Jealousy

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 Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  "As I gazed on, I saw that her enjoyment kept getting stronger and ever stronger: it was reaching its paroxysm. From an amble she had gone on quietly to a trot, then to a canter; then, as she rode along, she clasped, with ever-increasing passion, the head of the man on whose knees she was astride. It was clear that the contact of her lover's lips, and the swelling and wriggling of his tool within her, thrilled her to an erotic rage, so she went off in a gallop, thus— 'Leaping higher, higher, higher, With a desperate desire' to reach the delightful aim of her journey. "In the meanwhile, the male, whoever he was, after having passed his hands on the massy lobes of her hind-parts, began to pat and press and knead her breasts, adding thus to her pleasure a thousand little caresses which almost maddened her. "I remember now a most curious fact, shewing the way in which our brains work, and how our mind is attracted by slight extraneous objects, even when engrossed by the saddest thoughts. I remember feeling a certain artistic pleasure at the ever-changing effect of light and shadow thrown in different parts of the lady's rich satin gown, as it kept shimmering under the rays of the lamp hanging overhead. I recollect admiring its pearly, silky, metallic tints, now glistening, then glimmering, or fading into a dull lustre. "Just then, however, the train of her gown had got entangled somewhere round the leg of the chair, so, as this incident impeded her rhythmical and ever quicker movements, enclasping her lover's neck, she managed deftly to cast off her gown, and thus remained stark naked in the man's embrace. "What a splendid body she had! Juno's in all its majesty could not have been more perfect. I had, however, hardly time to admire her luxuriant beauty, her grace, her strength, the splendid symmetry of her outlines, her agility, or her skill, for the race was now reaching its end. "They were both trembling under the spell of that rapturous titillation which just precedes the overflowing of the spermatic ducts. Evidently the tip of the man's tool was being sucked by the mouth of the vagina, a contraction of all the nerves had ensued; the sheath in which the whole column was enclosed had tightened, and both their bodies were writhing convulsively. "Surely after such overpowering spasms, prolapsus and inflammation of the womb must ensue, but then what rapture she must give. "Then I heard mingled sighs and panting, low cooings, gurgling sounds of lust, dying in stifled kisses given by lips that still cleaved languidly to each other; then, as they quivered with the last pangs of pleasure, I quivered in agony, for I was almost sure that that man must be my lover. "'But who can that hateful woman be?' I asked myself.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Then her black demons drove me out into the field. One of them held the plough, the other one led me by a line, the third applied the whip, and Venus in Furs stood to one side and looked on. * * * * * When I was serving dinner on the following day Wanda said: “Bring another cover, I want you to dine with me to-day,” and when I was about to sit down opposite her, she added, “No, over here, close by my side.” She is in the best of humors, gives me soup with her spoon, feeds me with her fork, and places her head on the table like a playful kitten and flirts with me. I have the misfortune of looking at Haydée, who serves in my place, perhaps a little longer than is necessary. It is only now that I noticed her noble, almost European cast of countenance and her magnificent statuesque bust, which is as if hewn out of black marble. The black devil observes that she pleases me, and, grinning, shows her teeth. She has hardly left the room, before Wanda leaps up in a rage. “What, you dare to look at another woman besides me! Perhaps you like her even better than you do me, she is even more demonic!” I am frightened; I have never seen her like this before; she is suddenly pale even to the lips and her whole body trembles. Venus in Furs is jealous of her slave. She snatches the whip from its hook and strikes me in the face; then she calls her black servants, who bind me, and carry me down into the cellar, where they throw me into a dark, dank, subterranean compartment, a veritable prison-cell. Then the lock of the door clicks, the bolts are drawn, a key sings in the lock. I am a prisoner, buried. I have been lying here for I don’t know how long, bound like a calf about to be hauled to the slaughter, on a bundle of damp straw, without any light, without food, without drink, without sleep. It would be like her to let me starve to death, if I don’t freeze to death before then. I am shaking with cold. Or is it fever? I believe I am beginning to hate this woman. * * * * * A red streak, like blood, floods across the floor; it is a light falling through the door which is now thrust open. Wanda appears on the threshold, wrapped in her sables, holding a lighted torch. “Are you still alive?” she asks. “Are you coming to kill me?” I reply with a low, hoarse voice. With two rapid strides Wanda reaches my side, she kneels down beside me, and places my head in her lap. “Are you ill? Your eyes glow so, do you love me? I want you to love me.”

