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)

  "Then he began to play, not as if his task were a weary one, but as if he were pouring out his heavily-laden soul; and the music sounded like the warbling of a bird which, in its attempt to captivate its mate, pants forth its floods of rapture, resolved either to conquer or to die in profuse strains of unpremeditated art. "It is needless to say that I was thoroughly overcome, whilst the whole crowd was thrilled by the sweet sadness of his song. "The piece finished, I hurried out—frankly, in the hope of meeting him. Whilst he had been playing, a mighty struggle had been going on within myself—between my heart and my brain; and the glowing senses asked cold reason, what was the use of fighting against an ungovernable passion? I was, indeed, ready to forgive him for all I had suffered, for after all, had I any right to be angry with him? "As I entered the room he was the first—nay, the only person I saw. A feeling of indesscribable delight filled my whole being, and my heart seemed to bound forth towards him. All at once, however, all my rapture passed away, my blood froze in my veins, and love gave way to anger and hatred. He was arm-in-arm with Briancourt, who, openly congratulating him on his success, was evidently clinging to him like the ivy to the oak. Briancourt's eyes and mine met; in his there was a look of exultation; in mine, of withering scorn. "As soon as Teleny saw me, he at once broke loose from Briancourt's clutches, and came up to me. Jealousy maddened me, I gave him the stiffest and most distant of bows and passed on, utterly disregarding his out-stretched hands. "I heard a slight murmur amongst the bystanders, and as I walked away I saw with the corner of my eye his hurt look, his blushes that came and went, and his expression of wounded pride Though hot-tempered, he bowed resignedly, as if to say: 'Be it as you will,' and he went back to Briancourt, whose face was beaming with satisfaction. "Briancourt said,—'He has always been a cad, a tradesman, a proud parvenu!' just loud enough for the words to reach my ear. 'Do not mind him.' "'No,' added Teleny, musingly, 'it is I who am to blame, not he.' "Little did he understand with what a bleeding heart I walked out of the room, yearning at every step to turn back, and to throw my arms around his neck before everybody, and beg his forgiveness. "I wavered for a moment, whether to go and offer him my hand or not. Alas! do we often yield to the warm impulse of the heart? Are we not, instead, always guided by the advice of the calculating, conscience-muddled, clay-cold brain?

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

  "Still the sight of those two naked bodies clasped in such a thrilling embrace, those two massy lobes of flesh, as white as newly-fallen snow; the smothered sound of their ecstatic bliss, overcame for a moment my excruciating jealousy, and I got to be excited to such an ungovernable pitch that I could hardly forbear from rushing into that room. My fluttering bird—my nightingale, as they call it in Italy—like Sterne's starling—was trying to escape from its cage; and not only that, but it also lifted up its head in such a way that it seemed to wish to reach the key-hole. "My fingers were already on the handle of the door. Why should I not burst it and have my share in the feast, though in a humbler way, and like a beggar go in by the back entrance? "Why not, indeed! "Just then, the lady whose arms were still tightly clasped round the man's neck, said,— "'Bon Dieu! how good it is! I have not felt such intensity of rapture for a long time.' "For an instant I was stunned. My fingers relinquished the handle of the door, my arm fell, even my bird drooped down lifeless. "What a voice! "'But I know that voice,' I said to myself. 'Its sound is most familar to me. Only the blood which is reaching up to my head and tingling in my ears prevents me from understanding whose voice it is.' "Whilst in my amazement I had lifted up my head, she had got up and turned round. Standing as she was now, and nearer the door, my eyes could not reach her face, still I could see her naked body—from the shoulders downwards. It was a marvellous figure, the finest one I had ever seen. A woman's torso in the height of its beauty. "Her skin was of a dazzling whiteness, and could vie in smoothness as well as in pearly lustre with the satin of the gown she had cast off. Her breasts—perhaps a little too big to be æsthetically beautiful—seemed to belong to one of those voluptuous Venetian courtezans painted by Titian; they stood out plump and hard as if swollen with milk; the protruding nipples, like two dainty pink buds, were surrounded by a brownish halo which looked like the silky fringe of the passion flower. "The powerful line of the hips shewed to advantage the beauty of the legs. Her stomach—so perfectly round and smooth—was half covered with a magnificent fur, as black and as glossy as a beaver's, and yet I could see that she had been a mother, for it was moiré like watered silk. From the yawning, humid lips pearly drops were slowly trickling down.

