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.

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• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The Christmas festival was probably the Christian transformation or regeneration of a series of kindred heathen festivals—the Saturnalia, Sigillaria, Juvenalia, and Brumalia—which were kept in Rome in the month of December, in commemoration of the golden age of universal freedom and equality, and in honor of the unconquered sun, and which were great holidays, especially for slaves and children.720 This connection accounts for many customs of the Christmas season, like the giving of presents to children and to the poor, the lighting of wax tapers, perhaps also the erection of Christmas trees, and gives them a Christian import; while it also betrays the origin of the many excesses in which the unbelieving world indulges at this season, in wanton perversion of the true Christmas mirth, but which, of course, no more forbid right use, than the abuses of the Bible or of any other gift of God. Had the Christmas festival arisen in the period of the persecution, its derivation from these pagan festivals would be refuted by the then reigning abhorrence of everything heathen; but in the Nicene age this rigidness of opposition between the church and the world was in a great measure softened by the general conversion of the heathen. Besides, there lurked in those pagan festivals themselves, in spite of all their sensual abuses, a deep meaning and an adaptation to a real want; they might be called unconscious prophecies of the Christmas feast. Finally, the church fathers themselves721 confirm the symbolical reference of the feast of the birth of Christ, the Sun of righteousness, the Light of the world, to the birth-festival of the unconquered sun,722 which on the twenty-fifth of December, after the winter solstice, breaks the growing power of darkness, and begins anew his heroic career. It was at the same time, moreover, the prevailing opinion of the church in the fourth and fifth centuries, that Christ was actually born on the twenty-fifth of December; and Chrysostom appeals, in behalf of this view, to the date of the registration under Quirinius (Cyrenius), preserved in the Roman archives. But no certainly respecting the birthday of Christ can be reached from existing data.723 Around the feast of Christmas other festivals gradually gathered, which compose, with it, the Christmas Cycle. The celebration of the twenty-fifth of December was preceded by the Christmas Vigils, or Christmas Night, which was spent with the greater solemnity, because Christ was certainly born in the night.724

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  partakers of their "inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven."264 But the communication of the Holy Spirit was not confined to the Twelve. It extended to the brethren of the Lord, the mother of Jesus, the pious women who had attended his ministry, and the whole brotherhood of a hundred and twenty souls who were assembled in that chamber.265 They were "all" filled with the Spirit, and all spoke with tongues;266 and Peter saw in the event the promised outpouring of the Spirit upon "all flesh," sons and daughters, young men and old men, servants and handmaidens.267 It is characteristic that in this spring season of the church the women were sitting with the men, not in a separate court as in the temple, nor divided by a partition as in the synagogue and the decayed churches of the East to this day, but in the same room as equal sharers in the spiritual blessings. The beginning was a prophetic anticipation of the end, and a manifestation of the universal priesthood and brotherhood of believers in Christ, in whom all are one, whether Jew or Greek, bond or free, male or female.268 This new spiritual life, illuminated, controlled, and directed by the Holy Spirit, manifested itself first in the speaking with tongues towards God, and then in the prophetic testimony towards the people. The former consisted of rapturous prayers and anthems of praise, the latter of sober teaching and exhortation. From the Mount of Transfiguration the disciples, like their Master, descended to the valley below to heal the sick and to call sinners to repentance. The mysterious gift of tongues, or glossolalia, appears here for the first time, but became, with other extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, a frequent phenomenon in the apostolic churches, especially at Corinth, and is fully described by Paul. The distribution of the flaming tongues to each of the disciples caused the speaking with tongues. A new experience expresses itself always in appropriate language. The supernatural experience of the disciples broke through the confines of ordinary speech and burst out in ecstatic language of praise and thanksgiving to God for the great works he did among them.269 It was the Spirit himself who gave them utterance and played on their tongues, as on new tuned harps, unearthly melodies of praise. The glossolalia was here, as in all cases where it is mentioned, an act of worship and adoration, not an act of teaching and instruction, which followed afterwards in the sermon of Peter. It was the first Te Deum of the new-born church. It expressed itself in unusual, poetic, dithyrambic style and with a peculiar musical intonation. It was intelligible only to those who were in sympathy with the speaker; while unbelievers scoffingly ascribed it to madness or excess of wine.

• From My Secret Garden (1973)