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  The young painter has established his studio in her villa; he is completely in her net. He has just begun a Madonna, a Madonna with red hair and green eyes! Only the idealism of a German would attempt to use this thorough-bred woman as a model for a picture of virginity. The poor fellow really is an almost bigger donkey than I am. Our misfortune is that our Titania has discovered our ass’s ears too soon. * * * * * Now she laughs derisively at us, and how she laughs! I hear her insolent melodious laughter in his studio, under the open window of which I stand, jealously listening. * * * * * “Are you mad, me—ah, it is unbelievable, me as the Mother of God!” she exclaimed and laughed again. “Wait a moment, I will show you another picture of myself, one that I myself have painted, and you shall copy it.” Her head appeared in the window, luminous like a flame under the sunlight. “Gregor!” I hurried up the stairs, through the gallery, into the studio. “Lead him to the bath,” Wanda commanded, while she herself hurried away. A few moments passed and Wanda arrived; dressed in nothing but the sable fur, with the whip in her hand; she descended the stairs and stretched out on the velvet cushions as on the former occasion. I lay at her feet and she placed one of her feet upon me; her right hand played with the whip. “Look at me,” she said, “with your deep, fanatical look, that’s it.” The painter had turned terribly pale. He devoured the scene with his beautiful dreamy blue eyes; his lips opened, but he remained dumb. “Well, how do you like the picture?” “Yes, that is how I want to paint you,” said the German, but it was really not a spoken language; it was the eloquent moaning, the weeping of a sick soul, a soul sick unto death. * * * * * The charcoal outline of the painting is done; the heads and flesh parts are painted in. Her diabolical face is already becoming visible under a few bold strokes, life flashes in her green eyes. Wanda stands in front of the canvas with her arms crossed over her breast. “This picture, like many of those of the Venetian school, is simultaneously to represent a portrait and to tell a story,” explained the painter, who again had become pale as death. “And what will you call it?” she asked, “but what is the matter with you, are you ill?” “I am afraid—” he answered with a consuming look fixed on the beautiful woman in furs, “but let us talk of the picture.” “Yes, let us talk about the picture.”

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  “Two days later I was to start for the assembly of the Zemstvo, and for that reason, on taking leave of me and carrying all his scores with him, Troukhatchevsky asked me when I should return. I inferred from that that he believed it impossible to come to my house during my absence, and that was agreeable to me. Now I was not to return before his departure from the city. So we bade each other a definite farewell. For the first time I shook his hand with pleasure, and thanked him for the satisfaction that he had given me. He likewise took leave of my wife, and their parting seemed to me very natural and proper. All went marvellously. My wife and I retired, well satisfied with the evening. We talked of our impressions in a general way, and we were nearer together and more friendly than we had been for a long time.” CHAPTER XXIV. “Two days later I started for the assembly, having bid farewell to my wife in an excellent and tranquil state of mind. In the district there was always much to be done. It was a world and a life apart. During two days I spent ten hours at the sessions. The evening of the second day, on returning to my district lodgings, I found a letter from my wife, telling me of the children, of their uncle, of the servants, and, among other things, as if it were perfectly natural, that Troukhatchevsky had been at the house, and had brought her the promised scores. He had also proposed that they play again, but she had refused. “For my part, I did not remember at all that he had promised any score. It had seemed to me on Sunday evening that he took a definite leave, and for this reason the news gave me a disagreeable surprise. I read the letter again. There was something tender and timid about it. It produced an extremely painful impression upon me. My heart swelled, and the mad beast of jealousy began to roar in his lair, and seemed to want to leap upon his prey. But I was afraid of this beast, and I imposed silence upon it. “What an abominable sentiment is jealousy! ‘What could be more natural than what she has written?’ said I to myself. I went to bed, thinking myself tranquil again. I thought of the business that remained to be done, and I went to sleep without thinking of her. “During these assemblies of the Zemstvo I always slept badly in my strange quarters. That night I went to sleep directly, but, as sometimes happens, a sort of sudden shock awoke me. I thought immediately of her, of my physical love for her, of Troukhatchevsky, and that between them everything had happened. And a feeling of rage compressed my heart, and I tried to quiet myself.

• From Sexual Politics (1970)

  Lucy is a woman who has watched men and can tell you what they are as seen by the woman they fail to notice. Some are like John Graham Bretton, charming egoists. Their beauty, for Brontë is perhaps the first woman who ever admitted in print that women find men beautiful, amazes and hurts her. Bretton is two people: one is Graham the treasured and privileged man-child seen through the eyes of a slighted sister, whether the distant idolator be Lucy or Missy Home. Brontë keeps breaking people into two parts so we can see their divided and conflicting emotions; Missy is the worshipful sister, Lucy the envious one. Together they represent the situation of the girl in the family. Bretton is both the spoiled son Graham, and the successful doctor John, and in both roles Lucy envies, loves and hates him. Never does the situation permit her to love him in peace, nor him to take notice of her in any but the most tepid and patronizing good humor: sterile, indifferent. His beauty and goodness make him lovable; his privilege and egotism make him hateful. The enormous deprivation of her existence causes Lucy to resemble a ghetto child peering up at a Harvard man-envy, admiration, resentment and dislike; yet with a tremendous urge to love—if it were possible to love one so removed, so diffident, so oppressive, so rich, disdainful and unjustly superior in place. If the male is not the delightful and infuriating egoist whom maturity means learning to relinquish one’s “crush” on, he