Longing

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 Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  Kate beams at him, too. “Way to go, José! I should put this in the paper. Nothing like last-minute editorial changes on a Friday evening.” She feigns annoyance. “Let’s celebrate. I want you to come to the opening.” José looks intently at me, and I flush. “Both of you, of course,” he adds, glancing nervously at Kate. José and I are good friends, but I know deep down he’d like to be more. He’s cute and funny, but he’s just not for me. He’s more like the brother I never had. Katherine often teases me that I’m missing the need-a-boyfriend gene, but the truth is I just haven’t met anyone who…well, whom I’m attracted to, even though part of me longs for the fabled trembling-knees, heart-in-my-mouth, butterflies-in-my-belly moments. Sometimes I wonder if there’s something wrong with me. Perhaps I’ve spent too long in the company of my literary romantic heroes and consequently my ideals and expectations are far too high. But in reality, nobody’s ever made me feel like that. Until very recently, the unwelcome, still-small voice of my subconscious whispers. NO! I banish the thought immediately. I am not going there, not after that painful interview. Are you gay, Mr. Grey? I wince at the memory. I know I’ve dreamed about him most nights since then, but that’s just to purge the awful experience from my system, surely. I watch José open the bottle of champagne. He’s tall, and in his jeans and T-shirt, he’s all shoulders and muscles, tanned skin, dark hair, and burning dark eyes. Yes, José’s pretty hot, but I think he’s finally getting the message: we’re just friends. The cork makes its loud pop, and José looks up and smiles. Saturday at the store is a nightmare. We are besieged by do-it-yourselfers wanting to spruce up their homes. Mr. and Mrs. Clayton, John, Patrick—the two other part-timers—and I are besieged by customers. But there’s a lull around lunchtime, and Mrs. Clayton asks me to check on some orders while I’m sitting behind the counter at the register discreetly eating my bagel. I’m engrossed in the task, checking catalog numbers against the items we need and the items we’ve ordered, eyes flicking from the order book to the computer screen and back as I make sure the entries match. Then, for some reason, I glance up…and find myself locked in the bold gray gaze of Christian Grey, who’s standing at the counter, staring at me. Heart failure. “Miss Steele. What a pleasant surprise.” His gaze is unwavering and intense. Holy crap. What the hell is he doing here, looking all outdoorsy with his tousled hair and his cream chunky-knit sweater, jeans, and walking boots? I think my mouth has popped open, and I can’t locate my brain or my voice. “Mr. Grey,” I whisper eventually, because that’s all I can manage. There’s a ghost of a smile on his lips and his eyes are alight with humor, as if he’s enjoying some private joke.

• From Story of the Eye (1928)

  Marcelle’s smile, her freshness, her sobs, the sense of shame that made her redden and, painfully red, tear off her own clothes and surrender lovely blond buttocks to impure hands, impure mouths, beyond all the tragic delirium that had made her lock herself in the wardrobe to toss off with such abandon that she could not help pissing—all these things warped our desires, so that they endlessly racked us. Simone, whose conduct during the scandal had been more obscene than ever (sprawled out, she had not even covered herself, in fact she had flung her legs apart)—Simone could not forget that the unforeseen orgasm provoked by her own brazenness, by Marcelle’s howls and the nakedness of her writhing limbs, had been more powerful than anything she had ever managed to picture before. And her cunt would not open to me unless Marcelle’s ghost, raging, reddening, frenzied, came to make her brazenness overwhelming and far-reaching, as if the sacrilege were to render everything generally dreadful and infamous. At any rate, the swampy regions of the cunt (nothing resembles them more than the days of flood and storm or even the suffocating gaseous eruptions of volcanoes, and they never turn active except, like storms or volcanoes, with something of catastrophe or disaster)—those heartbreaking regions, which Simone, in an abandon presaging only violence, allowed me to stare at hypnotically, were nothing for me now but the profound, subterranean empire of a Marcelle who was tormented in prison and at the mercy of nightmares. There was only one thing I understood: how utterly the orgasms ravaged the girl’s face with sobs interrupted by horrible shrieks. And Simone, for her part, no longer viewed the hot, acrid come that she caused to spurt from my cock without seeing it muck up Marcelle’s mouth and cunt. “You could smack her face with your come,” she confided to me, while smearing her cunt—“till it sizzles,” as she put it. 4. A Sunspot Other girls and boys no longer interested us. All we could think of was Marcelle, and already we childishly imagined her hanging herself, the secret burial, the funeral apparitions. Finally, one evening, after getting the precise information, we took our bicycles and pedalled off to the sanatorium where our friend was confined. In less than an hour, we had ridden the twenty kilometres separating us from a sort of castle within a walled park on an isolated cliff overlooking the sea. We had learned that Marcelle was in Room 8, but obviously we would have to get inside the building to find her.

