Desire. Longing. Lust.
Lust /ləst/ A noun that describes an intense sexual hunger for another. Middle English, from Old English, desire.
Lust is defined as “any source of pleasure or delight,” also “an appetite,” and “a liking for a person,” also “fertility” (of soil). Sense of “sinful sexual desire, degrading animal passion” (now the main meaning) developed in late Old English and in other Germanic languages, the derivative words mean “pleasure.”
I am fascinated by the erotic layers of desire, passion, and lust experienced in my own sex life. They are the spices of sex that go together just like cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger in baking. As I love to cook and bake, I think of spices to explain lust, especially aphrodisiac spices. And when I think of lust, I think of moments I have desired someone beyond control. Moments so overwhelmed by lust, I become animal, lost in the heat of chemistry. Lust itself is the high note of sexual desire. It is the spark of what moves us from attraction to arousal and into action.
Reading other women’s stories about lust gives insight to the human response of sexual desire and passion. Erotica author and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel’s newest anthology Women in Lust is juicy and bursting with the passionate flavors of many voices. These stories taste as good as the musky inside of a lover’s thigh and the intoxicating mystery of an evolving kiss. Fresh and wonderfully compiled, twenty erotica authors combine their literary gifts and mix it all up into a lusty book.
I have read this book in bed. I have also read it in a cafe while having lunch, while having a pedicure, and I have taken moments to read it before meeting my lover for dinner. Erotica like this is inspirational, and musing on the subject of lust always whets my appetite for more. One of my most favorite stories from this anthology, Comfort Food by Donna George Storey, made me do a double take to the page, as the author’s voice reminded me uncannily of my own lustful fantasies (as well as a few realities) and my proclivity for combining food with lust. The featured dessert at the beginning of the story, a butterscotch pudding, was reminiscent of a recent sensual experience with my lover at a restaurant that served a butterscotch budino (an Italian pudding). Something about butterscotch pudding, I think. Its caramel flavor and satiny texture inspires lust for a taste of something just as creamy, just as delicious, if not more so. As the author describes, “Perhaps it was the creamy smoothness caressing my tongue like satin? Or the bottomless depth of flavor: caramel, tropical vanilla and an almost floral sweet cream, all mixed together with something else mysterious, alluring, even addictive? Whatever the reason for the magic, at that moment, I was very glad to be alive. When I finished my dessert, resisting the urge to lick the bowl clean, I waved over the pretty waitress.”
The story evolves from wanting the recipe to something more than a desire for ingredients from the chef.
Cherry Blossom by Kayar Silkenvoice is another story that capitvated me. The erotic tale takes place at a ryokan in Kyoto, Japan, where bathing in hot onsen waters and a massage transcends within the beautiful and sudden moment of desire. I loved the fluidity of Silkenvoice’s writing, as graceful as cherry blossoms falling upon hot spring water, illustrating the concentrated delicacy of sexual energy between two women for one another.
And lust can be so overpowering that we might feel like an animal, wanting to bite the one we desire because the feeling of lust is so strong. In Bite Me by Lucy Hughes, an exploration in pain, lust, and her lover’s request to bite him piques her curiosity and questions her indifference to this kind of fetish, pushing her beyond boundaries.
This book gives the reader a bouquet of delights, all clamoring with lust, displaying its words, paragraphs, and letters in sinuous sentences and wanton descriptives. As most of Rachel Kramer Bussel’s erotica anthologies are sexy, this one is hot off the press, and one to lust for. This delicious book would make anyone blush with lustful wonder.
Women in Lust is a sexy read. You can buy it online or visit the Women in Lust blog to discover more about the authors. I admire Rachel Kramer Bussel’s work as both an editor and author. Read about the Lusty Lady herself here on her main website.
The stories and their authors:
Naughty Thoughts by Portia Da Costa
Guess by Charlotte Stein
Her, Him, and Them by Aimee Pearl
Bayou by Clancy Nacht
Smoke by Elizabeth Coldwell
Bite Me by Lucy Hughes
Ride a Cowboy by Del Carmen
Queen of Sheba by Jen Cross
Hot for Teacher by Rachel Kramer Bussel
Unbidden by Brandy Fox
Something to Ruin by Amelia Thornton
Guitar Hero by Kin Fallon
Ode to a Masturbator by Aimee Herman
Orchid by Jacqueline Applebee
Cherry Blossom by Kayar Silkenvoice
Rain by Olivia Archer
The Hard Way by Justine Elyot
Strapped by K D Grace
Beneath My Skin by Shanna Germain
Comfort Food by Donna George Storey
I’ve been reading (and re-reading) Obsessed. Nineteen stories of erotic romance that pivots upon the g-spot of love like a 110-volt charged vibrator in search of the female cerebral orgasm. It hits the spot; the emotional and psychological soft spot that causes obsession to grow, germinate, and blossom.
In the introduction written by editor Rachel Kramer Bussel, she hopes that “Obsessed speaks to the part of you that knows what it’s like to do anything for the right person, to bare yourself body and soul in the hope that once stripped to your most secret self, you will be rewarded with someone who sees you for who you truly are.” And isn’t that where the depth of obsession comes from? Our deepest, most secret self; the raw part of us that yearns to be touched, even down to the nerve and bone. The word “obsessed” is fraught with a hungry notion that we cannot get enough of something or someone so painfully compelling to us, and that is the very point and place where we lose ourselves to it.
