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 64 of 182 · 20 per page

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Afterward, a handsome German officer approached her in the garden and asked for her help in passing along a request to the emperor. Pauline said she would do her best, and then, with a rather mysterious look in her eye, asked him to come back to the same spot the next night. The officer returned, and was greeted by a young woman who led him to some rooms near the garden and then to a magnificent salon, complete with an extravagant bath. Moments later, another young woman entered through a side door, dressed in the sheerest garments. It was Pauline. Bells were rung, ropes were pulled, and maids appeared, preparing the bath, giving the offi- cer a dressing gown, then disappearing. The officer later described the eve- ning as something out of a fairy tale, and he had the feeling that Pauline was deliberately acting the part of some mythical seductress. Pauline was beautiful and powerful enough to get almost any man she wanted, and she wasn't interested simply in luring a man into bed; she wanted to envelop him in romantic adventure, seduce his mind. Part of the adventure was the feeling that she was playing a role, and was inviting her target along into this shared fantasy. Role playing is immensely pleasurable. Its appeal goes back to child- hood, where we first learn the thrill of trying on different parts, imitating adults or figures out of fiction. As we get older and society fixes a role on us, a part of us yearns for the playful approach we once had, the masks we were able to wear. We still want to play that game, to act a different role in life. Indulge your targets in this wish by first making it clear that you are playing a role, then inviting them to join you in a shared fantasy. The more you set things up like a play or a piece of fiction, the better. Notice how Pauline began the seduction with a mysterious request that the officer reap- pear the next night; then a second woman led him into a magical series of rooms. Pauline herself delayed her entrance, and when she appeared, she did not mention his business with Napoleon, or anything remotely banal. She had an ethereal air about her; he was being invited to enter a fairy tale. The evening was real, but had an uncanny resemblance to an erotic dream. Casanova took role playing still further. He traveled with an enormous wardrobe and a trunk full of props, many of them gifts for his targets— fans, jewels, other accouterments. And some of the things he said and did were borrowed from novels he had read and stories he had heard. He en- veloped women in a romantic atmosphere that was heightened yet quite real to their senses. Like Casanova, you must see the world as a kind of the- ater.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Then he would take her on a little trip, preferably with water around. Slowly the rest of the world would fade into the background, and Flynn would take center stage. The more your targets think of you, the less they are distracted by thoughts of work and duty. When the mind focuses on one thing it relaxes, and when the mind relaxes, all the little paranoid thoughts that we are prone to—do you really like me, am I intelligent or beautiful enough, what does the future hold—vanish from the surface. Re- member: it all starts with you. Be undistracted, present in the moment, and the target will follow suit. The intense gaze of the hypnotist creates a simi- lar reaction in the patient. Once the target's overactive mind starts to slow down, their senses will come to life, and your physical lures will have double their power. Now a heated glance will give them flush. You will have a tendency to employ physical lures that work primarily on the eyes, the sense we most rely on in our culture. Physical appearances are critical, but you are after a general agi- tation of the senses. La Belle Otero made sure men noticed her breasts, her figure, her perfume, her walk; no part was allowed to predominate. The senses are interconnected—an appeal to smell will trigger touch, an appeal to touch will trigger vision: casual or "accidental" contact—better a brush- ing of the skin than something more forceful right now—will create a jolt and activate the eyes. Subtly modulate the voice, make it slower and deeper. Living senses will crowd out rational thought. In the eighteenth-century libertine novel The Wayward Head and Heart, by Crébillon fils, Madame de Lursay is trying to seduce a younger man, Meilcour. Her weapons are several. One night at a party she is hosting, she wears a revealing gown; her hair is slightly tousled; she throws him heated glances; her voice trembles a bit. When they are alone, she innocently gets him to sit close to her, and talks more slowly; at one point she starts to cry. Meilcour has many reasons to resist her; he has fallen in love with a girl his own age, and he has heard rumors about Madame de Lursay that should make him distrust her. But the clothes, the looks, the perfume, the voice, the closeness of her body, the tears—it all begins to overwhelm him. "An indescribable agitation stirred my senses." Meilcour succumbs. The French libertines of the eighteenth century called this "the mo- ment."