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  I ignore his facial expression and very bravely sit down beside him on the piano stool, placing my head on his bare shoulder to watch his deft, agile fingers caress the keys. He pauses fractionally, and then continues to the end of the piece. “What was that?” I ask softly. “Chopin. A prelude. Opus 28, number 4. In E minor, if you’re interested,” he says. “I’m always interested in what you do.” He turns and softly presses his lips against my hair. “I didn’t mean to wake you.” “You didn’t. Play the other one.” “Other one?” “The Bach piece you played the first night I stayed.” “Oh, the Marcello.” He starts to play slowly and deliberately. I feel the movement of his hands in his shoulders as I lean against him and close my eyes. The sad, soulful notes swirl slowly and mournfully around us, echoing off the walls. It is a hauntingly beautiful piece, sadder even than the Chopin, and I lose myself to the beauty of the lament. To a certain extent, it reflects how I feel. The deep, poignant longing I have to know this extraordinary man better, to try to understand his sadness. All too soon, the piece is at an end. “Why do you only play such sad music?” I sit upright and gaze up at him as he shrugs in answer to my question, his expression wary. “So you were just six when you started to play?” I prompt. He nods, his wary look intensifying. After a moment he volunteers. “I threw myself into learning the piano to please my new mother.” “To fit into the perfect family?” “Yes, so to speak,” he says evasively. “Why are you awake? Don’t you need to recover from yesterday’s exertions?” “It’s eight in the morning for me. And I need to take my pill.” He raises his eyebrows in surprise. “Well remembered,” he murmurs, and I can tell he’s impressed. “Only you would start a course of time-specific birth control pills in a different time zone. Perhaps you should wait half an hour and then another half hour tomorrow morning. So eventually you can take them at a reasonable time.” “Good plan. So what shall we do for half an hour?” I blink innocently at him. “I can think of a few things.” He grins salaciously. I gaze back impassively as my insides clench and melt under his knowing look. “On the other hand, we could talk,” I suggest quietly. His brow creases. “I prefer what I have in mind.” He scoops me onto his lap. “You’d always rather have sex than talk.” I laugh, steadying myself by holding on to his upper arms. “True. Especially with you.” He nuzzles my hair and starts a steady trail of kisses from below my ear to my throat. “Maybe on my piano.” Oh my. My whole body tightens at the thought. Piano. Wow.

• From The Lover (1984)

  I don’t know what became of Hélène Lagonelle, I don’t even know if she’s dead. It was she who left the boarding school first, a long while before I went to France. She went back to Da Lat. Her mother sent for her, I believe to arrange a match for her, I believe she was to meet someone just out from France. But I may be wrong, I may be projecting what I thought would happen to Hélène Lagonelle onto her prompt departure at her mother’s request.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  few brief encounters at the court, letting her catch glimpses of his wit, his audacity, his cool manner. She would begin to think of him when she was alone. Next she started to bump into him more often at court, and they would have little conversations or walks. When these meetings were over, Falling in love she would be left with a doubt: is he or is he not interested in me? This automatically tends toward madness. Left to itself, it made her want to see him more, in order to allay her doubts. She began to goes to utter extremes. This idealize him all out of proportion to the reality, for the duke was an incoris well known by the rigible scoundrel. "conquistadors" of both sexes. Once a woman's Remember: if you are easily had, you cannot be worth that much. It is Poeticize Your Presence • 283 hard to wax poetic about a person who comes so cheaply. If, after the initial attention is fixed upon a interest, you make it clear that you cannot be taken for granted, if you stir a man, it is very easy for him to dominate her bit of doubt, the target will imagine there is something special, lofty, and thoughts completely. A unattainable about you. Your image will crystallize in the other person's simple game of blowing mind. hot and cold, of Cleopatra knew that she was really no different from any other woman, solicitousness and disdain, of presence and absence is and in fact her face was not particularly beautiful. But she knew that men all that is required. The have a tendency to overvalue a woman. All that is required is to hint that rhythm of that technique there is something different about you, to make them associate you with acts upon a woman's attention like a pneumatic something grand or poetic. She made Caesar aware of her connection to machine and ends by the great kings and queens of Egypt's past; with Antony, she created the emptying her of all the rest fantasy that she was descended from Aphrodite herself. These men were ca- of the world. How well our people put it: "to suck vorting not just with a strong-willed woman but a kind of goddess. Such one's senses"! In fact: one associations might be difficult to pull off today, but people still get deep is absorbed— absorbed by pleasure from associating others with some kind of childhood fantasy fig- an object! Most "love afairs" are reduced to this ure. John F. Kennedy presented himself as a figure of chivalry—noble, mechanical play of the brave, charming. Pablo Picasso was not just a great painter with a thirst for beloved upon the lover's young girls, he was the Minotaur of Greek legend, or the devilish trickster attention. • The only thing figure that is so seductive to women. These associations should not be made that can save a lover is a violent shock from the

