Joy

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 167 of 299 · 20 per page

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Your mutual sense of trust, perhaps reinforced by your commitments of loyalty to each other, allows each of you to be more open with each other than either of you would be elsewhere. Within these safe environs of intimacy, love can spring up in the most unlikely moments. More than a decade ago, for instance, I was driving through my then-hometown with my husband, finding my way to a corner store I’d been to only once or twice before. Coming up on the back side of the store, I turned left into what I figured was the back entrance, planning to make my way around the parking lot to the storefront. Only it wasn’t really an entrance. It was just a short gravel road that led nowhere. I stopped the car and stared at the distant storefront. I’m sure I was only frozen like that for a matter of seconds, but my husband found it amusing. “Stuck on a gravel road?” he chided. We shared a laugh at my stunned response. I can’t tell you how many times in the years since Jeff has resurrected this phrase to gently tease me for being a bit slow to figure out an unexpected situation. Knowing me so well, he gets that surprises can make me deer-in-the-headlights stuck for a moment (or six). Yet instead of taking this recurrence as a character flaw to overlook, or as cause for annoyance or criticism, he has made it our running inside joke. Ever an alchemist, he transforms predicaments like these into micro- moments of love. Love that not only brings me swiftly back into action but also reinforces the safety of our bond. This silly example points to yet another thing that your intimates uniquely offer you: shared history. Earlier this year I took a late-night cab ride at a conference with my former office mate from graduate school, whom I’d just run into for the first time in nearly a decade. Although we’d lost touch for so long, within a matter of minutes, we were laughing uproariously in the back of that cab about old times, conjuring up our old goofy sayings and antics. In the short commute to our respective hotels we were transported back to the late 1980s as well, and to the fun times we’d had together. Wiping the tears of laughter away as we said our good-byes, we dreamed up ways we might reconnect again in the future. Your intimates offer you history, safety, trust, and openness in addition to the frequent opportunity to connect.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  Later I lay on my back and she climbed on top of me, small, white, fragile. Breast to breast, mouth to mouth, we lined up our pussies, redhead and brunette, hers mine, mine hers. Over her, he entered me, six legs atop one another. I looked up at their two faces beaming down on me as he fucked me. I held them both and knew that this was one of the great moments of my life—of being overwhelmed, ensconced in love. He is me is she is he and we are rolling, fucking, oozing, laughing, being. This layered, fucking sex sandwich became the image for my final theory of us three. He and I deeply connected, with her as our midwife, our buffer, our catalyst, our crazy glue. As Colette observed, “Certain women need women in order to preserve their taste for men.” She lightened us, separated us, and spread around the shattering intensity between us. She diminished the terrible anxiety of love. Several months later, he announced he was leaving town for a job—for months and months, maybe forever. We hastily arranged a rendezvous. After he arrived, she called to suggest we begin without her, she would be late. She knocked just as we finished fucking. We greeted her naked, but she was in red velvet and green silk with freshly cut white baby roses strewn in her hair, like Ophelia. They told me to just lie there, and relax, as they connected over their prey. He had fingers on my clit, up my pussy, and inside my ass, while she leaned over me, soft, with red, silky hair everywhere, whispering “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you . . .” The waves started coming and still he continued, still she whispered, caressing my face, “I love you, I love you, I love you . . .” The waves continued, on and on, with orgasms so sweet building to ones less sweet but more intense. And then it happened. A wave began in my feet and legs, traveled up my belly, my chest, my throat, and my soul burst out the crown of my head. It was the deepest experience of pleasure-love I had ever known—or witnessed. She later explained the technical name was a “Kamikazi-Mega-Hiawatha.” That sounded precisely right. Then he left town. Gone. Gone. She and I met one sunny afternoon holding each other in her bed, with wandering fingers—but I missed him. Sweet sisters without a cock between us. MAN OF GOD The loss felt devastating. Would such joy never be more than momentary? Probably not. My inability to tolerate this knowledge led me into yet another flirtation with God. This time I met him at Home Depot.