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 Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  And a woman had to yield. A man was like a child with his appetites. A woman had to yield him what he wanted, or like a child he would probably turn nasty and flounce away and spoil what was a very pleasant connection. But a woman could yield to a man without yielding her inner, free self. That the poets and talkers about sex did not seem to have taken sufficiently into account. A woman could take a man without really giving herself away. Certainly she could take him without giving herself into his power. Rather she could use this sex thing to have power over him. For she only had to hold herself back in sexual intercourse, and let him finish and expend himself without herself coming to the crisis: and then she could prolong the connection and achieve her orgasm and her crisis while he was merely her tool. Both sisters had had their love experience by the time the war came, and they were hurried home. Neither was ever in love with a young man unless he and she were verbally very near: that is unless they were profoundly interested, TALKING to one another. The amazing, the profound, the unbelievable thrill there was in passionately talking to some really clever young man by the hour, resuming day after day for months ... this they had never realised till it happened! The paradisal promise: Thou shalt have men to talk to!--had never been uttered. It was fulfilled before they knew what a promise it was. And if after the roused intimacy of these vivid and soul-enlightened discussions the sex thing became more or less inevitable, then let it. It marked the end of a chapter. It had a thrill of its own too: a queer vibrating thrill inside the body, a final spasm of self-assertion, like the last word, exciting, and very like the row of asterisks that can be put to show the end of a paragraph, and a break in the theme. When the girls came home for the summer holidays of 1913, when Hilda was twenty and Connie eighteen, their father could see plainly that they had had the love experience.

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

  Since my return from Eurpoe, we had lived very little together; and as I had now become her teacher, however indifferent, and helped her to make certain reforms, we both felt the necessity of being more together, if only to continue the reforms. But the attraction of South Africa rendered the separation bearable. ‘We are bound to meet again in a year ,’ I said to her, by way of consolation, and left Rajkot for Bombay. Here I was to get my passage through the agent of Dada Abdulla and Company. But no berth was available on the boat, and if I did not sail then, I should be stranded in Bombay. ‘We have tried our best,’ said the agent, ‘to secure a first class passage, but in vain unless you are prepared to go on deck. Your meals can be arranged for in the saloon.’ Those were the days of my first class traveling, and how could a barrister travel as a deck passenger? So I refused the offer. I suspected the agent’s veracity, for I could not believe that a first class passage was not available. With the agent’s consent I set about securing it myself. I went on board the boat and met the chief officer. He said to me quite frankly, ‘We do not usually have such a rush. But as the Governor-General of Mozambique is going by this boat, all the berths are engaged.’ ‘Could you not possibly squeeze me in?’ I asked. He surveyed me from top to toe and smiled. There is just one way,’ he said. ‘There is an extra berth in my cabin, which is usually not available for passengers. But I am prepared to give it to you.’ I thanked him and got the agent to purchase the passage. In April 1893 I set forth full of zest to try my luck in South Africa. The first port of call was Lamu which we reached in about thirteen days. The Captain and I had become great friends by this time. He was fond of playing chess, but as he was quite a novice, he wanted one still more of a beginner for his partner, and so he invited me. I had heard a lot about the game but had never tried my hand at it. Players used to say that this was a game in which there was plenty of scope for the exercise of one’s intelligence. The Captain offered to give me lessons, and he found me a good pupil as I had unlimited patience. Every time I was the loser, and that made him all the more eager to teach me. I liked the game, but never carried my liking beyond the boat or my knowledge beyond the moves of the pieces. At Lamu the ship remained at anchor for some three to four hours, and I landed to see the port.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  The four of them who had toted her in, Alex, Michael, EZ, and Joy, waited outside. They heard the toilet flush and then water running as Roxanne cleaned herself off. “I must be thinking she won’be able to wipe herself dry,” Joy said. As soon as the door opened, they pounced on her and carried her to the platform where Kay and EZ were cooling their heels. The two bikers seized Roxanne by the shoulders and hips and helped hoist her roughly into the sling. Alex went to is head and used padlocks to fasten her manacles to the chains that supported the sling. She threw EZ her keys, and EZ took off Roxanne’s ankle restraints. Kay cupped her left foot, pointed her toe and slipped it through the stirrup. Joy had done the same thing to her right foot as soon as EZ took the fetter off that ankle. EZ got up in Roxanne’s face, under Alex’s nose. “On your back and spread your legs,” she sneered. “That’s the seven words you like to hear the most, right? Gets you drippin’ in nothing flat. Well, it better. Only it’s your asshole that better start juicin’ up now, girlchild, gonna show you a new way to be a pussy. We want your ass, bitch, and we’re gonna come and get it with both hands. You can either get some sugar or get hurt. If I was you I’d rather be sweet. Understand? Understand!” Kay was pulling off each of her rings and stashing them in the pockets of her jacket. “EZ, hang this up someplace,” she said, shrugging out of it. The arms that emerged from the leather sleeves had rounded biceps and long, bulging forearms. “Takes more than fucking to put on muscle like this,” she laughed to Tyre, “but a lot of fucking don’t hurt.” She hauled on the chained-up, giant can of Crisco and plunged one hand into it, then started greasing up her left hand. Her face went expressionless. “She looks like some kind of goddess,” Chris breathed in Tyre’s ear. “A goddess of gates and furrows and wounds and the yoni, plowing and sowing, fucking and fertility, everything human but more than human.” Tyre wasn’t sure how long she could listen to this stuff about doorways and seeds and double-headed axes, and she was infinitely relieved when Michael sleazed over, squeezing her dick, and began to lick Chris’s tattoos and grope her crotch. Kay stuck a finger up Roxanne’s ass and probed. “Clean to here,” she pronounced. “Anne-Marie, you must have had her blowing her guts out.” Anne-Marie chuckled. “No, but a lot of other extraneous matter came out.”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  In the midst of this great turmoil and concourse of folk, it chanced that there arrived at Treviso three of our townsmen, whereof one was called Stecchi, another Martellino and the third Marchese, men who visited the courts of princes and lords and diverted the beholders by travestying themselves and counterfeiting whatsoever other man with rare motions and grimaces. Never having been there before and seeing all the folk run, they marvelled and hearing the cause, were for going to see what was toward; wherefore they laid up their baggage at an inn and Marchese said, 'We would fain go look upon this saint; but, for my part, I see not how we may avail to win thither, for that I understand the Cathedral place is full of German and other men-at-arms, whom the lord of this city hath stationed there, so no riot may betide; more by token that they say the church is so full of folk that well nigh none else might enter there.' 'Let not that hinder you,' quoth Martellino, who was all agog to see the show; 'I warrant you I will find a means of winning to the holy body.' 'How so?' asked Marchese, and Martellino answered, 'I will tell thee. I will counterfeit myself a cripple and thou on one side and Stecchi on the other shall go upholding me, as it were I could not walk of myself, making as if you would fain bring me to the saint, so he may heal me. There will be none but, seeing us, will make way for us and let us pass.'