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

  "'Amongst a French public, especially that of a charity concert, do you really think that there are many persons who listen? I mean who listen intently with all their heart and soul. The young men are obliging the ladies, these are scrutinizing each other's toilette; the fathers, who are bored, are either thinking of the rise and fall of the stocks, or else counting the number of gas-lights, and reckoning how much the illumination will cost.' "'Still, among such a crowd there is surely more than one attentive listener,' said Odillot the lawyer. "'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.'

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

  “We talked, at the first interview, of music, of Paris, and of all sorts of trivialities. He rose to go. Pressing his hat against his swaying hip, he stood erect, looking now at her and now at me, as if waiting to see what she would do. I remember that minute, precisely because it was in my power not to invite him. I need not have invited him, and then nothing would have happened. But I cast a glance first at him, then at her. ‘Don’t flatter yourself that I can be jealous of you,’ I thought, addressing myself to her mentally, and I invited the other to bring his violin that very evening, and to play with my wife. She raised her eyes toward me with astonishment, and her face turned purple, as if she were seized with a sudden fear. She began to excuse herself, saying that she did not play well enough. This refusal only excited me the more. I remember the strange feeling with which I looked at his neck, his white neck, in contrast with his black hair, separated by a parting, when, with his skipping gait, like that of a bird, he left my house. I could not help confessing to myself that this man’s presence caused me suffering. ‘It is in my power,’ thought I, ‘to so arrange things that I shall never see him again. But can it be that I, I, fear him? No, I do not fear him. It would be too humiliating!’ “And there in the hall, knowing that my wife heard me, I insisted that he should come that very evening with his violin. He promised me, and went away. In the evening he arrived with his violin, and they played together. But for a long time things did not go well; we had not the necessary music, and that which we had my wife could not play at sight. I amused myself with their difficulties. I aided them, I made proposals, and they finally executed a few pieces,—songs without words, and a little sonata by Mozart. He played in a marvellous manner. He had what is called the energetic and tender tone. As for difficulties, there were none for him. Scarcely had he begun to play, when his face changed. He became serious, and much more sympathetic. He was, it is needless to say, much stronger than my wife. He helped her, he advised her simply and naturally, and at the same time played his game with courtesy. My wife seemed interested only in the music. She was very simple and agreeable. Throughout the evening I feigned, not only for the others, but for myself, an interest solely in the music. Really, I was continually tortured by jealousy. From the first minute that the musician’s eyes met those of my wife, I saw that he did not regard her as a disagreeable woman, with whom on occasion it would be unpleasant to enter into intimate relations.

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

  “‘How stupid!’ said I to myself; ‘there is no reason, none at all. And why humiliate ourselves, herself and myself, and especially myself, by supposing such horrors? This mercenary violinist, known as a bad man,—shall I think of him in connection with a respectable woman, the mother of a family, my wife? How silly!’ But on the other hand, I said to myself: ‘Why should it not happen?’ “Why? Was it not the same simple and intelligible feeling in the name of which I married, in the name of which I was living with her, the only thing I wanted of her, and that which, consequently, others desired, this musician among the rest? He was not married, was in good health (I remember how his teeth ground the gristle of the cutlets, and how eagerly he emptied the glass of wine with his red lips), was careful of his person, well fed, and not only without principles, but evidently with the principle that one should take advantage of the pleasure that offers itself. There was a bond between them, music,—the most refined form of sensual voluptuousness. What was there to restrain them? Nothing. Everything, on the contrary, attracted them. And she, she had been and had remained a mystery. I did not know her. I knew her only as an animal, and an animal nothing can or should restrain. And now I remember their faces on Sunday evening, when, after the ‘Kreutzer Sonata,’ they played a passionate piece, written I know not by whom, but a piece passionate to the point of obscenity. “‘How could I have gone away?’ said I to myself, as I recalled their faces. ‘Was it not clear that between them everything was done that evening? Was it not clear that between them not only there were no more obstacles, but that both—especially she—felt a certain shame after what had happened at the piano? How weakly, pitiably, happily she smiled, as she wiped the perspiration from her reddened face! They already avoided each other’s eyes, and only at the supper, when she poured some water for him, did they look at each other and smile imperceptibly.’ “Now I remember with fright that look and that scarcely perceptible smile. ‘Yes, everything has happened,’ a voice said to me, and directly another said the opposite. ‘Are you mad? It is impossible!’ said the second voice.