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Art and Elaine, a married couple living in Long Island, New York, learned this fact in a surprising way. They saw a poster in town recruiting couples to join a study on the “factors that affect relationships.” Motivated more by curiosity than the promised thirty dollars, they called to sign up. They got more curious when the person on the phone asked them about a range of medical conditions that might prevent them from engaging in physical or aerobic activity. Their curiosity rose still higher when they met the researcher at the designated lab room on campus. It was set up more like a gymnastics room, with a large gymnasium mat rolled out across the floor, covering about thirty feet. Halfway down the mat, another fat mat was rolled up like a barricade, about three feet high. As part of the study, the researcher asked Art and Elaine to complete surveys and discuss a few topics together, like their next vacation and a future home improvement project, which she videotaped for later analysis. These tasks seemed simple enough and not altogether unexpected in a study of relationships. Yet they were flabbergasted when the researcher directed them to their next task. Indeed, their curiosity about the room setup erupted into outright chuckles of disbelief as the researcher used Velcro bands to tie Art’s and Elaine’s wrists and ankles together. She told them that their task was to crawl on their hands and knees as fast as they could to the far end of the mat and back, clearing the barrier in each direction. All the while, they’d need to hold a cylinder-shaped pillow off the floor without using their hands, arms, or teeth. If they could complete this absurd task in less than a minute, she told them, they’d win a bag of candy, something she said few couples before them had done. It didn’t take long for Art and Elaine to discover that they could only hold the pillow up by pressing it between their torsos, which made their bound- crawling all the more challenging. The whole event was hilarious. They toppled over several times, laughing uncontrollably. By their third attempt, they finally got their limbs into sync. They beat the clock and won the prize—all smiles and (once unbound) high fives! It turned out that other couples who’d signed up for the study didn’t have nearly as much fun as did Elaine and Art.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  He said that it was difficult to find a nice Christian wife—the only way he could legitimately have sex again. I didn’t understand; he looked so incredibly eligible. Then he admitted with a shy grin that he liked his women a little slutty—trashy was the word he used. Admittedly, I couldn’t be a genuine Christian, but I had been practicing slutty and trashy for a few years already. This man’s contradictions were as epic as my own. I asked him just how far could he go sexually before God got mad: “Where is the line?” An hour later, I still hadn’t gotten an answer, just a discernible sigh as his tongue hit my clit on the roof of a nearby car park. He had suggested looking at the view. God was now speaking to me, too, and the time was now and the view superb. And thus, I, too, died and was born again. I have never seen a man before or since look at a pussy the way this guy did. I felt penetrated by his gaze alone. He projected an innocent, open-eyed hunger layered with filthy lust and divine desire. It is forever fixed in my mind’s eye and, easily recalled, can make me come in a jiffy. The risk of being caught in public did wonders for Born Again. One afternoon I sucked his cock in a Denny’s parking lot, just as the lunch crowd of blue-haired ladies was heading for their Pontiacs. He had a great way of staying calm, cool, and on the lookout above while fucking my mouth furiously below. Jekyll and Hyde, sacred and profane, horny man of God. Another time he stuck his hard cock through my vertical mail slot, humping my front door, as I sucked him on the other side while neighbors passed behind him in my courtyard. Perhaps this was a man I could actually date. But shortly afterward he told me that both Darwin and the Dalai Lama were, in general, wrong about most things, and my brief hope for a man who combined the erotic and the spiritual disappeared. When he told me that he didn’t believe in evolution (so I came from a monkey but he didn’t?), I suggested we stop talking entirely and find a nice mail slot through which to communicate.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same . . . then you will enter the kingdom. One day, I ventured down on the Pre-Raphaelite. First time. Terrified. Curious. I wanted to see her pleasure in order to know my own. She was a genuine redhead. Eating pussy when you are a heterosexual woman is overwhelming. To confront a pussy that close for the first time—you can’t ever get that close, at that angle, to your own—is like looking narcissism in the face with a resounding Yes! Profound. Wet. It can sometimes be so hard to be oneself in one’s own sex life. With another woman, a woman’s identity receives a brutal jolt: she is me, I am her, her pleasure is mine, mine is hers. The source, the center, the origin of the human race becomes your only view. I bonded with my own sex and learned to love myself. I also developed a new compassion for the male divers. A pussy is a wild and watery landscape of hills and valleys and ravines and mighty holes that suck one in like quicksand. Once in, you cannot escape. Diving is an act of bravery. The redhead, however, demonstrated less hesitancy, and ate me like a woman who knows how. Naughty, considerate, and relentless. Her fingers felt like tongues, her mouth like a baby’s, sucking. I resist men’s fingers. Too rough, too big, too fast. My shield goes up, my clit hides. My orgasms with her were long, open, and free. The next New Year’s we three reconvened and she had a surprise for us: her beautiful young Belgian friend who was mourning the loss of her rock-star lover. One-two-three-four, three of one and one of the other. She and me and him . . . and her. I did a striptease to Led Zeppelin, swinging around the luscious green velvet curtains at the door of her boudoir—a kind of Gone With the Wind–Vivien-Leigh-Gone-Wild moment.