  So if I’m with some silent type, just lying there noiseless with him thrusting away, I remember those noisy nights as a kid in San Francisco, and within seconds I’m moaning and groaning like crazy myself, and sure enough, the old silent type picks up on it, too… and we’re off on a great loud fuck! [Conversation] NinaI am thirty-three years old, a lesbian, and have been happily “married” for the past five years. My fantasies during sex are very much a reflection of what is actually happening. Very often we will “act out” our roles as Mum and Baby, as she sucks my nipples and I sing her nursery songs. At other times she acts the male role and I describe out loud what her “cock” is like and how it is affecting me while we masturbate each other. Our lovemaking pleasure is always heightened by the use of words like “cunt,” “fuck,” etc., which we normally don’t use… only in bed. I should add that my fantasies are always about my lover, never about some other lesbian. If I did have ideas about another woman, I would never tell her, as she is terribly jealous natured. When I discovered the delights of masturbation, at the age of seven, even then I used to imagine it was my girlfriend who was rubbing between my legs. I suppose I’ve always been a lesbian and it was just a matter of time before I made these early fantasies come true. Sometimes, while masturbating as a child, I would imagine her dog was licking my cunt (which it sometimes did and which excited me greatly). However, I never fantasize about animals now. My thoughts are totally given over to my love for other women. Often, I will imagine a kind of religious orgy—lesbian, but watched by men robed as priests. There are always lots of lighted candles, vestal virgins, and a certain amount of sex on the altar with my partner. There is invariably glorious music and brilliant colors as in church. (I am a vicar’s offspring and attend church regularly, but have no guilt about being homosexual.) Every (frequent) session with my beloved partner is exciting and satisfying, all the more so because of my thoughts and our words. However, I would never talk about my fantasies to anyone. [Letter] MegWhen I am with my husband, I often think of my former lover and of the time we were on a secluded, bushy beach together and he pinned me to the ground with his legs after I’d already had one climax; he just steamrollered me and moaned and groaned when he came. That’s something else I miss—my former lover’s lovemaking noises and talk—my husband doesn’t “talk dirty” during the act to the extent my lover used to, and he’s pretty well noiseless at climax. [Taped interview]

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

  You washed that back with a sip of cold beer you’d salted a little. (Even at seven I had a taste for liquor.) And you followed that with a soda cracker. Before that summer, I had many times heard long-winded Baptist preachers take ten minutes to pray over card tables of potato salad and fried chicken at church picnics, but the way those sweating, red-faced men sat around on stacked pallets of lumber gulping oysters taught me most of what I know about simple gladness. They were glad to get fed for their labor, glad they had the force to pound nails and draw breath. Of course, they bitched loudly about their aches and mocked each other’s bitching. But unless I’ve completely idealized that fellowship, there was something redeeming that moved between those men. Even the roofing part of the job, which involved a vat of boiling tar and whole days on top of the new garage beyond the cool shade of our chinaberry, didn’t wipe it out. At evening, they would pull off their work boots, then peel off their double layers of cotton socks and lay them to dry across the warm bricks. Daddy had a habit of tipping the beer coolers out right where they stood in the grass, so cool water rushed over their sweaty feet. At that time of day, with night coming in fast, and the men taking a minute to pass a pint of Tennessee whiskey between them or to light their smokes, there was a glamour between them that I sensed somehow was about to disappear. When they climbed into the cabs of their trucks, I sometimes had a terrible urge to rush after them and call them back. With Mother, I always felt on the edge of something new, something never before seen or read about or bought, something that would change us. When you climbed in the car with her, you never knew where you’d end up. If an encyclopedia salesman happened to knock on the door, she might spend a month’s salary on books you would pore over all day. With Daddy and his friends, I always knew what would happen and that left me feeling a sort of dreamy safety. By August they were done, and my folks had a paneled bedroom with a separate tiled shower. And out in back of the house, there stood a detached garage big enough for two cars. It also held a separate work studio for Mother, my father’s one nod to her desire to paint. The studio had a high ceiling and skylights, which were unheard-of in those days, and a black stove where she could build a fire on a rainy night. She wasted no time setting up her easel and starting to work in oils. The first thing she did was a portrait of Grandma wearing a plain blue dress. She worked from a Polaroid taken just before Grandma lost the leg.

• From The Fixed Stars: A Memoir (2020)

  Thirty minutes, an hour, an hour and a half. I started to panic: I was going to split open like a piece of ripe fruit. I searched for my doctor’s eyes, told him I couldn’t do it, it was impossible, and with the next push, there was her head, outside my body. Another push and now her shoulders were free, her body sliding from me like a thing from the sea, my nine-pound prize fish. The effort of birthing her had forced small tears in my inner labia and ripped open my perineum, both the skin and the muscle beneath. It’s a significant tear, the doctor announced somberly. But, he added, you’re fortunate: you didn’t tear through the anal sphincter. I barely heard him. Purple and wailing, June was on my chest, and I prodded her upper arm gently, admiring its pudge. Brandon leaned over us, stroking my hand, which I now saw was smeared with my own blood. We studied the face we’d made. Nine pounds! The weight of two shrink-wrapped chickens at the grocery store. Here was the child of my body, our child, a round face with Brandon’s cleft chin and dark hair. I saw on her my father’s fingers, widest at their middle knuckle. Stitching me up took an hour. [image file=image_rsrc2FK.jpg] Brandon and I were the first of our friends to have a baby. I’m not sure the formidable physicality of birth can be imagined, envisioned, or prepared for. The contours of motherhood only appear in their true specificity once you’re inside it. Vaginal or labial tearing is extremely common, but I remember no mention of it. I might have heard something in passing, maybe in our childbirth class, but I’d never met a woman who spoke of having a tear. As far as I knew, I was alone in the wreck of my body. We came home from the hospital when June was thirty-six hours old. Who was this—the woman in my clothes, limping through our front door, holding this baby? My perineum was swollen as a soaked sponge. Using the toilet, I was certain I would rip down the middle. Why didn’t anyone tell me? I wondered aloud to the towels hanging on the wall. I knew I should probably look at the tear, make sure everything was healing all right. But I was too scared, so I asked my mother to do it. I never saw what it looked like. [image file=image_rsrc2FK.jpg] Before June was born, we’d devised a nighttime plan. We would set up the co-sleeper on my side of the bed. We thought that made sense, because I was the one with the boobs. In the night, when she would wake, I would be able to lift her out, bring her to my chest, and feed her, both of us pleasantly half-asleep. But because of my tearing, and because learning to breastfeed is not easy, I needed help.

