Love

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 Macho Sluts (1988)

  Your strength, your magic, my death and your immortality—I have it all within my reach.’ This rare and beautiful creature did not know how happy she was going to make her, how much she would change her life. Iduna assumed she would never know how Kerry really felt about her, if only because she was so ignorant about her own emotions. The first one, the almost-forgotten one, so needy and yet powerful, had been that way, and Kerry seemed younger, less experienced than it. But Kerry would always need her because her blood was so sweet. Evolutionarily speaking, it was an adaptive trait. And she knew how to make it interesting to take. She had been well schooled. How old are you, Iduna wondered, and how old am I? Will you ever bother to ask me the kind of questions I’ve been asking about your kind for these countless lonely, crazy years? Is my blood, precious as it is to me, enough to pay for the wonder and contentment I feel in your presence? She twined one arm around her captor’s neck and reached with the other hand for the leather seam that accentuated, pulled up, and divided Kerry’s genitals. The curve was like a ripe peach pushed into her hand. It rubbed insistently against her palm. Kerry made the same noise she had made to warn the man in Purgatory to keep his distance, but Iduna only smiled. Abstinence is the mother of shameless lust. “Sex doesn’t seem to be out of the question after all, does it?” the vampire said. Macho Sluts The Spoiler He slept in a pile of dirty socks and soiled jockstraps, souvenirs of the men he adored, sometimes acquired without their permission. In winter, for warmth, he pulled a leather hide over this nest and its virile odors. When he woke up, he ran three miles. His spartan breakfast was part of a careful diet supplemented with a bewildering rainbow of vitamins and minerals. Every other afternoon, he lifted weights. His body was well defined and hard, which pleased him, but not because he was narcissistic. It was the value others placed on his physique that gave him pleasure. The rest of each day, Monday through Friday, he worked diligently at his chosen profession. It brought him a comfortable income but placed no demands on his heart—or his evenings and weekends. It was the rest of his time that was important, the time when he could prowl and sniff for the men who made him hungry, carefully laying the plans that would allow him to pounce and feast. That was when he became the spoiler. When he went out, he always wore the same set of leathers.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  T asout this time Stephen first became conscious of an Ieee necessity to love. She adored her father, but that was quite different; he was part of herself, he had always been there, she could not envisage the world without him —it was other with Collins, the housemaid. Collins was what was called ‘second of three’; she might one day hope for promotion. Meanwhile she was florid, full-lipped and full-bosomed, rather ample indeed for a young girl of twenty, but her eyes were un- usually blue and arresting, very pretty inquisitive eyes. Stephen had seen Collins swecping the stairs for two years, and had passed her by quite unnoticed; but one morning, when Stephen was just over seven, Collins looked up and suddenly smiled, then all in a moment Stephen knew that she loved her —a staggering revelation! Collins said politely: “Good morning, Miss Stephen.’ She had always said: * Good morning, Miss Stephen,’ but on this occasion it sounded alluring —so alluring that Stephen wanted to touch her, and extending a rather uncertain hand she started to stroke her sleeve. Collins picked up the hand and stared at it. ‘ Oh, my!’ she _ exclaimed, ‘what very dirty nails!’ Whereupon their owner flushed painfully crimson and dashed upstairs to repair them, ‘ Put them scissors down this minute, Miss Stephen! ’ came the nurse’s peremptory voice, while her charge was still busily engaged on her toilet. But Stephen said firmly: ‘I’m cleaning my nails ’cause Collins doesn’t like them — she says they’re dirty! ’ ‘What impudence!’ snapped the nurse, thoroughly an- noyed. * PI] thank her to mind her own business! ’ Having finally secured the large cutting-out scissors, Mrs, THE WELL OF LONELINESS II Bingham went forth in search of the offender; she was not one to tolerate any interference with the dignity of her status. She found Collins still on the top flight of stairs, and forthwith she started to upbraid her: ‘ putting her back in her place,’ the nurse called it; and she did it so thoroughly that in less than five minutes the ‘ second-of-three ’ had been told of every fault that was likely to preclude promotion. Stephen stood still in the nursery doorway. She could feel her heart thumping against her side, thumping with anger and pity for Collins who was answering never a word. There she knelt mute, with her brush suspended, with her mouth slightly open and her eyes rather scared; and when at long last she did manage to speak, her voice sounded humble and frightened. She was timid by nature, and the nurse’s sharp tongue was a byword throughout the household.