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.

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• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  These characters run into each other. Coerciveness is the result of liveliness or emotional interest. What is lively and interesting stimulates eo ipso the will; congruity holds of active impulses as well as of contemplative forms; causal independence and importance suit a certain contemplative demand, etc. I will therefore abandon all attempt at a formal treatment, and simply proceed to make remarks in the most convenient order of exposition. As a whole, sensations are more lively and are judged more real than conceptions; things met with every hour more real than things seen once; attributes perceived when awake, more real than attributes perceived in a dream. But, owing to the diverse relations contracted by the various objects with each other, the simple rule that the lively and permanent is the real is often enough disguised. A conceived thing may be deemed more real than a certain sensible thing, if it only be intimately related to other sensible things more vivid, permanent, or interesting than the first one. Conceived molecular vibrations, e.g., are by the physicist judged more real than felt warmth, because so intimately related to all those other facts of motion in the world which he has made his special study. Similarly, a rare thing may be deemed more real than a permanent thing if it be more widely related to other permanent things. All the occasional crucial observations of science are examples of this. A rare experience, too, is likely to be judged more real than a permanent one, if it be more interesting and exciting. Such is the sight of Saturn through a telescope; such are the occasional insights and illuminations which upset our habitual ways of thought. But no mere floating conception, no mere disconnected rarity, ever displaces vivid things or permanent things from our belief. A conception, to prevail, must terminate in the world of orderly sensible experience. A rare phenomenon, to displace frequent ones, must belong with others more frequent still. The history of science is strewn with wrecks and ruins of theory—essences and principles, fluids and forces—once fondly clung to, But found to hang together with no facts of sense. And exceptional phenomena solicit our belief in vain until such time as we chance to conceive them as of kinds already admitted to exist. What science means by 'verification' is no more than this, that no object of conception shall be believed which sooner or later has not some permanent and vivid object of sensation for its term. Compare what was said on pages 3-7, above.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  But the most valuable contribution to the subject is the paper of G. H. Schneider,[181] who takes up the matter zoologically, and shows by examples from every branch of the animal kingdom that movement is the quality by which animals most easily attract each other's attention. The instinct of shamming death 'is no shamming of death at all, but rather a paralysis through fear, which saves the insect, crustacean, or other creature from being noticed at all by his enemy. It is paralleled in the human race by the breath-holding stillness of the boy playing 'I spy,' to whom the seeker is near; and its obverse side is shown in our involuntary waving of arms, jumping up and down, and so forth, when we wish to attract someone's attention at a distance. Creatures 'stalking' their prey and creatures hiding from their pursuers alike show how immobility diminishes conspicuity. In the woods, if we are quiet, the squirrels and birds will actually touch us. Flies will light on stuffed birds and stationary frogs.[182] On the other hand, the tremendous shock of feeling the thing we are sitting on begin to move, the exaggerated start it gives us to have an insect unexpectedly pass over our skin, or a cat noiselessly come and snuffle about our hand, the excessive reflex effects of tickling, etc., show how exciting the sensation of motion is per se. A kitten cannot help pursuing a moving ball. Impressions too faint to be cognized at all are immediately felt if they move. A fly sitting is unnoticed,—we feel it the moment it crawls. A shadow may be too faint to be perceived. As soon as it moves, however, we see it. Schneider found that a shadow, with distinct outline, and directly fixated, could still be perceived when moving, although its objective strength might be but half as great as that of a stationary shadow so faint as just to disappear. With a blurred shadow in indirect vision the difference in favor of motion was much greater—namely, 13.3:40.7. If me hold a finger between our closed eyelid and the sunshine we shall not notice its presence. The moment we move it to and fro, however, we discern it. Such visual perception as this reproduces the conditions of sight among the radiates.[183]