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

  Mr. Barville, no stranger, by experience, to these situations, soon knew the pass I was brought to soon perceived my extreme disorder; in favour of which, removing the table out of the way, he began a prelude that flattered me with instant relief, to which I was not, however, so near as I imagined: for as he was unbuttoned to me, and tried to provoke and rouse to action his unactive torpid machine, he blushingly owned that no good was to be expected from it, unless I took it in hand to re-excite its languid loitering powers, by just refreshing the smart of the yet recent blood-raw cuts, seeing it could, no more than a boy’s top, keep up without lashing. Sensible then that I should work as much for my own profit as his, I hurried my compliance with his desire, and abridging the ceremonial, whilst he leaned his head against the back of a chair, I had scarce gently made him feel the lash, before I saw the object of my wishes give signs of life, and presently, as it were with a magic touch, is started up into a noble size and distinction indeed. Hastening then to give me the benefit of it, he threw me down on the bench; but such was the refreshed soreness of those parts behind, on my leaning so hard on them, as became me to compass the admission of that stupendous head of his machine, that I could not possibly bear it. I got up then, and tried, by leaning forwards, and turning the crupper on my assailant, to let him at the back avenue: but here it was likewise impossible to stand his bearing so fiercely against me, in his agitations and endeavours to enter that way, whilst his belly battered directly against the recent sore. What should we do now? both intolerably heated: both in a fury; but pleasure is ever inventive for its own ends: he strips me in a trice stark naked, and placing a broad settee-cushion on the carpet before the fire, oversets me gently, topsy turvy, on it; and handling me only at the waist, whilst you may be sure I favoured all my dispositions, brought my legs round his neck; so that my head was kept from the floor only by my hands and the velvet cushion, which was now bespread with my flowing hair: thus I stood on my head and hands, supported by him in such manner, that whilst my thighs clung round him, so as to expose to his sight all my back figure, including the theatre of his bloody pleasure, the centre of my fore pair fairly bearded the object of its rage, that now stood in fine condition to give me satisfaction for the injuries of its neighbours. But as this posture was certainly not the easiest, and our imaginations, wound up to the height, could suffer no delay, he first, with the utmost eagerness and effort, just lip-lodged that broad acorn-fashioned head of his instrument; and still befriended by the fury with which he had made that impression, he soon stuffed in the rest; when now, with a pursuit of thrusts, fiercely urged, he absolutely overpowered and absorbed all sense of pain and uneasiness, whether from my wounds behind, my most untoward posture, or the oversize of his stretcher, in an infinitely predominant delight; when now all my whole spirits of life and sensation rushing, impetuously to the cock-pit, where the prize of pleasure was hotly in dispute and clustering to a point there, I soon received the dear relief of nature from these over-violent strains and provocations of it; harmonizing with which, my gallant spouted into me such a potent overflow of the balsamic injection, as softened and unedged all those irritating stings of a new species of titillation, which I had been so intolerably maddened with, and restored the ferment of my senses to some degree of composure.

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

  The care of dressing and tricking me out for the market, was then left to Phœbe, who acquitted herself, if not well, at least perfectly to the satisfaction of everything but my impatience of seeing myself dressed. When it was over, and I viewed myself in the glass, I was no doubt, too natural, too artless, to hide my childish joy at the change: a change, in the real truth, for much the worse, since I must have much better become the neat easy simplicity of my rustic dress than the awkward, untoward, tawdry finery that I could not conceal my strangeness to. Phœbe’s compliments, however, in which her own share in dressing me was not forgot, did not a little confirm me in the first notions I had ever entertained concerning my person; which, be it said without vanity, was then tolerable to justify a taste for me, and of which it may not be out of place here to sketch you an unflattered picture. I was tall, yet not too tall for my age, which, as I before remarked, was barely turned of fifteen; my shape perfectly straight, thin waisted, and light and free without owing anything to stays; my hair was a glossy auburn, and as soft as silk, flowing down my neck in natural curls, and did not a little to set off the whiteness of a smooth skin; my face was rather too ruddy, though its features were delicate, and the shape was a roundish oval, except where a pit on my chin had far from a disagreeable effect; my eyes were as black as can be imagined, and rather languishing than sparkling, except on certain occasions, when I have been told they struck fire fast enough; my teeth, which I ever carefully preserved, were small, even and white; my bosom was finely raised, and one might then discern rather the promise than the actual growth of the round, firm breast, that in a little time made that promise good. In short, all the points of beauty that are most universally in request, I had, or at least my vanity forbid me to appeal from the decision of our sovereign judges the men, who all, that I ever knew at last, gave it thus highly in my favour; and I met with, even in my own sex, some that were above denying me that justice, whilst others praised me yet more unsuspectedly, by endeavouring to detract from me, in points of person and figure that I obviously excelled in. This is, I own, too strong of self praise; but I should be ungrateful to nature, and to a form to which I owe such singular blessings of pleasure and fortune, were I to suppress, through an affectation of modesty, the mention of such valuable gifts.