is the male one encounters a bit later in life when one tries to make one’s way. He is Paul Emanuel, the voice of piety, conventionality, male supremacy, callow chauvinism terrified of female “competition.” John is unconquerable; he will never acknowledge any woman who is not beautiful or rich, his only qualifications; he loved Fanshawe’s stupidity just as readily as Paulina Mary’s virtue. Women are decorative objects to him. Paul is easier to cope with; in his sexual antagonism there is something more tractable. John Graham never saw Lucy; Paul sees her and hates her. Here it is possible to establish contact and, as the story is all a fantasy of success (a type of success utterly impossible to achieve in Brontë’s period, and so necessarily fantastic) Paul is met and persuaded. To his sneer that she is ignorant and women are dolts, Lucy replies with phenomenal intellectual effort. Despite the impossible atmosphere he gives off as a pedagogue, the bullying, the captivity in overheated rooms, the endless spying, the bowdlerizing of her texts—she learns. It is his ridicule that forces her to achieve, pokes her into development, deprives her of the somnolence of ladyhood, its small ambitions, timidity, and self-doubt.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  “With my wife, who desired to nurse her own children, and who did nurse six of them, it happened that the first child was sickly. The doctors, who cynically undressed her and felt of her everywhere, and whom I had to thank and pay for these acts,—these dear doctors decided that she ought not to nurse her child, and she was temporarily deprived of the only remedy for coquetry. A nurse finished the nursing of this first-born,—that is to say, we profited by the poverty and ignorance of a woman to steal her from her own little one in favor of ours, and for that purpose we dressed her in a kakoschnik trimmed with gold lace. Nevertheless, that is not the question; but there was again awakened in my wife that coquetry which had been sleeping during the nursing period. Thanks to that, she reawakened in me the torments of jealousy which I had formerly known, though in a much slighter degree.” CHAPTER XV. “Yes, jealousy, that is another of the secrets of marriage known to all and concealed by all. Besides the general cause of the mutual hatred of husbands and wives resulting from complicity in the pollution of a human being, and also from other causes, the inexhaustible source of marital wounds is jealousy. But by tacit consent it is determined to conceal them from all, and we conceal them. Knowing them, each one supposes in himself that it is an unfortunate peculiarity, and not a common destiny. So it was with me, and it had to be so. There cannot fail to be jealousy between husbands and wives who live immorally. If they cannot sacrifice their pleasures for the welfare of their child, they conclude therefrom, and truly, that they will not sacrifice their pleasures for, I will not say happiness and tranquillity (since one may sin in secret), but even for the sake of conscience. Each one knows very well that neither admits any high moral reasons for not betraying the other, since in their mutual relations they fail in the requirements of morality, and from that time distrust and watch each other. “Oh, what a frightful feeling of jealousy! I do not speak of that real jealousy which has foundations (it is tormenting, but it promises an issue), but of that unconscious jealousy which inevitably accompanies every immoral marriage, and which, having no cause, has no end. This jealousy is frightful. Frightful, that is the word.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  I cannot see her herself; she is invisible behind the curtains of the four-poster bed. “Yes, my mistress,” I reply. “How late is it?” “Past nine o’clock.” “Breakfast.” I hasten to get it, and then kneel down with the tray beside her bed. “Here is breakfast, my mistress.” Wanda draws back the curtains, and curiously enough at the first glance when I see her among the pillows with loosened flowing hair, she seems an absolute stranger, a beautiful woman, but the beloved soft lines are gone. This face is hard and has an expression of weariness and satiety. Or is it simply that formerly my eye did not see this? She fixes her green eyes upon me, more with curiosity than with menace, perhaps even somewhat pityingly, and lazily pulls the dark sleeping fur on which she lies over the bared shoulder. At this moment she is very charming, very maddening, and I feel my blood rising to my head and heart. The tray in my hands begins to sway. She notices it and reached out for the whip which is lying on the toilet- table. “You are awkward, slave,” she says furrowing her brow. I lower my looks to the ground, and hold the tray as steadily as possible. She eats her breakfast, yawns, and stretches her opulent limbs in the magnificent furs. She has rung. I enter. “Take this letter to Prince Corsini.” I hurry into the city, and hand the letter to the Prince. He is a handsome young man with glowing black eyes. Consumed with jealousy, I take his answer to her. “What is the matter with you?” she asks with lurking spitefulness. “You are very pale.” “Nothing, mistress, I merely walked rather fast.” At luncheon the prince is at her side, and I am condemned to serve both her and him. They joke, and I am, as if non-existent, for both. For a brief moment I see black; I was just pouring some Bordeaux into his glass, and spilled it over the table-cloth and her gown. “How awkward,” Wanda exclaimed and slapped my face. The prince laughed, and she also, but I felt the blood rising to my face. After luncheon she drove in the Cascine. She has a little carriage with a handsome, brown English horse, and holds the reins herself. I sit behind and notice how coquettishly she acts, and nods with a smile when one of the distinguished gentlemen bows to her. As I help her out of the carriage, she leans lightly on my arm; the contact runs through me like an electric shock.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  "'Oh, yes! I dare say; as for instance the young lady who has been thrumming the piece you have just played, but there is hardly more than one,—how can I express it?