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Having tried out several other positive psychology interventions, Donna was immediately curious. She asked more about the technique. I shared that what our participants had done was extraordinarily simple—just answer those two questions about their three longest social interactions of the day. Donna soaked up our fresh data with great interest and wondered how her own life might be different if her three longest interactions each day were life-giving rather than life-draining, sources of strength rather than disappointment. Right then, she transformed our accidental finding into her own, self-styled well-being intervention. She set herself a new goal of seeking out at least three interactions each day that held positivity resonance. While she could hardly control the influx of uncertainty and setbacks in her day-to-day life, she could strive to cultivate more loving connections each day. As someone who lives alone, Donna’s new goal was challenging to pull off. But the initial payoff was high enough to keep her engaged. While she’d never kept up with the “three good things” exercise commonly used in positive psychology, in which you write down at the end of each day three things that went well that day and consider why each happened, she did stick with her own “three loving connections” exercise. Several weeks later she wrote me a note to say that she found it made a “huge difference” in her life. She also found that love breeds confidence and strength. The more loving interactions she had, the better prepared she was to face her difficult days at work. Donna observed that her self-styled “three loving connections” activity did two things for her. First, it made her look for people she enjoys being with and inspired her to enhance those relationships. She shared with me, for instance, that after a particularly stressful day, she now would often call her twentysomething niece, just to see what she’s been up to lately and share some giggles. As her phone calls to her niece became more frequent, their relationship grew deeper and stronger. Other family and friends became closer and her relationships with them became more healthy and helpful. The other effect of her “three loving connections” activity was that she now found herself looking for ways to make the difficult relationships in her life better. Her positive and powerful relationships with family and friends had become the new normal in her life, and she strove to make even the difficult relationships in her life better. She had a strong foundation of loving relationships to support her in this endeavor.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  You can even deploy silent celebration to transform any minor irritation you might feel at another’s actions into a more buoyant, lighthearted moment. Any of us, despite our generally benevolent attitudes, can grow somewhat impatient with others, even if their only crime is that they march to their own drummer. Perhaps it’s the cashier who tends the long, slow line in which you wait, who chats for a bit too long with each customer, or the restaurant patron at the next table who in her enthusiasm speaks too loudly, or the free spirits who hula hoop in your town square, obstructing your shortcut. For me, it seems like just about every day, while I’m at work in my office, I find my flow of thoughts interrupted by “the campus whistler,” an older gentleman who walks throughout campus and town enjoying music on his headphones while whistling in full force. He’s actually a fantastic whistler. Yet once you’ve heard him once or twice, it gets easy to begrudge his next arrival. I’m not the only one to react this way. My colleague shared with me that when she held her class outside one uncommonly fine day in February, for a moment their discussion was pierced by the campus whistler strolling nearby. Her students groaned and grumbled. Sometimes, when others enjoy themselves in unusual ways, your first reaction can be judgmental. Take two, however, can be more charitable. My campus whistler is joyful after all. When I allow myself to savor this unique musical moment and wish him continued enjoyment, I create my own joy as well. Try it for yourself. See if you notice any new radiance or levity within your heart, or any additional softness or openness within your face. As you experiment with celebratory love, notice how readily you can turn these feelings of loving connection on and off just by bringing in others’ presumed good fortune into your awareness. Notice how others respond to you. Does the face and openness with which you meet the world make a difference? Love 2.0: The View from Here The facts are that all people face both good and bad fortune every year, if not every day. When you look out at others, even without speaking with them or knowing anything specific about them, you can be virtually certain that they are simultaneously blessed by good fortune, however small or large, and also burdened by bad fortune, again, however small or large. Each person we encounter, then, simultaneously merits both our compassionate love and our celebratory love. Love, upgraded as positivity resonance, comes in many flavors. It bends toward compassion when suffering is salient, and toward celebration when good fortune is salient. Above all, love is connection. In connection, you are far more likely to recognize what other people are going through, and meet them where they are, sincerely wishing them the very best.