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  Iduna slipped on the gravel, and immediately the hand left her breast and a strong arm was wedged between her legs, the hand clasping the small of the back, holding her the way a mother holds an infant. She realized by the mushy feel of her panties against Kerry’s leather sleeve that she was wet down there, as wet as the mouth that fed on her. Her assailant realized it too, because she ripped at her panties, literally clawed them to pieces, and then she was being crammed full, opened terribly, spread far too wide, almost lifted off her feet by the force of the fucking, and it hurt so much for so long that she came, came even as the canines sank another notch into her cuts and drank fresh blood from the deepened wound. Which penetration made her come? She did not know. Then she was being picked up, cradled. Adults are usually not lucky enough to re-experience this infantile pleasure. Even she had not guessed just how strong Kerry really was. A face was close to hers, familiar for its wolfish features, unfamiliar for its look of peace. The teeth in that smile were stained, and the tongue was cupped. The mouth came toward hers, and she opened her mouth, and the tongue slid into her and fed her a mouthful of her own blood. They kissed around it, neither one swallowing, keeping the blood between them to taste, play with, and savor for as long as possible, until their mouths were so full of saliva they had to swallow or let it run down their chins. Then Kerry bent down and took more, and offered it to her again, and this time Iduna leaped for it, bit at it, then worried the mouth that spit blood into hers. Now there were words being spoken in between the kisses, words that said, “Be careful. Are you really sure you want some of my blood?” Iduna almost wept with gladness. So there was love here, or at least need—a need to keep her available for another feeding. It is only when they become indifferent or vengeful that the undead make their victims like themselves, immortal predators and thus useless and untouchable. When passion returned, she was careful not to bite the other’s lips or tongue.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The gentleman and his lady, hearing this, were well pleased, inasmuch as some means was found for his recoverance, albeit it irked them sore that the means in question should be that whereof they misdoubted them, to wit, that they should give Jeannette to their son to wife. Accordingly, the physician being gone, they went into the sick man and the lady bespoke him thus: 'Son mine, I could never have believed that thou wouldst keep from me any desire of thine, especially seeing thyself pine away for lack thereof; for that thou shouldst have been and shouldst be assured that there is nought I can for thy contentment, were it even less than seemly, which I would not do as for myself. But, since thou hast e'en done this, God the Lord hath been more pitiful over thee than thou thyself and that thou mayst not die of this sickness, hath shown me the cause of thine ill, which is no otherwhat than excess of love for some damsel or other, whoever she may be; and this, indeed, thou needest not have thought shame to discover, for that thine age requireth it, and wert thou not enamoured, I should hold thee of very little account. Wherefore, my son, dissemble not with me, but in all security discover to me thine every desire and put away from thee the melancholy and the thought-taking which be upon thee and from which proceedeth this thy sickness and take comfort and be assured that there is nothing of that which thou mayst impose on me for thy satisfaction but I will do it to the best of my power, as she who loveth thee more than her life. Banish shamefastness and fearfulness and tell me if I can do aught to further thy passion; and if thou find me not diligent therein or if I bring it not to effect for thee, account me the cruellest mother that ever bore son.'

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And so blinded was she by those gleams of glory which the stars fling into the eyes of young lovers, that she saw perfection where none existed; saw a patient endurance that was purely fictitious, and conceived of a loyalty far beyond the limits of Angela’s nature. All that Angela gave seemed the gift of love; all that Angela withheld seemed withheld out of honour: ‘If only I were free,’ she was always saying, ‘but I can’t deceive Ralph, you know I can’t, Stephen—he’s ill.’ Then Stephen would feel abashed and ashamed before so much pity and honour. She would humble herself to the very dust, as one who was altogether unworthy: ‘I’m a beast, forgive me; I’m all, all wrong—I’m mad sometimes these days—yes, of course, there’s Ralph.’ But the thought of Ralph would be past all bearing, so that she must reach out for Angela’s hand. Then, as likely as not, they would draw together and start kissing, and Stephen would be utterly undone by those painful and terribly sterile kisses. ‘God!’ she would mutter, ‘I want to get away!’ At which Angela might weep: ‘Don’t leave me, Stephen! I’m so lonely—why can’t you understand that I’m only trying to be decent to Ralph?’ So Stephen would stay on for an hour, for two hours, and the next day would find her once more at The Grange, because Angela was feeling so lonely. For Angela could never quite let the girl go. She herself would be rather bewildered at moments—she did not love Stephen, she was quite sure of that, and yet the very strangeness of it all was an attraction. Stephen was becoming a kind of strong drug, a kind of anodyne against boredom. And then Angela knew her own power to subdue; she could play with fire yet remain unscathed by it. She had only to cry long and bitterly enough for Stephen to grow pitiful and consequently gentle. ‘Stephen, don’t hurt me—I’m awfully frightened when you’re like this—you simply terrify me, Stephen! Is it my fault that I married Ralph before I met you? Be good to me, Stephen!’ And then would come tears, so that Stephen must hold her as though she were a child, very tenderly, rocking her backwards and forwards. They took to driving as far as the hills, taking Tony with them; he liked hunting the rabbits—and while he leapt wildly about in the air to land on nothing more vital than herbage, they would sit very close to each other and watch him. Stephen knew many places where lovers might sit like this, unashamed, among those charitable hills. There were times when a numbness descended upon her as they sat there, and if Angela kissed her cheek lightly, she would not respond, would not even look round, but would just go on staring at Tony.