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Presently, as he sat blithely at meat, enjoying the solitary place, there entered the garden two young damsels of maybe fifteen years of age, with hair like threads of gold, all ringleted and hanging loose, whereon was a light chaplet of pervinck-blossoms. Their faces bespoke them rather angels than otherwhat, so delicately fair they were, and they were clad each upon her skin in a garment of the finest linen and white as snow, the which from the waist upward was very strait and thence hung down in ample folds, pavilionwise, to the feet. She who came first bore on her left shoulder a pair of hand-nets and in her right hand a long pole, and the other had on her left shoulder a frying-pan and under the same arm a faggot of wood, whilst in her left hand she held a trivet and in the other a flask of oil and a lighted flambeau. The king, seeing them, marvelled and in suspense awaited what this should mean. The damsels came forward modestly and blushingly did obeisance to him, then, betaking themselves whereas one went down into the fishpond, she who bore the frying-pan set it down and the other things by it and taking the pole that the other carried, they both entered the water, which came up to their breasts. Meanwhile, one of Messer Neri's servants deftly kindled fire under the trivet and setting the pan thereon, poured therein oil and waited for the damsels to throw him fish. The latter, the one groping with the pole in those parts whereas she knew the fish lay hid and the other standing ready with the net, in a short space of time took fish galore, to the exceeding pleasure of the king, who eyed them attently; then, throwing some thereof to the servant, who put them in the pan, well nigh alive, they proceeded, as they had been lessoned, to take of the finest and cast them on the table before the king and his table-fellows. The fish wriggled about the table, to the marvellous diversion of the king, who took of them in his turn and sportively cast them back to the damsels; and on this wise they frolicked awhile, till such time as the servant had cooked the fish which had been given him and which, Messer Neri having so ordered it, were now set before the king, more as a relish than as any very rare and delectable dish.

• From Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women (Erotic Fiction) (2006)