The Western perspective of “romantic love” has idealized this experience, making an unconscious psychological demand that the person we are obsessed with fit our ideal “other half.” The anima and animus of Jungian archetypes present this kind of obsessive love in a mythical and dreamlike state of being “in love.” In Eastern and Zen philosophies, this kind of emotion is where inner growth begins— the experience of a “red-hot coal in the throat” allows us to evolve, and, as we know, growing pains are part of the experience. Obsession can be beautiful like a thorny rosebush. If we throw ourselves into the thick of it, blood will be drawn. Like sailors entranced by sirens, we crash into the rocks despite of it all when we are obsessed. These nineteen writers tell us about erotic obsession with extreme eloquence. Romantic obsession is one subject to contend with. Add some hot and steamy sex into the equation and erotica has some literary weight.
Each story of women in the throes of erotic obsession has taken me on a journey, caressing my own passionate emotions, comforting me while I read, reminding me that I am not alone in my own experience within the tangle of obsession, sex and love. It is because as I have been reading, I have been obsessed with a man myself. It began as mental attraction, a parallel, and a familiar feeling of like-minded connection. I was a fool to think it was merely a budding friendship, for when I first saw him I was consumed by a fire that only poets throughout history can explain. Then my sexual obsession began to brew, to be sure, after our first time together. Boiling over like a hot cauldron, the flame of my obsession is now a hot pot of scalding desire. But sex is not the only reason. There are many other aspects and layers to my own obsession with my lover. Well, the sex is amazing, I’ll admit. And not for the reasons anyone might assume. It is because he touches that naked part of me that is hidden, my secret place, and he sees me for who I am inside.
There are the obvious symptoms of a woman obsessed with the man she wants: she feels an immense desire, uncontrollably so. She can’t stop thinking about him and all the things he does to arouse her lust. Sometimes, it’s someone she cannot forget. Perhaps it’s the way he smiles at her with a gleam or the tone of his voice, or maybe she doesn’t get to hear his voice at all, as in Silent Treatment, by Donna George Storey, the first erotic tale that opens this anthology of women writers. She’s on a weekend yoga getaway where silence is mandatory, talk is forbidden. During her stay at the retreat, she reconnects with a former lover without words. “He blushed, but kept his gaze fixed on me. It was, in fact, the only way we could speak. In the almost palpable weight of our silence, that prickling warmth of desire suddenly sprang to life down there. Stephen was glad to see me. There was no question about that. And he wanted to express something else with those bottomless amber eyes: Apology. A faint sorrow. And— no mistake about it— hot, smoking desire.”
Yes, I admit, desire began with the smell of his skin, the look on his face, and his kiss. The feeling stirred itself up in my gut, a tingling sensation. Butterflies in my belly. Swarm of bees in my brain. My body became lighter, and my mind dizzy with want. Obsession. It’s real honest-to-goodness passion that takes your life off the path and creates a whole new one you never thought you’d take, and as you follow your heart (and other parts of your lusty body), obsession undoes every bit of reason you thought you had.
I know obsession intimately, and sometimes excruciatingly so— and the pain of falling in love is exquisite. Obsession is a delicate matter; it doesn’t come all neat and tidy, packaged in a pretty box with a ribbon. It can be ink-stained and needled deep under your skin like a tattoo. In Raven’s Flight by Andrea Dale, a woman’s fetish for licking her lover’s tattoo begins her adventure with a silver-tongued Irishman. “I had the overwhelming compulsion to lick his tattoo, trace every spiral and intricate knot and line with my tongue.” She goes from longing to action: His kiss tasted peaty and smoky like the whiskey from his chalice, she explains, and the sweep of his tongue sent her into a full body shiver. “My nipples peaked, my clit trembled. All that just from a kiss. A kiss that rocked my world so soundly, I half thought we were having an earthquake. So I did what any right-minded hussy would: I took him home with me, and I confessed my burning need to explore his tattoo.” Tongues, kisses, and tattoos on the skin and underneath, ink-stained within the heart.
Ah, my lover’s kiss. But, there are other things about him that arouse me. I know the way the heat of his mouth grazes my lower lip in a kiss, how it travels down along the back of my neck. His kiss intoxicates me. And I’m obsessed with his hands, remembering how the wide expanse of them holds my hips firmly as he plunges deep inside. His hands rule my body. His hands are my obsession, too. Looking upon the shape of them sends shivers of longing through me, sensations I cannot describe; there aren’t any words that can explain the way they undo me, bit by bit, like sugar dissolving. In Memphisto Waltz by Justine Elyot, Lily has a reunion with her childhood piano teacher, the passionate Russian Leonid Gorodetsky. She marvels his hands: “Gorodetsky’s hand. I am holding his legendary hand. Those women outside by the rubbish bins would kill to be in my position. It’s a very nice hand, too, warm and smooth, nothing limp or clammy about his grip. It’s the hand I remember from my childhood. The magic hand, the hand that turns notes and chords into sensual experience and fill the critics’ heads with hyperbole. I feel as if I ought to light up, or crackle, or something. Actually, I’m not far off crackling.”
And yet another story about a woman’s obsession with a man and his hands; perhaps there is such a thing as a hand fetish? If so, I have an obsession for my man’s hands and what they do to me.
