“Calixta,” he said, “don’t be frightened. Nothing can happen. The house is too-low to be struck, with so many tall trees standing about. There! aren’t you going to be quiet? say, aren’t you?” He pushed her hair back from her face that was warm and steaming. Her lips were as red and moist as pomegranate seed. Her white neck and a glimpse of her firm, full bosom disturbed him powerfully. As she glanced up at him the fear in her liquid blue eyes had given place to a drowsy gleam that unconsciously betrayed a sensuous desire. He looked down into her eyes and there was nothing for him to do but to gather her lips in a kiss. It reminded him of Assumption.
“Do you remember– in Assumption, Calixta?” he asked in a low voice broken by passion. Oh! She remembered; for in Assumption he had kissed her and kissed her and kissed her; until his senses would wellnigh fail, and to save her he would resort to a desperate flight. If she was not an immaculate dove in those days, she was still inviolate; a passionate creature whose very defenselessness had made her defense, against which his honour forbade him to prevail. Now– well, now — her lips seemed in a manner free to be tasted, as well as her round, white throat and her whiter breasts.
They did not heed the crashing torrents, and the roar of the elements made her laugh as she lay in his arms. She was a revelation in that dim, mysterious chamber; as white as the couch she lay upon. her firm, elastic flesh that was knowing for the first time its birthright, was like a creamy lily that the sun invites to contribute its breath and perfume to the undying life of the world.
The generous abundance of her passion, without guile or trickery, was like a white flame which penetrated and found response in depths of his own sensuous nature that had never yet been reached. When he touched her breasts they gave themselves up in a quivering ecstasy, inviting his lips. Her mouth was a fountain of delight. And when he possessed her, they seemed to swoon together at the very borderland of life’s mystery.”
~The Storm, Kate Chopin
Vintage erotica captivates us. The passage by Kate Chopin titled “The Storm” is an sensuous excerpt full of passion in the stormy throes of desire. Kate Chopin was a Louisiana writer. Having lived myself in New Orleans for nearly five years, I could feel the temperature surge, smell the rain, and feel the electricity in the air as it does during a thunderstorm down in the bayou. This line in particular expresses the lovers’ moment so eloquently: “Her lips were as red and moist as pomegranate seed. Her white neck and a glimpse of her firm, full bosom disturbed him powerfully.” You can feel her white bosoms swelling after that torrid sentence. Desire. What this excerpt leaves out is her (Calixta’s) husband and son are both caught in the heavy rainstorm, and they are delayed while going out. Alcée Laballière, Calixta’s lover, is also married and lives nearby. I didn’t include the entire story in the above excerpt. I think that if I had included it, it would lend more of the intensity to the moment of passion. If you are curious, then click on the link of the title The Storm and read the entire story.
As explained on a website dedicated to Kate Chopin:
American author Kate Chopin (1850–1904) wrote two published novels and about a hundred short stories in the 1890s. Most of her fiction is set in Louisiana and most of her best-known work focuses on the lives of sensitive, intelligent women.
Her short stories were well received in her own time and were published by some of America’s most prestigious magazines, including Vogue and the Atlantic Monthly. Her early novel At Fault (1890) was not much noticed by the public, but The Awakening (1899) was widely condemned.
Kate Chopin also wrote her short story “The Storm” in 1898. Because of its sexual content she did not publish it.
The story itself reminds me of her novel, The Awakening. The male character in The Storm from this passage, Alcée Laballière, is similar to the romantic man of the heroine’s desire in The Awakening (Alcée Arobin, a young man of fashion in New Orleans). It does make me wonder if there was a real Alcée in her life.
Although Kate Chopin was not an “erotica writer” per se, nor a “romance novelist,” she still was capable of writing a passionate moment with visceral and palpable grace. I enjoy reading Kate Chopin’s stories mostly because she has the ability to capture not just the atmosphere of Louisiana, but the elemental temperature of a woman’s suppressed sexual desire. The sultry heat and moisture of Louisiana mingled with the tension of social positions within the period, where women had “their place” as mothers and caretakers, with little allowance for their own needs and sexual hunger. Such a combination creates a storm of billowing passion that brews much like the dark tempestuous clouds of a hot tropical rainstorm.
Erotic literature was risqué during the 1900′s. Especially when written by a woman. Not just “erotic” aspects, but the subject of a woman’s emancipation and freedom also caused alarm. Kate Chopin’s stories, according to the website dedicated to her:
As the critic Per Seyersted phrases it, Kate Chopin “broke new ground in American literature. She was the first woman writer in her country to accept passion as a legitimate subject for serious, outspoken fiction. Revolting against tradition and authority; with a daring which we can hardy fathom today; with an uncompromising honesty and no trace of sensationalism, she undertook to give the unsparing truth about woman’s submerged life. She was something of a pioneer in the amoral treatment of sexuality, of divorce, and of woman’s urge for an existential authenticity. She is in many respects a modern writer, particularly in her awareness of the complexities of truth and the complications of freedom.”
{This vintage erotic photograph is how I imagine the lovers Calixta and Alcée Laballière in The Storm. Just listen to a heavy downpour while looking at the photo, and imagine the sexual storm while drinking a Hurricane cocktail}
Subscribe in a reader
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Holy smokes!!! I love that last photograph you have posted. The retro one? Talk about pure erotic art there. I like the tastefulness of it, were it seems just more real than a lot of the stuff you see today.
Ohhh…. a story is bubbling in my head… need to find more vintageishy stuff to use!!!
Thank-you!!!
w