• 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.” She draws forth a short dagger.

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

  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. “‘How stupid!’ said I to myself; ‘there is no reason, none at all. And why humiliate ourselves, herself and myself, and especially myself, by supposing such horrors? This mercenary violinist, known as a bad man,— shall I think of him in connection with a respectable woman, the mother of a family, my wife? How silly!’ But on the other hand, I said to myself: ‘Why should it not happen?’ “Why? Was it not the same simple and intelligible feeling in the name of which I married, in the name of which I was living with her, the only thing I wanted of her, and that which, consequently, others desired, this musician among the rest? He was not married, was in good health (I remember how his teeth ground the gristle of the cutlets, and how eagerly he emptied the glass of wine with his red lips), was careful of his person, well fed, and not only without principles, but evidently with the principle that one should take advantage of the pleasure that offers itself. There was a bond between them, music,—the most refined form of sensual voluptuousness. What was there to restrain them? Nothing. Everything, on the contrary, attracted them. And she, she had been and had remained a mystery.

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

  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.

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

  Here again the doctor interferes. “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. “And this is it. A young man speaks to my wife. He looks at her with a smile, and, as it seems to me, he surveys her body. How does he dare to think of her, to think of the possibility of a romance with her? And how can she, seeing this, tolerate him?

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

  And it seemed to me that some one was purposely deadening the words by the aid of the piano. “My God! How my heart leaped! What were my imaginations! When I remember the beast that lived in me at that moment, I am seized with fright. My heart was first compressed, then stopped, and then began to beat like a hammer. The principal feeling, as in every bad feeling, was pity for myself. ‘Before the children, before the old nurse,’ thought I, ‘she dishonors me. I will go away. I can endure it no longer. God knows what I should do if. . . . But I must go in.’ “The old nurse raised her eyes to mine, as if she understood, and advised me to keep a sharp watch. ‘I must go in,’ I said to myself, and, without knowing what I did, I opened the door. He was sitting at the piano and making arpeggios with his long, white, curved fingers. She was standing in the angle of the grand piano, before the open score. She saw or heard me first, and raised her eyes to mine. Was she stunned, was she pretending not to be frightened, or was she really not frightened at all? In any case, she did not tremble, she did not stir. She blushed, but only a little later. “‘How glad I am that you have come! We have not decided what we will play Sunday,’ said she, in a tone that she would not have had if she had been alone with me. “This tone, and the way in which she said ‘we’ in speaking of herself and of him, revolted me. I saluted him silently. He shook hands with me directly, with a smile that seemed to me full of mockery. He explained to me that he had brought some scores, in order to prepare for the Sunday concert, and that they were not in accord as to the piece to choose,—whether difficult, classic things, notably a sonata by Beethoven, or lighter pieces. “And as he spoke, he looked at me. It was all so natural, so simple, that there was absolutely nothing to be said against it. And at the same time I saw, I was sure, that it was false, that they were in a conspiracy to deceive me. “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.