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Being in such a place becomes a drug. To re-create the effect, remember Warhol's metaphor of the children's TV Appendix A: Seductive Environment/Seductive Time • 437 438 • Appendix A: Seductive Environment/Seductive Time show. Keep everything light and playful, full of distractions, noise, color, and a bit of chaos. No weight, responsibilities, or judgments. A place to lose yourself in. 3. In 1746, a seventeen-year-old girl named Cristina had come to the city of Venice, Italy, with her uncle, a priest, in search of a husband. Cristina was from a small village but had a substantial dowry to offer. The Venetian men who were willing to marry her, however, did not please her. So after two weeks of futile searching, she and her uncle prepared to return to their village. They were seated in their gondola, about to leave the city, when Cristina saw an elegantly dressed young man walking toward them. "There's a handsome fellow!" she said to her uncle. "I wish he was in the boat with us." The gentleman could not have heard this, yet he approached, handed the gondolier some money, and sat down beside Cristina, much to her delight. He introduced himself as Jacques Casanova. When the priest complimented him on his friendly manners, Casanova replied, "Perhaps I should not have been so friendly, my reverend father, if I had not been at- tracted by the beauty of your niece." Cristina told him why they had come to Venice and why they were leaving. Casanova laughed and chided her—a man cannot decide to marry a girl after seeing her for a few days. He must know more about her charac- ter; it would take at least six months. He himself was looking for a wife, and he explained to her why he had been as disappointed by the girls he had met as she had been disappointed by the men. Casanova seemed to have no destination; he simply accompanied them, entertaining Cristina the whole way with witty conversation. When the gondola arrived at the edge of Venice, Casanova hired a carriage to the nearby city of Treviso and invited them to join him. From there they could catch a chaise to their vil- lage. The uncle accepted, and on the way to their carriage, Casanova of- fered his arm to Cristina. What would his mistress say if she saw them, she asked. "I have no mistress," he answered, "and I shall never have one again, for I shall never find such a pretty girl as you—no, not in Venice." His words went to her head, filling it with all kinds of strange thoughts, and she began to talk and act in a manner that was new to her, becoming almost brazen. What a pity she could not stay in Venice for the six months he needed to get to know a girl, she told Casanova.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  We had a pleasant business conference. I walked out into the hot September sunshine a contented pauper. Now that everything had been put out of the way, I could dedicate myself freely to the main object of my visit to Ramsdale. In the methodical manner on which I have always prided myself, I had been keeping Clare Quilty’s face masked in my dark dungeon, where he was waiting for me to come with barber and priest: “Réveillez-vous, Laqueue, il est temps de mourir!” I have no time right now to discuss the mnemonics of physiognomization—I am on my way to his uncle and walking fast—but let me jot down this: I had preserved in the alcohol of a clouded memory the toad of a face. In the course of a few glimpses, I had noticed its slight resemblance to a cheery and rather repulsive wine dealer, a relative of mine in Switzerland. With his dumbbells and stinking tricot, and fat hairy arms, and bald patch, and pig-faced servant-concubine, he was on the whole a harmless old rascal. Too harmless, in fact, to be confused with my prey. In the state of mind I now found myself, I had lost contact with Trapp’s image. It had become completely engulfed by the face of Clare Quilty—as represented, with artistic precision, by an easeled photograph of him that stood on his uncle’s desk. In Beardsley, at the hands of charming Dr. Molnar, I had undergone a rather serious dental operation, retaining only a few upper and lower front teeth. The substitutes were dependent on a system of plates with an inconspicuous wire affair running along my upper gums. The whole arrangement was a masterpiece of comfort, and my canines were in perfect health. However, to garnish my secret purpose with a plausible pretext, I told Dr. Quilty that, in hope of alleviating facial neuralgia, I had decided to have all my teeth removed. What would a complete set of dentures cost? How long would the process take, assuming we fixed our first appointment for some time in November? Where was his famous nephew now? Would it be possible to have them all out in one dramatic session? A white-smocked, gray-haired man, with a crew cut and the big flat cheeks of a politician, Dr. Quilty perched on the corner of his desk, one foot dreamily and seductively rocking as he launched on a glorious long-range plan. He would first provide me with provisional plates until the gums settled. Then he would make me a permanent set. He would like to have a look at that mouth of mine. He wore perforated pied shoes. He had not visited with the rascal since 1946, but supposed he could be found at his ancestral home, Grimm Road, not far from Parkington. It was a noble dream.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Kennedy is a special case, perhaps, in that his assassination made him a martyr, reinforcing the process of idealization that he had already set in motion. But he is not the only example of an Ideal Lover whose attrac- tion survives unpleasant revelations; these figures unleash such powerful fantasies, and there is such a hunger for the myths and ideals they have to sell, that they are often quickly forgiven. Still, it is always wise to be pru- dent, and to keep people from glimpsing the less-than-ideal side of your character. Most of us feel trapped within the limited roles that the world expects us to play. We are instantly attracted to those who are more fluid, more ambiguous, than we are—those who create their own persona. Dandies excite us because they can- not be categorized, and hint at a freedom we want for ourselves. They play with masculinity and femininity; they fashion their own physical image, which is always startling; they are mysteri- ous and elusive. They also appeal to the narcissism of each sex: to a woman they are psychologically female, to a man they are male. Dandies fascinate and seduce in large numbers. Use the power of the Dandy to create an ambiguous, alluring presence that stirs repressed desires. The Feminine Dandy W hen the eighteen-year-old Rodolpho Guglielmi emigrated from Italy to the United States in 1913, he came with no particular skills apart from his good looks and his dancing prowess. To put these qualities to advantage, he found work in the thes dansants, the Manhattan dance halls where young girls would go alone or with friends and hire a taxi dancer for a brief thrill. The taxi dancer would expertly twirl them around the dance floor, flirting and chatting, all for a small fee. Guglielmi soon made a name as one of the best—so graceful, poised, and pretty. In working as a taxi dancer, Guglielmi spent a great deal of time around women. He quickly learned what pleased them—how to mirror them in subtle ways, how to put them at ease (but not too much). He began to pay attention to his clothes, creating his own dapper look: he danced with a corset under his shirt to give himself a trim figure, sported a wristwatch (considered effeminate in those days), and claimed to be a marquis. In 1915, he landed a job demonstrating the tango in fancy restaurants, and changed his name to the more evocative Rodolpho di Valentina. A year later he moved to Los Angeles: he wanted to try to make it in Hollywood. Now known as Rudolph Valentino, Guglielmi appeared as an extra in several low-budget pictures.