In Rachel Kramer Bussel’s piece, I Want To Hold Your Hand, Shelly’s obsession is her husband. When he lost over two hundred pounds, he changed from the sexy teddy bear of a giant to more like a linebacker. Her desire is rekindled when she feels jealous over the new attentions her husband receives from other women. But, Shelly admits, she liked her husband heavier, in fact, she preferred him bigger. Knowing that some things don’t change, as Ron still had the heft of his hands and his cock, Shelly thought of what reminded her about falling in love with her husband: “his hands, though, were big, strong, powerful; there was nothing he could do about his man hands. Ron had always been able to speak to her with his hands, even on their first date, when he’d reached for one of hers and massaged it, his thumb tricking along her palm, his fingers tickling her skin, making her curious about him, about what he could do to her.” Shelly and Ron run off to the movies and in the seats of the theater they rediscover their desire for each other, remembering why they came together in the first place.
The whistle of the kettle reminds me of an afternoon when we were in the midst of making tea, and suddenly his hands clasp my waist, then my wrists, and he pins me to the wall of the hallway, the whistle screeching with boiling hot water, his mouth on mine, going down further, until I am forgetting what the sound of steam is persistently calling out for, as the heat of his mouth on my sex causes me to lose control. His tongue dances on my clit, inscribing something, some kind of language. I’m obsessed, and I’m in love. Like a kettle on the stove to boil and whistle, I’ve spouted out “I love you” during the heat of passion, but he doesn’t express the way he feels for me in words. How he feels is secret, hidden. In Secret Places by Adele Haze, Marian’s mouth shaped the words I love you during sex with her lover, Dan, or as she calls him “the boy,” in an unusual coupling between once-strangers on a subway commute, who become tender lovers that hide their emotions from each other. “Underneath it all, there is so much tenderness, so much of the unnamed, unknowable feeling. The other’s pleasure is the ultimate reward for each of them; they compete to bring each other to the brink. Out of bed, they race to make each other tea, to give comforts, to spoil the other with small kindnesses. Still, neither of them will say the words.” And during their lovemaking and revealing of their innermost places during sex, Marian decides to use her finger to tell her lover what she feels. “With the tip of her finger she writes on his naked shoulder: I L-O-V-E Y-O-U. Her heart whispers the invisible words.”
Obsession is an attraction that goes beyond the ordinary, a feeling that inspires as well as terrifies, because a woman obsessed is a woman that will do anything for the man she so desires. Obsession runs deeper than lust. It tangles up the mind with feelings you never thought you would ever have. It’s irrational, passionate, and a little crazy. It’s sometimes dangerous. It’s risk and pushing your boundaries. Feelings that overwhelm you when they are near, the smell of their skin, the chemistry that has you obedient like a dog on a leash, the nearness of the one that you desire emanating power over you like gravity, like magnet pull. And sometimes your obsession can be your ex-husband, shaking you up with aftershocks of your desire in Aftershocks by Bella Andre. “Oh god. They’d just survived one hell of an earthquake in a room full of dangers and instead of crying, instead of freaking out, she was wet. Soaking through her panties from nothing but his arms, tight around her, his breath whispering over her ear. She’d been looking for adventure, had been wanting to live on the edge for so long, that instead of frightening her, the earthquake had been foreplay. That was why she knew that the biggest danger wasn’t going to be from aftershocks and falling boxes. It was staying here with Darren. Because if she wasn’t careful, she’d give in, and they’d be right back to where they always had been. Back to good. But good wasn’t good enough— not when she wanted fireworks and breathless need and desire so strong that pleasure was almost pain.”
I think of my obsession during the day when I’m at work, and I replay scenes from our moments together. He’s just a drive away from me. I have had the pleasure and fortune of having my lover know about my obsession with him, where as Vivian Sinclair, the executive assistant in One Night In Paris by Kayla Perrin, had to fly all the way from Dallas to Paris to let her lover know how much she wanted him. I suppose I would do the same as she did— act on her desire and make her obsession known: “You’re like a fever I can’t shake. Ever since that time we were together, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”
Portia de Costa’s eloquent Concubine tells a historical erotic story much like Scheherazade would have done. Merry weaves a romantic and juicy tale within a tale, as she tells her convalescing lover Rick a naughty story about the Concubine Merissa and her obsessive love for her Lord Alaric. Concubine Merissa’s body is moist with longing by the memory of their first night together as concubine and prince, with the memories of their love building within her a desire as strong as his princely male magnificence took her that first time. With her intense and steadfast love for her prince, she brings him back to his virile strength after a battle injury that caused him a momentary lapse in masculinity. “It was almost a miracle, but where had it started? In her mouth, or with him, as she sucked… or in her sex, through the unstoppable force of love?”
Love and Demotion by Logan Belle is about a woman who leads a secret life as a stripper, obsessed with her boss at her day job at a publishing house. Around her obsession Declan she felt like the world was in Technicolor, and when she was away from him, black and white. Hiding her moonlighting burlesque occupation from her employer was as difficult as it was to hide her Vargas girl tattoos onstage while she stripped down to Marilyn Manson’s “Heart-Shaped Glasses,” dressed as a sexy Lolita.
Obsession can be dark, full of the shadows of our souls. It can be wild-eyed lust until our throat is hoarse from moaning out of sheer animalistic fucking, from being taken, and surrendering and submitting to the man of our dreams. It can be voluptuous and full of black magic. Obsession holds us like a voodoo spell. In Spellbound by Garnell Wallace, Kia Monet goes back to her roots in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, under the spell of Jonah’s smile, his voice, and his magnificent cock. “Even his long, tapered fingers buried deep in my pussy can bring on multiple experiences of what we French call “la petite mort,” or the little death, when you are so inflamed with passion at the moment of surrender it feels like you are about to surrender your soul as well.”