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  No one was going to cross the silver cord that would lead Roxanne back to her body. Joy called softly to the girl’s spirit, and it retraced its footsteps, re-entering just as Chris let her arm fall to her side. Sweat had soaked through her leather until it was visibly damp—darker, no longer shiny. Her chest heaved. Anne-Marie looked worried, and went to the bar for some water. Roxanne took gallons of air in with each sob, air that replenished her flagging energy and cleansed her aching flesh. The pain had not stopped with the fall of the whip. Her flesh had been so marked that it still throbbed, the heartbeat that pushed blood through the tissues causing enough pain to make her gasp and wince. “Please don’t go away,” she pleaded with Chris. “Don’t leave me here alone. Oh, please, don’t abandon me.” Chris was suddenly standing so close to her that they almost touched. A goddess, nude to the waist, threw a poisoned star at a demon who charged her with a bloody sword. Roxanne reeled from the image until she realized it was only a tattoo on Chris’s shoulder. Her very breath fell on Roxanne’s cheek; the hand that had wielded the terrible whip was inches from her tender and mottled thigh. “Oh,” Roxanne exhaled wearily, exhausted by the weight of her love, “I wish I could drop down to your feet and rest my head on your boots. You hurt me so much. I love you.” The handle of the whip came up and caressed her cheek. She accepted the touch without flinching away. All her fear of being whipped had been burned away by what she had endured, and there was no ambivalence left in her, only longing. Chris saw the change, let approval show in her eyes, and drew the touch out into a line that ran down between Roxanne’s breasts and found her navel. The handle of the whip continued to descend, seeking something even softer, something that would yield, a cavity, an oasis. Chris held the thick roll of braided leather in the palm of her hand and inserted it gently between Roxanne’s thighs, held it against the spread wings of her vulva, held it there, and moved it slightly. Roxanne wanted to cry, she was in such need. Chris fed the whip butt-first into her, and then Roxanne witnessed something incredible and almost blasphemous. Chris went down on her knees. Hot breath moved like a vagina around Roxanne’s engorged clitoris. It can’t be, she thought, and moved to prevent it, but could not, and then Chris took her with her mouth. She was held within that darkness and liquid and heat by a slight suction. Chris held her in place with the suction, and moved her lips in a semicircle.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  After a prolonged session with the whip, she found her center. It made her tranquil for days. As long as the marks lasted, she cherished them as tokens of her own courage and Alex’s love. Chris put her boot against the daydreaming girl’s chest and pushed her to the floor. The neck chain was not quite long enough to allow her head to touch the ground. Roxanne rolled over onto all fours. Joyous Day and Chris were standing at either side of her. A barbaric pair of leggings and the cold hilt of a throwing knife pressed against her cheeks. Staring up, she could see the leather (latigo and deerhide) that cupped their genitals, the fur-framed swell of Joy’s cleavage, the multicolored pictures and shuriken harness that camouflaged Chris’s breasts. She tried to turn her head and lick and kiss boots and feet, but Joy had a fist in her hair and held her head upright. She forgot that there was such a word as pride … or fear. She pleaded to be allowed to worship Chris’s boots, to kneel and kiss Joy’s feet. Chris spit on her. She cried out, then begged again. Joyous Day spit on her. She writhed at their feet, imprisoned between their thighs. “Open your mouth,” Chris said. She froze and opened her lips. A gob of spit landed on her lower lip. Then another, on her tongue. She swallowed and wallowed in every drop of it, and her hips began to lift and sink in a rhythm that could only lead to further arousal and release, especially with the help of the bullwhip sawing into her slit. Before she could come, Joyous Day unfastened the chain from the rail and ordered her to crawl to Chris. She covered the boot with long strokes of her tongue, rubbed her face into the wet leather, and cried out with pleasure when Chris shoved her over to Joyous Day. She lavished ever more love and spit all over those lean brown feet, the slender curling toes. No one here would stop her or misunderstand. Why shouldn’t she indulge herself, grovel and crawl? It was safe here—safe to abase herself, give herself away. She worshipped and adored these women who forced her to yield, these women who saw through her lies and evasions and took her captive and brought her to her knees. Her gratitude could never equal the value of what they had done for her. They made her beautiful because her beauty did not scare them away. Joy chased her back to Chris’s boots. “Take the polish off,” Chris growled at her. “Get it down to the bare leather, girl. I want those boots as wet as you are. Work out on ’em, show us what a good little boot-licker you are.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  The whip also rotated within her. Roxanne realized she was being possessed by an expert. But this was a maîtresse, on her knees, and it was not right! It should not be this way! The service offered her was too much for her to accept, a gift too gracious, abundance she was afraid to receive. She tried to persuade Chris to release her and allow her, Roxanne, to suckle on Chris’s cunt. “No,” Chris said firmly in the cold tone that the mistress uses when she will brook no more nonsense and tolerate no more dissent. “I want this, bitch, so hand if over and disappear. Just get lost, give it up. I don’t want anything to do with you, just this, your pussy. Don’t interfere. Don’t tell me I can’t have anything I want right now. You’ve had it. You’ve lost and you’re nothing. Disappear.” The touch was so taboo it was irresistible. To allow a dominant to kneel and use her mouth upon her—to grin into her mouth and demand further attention, repetition of the most exacting and gratifying and difficult caresses. It was so sweet, so sweet, thrilling and devastating and impossible to halt. She was only a heartbeat going miles a minute and a cunt being eaten