—well more than one sympathetic listener.' "'What do you mean by a sympathetic listener?' asked Courtois, the stock-broker. "'A person with whom a current seems to establish itself; some one who feels, while listening, exactly as I do whilst I am playing, who sees perhaps the same visions as I do—' "'What! do you see visions when you play?' asked one of the bystanders, astonished. "'Not as a rule, but always when I have a sympathetic listener?' "'And do you often have such a listener?' said I, with a sharp pang of jealousy. "'Often? Oh, no! seldom, very seldom, hardly ever in fact, and then——' "'Then what?' "'Never like the one of this evening.' "'And when you have no listener?' asked Courtois. "'Then I play mechanically, and in a humdrum kind of way.' "'Can you guess whom your listener was this evening?' added Briancourt, smiling sardonically, and then with a leer at me. "'One of the many beautiful ladies of course,' quoth Odillot, 'you are a lucky fellow.' "'Yes,' said another, 'I wish I were your neighbour at that table d'hôte, so that you might pass me the dish after you have helped yourself.' "'Was it some beautiful girl?' said Courtois questioningly. Teleny looked deep into my eyes, smiled faintly, and replied: "'Perhaps.' "'Do you think you will ever know your listener?' enquired Briancourt. "Teleny again fixed his eyes on mine, and added faintly: "'Perhaps.' "'But what clue have you to lead to this discovery?' asked Odillot. "'His visions must coincide with mine.' "'I know what my vision would be if I had any,' quoth Odillot. "'What would it be?' enquired Courtois. "'Two lily-white breasts with nipples like two pink rosebuds, and lower down, two moist lips like those pink shells which opening with awakening lust, reveal a pulpy luxurious world, only of a deep coralline hue, and then these two pouting lips must be surrounded by a slight golden or black down——' "'Enough, enough, Odillot, my mouth waters at your vision, and my tongue longs to taste the flavour of those lips,' said the stock-broker, his eyes gleaming like those of a satyr, and evidently in a state of priapism. "'Is not that your vision, Teleny?' "The pianist smiled enigmatically: "'Perhaps.' "'As for me,' said one of the young men who had not yet spoken, 'a vision evoked by a Hungarian rhapsody would be either of vast plains, of bands of gipsies, or of men with round hats, wide trousers and short jackets, riding on fiery horses.' "'Or of booted and laced soldiers dancing with black eyed girls,' added another. "I smiled, thinking how different my vision had been from these.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  “One of the most torturing situations for the jealous (and in our social life everybody is jealous) are those social conditions which allow a very great and dangerous intimacy between a man and a woman under certain pretexts. One must make himself the laughing stock of everybody, if he desires to prevent associations in the ball-room, the intimacy of doctors with their patients, the familiarity of art occupations, and especially of music. In order that people may occupy themselves together with the noblest art, music, a certain intimacy is necessary, in which there is nothing blameworthy. Only a jealous fool of a husband can have anything to say against it. A husband should not have such thoughts, and especially should not thrust his nose into these affairs, or prevent them. And yet, everybody knows that precisely in these occupations, especially in music, many adulteries originate in our society. “I had evidently embarrassed them, because for some time I was unable to say anything. I was like a bottle suddenly turned upside down, from which the water does not run because it is too full. I wanted to insult the man, and to drive him away, but I could do nothing of the kind. On the contrary, I felt that I was disturbing them, and that it was my fault. I made a presence of approving everything, this time also, thanks to that strange feeling that forced me to treat him the more amiably in proportion as his presence was more painful to me. I said that I trusted to his taste, and I advised my wife to do the same. He remained just as long as it was necessary in order to efface the unpleasant impression of my abrupt entrance with a frightened face. He went away with an air of satisfaction at the conclusions arrived at. As for me, I was perfectly sure that, in comparison with that which preoccupied them, the question of music was indifferent to them. I accompanied him with especial courtesy to the hall (how can one help accompanying a man who has come to disturb your tranquillity and ruin the happiness of the entire family?), and I shook his white, soft hand with fervent amiability.” CHAPTER XXII.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  All night long I waited in the ante-room, raving as in a fever. Strange images hovered past my inner eye. I saw their meeting—their long exchange of looks. I saw her float through the hall in his arms, drunken, lying with half-closed lids against his breast. I saw him in the holy of holies of love, lying on the ottoman, not as slave, but as master, and she at his feet. On my knees I served them, the tea-tray faltering in my hands, and I saw him reach for the whip. But now the servants are talking about him. He is a man who is like a woman; he knows that he is beautiful, and he acts accordingly. He changes his clothes four or five times a day, like a vain courtesan. In Paris he appeared first in woman’s dress, and the men assailed him with love-letters. An Italian singer, famous equally for his art and his passionate intensity, even invaded his home, and lying on his knees before him threatened to commit suicide if he wouldn’t be his. “I am sorry,” he replied, smiling, “I should like to do you the favor, but you will have to carry out your threat, for I am a man.” * * * * * The drawing-room has already thinned out to a marked degree, but she apparently has no thought of leaving. Morning is already peering through the blinds. At last I hear the rustling of her heavy gown which flows along behind her like green waves. She advances step by step, engaged in conversation with him. I hardly exist for her any longer; she doesn’t even trouble to give me an order. “The cloak for madame,” he commands. He, of course, doesn’t think of looking after her himself. While I put her furs about her, he stands to one side with his arms crossed. While I am on my knees putting on her fur over-shoes, she lightly supports herself with her hand on his shoulder. She asks: “And what about the lioness?” “When the lion whom she has chosen and with whom she lives is attacked by another,” the Greek went on with his narrative, “the lioness quietly lies down and watches the battle. Even if her mate is worsted she does not go to his aid. She looks on indifferently as he bleeds to death under his opponent’s claws, and follows the victor, the stronger—that is the female’s nature.” At this moment my lioness looked quickly and curiously at me. It made me shudder, though I didn’t know why—and the red dawn immerses me and her and him in blood. * * * * * She did not go to bed, but merely threw off her ball-dress and undid her hair; then she ordered me to build a fire, and she sat by the fire-place, and stared into the flames. “Do you need me any longer, mistress?” I asked, my voice failed me at the last word.