• From Memoirs of Hadrian (1951)

  One was Dio Cassius in Henri Estienne's beautiful printing, and the other a volume of an ordinary edition of Historia Augusta, the two principal sources for Hadrian's life, purchased at the time that I was intending to write this book. Everything that the world, and I, had gone through in the interval now served to enrich these chronicles of an earlier age, and threw upon that imperial existence certain other lights and other shades. Once I had thought chiefly of the man of letters, the traveller, the poet, the lover; none of that had faded, to be sure, but now for the first time I could see among all those figures, standing out with great clarity of line, the most official and yet the most hidden form of all, that of the emperor. The fact of having lived in a world which is toppling around us had taught me the importance of the Prince. I fell to making, and then re-making, this portrait of a man who was almost wise. Only one other figure in history has tempted me with nearly the same insistence: Omar Khayyam, the poet-astronomer. But the life of Khayyam is that of the pure contemplator, and of the somber skeptic, too; the world of action meant little to him. Furthermore, I do not know Persia, nor do I know its language. Another thing virtually impossible, to take a feminine character as a central figure, to make Plotina, for example, rather than Hadrian, the axis of my narrative. Women's lives are much too limited, or else too secret. If a woman does recount her own life she is promptly reproached for being no longer truly feminine. It is already hard enough to give some element of truth to the utterances of a man. I left for Taos, in New Mexico, taking with me the blank sheets for a fresh start on the book (the swimmer who plunges into the water with no assurance that he will reach the other shore). Closed inside my compartment as if in a cubicle of some Egyptian tomb, I worked late into the night between New York and Chicago; then all the next day, in the restaurant of a Chicago station where I awaited a train blocked by storms and snow; then again until dawn, alone in the observation car of a Santa Fe limited, surrounded by black spurs of the Colorado mountains, and by the eternal pattern of the stars. Thus were written at a single impulsion the passages on food, love, sleep, and the knowledge of men. I can hardly recall a day spent with more ardor, or more lucid nights.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Only after de Gaulle had returned to France did the words of his speeches sink in: not once had he promised to keep Algeria French. In fact he had hinted that he might give the Arabs the vote, and might grant an amnesty to the Algerian rebels who had been fighting to force the French from the country. Somehow, in the excitement his words had created, the colonists had failed to focus on what they had actually meant. De Gaulle had duped them. And indeed, in the months to come, he worked to grant Algeria its independence—a task he finally accomplished in 1962. Interpretation. De Gaulle cared little about an old French colony, and about what it symbolized to some French people. Nor did he have any sympathy for anyone who fomented civil war. His one concern was to make France a modern power. And so, when he went to Algiers, he had a long-term plan: weaken the right-wingers by getting them to fight among themselves, and work toward Algerian independence. His short-term goal had to be to defuse the tension and buy himself some time. He would not lie to the colonials by saying he supported their cause—that would cause trouble back home. Instead he would beguile them with seductive oratory, intoxicate them with words. His famous "I have understood you" could easily have meant, "I understand what a danger you represent." But a jubi- lant crowd expecting his support read it the way they wanted. To keep them at a fever pitch, de Gaulle made emotional references—to the French Resistance during World War II, for example, and to the need for "disci- pline," a word with great appeal to right-wingers. He filled their ears with promises—a new government, a glorious future. He got them to chant, creating an emotional bond. He spoke with dramatic pitch and quivering emotion. His words created a kind of delirium. De Gaulle was not trying to express his feelings or speak the truth; he was trying to produce an effect. This is the key to seductive oratory. Whether you are talking to a single individual or to a crowd, try a little ex- periment: rein in your desire to speak your mind. Before you open your mouth, ask yourself a question: what can I say that will have the most pleasant effect on my listeners? Often this entails flattering their egos, assuaging their insecurities, giving them vague hopes for the future, sympa- thizing with their travails ("I have understood you"). Start off with some- thing pleasant and everything to come will be easy: people's defenses will go down. They will grow amenable, open to suggestion. Think of your words as an intoxicating drug that will make people emotional and con- fused.