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

  The women particularly gaped at him as though he were a wild animal, but he went his way gloomily without paying attention to any one. He was accompanied by two servants, one a negro, completely dressed in red satin, and the other a Circassian in his full gleaming uniform. Suddenly he saw Wanda, and fixed his cold piercing look upon her; he even turned his head after her, and when she had passed, he stood still and followed her with his eyes. And she—she veritably devoured him with her radiant green eyes—and did everything possible to meet him again. The cunning coquetry with which she walked, moved, and looked at him, almost stifled me. On the way home I remarked about it. She knit her brows. “What do you want,” she said, “the prince is a man whom I might like, who even dazzles me, and I am free. I can do what I please—” “Don’t you love me any longer—” I stammered, frightened. “I love only you,” she replied, “but I shall have the prince pay court to me.” “Wanda!” “Aren’t you my slave?” she said calmly. “Am I not Venus, the cruel northern Venus in Furs?” I was silent. I felt literally crushed by her words; her cold look entered my heart like a dagger. “You will find out immediately the prince’s name, residence, and circumstances,” she continued. “Do you understand?” “But—” “No argument, obey!” exclaimed Wanda, more sternly than I would have thought possible for her, “and don’t dare to enter my sight until you can answer my questions.” It was not till afternoon that I could obtain the desired information for Wanda. She let me stand before her like a servant, while she leaned back in her arm-chair and listened to me, smiling. Then she nodded; she seemed to be satisfied. “Bring me my footstool,” she commanded shortly. I obeyed, and after having put it before her and having put her feet on it, I remained kneeling. “How will this end?” I asked sadly after a short pause. She broke into playful laughter. “Why things haven’t even begun yet.” “You are more heartless than I imagined,” I replied, hurt. “Severin,” Wanda began earnestly. “I haven’t done anything yet, not the slightest thing, and you are already calling me heartless. What will happen when I begin to carry your dreams to their realization, when I shall lead a gay, free life and have a circle of admirers about me, when I shall actually fulfil your ideal, tread you underfoot and apply the lash?” “You take my dreams too seriously.” “Too seriously? I can’t stop at make-believe, when once I begin,” she replied. “You know I hate all play- acting and comedy. You have wished it. Was it my idea or yours?

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  And it’s a good thing, too, we are down to a dozen logs. When my toes are thawed, I stand and head downstairs so that I can tell him. He’s not in the kitchen. I stand for a moment at the sink where I usually find him looking out the window. The faucet has a drip. I watch it for a minute before turning away. The whiskey we were drinking a few nights ago is still on the counter. I screw off the cap and take a swig straight from the bottle. The lip feels warm. I wonder if Isaac was in here doing the same thing. I flinch, lick my lips and take two more deep sips. I walk boldly up the stairs, swinging my arms as I go. I’ve learned that if you move all of your limbs at once you can chase some of the cold away. Isaac is in the carousel room. I find him sitting on the floor staring up at one of the horses. This is unusual. It’s typically my spot. I slide down the wall until I am sitting next to him and stretch my legs out in front of me. I am already feeling the effects of the whiskey, which makes this easier. “The carousel day,” I say. “Let’s talk about it.” Isaac turns his head to look at me. Instead of avoiding his eyes, I catch and hold them. He has such a piercing gaze. Steely. “I haven’t told anyone that story. I can’t for the life of me figure out how someone would know. That’s why this room seems more like a coincidence,” I say. He doesn’t reply, so I carry on. “You told someone though, didn’t you?” “Yes.” He lied to me. He told me he hadn’t told a soul. Maybe I lied, too. I can’t remember. “Who did you tell, Isaac?” We are breathing together, both sets of eyebrows drawn. “My wife.” I don’t like that word. It makes me think of frilly aprons with apple pattern and blind, submissive love. I look away. I look instead at the death that adorns the horses’ lacquered manes. One horse is black and one is white. The black has the flared nostrils of a racehorse, its head tossed to the side, eyes wide with fear. One leg is furled up like it was mid-stride when sentenced to eternal fiberglass. It is the more striking of the two horses: the determined, angry one. I am endeared to it. Mostly because there is an arrow piercing its heart. “Who did she tell?” “Senna,” he says. “No one. Who would she tell that to?” I push myself to my feet and walk barefoot to the first horse—the black one. I trace the saddle with my pinkie.