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Madame Récamier could not have known about Chateaubriand's ideal type, but she did know something about him, well before she ever met him. She had read all of his books, and his characters were highly autobiographical. She knew of his obsession with his lost youth; and everyone knew of his endless and unsatisfying affairs with women, his hyperrestless spirit. Madame Récamier knew how to mirror people, entering their spirit, and one of her first acts was to take Chateaubriand to Vallée aux Loups, where he felt he had left part of his youth. Alive with memories, he regressed further into his childhood, to the days in the castle. She actively encouraged this. Most important, she embodied a spirit that came naturally to her, but that matched his youthful ideal: innocent, noble, kind. (The fact that so many men fell in love with her suggests that many men had the same ideals.) Madame Récamier was Lucile/Sylphide. It took him years to realize it, but when he did, her spell over him was complete. It is nearly impossible to embody someone's ideal completely. But if you come close enough, if you evoke some of that ideal spirit, you can lead that person into a deep seduction. To effect this regression you must play the role of the therapist. Get your targets to open up about their past, particularly their former loves and most particularly their first love. Pay attention to any expressions of disappointment, how this or that person did not give them what they wanted. Take them to places that evoke their youth. In this regression you are creating not so much a relationship of depen- 346 • The Art of Seduction dency and immaturity but rather the adolescent spirit of a first love. There is a touch of innocence to the relationship. So much of adult life involves compromise, conniving, and a certain toughness. Create the ideal atmosphere by keeping such things out, drawing the other person into a kind of mutual weakness, conjuring a second virginity. There should be a dreamlike quality to the affair, as if the target were reliving that first love but could not quite believe it. Let all of this unfold slowly, each encounter revealing more ideal qualities. The sense of reliving a past pleasure is simply impossible to resist. 4. Some time in the summer of 1614, several members of England's upper nobility, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, met to decide what to do about the Earl of Somerset, the favorite of King James I, who was forty-eight at the time. After eight years as the favorite, the young earl had accumulated such power and wealth, and so many titles, that nothing was left for anyone else. But how to get rid of this powerful man? For the time being the conspirators had no answer.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  New Prudes are secretly oppressed by their correctness and long to transgress. Just as sexual prudes make prime targets for a Rake or Siren, the New Prude will often be most tempted by someone with a dangerous or naughty side. If you desire a New Prude, do not be taken in by their judgments of you or their criticisms. That is only a sign of how deeply you fascinate them; you are on their mind. You can often draw a New Prude into a seduction, in fact, by giving them the chance to criticize you or even try to reform you. Take nothing of what they say to heart, of course, but now you have the perfect excuse to spend time with them—and New Prudes can be seduced simply through being in contact with you. These types actually make excellent and rewarding victims. Once you open them up and get them to let go of their correctness, they are flooded with feelings and energies. They may even overwhelm you. Perhaps they are in a relationship with someone as drab as they themselves seem to be—do not be put off. They are simply asleep, waiting to be awakened. The Crushed Star. We all want attention, we all want to shine, but with most of us these desires are fleeting and easily quieted. The problem with Crushed Stars is that at one point in their lives they did find themselves the center of attention—perhaps they were beautiful, charming and effervescent, perhaps they were athletes, or had some other talent—but those days are gone. They may seem to have accepted this, but the memory of having once shone is hard to get over. In general, the appearance of wanting attention, of trying to stand out, is not seen too kindly in polite society or in the workplace. So to get along, Crushed Stars learn to tamp down their desires; but failing to get the attention they feel they deserve, they also become resentful. You can recognize Crushed Stars by certain unguarded moments: they suddenly receive some attention in a social setting, and it makes them glow; they mention their glory days, and there is a little glint in the eye; a little wine in the system, and they become effervescent. Seducing this type is simple: just make them the center of attention. When you are with them, act as if they were stars and you were basking in their glow. Get them to talk, particularly about themselves. In social situa- The Seducer's Victims— The Eighteen Types • 153

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  draw this fetishistic attention, the strongest is the face; so learn to tune your gilded for the occasion, had face like an instrument, making it radiate a fascinating vagueness for effect. fallen at the altar as the And since you will have to stand out from other Stars in the sky, you will axe struck their snowy need to develop an attention-getting style. Dietrich was the great practi- necks. Smoke was rising from the incense, when tioner of this art; her style was chic enough to dazzle, weird enough to en- Pygmalion, having made thrall. Remember, your own image and presence are materials you can his offering, stood by the control. The sense that you are engaged in this kind of play will make peo- altar and timidly prayed, saying: "If you gods can ple see you as superior and worthy of imitation. give all things, may I have as my wife, I pray—" he She had such natural poise . . . such an economy of ges-did not dare to say: "the ture, that she became as absorbing as a Modigliani. . . . ivory maiden," but finished: "one like the She had the one essential star quality: she could be mag-ivory maid." However, nificent doing nothing. golden Venus, present at her festival in person, — B E R L I N A C T R E S S L I L I DARVAS O N M A R L E N E D I E T R I C H understood what his prayers meant, and as a sign that the gods