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

  "I stood hesitating, looking first at my nakedness, then upon his. He smiled, and kissed me. "'You don't feel cold, do you?' "'No, but——' "'Well, then, don't be afraid; there is no one in the house. Everyone is asleep on the other flats, and, besides, every window is tightly shut, and all the curtains are down.' "He dragged me with him into a neighbouring room all covered with thick, soft, and silky carpets, the prevailing tone of which was dull Turkish red. "In the centre of this apartment hung a curiously-wrought, star-shaped lamp, which the faithful—even now-a-days—light on Friday eve. "We sat down on a soft-cushioned divan, in front of one of those ebony Arab tables all inlaid with coloured ivory and iridiscent mother-of-pearl. "'I cannot give you a banquet, although I expected you; still, there is enough to satisfy your hunger, I hope.' "There were some luscious Cancale oysters—few, but of an immense size; a dusty bottle of Sauterne, then a paté de foie gras highly scented with Périgord truffles; a partridge, with paprika or Hungarian curry, and a salad made out of a huge Piedmont truffle, as thinly sliced as shavings, and a bottle of exquisite dry sherry. "All these delicacies were served in dainty blue old Delft and Savona ware, for he had already heard of my hobby for old majolica. "Then came a dish of Seville oranges, bananas, and pineapples, flavoured with Maraschino and covered with sifted sugar. It was a savoury, tasty, tart and sweet medley, combining together the flavour and perfume of all these delicious fruits. "After having washed it down with a bottle of sparkling champagne, we then sipped some tiny cups of fragrant and scalding Mocha coffee; then he lighted a narghilè, or Turkish water pipe, and we puffed at intervals the odorous Latakiah, inhaling it with our ever-hungry kisses from each other's mouths. "The fumes of the smoke and those of the wine rose up to our heads, and in our re-awakened sensuality we soon had between our lips a far more fleshy mouth-piece.than the amber one of the Turkish pipe. "Our heads were again soon lost between each other's thighs. We had once more but one body between us, juggling with one another, ever seeking new caresses, new sensations, a sharper and more inebriating kind of lewdness, in our anxiety not only to enjoy ourselves but to make the other one feel. We were, therefore, very soon the prey of a blasting lust, and only some inarticulate sounds expressed the climax of our voluptuous state, until, more dead than alive, we fell upon each other—a mingled mass of shivering flesh. "After half an hour's rest and a bowl of arrak, curaçoa and whisky punch, flavoured with many hot, invigorating spices, our mouths were again pressed together.

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

  I got to the street door, the key whereof was always laid on the chair by our bed side, in trust with Phœbe, who having not the least suspicion of my entertaining any design to go from them (nor, indeed, had I, but the day before), made no reserve or concealment of it from me. I opened the door with great ease; love, that emboldened, protected me too: and now, got safe into the street, I saw my new guardian angel waiting at a coach door, ready open. How I got to him I know not: I suppose I flew; but I was in the coach in a trice, and he by the side of me, with his arms clasped round me, and giving me the kiss of welcome. The coachman had his orders, and drove to them. My eyes were instantly filled with tears, but tears of the most delicious delight; to find myself in the arms of that beauteous youth, was a rapture that my little hear swam in; past or future were equally out of the question with me; the present was as much as all my powers of life were sufficient to bear the transport of, without fainting. Nor were the most tender embraces, the most soothing expressions wanting on his side, to assure me of his love, and of never giving me cause to repent the bold step I had taken, in throwing myself thus entirely upon his honour and generosity. But, alas! this was no merit in me, for I was drove to it by a passion too impetuous for me to resist, and, I did what I did, because I could not help it. In an instant, for time was now annihilated with me, we were landed at a public house in Chelsea, hospitably commodious for the reception of duet parties of pleasure, where a breakfast of chocolate was prepared for us. An old jolly stager, who kept it, and understood life perfectly well, breakfasted with us, and leering archly at me, gave us both joy, and said, “we were well paired, i’ faith! that a great many gentlemen and ladies used his house, but he had never seen a handsomer couple... he was sure I was a fresh piece... I looked so country, so innocent! well my spouse was a lucky man!...” all which, common landlord’s cant, not only pleased and soothed me, but helped to diver my confusion at being with my new sovereign, whom, the minute approached, I began to fear to be alone with: a timidity which true love had a greater share in than even maiden bashful-ness.

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

  The first object then, that my eyes opened on, was their supreme idol, and my supreme wish, Charles, on one knee, holding me fast by the hand and gazing on me with a transport of fondness. Observing my recovery, he attempted to speak, and give vent to his patience of hearing my voice again, to satisfy him once more that it was I; but the mightiness and suddenness of the surprise continuing to stun him, choked his utterance: he could only stammer out a few broken, half-formed, filtering accents, which my ears greedily drinking in, spelt, and put together, so as to make out their sense: “After so long!... so cruel an absence!... my dearest Fanny!... can it?... can it be you?...” stifling me at the time with kisses, that, stopping my opening mouth, at once prevented the answer that he panted for, and increased the delicious disorder in which all my senses were rapturously lost. However, amidst this crowd of ideas, and all blissful ones, there obtruded only one cruel doubt that poisoned nearly all the transcendant happiness: and what was it, but my dread of its being too excessive to be real? I trembled now with my fear of its being no more than a dream, and of waking out of it into the horrors of finding it one. Under this fond apprehension, imagining I could not make too much of the present prodigious joy, before it would vanish and leave me in the desert again, nor verify its reality too strongly, I clung to him, I clasped him, as if to hinder him from escaping me again: “Where have you been?... how could you... could you leave me?... Say you are still mine... that you still love me... and thus! thus!” (kissing him as if I would consolidated lips with him) “I forgive you... forgive my hard fortune in favour of this restoration.” All these interjections breaking from me, in that wildness of expression that justly passes for eloquence in love, drew from him all the returns my fond heart could wish or require. Our caresses, our questions, our answers, for some time observed no order; all crossing, or interrupting one another in sweet confusion, whilst we exchanged hearts at our eyes, and renewed the ratifications of a love unabated by time or absence: not a breath, not a motion, not a gesture on either side, but what was strongly impressed with it. Our hands, locked in each other, repeated the most passionate squeezes, so that their fiery thrill went to the heart again.