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  Come on, Earl! Break your daughter’s heart! But Earl loved Roger. Every dad loved Roger. He was the best football player they’d ever seen. Of course they loved him. It would have been un-American not to love the best football player. I imagined that Earl said his daughter could go only if Roger got his hands into her panties instead of me. I was angry and jealous and absolutely terrified. “I can go! I can go!” Penelope said, ran back to me, and hugged me hard. An hour later, about twenty of us were sitting in a Denny’s in Spokane. Everybody ordered pancakes. I ordered pancakes for Penelope and me. I ordered orange juice and coffee and a side order of toast and hot chocolate and French fries, too, even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to pay for any of it. I figured it was my last meal before my execution, and I was going to have a feast. Halfway through our meal, I went to the bathroom. I thought maybe I was going to throw up, so I kneeled at the toilet. But I only retched a bit. Roger came into the bathroom and heard me. “Hey, Arnie,” he said. “Are you okay?” “Yeah,” I said. “I’m just tired.” “All right, man,” he said. “I’m happy you guys came tonight. You and Penultimate are a great couple, man.” “You think so?” “Yeah, have you done her yet?” “I don’t really want to talk about that stuff.” “Yeah, you’re right, dude. It’s none of my business. Hey, man, are you going to try out for basketball?” I knew that practice started in a week. I’d planned on playing. But I didn’t know if the Coach liked Indians or not. “Yeah,” I said. “Are you any good?” “I’m okay.” “You think you’re good enough to play varsity?” Roger asked. “No way,” I said. “I’m junior varsity all the way.” “All right,” Roger said. “It will be good to have you out there. We need some new blood.” “Thanks, man,” I said. I couldn’t believe he was so nice. He was, well, he was POLITE! How many great football players are polite? And kind? And generous like that? It was amazing. “Hey, listen,” I said. “The reason I was getting sick in there is—” I thought about telling him the whole truth, but I just couldn’t. “I bet you’re just sick with love,” Roger said. “No, well, yeah, maybe,” I said. “But the thing is, my stomach is all messed up because I, er, forgot my wallet. I left my money at home, man.” “Dude!” Roger said. “Man, don’t sweat it. You should have said something earlier. I got you covered.” He opened his wallet and handed me forty bucks. Holy, holy.

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

  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. “‘How stupid!’ said I to myself; ‘there is no reason, none at all. And why humiliate ourselves, herself and myself, and especially myself, by supposing such horrors? This mercenary violinist, known as a bad man,—shall I think of him in connection with a respectable woman, the mother of a family, my wife? How silly!’ But on the other hand, I said to myself: ‘Why should it not happen?’ “Why? Was it not the same simple and intelligible feeling in the name of which I married, in the name of which I was living with her, the only thing I wanted of her, and that which, consequently, others desired, this musician among the rest? He was not married, was in good health (I remember how his teeth ground the gristle of the cutlets, and how eagerly he emptied the glass of wine with his red lips), was careful of his person, well fed, and not only without principles, but evidently with the principle that one should take advantage of the pleasure that offers itself. There was a bond between them, music,—the most refined form of sensual voluptuousness. What was there to restrain them? Nothing. Everything, on the contrary, attracted them.

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

  He might, moreover, allow himself to be helped in a thousand ways otherwise than by money, but his piano would be his gagne-pain .' "'Just like the stage is for most ballet-girls; then I should not like to be an artist.' "'Oh! they are not the only men who owe their success to a mistress, or to a wife. Read " Bel Ami ," and you will see that many a successful man, and even more than one celebrated personage, owes his greatness to —— ' "'A woman?' "'Exactly; it is always: Cherchez la femme .' "'Then this is a disgusting world.' "'Having to live in it, we must make the best of it we can, and not take matters quite so tragically as you do.' "'Anyhow, he plays well. In fact, I never heard anyone play like he did last night.' "'Yes, I grant that last night he did play brilliantly, or, rather, sensationally; but it also must be admitted that you were in a rather morbid state of health and mind, so that music must have had an uncommon effect upon your nerves.' "'Oh! you think there was an evil spirit within me troubling me, and that a cunning player—as the Bible has it—was alone able to quiet my nerves.' "My mother smiled. "'Well, now-a-days, we are all of us more or less like Saul; that is to say, we are all occasionally troubled with an evil spirit.' "Thereupon her brow grew clouded, and she interrupted herself, for evidently the remembrance of my late father came to her mind; then she added, musingly— "'And Saul was really to be pitied.' "I did not give her an answer. I was only thinking why David had found favour in Saul's sight. Was it because 'he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to'? Was it also for this reason that, as soon as Jonathan had seen him, 'the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul'? "Was Teleny's soul knit with my own? Was I to love and hate him, as Saul loved and hated David? Anyhow, I despised myself and my folly. I felt a grudge against the musician who had bewitched me; above all, I loathed the whole womankind, the curse of the world. "All at once my mother drew me from my gloomy thoughts. "'You are not going to the office to-day, if you do not feel well,' said she, after a while."