were The Mythic Star kindly disposed, the flames burned up three times, shooting a tongue of fire On July 2, 1960, a few weeks before that year's Democratic National into the air. When Convention, former President Harry Truman publicly stated that Pygmalion returned home, he made straight for the John F. Kennedy—who had won enough delegates to be chosen his party's statue of the girl he loved, candidate for the presidency—was too young and inexperienced for the leaned over the couch, and job. Kennedy's response was startling: he called a press conference, to be kissed her. She seemed warm: he laid his lips on televised live, and nationwide, on July 4. The conference's drama was hers again, and touched her heightened by the fact that he was away on vacation, so that no one saw or breast with his hands— at heard from him until the event itself. Then, at the appointed hour, his touch the ivory lost its Kennedy strode into the conference room like a sheriff entering Dodge hardness, and grew soft. City. He began by stating that he had run in all of the state primaries, at —OVID, METAMORPHOSES, T R A N S L A T E D B Y M A R Y M . I N N E S

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  too early; they are only powerful once the target has begun to fall under outside, a treatment which your spell, and is vulnerable to suggestion. A man who had just met is forced upon him. Many Cleopatra would have found the Aphrodite association ludicrous. But a think that absence and long trips are a good cure for person who is falling in love will believe almost anything. The trick is to as- lovers. Observe that these sociate your image with something mythic, through the clothes you wear, are cures for one's the things you say, the places you go. attention. Distance from the beloved starves our In Marcel Proust's novel Remembrance of Things Past, the character attention toward him; it Swann finds himself gradually seduced by a woman who is not really his prevents anything further type. He is an aesthete, and loves the finer things in life. She is of a lower from rekindling the attention. Journeys, by class, less refined, even a little tasteless. What poeticizes her in his mind is a physically obliging us to series of exuberant moments they share together, moments that from then come out of ourselves and on he associates with her. One of these is a concert in a salon that they at- resolve hundreds of little tend, in which he is intoxicated by a little melody in a sonata. Whenever he problems, by uprooting us from our habitual setting thinks of her, he remembers this little phrase. Little gifts she has given him, and forcing hundreds of objects she has touched or handled, begin to assume a life of their own. unexpected objects upon us, Any kind of heightened experience, artistic or spiritual, lingers in the mind succeed in breaking down the maniac's haven and much longer than normal experience. You must find a way to share such opening channels in his moments with your targets—a concert, a play, a spiritual encounter, what- sealed consciousness, ever it takes—so that they associate something elevated with you. Shared through which fresh air and normal perspective enter. moments of exuberance have immense seductive pull. Also, any kind of object can be imbued with poetic resonance and sentimental associations, as —JOSÉ ORTEGA Y GASSET, ON LOVE: ASPECTS OF A discussed in the last chapter. The gifts you give and other objects can be- SINGLE THEME, TRANSLATED BY come imbued with your presence; if they are associated with pleasant TOBY TALBOT memories, the sight of them keeps you in mind and accelerates the poeticization process. Although it is said that absence makes the heart grow fonder, an absence too early will prove deadly to the crystallization process. Like Eva 284 • The Art of Seduction Excessive familiarity can Perón, you must surround your targets with focused attention, so that in destroy crystallization. A those critical moments when they are alone, their mind is spinning with a charming girl of sixteen

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  I am once again ensconced in first class, for which I thank you. I am counting the minutes until I see you this evening and perhaps torturing the truth out of you about my nocturnal admissions. Your Ana x From: Christian Grey Subject: Homeward Bound Date: June 3 2011 09:58 To: Anastasia Steele Anastasia, I look forward to seeing you. Christian Grey CEO, Grey Enterprises Holdings, Inc. His response makes me frown. It sounds clipped and formal, not his usual witty, pithy style. From: Anastasia Steele Subject: Homeward Bound Date: June 3 2011 13:01 ET To: Christian Grey Dearest Mr. Grey, I hope everything is okay re “the situation.” The tone of your email is worrying. Ana x From: Christian Grey Subject: Homeward Bound Date: June 3 2011 10:04 To: Anastasia Steele Anastasia, The situation could be better. Have you taken off yet? If so, you should not be emailing. You are putting yourself at risk, in direct contravention of the rule regarding your personal safety. I meant what I said about punishments. Christian Grey CEO, Grey Enterprises Holdings, Inc. Crap. Okay. What is eating him? Perhaps “the situation”? Maybe Taylor’s gone AWOL, maybe he’s dropped a few million on the stock market—whatever the reason. From: Anastasia Steele Subject: Overreaction Date: June 3 2011 13:06 ET To: Christian Grey Dear Mr. Grumpy, The aircraft doors are still open. We are delayed but only by ten minutes. My welfare and that of the passengers around me is vouchsafed. You may stow your twitchy palm for now. Miss Steele From: Christian Grey Subject: Apologies—Twitchy Palm Stowed Date: June 3 2011 10:08 To: Anastasia Steele I miss you and your smart mouth, Miss Steele. I want you safely home. Christian Grey CEO, Grey Enterprises Holdings, Inc. From: Anastasia Steele Subject: Apology Accepted Date: June 3 2011 13:10 ET To: Christian Grey They are shutting the doors. You won’t hear another peep from me, especially given your deafness. Laters. Ana x