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  Leaving lower animals aside, and turning to human instincts, we see the law of transiency corroborated on the widest scale by the alternation of different interests and passions as human life goes on. With the child, life is all play and fairy-tales and learning the external properties of 'things;' with the youth, it is bodily exercises of a more systematic sort, novels of the real world, boon-fellowship and song, friendship and love, nature, travel and adventure, science and philosophy; with the man, ambition-and policy, acquisitiveness, responsibility to others, and the selfish zest of the battle of life. If a boy grows up alone at the age of games and sports, and learns neither to play ball, nor row, nor sail, nor ride, nor skate, nor shoot, probably he will be sedentary to the end of his days; and, though the best of opportunities be afforded him for learning these things later, it is a hundred to one but he will pass them by and shrink back from the effort of taking those necessary first steps the prospect of which, at an earlier age, would have filled him with eager delight. The sexual passion expires after a protracted reign; but it is well known that its peculiar manifestations in a given individual depend almost entirely on the habits he may form during the early period of its activity. Exposure to bad company then makes him a loose liver all his days; chastity kept at first makes the same easy later on. In all pedagogy the great thing is to strike the iron while hot, and to seize the wave of the pupil's interest in each successive subject before its ebb has come, so that knowledge may be got and a habit of skill acquired—a headway of interest, in short, secured, on which afterward the individual may float. There is a happy moment for fixing skill in drawing, for making boys collectors in natural history, and presently dissectors and botanists; then for initiating them into the harmonies of mechanics and the wonders of physical and chemical law. Later, introspective psychology and the metaphysical and religious mysteries take their turn; and, last of all, the drama of human affairs and worldly wisdom in the widest sense of the term. In each of us a saturation-point is soon reached in all these things; the impetus of our purely intellectual zeal expires, and unless the topic be one associated with some urgent personal need that keeps our wits constantly whetted about it, we settle into an equilibrium, and live on what we learned when our interest was fresh and instinctive, without adding to the store. Outside of their own business, the ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives. They cannot get anything new. Disinterested curiosity is past, the mental grooves and channels set, the power of assimilation gone. If by chance we ever do learn anything about some entirely new topic we are afflicted with a strange sense of insecurity, and we fear to advance a resolute opinion. But, with things learned in the plastic days of instinctive curiosity we never lose entirely our sense of being at home. There remains a kinship, a sentiment of intimate acquaintance, which, even when we know we have failed to keep abreast of the subject, matters us with a sense of power over it, and makes us feel not altogether out of the pale.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  As Rochefoucauld says, there is something in the misfortunes of our very friends that does not altogether displease us; and an apostle of peace will feel a certain vicious thrill run through him, and enjoy a vicarious brutality, as he turns to the column in his newspaper at the top of which 'Shocking Atrocity' stands printed in large capitals. See how the crowd hocks round a street-brawl! Consider the enormous annual sale of revolvers to persons, not one in a thousand of whom has any serious intention of using them, but of whom each one has his carnivorous self-consciousness agreeably tickled by the notion, as he clutches the handle of his weapon, that he will be rather a dangerous customer to meet. See the ignoble crew that escorts every great pugilist—parasites who feel as if the glory of his brutality rubbed off upon them, and whose darling hope, from day today, is to arrange some set-to of which they may share the rapture without enduring the pains! The first blows at a prize-fight are apt to make a refined spectator sick; but his blood is soon up in favor of one party, and it will then seem as if the other fellow could not be banged and pounded and mangled enough—the refined spectator would like to reinforce the blows himself. Over the sinister orgies of blood of certain depraved and insane persons let a curtain be drawn, as well as over the ferocity with which otherwise fairly decent men may be animated, when (at the sacking of a town, for instance), the excitement of victory long delayed, the sudden freedom of rapine and of lust, the contagion of a crowd, and the impulse to imitate and outdo, all combine to swell the blind drunkenness of the killing-instinct, and carry it to its extreme. No! those who try to account for this from above downwards, as if it resulted from the consequences of the victory being rapidly inferred, and from the agreeable sentiments associated with them in the imagination, have missed the root of the matter. Our ferocity is blind, and can only be explained from below. Could we trace it back through our line of descent, we should see it taking more and more the form of a fatal reflex response, and at the same time becoming more and more the pure and direct emotion that it is.[393]

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  In the next two types of decision, the final fiat occurs before the evidence is all 'in.' It often happens that no paramount and authoritative reason for either course will come. Either seems a case of a Good, and there is no umpire as to which good should yield its place to the other. We grow tired of long hesitation and inconclusiveness, and the hour may come when we feel that even a bad decision is better than no decision at all. Under these conditions it will often happen that some accidental circumstance, supervening at a particular movement upon our mental weariness, will upset the balance in the direction of one of the alternatives, to which then we feel ourselves committed, although an opposite accident at the same time might have produced the opposite result. In the second type of case our feeling is to a certain extent that of letting ourselves drift with a certain indifferent acquiescence in a direction accidentally determined from without, with the conviction that, after all, we might as well stand by this course as by the other, and that things are in any event sure to turn out sufficiently right. In the third type the determination seems equally accidental, but it comes from within, and not from without. If often happens, when the absence of imperative principle is perplexing and suspense distracting, that we find ourselves acting, as it were, automatically, and as if by a spontaneous discharge of our nerves, in the direction of one of the horns of the dilemma. But so exciting is this sense of motion after our intolerable pent-up state, that we eagerly throw ourselves into it. 'Forward now!' we inwardly cry, 'though the heavens fall.' This reckless and exultant espousal of an energy so little premeditated by us that we feel rather like passive spectators cheering on the display of some extraneous force than like voluntary agents, is a type of decision too abrupt and tumultuous to occur often in humdrum and cool-blooded natures. But it is probably frequent in persons of strong emotional endowment and unstable or vacillating character. And in men of the world-shaking type, the Napoleons, Luthers, etc., in whom tenacious passion combines with ebullient activity, when by any chance the passion's outlet has been dammed by scruples or apprehensions, the resolution is probably often of this catastrophic kind. The flood breaks quite unexpectedly through the dam. That is should so often do so is quite sufficient to account for the tendency of these characters to a fatalistic mood of mind. And the fatalistic mood itself is sure to reinforce the strength of the energy just started on its exciting path of discharge.