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

  As soon as he had disengaged, the charming Emily got up, and we crowded round her with congratulations and other officious little services; for it is to be noted, that though all modesty and reserve were banished from the transaction of these pleasures, good manners and politeness were inviolably observed: there was no gross ribaldry, no offensive or rude behaviour, or ungenerous reproaches to the girls for their compliance with the humours and desires of the men. On the contrary, nothing was wanting to soothe, encourage, and soften the sense of their condition to them. Men know not in general how much they destroy of their own pleasure, when they break through the respect and tenderness due to our sex, and even to those of it who live only by pleasing them. And this was a maxim perfectly well understood by these polite voluptuaries, these profound adepts in the great art and science of pleasure, who never shewed these votaries of theirs a more tender respect than at the time of those exercises of their complaisance, when they unlocked their treasures of concealed beauty, and shewed out in the pride of their native charms, ever more touching surely than when they parade it in the artificial ones of dress and ornament. The frolic was now come round to me, and it being my turn of subscription to the will and pleasure of my particular elect, as well as to that of the company, he came to me, and saluting me very tenderly, with a flattering eagerness, put me in mind of the compliances my presence there authorized the hopes of, and at the same time repeated to me, “that if all this force of example had not surmounted any repugnance I might have to concur with the humours and desires of the company, that though the play was bespoke for my benefit, and great as his own private disappointment might be, he would suffer any thing, sooner than be the instrument of imposing a disagreeable task.” To this I answered, without the least hesitation, or mincing grimace, “that had I not even contracted a kind of engagement to be at his disposal without the least reserve, the example of such agreeable companions would alone determine me, and that I was in no pain about any thing but my appearing to so great a disadvantage after such superior beauties.” And take notice that I thought, as I spoke. The frankness of the answer pleased them all; my particular was complimented on his acquisition, and, by way of indirect flattery to me, openly envied me.

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

  Here I laved and wantoned with the water, or sportively played with my companion, leaving Emily to deal with hers at discretion. Mine, at length, not content with making me take the plunge over head and ears, kept splashing me, and provoking me with all the little playful tricks he could devise, and which I strove not to remain in his debt for. We gave, in short, a loose to mirth; and now, nothing would serve him but giving his hand the regale of going over every part of me, neck, breast, belly, thighs, and all the et cætera, so dear to the imagination, under the pretext of washing and rubbing them; as we both stood in the water, no higher now than the pit of our stomachs, and which did not hinder him from feeling, and toying with that leak that distinguishes our sex, and it so wonderfully water-tight: for his fingers, in vain dilating and opening it, only let more flame than water into it, be it said without a figure. At the same time he made me feel his own engine, which was so well wound up, as to stand even the working in water, and he accordingly threw one arm round my neck, and was endeavouring to get the better of that harsher construction bred by the surrounding fluid; and had in effect one his way so far as to make me sensible of the pleasing stretch of those nether lips, from the in-driving machine; when, independent of my not liking that awkward mode of enjoyment, I could not help interrupting him, in order to become joint spectators of a plan of joy, in hot operation between Emily and her partner; who impatient of the fooleries and dalliance of the bath, had led his nymph to one of the benches on the green bank, where he was very cordially proceeding to teach her the difference betwixt jest and earnest.

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

  Giddy and intoxicated as I was with such satiating draughts of pleasure, I still lay on the couch, supinely stretched out, in a delicious languor diffused over all my limbs, hugging myself for being thus revenged to my heart’s content, and that in a manner so precisely alike, and on the identical spot in which I had received the supposed injury. No reflections on the consequences ever once perplexed me, nor did I make myself one single reproach for having, by this step, completely entered myself into a profession more decried than disused. I should have held it ingratitude to the pleasure I had received, to have repented of it; and since I was now over the bar, I thought, by plunging head and ears into the stream I was hurried away by, to drown all sense of shame or reflection. Whilst I was thus making these laudable dispositions, and whispering to myself a kind of tacit vow of incontinency, enters Mr. H... The consciousness of what I had been doing deepened yet the glowing of my cheeks, flushed with the warmth of the late action, which, joined to the piquant air of my dishabile, drew from Mr. H.... a compliment on my looks, which he was proceeding to bask the sincerity of with proofs, and that with so brisk an action, as made me tremble for fear of a discovery from the condition those parts were left in from their late severe handling: the orifice dilated and inflamed, the lips swollen with their uncommon distension, the ringlets pressed down, crushed and uncurled with the over flowing moisture that had wet everything round it; in short, the different feel and state of things would hardly have passed upon one of Mr. H.....’s nicety and experience unaccounted for but by the real cause. But here the woman saved me: I pretended a violent disorder of my head, and a feverish heat, that indisposed me too much to receive his embraces. He gave in to this, and good naturedly desisted. Soon after, an old lady coming in made a third, very apropos for the confusion I was in, and Mr. H...., after bidding me take care of myself, and recommending me to my repose, left me much at ease and relieved by his absence. In the close of the evening, I took care to have prepared for me a warm bath of aromatik and sweet herbs; in which having fully laved and solaced myself, I came out voluptuously refreshed in body and spirit. The next morning waking pretty early, after a night’s perfect rest and composure, it was not without some dread and uneasiness that I thought of what innovation that tender soft system of mine might have sustained, from the shock of a machine so sized for its destruction. Struck with this apprehension, I scarce dared to carry my hand thither, to inform myself of the state and posture of things. But I was soon agreeably cured of my fears.