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  But after considerable consideration, I reconsidered: becoming a saint would entail even more pain than I could imagine. And what if one suffered all that pain and still didn’t see God, still didn’t have that mystical union? The risk was very high indeed. Besides, I didn’t want to suffer just to suffer. Dancing had taught me about pain for gain, pain for beauty. Pain for pain was self-indulgent, whereas my youthful masochism was both ambitious and realistic. Saint Teresa of Avila would have no competition from me. Instead, I would stick to dancing and continue plunging my toes into the beautiful, tight, shiny sheaths called pointe shoes. And there was the miracle, made manifest daily on my very own feet. Despite blistered and bloody evidence to the contrary, my feet didn’t hurt at all while ensconced in the shoes, while dancing. They only hurt when the shoes came off, when my foot was released from its satin prison. This curious experience, the ironic marriage of physical discomfort and euphoria, taught me the power of transcendence. My pink pointe shoes became my fetishistic ally, my crown of thorns, my bed of nails. I adored my toe shoes. Alongside my saint obsession, I developed a passion for reading. This passion, I came to believe, detracted from my ultimate success as a dancer by luring me from the circumscribed, nonverbal world of movement to the limitless plains of thought. The Book Phase included: Simone Weil (beyond my scope to emulate); Nietzsche (Thus Spake he to me); Henry Miller (the romance of poverty in Paris!); D. H. Lawrence (John Thomas and Lady Jane); Anaïs Nin (sexual liberation between the sheets and on the page—in Paris); Freud (incest is best—or at least inevitable); Thomas Mann (the poetic profundity of X-rays); Henry James (I am Isabel Archer, living in the wrong era, in the wrong wardrobe); Virginia Woolf (diary after diary right into the river); Erich Fromm; Eric Hoffer; Ernest Becker (The Denial of Death, every page underlined in red); and Søren Kierkegaard (seven tomes in a row, with voluminous notes on either legal pads or index cards . . . I loved Kierkegaard). These books and their revelations constituted my secret life until I was nearly twenty. Then I lost my virginity. And although my deepest interests have perhaps never changed, they immediately became irrevocably diverted to deriving answers—dancing had presented all the questions—from experience, not only books. But while all this reading and searching for external connection went on in the early morning and late at night, my deepest allegiance and dependence belonged elsewhere during the day: on the walls of the dance studio, where I could not escape my savage self. MY MIRROR, MY MASTER

• From Delta of Venus (1977)

  It was raining on the roof of the houseboat. At five o’clock Paris always has a current of eroticism in the air. Is it because it is the hour when lovers meet, the five to seven of all French novels? Never at night, it would seem, for all the women are married and free only at “tea time,” the great alibi. At five I always felt shivers of sensuality, shared with the sensual Paris. As soon as the light faded, it seemed to me that every women I saw was running to meet her lover, that every man was running to meet his mistress. When he leaves me, Marcel kisses me on the cheek. His beard touches me like a caress. This kiss on the cheek which is meant to be a brother’s is charged with intensity. We had dinner together. I suggested we go dancing. We went to the Bal Negre. Immediately Marcel was paralyzed. He was afraid of dancing. He was afraid to touch me. I tried to lure him into the dance, but he would not dance. He was awkward. He was afraid. When he finally held me in his arms he was trembling, and I was enjoying the havoc I caused. I felt a joy at being near to him. I felt a joy in the tall slenderness of his body. I said, “Are you sad? Do you want to leave?” “I’m not sad, but I’m blocked. My whole past seems to stop me. I can’t let go. This music is so savage. I feel as if I can inhale but not exhale. I’m just constrained, unnatural.” I did not ask him to dance anymore. I danced with a Negro. When we left then in the cool night, Marcel was talking about the knots, the fears, the paralysis in him. I felt, the miracle has not happened. I will free him by a miracle, not by words, not directly, not with the words I used for the sick ones. What he suffers I know. I suffered it once. But I know the free Marcel. I want Marcel free. But when he came to the houseboat and saw Hans there, when he saw Gustavo arriving at midnight and staying on after he left, Marcel got jealous. I saw his blue eyes grow dark. When he kissed me goodnight, he stared at Gustavo with anger. He said to me, “Come out with me for a moment.” I left the houseboat and walked with him along the dark quays. Once we were alone, he leaned over and kissed me passionately, furiously, his full, big mouth drinking mine. I offered my mouth again. “When will you come to see me?” he asked. “Tomorrow, Marcel, tomorrow I will come to see you.”

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I was, as I have said before, very young. The next day, while Kitty still slept, I rose and made my noiseless way into our parlour. There I did something that I had longed for months to do, but never had the courage. I took a piece of paper and a pen, and wrote a letter to my sister, Alice. I hadn’t written home in weeks. I had told them, once, that I had joined the act; but I had rather played the matter down - I feared they wouldn’t think the life a decent one for their own daughter. They had sent me back a brief, half-hearted, puzzled note; they had talked of travelling to London, to reassure themselves that I was quite content - and at that I had written at once to say, they must not think of coming, I was too busy, my rooms were too small ... In short - so ‘careful’ had Kitty made me! - I was as unwelcoming as it was possible to be, this side of friendliness. Since then, our letters had grown rarer than ever; and the business of my fame upon the stage had been quite lost - I never mentioned it; they did not ask. Now, it was not of the act that I wrote to Alice. I wrote to tell her what had happened between Kitty and me - to tell her that we loved each other, not as friends, but as sweethearts; that we had made our lives together; and that she must be glad for me, for I was happier than I had ever thought it possible to be. It was a long letter, but I wrote it easily; and when I had finished it I felt light as air. I didn’t read it through, but put it in an envelope at once, and ran with it to the post-box. I was back before Kitty had even stirred; and when she woke I didn’t mention it. I didn’t tell her about Alice’s reply, either. This came a few days later - came while Kitty and I were at breakfast, and had to stay unopened in my pocket until I could make time to be alone and read it.