out, whip-fucked, teased, titillated, praised, drawn out and out and out and out … The orgasm collected at the very tip of her clitoris and gushed from her into Chris’s mouth. She could have sworn she ejaculated, spurted cum; could not believe that the pleasure surging from her body did not leave physical evidence behind. Chris wiped her face on Roxanne’s well-marked thighs and came slowly back up to her feet. Her face was red, her cheeks glistened. “Still here?” she asked Roxanne. “Did you think we were done?” “It won’t ever be done,” Roxanne sighed. “It won’t ever be done. You go away, you forget me, you get bored with me, I lose you, but you find me again and punish me and hurt me and make me scream. I fall in love and it starts all over again. I could not live without you. I am lost without you. Use me in whatever way you please, do whatever you like with me. I am nothing, I am your toy, a thing, a slave.” “I love you,” Chris said. “Joy, let’s take her down.” The black woman shook her head. “You an’ I better do this than you. Why not sit down before you fall down, and drink some of that seltzer Anne-Marie’s about to pour over your head?”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The noble lady with whom Jeannette dwelt had of her husband one only son, whom both she and his father loved with an exceeding love, both for that he was their child and that he deserved it by reason of his worth and virtues. He, being some six years older than Jeannette and seeing her exceeding fair and graceful, became so sore enamoured of her that he saw nought beyond her; yet, for that he deemed her to be of mean extraction, not only dared he not demand her of his father and mother to wife, but, fearing to be blamed for having set himself to love unworthily, he held his love, as most he might, hidden; wherefore it tormented him far more than if he had discovered it; and thus it came to pass that, for excess of chagrin, he fell sick and that grievously. Divers physicians were called in to medicine him, who, having noted one and another symptom of his case and being nevertheless unable to discover what ailed him, all with one accord despaired of his recovery; whereat the young man's father and mother suffered dolour and melancholy so great that greater might not be brooked, and many a time, with piteous prayers, they questioned him of the cause of his malady, whereto or sighs he gave for answer or replied that he felt himself all wasting away. It chanced one day that, what while a doctor, young enough, but exceedingly deeply versed in science, sat by him and held him by the arm in that part where leaches use to seek the pulse, Jeannette, who, of regard for his mother, tended him solicitously, entered, on some occasion or another, the chamber where the young man lay. When the latter saw her, without word said or gesture made, he felt the amorous ardour redouble in his heart, wherefore his pulse began to beat stronglier than of wont; the which the leach incontinent noted and marvelling, abode still to see how long this should last. As soon as Jeannette left the chamber, the beating abated, wherefore it seemed to the physician he had gotten impartment of the cause of the young man's ailment, and after waiting awhile, he let call Jeannette to him, as he would question her of somewhat, still holding the sick man by the arm. She came to him incontinent and no sooner did she enter than the beating of the youth's pulse returned and she being gone again, ceased. Thereupon, it seeming to the physician that he had full enough assurance, he rose and taking the young man's father and mother apart, said to them, 'The healing of your son is not in the succour of physicians, but abideth in the hands of Jeannette, whom, as I have by sure signs manifestly recognized, the young man ardently loveth, albeit, for all I can see, she is unaware thereof. You know now what you have to do, if his life be dear to you.'

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  She listened to me weep for a very long time before she raised me to my feet, dried my tears, and told me she had a solution to propose. I stammered that I would agree to anything, but she forbade me to agree before I heard her out. She put me on the hassock at her feet while she sat in a big, overstuffed chair, and she offered me the following terms. I listened raptly, staring at the high black boots she insisted on wearing regardless of the fashions of the moment.” Elise opened the waffle iron, removed the crisp, brown square, and popped it onto the plate Clarissa held out. The greedy girl smacked her lips. “You start eating now,” Elise said. “I’ll have one myself, then make you another. The whipped cream is in the icebox.” “More story,” Clarissa insisted, her mouth full. “Yes, more story. Well, Berenice told me that nothing pleased her more than caring for me, seeing to my education, and setting standards for my behavior. She confessed that she could not help tricking Mamma into punishing me, because it gave her such pleasure to see me wriggle and cry and struggle when I was slapped on the face or spanked with a hairbrush. She said it troubled her conscience somewhat, but not excessively, since I often got off scot-free when I had been a regular little hellion. She asked me if I remembered how quickly she took possession of my body as soon as we were alone. I replied that these passionate moments surprised and flattered me, but I had not realized her excitement was caused by my suffering. She said she regretted the injustice of this treatment, and begged my pardon. I freely forgave her. I added that I did not mind being punished if I had in fact done something wrong, and that until I was properly punished for a misdeed, my conscience gave me no rest. Berenice then said she would cease to bring any complaints at all to Mamma, who was erratic and ineffectual, if I would agree to submit to her discipline. She promised to be fair as well as strict, and to act with my best welfare in mind. By this means, she hoped to make us both happier. She promised to release me from this contract at any point if that was my wish.” Elise took her own waffle from the iron and spread strawberries and cream on it. She told the next installment of the story between bites. “I agreed at once, even though the idea was a novel one. I adored my mother—we both did—but she treated us more like a permanent audience than a family. Berenice already had all the responsibility for mothering me. It seemed fair that she should have power and authority as well.