  Mr. Wolfe pushed his tongue into Mrs. Fox’s mouth, tasting her lips and tongue. Next he was kissing her cheeks, chin and neck. Everywhere he kissed her he seared her skin with his hot breath and rough face. Her flesh burned and tingled from his lips and tongue. He licked and bit her breasts, making her cry out. Then he moved over her belly and lower, covering every inch of her with his kisses. Spreading her legs wide, he buried his tongue deep within her. He was like a ravenous animal; his mouth seemed to be everywhere at once. But he still did not satisfy, no! His tongue continued to seek out every part of her so that, before he had finished, he had tasted every hidden place between her wide-open legs. And even though the room was pitch-dark, Mrs. Fox’s cheeks burned red-hot with embarrassment. But she could not wiggle away from him; he held her much too firmly for that! His lips and tongue took possession of her, greedily, and without the slightest regard for her self-conscious struggles. At last Mr. Wolfe withdrew his tongue, but alas, she had overcome her embarrassment and now ached for him to continue! He had other plans however and, placing her knees so that one rested on each of his shoulders, he drew himself nearer to her again, stretching her legs awkwardly up and apart as he did so. Holding her securely so that she would not move away, he pressed himself into her. She cried out loudly when she felt how large he was. All her control seemed to be draining away and she cried out again and again as he began to drive into her. And as her excitement grew he increased his speed. Although Mrs. Fox loved being thus laid open and taken, she lamented that she could not move at all in her present position. As if reading her mind, Mr. Wolfe suddenly flipped her onto her stomach, and pulled her up onto her knees. Mrs. Fox succumbed without delay, and gasped when he reentered her from behind. He reached around her body and vigorously pinched the tips of her breasts with his strong fingers, while steadily working himself into her. She gasped with outrage and mortified delight.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  center part here will be open, like a courtyard. Over on this side is where the children’s rooms are—one for the girls, one for the boys. Plus, there is a nursery for the young ones. The father’s room, the master bedroom, is over here. And these are the mothers’ rooms, one wife here and the other wife there. And the neat thing is, there’s space to add another room here for a third wife.” As she describes the many unique elements she has designed, her enthusiasm builds. By the end of the virtual tour her eyes are gleaming. This is her dream home, customized for what she imagines to be the perfect life—the life she hopes to live when she grows up. TWENTY-SIX CANAAN MOUNTAIN In the Plateau Country the eye is not merely invited but compelled to notice the large things. From any point of vantage the view is likely to be open not with the twelve- or fifteen-mile radius of the plains, but with a radius that is often fifty and sometimes even seventy-five miles—and that is a long way to look, especially if there is nothing human in sight. The villages are hidden in the canyons and under the cliffs; there is nothing visible but the torn and slashed and windworn beauty of the absolute wasteland. And the beauty is death. Where the grass and trees and bushes are stripped off and the world laid naked you can see the globe being torn down and rebuilt. You can see the death and prognosticate the birth of epochs. You can see the tiny clinging bits of débris that historical time has left. If you are a Mormon waiting for the trump of the Last Days while you labor in building the Kingdom, you can be excused for expecting that those Last Days will come any time now. The world is dead and disintegrating before your eyes. WALLACE STEGNER, MORMON COUNTRY From a tranquil city park at the edge of Colorado City–Hildale, the sheer cliffs of Canaan Mountain erupt heavenward without preamble—a massive scarp of brick-red sandstone streaked with desert varnish, looming two thousand vertical feet above the fundamentalist stronghold. On top, the flat summit plateau feels like a lost world—an island in the sky, cut off from civilization, sprouting manzanita and mariposa lilies, wild roses and yucca, Indian paintbrush and stout ponderosa pines. “My brother David and I used to sneak up here every chance we got when we were kids,” says DeLoy Bateman. “Seemed like the only place where the religion couldn’t control us.” DeLoy is perched at the edge of this mountaintop, staring down at the town where he was born and raised. It’s the end of July, and the temperature is 104

• From Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women (Erotic Fiction) (2006)

  “Beauty,” he said pleadingly, “if you leave this castle, it will mean certain death for me.” “I don’t understand,” I replied, annoyed suddenly with all the mystery that surrounded him. It had become an unresolved matter between us that so many questions always remained unanswered. Once again I implored him, “Won’t you please explain your mysterious words?” “I cannot,” came the usual reply, but his chagrin at his seeming inability to tell me the truth made him a little more indulgent. “I will not stop you from leaving this castle as long as you promise to return to me in one month,” he said. “If you stay longer than that I will surely die.” “I promise,” I replied with a sigh, knowing I would learn no more from him on the matter. “I hope you keep your promise, Beauty,” he said miserably. Then he rose to leave, but at the doorway he turned to add, “There will be two trunks put out before you leave. Fill them with as many riches from the castle as you like and take them to your family.” That evening I was more eager than usual to go to my Beast, but there was also much to do in preparation for my journey. I rushed to and fro frantically, all the while longing for the moment when I could be near my Beast and bid him a more personal farewell. When at last I entered his chamber, I was positively quivering with excitement. The Beast was sitting in a chair in a remote corner of the darkened room. Removing my robe, I positioned myself on the edge of the bed in just the way he liked best, as was my habit. Within seconds I was soaking wet and aching for him. That’s the way it was for me with the Beast. It was enough just to wait there, trembling and poised on my hands and knees, anticipating what was to come, to bring about that kind of response in me. I had not even heard him move when suddenly I felt his crude hands caressing my soft skin. “Turn around,” he said suddenly in his gruff whisper. I paused for a moment, stunned. “I want to see your face tonight,” he said simply. Intrigued by something new, I quickly obeyed his request, and turned so I was lying down on my back. I silently watched him as he removed his clothes, able for the first time to observe him openly. He appeared so much more fierce and animallike without his clothing. I shuddered with trepidation as I stared at his naked form. Once again, as on that very first night, it occurred to me that, in appearances at least, he really was more beast than man. But he is a man, I insisted inwardly, refusing to acknowledge any idea that might, if allowed, somehow bring about an end to these nightly pleasures. Yet I closed my eyes as the naked beast approached.