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  “‘How many times have I tormented myself in this way,’ I thought (I recalled previous and similar fits of jealousy), ‘and then seen it end in nothing at all? It is the same now. Perhaps, yes, surely, I shall find her quietly sleeping. She will awaken, she will be glad, and in her words and looks I shall see that nothing has happened, that all this is vain. Ah, if it would only so turn out!’ ‘But no, that has happened too often! Now the end has come,’ a voice said to me. “And again it all began. Ah, what torture! It is not to a hospital filled with syphilitic patients that I would take a young man to deprive him of the desire for women, but into my soul, to show him the demon which tore it. The frightful part was that I recognized in myself an indisputable right to the body of my wife, as if her body were entirely mine. And at the same time I felt that I could not possess this body, that it was not mine, that she could do with it as she liked, and that she liked to do with it as I did not like. And I was powerless against him and against her. He, like the Vanka of the song, would sing, before mounting the gallows, how he would kiss her sweet lips, etc., and he would even have the best of it before death. With her it was still worse. If she had not done it, she had the desire, she wished to do it, and I knew that she did. That was worse yet. It would be better if she had already done it, to relieve me of my uncertainty. “In short, I could not say what I desired. I desired that she might not want what she must want. It was complete madness.” CHAPTER XXVI. “At the station before the last, when the conductor came to take the tickets, I took my baggage and went out on the car platform, and the consciousness that the climax was near at hand only added to my agitation. I was cold, my jaw trembled so that my teeth chattered. Mechanically I left the station with the crowd, I took a tchik, and I started. I looked at the few people passing in the streets and at the dvorniks. I read the signs, without thinking of anything. After going half a verst my feet began to feel cold, and I remembered that in the car I had taken off my woollen socks, and had put them in my travelling bag. Where had I put the bag? Was it with me? Yes, and the basket?

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  “In truth, I know not how he lived. I only know that that year he came to Russia, and came to see me. Moist eyes of almond shape, smiling red lips, a little moustache well waxed, hair brushed in the latest fashion, a vulgarly pretty face,—what the women call ‘not bad,’—feebly built physically, but with no deformity; with hips as broad as a woman’s; correct, and insinuating himself into the familiarity of people as far as possible, but having that keen sense that quickly detects a false step and retires in reason,—a man, in short, observant of the external rules of dignity, with that special Parisianism that is revealed in buttoned boots, a gaudy cravat, and that something which foreigners pick up in Paris, and which, in its peculiarity and novelty, always has an influence on our women. In his manners an external and artificial gayety, a way, you know, of referring to everything by hints, by unfinished fragments, as if everything that one says you knew already, recalled it, and could supply the omissions. Well, he, with his music, was the cause of all. “At the trial the affair was so represented that everything seemed attributable to jealousy. It is false,—that is, not quite false, but there was something else. The verdict was rendered that I was a deceived husband, that I had killed in defence of my sullied honor (that is the way they put it in their language), and thus I was acquitted. I tried to explain the affair from my own point of view, but they concluded that I simply wanted to rehabilitate the memory of my wife. Her relations with the musician, whatever they may have been, are now of no importance to me or to her. The important part is what I have told you. The whole tragedy was due to the fact that this man came into our house at a time when an immense abyss had already been dug between us, that frightful tension of mutual hatred, in which the slightest motive sufficed to precipitate the crisis. Our quarrels in the last days were something terrible, and the more astonishing because they were followed by a brutal passion extremely strained. If it had not been he, some other would have come. If the pretext had not been jealousy, I should have discovered another. I insist upon this point,—that all husbands who live the married life that I lived must either resort to outside debauchery, or separate from their wives, or kill themselves, or kill their wives as I did. If there is any one in my case to whom this does not happen, he is a very rare exception, for, before ending as I ended, I was several times on the point of suicide, and my wife made several attempts to poison herself.” CHAPTER XX.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  "'If you love me, you can have me, but if you only do so for a moment's pleasure … still, do what you like, but I swear that I'll kill myself afterwards, if you don't care for me.' "'These are things that are said and not done.' "'You'll see.' "I pulled my phallus out of the den, but before allowing her to rise, I tickled her gently with the tip, making her feel ample satisfaction for the pain I had inflicted on her. "'Could I or could I not have had you?' said I. "'Imbecile,' she hissed like a snake, as she slipped out of my arms and was beyond my reach. "'Wait till next time, and you will then see who is the imbecile,' said I, but she was already out of hearing." "I must own you were somewhat of a greenhorn; I suppose, however, that you had your revenge, next time." "My revenge, if it can be called by that name, was a fearful one. "Our coachman, a young, stalwart, broad-shouldered and brawny fellow, whose fondness had hitherto expended itself on his horses, had fallen in love with this slight girl, who looked as sapless as a holly twig. "He had tried to woo her in honourable fashion in every possible way. His former continence and his newly-born passion had softened all that was boorish in him, he had plied her with flowers, ribbons and trinkets, but she had