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

  Lucy went on to whip up a blender of brandy alexanders for the purpose of putting tallow on my flat little heinie. She plunked a few extra filberts in my lowball glass of foam. By the time her soap opera came on about two, I was affably drunk. The cat clocks’ offbeat tails twitching overhead didn’t faze me a bit. I was the bodhisattva of brandy, the crown princess of alexander. I woke with my damp cheek flat to the bar. I’d somehow crossed from my original joy into drunkenness, and beyond that into a sugar coma. Hours had passed. My bird’s nest of hair tipped sideways. It seemed to be drawing my worrisome headache far beyond the parameters of my skull. I looked around while Lucy poured me a collins glass of water. The stools beside me had been untipped. A shallow paper bowl of Goldfish sat before each one. At back tables, folks stared intently at the domino tiles they’d lined up into short walls. I drained my glass and slid it back to Lucy, who arched a thin brow penciled the color of coffee and caught me up on Daddy’s pool game. The neat stack of dollars on the table’s edge had once belonged to Dole and now belonged to Daddy. The cowboy had responded to this by getting sidewinding drunk. He stabbed at the balls in hard, mean little pokes. He was also shooting too high, his cuestick sailing upwards in an arc so it whacked the hanging metal lampshade a few times, sending it sideways. And he didn’t bother to sight along the stick or hunker down so his eye could work out angles. He just sucked his front teeth and jabbed, pissing away every shot. Daddy was probably just as drunk, but that only made him walk straighter. He took aim with the slow concentration of a man underwater. Nearly every ball he stood behind eventually moved slow to the pocket he’d picked for it. When Dole started making sissy shots—trying to jump one ball over another or shooting behind his back, Daddy said let’s wrap this deal up, which the cowboy snorted at. “You took my money,” he said. Daddy just grinned. “Hell, brother, you set the stakes.” Suddenly Dole was at the bar next to me, pounding on the sparkling Formica with his meaty fist. His features seemed scrunched in the center of his round, red face, crowding each other for room. “Beer here, barkeep,” he said. “You’re eighty-sixed,” Lucy said. “Cut off. No more for you.” “What for?” “’Cause I said. That’s what for.” She’d had both hands on the bar when he strode over. Now she dropped one out of sight with a move so smooth I wondered if she kept some ballbat or other equalizer under the counter. Dole jerked his thumb over at Daddy. “What about Tonto back there?” “Tonto’s still drinking,” Daddy said. But, in fact, his glass sat empty.

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

  We listened to the whole thing squatting right underneath the Heinzes’ bathroom window—the whap-whap of that plastic brush on Mickey’s blubbery little ass, him howling like a banshee. That January morning, I watched Mickey through my birthday binoculars. I was halfway thinking maybe I’d trot over to his yard and get him to hide his eyes for hide-and-seek, then just go home and watch him look for me till he started snubbing. I had almost talked myself into doing this when I heard Daddy’s truck lunge into the garage. I turned my glasses to the garage door and made out his big silver hard hat bobbing toward me. (Mercury’s helmet always put me in mind of that hard hat, for some reason—minus the wings, of course.) “How’s the birthday, Pokey?” he said. Then his hard hat left my field of vision. A second later his work boot scuffed the concrete step beside me. I lowered the glasses and looked up and said fine. Except for the late-night visits he always made to double-tuck the covers under my chin, I hadn’t seen him much that January. The union’s contract with Gulf Oil had run out, and he’d been out on strike all month, along with everybody else in the county. When he wasn’t walking the picket line, he went shrimping or duck hunting—anything to put food on the table. Nights, he hung out at the union hall waiting for any news about the talks to trickle back. Like Mother, he’d become the sort of stranger I longed for a glimpse of without ever expecting to see up close. But that morning he’d given me the binoculars and a new Archie comic all wrapped up before he headed off to the line. The sweetness of it had drawn tears from some deep sour place way behind my eyes. “Shit, don’t cry, Pokey,” he said with a wry grin. He’d finally promised to come home for supper and cake that evening if I’d stop crying so’s to break his heart. Anyway, I’d been waiting on the back step the better part of the afternoon, holding back a floodgate of talk for him. When his shadow finally fell on me, I started to prattle about how I’d gone to Beaumont with Mother and Lecia that morning to buy my birthday dress. It was a black crepe dress—the first black dress I’d owned. Just sitting in it made me feel like a movie star, I’d told him. We’d had hell finding a kid’s dress in black. But Mother had driven us all over the county. (Finding that dress, in fact, was about the first event other than an occasional meal that she’d gotten up for since coming back from the funeral.) We’d at last settled on an A-line dress that had a big white clown collar hanging all loose and drapy, with three bona fide rhinestone buttons down the front. The dress had been “cut on the bias,” according to the saleslady.