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  She had been a minor light of the Parisian underworld, caning some of the most regal buttocks on the continent, but the police and her competitors combined to betray and undo her. She did not have the vicious character one needs to survive in such a sordid world; she was not a criminal. She could hardly believe I had come for her, and embraced me until I thought my ribs would crack. I took her away and found this home for us, a simple country estate with excellent drainage, adjoining tenant farms, and a high resale value, where we can practice our love as the fancy takes us and provide a home for you. And we will stay here forever and ever, or as long as it makes us happy.” Clarissa applauded. “Oh, what a beautiful story,” she said. “I love the way your eyes sparkle when you tell it. Now tell me about the time when Mother gave you away to Aunt Jennifer and—” “Absolutely not! Up the stairs with you and into your traveling clothes. I’ve already laid the dress and shoes out on your bed. Your aunt will be here any minute now. Wear the peach satin corset that laces up the front. Hurry, while I clean up. And be sure to put on every one of your crinolines, young lady—don’t think you can fool me by stuffing one down the laundry chute! Shoo!” Macho Sluts The Calyx of Isis During the day, the district south of Market Street in San Francisco housed winos, Hispanic families, punks, and light industry. But at night it seemed to be inhabited solely by leathermen strolling from the Brig, the Ambush, the Boot Camp, the Arena, or the Eagle to the Slot, the Caldron, the Folsom Street Hotel, the Club Baths, the Hothouse, or the Handball Express. Despite the number of these establishments, a particularly popular bar sometimes had such a hold on its clientele that they just overflowed into the street, beer bottles held against their hips at the angle of a hard cock, to converse over one another’s motorcycles or slip into side alleys for quick, rough, semi-public sex. On one block, the typical flow of traffic—the masculine bodies in their silver-studded black skins—was disrupted by a different kind of crowd: women. A mysterious lesbian heiress had used a chunk of her inheritance to purchase one of the big, red-brick warehouses on Folsom Street. After she earthquake-proofed it and brought it into compliance with the rest of the building code, she turned it into a unique establishment, the Calyx of Isis, a women’s bathhouse.

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

  Who praise God O Christ Jesus, O King of saints, Heavenly milk All-subduing Word Of the sweet breasts Of the most high Father, Of the graces of the Bride, Prince of wisdom, Pressed out of Thy wisdom. Support of sorrows, That rejoicest in the ages, Babes nourished Jesus, Saviour With tender mouths, Of the human race, Filled with dewy spirit Shepherd, Husbandman, Of the spiritual breast. Helm, Bridle, Let us sing together Heavenly Wing, Simple praises Of the all holy flock, True hymns Fisher of men To Christ [the] King, Who are saved, Holy reward Catching the chaste fishes For the doctrine of life. With sweet life Let us sing together, From the hateful wave Sing in simplicity Of a sea of vices. To the mighty Child. O choir of peace, Guide [us], Shepherd The Christ begotten, Of rational sheep; O chaste people Guide harmless children, Let us praise together O holy King. The God of peace." This poem was for sixteen centuries merely a hymnological curiosity, until an American Congregational minister, Dr. Henry Martyn Dexter, by a happy reproduction, in 1846, secured it a place in modern hymn-books. While preparing a sermon (as He. informs me) on "some prominent characteristics of the early Christians" (text, Deut. 32:7, "Remember the days of old"), he first wrote down an exact translation of the Greek hymn of Clement, and then reproduced and modernized it for the use of his congregation in connection with the sermon. It is well known that many Psalms of Israel have inspired some of the noblest Christian hymns. The 46th Psalm gave the key-note of Luther’s triumphant war-hymn of the Reformation: "Ein’ feste Burg." John Mason Neale dug from the dust of ages many a Greek and Latin hymn, to the edification of English churches, notably some portions of Bernard of Cluny’s De Contemptu Mundi, which runs through nearly three thousand dactylic hexameters, and furnished the material for "Brief life is here our portion." "For thee, O dear, dear Country," and "Jerusalem the golden." We add Dexter’s hymn as a fair specimen of a useful transfusion and rejuvenation of an old poem. 1. Shepherd of tender youth, None calls on Thee in vain; Guiding in love and truth Help Thou dost not disdain— Through devious ways; Help from above. Christ, our triumphant King, We come Thy name to sing; 4. Ever be Thou our Guide, Hither our children bring Our Shepherd and our Pride, To shout Thy praise! Our Staff and Song! Jesus, Thou Christ of God 2. Thou art our Holy Lord, By Thy perennial Word The all-subduing Word, Lead us where Thou hast trod, Healer of strife! Make our faith strong. Thou didst Thyself abase, That from sin’s deep disgrace 5. So now, and till we die, Thou mightest save our race, Sound we Thy praises high, And give us life. And joyful sing: Infants, and the glad throng 3. Thou art the great High Priest; Who to Thy church belong, Thou hast prepared the feast