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  Her hair was slicked back in a hasty, efficient fashion, and she was wearing the ubiquitous khaki blouse. The sole thing about the couple which appeared wonderfully fresh and clean and new was the pair of bloomer-like work pants the girl was wearing. One could easily guess that they were conscript workers in the same factory and had met here for a rendezvous, playing truant from the factory and coming for a day of flower-viewing. Hearing us, they had probably been alarmed by the thought that we might be gendarmes. They glanced at us unpleasantly as they passed by. After that we did not feel like talking much. Before the cherry blossoms were gone the Law Department suspended lectures again and we were sent on student mobilization to a naval arsenal a few miles from S Bay. At the same time my mother, brother, and sister evacuated to my maternal grandfather's house, on a small farm in the suburbs. Our houseboy, a middle-school student who, though small in size, acted much older than his years, remained in our Tokyo house to take care of my father. On riceless days the houseboy brayed boiled soybeans in a mortar and made a gruel, which looked like vomit, for my father and himself. He also stealthily consumed our small stock of pickled vegetables when my father was not at home. Life at the naval arsenal was easygoing. I was assigned some part-time work in the library, and the rest of the time I was on a digging detail with a group of young Formosan laborers, digging a large lateral tunnel for the evacuation of the parts-manufacturing plant. Those little devils of twelve or thirteen were the only companions I had. They gave me lessons in Formosan and in exchange I told them fairy tales. They were confident that their Formosan gods would save them from the air raids and return them one day unharmed to their native land. Their appetites reached immoral proportions. One shrewd boy among them spirited away some rice and vegetables from under the eyes of the kitchen guard, and they made it into fried rice by cooking it in a copious amount of machine oil. I declined this feast, which seemed to have the flavor of gears. Within less than a month my correspondence with Sonoko was on the way to becoming a very special one. In my letters I behaved with unreserved boldness. One morning I returned to my desk in the arsenal after an all-clear siren had sounded and found a letter from Sonoko awaiting me. My hands shook as I read it and my body felt as though I were slightly intoxicated. There was one line in her letter which I repeated over and over under my breath: ". . .

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  He laughed wryly, and threw off his clothes. It was too much. He jumped out, naked and white, with a little shiver, into the hard slanting rain. Flossie sprang before him with a frantic little bark. Connie, her hair all wet and sticking to her head, turned her hot face and saw him. Her blue eyes blazed with excitement as she turned and ran fast, with a strange charging movement, out of the clearing and down the path, the wet boughs whipping her. She ran, and he saw nothing but the round wet head, the wet back leaning forward in flight, the rounded buttocks twinkling: a wonderful cowering female nakedness in flight. She was nearly at the wide riding when he came up and flung his naked arm round her soft, naked-wet middle. She gave a shriek and straightened herself, and the heap of her soft, chill flesh came up against his body. He pressed it all up against him, madly, the heap of soft, chilled female flesh that became quickly warm as flame, in contact. The rain streamed on them till they smoked. He gathered her lovely, heavy posteriors one in each hand and pressed them in towards him in a frenzy, quivering motionless in the rain. Then suddenly he tipped her up and fell with her on the path, in the roaring silence of the rain, and short and sharp, he took her, short and sharp and finished, like an animal. He got up in an instant, wiping the rain from his eyes. "Come in," he said, and they started running back to the hut. He ran straight and swift: he didn't like the rain. But she came slower, gathering forget-me-nots and campion and bluebells, running a few steps and watching him fleeting away from her. When she came with her flowers, panting to the hut, he had already started a fire, and the twigs were crackling. Her sharp breasts rose and fell, her hair was plastered down with rain, her face was flushed ruddy and her body glistened and trickled. Wide-eyed and breathless, with a small wet head and full, trickling, naive haunches, she looked another creature. He took the old sheet and rubbed her down, she standing like a child. Then he rubbed himself, having shut the door of the hut. The fire was blazing up. She ducked her head in the other end of the sheet, and rubbed her wet hair. "We're drying ourselves together on the same towel, we shall quarrel!" he said. She looked up for a moment, her hair all odds and ends. "No!" she said, her eyes wide. "It's not a towel, it's a sheet." And she went on busily rubbing her head, while he busily rubbed his.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  He laughed wryly, and threw off his clothes. It was too much. He jumped out, naked and white, with a little shiver, into the hard slanting rain. Flossie sprang before him with a frantic little bark. Connie, her hair all wet and sticking to her head, turned her hot face and saw him. Her blue eyes blazed with excitement as she turned and ran fast, with a strange charging movement, out of the clearing and down the path, the wet boughs whipping her. She ran, and he saw nothing but the round wet head, the wet back leaning forward in flight, the rounded buttocks twinkling: a wonderful cowering female nakedness in flight. She was nearly at the wide riding when he came up and flung his naked arm round her soft, naked-wet middle. She gave a shriek and straightened herself, and the heap of her soft, chill flesh came up against his body. He pressed it all up against him, madly, the heap of soft, chilled female flesh that became quickly warm as flame, in contact. The rain streamed on them till they smoked. He gathered her lovely, heavy posteriors one in each hand and pressed them in towards him in a frenzy, quivering motionless in the rain. Then suddenly he tipped her up and fell with her on the path, in the roaring silence of the rain, and short and sharp, he took her, short and sharp and finished, like an animal. He got up in an instant, wiping the rain from his eyes. "Come in," he said, and they started running back to the hut. He ran straight and swift: he didn't like the rain. But she came slower, gathering forget-me-nots and campion and bluebells, running a few steps and watching him fleeting away from her. When she came with her flowers, panting to the hut, he had already started a fire, and the twigs were crackling. Her sharp breasts rose and fell, her hair was plastered down with rain, her face was flushed ruddy and her body glistened and trickled. Wide-eyed and breathless, with a small wet head and full, trickling, naive haunches, she looked another creature. He took the old sheet and rubbed her down, she standing like a child. Then he rubbed himself, having shut the door of the hut. The fire was blazing up. She ducked her head in the other end of the sheet, and rubbed her wet hair. "We're drying ourselves together on the same towel, we shall quarrel!" he said. She looked up for a moment, her hair all odds and ends. "No!" she said, her eyes wide. "It's not a towel, it's a sheet." And she went on busily rubbing her head, while he busily rubbed his.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  Michaelis came: in summer, in a pale-coloured suit and white suède gloves, with mauve orchids for Connie, very lovely, and Act I was a great success. Even Connie was thrilled ... thrilled to what bit of marrow she had left. And Michaelis, thrilled by his power to thrill, was really wonderful ... and quite beautiful, in Connie's eyes. She saw in him that ancient motionlessness of a race that can't be disillusioned any more, an extreme, perhaps, of impurity that is pure. On the far side of his supreme prostitution to the bitch-goddess he seemed pure, pure as an African ivory mask that dreams impurity into purity, in its ivory curves and planes. His moment of sheer thrill with the two Chatterleys, when he simply carried Connie and Clifford away, was one of the supreme moments of Michaelis' life. He had succeeded: he had carried them away. Even Clifford was temporarily in love with him ... if that is the way one can put it. So next morning Mick was more uneasy than ever: restless, devoured, with his hands restless in his trousers pockets. Connie had not visited him in the night ... and he had not known where to find her. Coquetry!... at his moment of triumph. He went up to her sitting-room in the morning. She knew he would come. And his restlessness was evident. He asked her about his play ... did she think it good? He _had_ to hear it praised: that affected him with the last thin thrill of passion beyond any sexual orgasm. And she praised it rapturously. Yet all the while, at the bottom of her soul, she knew it was nothing. "Look here!" he said suddenly at last. "Why don't you and I make a clean thing of it? Why don't we marry?" "But I am married," she said amazed, and yet feeling nothing. "Oh that!... he'll divorce you all right.... Why don't you and I marry? I want to marry. I know it would be the best thing for me ... marry and lead a regular life. I lead the deuce of a life, simply tearing myself to pieces. Look here, you and I, we're made for one another ... hand and glove. Why don't we marry? Do you see any reason why we shouldn't?" Connie looked at him amazed: and yet she felt nothing. These men, they were all alike, they left everything out. They just went off from the top of their heads as if they were squibs, and expected you to be carried heavenwards along with their own thin sticks. "But I am married already," she said. "I can't leave Clifford, you know." "Why not? but why not?" he cried. "He'll hardly know you've gone, after six months. He doesn't know that anybody exists, except himself. Why the man has no use for you at all, as far as I can see; he's entirely wrapped up in himself."