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  astonishment, and the behind. Apparently the views and Nietzsche's words had the proper pas-proud satisfaction of sionate effect; in a later letter to her, he described this walk as "the most never oneself being beautiful dream of my life." Now he was a man possessed: all he could astonished. . . . think about was marrying Salomé and having her all to himself. —CHARLES BAUDELAIRE, THE A few months later Salomé visited Nietzsche in Germany. They took DANDY, QUOTED IN VICE: AN ANTHOLOGY, EDITED BY long walks together, and stayed up all night discussing philosophy. She mirR I C H A R D DAVENPORT-HINES rored his deepest thoughts, anticipated his ideas about religion. Yet when he again proposed marriage, she scolded him as conventional: it was Nietzsche, after all, who had developed a philosophical defense of the superman, In the midst of this display the man above everyday morality, yet Salomé was by nature far less conven-of statesmanship, tional than he was. Her firm, uncompromising manner only deepened the eloquence, cleverness, and exalted ambition, spell she cast over him, as did her hint of cruelty When she finally left him, Alcibiades lived a life of making it clear that she had no intention of marrying him, Nietzsche was prodigious luxury, devastated. As an antidote to his pain, he wrote Thus Spake Zarathustra, a drunkenness, debauchery, and insolence. He was book full of sublimated eroticism and deeply inspired by his talks with her. effeminate in his dress and From then on Salomé was known throughout Europe as the woman who would walk through the had broken Nietzsche's heart. market-place trailing his Salomé moved to Berlin. Soon the city's greatest intellectuals were long purple robes, and he spent extravagantly. He falling under the spell of her independence and free spirit. The playwrights had the decks of his Gerhart Hauptmann and Franz Wedekind became infatuated with her; in triremes cut away to allow 1897, the great Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke fell in love with her. By him to sleep more comfortably, and his that time her reputation was widely known, and she was a published novel-bedding was slung on cords, ist. This certainly played a part in seducing Rilke, but he was also attracted rather than spread on the by a kind of masculine energy he found in her that he had never seen in a hard planks. He had a golden shield made for woman. Rilke was then twenty-two, Salomé thirty-six. He wrote her love him, which was letters and poems, followed her everywhere, and began an affair with her emblazoned not with any that was to last several years. She corrected his poetry, imposed discipline The Dandy • 41 on his overly romantic verse, inspired ideas for new poems. But she was put ancestral device, but with off by his childish dependence on her, his weakness. Unable to stand weak-the figure of Eros armed with a thunderbolt. The

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  “Yes, of course.” I smile my first genuine smile in five days as I picture his broad grin. “Seven thirty.” “See you then. Goodbye, José.” “Bye, Ana.” There’s a reply from Christian. From: Christian Grey Subject: Tomorrow Date: June 8 2011 14:27 To: Anastasia Steele Dear Anastasia What time shall I pick you up? Christian Grey CEO, Grey Enterprises Holdings, Inc. From: Anastasia Steele Subject: Tomorrow Date: June 8 2011 14:32 To: Christian Grey José’s show starts at 7:30. What time would you suggest? Anastasia Steele Assistant to Jack Hyde, Editor, SIP From: Christian Grey Subject: Tomorrow Date: June 8 2011 14:34 To: Anastasia Steele Dear Anastasia Portland is some distance away. I shall pick you up at 5:45. I look forward to seeing you. Christian Grey CEO, Grey Enterprises Holdings, Inc. From: Anastasia Steele Subject: Tomorrow Date: June 8 2011 14:38 To: Christian Grey See you then. Anastasia Steele Assistant to Jack Hyde, Editor, SIP Oh my. I’m going to see Christian, and for the first time in five days, my spirits lift a fraction and I allow myself to wonder how he’s been. Has he missed me? Probably not like I’ve missed him. Has he found a new submissive? The thought is so painful that I dismiss it immediately. I look at the pile of correspondence I need to sort for Jack and return to it as I try to push Christian out of my mind once more. That night in bed, I toss and turn, and it’s the first time in a while I haven’t cried myself to sleep. Instead I’m haunted by my memories of Christian Grey. In my mind’s eye, I visualize his face the last time I saw him, standing in his foyer watching me as the elevator doors closed. His tortured expression still haunts me. I remember he didn’t want me to go, which made no sense. Why would I stay when things had reached such an impasse? We were each skirting around our own issues—my fear of punishment, his fear of…what? Love? Turning on my side, I hug my pillow, filled with an overwhelming sadness. He thinks he doesn’t deserve to be loved. Why does he feel that way? Does it have to do with his upbringing? His birth mom, the crack whore? My thoughts plague me into the early hours until eventually I fall into a fitful, exhausted sleep. The day drags and drags and Jack is unusually attentive. I suspect it’s due to my plum dress and the black high-heeled boots I’ve stolen from Kate’s closet, but I don’t dwell on the thought. I resolve to go clothes shopping with my first paycheck. The dress is looser on me than it was, but I pretend not to notice. Finally it’s five thirty, and I collect my jacket and purse, trying to quell my nerves. I’m going to see him! “Do you have a date tonight?” Jack asks as he strolls past my desk on his way out.