Sometimes obsession is a fantasy. In Hooked by Ariel Graham, the obsession is a thing that provokes a woman’s erotic curiosity and dares her to explore it. A couple, Ricki and Jody, just move in to their new home and in one room there is a mysterious hook in the ceiling that fascinates Ricki. It’s too heavy duty for a plant and the light isn’t good in the corner either. Ricki wonders about the hook and imagines all kinds of scenarios that the hook could be used for. She wants to tell her lover Jody about her wildest fantasies involving that curious mounted hardware. “Why don’t you just look back up at that hook?” he’d asked. “Like you want to reach for it.” She reached for it. On tiptoe, as if she could touch the ten-foot ceiling, she reached with both hands. An image came to mind: her hands bound at the wrist, with some kind of silken cord, maybe a curtain tie; something soft but strong enough to keep her bound, even if she struggled. Would she struggle? Ricki held her hands out toward the hook and imagined Jody standing behind her.”
I’ve enjoyed all of these adventurous, wonderful, and genuine stories about obsession and reasons why women become obsessed. Reasons why women stayed obsessed, and things that caused them to follow their hearts and nether parts to explore the wilderness of the erotic landscapes they could not keep from traveling. Reasons to be irrationally lost in the arms of the one they are obsessed with.
Obsessed is a treasure full of tenderness, raw lust, longing, and all of the many things that fill our sexual lives and erotic minds. The nineteen stories written so fluidly fills the oceanic depths of desire where obsession lies. Perhaps the word “obsessed” is as elusive as the state of being it exists in. Like a drug, we want more. More stories, more lust, more sex, more love, and it’s never, ever enough.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
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It was forbidden, that street. When I was a girl, I was not allowed to go down that road. My mother had made it clear that I could only go as far as the end of our street when I went out on my bicycle, never to wander. The forbidden street was at the bottom of the hill, just to the left, at the end. The entrance was shaded with trees, sloping down into the park. At the end, the road turned into hiking trails, eucalyptus trees, mystery.
I wanted him to drive me through the neighborhood where I grew up, where I skinned my knees from bicycle falls, where I played and drew in colored chalk on the sidewalk. We drove around and up and through the hills, my memory as a girl following along the asphalt. “Where can we go?” he asks. I give him a look, wanting. We kiss quickly. He leans close to me as he curves the moving car through the narrow roads, guiding the steering wheel through my childhood memories. I nestle my head into the scoop of his shoulder, planting little kisses lightly along his neck, nuzzling my nose to smell his skin. I trail my fingers along the edge of his ear, the curving shell roundness of it. Just then, at the bottom of the hill, was the forbidden street I wasn’t supposed to go down.
“Let’s go down that street. Turn here.”
The street is quiet. There are houses on one side. The other side is hidden by the densely wooded brush and trees. The tires crackle slowly along the road. We look for a spot to park. I have butterflies in my stomach and a melancholy ache in my bones. He turns the car around at the end, finding a place. We kiss for a moment. It’s dark, headlights off, streetlights buzzing in their orange glow. We can hear someone’s television in the distance. Like teenagers on a date, we cannot wait to kiss. I clasp his face lightly with my hands. The natural scent of him, his warm mouth melting against mine, I’m intoxicated by his kiss. He leans across the center and unbuckles his seatbelt. The click of his seatbelt undone, the sound, opens a place in my body. My blouse, my wide leather belt, my jeans, the seatbelt—confining me. I want to remove everything, remove the things in my life that keep me from him. I want undoing. I unbuckle my heeled sandals. I undo the seatbelt. His hands tuck up underneath my hair. He pulls my face deeper into our kiss.
His mouth and mine, his mouth, mine.
I look out the window into the nigh, and see myself as a girl, running down toward the end where the dirt path begins. I see myself looking back at the older me in the car. She knows— that little girl— where I am going. Whatever she knows, it’s discovered here, this secret place at the end of this street. She sees me, thirty years later, in a minivan full of my children’s things– a baby seat, a baseball bag, the sand toys for the beach all cluttered in the trunk, kissing a man I am having an affair with, a man I am falling in love with, in the dark, stealing a moment away. Secret. It seems that my life has come to this secret and hidden end of a street, to rediscover something forgotten within me.
We climb into the back of the van, my jeans pulled off, removing my belt, my pussy wet, his hard sex in my hand. “You are so hard,” I marvel, as the length and swell of his cock is warm and heavy with thick arousal. I caress his sex with one hand. I cup his balls with the other. He is sitting on the seat, half dressed, still wearing his shirt. I lean up and into him, kissing him deeply. Holding his body to mine, my blouse is sticking from sweat and desire, the fabric coming between the smoothness of our bodies. I want to feel him naked and breathing upon me. I pull the fabric away to feel his belly and chest against mine. He pulls his shirt away, too. We want our skin touching. I want to dissolve into him where the world is golden-yellow and soft like sunlight in summertime memories. I want to melt away into the light as he plunges his body into mine. No barriers, nothing between us, not even the years we lived so close to one another, never knowing that all this time, we were already close in parallel existence. I want his hunger, his sadness, his memories, all of his colors inside of me, blending both of our shadows, touching, like watercolors all bleeding together until the paper is saturated with imperfect beauty.