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  "Yes, as Prince Alexi was reborn," Beauty thought, her heart pounding. She wondered if anyone could see her perplexity and excitement. She saw the distant Prince Tristan among the others, his blue eyes calmly fixed to the back of his master, Lord Stefan. Her mind was filled with lurid visions. And what was it Alexi had said, that such a punishment had been merciful and that if she found it too difficult to learn slowly, she might make herself ripe for some heavier punishment? Lady Juliana was shaking her head and making little tisks. "But it is only Spring now," she said. "Why, the poor darlings will be there forever. Ah, the heat, the flies, and the labor. You cannot imagine how they are used, and the soldiers crowding the taverns and the Inns, at last able to buy for a few coins a lovely Prince or Princess that they should never possess in a lifetime." "You make too much of it," the Prince insisted. "But would you send your own slave!" Lord Stefan appealed to him again. "I don't want him to go!" he murmured, "and yet I condemned him and before the Queen." "Then you have no choice, and yes, I would send my own slave, though no slave of the Queen or the Crown Prince has ever been so punished." The Prince turned his back to the slaves almost contemptuously. But Beauty continued to look, as the beautiful Prince Tristan commenced to push his way forward. He reached the fence and though a haughty guard who was having much sport with the group flailed at him with the leather belt, he did not move nor show the slightest discomfort. "Ah, he is appealing to you," Lady Juliana sighed, and at once Lord Stefan turned and the two young men faced each other. "Beauty watched as if in a trance as Lord Tristan knelt now slowly and gracefully and kissed the ground before his master. "It's too late," said the Prince, "and this little sign of affection and humility counts for nothing." Prince Tristan rose and stood with his eyes down in perfect patience. And Lord Stefan rushed forward and reaching over the fence embraced him immediately. He crushed Prince Tristan to his chest and kissed him all over his face and his hair. The captive Prince, his hands bound to the back of his neck, quietly returned the kisses. The Prince was in a rage. Lady Juliana was laughing. The Prince pulled Lord Stefan away and said they must leave these miserable slaves now. Tomorrow they would be in the village. Beauty lay on her bed afterwards unable to think of anything but the little group in the prison yard. Yet she saw too the narrow crooked streets of the villages she'd passed on her journey. She remembered the Inns with their painted signs over the gates, the half-timbered houses shadowing her path, and those tiny, diamond-pained windows.

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  She used Yardley’s English Lavender and the whole cabin reeked of it. Our problem for the duration of the five-and-a-half-day crossing was where to fuck. My cabin was out, since the French nurse seemed to sleep all day and the English and German ladies retired at nine. Once we tried skipping lunch so as to have Charlie’s cabin while all three old codgers were out eating, but one of them came back and rattled the door angrily just as we were getting started. So we began scouring the ship for places to fuck. We were that determined. You’d think it would be easy on an old ship as full of nooks and crannies as the Queen Elizabeth, but it wasn’t. The linen closets were locked, the lifeboats were too high to climb into, the public rooms were too public, the nursery was full of toddlers, and we couldn’t find any empty cabins. I suggested using one of the first-class cabins while the people were out, but Charlie was chicken. “What if they come back?” he asked. “They’d probably be too embarrassed to say anything anyway—or else they’d automatically think they were in the wrong cabin and by the time they searched around and found the steward, we’d be gone.” Jesus, was I a pragmatist compared to Charlie! What a scaredy cat he was! My fear of flying, after all, lets me ride on planes as long as I agree to suffer through the whole flight in terror, but his fear of flying was so bad that he wouldn’t even go near a plane. That was how we wound up in this predicament in the first place. But we finally found a place. The only deserted place on board. An absolutely perfect place—both symbolically and practically (except that it had no bed): the Jewish Chapel in tourist class. “This is fantastic!” I yelled when we fumbled for the light and realized what room it was we had found. What a setting! Pews! A Star of David! Even a Torah—for Christ’s sake! I was really turned on. “I’ll just pretend I’m a vestal virgin or something,” I said, starting to unzip Charlie. “But there’s no lock on the door!” he protested. “Who’s going to come in here anyway? Certainly not all our WASP fellow-travelers and Anglican crewmen. Besides, we can just turn out the light again. Anyone who stumbles in will think we’re davining or something. What do they know about Jewish services?” “They’ll probably mistake you for the burning bush,” he said snidely. “Very funny.” I was stepping out of my underpants and switching off the light. But we only got to screw in the sight of God once, because the next day when we returned to our little temple of love, we found it padlocked.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  The road now stretched across open country, and it occurred to me—not by way of protest, not as a symbol, or anything like that, but merely as a novel experience—that since I had disregarded all laws of humanity, I might as well disregard the rules of traffic. So I crossed to the left side of the highway and checked the feeling, and the feeling was good. It was a pleasant diaphragmal melting, with elements of diffused tactility, all this enhanced by the thought that nothing could be nearer to the elimination of basic physical laws than deliberately driving on the wrong side of the road. In a way, it was a very spiritual itch. Gently, dreamily, not exceeding twenty miles an hour, I drove on that queer mirror side. Traffic was light. Cars that now and then passed me on the side I had abandoned to them, honked at me brutally. Cars coming towards me wobbled, swerved, and cried out in fear. Presently I found myself approaching populated places. Passing through a red light was like a sip of forbidden Burgundy when I was a child. Meanwhile complications were arising. I was being followed and escorted. Then in front of me I saw two cars placing themselves in such a manner as to completely block my way. With a graceful movement I turned off the road, and after two or three big bounces, rode up a grassy slope, among surprised cows, and there I came to a gentle rocking stop. A kind of thoughtful Hegelian synthesis linking up two dead women.