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  All ways. OLD ORGASMS Is anal sex sex? I keep on wondering about this. My connection to him is primarily penetrative and, specifically, anal. Is this sex? Or merely an act of spiritual submission, divine submission? My orgasm arc with him is an act of giving, opening, giving. With others it is withholding, a battleground of control. In the past, I have achieved orgasm through the paradoxical experience of maintaining control of my pleasure all the while that my orgasm, with a life force of its own, desires its own fruition. The battle—and it is a battle—always ends with an orgasm more potent for its release than for any emotional pleasure. There are quite a few men out there who want nothing more than to please. For them I come in angry triumph: the greater my contempt for their wishing-to-please, the greater my resistance; the greater my resistance, the greater my orgasm. This is the pleasure, literally—and clitorally—of the war between the sexes. Afterwards, so sensitized, I shun all touch and, like Garbo, want to be alone. To take notes, eat dinner, and read The New Yorker. Is this any way to come? Well, it is one way. With him I have learned another. The way of no resistance. Of infinite contractions and many arrivals. And it was not a struggle to give up the struggle. It just happened with him, as if my body knew—I sure didn’t—that he was the one, the one man I could trust, the one man I could give to without his misinterpreting the gift, taking advantage of it, making it mean what it didn’t mean. Perhaps it was his beauty. DNA to DNA. He does have, objectively speaking, the most beautiful physique of them all. Maybe my clit knew he was my sexual mate long before I did. Just as it knew that resistance was necessary to all those men whose DNA was not a match for mine. With them I come from hostility, with him from love. #181 Last night—181. I tell him, after, “A hundred and eighty-one.” And I point out that that is just ass-fucks, that does not count pussy warm-ups. “What does that tell you?” I say. “That tells me three-hundred and sixty-two,” he said, “that’s what that tells me. Three sixty-two tells me it’s a good year.” SOUVENIRS As we approached two hundred, I found that my desire for continual repetition, for impossible guarantees, was intensifying. Managing my relentless need to be in that place with him became a full-time job. There was the disastrous day when the cleaning lady grabbed his well-worn shirt off my bed with the sheets and I came home and saw, to my horror, that she had washed, dried, and neatly folded my aromatic lifeline. I had slept every night with the shirt that smelled like him.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  Why A-Man has this authority I do not know. Psychology might find childhood reasons, but I believe, ultimately, that it’s something God-given, a deep knowledge of personal responsibility. This kind of self-possession and lack of desperation can get a man a long way with a woman . . . or at least partway up her ass. In the end, it’s who you are that will get you somewhere. Or nowhere. He told me once that he likes being where he shouldn’t be, crossing the velvet rope, hand in the candy jar, late to work, cock in my ass, an ass too small for his cock. A-Man made it so deeply into my ass because he dared. No one else really tried. Anyone who dares to be that intimate, that crazy, well, he might just get somewhere he never got before. I am in the throes of coming at the moment of first touch, my body, pussy, ass so open they peel outwardly to suck him in. I was never that open before. If I were that open to someone else, would I feel the same joy of openness? No. They would annoy me long before I was that open. It’s all that yakking that ruins it; it reveals too much. A-Man is the least annoying man I’ve ever known. And the only one who never yields to my will. At the same time, contrary to easy supposition, I do not believe that it is the arrogant, macho man who is the great ass-fucker: he is the asshole. That guy probably doesn’t even like women, he’s too busy competing with other men. In my limited experience, the great ass-fucker is the patient, gentle man, the one who knows how to listen to a woman, how to be with a woman, and has the equipment that can slow her down. He is the one who can imaginatively experience her submission—her release of control—with her, and thus know precisely how to get her to that place: he absorbs all that she gives up. He is a kind man, A-Man. OBITUARY After such a stunning start, I prepared, as any bright woman would, for the end. Great love always brings thoughts of death and separation. This was a war—between decency and desire, between convention and pleasure, between me, myself, and I—and that great aphrodisiac fueled my craving. With the assumption, or expectation, of longevity gone, the moat of self-protection and the apathy of safety disappear and passion floods the world. Well, it flooded mine, anyway. Now is all there was, all I had—and I knew it. The aphoristic obituary was especially comforting. My testimony would serve if he died, if I died, or—worst of all—if he flaked on me. He had the biggest, hardest, and most gentle cock I ever knew. He was the one who fucked me in the ass, missionary-style, before he fucked my pussy.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  To borrow a famous quote, kicking ass is hard work.” I shook my head, smiled, drank coffee. She picked up my hand again, toying with my wristlet. “I know there’s one thing I want to do,” she said. “Name it.” “Come into my bedroom.” Despite the unmade bed and the toys strewn on the floor, magic still hung in the air. We had enacted a vital ritual here, a ceremony essential to us both. She asked me to kneel. I complied, blinking in the hot sun that streamed through the window. Jessie stood between me and the glass, shading me. She fished a pocket knife out of her Levis and unfolded its longest blade. I don’t know what I expected. The crazy thought flashed through my head that she was going to carve her initials on me, like a tree. I didn’t dream of protesting. She ran her thumb along the edge of the blade. “You are wearing the tokens of another woman,” she said. Her words were carefully measured out. “I find that … distracting. May I?” She