My lover’s face in the shadows is luminous and delicate. There is something within him that is intangible, revealing itself to me. His face is like moonlight through a raincloud. I put my hand to his cheek, making sure he is there. Here in the dark, the blueness of the evening, illuminated by the amber street lamps lighting the shadows within ourselves, the forgotten places within us can no longer stay hidden. I open my eyes to see him in the dark. He cannot see me entirely. We can only see each other in the half-light. We are shadows of each other. We are radiant with desire, opening and tasting what is true, kissing him, kissing him. By this desire, he is awakening my soul. His fingers and hands light along my body, undoing me, releasing me, bringing me back to life.
I feel released from everything when we kiss. Nothing is binding me to the gravity of my existence. I am a butterfly coming out of a chrysalis. I am returning to myself within his embrace, by his kiss. We move around in the back, trying to find the right position. We kiss, and I laugh like a teenage girl. My legs are up, bare and dangling over his shoulder. He can’t see my face at all now. What he can see he finds with his hands. He discovers me in the slip of my wanting. My skin against his, my pussy is flowering with ripeness, and, as he touches me there, as he slides his fingers inside, he has me, he possesses me— all of me— the girl running down the street and the woman in the back seat of the car.
We kiss. I press my body into his. My hands are slipping all around his shoulders, feeling the fabric of his shirt, flattening my palms, smoothing and stroking his chest, squeezing his arms, and pulling him against me. I want him inside of me. My hands caress up along the back of his neck. My fingernails claw into his black hair. I have this erotic need to kiss him in the back of the car, half naked like this. It brings moments from girlhood into womanhood colliding within me like a surreal dream. I pretend it is him that I first gave myself to in the back of a car. I pretend, all this time, it was he, this man I see in the half-light, the blue shadows curving along his handsome face, his smile, his sighs. I suckle his lower lip, and he says something, pulling away, mystified, searching for my face. He says something beautiful. He is beatific in that moment. I suck his lip in a kiss again, and the same reaction comes. He is searching for my face. The kissing is making us dizzy with the feeling we have. We are in this dream together, looking out the windows at the broken indigo and granite colors, just shapes now, the houses, the street. We are dreaming each other. What we cannot see with our eyes, we can see with our hands, with our kisses. We can see everything about each other and all the years that paralleled themselves, bringing us to this moment, all the secrets once so elusive, now illuminated.
Thirty years before, I ran down that street, not supposed to go there, not allowed. Danger. My mother worried about someone kidnapping me, taking me away. Now, I want to be taken, I want someone to kidnap me. “Take me,” I whisper.
We are in the back of the van. My body is longing for him to be deep inside of me. I am sucking him as he straddles the farthest back seat, slinking into a position so I can take his cock into my mouth. My face nuzzles into his belly, making my way down. I inhale his musky scent, petting the soft nest of hair there with my palm, pressing down upon where his pubic bone meets the base of his sex. Tenderly I open my mouth to take him in, my mouth wet, longing to suck him, licking the head, savoring the length of his erect cock. He is hard. So hard, I have never felt him harder than that. I want him to kidnap me, just take me and take me. I don’t want to go back. I want to run away. I want him so much I can’t imagine how it’s happened. It consumes me, this want, and there’s no stopping it.
Outside the car windows, it’s deep night. We can only hear our breath and our sighing, our desire for one another climbing over the velour car seats, reaching the branches of the trees outside, shaking. I am shaking with orgasms. He gives them to me, over and over until everything blurs together and I don’t know who I am anymore.
The gray concrete of the street softly encompasses us. There is no time, only our breath, our hands, our kisses. My body sinks upon him, I climb upon him, slide him within me. When I am like this, on top of him, I am his. I belong to him, and that is what I need. It doesn’t really matter what we do, or how we do it.
He moves us down onto the carpeted floor of the back of the van. My leg is cramped against the side of the car interior. I cannot see his face now, but he can see mine by the dim light of the window. I feel him watching me as I ride him, moaning a little, feeling the marvelous way his cock slides in and half out of my cunt, my wet and juicy place where he is entering me. He grasps the sides of my hips, holding me upon him. He holds, squeezes me, and shakes my fleshy hips with yearning. I feel like a woman. When he holds my hips like that, I feel him possess me. The softest place of me, not just the inside of my body, but the most secret place, he finds, he uncovers. I am naked inside. I am his. I am myself again.
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Slipping his fingers into my wet and wanting sex, he pulls aside my apron from behind as my ass lifts a little higher. I’m leaning over the kitchen sink. He has three fingers buried deep into my pussy; my lips are swollen with a delicious melting sensation. More. The bottle of gourmet olive oil. He spies it on the counter and reaches for it. Pressing his arousal hotly against my bare behind, he pours some of the oil into one hand and slathers my bottom up with it. The delicate perfume of olives fills the kitchen in the heat of the day. With the slippery olive oil he deftly presses his thumb— his one thumb that is wide and slightly flattened– slowly against the tender entrance of my ass. Pushing gently inside, it sinks in slow. His fingers work themselves deeper into my pussy. Deeper. He’s got a way of doing this where I can only surrender to the pleasure. I want his hardening cock inside of me too, but his hands are causing me to vibrate with excitement. I can’t think of anything else. He takes his other hand and, with the long tips of his index and second finger, circles my clit in light, little motions. He flutters his fingers back and forth, lightly, the way he taps an eggshell against a bowl. He pinches my clit and plays with it like sprinkling spices into a pot. The ache of his three fingers in my pussy and the girth of his thumb inside my ass is exquisite. I want him so much that my whole body responds to him like a pot of boiling water, simmering and rolling into heat. He has full control of my body with his hand. He kneels down on the kitchen floor, burying his face in between my legs. His hot mouth is tonguing my pussy, trailing his kiss up, spreading my cheeks open, licking, tasting. I moan with desire, clutching the Formica countertop. Being in the kitchen with him couldn’t get any hotter. His fingers stir me into a froth of lust.