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

  But when his hand, and touches, naturally attracted to their center, made me feel all their wantonness and warmth in, and round it, oh! how immensely different a sense of things, did I perceive there, than when under my own insipid handling! And now his waistcoat was unbuttoned, and the confinement of the breeches burst through, when out started to view the amazing, pleasing object of all my wishes, all my dreams, all my love, the king member indeed! I gazed at, I devoured it, at length and breadth, with my eyes intently directed to it, till his; getting upon me, and placing between my thighs, took from me the enjoyment of its sight, to give me a far more grateful one, in its touch, in that part where its touch is so exquisitely affecting. Applying it then to the minute opening, for such at that age it certainly was, I met with too much good will, I felt with too great a rapture of pleasure the first insertion of it, to heed much the pain that followed: I thought nothing too dear to pay for this the richest treat of the sense; so that, split up, torn, bleeding, mangled I was still superiorly pleased, and hugged the author of all this delicious ruin. But when, soon after, he made his second attack, sore as every thing was, the smart was soon put away by the sovereign cordial; all my soft complainings were silenced, and the pain melting fast away into pleasure. I abandoned myself over to all its transports, and gave it the full possession of my whole body and soul; for now all thought was at an end with me; I lived in what I felt only. And who could describe those feelings, those agitations, yet exalted by the charm of their novelty and surprise? when that part of me which had so hungered for the dear morsel that now so delightfully crammed, forced all my vital sensations to fix their home there, during the stay of my beloved guest; who too soon paid me for his hearty welcome, in a dissolvent, richer far than that I have heard of some queen treating her paramour with, in liquified pearl, and ravishingly poured into me, where, now myself too much melted to give it a dry reception, I hailed it with the warmest confluence on my side, amidst all those ecstatic raptures, not unfamiliar I presume to this good company. Thus, however, I arrived at the very top of all my wishes, by an accident unexpected indeed, but not so wonderful; for this young gentleman was just arrived in town from college, and came familiarly to his mother at her apartment, where he had once before been, though, by mere chance. I had not seen him: so that we knew one another by hearing only; and finding me stretched on his mother’s bed, he readily concluded from her description, who it was. The rest you know.

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

  I love it here in Montana. It’s beautiful. Yesterday, I rode a horse for the first time. Indians still ride horses in Montana. I’m still looking for a job. I’ve sent applications to all the restaurants on the reservation. Yep, the Flathead Rez has about twenty restaurants. It’s weird. They have six or seven towns, too. Can you believe that? That’s a lot of towns for one rez! And you know what’s really weird? Some of the towns on the rez are filled with white people. I don’t know how that happened. But the people who live in those white towns don’t always like Indians much. One of those towns, called Polson, tried to secede (that means quit, I looked it up) from the rez. Really. It was like the Civil War. Even though the town is in the middle of the rez, the white folks in that town decided they didn’t want to be a part of the rez. Crazy. But most of the people here are nice. The whites and Indians. And you know the best part? There’s this really great hotel where hubby and I had our honeymoon. It’s on Flathead Lake and we had a suite, a hotel room with its own separate bedroom! And there was a phone in the bathroom! Really! I could have called you from the bathoom. But that’s not even the most crazy part. We decide to order room service, to have the food delivered to our room, and guess what they had on the menu? Indian fry bread! Yep. For five dollars, you could get fry bread. Crazy! So I ordered up two pieces. I didn’t think it would be any good, especially not as good as grandma’s. But let me tell you. It was great. Almost as good as grandma’s. And they had the fry bread on this fancy plate and so I ate it with this fancy fork and knife. And I just kept imagining there was some Flathead Indian grandma in the kitchen, just making fry bread for all the room-service people. It was a dream come true! I love my life! I love my husband! I love Montana! I love you! Your sis, Mary Thanksgiving [image file=image_rsrc4RJ.jpg] It was a snowless Thanksgiving. We had a turkey, and Mom cooked it perfectly. We also had mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, corn, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. It was a feast. I always think it’s funny when Indians celebrate Thanksgiving. I mean, sure, the Indians and Pilgrims were best friends during that first Thanksgiving, but a few years later, the Pilgrims were shooting Indians. So I’m never quite sure why we eat turkey like everybody else. “Hey, Dad,” I said. “What do Indians have to be so thankful for?” “We should give thanks that they didn’t kill all of us.” We laughed like crazy. It was a good day. Dad was sober. Mom was getting ready to nap. Grandma was already napping.