• From Saint Augustine (Penguin Lives) (1999)

  It was the siren song of asceticism that pierced Augustine’s soul when he read Hortensius: “I was elevated by that language, I was enkindled, I was aflame” (T 3.8). Cicero’s dialogue, it is clear from the fragments preserved by Augustine and others, was a motivational exercise (protrepticon) urging the reader to pursue wisdom by renunciation of ambition and pleasure—and even of rhetoric (Grilli 24–25). Augustine would later quote from it the grim comparison of the soul’s manacling to its body with the Etruscan pirates’ torture of prisoners by strapping a dead corpse to them, buckled face to face (Grilli 52). The call to tame one’s body as one would a wild horse had great appeal to Augustine—in theory. It was from this, his nineteenth year, that Augustine began aspiring to chastity—but not yet. Cicero’s dialogue embodied a paradox that Augustine would later live out himself, of the great rhetorician rhetorically dismissing rhetoric. Not the least part of its appeal to Augustine was no doubt the dialogue form. Unable to read Plato’s more sinewy Socratic dialogues, Augustine loved Cicero’s urbane tone, the high-minded exchange of views between interlocutors (exemplified in all Cicero’s extant dialogues). Augustine’s Manichean friends were, in that respect at least, Ciceronians. All Augustine’s own earlier works would be dialogues, reflections of his view that all thought is an effort best pursued with others. Even when pastoral pressures made him give up the more leisurely dialogue form, there was a contrapuntal quality to his exchanges with a congregation in sermons, or his exchanges with God in prayer forms like The Testimony. Given this immersion in the sophisticated conversation of Cicero, it is not surprising that Augustine was offended by the brutal directness of the Jewish Scriptures he turned to when impelled to seek wisdom by Hortensius. There was no dialoguing with Yahveh. He did not explain his demands to Job or Isaac. He was as imperious and punitive as Augustine’s own father. It is usually assumed that Augustine missed the verbal felicity of Ciceronian style in the African Latin of the translated Bible. What he actually says is that the scriptural approach (modus) fell below Cicero’s seriousness (dignitas, T 3.9). The long passage that follows, rehearsing Manichean criticisms of the Bible, shows that it was the “childish” stories of the Old Testament that seemed unworthy of a classical seeker after lofty doctrine (T 3.13–18).

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  “I feel you inside me. I feel you inside me, Papi,” I said, finding myself picking up on his accent. It was a force of habit. After only hearing Papi say a few words to me, I found myself replying to him with a slight accent myself. He never took it as though I was trying to imitate or make fun of him, though. As a matter of fact, it made him even more excited. I think he probably pictured a nice, coconut-complected, clammy Boriqua, with her hair sweated out, sprawled across her bed, him plunging his dick inside her pussy and bustin’ a nut deep up inside of her hole instead of inside his fist. “You feel it? You feel that shit, puta?” he moaned, breathing heavily into my ear. “You’re hurting me, Papi. Not so hard.” “Shut the fuck up and take this shit like a real puta!” “Oh, Papi!” I let out a screech that sounded as though it was on the verge of pleasure and pain. “Yeah, that’s right. See, it hurts so good, don’t it?” “Yes, yes, yes. It hurts so good, but I can take it. I can take all of it. Give it to me, Papi. Give it to me harder!” I began damn near yelling at the top of my lungs. “Oh shit,” he yelled. I could hear the thumping of him jacking off. “Oh yeah.” He got louder. I knew it was time. “Oh, Papi, I want you to pull out and nut all over me. I want your babies all over me. I want to rub it in like lotion, Papi. Come on, Papi. Now! Now! Now!” “Oh shit,” I heard him yell. I then heard a large thump, the phone dropping. Because of the distance Papi was now away from the phone, his muffled tone informed me that he was cumming. Over and over he screamed it. “I’m cummin’. I’m cummin’. Oh, you fuckin’ cunt, look what you made me do!” “Here, listen to this,” I said in a whisper as I took the phone off my ear and put it next to Sam’s, who was sitting right there next to me in the bed, butt naked, and working on a crossword puzzle. I watched Sam’s eyes light up at the drama going down on the other end of the line. The laughter that wanted to burst out of Sam’s mouth had to be contained, and I quickly placed my hand over those gorgeous lips. Sam looked at me with sparkling gray eyes, bright and full of life, listening in amusement at how I had just made Papi nut all over himself with my bomb-ass phone sex skills.

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  Kareem rolled up a phat Philly and they all took turns taking it straight to the dome. Mikala choked on her first toke, but it took her no time to get the hang of how to properly partake of the cannabis sativa. They shared several more blunts as the night went on. “Aiight, it’s two games apiece. This last game right here is for whoever wants it the most. The winner takes all. Let’s put some money on the table. Are y’all scared?” Kareem asked. “Fuck money, niggah! We want something hotter than that. If we win, we get to have our way with y’all. If y’all win, then y’all get to do whatever y’all want with us. How does that sound?” Chastity asked. “Are you sure that your girl is game for that?” Kareem asked, staring into Mikala’s eyes. “Hell yeah, I’m game. Now stop talking shit and let’s play cards,” Mikala said. Pierre dealt the first hand and from the start it was no contest. They set Mikala and Chastity three straight times to win the bet. It was almost as though the girls lost those hands on purpose, which wasn’t a problem because Kareem and Pierre were only too eager to collect on their debt. Without a word Chastity followed Pierre into her bedroom. Kareem was left alone with Mikala in the living room. “So, I finally got you to myself. Don’t get scared on me now,” Kareem joked. “I ain’t never scared, niggah. You lead the way and I’m right behind you,” Mikala boasted. The liquor and the weed had deadened all of her inhibitions and she was one hundred percent down to get freaked tonight. Kareem lifted her off the couch and carried her into Chastity’s spare bedroom. He placed her gently down on the bed and began to unzip her jeans. He pulled them down to her ankles and took off her sandals one at a time. Mikala pulled off her shirt and removed her bra, exposing her breasts for him to see. He took her left foot and ran it across his muscular, smooth chest. Her foot took a southbound journey down his stomach until it reached his rock solid penis. She playfully teased it with her toes. Kareem got down on his knees and kissed her thighs passionately while his hands held a tight grip around her waist. He pulled off her thong and threw it to the floor. Mikala sighed in ecstasy when his kisses reached her secret place and his tongue corralled her clitoris into his mouth. He licked it like a lollipop and sucked it until she begged him to stop. Kareem lifted his head from between her thighs as her juices dripped from his chin. “I want you to taste me too, baby,” Kareem said. He took off his pants and lay on the bed next to her. He guided Mikala between his legs and down to his stiff member.