When we are at dinner in a restaurant, sitting side by side, he trails his hand to my thigh, delving downward in between my legs. His fingers tempt me under the dinner table, coaxing the edge of my panties aside, teasing, just until my body bubbles with desire, so close to climax. He smiles mischievously, observing my response. He drinks his wine coolly, watches me with a sideways glance, as I try to not to show anything in my expression. He’s sly and just a bit naughty. Other diners at surrounding tables might notice. Sometimes I just don’t care, it’s so good, what he does to me with his hands.
His hands. Looking upon the shape of them sends shivers of longing through me, sensations I cannot describe. There aren’t any words that can explain the way they undo me, bit by bit, like sugar dissolving.
I watch him peel shrimp in the kitchen. He’s holding the knife steady, his index finger is pressed against the outer part of the blade. With precision, he deftly cuts along the spine of the shrimp, pink and quivering in his grip. I understand how that shrimp feels, much like the way I am when in his command. At the wooden cutting block, he conducts with his chef’s knife— he’s finely chopping fresh wide leaves of mint, frilly clumps of cilantro, his fingers nimbly mincing the green leaves into submission. He scoops the herbs into a bowl as I watch, enthralled by the way his hands take such loving care with what he is making. The watermelon and cucumber, all cubed and ready, shimmer with watery urgency. His long fingers casually shimmy among them, dipping into the bowl, tossing and dressing it with a squeeze of lime. The juice spurts into the bowl. He squeezes the lime until its pulp feathers and separates from the green rind. I notice the juice covering his fingernails, tips of his fingers, palm of his hand. It smells good and citrussy. He pulls me close and kisses me. I smell fragrant mint and juicy lime on his fingers as he touches my face. Then he’s back to preparing our meal. I delight in watching him drizzle olive oil into another bowl; stirring the dressing with the stainless whisk. He slices corn off the cob. While I stand there, barefoot in my sundress, watching him like a little girl, he smiles the faintest hint of a smile. He knows I am melting inside down to the marrow with want. My body is responding from the buttery center of my rising lust, a soufflé of creamy desire.
He sets the two dishes down on the dining table. Just a simple dish: shrimp in a dressing of olive oil, lime, honey, mint, cilantro, corn, watermelon and cucumber— the fragrance and sweetness, the pleasure. He caresses my thigh with one hand as I taste a mouthful of his creation, and suddenly, from the very core of my body, I am shuddering with some kind of mysterious reaction to the meal made aphrodisiac by his hands. I am melting with tenderness. I am noticing how he holds his fork. His index finger points into the silver handle of the fork, controlling its motion. My thoughts are percolating, the agitation in my body won’t stop. His other hand is warm and smooth against my thigh. I am shaking; my knees are gelatinous and unable to hold still. He slides his hand softly along my leg. My mouth is full of watermelon and shrimp, and I can’t stop giggling. I am so moved I want to cry from the joy. Another kind of orgasm, one coming from the depths of me, ripples from within, and all I can do is surrender to it. His eyes gleam at me like champagne glasses as he gives a fizzy smile. We eat from our dishes, and I taste slowly, savoring each mouthful. The heat of his hand and the way he made our dinner is whipping up some unknown place inside my body. A kiss with flavors of watermelon, olive oil, honey and mint on our tongues, the sea-sweetness of the pink fresh shrimp, the tang of pleasure.
Later, again, after the food, in the kitchen, his hands hug my hips close. We embrace. The warmth of his palms travels up my body, wraps in and cups around my breasts, kissing. He holds my face in his hands. The faint scent of herbs, like a magic spell from his fingertips, intoxicates me with its summery bouquet. He gazes into my eyes. I am trembling. I’m in love.
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In the floating world where all things change
Love never changes by promising never to change.
(Geisha song)
During Edo-period Japan (1600-1867), the yujo were the highest class of all courtesans. These sex professionals were trained in the bedroom arts from the time they were young: blossoming into womanhood, mastering the erotic arts, flourishing as a prostitute of a high order. Prostitution during that era of Japan was legal, but carefully licensed. One such ‘red lantern district’ was Shimabara, the Pleasure Quarter of Kyoto. Another was Yoshiwara, the Pleasure District of Edo (Tokyo).
The yujo were not geisha. They were the royalty of prostitutes, the refined artisans of erotica and lovemaking. Seduction was their art form from the way they used their harigata (dildo) to how to pleasure a man (shakuhachi しゃくはち or fellatio). Yujo knew about aphrodisiacs and the exotic practice of kissing (seppun). The Yujo women were “love artists.”
This romantic era of Japan was called Ukiyo
(Japanese: 浮世 “Floating World”)
From the Wikipedia resource, this Renaissance period of art and pleasure described the Edo pleasure district as:
“Yoshiwara, the licensed red-light district of Edo (modern Tokyo), which was the site of many brothels, chashitsu tea houses, and kabuki theaters frequented by Japan’s growing middle class.
People involved in mizu shōbai (水商売) (“the water trade”) would include hōkan (comedians), kabuki (popular theatre of the time), dancers, dandies, rakes, tea-shop girls, Kanō (painters of the official school of painting), courtesans who resided in seirō (green houses) and geisha in their okiya houses.