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  He had also spent years away in Europe, isolated from his people and immersed in reading and intellectual argument. Most important, his party was small, representing only a splinter group within the loosely organized left coalition. Few took him seriously as a national leader. Undaunted, Lenin went to work. Wherever he went, he repeated the same simple message: end the war, establish the rule of the proletariat, abolish private property, redistribute wealth. Exhausted with the nation's endless political infighting and the complexity of its problems, people be- gan to listen. Lenin was so determined, so confident. He never lost his cool. In the midst of a raucous debate, he would simply and logically de- bunk each one of his adversaries' points. Workers and soldiers were im- He is their god. He leads them like a thing \ Made by some other deity than nature, \ That shapes man better; and they follow him \ Against us brats with no less confidence \ Than boys pursuing summer butterflies \ Or butchers killing flies. . . . —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, CORIOLANUS The roof did lift as Presley came onstage. He sang for twenty-five minutes while the audience erupted like Mount Vesuvius. "I never saw such excitement and screaming in my entire life, ever before or since," said [film director Hal] Kanter. As an observer, he describ-ed being stunned by "an exhibition of public mass hysteria . . . a tidal wave of adoration surging up from 9,000 people, over the wall of police flanking the stage, up over the flood-lights, to the performer and beyond him, lifting him to frenzied heights of response." —A DESCRIPTION OF ELVIS PRESLEY'S CONCERT AT THE HAYRIDE THEATER, SHREVEPORT, LOUISIANA, DECEMBER 17, 1956, IN PETER WHITMER, THE INNER ELVIS: A PSYCHOLOGICAL BIOGRAPHY OF ELVIS AARON PRESLEY 108 • The Art of Seduction pressed by his firmness. Once, in the midst of a brewing riot, Lenin amazed his chauffeur by jumping onto the running board of his car and directing the way through the crowd, at considerable personal risk. Told that his ideas had nothing to do with reality, he would answer, "So much the worse for reality!" Allied to Lenin's messianic confidence in his cause was his ability to or- ganize. Exiled in Europe, his party had been scattered and diminished; in keeping them together he had developed immense practical skills. In front of a large crowd, he was a also powerful orator. His speech at the First All- Russian Soviet Congress made a sensation; either revolution or a bourgeois government, he cried, but nothing in between—enough of this compro- mise in which the left was sharing.

• From How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain (2017)

  This little evolutionary story is the beginning of a longer tale about your brain and the other brains around you. In the next seven short lessons, we’ll take a tour of remarkable scientific findings in neuroscience, psychology, and anthropology that have revolutionized our understanding of what happens inside your skull. You’ll learn what makes the human brain distinctive in an animal kingdom full of astonishing brains. You’ll explore how infant brains gradually transform into adult brains. And you’ll discover how different kinds of human minds can arise from a single human brain structure. We’ll even tackle the question of reality: What gives us the power to invent customs, rules, and civilizations? Along the way, we’ll revisit body budgeting and prediction and their central roles in creating your actions and your experiences. We’ll also uncover the powerful connections between your brain, your body, and other human brains-in-bodies. By the end of this book, I hope you will delight, as I do, in knowing that your thinking cap is for much more than thinking. Buy the Book Visit marinerbooks.com or your favorite retailer to purchase the book in its entirety. About the Author LISA FELDMAN BARRETT, Ph.D., is a University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, with appointments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in psychiatry and radiology. She received an NH Director’s Pioneer Award for her groundbreaking research on emotion in the brain. She lives in Boston. Learn more at www.lisafeldmanbarrett.com Connect on Social Media Follow us for book news, reviews, author updates, exclusive content, giveaways, and more. Footnotes * When I use the word “body” in this book, I am excluding the brain, as in the sentence, “Your brain tells your body to move.” To refer to the entire body including the brain, I write “the anatomical body.” [back] * In this book, I use initial capitals and double quotation marks to denote an emotion in general, such as “Fear,” as opposed to a single instance of fear. [back] * For a quick overview of brain terminology—neurons, lobes, and so on—see appendix A. [back] * Actually, we have two amygdalae, one each in the left and right temporal lobes. [back] * I sometimes hear comments from emotion researchers who subscribe to the classical view: “What about these other fifty studies, with these thousands of subjects, that show incontrovertible evidence for emotion fingerprints?”

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  Though she denied it, we secretly told each other that she had probably “gone all the way.” “At the very least, she’s a demi-vierge,” Pia said. I nodded knowingly. Later I looked it up. There were only two boys who were allowed into the group, and we treated them as scornfully as possible to make sure they understood they were only there on sufferance. Since they were our classmates and not “college men,” we wanted it clear that we would only consider them as “platonic” friends. John Stock was the son of old friends of my parents. He was chubby and blond and wrote short stories. His favorite phrase was “paroxysms of passion.” It cropped up at least once every story he wrote. Ron Perkoff (whom we, of course, called Jerkoff) was in love with me. Tall, skinny, with a huge hooked nose and a truly incredible assortment of blackheads and pimples (which I longed to squeeze), he was an Anglophile. He subscribed to Punch and the airmail edition of the Manchester Guardian, carried a tightly rolled umbrella (in all kinds of weather), pronounced “banal” (one of his favorite words) with the accent on the second syllable, and peppered his speech with phrases like “bloody rotter” and “mucking about.” After the agony of college boards and waiting for letters of acceptance was over, the six of us mucked about chiefly in my parents’ apartment as we whiled away the long idle spring term waiting impatiently for graduation. Sitting on the floor of the living room, we consumed tons of fruit, cheese, peanut- butter sandwiches and cookies, listened to Frank Sinatra albums, and wrote communal epics which we tried to make as pornographic as our limited experience would allow. We composed on my portable Olivetti which we passed around from lap to lap. Whenever John was there, paroxysms of passion were the order of the day. Not many of these communal creations survived, but recently I came across a fragment which more or less conveys the spirit of all those other lost masterpieces. It was our habit to plunge into the action with as few preliminaries as possible, so the texture of the narrative was always somewhat choppy. One of the rules was that each author was allowed three minutes before having to pass the typewriter along to the next person, and this naturally increased the spastic quality of the prose. Since Pia usually started, she was the one who had the privilege of sketching the outlines of the character we would all have to tolerate: Dorian Fairchester Faddington IV was a promiscuous poetaster of whom even his best friends declared that he “went from bed to verse.”