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  Again his weight pressed against my flesh as he grabbed my ankles, spreading them as far apart as he could. Searching my eyes, he told me to put him inside my wetness—another thing he knew I didn’t do. Cupping my hand around him, I swallowed my rules as I tried to wrap my fingers around his girth. Excitement veined throughout me when it proved impossible. His dick was just too big. But huge or not, I gently grabbed it, put the head onto my wetness, and tried to calm my pulsing coochie. Up and down. I rubbed his pole between my wet slit, teasing him and tantalizing myself. I needed my form of foreplay to relax—open up—so he could fit that chocolate monster inside me without damn near splitting me in two like the last time. “I got it,” he said, releasing my right ankle from his grip, placed it on his left shoulder. My breathing labored when I realized that he was putting me in the twist. Right ankle opposite shoulder. Left leg splayed toward the floor, as far as his arm extended. 12 had rotated my landing strip, and was going to work me in a sideways V. I damn near fainted at the thought. In and out, he dipped the head of his thickness into me. My wetness voiced its yearning as it snapped, crackled, and popped with each tease. My pussy was talking to him, begging him for a taste as he continued sliding his head up and down my split. “Fuck me . . . I want every inch.” Biting down on his lip, he lightly pinched my clit, then softly kneaded it with his thumb and index finger. Euphoria moved through me, pushed me to the edge. But I refused to jump. No way was I going to cum without his dick riding me over the rainbow. “Ya sure you want to do this, Sweets?” He slid a couple of inches in me. “Ya know the other reason I go by 12, right?” he asked, teasing and warning me. Baby had damn near a foot-long, but I had my own sweet weapon. “Yeah,” I panted. “Same reason my name’s Sweets.”

• From The Girls (2016)

  After I paid, the man looked at me for a long moment. “You’re just a kid,” he said. “Why don’t you go on home?” I had felt bad for him until then. “I don’t need a bag,” I said, and stuffed the toilet paper in my purse. I was silent while the man gave me change, licking his lips as if to chase away a bad taste. —The girl perked up as I came over. “You get it?” I nodded, and she huddled me around the corner, her arm hurrying me along. I could almost believe I had actually stolen something, adrenaline brightening my veins as I held out my bag. “Ha,” she said, peeking inside. “Serves him right, the asshole. Was it easy?” “Pretty easy,” I said. “He’s so out of it, anyway.” I was thrilling at our collusion, the way we’d become a team. A triangle of stomach showed where the girl’s dress wasn’t fully buttoned. How easily she invoked a kind of sloppy sexual feeling, like her clothes had been hurried on a body still cooling from sweat. “I’m Suzanne,” she said. “By the way.” “Evie.” I stuck out my hand. Suzanne laughed in a way that made me understand shaking hands was the wrong thing to do, a hollow symbol from the straight world. I flushed. It was hard to know how to act without all the usual polite gestures and forms. I wasn’t sure what took their place. There was a silence: I scrambled to fill it. “I think I saw you the other day,” I said. “By the Hi-Ho?” She didn’t respond, giving me nothing to grab on to. “You were with some girls?” I said. “And a bus came?” “Oh,” she said, her face reanimating. “Yeah, that idiot was real mad.” She relaxed into the memory. “I have to keep the other girls in line, you know, or they’d just fall all over themselves. Get us caught.” I was watching Suzanne with an interest that must have been obvious: she let me look at her without any self-consciousness. “I remembered your hair,” I said. Suzanne seemed pleased. Touching the ends, absently. “I never cut it.” I would find out, later, that this was something Russell told them not to do. Suzanne nestled the toilet paper to her chest, suddenly proud. “You want me to give you some money for this?” She had no pockets, no purse. “Nah,” I said. “It’s not like it cost me anything.” “Well, thanks,” she said, with obvious relief. “You live around here?” “Pretty close,” I said. “With my mom.” Suzanne nodded. “What street?” “Morning Star Lane.” She made a hum of surprise. “Fancy.” I could see it meant something to her, me living in the nice part of town, but I couldn’t imagine what, beyond the vague dislike for the rich that all young people had. Mashing up the wealthy and the media and the government into an indistinct vessel of evil, perpetrators of the grand hoax.