The courtesans would consist of yujo (women of pleasure/prostitutes), kamuro (young female students), shinzō (senior female students), hashi-jōro (lower-ranking courtesans), kōshi-jōro (high-ranking courtesans just below tayū), tayū (high-ranking courtesans), oiran (“castle-topplers,” named that way for how quickly they could part a daimyō (lord) from his money), yarite (older chaperones for an oiran), and the yobidashi who replaced the tayū when they were priced out of the market.
In addition to courtesans, there were also geisha/geiko, maiko (apprentice geishas), otoko geisha (male geishas), danna (patrons of a geisha), and okasan (geisha teahouse managers). The lines between geisha and courtesans were sharply drawn, however – a geisha was never to be sexually involved with a customer, though there were exceptions.
The term “water trade” (mizu-shobai 水商売) is the “floating world” which is metaphor for floating, drinking, and impermanence. Sex was like water. Water was “yin” and feminine, and, conversely, a man’s sexual energy was “yang” energy. Sex during the Edo-period Ukiyo life was imbued with poetry, art, and dream-like desire. Longing and secrets, mystery and lust.
Waiting anxiously for you
Unable to sleep, but falling into a doze—
Are those words of love
Floating to my pillow,
Or is this too a dream…?
My eyes open and here is my tear-drenched sleeve.
Perhaps it was a sudden rain.
(Geisha song)
Geisha were not permitted to have sexual relations with the yujo’s customers. The term “Geisha” means “Artist” and the art of Geisha was entertainment— dance, shamisen playing, and flirtatious conversation. The yujo were the sexual artists, great lovers, and ladies of pleasure. They were elegant enchantresses of the pillow.
Within the shoji screened worlds of tea houses, brothels, and the theater, geisha and yujo were not the only women of pleasure. There were varying levels of class and status within their own floating worlds— the Shiro (white) Geisha that entertained and flirted, the Joro (whore) Geisha were the tawdry types, and the Machi (town) Geisha were former dancing girls (odoriko). Lower class prostitutes and amateur whores were illegally working the towns outside of pleasure districts.
Even further into darkness were the unmentioned girls and women that came into the world of prostitution without a choice. Girls sold into brothels, not the beautiful sort of life that the yujo and geisha led. The Yoshiwara district alone was home to about 1,750 women in the 18th century.
Geisha embody the extreme feminine allure in Japan, as opposed to the wife’s position in Japanese society. Geisha are witty and elicit fantasies; they intrigue and delight. The wife at home may appreciate the geisha’s art of entertaining her husband, relieving her of such matters. The wife ruled the domestic household and her husband’s finances, raised children, while the geisha entertained, flirted, and enchanted.
Shunga-e paintings were the erotica of the Edo-period, and the artists that created shunga-e were sometimes the same as those who made the famous Ukiyo-e woodblock prints— famous artists of Edo were also the creators of erotic prints and pornographic fantasies.
Artists of the Erotic Shunga-e were also great artists in general. Such as Katsushika Hokusai, who created Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (富嶽三十六景 Fugaku Sanjūrokkei) and the famous image The Great Wave off Kanagawa (神奈川沖浪裏 Kanagawa Oki Nami Ura).
Hokusai’s erotic art was also made with great talent. Most notably, The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife
(蛸と海女 Tako to ama, Octopus and shell diver).
Making love with you
Is like drinking sea water.
The more I drink
The thirstier I become,
Until nothing can slake my thirst
But to drink the entire sea.
(Marichiko)
(Hokusai ~ Exhausted Lovers)
Romance and courtship in Heian-period Japan, pre-Edo times set in ancient Kyoto (Heian-kyo), painted the landscape for lovers brushing their hearts out in calligraphy into fervent love letters. Poetry was the vehicle of erotic love, longing, passion and desire. Lovemaking etiquette was such that even the ladies of the court and their noblemen were hot for sex and romance, writing poems to pursue, to enchant, and to express their innermost secrets of their hearts.
An excerpt from Lesley Downer’s book, Women of the Pleasure Quarters: The Secret History of Geisha:
“But what made Heian period most extraordinary was the way in which art and the cult of beauty were bound up with love. For more than sexual desire or gut-wrenching passion, love was an art form, an opportunity to put brush to paper, to immortalize the moment in a small literary gem.
Having heard that a certain lady was very beautiful or, even more titillating, had beautiful handwriting, a nobleman would sit down to compose a waka, a thirty-one syllable poem, and brush it, in his finest calligraphy, on delicately hued scented paper. When she received it, the lady would assess the handwriting and color of the paper as well as the wit and appropriateness of the poem before brushing a reply. The nobleman would be waiting with bated breath to see whether her handwriting and poem lived up to expectations.
If the exchange of poems was satisfactory, he would eventually assay a visit. He would creep in at night and immediately, in the pitch darkness, remove his clothes, lift the silken counterpane, lie down on the hard straw mat next to the lady and without further ado consummate the relationship. Slipping away before dawn, he would then brush an eloquent morning-after poem, bewailing the rising of the sun or the crowing of the cock announcing the hour of farewell. The lady in her turn would brush a reply. Thus through poems they communicated their decision as to whether to continue the affair or not.”