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  She went on, "and what do I get out of it? -- the most miserable spanking. I could take the spanking if I could only cut loose and run..." "You want everything!" said the groom. "And what do you want? Don't tell me you don't like it when I'm covered with welts and almost blistered!" The groom laughed. He had a cheerful face, and was small of build, keeping his hands clasped behind his back, though his chestnut hair fell down over his eyes slightly. "My dear, I love everything about you," he said. "And so does Lord Gerhardt. Now say something to comfort Leon's little pet, she's so frightened." The girl turned and Beauty saw her pert face, eyes slanting at the ends somewhat like the eyes of the Queen, but they were smaller, with no cruelty. She smiled with full little red lips. "Don't be frightened, Beauty," she said, "but you have no need for comfort from me. You have the Prince. I have only Lord Gerhardt." A great current of laughter passed through the garden. The musicians were playing loudly, with much strumming of their lutes and tapping of the tambourines, and then Beauty quite distinctly heard the thunder of hooves approaching. A rider shot past the windows, his cape flying out behind him, his horse bridled in silver and gold which made a streak of light as he rushed forward. "O, at last, at last," said the girl in front of Beauty. Other riders were coming, and they were making a line all along the wall that almost blocked Beauty's view of the garden. She could not bear to look up at them, but she did and saw they were splendid Ladies and Lords, and each held the reins of the horse in his or her left hand, and in the right a long rectangular black paddle. "Now, into the room," said Lord Gregory, and the slaves who had waited in a long line were ushered into the next chamber where they stood directly facing the arched door to the garden. Beauty could see now that a young Prince was first in line, and she saw that mounted Lord, his horse pawing the dirt before the archway. Leon moved Beauty a little to the side. "Now you can see better," he said. And she saw the Prince clasp his hands behind his neck and step forward. A trumpet sounded, catching Beauty off guard so she gasped. And a cry rose from the crowd behind the archway. The young slave was forced out and at once greeted by the black leather paddle of the Lord on horseback. Immediately the slave commenced to run. The mounted Lord rode right beside him, and the sound of the paddle came loud and distinct as the murmur of the crowd seemed to rise and mingle itself with faint ripples of laughter. Beauty was aghast as she saw the two figures disappear down the path together.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Phase Two Lead Astray— Creating Pleasure and Confusion Your victims are sufficiently intrigued and their desire for you is growing, but their attachment is weak and at any moment they could decide to turn back. The goal in this phase is to lead your victims so far astray—keeping them emotional and confused, giving them plea- sure but making them want more—that retreat is no longer possible. Springing on them a pleasant surprise will make them see you as de- lightfully unpredictable, but will also keep them off balance (9: Keep them in suspense—what comes next?). The artful use of soft and pleasant words will intoxicate them and stimulate fantasies (10: Use the demonic power of words to sow confusion). Aesthetic touches and pleasant little rituals will titillate their senses, distract their minds (11: Pay attention to detail). Your greatest danger in this phase is the mere hint of routine or famil- iarity. You need to maintain some mystery, to keep a little distance so that in your absence your victims become obsessed with you (12: Poeti- cize your presence). They may realize they are falling for you, but they must never suspect how much of this has come from your manipu- lations. A well-timed display of your weakness, of how emotional you have become under their influence will help cover your tracks (13: Dis- arm through strategic weakness and vulnerability). To excite your vic- tims and make them highly emotional, you must give them the feeling that they are actually living some of the fantasies you have stirred in their imagination (14: Confuse desire and reality). By giving them only a part of the fantasy, you will keep them coming back for more. Focusing your attention on them so that the rest of the world fades away, even taking them on a trip, will lead them far astray (15: Isolate your victim). There is no turning back. Keep Them in Suspense- What Comes Next? The moment people feel they know what to expect from you, your spell on them is broken. More: you have ceded them power. The only way to lead the seduced along and keep the upper hand is to create suspense, a calculated sur- prise. People love a mystery, and this is the key to luring them further into your web. Behave in a way that leaves them wondering, What are you up to? Doing something they do not expect from you will give them a delightful sense of spontaneity—they will not be able to fore- see what comes next.