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  occasion heard them extol write poetry and flee the marriage that her father was trying to arrange for the Christian faith and the her. Renée was obsessed with death; she also felt there was something service of God, she asked wrong with her, experiencing moments of intense self-loathing. In 1900, one of them for his opinion on the best and easiest way Renée met Natalie at the theater. Something about the American's kind for a person to "serve eyes melted Renée's normal reserve, and she began sending poems to Na-God," as they put it. He talie, who responded with poems of her own. They soon became friends. answered her by saying that the ones who served Renée confessed that she had had an intense friendship with another God best were those who woman, but that it remained platonic—the thought of physical involve-put the greatest distance ment repulsed her. Natalie told her about the ancient Greek poet Sappho, between themselves and who celebrated love between women as the only love that is innocent and earthly goods, as happened in the case of people who pure. One night Renée, inspired by their discussions, invited Natalie to her had gone to live in the apartment, which she had transformed into a kind of chapel. The room remoter parts of the was filled with candles and with white lilies, the flowers she associated with Sahara. • She said no more about it to anyone, Natalie. That night the two women became lovers. They soon moved in but next morning, being a together, but when Renée realized that Natalie could not be faithful to her, very simple-natured her love turned into hatred. She broke off the relationship, moved out, and creature of fourteen or thereabouts, Alibech set out vowed to never see her again. all alone, in secret, and Over the next few months Natalie sent her letters and poems, and made her way toward the showed up at her new home—all to no avail. Renée would have nothing to desert, prompted by nothing more logical than a do with her. One evening at the opera, though, Natalie sat down beside strong adolescent impulse. her and gave her a poem she had written in her honor. She expressed her A few days later, regrets for the past, and also a simple request: the two women should go on exhausted from fatigue and a pilgrimage to the Greek island of Lesbos, Sappho's home. Only there hunger, she arrived in the heart of the wilderness, could they purify themselves and their relationship. Renée could not resist. Use Spiritual Lures • 36 3 On the island they retraced the poetess's steps, imagining they were trans- where, catching sight of a ported back into the pagan, innocent days of ancient Greece. For Renée, small hut in the distance, she stumbled toward it,

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  That evening Natalie took her to the theater to see Sarah Bernhardt play Hamlet. During the intermission, she told Liane that she identified with Hamlet—his hunger for the sublime, his hatred of tyranny—which, for her, was the tyranny of men over women. Over the next few days Liane received a steady flow of flowers from Natalie, and telegrams with little po- ems in her honor. Slowly the worshipful words and looks became more physical, with the occasional touch, then a caress, even a kiss—and a kiss that felt different from any in Liane's experience. One morning, with Natalie in attendance, Liane prepared to take a bath. As she slipped out of her nightgown, Natalie suddenly flung herself at her friend's feet, kissing her ankles. The courtesan freed herself and hurried into the bath, only for Natalie to throw off her clothes and join her. Within a few days, all Paris knew that Liane de Pougy had a new lover: Natalie Barney. Liane made no effort to disguise her new affair, publishing a novel, Idylle Saphique, detailing every aspect of Natalie's seduction. She had never had an affair with a woman before, and she described her involvement with Natalie as something like a mystical experience. Even at the end of her long life, she remembered the affair as by far her most intense. Renée Vivien was a young Englishwoman who had come to Paris to write poetry and flee the marriage that her father was trying to arrange for her. Renée was obsessed with death; she also felt there was something wrong with her, experiencing moments of intense self-loathing. In 1900, Renée met Natalie at the theater. Something about the American's kind eyes melted Renée's normal reserve, and she began sending poems to Na- talie, who responded with poems of her own. They soon became friends. Renée confessed that she had had an intense friendship with another woman, but that it remained platonic—the thought of physical involve- ment repulsed her. Natalie told her about the ancient Greek poet Sappho, who celebrated love between women as the only love that is innocent and pure. One night Renée, inspired by their discussions, invited Natalie to her apartment, which she had transformed into a kind of chapel. The room was filled with candles and with white lilies, the flowers she associated with Natalie. That night the two women became lovers. They soon moved in together, but when Renée realized that Natalie could not be faithful to her, her love turned into hatred. She broke off the relationship, moved out, and vowed to never see her again. Over the next few months Natalie sent her letters and poems, and showed up at her new home—all to no avail.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Drawn together by their grief over de Staël's death, she and Chateaubriand became friends. She listened so attentively to him, adopting his moods and echoing his sentiments, that he felt that he had at last met a woman who understood him. There was also something rather ethereal about Madame Récamier. Her walk, her voice, her eyes—more than one man had compared her to some unearthly angel. Chateaubriand soon burned with the desire to possess her physically. The year after their friendship began, she had a surprise for him: she had convinced a friend to purchase Vallée aux Loups. The friend was away for a few weeks, and she invited Chateaubriand to spend some time with her at his former estate. He happily accepted. He showed her around, explaining what each little patch of ground had meant to him, the memories the place conjured up. He felt youthful feelings welling up inside him, feelings he had forgotten about. He delved further into the past, describing events in his childhood. At moments, walking with Madame Récamier and looking into those kind eyes, he felt a shiver of recognition, but he could not quite identify it. All he knew was that he had to go back to the memoirs that he had laid aside. "I intend to employ the little time that is left to me in describing my youth," he said, "so long as its essence remains palpa-ble to me." It seemed that Madame Récamier returned Chateaubriand's love, but as usual she struggled to keep it a spiritual affair. The Enchanter, however, deserved his nickname. His poetry, his air of melancholy, and his persistence finally won the day and she succumbed, perhaps for the first time in her life. Now, as lovers, they were inseparable. But as always with Chateaubriand, over time one woman was not enough. The restless spirit returned. He began to have affairs again. Soon he and Récamier stopped seeing each other. In 1832, Chateaubriand was traveling through Switzerland. Once again his life had taken a downward turn; only this time he truly was old, in body and spirit. In the Alps, strange thoughts of his youth began to assail him, memories of the castle in Brittany. Word reached him that Madame Ré- camier was in the area. He had not seen her in years, and he hurried to the inn where she was staying. She was as kind to him as ever; during the day they took walks together, and at night they stayed up late, talking.