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

  But a medical degree will not make a Diwan of you, and I want you to be Diwan, or if possible something better. Only in that way could you take under your protecting care your large family. The times are fast changing and getting harder every day. It is the wisest thing therefore to become a barrister.’ Turning to my mother he said : ‘Now, I must leave. Pray ponder over what I have said. When I come here next I shall expect to hear of preparations for England. Be sure to let me know if I can assist in any way.’ Joshiji went away, and I began building castles in the air. My elder brother was greatly exercised in his mind. How was he to find the wherewithal to send me? And was it proper to trust a young man like me to go abroad alone? My mother was sorely perplexed. She did not like the idea of parting with me. This is how she tried to put me off: ‘Uncle,’ she said, ‘is now the eldest member of the family. He should first be consulted. If he consents we will consider the matter.’ My brother had another idea. He said to me: ‘We have a certain claim on the Porbandar State. Mr. Lely is the Administrator. He thinks highly of our family and uncle is in his good books. It is just possible that he might recommend you for some State help for your education in England.’ I liked all this and got ready to start off for Porbandar. There was no railway in those days. It was a five days’ bullock-cart journey. I have already said that I was a coward. But at that moment my cowardice vanished before the desire to go to England, which completely possessed me. I hired a bullock-cart as far as Dhoraji, and from Dhoraji I took a camel in order to get to Porbandar a day quicker. This was my first camel-ride. I arrived at last, did obeisance to my uncle, and told him everything. He thought it over and said : ‘I am not sure whether it is possible for one to stay in England without prejudice to one’s own religion. From all I have heard, I have my doubts. When I meet these big barristers, I see no difference between their life and that of Europeans. They know no scruples regarding food. Cigars are never out of their mouths. They dress as shamelessly as Englishmen. All that would not be in keeping with our family tradition. I am shortly going on a pilgrimage and have not many years to live. At the threshold of death, how dare I give you permission to go to England, to cross the seas? But I will not stand in your way. It is your mother’s permission which really matters. If she permits you, then godspeed! Tell her I will not interfere.