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

  Only in some it is made very evident, in others less so. But no one lives by her own life; they are all dependent upon man. They cannot be otherwise, since to them the attraction of the greatest number of men is the ideal of life (young girls and married women), and it is for this reason that they have no feeling stronger than that of the animal need of every female who tries to attract the largest number of males in order to increase the opportunities for choice. So it is in the life of young girls, and so it continues during marriage. In the life of young girls it is necessary in order to selection, and in marriage it is necessary in order to rule the husband. Only one thing suppresses or interrupts these tendencies for a time,—namely, children,—and then only when the woman is not a monster,—that is, when she nurses her own children. Here again the doctor interferes. “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.

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

  "Just have a little patience, and you will know all. You can understand that after I had seen the Countess leave his house at dawn, bearing on her face the expression of the emotions she had felt, I was anxious to get rid of my criminal infatuation. "At times I even persuaded myself that I did not care for Réné any more. Only when I thought that all my love had vanished, he had but to look at me, and I felt it gush back stronger than ever, filling my heart and bereaving me of my reason. "I could find no rest either night or day. "I thereupon made up my mind not to see Teleny again, nor to attend any of his concerts; but lovers' resolutions are like April showers, and at the last minute the slightest excuse was good enough to make me waver and change my decision. "I was, moreover, curious and anxious to know if the Countess or anybody else would go to meet him again, and pass the night with him." "Well, and were these visits repeated?" "No, the Count returned unexpectedly; and then both he and the Countess started for Nice. "A short time afterwards, however, as I was always on the watch, I saw Teleny leave the theatre with Briancourt. "There was nothing strange in that. They walked arm-in-arm, and wended their way towards Teleny's lodgings. "I lingered behind, following them step by step at some distance. I had been jealous of the Countess; I was ten times more so of Briancourt. "If he is going to pass every night with a new bed-fellow, said I to myself, why did he tell me that his heart was yearning for mine? "And still within my soul I felt sure that he loved me; that all these other loves were caprices; that his feelings for me were something more than the pleasure of the senses; that it was real, heart-sprung, genuine love. "Having reached the door of Teleny's house, both the young men stopped and began to talk. "The street was a solitary one. Only some belated home-goers were every now and then to be seen, trudging sleepily onward. I had stopped at the corner of the street, pretending to read an advertisement, but in reality to follow the movements of the two young men. "All at once I thought they were about to part, for I saw Briancourt stretch out both his hands and grasp Teleny's. I shivered with gladness. After all, I have wronged Briancourt, was the thought that came into my mind; must every man and woman be in love with the pianist? "My joy, however, was not of long duration, for Briancourt had pulled Teleny towards him, and their lips met in a long kiss, a kiss which for me was gall and wormwood; then, after a few words, the door of Teleny's house was opened and the two young men went in.

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

  It was pity for myself, evoking at the same time a hatred for her, for him, but not so much for him. Toward him I felt a strange sentiment of my humiliation and his victory, but toward her a terrible hatred. “‘But I cannot kill myself and leave her free. She must suffer, she must understand at least that I have suffered,’ said I to myself. “At a station I saw people drinking at the lunch counter, and directly I went to swallow a glass of vodka. Beside me stood a Jew, drinking also. He began to talk to me, and I, in order not to be left alone in my compartment, went with him into his third-class, dirty, full of smoke, and covered with peelings and sunflower seeds. There I sat down beside the Jew, and, as it seemed, he told many anecdotes. “First I listened to him, but I did not understand what he said. He noticed it, and exacted my attention to his person. Then I rose and entered my own compartment. “‘I must consider,’ said I to myself, ‘whether what I think is true, whether there is any reason to torment myself.’ I sat down, wishing to reflect quietly; but directly, instead of the peaceful reflections, the same thing began again. Instead of the reasoning, the pictures. “‘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.