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  When you seem interested in someone but do not respond sexually, it is disturbing, and presents a challenge: they will find a way to seduce you. To produce this effect, first reveal an interest in your targets, through letters or subtle insinuation. But when you are in their presence, assume a kind of coped with than an earthquake. . . . • The child who experiences his mother's dissatisfaction and apparent withdrawal of affection reacts to this menace at first with fear. He tries to regain what seems lost by expressing hostility and aggressiveness. . . . The change of its character comes about only after failure; when the child realizes that the effort is a failure. And now something very strange takes place, something which is foreign to our conscious thinking but which is very near to the infantile way. Instead of grasping the object directly and taking possession of it in an aggressive way, the child identifies with the object as it was before. The child does the same that the mother did to him in that happy time which has passed. The process is very illuminating because it shapes the pattern of love in general. The little boy thus demonstrates in his own behavior what he wants his mother to do to him, how she should behave to him. He announces this wish by displaying his tenderness and affection toward his mother who gave these before to him. It is an attempt to overcome the despair and sense of loss in taking over the role of the mother. The boy tries to demonstrate what he wishes by doing it himself: look, I would like you to act thus toward me, to be thus tender and loving to me. Of course this attitude is not the result of consideration or reasoned planning but an emotional process by identification, a natural exchange of roles with the unconscious aim 390 • The Art of Seduction sexless neutrality. Be friendly, even warm, but no more. You are pushing them into arming themselves with the seductive charms that are natural to their sex—exactly what you want. In the latter stages of the seduction, let your targets feel that you are be- coming interested in another person—this is another form of taking a step back. When Napoleon Bonaparte first met the young widow Josephine de Beauharnais in 1795, he was excited by her exotic beauty and the looks she gave him. He began to attend her weekly soirees and, to his delight, she would ignore the other men and remain at his side, listening to him so at- tentively. He found himself falling in love with Josephine, and had every reason to believe she felt the same.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  They would have been so much more than the snapshots I burned! Her overhead volley was related to her service as the envoy is to the ballade; for she had been trained, my pet, to patter up at once to the net on her nimble, vivid, white-shod feet. There was nothing to choose between her forehand and backhand drives: they were mirror images of one another—my very loins still tingle with those pistol reports repeated by crisp echoes and Electra’s cries. One of the pearls of Dolly’s game was a short half-volley that Ned Litam had taught her in California. She preferred acting to swimming, and swimming to tennis; yet I insist that had not something within her been broken by me—not that I realized it then!—she would have had on the top of her perfect form the will to win, and would have become a real girl champion. Dolores, with two rackets under her arm, in Wimbledon. Dolores endorsing a Dromedary. Dolores turning professional. Dolores acting a girl champion in a movie. Dolores and her gray, humble, hushed husband-coach, old Humbert. There was nothing wrong or deceitful in the spirit of her game—unless one considered her cheerful indifference toward its outcome as the feint of a nymphet. She who was so cruel and crafty in everyday life, revealed an innocence, a frankness, a kindness of ball-placing, that permitted a second-rate but determined player, no matter how uncouth and incompetent, to poke and cut his way to victory. Despite her small stature, she covered the one thousand and fifty-three square feet of her half of the court with wonderful ease, once she had entered into the rhythm of a rally and as long as she could direct that rhythm; but any abrupt attack, or sudden change of tactics on her adversary’s part, left her helpless. At match point, her second serve, which—rather typically—was even stronger and more stylish than her first (for she had none of the inhibitions that cautious winners have), would strike vibrantly the harp-cord of the net—and ricochet out of court. The polished gem of her dropshot was snapped up and put away by an opponent who seemed four-legged and wielded a crooked paddle. Her dramatic drives and lovely volleys would candidly fall at his feet. Over and over again she would land an easy one into the net—and merrily mimic dismay by drooping in a ballet attitude, with her forelocks hanging. So sterile were her grace and whipper that she could not even win from panting me and my old-fashioned lifting drive. I suppose I am especially susceptible to the magic of games. In my chess sessions with Gaston I saw the board as a square pool of limpid water with rare shells and stratagems rosily visible upon the smooth tessellated bottom, which to my confused adversary was all ooze and squid-cloud.