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  “Here you go,” Mikala said when she returned. “I hope you can handle ya liquor because it’s kinda strong. My girl tells me you were locked up for a few years. So are you still a thug, or have you left that part of your life behind you?” “Yeah, they locked a brother down for a minute. It’s true that I sold drugs. I’m not ashamed of what I did. However, I’ve grown and moved on to better things in my life now. So do you think that a good girl like ya’self can handle a nigga from the streets like me?” he asked. “We’ll just have to wait and see. All good girls have a bad side to them. You just remember that,” Mikala responded. They talked shit back and forth to each other for a few minutes. Mikala became more and more attracted to Kareem as the alcohol started to filter through her system. She told him about her relationship with Jamel, and he shared a few details about his personal life too. The conversation was getting even more heated when they were interrupted. Pierre and Chastity had returned from the bedroom and both of them had silly grins on their faces as they tried to fix their disheveled clothes. “So are we gonna get this card game started or what? I’m tryin’ to whip y’all butts in some spades tonight,” Pierre said. “Don’t talk shit, nigga. Me and my girl are ready to do our thing. But let’s eat first. We wouldn’t want y’all to get this ass whoopin’ on an empty stomach,” Chastity said. They devoured pizza and buffalo wings while talking trash for the next hour. The first two pitchers of mixed drinks were already history and they were on the second round. Everybody felt loose and you could see the chemistry developing between Mikala and Kareem throughout the night. They couldn’t keep their eyes off of each other. He fondled her thighs under the table and she didn’t resist. In fact, she returned the favor by grabbing hold of his dick and squeezing his thick erection. Chastity and Pierre were feeling the heat too. She leaned over and nibbled his ears while he massaged her full breasts. Chastity and Mikala won the first two games of spades, but lost the next two. Pierre was determined to take this night to another level. He pulled out a sandwich bag full of some of the finest herb that B-More City had to offer. “Y’all trying to smoke?” he asked. “I am, but my girl here doesn’t indulge,” Chastity said. “I don’t need you to speak for me. Yeah, let me hit that shit,” Mikala said.

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  As Life pulled off his shirt, pants, boxers, and shoes, he told me to sit on top of the desk. I did. He caressed my legs, then spread them apart and began kissing the inside of my thick thighs. Next, he took his fingers and began playing with my pussy. My juices began to flow from his persistent fingertip stroking, but that was only the beginning. My new lover dropped lower and stuck his head between my legs. Life licked on my clit like it was an ice-cream cone, until it felt swollen. I threw my head back, finally let go, and began to openly moan. I began throwing the rest of my clothes off until I was completely naked. Life sucked my juices up with passion. I felt high, suspended above the sun. When I opened my eyes and looked down I gasped. My juices were all over his face and chin. Life’s brown skin was glistening, and the sight of his tattoo—a microphone inked over a nasty scar on his neck—made me shake and tremble, as the blissful feeling between my legs took on a life of its own. I closed my eyes and had an orgasm that erupted in one huge creamy wave. I heard a condom wrapper tearing open, and my mouth dropped as he pushed his tool into me and filled me up inside. His warm dick stroked me as he gripped the sides of the desk. I spoke some unintelligible words and Life answered by hitting all my sweetest spots. His focus was completely on pleasing me. That realization made me jut my pussy back and forth in a steady motion. I became so excited that I wrapped my legs around him and the desk began creaking and moving like a seesaw. When Life noticed this, he looked around for another spot. “Come on,” he told me. He lowered me from the desk and carefully laid me down on my boss’s large white rug. “Get on your hands and knees,” Life said. I arched my back sharply and complied, because I wanted to, not because I had to. Life spit between my ass cheeks, then fingered my anus. He began pounding me from behind with powerful and intense thrusts, the way I’d imagined the thugs on music videos did to their hood girls. I gladly gripped my muscles tight around Life’s dick. He responded by smacking my phat ass. “Do you like this shit, baby?” Life asked, burying his dick all the way inside of me. “Yes. Mmmm,” I moaned. “Oh yes!” “Does that bitch-ass, trifling nigga you got at home make you feel this good?” “No—never. He . . . Smooth never . . . He never—” “Then cry for Life, Mommy. If I make this sweet pussy feel good, take it and cry for me,” he said, continuing to thrust himself in and out of my pussy.

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  Again his weight pressed against my flesh as he grabbed my ankles, spreading them as far apart as he could. Searching my eyes, he told me to put him inside my wetness—another thing he knew I didn’t do. Cupping my hand around him, I swallowed my rules as I tried to wrap my fingers around his girth. Excitement veined throughout me when it proved impossible. His dick was just too big. But huge or not, I gently grabbed it, put the head onto my wetness, and tried to calm my pulsing coochie. Up and down. I rubbed his pole between my wet slit, teasing him and tantalizing myself. I needed my form of foreplay to relax—open up—so he could fit that chocolate monster inside me without damn near splitting me in two like the last time. “I got it,” he said, releasing my right ankle from his grip, placed it on his left shoulder. My breathing labored when I realized that he was putting me in the twist. Right ankle opposite shoulder. Left leg splayed toward the floor, as far as his arm extended. 12 had rotated my landing strip, and was going to work me in a sideways V. I damn near fainted at the thought. In and out, he dipped the head of his thickness into me. My wetness voiced its yearning as it snapped, crackled, and popped with each tease. My pussy was talking to him, begging him for a taste as he continued sliding his head up and down my split. “Fuck me . . . I want every inch.” Biting down on his lip, he lightly pinched my clit, then softly kneaded it with his thumb and index finger. Euphoria moved through me, pushed me to the edge. But I refused to jump. No way was I going to cum without his dick riding me over the rainbow. “Ya sure you want to do this, Sweets?” He slid a couple of inches in me. “Ya know the other reason I go by 12, right?” he asked, teasing and warning me. Baby had damn near a foot-long, but I had my own sweet weapon. “Yeah,” I panted. “Same reason my name’s Sweets.”