lifted one wrist and cut the band of leather. “I don’t need anything as crude and obvious as this to set my mark on you. Do I?” She cut my other wrist free. She paused before severing my collar, her thumb holding it to the knife, to look into my face. “If I call you, you’ll come to me, won’t you?” she demanded. “Yes,” I whispered. A loop of leather fell onto my thighs. When she brought me to my feet, it fell to the floor. I rubbed my wrists. They felt curiously light without my bracelets. And my neck—I was more acutely aware of where my collar had been than I ever was of its actual presence. I shook my head in amazement. Her boldness was more appealing than iron chains. Her confidence created an intangible bond between us. A determination was kindled in me to justify that confidence she had in her own power. “You—” I began. And could not finish. She nodded, well satisfied. “Come on, then. I have to get some cigarettes anyway. I’ll show you where the bus stops.” Macho Sluts The Finishing School It was dusk, but the heavy drapes had not yet been drawn. Outside, the late afternoon breeze had freshened into a gusty wind which was marching up and down the driveway, interrogating the two rows of young poplars on either side of the drive. The slender, lacy trees betrayed their agitation and bowed in submission again and again. Inside, the woman, Berenice, was seated on a brown (mocha, actually) velvet sofa.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  Most women are difficult to get off, and in the past, I’ve dealt with that by encouraging them to masturbate while I suck on their tits or fuck them or talk dirty to them. I’m glad you resist that, saving masturbation for the times when we’re too tired or too sick to come any other way, and need some quick and easy stimulation and release before we can fall asleep. I’m glad you insist that I get you off, insist that I keep trying and work harder to get better at it. When your climax finally does come, it’s precious to me because I’ve put so much sweat and effort into getting you there. I sometimes think it’s better than the quick, helpless orgasms I have when you’ve been fucking me for only five minutes, because I always want more, I always need to come again and again. The one you have leaves you drained. You seem completely satisfied. You’re able to stop. I’m not. Making love to you doesn’t start out feeling difficult. The summers here are very hot, so you take off your clothes as soon as you walk into the bedroom, and then you lounge around and read your mail. Your legs just naturally seem to come to rest with your knees bent and far apart. I never know if you are deliberately exposing your cunt to me, how much of your behavior is exhibitionistic or provocative, and how much of it is just an attempt to get comfortable in the heat, or unselfconsciousness about your own nudity. It’s probably the latter. You are always surprised when I tell you how powerfully your body attracts me. You do not believe you are beautiful. No matter what your motives, my eyes are repeatedly drawn to your perfect, small, firm breasts; your abdominal muscles; your sharp and shapely hip bones; the long thighs, scarred during a particularly vicious rape. Your scars are hateful to me because you were hurt there, but so dear to me because you survived to wear them, and have defeated the shame and anger so you can still offer me your cunt, allow me to penetrate and have you. When I look at the dark, fuzzy curls of your pubic triangle (some of your pubic hair wanders up your belly and down the inside of your thighs), the rose color of your crinkled sex-lips and clit, it seems easy and natural to roll over onto my belly between your legs and start licking you. You always taste good, even if you go for days without showering. In fact, I love you better when you are pungent. It drives me crazy, licking and licking, because the more I lick, the wetter your cunt gets and the stronger the flavor is. I can’t lick it away. I imagine you will produce more and more fluid until I could actually gulp it down, swallow it by the mouthful, like water or semen.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  had paid before her. With Mary’s kisses still hot on her lips, she must pay and pay unto the uttermost farthing. And because of an anguish that seemed past endurance, she spoke roughly; the words when they came were cruel. She spared neither the girl who must listen to them, nor herself who must force her to stand there and listen. ‘Have you understood? Do you realize now what it’s going to mean if you give yourself to me? ’ Then she stopped abruptly . . - Mary was crying. Stephen said, and her voice had grown quite toneless: “ It’s too much to ask — you're right, it’s too much. I had to tell you — forgive me, Mary.’ But Mary turned on her with very bright eyes: “ You can say that — you, who talk about loving! What do I care for all you've told me? What do I care for the world’s opinion? What do I care for anything but you, and you just as you are — as you are, I love you! Do you think I’m crying because of what you’ve told me? I’m crying because of your dear, scarred face . . . the misery on it. . . . Can’t you understand that all that I am belongs to you, Stephen? ° ‘Stephen bent down and kissed Mary’s hands very humbly, for now she could find no words any more . . . and that night they were not divided. CHAPTER 39 i STRANGE, though to them a very natural thing it seemed, this new and ardent fulfilment; having something fine and urgent about it that lay almost beyond the range of their wills. Something primitive and age-old as Nature herself, did their love appear to Mary and Stephen. For now they were in the grip of Creation, of Creation’s terrific urge to create; the urge that will sometimes sweep forward blindly alike into fruitful and sterile channels. That wellnigh intolerable life force would grip them, making them a part of its own existence; so that they who might never create a new life, were yet one at such moments with the fountain of living. . . . Oh, great and incomprehensible unreason!