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  What do you think that will solve?” “It’s just that I want to really feel close to someone, united with someone, whole for once. I want to really love someone.” “What makes you think love solves anything?” “Maybe it doesn’t solve anything,” I said, “but I want it. I want to feel whole.” “But you felt you were part of Brian and that didn’t work either.” “Brian was crazy.” “Everyone’s a little crazy when you get inside their head,” Adrian said. “It’s only a matter of degree.” “I guess…” “Look—why don’t you just stop looking for love and try to live your own life?” “Because what sort of a life do I have if I don’t have love?” “You have your work, your writing, your teaching, your friends….” Drab, drab, drab, I thought. “All my writing is an attempt to get love, anyway. I know it’s crazy. I know it’s doomed to disappointment. But there it is: I want everyone to love me.” “You lose,” Adrian said. “I know, but my knowing doesn’t change anything. Why doesn’t my knowing ever change anything?” Adrian didn’t answer. I suppose I wasn’t asking him anyway, but just throwing out the question to the blue twilit mountains (we were driving through the Goddard Pass with the top of the Triumph down). “In the mornings,” Adrian finally said, “I never can remember your name.” So that was my answer. It went through me like a knife. And there I was lying awake every night next to him trembling and saying my own name over and over to myself to try to remember who I was. — “The trouble with existentialism is” (I said this as we were driving down the autostrada ) “that you can’t stop thinking about the future. Actions do have consequences.” “ I can stop thinking about the future,” Adrian said. “How?” He shrugged. “Dunno. I just can. I feel glorious today, for example.” “Why do I feel so lousy when you feel so glorious?” “Because you’re bloody Jewish,” he laughed. “The Chosen People. You may be mediocre at other things, but at suffering you’re always superb.” “Bastard.” “Why? Just because I tell you the truth? Look—you want love, you want intensity, you want feeling, you want closeness—and what do you settle for? Suffering. At least your suffering is intense…. The patient loves her disease. She doesn’t want to be cured.” — The trouble with me was that I always wanted to be the greatest in everything. The greatest lover. The greatest hungerer. The greatest sufferer. The greatest victim, the greatest fool…If I got myself into scrapes all the time, it was my own damn fault for always wanting to be the greatest.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  Cooper ponderously limped out into the garden. But that mimosa grove—the haze of stars, the tingle, the flame, the honeydew, and the ache remained with me, and that little girl with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue haunted me ever since—until at last, twenty-four years later, I broke her spell by incarnating her in another. 5 The days of my youth, as I look back on them, seem to fly away from me in a flurry of pale repetitive scraps like those morning snow storms of used tissue paper that a train passenger sees whirling in the wake of the observation car. In my sanitary relations with women I was practical, ironical and brisk. While a college student, in London and Paris, paid ladies sufficed me. My studies were meticulous and intense, although not particularly fruitful. At first, I planned to take a degree in psychiatry as many manqué talents do; but I was even more manqué than that; a peculiar exhaustion, I am so oppressed, doctor, set in; and I switched to English literature, where so many frustrated poets end as pipe-smoking teachers in tweeds. Paris suited me. I discussed Soviet movies with expatriates. I sat with uranists in the Deux Magots. I published tortuous essays in obscure journals. I composed pastiches: ... Fräulein von Kulp may turn, her hand upon the door; I will not follow her. Nor Fresca. Nor that Gull. A paper of mine entitled “The Proustian theme in a letter from Keats to Benjamin Bailey” was chuckled over by the six or seven scholars who read it. I launched upon an “Histoire abrégée de la poésie anglaise” for a prominent publishing firm, and then started to compile that manual of French literature for English-speaking students (with comparisons drawn from English writers) which was to occupy me throughout the forties—and the last volume of which was almost ready for press by the time of my arrest. I found a job—teaching English to a group of adults in Auteuil. Then a school for boys employed me for a couple of winters. Now and then I took advantage of the acquaintances I had formed among social workers and psychotherapists to visit in their company various institutions, such as orphanages and reform schools, where pale pubescent girls with matted eyelashes could be stared at in perfect impunity remindful of that granted one in dreams. Now I wish to introduce the following idea. Between the age limits of nine and fourteen there occur maidens who, to certain bewitched travelers, twice or many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is not human, but nymphic (that is, demoniac); and these chosen creatures I propose to designate as “nymphets.” It will be marked that I substitute time terms for spatial ones. In fact, I would have the reader see “nine” and “fourteen” as the boundaries—the mirrory beaches and rosy rocks—of an enchanted island haunted by those nymphets of mine and surrounded by a vast, misty sea.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  It was the first time in almost two years that he was truly alone, and truly separated from Eva. Suddenly he felt new emotions sweeping over him: he pinned her photographs all over the wall. Outside, massive strikes were being organized to protest his imprison- ment, but all he could think about was Eva. She was a saint, a woman of destiny, a heroine. He wrote to her, "It is only being apart from loved ones that we can measure our affection. From the day I left you ... I have not been able to calm my sad heart. . . . My immense solitude is full of your memory." Now he promised to marry her. The strikes grew in intensity. After eight days, Perón was released from prison; he promptly married Eva. A few months later he was elected presi- dent. As first lady, Eva attended state functions in her somewhat gaudy dresses and jewelry; she was seen as a former actress with a large wardrobe. Then, in 1947, she left for a tour of Europe, and Argentines followed her every move—the ecstatic crowds that greeted her in Spain, her audience with the pope—and in her absence their opinion of her changed. How well she represented the Argentine spirit, its noble simplicity, its flair for drama. When she returned a few weeks later, they overwhelmed her with attention. Eva too had changed during her trip to Europe: now her dyed blond hair was pulled into a severe chignon, and she wore tailored suits. It was a serious look, befitting a woman who was to become the savior of the poor. Soon her image could be seen everywhere—her initials on the walls, the sheets, the towels of the hospitals for the poor; her profile on the jerseys of a soccer team from the poorest part of Argentina, whose club she spon- sored; her giant smiling face covering the sides of buildings. Since finding out anything personal about her had become impossible, all kinds of elabo- rate fantasies began to spring up about her. And when cancer cut her life short, in 1952, at the age of thirty-three (the age of Christ when he died), the country went into mourning. Millions filed past her embalmed body. She was no longer a radio actress, a wife, a first lady, but Evita, a saint. Interpretation. Eva Duarte was an illegitimate child who had grown up in poverty, escaped to Buenos Aires to become an actress, and been forced to do many tawdry things to survive and get ahead in the theater world. Her dream was to escape all of the constraints on her future, for she was in- tensely ambitious. Perón was the perfect victim. He imagined himself a great leader, but the reality was that he was fast becoming a lecherous old man who was too weak to raise himself up.