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  After flying down her own lane, Margarita got into another that crossed the first at right angles. This patched up, darned, crooked and long lane, with the lopsided door of a kerosene shop where they sold paraffin by the cup and liquid against parasites in flacons, she cut across in an instant, and here she realized that, even while completely free and invisible, she still had to be at least somewhat reasonable in her pleasure. Having slowed down only by some miracle, she just missed smashing herself to death against an old lopsided street light at the corner. Dodging it, Margarita clutched the broom tighter and flew more slowly, studying the electric wires and the street signs hanging across the sidewalk. The third lane led straight to the Arbat. Here Margarita became fully accustomed to controlling the broom, realized that it obeyed the slightest touch of her hands and legs, and that, flying over the city, she had to be very attentive and not act up too much. Besides, in the lane it had already become abundantly clear that passers-by did not see the lady flier. No one threw his head back, shouted ‘Look! look!’ or dashed aside, no one shrieked, swooned or guffawed with wild laughter. Margarita flew noiselessly, very slowly, and not high up, approximately on second-floor level. But even with this slow flying, just at the entrance to the dazzlingly lit Arbat she misjudged slightly and struck her shoulder against some illuminated disc with an arrow on it. This angered Margarita. She reined in the obedient broom, flew a little aside, and then, suddenly hurling herself at the disc with the butt of the broom, smashed it to smithereens. Bits of glass rained down with a crash, passers-by shied away, a whistle came from somewhere, and Margarita, having accomplished this unnecessary act, burst out laughing. ‘On the Arbat I must be more careful,’ thought Margarita, ‘everything’s in such a snarl here, you can’t figure it out.’ She began dodging between the wires. Beneath Margarita floated the roofs of buses, trams and cars, and along the sidewalks, as it seemed to Margarita from above, floated rivers of caps. From these rivers little streams branched off and flowed into the flaming maws of night-time shops. ‘Eh, what a mess!’ Margarita thought angrily. ‘You can’t even turn around here.’ She crossed the Arbat, rose higher, to fourth-floor level, and, past the dazzlingly bright tubes on the theatre building at the corner, floated into a narrow lane with tall buildings. All the windows in them were open, and everywhere radio music came from the windows. Out of curiosity, Margarita peeked into one of them.

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  Woland, Fagott and the cat turned their heads in the direction of the master of ceremonies. ‘Did I express admiration?’ the magician asked the checkered Fagott. ‘By no means, Messire, you never expressed any admiration,’ came the reply. ‘Then what is the man saying?’ ‘He quite simply lied!’ the checkered assistant declared sonorously, for the whole theatre to hear, and turning to Bengalsky, he added: ‘Congrats, citizen, you done lied!’ Tittering spattered from the gallery, but Bengalsky gave a start and goggled his eyes. ‘Of course, I’m not so much interested in buses, telephones and other . . .’ ‘Apparatuses,’ the checkered one prompted. ‘Quite right, thank you,’ the magician spoke slowly in a heavy bass, ‘as in a question of much greater importance: have the city folk changed inwardly?’ ‘Yes, that is the most important question, sir.’ There was shrugging and an exchanging of glances in the wings, Bengalsky stood all red, and Rimsky was pale. But here, as if sensing the nascent alarm, the magician said: ‘However, we’re talking away, my dear Fagott, and the audience is beginning to get bored. Show us some simple little thing to start with.’ The audience stirred. Fagott and the cat walked along the footlights to opposite sides of the stage. Fagott snapped his fingers, and with a rollicking ‘Three, four!’ snatched a deck of cards from the air, shuffled it, and sent it in a long ribbon to the cat. The cat intercepted it and sent it back. The satiny snake whiffled, Fagott opened his mouth like a nestling and swallowed it all card by card. After which the cat bowed, scraping his right hind paw, winning himself unbelievable applause. ‘Class! Real class!’ rapturous shouts came from the wings. And Fagott jabbed his finger at the stalls and announced: ‘You’ll find that same deck, esteemed citizens, on citizen Parchevsky in the seventh row, just between a three-rouble bill and a summons to court in connection with the payment of alimony to citizeness Zelkova.’ There was a stirring in the stalls, people began to get up, and finally some citizen whose name was indeed Parchevsky, all crimson with amazement, extracted the deck from his wallet and began sticking it up in the air, not knowing what to do with it. ‘You may keep it as a souvenir!’ cried Fagott. ‘Not for nothing did you say at dinner yesterday that if it weren’t for poker your life in Moscow would be utterly unbearable.’ ‘An old trick!’ came from the gallery. ‘The one in the stalls is from the same company.’ ‘You think so?’ shouted Fagott, squinting at the gallery. ‘In that case you’re also one of us, because the deck is now in your pocket!’ There was movement in the balcony, and a joyful voice said: ‘Right! He’s got it! Here, here! . . . Wait! It’s ten-rouble bills!’ Those sitting in the stalls turned their heads.