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  And the Spirit of the LORD came upon him mightily, and the ropes on his arms were like flax (linen) that had been burned, and his bonds c dropped off his hands. 15 He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, so he reached out his hand and took it and killed a thousand men with it. 16 Then Samson said, “With the jawbone of a donkey, Heaps upon heaps, With the jawbone of a donkey I have struck down a thousand men.” 17 When he finished speaking, he threw the jawbone from his hand; and he named that place Ramath-lehi (hill of the jawbone). 18 Then Samson was very thirsty, and he called out to the LORD and said, “You have given this great victory through the hand of Your servant, and now am I to die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised (pagans)?” 19 So God split open the hollow place that was at Lehi, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his spirit (strength) returned and he was revived. Therefore he named it En-hakkore (spring which is calling), which is at Lehi to this day. 20 And Samson judged Israel in the days of [occupation by] the Philistines for twenty years. [Judg 17:6 ] Judges 16 Samson’s Weakness 1 T HEN SAMSON went to Gaza and saw a prostitute there, and went in to her. 2 The Gazites were told, “Samson has come here.” So they surrounded the place and waited all night at the gate of the city to ambush him. They kept quiet all night, saying, “In the morning, when it is light, we will kill him.” 3 But Samson lay [resting] until midnight, then at midnight he got up and took hold of the doors of the city gate and the two door-posts, and pulled them up, [security] bar and all, and he put them on his shoulders and carried them up to the top of the hill which is opposite Hebron. 4 After this he fell in love with a [Philistine] woman [living] in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. 5 So the [five] lords (governors) of the Philistines came to her and said to her, “Persuade him, and see where his great strength lies and [find out] how we may overpower him so that we may bind him to subdue him. And each of us will give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.” 6 So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me where your great strength lies and with what you may be bound and subdued.” 7 Samson said to her, “If they bind me with seven fresh cords (a tendons) that have not been dried, then I will be weak and be like any [other] man.” 8 Then the Philistine lords brought her seven fresh cords that had not been dried, and she bound him with them. 9 Now she had men lying in ambush in an inner room.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  4 Jacob said to them, “My brothers, where are you from?” And they said, “We are from Haran.” 5 So he said to them, “Do you know Laban the grandson of Nahor [Abraham’s brother]?” And they replied, “We know him.” 6 And he asked them, “b Is it well with him?” And they said, “He is doing well; look, here comes his daughter Rachel with the sheep!” 7 Jacob said, “Look, the sun is still high [overhead]; it is a long time before the flocks need to be gathered [in their folds for the night]. Water the sheep, and go, and return them to their pasture.” 8 But they said, “We cannot [leave] until all the flocks are gathered together, and the shepherds roll the stone from the mouth of the well; then we will water the sheep.” 9 While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she was a shepherdess. 10 When Jacob saw [his cousin] Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his mother’s brother, and Laban’s sheep, he came up and rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well and watered the flock of Laban, his uncle. 11 Then Jacob kissed Rachel [in greeting], and he raised his voice and wept. 12 Jacob told Rachel he was her father’s relative, Rebekah’s son; and she ran and told her father. 13 When Laban heard of the arrival of Jacob, his sister’s son, he ran to meet him, and embraced and kissed him and brought him to his house. Then he told Laban all these things. 14 Then Laban said to him, “You are my bone and my flesh.” And Jacob stayed with him a month. 15 Then Laban said to Jacob, “Just because you are my relative, should you work for me for nothing? Tell me, what should your wages be?” 16 Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. 17 Leah’s eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful in form and appearance. 18 Jacob loved Rachel, so he said, “I will serve you [as a hired workman] for seven years [in return] for [the privilege of marrying] Rachel your younger daughter.” 19 Laban said, “It is better that I give her [in marriage] to you than give her to another man. Stay and work with me.” 20 So Jacob served [Laban] for seven years for [the right to marry] Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her. Laban’s Treachery 21 Finally, Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife, for my time [of service] is completed, so that I may take her to me [as my wife].” 22 So Laban gathered together all the men of the place and prepared a [wedding] c feast [with wine].

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  But as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for the gift of special knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part [for our knowledge is fragmentary and incomplete]. 10 But when that which is complete and perfect comes, that which is incomplete and partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. 12 For now [in this time of imperfection] we see in a mirror dimly [a blurred reflection, a riddle, an enigma], but then [when the time of perfection comes we will see reality] face to face. Now I know in part [just in fragments], but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known [by God]. 13 And now there remain: faith [abiding trust in God and His promises], hope [confident expectation of eternal salvation], love [unselfish love for others growing out of God’s love for me], these three [the choicest graces]; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 14 Prophecy a Superior Gift 1 P URSUE [THIS] love [with eagerness, make it your goal], yet earnestly desire and cultivate the spiritual gifts [to be used by believers for the benefit of the church], but especially that you may a prophesy [to foretell the future, to speak a new message from God to the people]. 2 For one who speaks in an unknown tongue does not speak to people but to God; for no one understands him or catches his meaning, but by the Spirit he speaks mysteries [secret truths, hidden things]. 3 But [on the other hand] the one who prophesies speaks to people for edification [to promote their spiritual growth] and [speaks words of] encouragement [to uphold and advise them concerning the matters of God] and [speaks words of] consolation [to compassionately comfort them]. 4 One who speaks in a tongue edifies himself; but one who prophesies edifies the church [promotes growth in spiritual wisdom, devotion, holiness, and joy]. 5 Now I wish that all of you spoke in unknown tongues, but even more [I wish] that you would prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater [and more useful] than the one who speaks in tongues, unless he translates or explains [what he says], so that the church may b be edified [instructed, improved, strengthened]. 6 Now, believers, if I come to you speaking in unknown tongues, how will I benefit you unless I also speak to you [clearly] either by revelation [revealing God’s mystery], or by knowledge [teaching about God], or by prophecy [foretelling the future, speaking a new message from God to the people], or by instruction [teaching precepts that develop spiritual maturity]?