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Paso mi pulgar sobre la enorme piedra. Es real. Todo esto es real. —He estado planeando esto por un largo tiempo —dice—. Creerías que sabría qué quería hacer o decir, pero no puedo pensar en nada ahora mismo. —Su aliento cae por mi cabello mientras susurra—: Supongo que debí haberme puesto sobre una rodilla, ¿eh? —No, no me sueltes. —Mi voz tiembla. Trago el bulto en mi garganta y saco el anillo, bajando la caja y probándomelo. La fría banda se desliza perfectamente y tomo su mano, poniéndola sobre el manillar de nuevo con la mía encima. Su dedo todavía no tiene un anillo cuando entrelazo nuestras manos. Pero lo hará. Mi corazón se hincha como si fuera demasiado para que mi pecho lo contuviera, y estoy sin palabras. Ciertamente me sorprendió. No puedo creer que hiciera esto sin darme ni una pista de lo que había preparado. Miro nuestras manos unidas, recostándome contra él e incluso más excitada ahora por todo lo que está por venir. Creo que parte de mí —una pequeña parte—, todavía estaba esperando por él. Siempre estaba en lo profundo de mi mente, ese miedo a que todavía pudiera verme demasiado joven o no preparada para esto o él, pero tiene que saber… Soy feliz cada día. No hay nada que se sienta mejor que él. Una pocas gotas de lluvia golpean mis brazos, las nubes por encima oscureciéndose, y finalmente encuentro mi aliento, inhalando profundamente. —Entonces, vas a decir “sí” o… —Su voz se desvanece. Sonrío ante la pizca de miedo que oigo en su voz ante mi silencio. —Sí. —Me vuelvo y lo beso—. Me haces tan feliz. Te amo. Presiona su frente contra la mía. —Te amo tanto que duele, nena. Su boca se hunde en la mía de nuevo y toma mi rostro en sus manos, besándome y provocando a mi lengua a donde lo siento en todas partes. Mi aliento se vuelve irregular y estoy a punto de sugerir que llevemos esto a la camioneta, ya que estamos completamente solos aquí, pero la lluvia aumenta, golpeando mi cuerpo mucho más rápido ahora. Rompo el beso y alzo la mirada, entrecerrando los ojos contra la lluvia para ver las nubes de tormenta por encima. Las tormentas de verano están empezando temprano este año. Desmonta, ayudándome, y ambos trotamos hacia el lado del pasajero de la camioneta, abre mi puerta para mí. —¿Podemos hacerlo hoy? —pregunto, apartando mi nuevo casco sin usar de mi asiento y dejándolo en el suelo. —¿Casarnos? —pregunta—. Realmente no te importa la boda, ¿cierto? Echo un vistazo para verlo sonriéndome mientras se quita su camiseta embarrada y la arroja a la cama de la camioneta.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  “I guess I’m gonna have to eat her instead,” he said, nibbling his way down to her shoulder, while she closed her eyes. It was a rare, sultry Vineyard night and Vix threw Bru’s old shirt over her bikini but she didn’t button it. After they’d polished off the chips and salsa, the couscous and veggies, the bread and fruit, after the guys had each put away a couple of beers, Caitlin carried out the birthday cake with one sparkler blazing in the center. They sang to her, making her laugh with their off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday,” then Caitlin dropped to her knees, taking Vix’s face between her hands like a lover, kissing her directly on the lips, embarrassing the guys and Vix. “Did you make a wish?” she asked. “Yes.” “What’d you wish for?” “I can’t tell … if I do, it won’t come true.” But she looked at Bru and knew her wish was going to come true. Caitlin laughed, then flopped down beside Von. “And now …” she said, pulling a fat joint out of a Baggie, “a little something to help us celebrate.” “What’s this?” Von asked, totally disbelieving. “Since when does the Tofu Queen indulge?” “Oh, come on …” Caitlin laughed. “It’s not tobacco … it’s homegrown stuff … direct from Santa Fe.” She lit up, took a drag, and passed it to Von, who didn’t argue, but closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, before passing it to Vix. Somebody always had a joint at school parties. By then she’d been to her share and that was the least of what they had. Sure, she’d tried it a couple of times, not enough to get really stoned though. It made her more sleepy than silly. But that night she already felt so high —from the moonlight, from the music, from the promise of what was to come—that when Von passed her the joint she took a deep drag, then lay with her head in Bru’s lap watching the stars overhead. If you concentrated on the sky on a night like this you could almost always find a shooting star. On the boom box James was singing “How Sweet It Is” … then Carly joined in on “Devoted to You,” which made Vix sad because everyone knew they’d split up. She had no idea how much time had passed, how many drags she’d taken on the joint, when Caitlin jumped up. “Wait …” she cried. “I forgot to give Vix her present!” She grabbed a flashlight and raced back to the truck, returning with a big, beautifully wrapped box. “For you, Vix … ” “For me?” Vix sat up. “Yes … open it.” “Open it?” “Yes.” Vix pulled off the paper and ribbon, slowly raised the lid off the box, and lifted out something delicate and white. She wasn’t sure what. She started laughing. Was it a nightgown or a prom dress? And where did Caitlin think she would ever wear it?

