do this, and you’d be helping the whole team out. We can’t blow this program launch.” Our department had been formed to introduce an innovative program to sell our loan services to other banks across the country. There were thousands of smaller community banks that chose not to staff their own departments, so they sold our loans as if they were their own, for a fee. One month later, I was boarding a plane to Los Angeles on my first official business trip. Later that day, wearing a new Nordstrom suit, I was being introduced to a room full of bankers. John was right: I knew the material and was innately equipped to articulate the finer points with ease. Talking to a crowd felt very natural. I’d had a lot of practice. At the age of nine, when I started knocking on doors with a prepared sermon, I also enrolled in the Theocratic Ministry School, which was run weekly out of the Kingdom Hall. Every Thursday night, six preassigned members of the congregation delivered five-minute talks on various Bible topics and were then publicly evaluated by one of the elders on specific speech competencies.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  His energy and conviction rather than intellectual superiority may explain why he became the leading figure at Wittenberg so quickly. — T HESE were exciting times as a generation of intellectuals felt that they witnessed the dawn of a new era. It seemed that scholasticism, with its tortured deference to Aristotle, was finished. The university syllabus at Wittenberg had been a careful compromise between via moderna and via antiqua, but by 1516 Johannes Lang was enthusing that students were “eagerly hearing lectures on the Bible and the Church Fathers, while the so-called scholastic doctors have hardly two or three listeners.” 43 In 1517–18 Luther lectured on Hebrews, Karlstadt on Augustine, the humanist Aesticampianus on Jerome—this was a whole program of study invigorated by a humanist-style return to the sources. There were also causes to be passionate about. Humanists united to defend the Hebrew scholar Johannes Reuchlin when he was persecuted by the Dominicans of Cologne, who wanted to destroy all Hebrew texts. Spalatin sought Luther’s view of the affair in 1514 and received a forthright reply, defending the man whose grammar Luther himself had used when he learned Hebrew with Lang in Erfurt. Jewish blasphemy, Luther argued, could not be purged as the Dominicans demanded, because the prophets of the Old Testament foretold that the Jews would insult and blaspheme against Christ, so destroying it would delete the evidence and turn God and the prophets into liars. This insight clearly gripped him, “more than language can say,” and he insisted that those who did not understand this paradox understood nothing of theology. He showed no sympathy with Jewish writings for their own sake, however: He would maintain throughout his life that these were indeed blasphemous. 44 Two of Luther’s most significant writings from this time were theses of disputation composed for his students, like the one he had composed for Bernhardi. The custom was for the pupil to expound theses that reflected the master’s views as part of their progression through the degrees. Ritualized debates, they depended on skill in argument and rhetoric, and provided a kind of licensed intellectual aggression. With the position set out as a series of related sequential claims, it was easier to accept or reject particular points of the argument, and to inspect the links between one proposition and another. It permitted intellectual adventurousness and freedom, because ideas could be tried out, without claiming that they were established truths. Such tests and intellectual combat greatly appealed to Luther, and the Reformation would develop the technique into a high art.