• From The Best American Erotica 2001 (2001)

  it, therefore I own the reaction. I want to know what I own. This is why I make the most money. I don’t usually let anyone touch, I just like the watching. Just the two of us, making each other hot as hell, with me using no hands, only motions, in a space as big as my bathroom closet. One day I was working the booths, it was pretty slow. A couple of guys had come in, one just sat there, staring at me. I don’t like it when they just look. I want participation. Makes me feel as if I’m doing a better job. One guy jerked off, came in about two strokes. Made me feel as if I were doing too good a job. Then this woman comes in. Now sometimes we get les bians or prostitutes with dates, and once in a while there are girls that come in with their boyfriends. Usually these women won’t even look at me, they look at the floor, their feet, their boyfriend, or try and make out to distract themselves from the show. It’s like they’re embarrassed for themselves and for me. I always try to dance harder to force their attention. The cou ples never stay long. So anyway, this woman comes in. She is hot, I look at her, dressed in her chic black business suit, little skirt, blouse, and matching jacket. And the first thing I think is that she might be a cop, but she sits down and puts some quarters in. The lights come on and I can hear a faint beat of music from who ever is dancing outside, so I start to grind my hips and toss my hair. The woman stares right at me, as if she’s daring me to show her what I’ve got. So I do. I look right back in her eyes and start fucking an imaginary body, real slow and sensual like. And she keeps looking. She drops more quarters in and she spreads her legs. She’s not wearing anything underneath, and I wonder if she

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  His main trait was his passion for tantalization. Goodness, what a tease the poor fellow was! He challenged my scholarship. I am sufficiently proud of my knowing something to be modest about my not knowing all; and I daresay I missed some elements in that cryptogrammic paper chase. What a shiver of triumph and loathing shook my frail frame when, among the plain innocent names in the hotel recorder, his fiendish conundrum would ejaculate in my face! I noticed that whenever he felt his enigmas were becoming too recondite, even for such a solver as I, he would lure me back with an easy one. “Arsène Lupin” was obvious to a Frenchman who remembered the detective stories of his youth; and one hardly had to be a Coleridgian to appreciate the trite poke of “A. Person, Porlock, England.” In horrible taste but basically suggestive of a cultured man—not a policeman, not a common goon, not a lewd salesman—were such assumed names as “Arthur Rainbow”—plainly the travestied author of Le Bateau Bleu—let me laugh a little too, gentlemen—and “Morris Schmetterling,” of L’Oiseau Ivre fame (touché, reader!). The silly but funny “D. Orgon, Elmira, NY,” was from Molière, of course, and because I had quite recently tried to interest Lolita in a famous 18th-century play, I welcomed as an old friend “Harry Bumper, Sheridan, Wyo.” An ordinary encyclopedia informed me who the peculiar looking “Phineas Quimby, Lebanon, NH” was; and any good Freudian, with a German name and some interest in religious prostitution, should recognize at a glance the implication of “Dr. Kitzler, Eryx, Miss.” So far so good. That sort of fun was shoddy but on the whole impersonal and thus innocuous. Among entries that arrested my attention as undoubtable clues per se but baffled me in respect to their finer points I do not care to mention many since I feel I am groping in a border-land mist with verbal phantoms turning, perhaps, into living vacationists. Who was “Johnny Randall, Ramble, Ohio”? Or was he a real person who just happened to write a hand similar to “N.S. Aristoff, Catagela, NY”? What was the sting in “Catagela”? And what about “James Mavor Morell, Hoaxton, England”? “Aristophanes,” “hoax”—fine, but what was I missing?

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  Radical and dizzying shifts in focus are created in the reader’s mind as he oscillates between a sense that he is by turns confronting characters in a novel and pieces in a game—as if a telescope were being spun 360 degrees on its axis, allowing one to look alternately through one end and then the other. The various “levels” of Lolita are of course not the New Criticism’s “levels of meaning,” for the telescopic and global views of the “plaything” should enable one to perceive these levels or dimensions as instantaneous—as though, to adapt freely an image used by Mary McCarthy to describe Pale Fire , one were looking down on three or more games being played simultaneously by two chess masters on several separate glass boards, each arranged successively above the other. 34 A first reading of Lolita rarely affords this limpid, multiform view, and for many reasons, the initially disarming and distractive quality of its ostensible subject being foremost. But the uniquely exhilarating experience of rereading it on its own terms derives from the discovery of a totally new book in place of the old, and the recognition that its habit of metamorphosis has happily described the course of one’s own perceptions. What Jorge Luis Borges says of Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote , surely holds for Vladimir Nabokov, the author of Lolita : he “has enriched, by means of a new technique, the halting and rudimentary art of reading.” A LFRED A PPEL , J R . Palo Alto, California January 31, 1968 Wilmette, Illinois May 21, 1990 1 New York, 1941, p. 93. Henceforth, page references will be placed in parentheses in the text, and pertain to the Vintage editions of Nabokov’s novels, interviews, and autobiography, and to the hardcover editions of his other work. 2 Brian Boyd’s Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years (Princeton, 1990), the first volume in an anticipated two-volume biography, is recommended. 