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  I don’t know the exact length, but it’s definitely too big—just right. Of medium width, neither too slender nor too thick. Beautiful. My ass, tiny, a teenage boy’s, tight, and tightly wound. Twenty-five years of winding as a ballet dancer. Since age four, the age when I first declared war on my daddy. Turning out the legs from the hips just winds up that pelvic floor like a corkscrew. I worked my gut all my life standing at that ballet barre. Now it is being unworked. His cock, my ass, unwinding. Divine. As he enters me I let go, millimeter by millimeter, of the tensing, pulling, tightening, gripping. I am addicted to extreme physical endurance, the marathon of uncoiling intensity. I release my muscles, my tendons, my flesh, my anger, my ego, my rules, my censors, my parents, my cells, my life. At the same time I pull and suck and draw him inward. Opening out and sucking in, one thing. Bliss, I learned from being sodomized, is an experience of eternity in a moment of real time. Sodomy is the ultimate sexual act of trust. I mean you could really get hurt—if you resist. But pushing past that fear, by passing through it, literally, ah the joy that lies on the other side of convention. The peace that is past the pain. Going past the pain is key. Once absorbed, it is neutralized and allows for transformation. Pleasure alone is mere temporary indulgence, a subtle distraction, an anesthetization while on the path to something higher, deeper, lower. Eternity lies far, far beyond pleasure. And beyond pain. The edge of my ass is the sexual event horizon, the boundary to that beyond from which there is no escape. Not for me, anyway. I am an atheist, by inheritance. I came to know God experientially, from being fucked in the ass—over and over and over again. I am a slow learner—and a gluttonous hedonist. I am serious. Very serious. And I was even more surprised than you are now by this curiously rude awakening to a mystic state. There it was: God’s big surprise, His subtle humor and potent presence, manifested in my ass—well, it sure is one way to get a skeptic’s attention. Anal sex is about cooperation. Cooperation in an endeavor of aristocratic politics, involving rigid hierarchies, feudal positions, and monarchist attitudes. One is in charge, the other obedient. Entirely in charge, entirely obedient. There is no democratic, affirmative-action safety net swinging below ass-fuckers. But they’d best be of firm action, very firm. You can’t half-ass butt-fuck. It would be a travesty. There are no understudies, no backups, for anal Cirque du Soleil. It’s a high-wire act—all the way up.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  Fucked off my feet, my shoes fall to the floor with a thud, one by one. He smiles and says affectionately, “Now we’re having fun.” Now I’m traveling on the fast train to paradise. Unschooled as I am in the process, tears often fall out of my eyes. Like a true gentleman, he will shield my eyes with his broad hand, giving me privacy, while he fucks me harder and harder, faster and faster, squeezing out the tears. When I finally release everything, not one centimeter of my being holding on to anything at all, when my ego is annihilated, then the laughing begins. It can begin while I’m still crying, the energies are the same, though the tears are more familiar. But somewhere, somehow, along the way, my unconscious bursts open and I laugh and laugh and laugh. The harder I laugh the harder he fucks my ass until the whole thing makes no sense at all. Now we are really having fun. He looks at me laughing, and then, content that I’m on the road with him, he fucks me some more, ever vigilant, ever present. My laugh sometimes deepens and I laugh like I never laughed before. I recognized it immediately the first time it happened—the cackle of the crone. It is the sound of a woman who is caught inside the mystery of the universe, in the irony of the angst, in the place that ego abhors. Bliss. At first the pleasure was unbearable and I’d try to pull away, try to know what was happening. But he doesn’t let me, fucking me so relentlessly that any attempt to backtrack to control is useless. It is here that his domination is complete. I am his slave and he forces harmony upon me, against my ferocious fear. With repetition I have come to accept it, and now I don’t only visit but have learned how to stay there. Meanwhile he is looking at me, all tears, giggles, and gut-laughs, and says, “You are CRAZY, girl.” He looks a little dazed himself, but unlike me, he maintains total control, total awareness. I look up as he kneels above me, deep inside me, and I see the most beautiful thing I ever saw. Like Michelangelo’s David, his chest is broad, his skin is smooth, his hands are huge, his face beatific. I see the beauty of this man, the beauty of man. I never saw this before. #220

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Perhaps this person’s family has been expanded to include a healthy newborn child. Or maybe he or she got a raise or had an important project at work meet with success. Or maybe this person is simply feeling healthy and strong, and enjoying a sense of ease in daily life. No matter the circumstances, let your mind slowly absorb the scope of this person’s good fortune, knowing that, like all events—good and bad—this, too, shall fade with time. Then, lightly remind yourself of how people worldwide yearn to be happy, and that—at this particular moment, for this particular person—this universal wish is coming true. Into this context, say the following classic phrase, or your own version of it, speaking from your heart: May your happiness and good fortune continue. Repeat this ancient wish over and again, with each new breath you take. Let the phrase infuse and soften your heart and your face. Visualize yourself supporting this person, celebrating his or her unexpected good fortune, coaxing whatever goodness he or she experiences to linger just a bit longer. As your practice deepens, try out new ways to soften and expand your heart’s capacity. Take in new people, ranging from those you know well to those you don’t know at all. Remember that your aim is not to make this or any other person’s good fortune last forever. That’s hardly possible. All things pass, and it does no good to expect otherwise. Instead, your aim is simply to condition your own heart to appreciate others’ blessings when you become aware of them, to open to them, so that you may lovingly celebrate with them. Try This Micro-moment Practice: Create Celebratory Love in Daily Life Personally, I find informal practice of celebratory love to be especially powerful. As I walk to my campus office from where I park, I cross paths with many people—students, staff, faculty, and visitors alike. Likewise, when I’m able to take my lunch, or a short break, on one of the many park benches in my campus’s nearby arboretum, I like to people-watch. Instead of being indifferent to others nearby, or simply sizing them up out of idle curiosity, I purposely try to notice signs of good fortune. Is this person smiling? Is there a spring in this person’s step? Does he or she seem to be moved by a purpose or a passion? Is something going right for him or her in this moment? Even without knowing anything about what this person’s particular good fortune may be, I silently offer my wish for him or her: “May your good fortune continue.” This can be an especially moving mental exercise when I sharpen my earnestly supportive intentions. There’s no need for me to interrupt the person or intervene in any way. I simply bask in his or her blessings and wish him or her the best. Sometimes I picture myself cheering this person on or giving him or her an imaginary high five.