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

  I did not know her. I knew her only as an animal, and an animal nothing can or should restrain. And now I remember their faces on Sunday evening, when, after the ‘Kreutzer Sonata,’ they played a passionate piece, written I know not by whom, but a piece passionate to the point of obscenity. “‘How could I have gone away?’ said I to myself, as I recalled their faces. ‘Was it not clear that between them everything was done that evening? Was it not clear that between them not only there were no more obstacles, but that both—especially she—felt a certain shame after what had happened at the piano? How weakly, pitiably, happily she smiled, as she wiped the perspiration from her reddened face! They already avoided each other’s eyes, and only at the supper, when she poured some water for him, did they look at each other and smile imperceptibly.’ “Now I remember with fright that look and that scarcely perceptible smile. ‘Yes, everything has happened,’ a voice said to me, and directly another said the opposite. ‘Are you mad? It is impossible!’ said the second voice. “It was too painful to me to remain thus stretched in the darkness. I struck a match, and the little yellow- papered room frightened me. I lighted a cigarette, and, as always happens, when one turns in a circle of inextricable contradiction, I began to smoke. I smoked cigarette after cigarette to dull my senses, that I might not see my contradictions. All night I did not sleep, and at five o’clock, when it was not yet light, I decided that I could stand this strain no longer, and that I would leave directly. There was a train at eight o’clock. I awakened the keeper who was acting as my servant, and sent him to look for horses. To the assembly of Zemstvo I sent a message that I was called back to Moscow by pressing business, and that I begged them to substitute for me a member of the Committee. At eight o’clock I got into a tarantass and started off.” CHAPTER XXV. “I had to go twenty-five versts by carriage and eight hours by train. By carriage it was a very pleasant journey. The coolness of autumn was accompanied by a brilliant sun. You know the weather when the wheels imprint themselves upon the dirty road. The road was level, and the light strong, and the air strengthening. The tarantass was comfortable. As I looked at the horses, the fields, and the people whom we passed, I forgot where I was going. Sometimes it seemed to me that I was travelling without an object,—simply promenading, —and that I should go on thus to the end of the world. And I was happy when I so forgot myself.

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

  I ask. “‘Nothing, I am as well as usual,’ she answers. “And at the same time, like a crazy woman, she gives utterance to the silliest remarks, to the most inexplicable explosions of spite. “Sometimes I am patient, but at other times I break out with anger. Then her own irritation is launched forth in a flood of insults, in charges of imaginary crimes and all carried to the highest degree by sobs, tears, and retreats through the house to the most improbable spots. I go to look for her. I am ashamed before people, before the children, but there is nothing to be done. She is in a condition where I feel that she is ready for anything. I run, and finally find her. Nights of torture follow, in which both of us, with exhausted nerves, appease each other, after the most cruel words and accusations. “Yes, jealousy, causeless jealousy, is the condition of our debauched conjugal life. And throughout my marriage never did I cease to feel it and to suffer from it. There were two periods in which I suffered most intensely. The first time was after the birth of our first child, when the doctors had forbidden my wife to nurse it. I was particularly jealous, in the first place, because my wife felt that restlessness peculiar to animal matter when the regular course of life is interrupted without occasion. But especially was I jealous because, having seen with what facility she had thrown off her moral duties as a mother, I concluded rightly, though unconsciously, that she would throw off as easily her conjugal duties, feeling all the surer of this because she was in perfect health, as was shown by the fact that, in spite of the prohibition of the dear doctors, she nursed her following children, and even very well.” “I see that you have no love for the doctors,” said I, having noticed Posdnicheff’s extraordinarily spiteful expression of face and tone of voice whenever he spoke of them. “It is not a question of loving them or of not loving them. They have ruined my life, as they have ruined the lives of thousands of beings before me, and I cannot help connecting the consequence with the cause. I conceive that they desire, like the lawyers and the rest, to make money. I would willingly have given them half of my income—and any one would have done it in my place, understanding what they do—if they had consented not to meddle in my conjugal life, and to keep themselves at a distance. I have compiled no statistics, but I know scores of cases—in reality, they are innumerable—where they have killed, now a child in its mother’s womb, asserting positively that the mother could not give birth to it (when the mother could give birth to it very well), now mothers, under the pretext of a so-called operation.