scornfully refused all his presents. "He had offered to marry her at once; he had gone so far as to make her a free gift of a cottage and a bit of land he possessed in his country. "She exasperated him by treating him almost with scorn, resenting his love as an insult. An irresistible longing was in his eyes, in her's a vacant stare. "Goaded to madness by her indifference, he had tried by strength what he could not obtain by love, and had had to understand that the fairer sex is not always the weaker one. "After his attempt and failure she tantalized him all the more. Whenever she met him she would put her thumb-nail up to her top teeth and emit a slight sound. "The cook, who had a latent fondness for this strong and sinewy young fellow, and who must have had an inkling that something had taken place between this girl and myself, evidently informed him of the fact, arousing thereby in him an ungovernable fit of jealousy. "Stung to the quick, he hardly knew whether he loved or hated this girl most, and he cared but little what became of him provided he could satisfy his craving for her. All the softness which love had awakened gave way to the sexual energy of the male. "Unperceived, or probably let in by the cook, he stealthily secreted himself in her room, and ensconced himself behind an old screen, which, together with other lumber, had been stowed away there.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  “When we moved to Moscow, this gentleman—his name was Troukhatchevsky—came to my house. It was in the morning. I received him. In former times we had been very familiar. He tried, by various advances, to re-establish the familiarity, but I was determined to keep him at a distance, and soon he gave it up. He displeased me extremely. At the first glance I saw that he was a filthy débauché. I was jealous of him, even before he had seen my wife. But, strange thing! some occult fatal power kept me from repulsing him and sending him away, and, on the contrary, induced me to suffer this approach. What could have been simpler than to talk with him a few minutes, and then dismiss him coldly without introducing him to my wife? But no, as if on purpose, I turned the conversation upon his skill as a violinist, and he answered that, contrary to what I had heard, he now played the violin more than formerly. He remembered that I used to play. I answered that I had abandoned music, but that my wife played very well. “Singular thing! Why, in the important events of our life, in those in which a man’s fate is decided,—as mine was decided in that moment,—why in these events is there neither a past nor a future? My relations with Troukhatchevsky the first day, at the first hour, were such as they might still have been after all that has happened. I was conscious that some frightful misfortune must result from the presence of this man, and, in spite of that, I could not help being amiable to him. I introduced him to my wife. She was pleased with him. In the beginning, I suppose, because of the pleasure of the violin playing, which she adored. She had even hired for that purpose a violinist from the theatre. But when she cast a glance at me, she understood my feelings, and concealed her impression. Then began the mutual trickery and deceit. I smiled agreeably, pretending that all this pleased me extremely. He, looking at my wife, as all débauchés look at beautiful women, with an air of being interested solely in the subject of conversation,—that is, in that which did not interest him at all. “She tried to seem indifferent. But my expression, my jealous or false smile, which she knew so well, and the voluptuous glances of the musician, evidently excited her. I saw that, after the first interview, her eyes were already glittering, glittering strangely, and that, thanks to my jealousy, between him and her had been immediately established that sort of electric current which is provoked by an identity of expression in the smile and in the eyes.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  "Teleny covered her bare neck and arms with kisses, pressed his cheeks against the thick, black hair of her arm-pits, and tickled her as he did so. This little titillation was felt all over her body, and the slit between her legs opened again in such a way that the delicate little clitoris, like a red hawthorn berry, peeped out as if to see what was going on. He held her for a moment crushed against his chest, and his 'merle'—as the Italians call it—flying out of his cage, he thrust it into the opening ready to receive it. "She pushed lustily against him, but he had to keep her up, for her legs were almost giving way, so great was the pleasure she felt. He therefore stretched her down on the panther rug at his feet, without unclasping her. "All sense of shyness was now overcome. He pulled off his clothes, and pressed down with all his strength. She—to receive his instrument far deep in her sheath—clasped him with her legs in such a way that he could hardly move. He was, therefore, only able to rub himself against her; but that was more than enough, for after a few violent shakes of their buttocks, legs pressed, and breasts crushed, the burning liquid which he injected within her body gave her a spasmodic pleasure, and she fell senseless on the panther skin whilst he rolled, motionless, by her side. "Till then I felt that my image had always been present before his eyes, although he was enjoying this handsome woman—so beautiful, for she had hardly yet reached the bloom of ripe womanhood; but now the pleasure she had given him had made him quite forget me. I therefore hated him. For a moment I felt that I should like to be a wild beast—to drive my nails into his flesh, to torture him like a cat does a mouse, and to tear him into pieces. "What right had he to love anybody but myself? Did I love a single being in this world as I loved him? Could I feel pleasure with anyone else? "No, my love was not a maudlin sentimentality, it was the maddening passion that overpowers the body and shatters the brain! "If he could love women, why did he then make love to me, obliging me to love him, making me a contemptible being in my own eyes? "In the paroxysm of my excitement I writhed, I bit my lips till they bled. I dug my nails into my flesh; I cried out with jealousy and shame. It wanted but little to have made me jump out of the cab, and go and ring at the door of his house. "This state of things lasted for a few moments, and then I began to wonder what he was doing, and the fit of hallucination came over me again. I saw him awakening from the slumber into which he had fallen when overpowered by enjoyment.