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

  We daily discussed together plans of the fight, but beyond the holding of public meetings I could not then think of any other programme. I felt myself at a loss to discover how to offer civil disobedience against the Rowlatt Bill if it was finally passed into law. One could disobey it only if the Government gave one the opportunity for it. Failing that, could we civilly disobey other laws? And if so, where was the line to be drawn? These and a host of similar questions formed the theme of these discussions of ours. Sjt. Kasturi Ranga Iyengar called together a small conference of leaders to thrash out the matter. Among those who took a conspicuous part in it was Sjt. Vijayaraghavachari. He suggested that I should draw up a comprehensive manual of the science of Satyagraha, embodying even minute details. I felt the task to be beyond my capacity, and I confessed as much to him. While these cogitations were still going on, news was received that the Rowlatt Bill had been published as an Act. That night I fell asleep while thinking over the question. Towards the small hours of the morning I woke up somewhat earlier than usual. I was still in that twilight condition between sleep and consciousness when suddenly the idea broke upon me—it was as if in a dream. Early in the morning I related the whole story to Rajagopalachari. ‘The idea came to me last night in a dream that we should call upon the country to observe a general hartal. Satyagraha is a process of self-purification, and ours is a sacred fight, and it seems to me to be in the fitness of things that it should be commenced with an act of self- purification. Let all the people of India, therefore, suspend their business on that day and observe the day as one of fasting and prayer. The Musalmans may not fast for more than one day; so the duration of the fast should be twenty-four hours. It is very difficult to say whether all the provinces would respond to this appeal of ours or not, but I feel fairly sure of Bombay, Madras, Bihar and Sindh. I think we should have every reason to feel satisfied even if all these places observe the hartal fittingly.’ Rajagopalachari was at once taken up with my suggestion. Other friends too welcomed it when it was communicated to them later. I drafted a brief appeal. The date of the hartal was first fixed on the 30th March 1919, but was subsequently changed to 6th April. The people thus had only a short notice of the hartal. As the work had to be started at once, it was hardly possible to give longer notice. But who knows how it all came about? The whole of India from one end to the other, towns as well as villages, observed a complete hartal on that day. It was a most wonderful spectacle. 157THAT MEMORABLE WEEK !