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

  In short, this was the safest, politest, and, at the same time, the most thorough house of accommodation in town: every thing being conducted so, that decency made no intrenchment upon the most libertine pleasures; in the practice of which, too, the choice familiars of the house had found the secret so rare and difficult, of reconciling even all the refinements of taste and delicacy, with the most gross and determinate gratifications of sensuality. After having consumed the morning in the dear endearments and instructions of my new acquaintance, we went to dinner, when Mrs. Cole, presiding at the head of her club, gave me the first idea of her management and address, in inspiring these girls with so sensible a love and respect for her. There was no stiffness, no reserve, no airs of pique, or little jealousies, but all was unaffectedly gay, cheerful and easy. After dinner, Mrs. Cole, seconded by the young ladies, acquainted me that there was a chapter to be held that night in form, for the ceremony of my reception into the sisterhood; and in which, with all due reserve to my maidenhead, that was to be occasionally cooked up for the first proper chapman. I was to undergo a ceremonial of initiation they were sure I should not be displeased with. Embarked as I was, and moreover captivated with the charms of my new companions, I was too much prejudiced in favour of any proposal they could make, to as much as hesitate an assent; which, therefore, readily giving in the style of a carte blanche, I received fresh kisses of compliment from them all, in approval of my docility and good nature. Now I was “a sweet girl... I came into things with a good grace... I was not affectedly coy... I should be the pride of the house,” and the like.

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

  The landlord, however, had no reason to complain of any thing, but of a procedure in Charles too liberal not to make him regret the loss of us. Arrived at our new lodging, I remember I thought them extremely fine, though ordinary enough, even at that price; but, had it been a dungeon that Charles had brought me to, his presence would have made a little Versailles. The landlady, Mrs. Jones, waited on us to our apartment, and with great volubility of tongue, explained to us all its conveniences: “that her own maid should wait on us... that the best of quality had lodged at her house... that her first floor was let to a foreign secretary of an embassy, and his lady... that I looked like a very good natured lady...” At the word lady, I blushed out of flattered vanity: this was strong for a girl of my condition; for though Charles had the precaution of dressing me in a less tawdry flaunting style than were the clothes I escaped to him in, and of passing me for his wife, that she had secretly married, and kept private (the old story) on account of his friends, I dare swear this appeared extremely apocryphal to a woman who knew the town so well as she did; but that was the least of her concern: it was impossible to be less scruple-ridden than she was; and the advantage of letting her rooms being her sole object, the truth itself would have far from scandalized her, or broke her bargain. A sketch of her picture, and personal history, will dispose you to account for the part she is to act in my concern. She was about forty six years old, tall, meagre, red-haired, with one of those trivial ordinary faces you meet with every where, and go about unheeded and un-mentioned. In her youth she had been kept by a gentleman, who, dying, left her forty pounds a year during her life, in consideration of a daughter he had by her: which daughter, at the age of seventeen, she sold, for not a very considerable sum neither, to a gentleman who was going on envoy abroad, and took his purchase with him, where he used her with the utmost tenderness, and it is thought, was secretly married to her: but had constantly made a point of her not keeping up the least correspondence with a mother base enough to make a market of her own flesh and blood.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  It is revealed in the spaces of time when the self is penetrated so deeply that it is pried wide open and love rushes in like an ocean through a porthole. And Paradise, once known, becomes the goal of every waking moment, its loss inherent in every waking moment. This is the burden of Paradise found. #262 He’s back! He was gone but now he’s back. A phone call and he’s over. Declarations. Tears. Hilarity. Clarity. In front of the blazing fire, insane kissing, sucking, and fucking. Insane. Completely insane. I am clear. Clearly blinded. I am his mother, sister, daughter, and friend. He is my father, brother, son, and friend. After, we watch the flames and he says, “See what we’ve done?” “What?” “We’ve created love out of sex . . . And we’ve only just begun.” “Yeah,” I say, “Maybe I’ll fuck you in the ass next.” He grins, pauses, and tells me to stand in front of him, turn around . . . and he bends me over . . . No dice with A-Man. REAR-ENDED Where do you go once in Paradise? What happens when Adam and Eve enter Eden? And eat the apple? I will tell you. Perfection cannot be maintained. With time, cracks appear in the walls of the Garden—and reality, insipid reality, slithers in with its insidious poison. The snake of knowledge. At some point well past the two-year mark, my relentless attempts to trust that A-Man was real and really in my life paid off. I had finally convinced myself that there was some form of unpredictable continuity to our connection. Before, I had only one focus: the need to believe in our existence. But once I finally accepted “reality,” the rest of the world soon followed. I tried to plug the leaks, ignore the signs, deny the chaos—but the world proved to be even stronger than my passion for A-Man. He was constantly leaving town for work; sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months. I found his absences increasingly difficult to manage. One time, I hired a pretty woman in a pink-sequined minidress to come to my house and pray for me, while I cried, for a hundred and fifty dollars. That’s how bad it was. Then he called. Prayer answered. All’s well, he says, except one thing. His cock won’t reach across four states into my ass. Things are funny and good again, for a few hours. And I don’t tell him just how difficult things are for me. Never told him. Ever. Why would I? Reality was oozing in anyway, but why open the door wide? Another time I consulted with a friend, afraid that after his three-month absence he wouldn’t return to me as before. My friend laughed: “Two-hundred and sixty-something ass-fucks and you need more evidence?”