• From The Liars' Club: A Memoir (1995)

  Lecia also had the habit of shooing me away when the two of them conspired. She’d flap her hand at me as if I were some horsefly to get rid of. They had some special hookup to each other, those two, some invisible circle of understanding that they stood in together, while Daddy and I were exiled to a duller realm with which Mother had no truck. Anyway, that day at the hospital when the white figure of the nurse finally came to stand behind Mother, the signal for her to go, I guess, Lecia craned up her head for a good-bye kiss. She pressed her lips right up against the chicken wire. I wanted to smack her on the ass of her cut-off Levi’s, especially when Mother’s lips appeared through the honeycomb mesh to meet hers. When Daddy was backing his truck out of the gravel parking lot, the tropical print Mother wore came to fill another window. And she put her hand flat up against the mesh. It made me think of a very white orchid I had found once sprinkled with some powder and mashed between the pages of Hamlet. That one visit was the only time we saw her all that month. That night I fell right to sleep for the first time in weeks. And the worst dream came to play itself on the back wall of my skull like it was wide-angle TV. In it, Daddy was hacking up some large, dead animal on the plywood table in the kitchen. I was walking across the dining room toward him, watching him through the rectangular window between the two rooms. I couldn’t make out what kind of creature it was—deer or boar, something big. Plus, Daddy usually cleaned his kill on the back patio over a washtub, so he could hose the blood off the bricks when he was through. His T-shirt was spattered with blood. The veins on his hands were raised up from the strain of the work. At one point in the dream, he lifted the cleaver and brought it down hard. Then he wiggled it to get through some gristle, which he did with a click. I heard the cleaver thump clear through the bone onto the table’s wood. About that time, Daddy caught sight of me and said to go back to bed, he was busy. “Get on back to bed, Pokey” was how he put it. He hardly looked at me at all. I turned to go, but felt compelled to look back, as if magnetized by his task. He held up a part of the animal to study. Then the light changed. And he was holding an actual human arm, hacked off at the elbow. At the end of that arm was Mother’s hand wearing Grandma’s wedding band.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  “You want to remain my slave, even then?” she said, “that would be interesting, but I am afraid he wouldn’t permit it.” “He?” “Yes, he is already jealous of you,” she exclaimed, “he, of you! He demanded that I dismiss you immediately, and when I told him who you were—” “You told him—” I repeated, thunderstruck. “I told him everything,” she replied, “our whole story, all your queerness, everything—and he, instead of being amused, grew angry, and stamped his foot.” “And threatened to strike you?” Wanda looked to the ground, and remained silent. “Yes, indeed,” I said with mocking bitterness, “you are afraid of him, Wanda!” I threw myself down at her feet, and in my agitation embraced her knees. “I don’t want anything of you, except to be your slave, to be always near you! I will be your dog-” “Do you know, you bore me?” said Wanda, indifferently. I leaped up. Everything within me was seething. “You are now no longer cruel, but cheap,” I said, clearly and distinctly, accentuating every word. “You have already written that in your letter,” Wanda replied, with a proud shrug of the shoulders. “A man of brains should never repeat himself.” “The way you are treating me,” I broke out, “what would you call it?” “I might punish you,” she replied ironically, “but I prefer this time to reply with reasons instead of lashes. You have no right to accuse me. Haven’t I always been honest with you? Haven’t I warned you more than once? Didn’t I love you with all my heart, even passionately, and did I conceal the fact from you, that it was dangerous to give yourself into my power, to abase yourself before me, and that I want to be dominated? But you wished to be my plaything, my slave! You found the highest pleasure in feeling the foot, the whip of an arrogant, cruel woman. What do you want now? “Dangerous potentialities were slumbering in me, but you were the first to awaken them. If I now take pleasure in torturing you, abusing you, it is your fault; you have made of me what I now am, and now you are even unmanly, weak, and miserable enough to accuse me.” “Yes, I am guilty,” I said, “but haven’t I suffered because of it? Let us put an end now to the cruel game.” “That is my wish, too,” she replied with a curious deceitful look. “Wanda!” I exclaimed violently, “don’t drive me to extremes; you see that I am a man again.”