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  “Was her experience with that satisfactory?” On a memo pad, Tyre wrote, “Anne-Marie’s file—slave named Roxanne. Okay?” Georgia ripped the note off and disappeared into the computer room to call up the record and get a hard copy. Tyre could hear the printer running. “Well, I’m very pleased with the results since my favorite thing to do is thrash someone severely and then fuck them up the ass, and I never met anybody who could take it like Roxanne. I think she might even be able to get fisted.” Tyre clicked her tongue. This crude talk was refreshing. “Ambitious, aren’t you? Is that what you’re calling to arrange?” “Not exactly. I want something more complicated than that. It would be nice if we could slip that in somewhere, though.” “So to speak,” Tyre said. Georgia laid Roxanne’s file on her desk. At the top, Anne-Marie had entered, in bold capital letters, “BOTTOMLESS PIT.” Tyre raised her eyebrows. Anne-Marie’s resources were not easily depleted. “Perhaps we should discuss your proposal in person,” she murmured. “Are you free for luncheon any time this week?” “Today, as a matter of fact.” She wrote, “Company for lunch, make extra margaritas,” on her memo pad, underlined it, and showed it to Georgia, who smiled and pantomimed clapping her hands. Tyre gave Alex the address. “Security will buzz you in, and my private secretary will be downstairs to show you up to my suite. Are you a vegetarian?” “I am a confirmed carnivore.” “Excellent.” She put the receiver down very gently. She was excited, and it wouldn’t do to drop it. The fact that the next item on the agenda was going through adult-film catalogs and ordering a new batch of lesbian videos did not ease the tension. She kept thinking that she was going to run off to the bathroom and masturbate, but she put if off so often that Alex arrived (ten minutes early, such a top’s trick) before she had a chance to find out exactly how wet she was. Instead, she was in the lunch room (and out of character) setting the table. She had expected someone Anne-Marie’s age. But the woman who strode easily, a bit arrogantly, toward her was young—twenty-five at the most. She was tall (although not as tall as Tyre herself) and had the thick neck of a body-builder. She had a broad face with high cheekbones and almond-shaped brown eyes. Her head had been shaved about a month ago, so a short nap of black velvet covered her scalp. She was wearing black-leather pants with a studded crotch-piece, engineer boots, and an old, cracked black-leather jacket. The kidney panel, shoulders, and arms of the jacket were heavily padded.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  When the lights went up on a dazed and uncomfortably exposed audience, she said something like, “I bet each of you, especially the women in this room, could give me a list right now of all the things you didn’t like in the films we just watched. Women are really good at critiquing sex. But before you do that, try to identify one or two scenes that really got you off. They might even be some of the same scenes that you found offensive or disturbing. Pay attention to those scenes; they can teach you a lot about yourself, and that information is worth knowing.” This is excellent advice to follow while reading Macho Sluts . It is important to pay attention to what passes the “wet (or hard) test.” What turns out to be especially compelling in this collection will say a great deal more about the reader than it does about the relative quality of the various stories. For example, the fact that “The Vampire” and “The Hustler” both work so well for me, while I can barely get through “The Finishing School,” doesn’t just speak to my preference for sci-fi over Victorian school-girl fantasies, but also about my taste for butch women and rough trade over highly mannered mistresses. I always find “The Surprise Party” and “The Spoiler” hot in part because they remind me of my enthusiasm for cock (whether flesh or silicone). Readers who have different literary and erotic tastes will have a different set of favorites. For those who have little practice with pornography, it might also be helpful to keep in mind that porn is meant to be read in snatches; the point is not to race through to find out what happens at the end. The stories in Macho Sluts were written in the 1980s and in some ways reflect that period of now-closed lesbian bars like Maud’s and Amelia’s, easy-access pay phones, and ongoing sex wars. But what is just as striking as the historical references is what is historically absent: while condoms and gloves accompany the sex scenes in these pages, and a vampire worries about the possibility of “tainted blood,” the AIDS epidemic that so consumed the gay community in 1988 is otherwise invisible. Macho Sluts instead offers an alternative universe in which sex is uncoupled from the ongoing reality of death and dying from AIDS. For example, at a time when the only public sex venues for women were private parties or rented space in heterosexual or gay men’s clubs (and even those limited venues were being closed in an effort to contain the spread of HIV), Califia envisions a sex club so popular that women wind around the block three deep to get in on the weekends.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  “So do my high heels,” Tyre said. “Damascus steel. So decorative.” Alex spared a quick look at her feet. It was true. Then Tyre threw a side-kick at her, and she saw that the spike heels were also made out of steel. The skin-tight, hot-pink jumpsuit did not hamper her opponent at all. Alex parried the kick and punched. Her fist was blocked by a hard forearm. They sparred enough to make each other breathe hard, get a sweat to pop up. Somehow they wound up with their hands on each other’s hips, pressed together from the waist down, staring at each other’s mouths and eyes. When Tyre’s hand went for the zipper on her jacket, Alex reached for the neck of her jumpsuit and there were two simultaneous ripping noises as they each exposed the other’s torso. Alex did not wear anything under the jacket, and Tyre was bare beneath the spandex. Their breasts were nearly the same size. If anything, Alex’s were bigger, and the feel of her hard nipple between Tyre’s slim fingers made her grab for a similar target. She came up with metal as well as flesh. There were small silver rings in Tyre’s nipples. “You’re sweating,” Tyre grinned. “Brings out the smell of the leather. Or is that cunt? Shall I bring it out a little more? So we can tell?” She twisted the nipple a quarter-turn, crushed it. Alex grinned at her and judiciously applied exactly the same amount of pressure to the teat she held, then twisted it past that point. “Gonna tell me you don’t sweat, you glow?” she asked Tyre. “Looks like sweat to me. Looks good on you, like maybe you’re working hard for a change.” “I don’t mind working hard, and I don’t think you mind my being hard on you. You like this,” Tyre accused her, getting a grip on the other nipple and stretching them both out, until Alex saw tiny white stars. “I like this,” Alex affirmed, and returned the hurt worse, until their hips slid past each other and their thighs interlocked, the long bone of the leg and the muscle over it pressed into the other woman’s mound, pushing the sensitive, swollen tissue back down until it flattened against the pubic bone. Hard and soft, hard and soft, their hands played on each other’s bodies, and they rocked in each other’s arms, seeking advantage, grappling. It was a kind of wrestling with no attempt to throw, but a quest for domination nonetheless. They both yelped at the same moment, but not from the pain of well-manipulated nipples. Their thighs separated momentarily, startled by the intensity of this pleasure, and its brevity. They groped for each other’s crotches. The sound of Tyre’s zipper was a long, continuous wail punctuated with a few sharp snaps as Alex’s studded crotch-piece was pulled off and dropped on the floor. “You’re wet,” Alex said. “Thirsty?” Tyre spit.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Calandrino gave ear to their talk and presently, seeing that it was no secret, he rose to his feet and joined himself to them, to the no small satisfaction of Maso, who, pursuing his discourse, was asked by Calandrino where these wonder-working stones were to be found. Maso replied that the most of them were found in Berlinzone, a city of the Basques, in a country called Bengodi,[371] where the vines are tied up with sausages and a goose is to be had for a farthing[372] and a gosling into the bargain, and that there was a mountain all of grated Parmesan cheese, whereon abode folk who did nothing but make maccaroni and ravioli[373] and cook them in capon-broth, after which they threw them down thence and whoso got most thereof had most; and that hard by ran a rivulet of vernage,[374] the best ever was drunk, without a drop of water therein. 'Marry,' cried Calandrino, 'that were a fine country; but tell me, what is done with the capons that they boil for broth?' Quoth Maso, 'The Basques eat them all.' Then said Calandrino, 'Wast thou ever there?' 'Was I ever there, quotha!' replied Maso. 'If I have been there once I have been there a thousand times.' 'And how many miles is it distant hence?' asked Calandrino; and Maso, 'How many? a million or more; you might count them all night and not know.' 'Then,' said Calandrino, 'it must be farther off than the Abruzzi?' 'Ay, indeed,' answered Maso; 'it is a trifle farther.' [Footnote 371: _i.e._ Good cheer.] [Footnote 372: A play upon the double meaning of _a denajo_, which signifies also "for money."] [Footnote 373: A kind of rissole made of eggs, sweet herbs and cheese.] [Footnote 374: _Vernaccia_, a kind of rich white wine like Malmsey.]