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Having worked hard to cultivate a more accepting and lighthearted attitude toward herself, when she was called up to solo on that last day of camp, Erika thoroughly enjoyed it. She also played differently from that day forward. She became “truly open and ready” to take her music to the next level, to learn how to listen deeply to other musicians as they played together, and to improvise with them in fresh ways. Building on these experiences, when Erika returned to camp the following summer, she had what she called one of the “peak musical experiences” of her life in a small workshop on “Chemistry.” The band member who led the workshop emphasized that musical chemistry didn’t come from musical skill alone. Even two great musicians can completely miss out on it. Hearing Erika recount the take on musical chemistry she’d absorbed here, I couldn’t stop seeing it as an amplified form of positivity resonance: The bodily vibes that resonate between and among people during micro-moments of love could be amplified and made audible by musical instruments. After the band member’s brief discussion of his own experiences and observations of musical chemistry, each student in turn took a chance to improvise with him as he played the drums. While some musical connections emerged, they were all getting the sense that true chemistry is hard to predict. Then Erika took her turn. She started off introducing an idea by playing a few notes in a particular way on her guitar. Her teacher responded on drums. They each listened, they each responded, and eventually they started playing, playfully, together at the same time. It was immensely enjoyable “the way a good conversation would flow, we were on the same page and could finish each other’s ideas.” They played together like this for only three to four minutes, yet when they finished and looked up at each other the teacher pronounced to the class, “Okay, now that’s chemistry.” Full self-acceptance is what allowed Erika to make the most out of the safety that the camp created. She’s found that lightening up on herself has been essential for getting the most joy out of her music, which comes especially when she’s jamming and improvising with fellow musicians. It’s a lesson that she finds applies to the rest of life as well. Truth is, however much they may try, other people can’t make you feel safe. Only you can do that. When you do, you spring open countless opportunities to forge fresh instances of that elusive state we call chemistry. Love 2.0: The View from Here

• From Delta of Venus (1977)

  Instead of reaching right to the center of her body, Leila’s voice and touch had enveloped her in a voluptuous mantle of new sensations, something in suspense that did not seek fulfillment but prolongation. It was like this room, affecting one by its mysterious lights, its rich odors, its shadowy niches, its half-seen forms, its mysterious enjoyments. A dream. Opium could not have enlarged or dilated her senses any more than they were, could not have given her a greater sense of joy. Her hand reached out to Leila’s. Mary was smoking already with her eyes closed. Leila was lying back, with her eyes open, looking at Elena. She took Elena’s hand, held it for a while, and then she slipped it under her kimono. She placed it over her breasts. Elena began caressing her. Leila had opened her tailored suit; she wore no blouse. But the rest of her body was sheathed in a tight skirt. Then Elena felt Leila’s hand running delicately under her dress, seeking for an opening between the tops of her stockings and her underwear. Elena turned gently on her left side, so that she could place her head over Leila’s breast and kiss it. She was afraid Mary might open her eyes and get angry. Now and then she looked at her. Leila smiled. Then she turned over to whisper to Elena: “We will meet sometime and be together. Do you want it? Will you come to my place tomorrow? Mary will not be there.” Elena smiled, assented with a nod, stole one more kiss and lay back. But Leila did not withdraw her hand. She watched Mary and continued to caress Elena. Elena was dissolving under her fingers. It seemed to Elena they had been lying there only a moment, but then she noticed the studio was growing colder and morning had come. She sprang up, surprised. The others seemed to be asleep. Even Leila had fallen back and slept now. Elena slipped on her coat and left. The early dawn revived her. She wanted to talk to someone. She saw that she was quite near to Miguel’s studio. Miguel was asleep with Donald. She woke him and sat at the foot of the bed. She talked. Miguel could barely understand her. He thought she was drunk. “Why is my love for Pierre not strong enough to keep me from this?” she kept repeating. “Why is it throwing me into other loves? And loves for a woman? Why?” Miguel smiled. “Why are you so afraid of a little detour? It’s nothing. It will pass. Pierre’s love has awakened your real nature. You’re too full of love, you will love many people.” “I don’t want to, Miguel. I want to be whole.” “That’s not such a great infidelity, Elena. In another woman you’re only seeking yourself.”