• From Saint Augustine (Penguin Lives) (1999)

  I think we make enough concession to our times if any pure steam of Plotinus is channeled through dark and thorny tangles to refresh a few, rather than be loosed indiscriminately in the open, where its purity cannot be preserved from the random tramplings of cattle. Augustine now misses his Neoplatonist friends in Milan the way he missed his Manichean friends in Carthage. But at Cassiciacum he feels he has a new mission, whereas in Thagaste he had no heart for his teaching after Amicus’ death. Life at Cassiciacum was not all high theorizing. Since he meant for his encyclopedic work to build up toward God from the basis of the liberal arts, Augustine continued to teach Virgil to the three prize pupils he had brought with him, adapting the poem to his Neoplatonist conception of the universe. He also used his pupils, friends, and relatives to conduct the conversations which were raw material for his rapidly assembled and edited dialogues—those on order in the universe, on happiness in this life, and on the refutation of skepticism. His use of this material can be seen in the dialogue describing order in the universe. The work begins on a sleepless night when Augustine hears one pupil—Licentius from Thagaste, the son of Romanian—throw a shoe at a rat. Lying in the dark, Augustine wonders why sounds of a water channel near their bedroom gurgle to a stop, at times, then gush on again. The boy answers that leaves probably clog it until a buildup of water flushes them forward. Augustine congratulates him on his reasoning to a cause, and invites him to consider the ordering of all causes in philosophy. So excited does Licentius become at these new insights that he yodels an Ambrosian psalm while sitting at dawn in the outhouse. Monnica, whose singing he is imitating, thinks the song irreverent in that place. But Augustine says the place was appropriate, since the soul purges its darkness as the body does its waste (O 1.8). These early dialogues bubble with a sense of creative beginnings. But Augustine’s new life was not as securely under his control as he could at times imagine. In the dialogue with himself, Reason asks if Augustine is free of sexual temptations and he says yes (1.17). But the next day Reason asks if he was not tormented the night before by “imagined caresses soliciting you with the old bitter-sweetness” (1.25) and he must admit that he was. His earlier jauntiness was that of Hilaire Belloc with his troubled self: I said to Heart “How goes it?” Heart replied: “Right as a ribstone pippin!” But it lied. 4. Milan: 387

• From Laura Middleton; Her Brother and Her Lover (1890)

  Another scene of delicious toying succeeded. The darling objects which had already given us so much delight were again investigated and admired, and each new proof of the bliss they were capable of conferring upon us only made us more eager to offer up our worship to them. Another delicious combat succeeded. Sir Charles this time took the combat-position, and I again received his member within me. But my concern being now well saturated with the blissful libations that had been already poured into it, the monster slipped into me this time with very little difficulty. Frank, on the other hand, was delighted as well as surprised to discover that he had no easy task to force his way into the agreeable fortress he was about to storm in Sir Charles' rear. But the difficulty only enhanced the pleasure when the breach was fairly made, and the invader revelled in full and undisputed possession of the interior works. And if I might judge from the exclamations of delight, they both enjoyed themselves to their hearts' content when they had once gained admission to their respective destinations. So much so that after they had run one course they gave no signs of wishing to change their positions. I put my hand behind to ascertain the state of matters, and found both the heroes still in such an excited condition that I said if they were disposed to break another lance in the same lists I was quite willing to keep my place, provided Sir Charles would take my charger in hand and lead him on to participate in the pleasing conflict. This proposal was highly approved of and at once carried into effect, to the entire satisfaction of all parties. After this I made Sir Charles leave us, not wishing that we should be entirely worked out as I was quite aware poor Laura would be in a sad state if she found that we were unable to do anything in the way of appeasing her longings after the excitement she must have undergone while witnessing our voluptuous proceedings. As soon as he was gone, Laura made her appearance and scolded us heartily for having wasted so much of our precious strength and enjoyed ourselves so completely without her. But as we each contrived to give her pretty satisfactory proof that we had not spent all our treasures, we soon put her in a good humour again; especially as Sir Charles was to leave on the next day, when she would have us all to herself again.

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  Chastity went into the kitchen to get a drink then called out, “Nah, girl, this drink ain’t hardly too strong. It’s just right. I’m trying to get a little tipsy tonight. Turn on the stereo. I wanna hear some music.” Mikala went over to the CD player and popped in a DJ Whoo Kid mix tape to get the party started. She threw in two other rap mix CDs that were put out by a couple of local DJs. She planned to end the night off with the soulful sounds of a Slow Jams mix tape that included songs from R. Kelly, Ginuwine, and Gerald Levert, amongst a host of others. Relaxing on the couch Mikala heard the doorbell ring. It was the delivery man and as she paid him for their food she glanced behind him and laid her eyes on the finest Black man she had ever seen in her life. There was a tall light-skinned brother standing right next to him. She dropped every dime of her money as she tried to hand it to the delivery guy. “Damn, Ma, are you okay? My name is Kareem. This is my friend, Pierre. You must be Mikala. Am I correct?” he asked. “That’s right. I’m Mikala. It’s nice to meet both of you. Come on in,” she said. Mikala’s heart raced as she looked at Kareem’s pretty white teeth. He had on a pair of baggy jean shorts and a G-Unit wife-beater. His head was bald, and his lips looked so tasty she wanted to take him in the bedroom and have her way with him right then and there. Pierre and Kareem walked into the apartment and she followed behind them. Her nose was blessed by a whiff of the Onyx cologne by Azzaro. Damn, he’s a fine specimen, she thought. Chastity zeroed in on Pierre. “What’s up, sexy? I see everybody has met. Pierre, come help me out with something in the bedroom for a minute while these two get acquainted,” “So, Mikala,” Kareem said after they left. “My man Pierre tells me you’re an engineer—is that right?” Kareem asked. “Yes, I am. I like what I do and my job pays me well,” she replied. “I can feel you on that. I got several contracts across the city to clean up a few big office buildings. The money is good and the work ain’t that hard,” he said. “Do you want something to drink?” Mikala asked quickly. She had a low tolerance for alcohol, so the one drink she had downed had her buzzing. “Yeah, I’ll have a glass of whatever you’re drinking,” he replied. She went into the kitchen to get him a daiquiri and fixed another one for herself.