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  Michaelis came: in summer, in a pale-coloured suit and white suède gloves, with mauve orchids for Connie, very lovely, and Act I was a great success. Even Connie was thrilled ... thrilled to what bit of marrow she had left. And Michaelis, thrilled by his power to thrill, was really wonderful ... and quite beautiful, in Connie's eyes. She saw in him that ancient motionlessness of a race that can't be disillusioned any more, an extreme, perhaps, of impurity that is pure. On the far side of his supreme prostitution to the bitch-goddess he seemed pure, pure as an African ivory mask that dreams impurity into purity, in its ivory curves and planes. His moment of sheer thrill with the two Chatterleys, when he simply carried Connie and Clifford away, was one of the supreme moments of Michaelis' life. He had succeeded: he had carried them away. Even Clifford was temporarily in love with him ... if that is the way one can put it. So next morning Mick was more uneasy than ever: restless, devoured, with his hands restless in his trousers pockets. Connie had not visited him in the night ... and he had not known where to find her. Coquetry!... at his moment of triumph. He went up to her sitting-room in the morning. She knew he would come. And his restlessness was evident. He asked her about his play ... did she think it good? He _had_ to hear it praised: that affected him with the last thin thrill of passion beyond any sexual orgasm. And she praised it rapturously. Yet all the while, at the bottom of her soul, she knew it was nothing. "Look here!" he said suddenly at last. "Why don't you and I make a clean thing of it? Why don't we marry?" "But I am married," she said amazed, and yet feeling nothing. "Oh that!... he'll divorce you all right.... Why don't you and I marry? I want to marry. I know it would be the best thing for me ... marry and lead a regular life. I lead the deuce of a life, simply tearing myself to pieces. Look here, you and I, we're made for one another ... hand and glove. Why don't we marry? Do you see any reason why we shouldn't?" Connie looked at him amazed: and yet she felt nothing. These men, they were all alike, they left everything out. They just went off from the top of their heads as if they were squibs, and expected you to be carried heavenwards along with their own thin sticks. "But I am married already," she said. "I can't leave Clifford, you know." "Why not? but why not?" he cried. "He'll hardly know you've gone, after six months. He doesn't know that anybody exists, except himself. Why the man has no use for you at all, as far as I can see; he's entirely wrapped up in himself."

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "Am I temptation!" she said, stroking his face. "I'm so glad I'm temptation to you! Don't let's think about it! You frighten me when you start thinking: you roll me out flat. Don't let's think about it. We can think so much when we are apart. That's the whole point! I've been thinking, I _must_ come to you for another night before I go. I must come once more to the cottage. Shall I come on Thursday night?" "Isn't that when your sister will be there?" "Yes! But she said we would start at teatime. So we could start at teatime. But she could sleep somewhere else and I could sleep with you." "But then she'd have to know." "Oh, I shall tell her. I've more or less told her already. I must talk it all over with Hilda. She's a great help, so sensible." He was thinking of her plan. "So you'd start off from Wragby at teatime, as if you were going to London? Which way were you going?" "By Nottingham and Grantham." "And then your sister would drop you somewhere and you'd walk or drive back here? Sounds very risky, to me." "Does it? Well then, Hilda could bring me back. She could sleep at Mansfield, and bring me back here in the evening, and fetch me again in the morning. It's quite easy." "And the people who see you?" "I'll wear goggles and a veil." He pondered for some time. "Well," he said. "You please yourself, as usual." "But wouldn't it please you?" "Oh, yes! It'd please me all right," he said a little grimly. "I might as well smite while the iron's hot." "Do you know what I thought?" she said suddenly. "It suddenly came to me. You are the 'Knight of the Burning Pestle'!" "Ay! And you? Are you the Lady of the Red-Hot Mortar?" "Yes!" she said. "Yes! You're Sir Pestle and I'm Lady Mortar." "All right, then I'm knighted. John Thomas is Sir John, to your Lady Jane." "Yes! John Thomas is knighted! I'm my-lady-maiden-hair, and you must have flowers too. Yes!" She threaded two pink campions in the bush of red-gold hair above his penis. "There!" she said. "Charming! Charming! Sir John!" And she pushed a bit of forget-me-not in the dark hair of his breast. "And you won't forget me _there_, will you?" she kissed him on the breast, and made two bits of forget-me-not lodge one over each nipple, kissing him again. "Make a calendar of me!" he said. He laughed, and the flowers shook from his breast. "Wait a bit!" he said. He rose, and opened the door of the hut. Flossie, lying in the porch, got up and looked at him. "Ay, it's me!" he said. The rain had ceased. There was a wet, heavy, perfumed stillness. Evening was approaching.