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

  Never, however, did dear youth carry in his head more wherewith to justify the turning of a girl’s head, and making her set all consequences at defiance, for the sake of following a gallant. For, besides all the perfections of manly beauty which were assembled in his form, he had an air of neatness and gentility, certain smartness in the carriage and port of his head, that yet more distinguished him; his eyes were sprightly and full of meaning; his looks had in them something at once sweet and commanding; his complexion out-bloomed the lovely coloured rose, whilst its inimitable tender vivid glow clearly saved it from the reproach of wanting life, of raw and dough-like, which is commonly made of those so extremely fair as he was. Our little plan was, that I should get out about seven the next morning (which I could readily promise, as I knew where to get the key of the street door) and he would wait at the end of the street with a coach to convey me safe off; after which, we would send, and clear any debt incurred by my stay at Mrs. Brown’s, who, he only judged, in gross, might not care to part with one, he thought, so fit to draw custom to the house. I then just hinted to him not to mention in the house his having seen such a person as me, for reasons I would explain to him more at leisure. And then, for fear of miscarrying, by being seen together, I tore myself from him with a bleeding heart, and stole up softly to my room, where I found Phœbe still fast asleep, and hurrying off my few clothes, lay down by her, with a mixture of joy and anxiety, that may be easier conceived than expressed. The risks of Mrs. Brown’s discovering my purpose, of disappointments, misery, ruin, all vanished before this new-kindled flame. The seeing, the touching, the being, if but for a night, with this idol of my fond virgin heart, appeared to me a happiness above the purchase of my liberty or life. He might use me ill, let him: he was the master, happy, too happy, even to receive death at so dear a hand. To this purpose were the reflections of the whole day, of which every minute seemed to me a little eternity. How often did I visit the clock! nay, was tempted to advance the tedious hand, as if that would have advanced the time with it!

• From Sexual Politics (1970)

  It is dedicated to Fumio, and the nightly martini over which he listened to each day’s pages, laughed and crowed, criticized, and egged me on. Sexual Politics also owes a great deal to a long-vanished debating society called Downtown Radical Women, where each detail of the theory of patriarchy was hatched, rehearsed, and refined upon again; to friends in New Haven, graduate women at Yale, who would stay up nights speculating on the origins of patriarchy, the discovery of paternity, the population explosion following upon the implementation of that discovery in the rise of slavery, property, and the city-state. Sexual politics, the idea, was an ongoing project among a great many women in the months I was writing it. And I had their support and companionship, their intellectual energy running through me so actively I felt I composed it for all of us, was the scribe of many. Without Lucinda Cisler’s amazing bibliography to draw upon, I couldn’t have located many of my sources. Other books were emerging at the same time too: Robin Morgan’s Sisterhood Is Powerful, Shulamith Firestone’s Dialectic of Sex, all the pamphlets that were collected together into the Notes from the First Year. We were all in this together, knew each other, were collaborators in the creation of a different consciousness. There was Columbia Women’s Liberation too, founded with friends in the graduate school and faculty; we devoted hundreds of hours of research to documenting the university’s unfair salary schedules, deliberately using the tools of our academic training to attack the system. We were dedicated to scholarship, loved it, believed in it so much that we dreamed about it out loud, lying on someone’s rug uptown and outlining a curriculum freed of sexual prejudice, a whole new way to see history, literature, economics, psychology, political events. We were beginning to invent women’s studies, we were reinterpreting knowledge, discovering a new learning. These were the days of the millennium. As the book took shape, so did events. By the time Sexual Politics was published, our actions and demonstrations, meetings, issues, were running through this and other countries, mobilizing women. By the summer of 1970, the moment this text was released, there was a great wave of feminism building. It was the fiftieth anniversary of the suffrage, there were marches and strikes of women workers in New York and throughout the United States. It was the right moment. The rest is history.

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

  "The Rubicon was crossed; the column began to slide softly in; he could begin his pleasurable work. Soon the whole penis slipped in; the pain that tortured me was deadened; the delight was ever so much increased. I felt the little god moving within me; it seemed to be tickling the very core of my being; he had shoved the whole of it into me, down to its very root; I felt his hair crushed against mine, his testicles gently rubbing against me. "I then saw his beautiful eyes gazing deep into mine. What unfathomable eyes they were! Like the sky or the main, they seemed to reflect the infinite. Never again shall I see eyes so full of burning love, of such smouldering langour. His glances had a mesmeric spell over me; they bereft me of my reason; they did even more—they changed sharp pain into delight. "I was in a state of ecstatic joy; all my nerves contracted and twitched. As he felt himself thus clasped and gripped, he shivered, he ground his teeth; he was unable to bear such a strong shock; his outstretched arms held fast on my shoulders; he dug his nails into my flesh; he tried to move, but he was so tightly wedged and grasped that it was impossible to push himself any further in. Moreover, his strength was beginning to fail him, and he could then hardly stand upon his feet. "As he tried to give another jerk, I myself, that very moment squeezed the whole rod with all the strength of my muscles, and a most violent jet, like a hot geyser, escaped from him, and coursed within me like some scorching, corroding poison; it seemed to set my blood on fire, and transmuted it into some kind of hot, intoxicating alcohol. His breath was thick and convulsive; his sobs choked him; he was utterly done up. "'I am dying!' he gasped out, his chest heaving with emotion; 'it is too much.' And he fell senseless in my arms. "After half an hour's rest he woke up, and began at once to kiss me with rapture, whilst his loving eyes beamed with thankfulness. "'You have made me feel what I never felt before. "'Nor I either,' quoth I, smiling. "'I really did not know whether I was in heaven or in hell. I had quite lost my senses.' "He stopped for a moment to look at me, and then,—'How I love you, my Camille!' he went on, showering kisses on me; 'I have loved you to distraction from the very moment I saw you.' "Then I began to tell him how I had suffered in trying to overcome my love for him; how I was haunted by his presence day and night; how happy I was at last.