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  That made him laugh. His hands was running all over my body again. He asked if I had some lotion. I quickly dug a tube out of the side pocket of my silver and lime green camouflage handbag. He gently scooped his hand between my legs and gathered the juice from my pussy and thighs. He mixed it with a big blob of lotion. He started stroking his dick until it stood out so stiff that it looked like a lethal weapon. It glistened in the amber glow spilling from a streetlight. “Work the tip for me. That’s where I can really feel it,” he said, climbing to a stand and leaning against the wall with his pants around his ankles. I grabbed him a little too tight at first. He scolded playfully, “Hold up, Killa!” At first I was embarrassed but we started laughin’ again and then he started showing me exactly how he liked it rubbed and stroked. I caught on quick. I could tell he liked my touch by the look in his pretty dark brown eyes—all sexy and dreamy-like. “You ready to ride Big Black?” “Been ready,” I said with much attitude. I crouched down into a squat right over his long thick dick. He was definitely ready to fuck. His dick was hard as a baseball bat, but he looked so cocky I promised myself that once I swallowed that big muthafucka up inside, I was gonna give him some’m to think about . . . with his cocky ass. After I got used to bouncin’ his tip in and out of me, I started takin’ it deeper and deeper. It felt like too much at first, but after I slid up and down awhile, my pussy was like, “Thank! You! Laaawd! This what a dick is spoze to feel like!” Not only did Dushawn keep a hard dick, he knew how to r-r-r-rock that muthafucka! When I’d go down, he’d come up to meet me! Then he’d grind his coarse dick hair back and forth across my clit. I had never even made my own self cum twice, but round two was ’bout to jump off with Dushawn. As good as it felt, I didn’t want that to happen yet. I wanted to make his cocky-ass lose control. I didn’t know what the fuck I was doin’, but I had watched enough of my uncle Ray Ray’s pornos to fake it. I stopped for a few seconds, came back down, and commenced to workin’ my tight pussy up and down Dushawn’s dick like a wood chipper. My braids were flappin’, my hips were snappin’, and my back was crackin’ like a whip. I’d take it up to the tip and then spiral down, like a merry-go-round. As soon as I started talkin’ shit—tellin’ him how much I liked the way he tossed back that big black dick—his eyes rolled back and his body started to buck.

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  “Is that a fact? I got some more tricks for you then. Didn’t know I was dealing with a closet freak. But a brotha came prepared,” I told her, reaching back into my bag and pulling out my anal starter kit. Rasheeda was an anal virgin and had run scared every time my dick got anywhere near her ass. “What’s that!” Rasheeda blurted. Ignoring her, I applied a liberal amount of oil to the four-inch anal vibrator, then turned it on low. Slowly, I rubbed the tip of it up and down her asshole. “Don’t . . .” she began, then contradicted herself. Wiggling her ass and warming up to the probe, she moaned and nodded. “Ready?” I gently inserted the toy in her ass and worked it all the way in. Rasheeda buried her face into the pillow, and gripped its edges. Moving her delicious chocolate in rhythm with the vibrator, she loosened up. “This tight ass of yours is getting something it never had before. Didn’t know you would like it, did you?” I asked, as I slowly stroked her with the toy. Rasheeda didn’t respond, just continued to muffle her pleasurable cries with the pillow. Reaching back into my bag of tricks I pulled out a seven-inch vibrator and turned it on. She was oblivious to the new toy until I pushed the tip of it against her engorged clit. “Euftis!” Rasheeda blurted out, lifting her head up as far as she could. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay,” I coaxed, slowly inserting the vibrator inside of her pussy. No lube was required. She was dripping wet. “Daddy is just gonna fuck both your holes real good,” I said, soothing her again as I began fucking her with both toys. “Ooooohhhhhhh . . .” she moaned. “Yes, baby. Give it to Daddy.” “Oooohhhhh,” she yelled out as her body began to shake. She was cumming. “Yessssssssssssssss . . . that’s it. That’s it!” I said as I tossed the toys on the floor, and buried my face between her legs. I flicked the tip of my tongue across her vagina. “What are you doing to me!” she exclaimed, gripping my head. “Spelling . . . my . . . name,” I told her innocently. “Oh shit!” “See . . . watch,” I told her as my tongue drew an E on her pussy. Rasheeda trembled when I tongued a U. Twitched after the F. Bucked when I crossed the T. Shivered from the I. Came when I snaked an S between her slit. Suddenly Rasheeda turned the tables on me. “Whose dick is this?” she asked, grasping and holding my dick. It ain’t yours! I thought. “You don’t know her,” I replied coolly.