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  “Always, now, it happened that, in talking with me through a third party (that is, in talking with others, but with the intention that I should hear), she boldly expressed,—not thinking that an hour before she had said the opposite,—half joking, half seriously, this idea that maternal anxieties are a delusion; that it is not worth while to sacrifice one’s life to children. When one is young, it is necessary to enjoy life. So she occupied herself less with the children, not with the same intensity as formerly, and paid more and more attention to herself, to her face,—although she concealed it,—to her pleasures, and even to her perfection from the worldly point of view. She began to devote herself passionately to the piano, which had formerly stood forgotten in the corner. There, at the piano, began the adventure. “The man appeared.” Posdnicheff seemed embarrassed, and twice again there escaped him that nasal sound of which I spoke above. I thought that it gave him pain to refer to the man, and to remember him. He made an effort, as if to break down the obstacle that embarrassed him, and continued with determination. “He was a bad man in my eyes, and not because he has played such an important rôle in my life, but because he was really such. For the rest, from the fact that he was bad, we must conclude that he was irresponsible. He was a musician, a violinist. Not a professional musician, but half man of the world, half artist. His father, a country proprietor, was a neighbor of my father’s. The father had become ruined, and the children, three boys, were all sent away. Our man, the youngest, was sent to his godmother at Paris. There they placed him in the Conservatory, for he showed a taste for music. He came out a violinist, and played in concerts.” On the point of speaking evil of the other, Posdnicheff checked himself, stopped, and said suddenly:

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  “If I had been pure, I should not have dreamed of what he might think of her. But I looked at women, and that is why I understood him and was in torture. I was in torture, especially because I was sure that toward me she had no other feeling than of perpetual irritation, sometimes interrupted by the customary sensuality, and that this man,—thanks to his external elegance and his novelty, and, above all, thanks to his unquestionably remarkable talent, thanks to the attraction exercised under the influence of music, thanks to the impression that music produces upon nervous natures,—this man would not only please, but would inevitably, and without difficulty, subjugate and conquer her, and do with her as he liked. “I could not help seeing this. I could not help suffering, or keep from being jealous. And I was jealous, and I suffered, and in spite of that, and perhaps even because of that, an unknown force, in spite of my will, impelled me to be not only polite, but more than polite, amiable. I cannot say whether I did it for my wife, or to show him that I did not fear him, or to deceive myself; but from my first relations with him I could not be at my ease. I was obliged, that I might not give way to a desire to kill him immediately, to ‘caress’ him. I filled his glass at the table, I grew enthusiastic over his playing, I talked to him with an extremely amiable smile, and I invited him to dinner the following Sunday, and to play again. I told him that I would invite some of my acquaintances, lovers of his art, to hear him. “Two or three days later I was entering my house, in conversation with a friend, when in the hall I suddenly felt something as heavy as a stone weighing on my heart, and I could not account for it. And it was this, it was this: in passing through the hall, I had noticed something which reminded me of him. Not until I reached my study did I realize what it was, and I returned to the hall to verify my conjecture. Yes, I was not mistaken. It was his overcoat (everything that belonged to him, I, without realizing it, had observed with extraordinary attention). I questioned the servant. That was it. He had come. “I passed near the parlor, through my children’s study-room. Lise, my daughter, was sitting before a book, and the old nurse, with my youngest child, was beside the table, turning the cover of something or other. In the parlor I heard a slow arpeggio, and his voice, deadened, and a denial from her. She said: ‘No, no! There is something else!’ And it seemed to me that some one was purposely deadening the words by the aid of the piano.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  "Meanwhile I walked on at hap-hazard. After wandering about for an hour, I found myself unexpectedly before Teleny's house. I had wended my steps thitherwards, without knowing where I went. I looked up at Teleny's windows with longing eyes. How I loved that house. I could have kissed the very stones on which he had stepped. "The night was dark but clear, the street—a very quiet one—was not of the best lighted, and for some reason or other the nearest gas-lamp had gone out. "As I kept staring up at the windows, it seemed as if I saw a faint light glimmering through the crevices of the shut-np blinds. 'Of course,' thought I, 'it is only my imagination.' "I strained my eyes. 'No, surely, I am not mistaken,' said I, audibly to myself, 'surely there is a light.' "'Had Teleny come back?' "Perhaps he had been seized with the same state of dejection which had come over me when we parted. The anguish visible on my ghastly face must have paralyzed him, and in the state in which he was he could not play, so he had come back. Perhaps, also, the concert had been postponed. "Perhaps it was thieves? "But if Teleny——? "No, the very idea was absurd. How could I suspect the man I loved of infidelity. I shrank from such a supposition as from something heinous—from a kind of moral pollution. No, it must be anything else but that. The key of the door downstairs was in my hand, I was already in the house. "I crept stealthily upstairs, in the dark, thinking of the first night I had accompanied my friend there, thinking how we had stopped to kiss and hug each other at every step. "But now, without my friend, the darkness was weighing upon me, overpowering, crushing me. I was at last on the landing of the entresol where my friend lived; the whole house was perfectly quiet. "Before putting in the key, I looked through the hole. Had Teleny, or his servant, left the gas lighted in the antechamber and in one of the rooms? "Then the remembrance of the broken mirror came into my mind; all kinds of horrible thoughts flitted through my brain. Then, again, in spite of myself, the awful apprehension of having been supplanted in Teleny's affection by someone else forced itself upon me. "'No, it was too ridiculous. Who could this rival be?' "Like a thief I introduced the key in the lock; the hinges were well oiled, the door yielded noiselessly, and opened. I shut it carefully, without its emitting the slightest sound. I stole in on tiptoe. "There were thick carpets everywhere that muffled my steps. I went to the room where, a few hours before, I had known such rapturous bliss. "It was lighted. "I heard stifled sounds within.