3 John Updike, “Grandmaster Nabokov,” New Republic , CLI (September 26, 1964), 15. Reprinted in Updike’s Assorted Prose (New York, 1965). 4 Raymond Queneau, Le Chiendent (Paris, 1933), p. 294. The above translations are mine—A.A. 5 Ibid. 6 James Joyce, Ulysses (New York, 1961), p. 567. 7 Ibid ., p. 769. 8 Ibid ., p. 513. 9 J. L. Borges, “Partial Magic in the Quixote ,” in Labyrinths (New York, 1964), p. 196. For an excellent analysis of involuted or self-reflexive fiction, see Robert Alter, Partial Magic: The Novel as a Self-Conscious Genre (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1975). 10 See Nabokov’s article “ Lolita and Mr.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Raising the Temperature I n 1889, the top New York theatrical manager Ernest Jurgens visited France on one of his many scouting trips. Jurgens was known for his honesty, a rare commodity in the shady entertainment world, and for his ability to find unusual acts. He had to spend the night in Marseilles, and while wandering along the quay of the old harbor, he heard excited catcalls issuing from a working-class cabaret, and decided to go in. A twenty-one- year-old Spanish dancer named Caroline Otero was performing, and the minute Jurgens laid eyes on her he was a changed man. Her appearance was startling—five foot ten, fiery dark eyes, black waist-length hair, her body corseted into a perfect hourglass figure. But it was the way she danced that made his heart pound—her whole body alive, writhing like an animal in heat, as she performed a fandango. Her dancing was hardly professional, but she enjoyed herself so much and was so unrestrained that none of that mat- tered. Jurgens also could not help but notice the men in the cabaret watch- ing her, their mouths agape. After the show, Jurgens went backstage to introduce himself. Otero's eyes came alive as he spoke of his job and of New York. He felt a heat, a twitching, in his body as she looked him up and down. Her voice was deep and raspy, the tongue constantly in play as she rolled her Rs. Closing the door, Otero ignored the knocks and pleas of the admirers dying to speak to her. She said that her way of dancing was natural—her mother was a gypsy, Soon she asked Jurgens to be her escort that evening, and as he helped her with her coat, she leaned back toward him slightly, as if she had lost her balance. As they walked around the city, her arm in his, she would occa- sionally whisper in his ear. Jurgens felt his usual reserve melt away. He held her tighter. He was a family man, had never considered cheating on his wife, but without thinking, he brought Otero back to his hotel room. She began to take off some of her clothes—coat, gloves, hat—a perfectly nor- mal thing to do, but the way she did it made him lose all restraint. The nor- mally timid Jurgens went on the attack. The next morning Jurgens signed Otero to a lucrative contract—a great risk, considering that she was an amateur at best. He brought her to Paris and assigned a top theatrical coach to her. Hurrying back to New York, he fed the newspapers with reports of this mysterious Spanish beauty poised to conquer the city. Soon rival papers were claiming she was an Andalusian countess, an escaped harem girl, the widow of a sheik, on and on.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Keep your language vague and ambiguous, letting your listeners fill in the gaps with their fantasies and imaginings. Instead of tuning you out, getting irritated or defensive, being impatient for you to shut up, they will be pliant, happy with your sweet-sounding words. labors. So farewell, heroic \ Figures of legend—the quid \ Pro quo you offer won't tempt me. A bevy of beauties \ All swooning over my love-songs—that's what I want. —OVID, THE AMORES, TRANSLATED BY PETER GREEN When she has received a letter, when its sweet poison has entered her blood, then a word is sufficient to wake her love burst forth. . . . My personal presence will prevent ecstasy. If I am present only in a letter, then she can easily cope with me; to some extent, she mistakes me for a more universal creature who dwells in her love. Then, too, in a letter one can more readily have free rein; in a letter I can throw myself at her feet in superb fashion, etc.—something that would easily seem like nonsense if I did it in person, and the illusion would be lost. . . . • On the whole, letters are and will continue to be a priceless means of making an impression on a young girl; the dead letter of writing often has much more influence than the living word. A letter is a secretive communication; one is master of the situation, feels no pressure from anyone's actual presence, and I do believe a young girl would prefer to be alone with her ideal. —SØREN KIERKEGAARD, THE SEDUCER'S DIARY, TRANSLATED BY HOWARD V. HONG AND EDNA H. HONG Use the Demonic Power of Words to Sow Confusion • 255 Seductive Writing O ne spring afternoon in the late 1830s, in a street in Copenhagen, a man named Johannes caught a glimpse of a beautiful young girl. Self- absorbed yet delightfully innocent, she fascinated him, and he followed her, from a distance, and found out where she lived. Over the next few weeks he made inquiries and found out more about her. Her name was Cordelia Wahl, and she lived with her aunt. The two led a quiet existence; Cordelia liked to read, and to be alone. Seducing young girls was Johannes's specialty, but Cordelia would be a catch: she had already turned down several eligible suitors. Johannes imagined that Cordelia might hunger for something more out of life, something grand, something resembling the books she had read and the daydreams that presumably filled her solitude. He arranged an introduction and began to frequent her house, accompanied by a friend of his named Edward. This young man had his own thoughts of court- ing Cordelia, but he was awkward, and strained to please her. Johannes, on the other hand, virtually ignored her, instead befriending her aunt. They would talk about the most banal things—farm life, whatever was in the news.