Erecting like
The upwards curve of a
Threatening shakuhachi
The shakuhachi is a flute, and ‘shakuhachi curve’ suggests a strong penis. The phallic symbol of the instrument allowed Edo-minded lovers to playfully muse about fellatio. As provocative as blowing a flute was to the lustful minds of Ukiyo era, the flute was used in many woodblocks prints to suggest the oral pleasure. Other slang terms for sex and sexual innuendos were “jade gate” for a woman’s sex and “jade stalk” and “matsutake” (or mushroom) for a man’s penis, and “selling spring” was to suggest selling sex, as the season “Spring” was utilized in poems and the sex trade as a multi-purpose term for sex.
I hold your head tight
Between my thighs and press
Against your mouth and
Float away forever in
An orchid boat
On the River of Heaven.
(Marichiko)
Geisha were not allowed by their very nature to fall in love. Neither were prostitutes. It was the danger of the heart that neither sort could manage. It would mean disaster for their very existence as temptresses. To pretend to love was one thing. To fall in love was another thing entirely. Flirtation and courting was full of sexual desire— the art of seduction was a play, an illusion. So then, what happens when the geisha or the prostitute falls in love?
Historically in such circumstances the geisha and prostitute were ruined, overcome by passion and desire, the longing too great for them to handle while luring and beguiling other men. Suddenly, the art of seduction she used for others is seemingly powerless, as her heart is unable to bear the games she once so artfully played, with her mind lost in reverie for her lover. She becomes overwhelmed by dreams of running away with her beloved. No longer can she play the seductress to the many men that pay her for her attentions. She is consumed by passion and caught in the great tidal pull of life’s mystery: Love.
Love me. At this moment we
Are the happiest
People in the world.
(Marichiko)
And her art and erotic craft is love. Like the saying “live by the sword, die by the sword,” the prostitute and geisha, artists of seduction and flirtation, are the femme fatales, the unattainable feminine, for which men would do anything for, and therefore the power they wield is turned upon them. Longing. Heartache. Waiting.
Night without end. Loneliness.
The wind has driven a maple leaf
Against the shoji. I wait, as in the
old days,
In our secret place, under the
full moon.
The last bell crickets sing.
I found your old love letters,
Full of poems you never published.
Did it matter?
They were only for me.
(Marichiko)
In this world
love has no color—
yet how deeply
my body
is stained by yours.
(Izumi Shikibu)
There are many stories about geisha and prostitutes falling in love with their customers that are married and cannot change their lives or young and impoverished men that cannot rescue them out of their bondage or position. In such cases, the solution was death. Like Romeo and Juliet, the lovers were doomed to tragedy. Kabuki plays such as Love Suicides at Sonezaki re-enacted the true story of a double suicide in 1703 by the great Japanese dramatist Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724) known as the “Shakespeare of Japan.” The story was about a beautiful courtesan Ohatsu that falls in love with handsome Tokubei, who is too poor to buy her out of her position as prostitute. He cannot follow through with his arranged marriage to another, due to his love for Ohatsu. His dowry already granted to him for his arranged marriage is then revoked by his uncle. The story continues and sorrow unfolds as the star-crossed lovers cannot be together.
Black hair
Tangled in a thousand strands
Tangled my hair and
Tangled my tangled memories
Of our long nights of lovemaking.
(Yosano Akiko)
But sometimes, when lovers meet, the erotic desire flames their very souls. Even as a customer pays for sex and affections, whether pretended or not, it enters a realm that is human. It can be a source of inspiration. The nature of sex is union, when two lovers are as one. Regardless of money and position, sex is the essence of life and the mystery of our being alive. If sex and flirtation and the realm of erotic are the prostitute’s trade, then the question is — what does the prostitute do when she herself falls in love? How can she continue being a lover to many men, when she only wants to belong to the one man she loves? Like any other, she feels it ravage her very soul— awakening her, making her feel alive, passionate, and creative. The heart has its own reasons and mysteries. But how can she give her body to other men for money (her livelihood) when her instinct is to be devoted to the one she loves?
Your tongue thrums and moves
Into me, and I become
Hollow and blaze with
Whirling light, like the inside
Of a vast expanding pearl.
(Marichiko)
”To fall in love is to play with fire,” Beautiful Eiko laughed. She had a tumbling mane of silky black hair, porcelain skin, and a mouth that tempted. She had many customers that adored her, dazzled her with gifts and exquisite kimonos. Then she met a man who had nothing but himself to give. He listened to her, understood her. For the first time in her life, she felt alive, inspired by love. But their love affair had to be secret. She was locked within the world of the prostitute’s life. This was unbearable for Eiko. When other men touched her, she felt only her lover’s hands. When other men embraced her, she longed for her lover only. When in the arms of her beloved, he became the only man in her world. She only wanted him, to belong to him, as her love was an all consuming passion, the very fire that awakened her soul and lit her aflame with desire.
No different, really—
a summer moth’s
visible burning
and this body,
transformed by love.
(Izumi Shikibu)
{References used for this article: Downer, Lesley, Women of the Pleasure Quarters: The Secret History of the Geisha, and Dalby, Liza, Geisha}
]]> https://eroticadujour.com/women-of-pleasure-the-floating-world-of-desire/feed/ 0“The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clearing, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in the abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.” ~ Kate Chopin, The Awakening
Aphrodite awakens in us, born from the sea of our soul. She is symbolic of erotic dreams and desires. The ocean, saline, amniotic, the primordial sea, womb of life. We are made of stardust and seashells, and all of the yearning that stretches beyond our bodies. The erotic within us is that yearning, the coming together and ignition of our souls. We are longing to feel that magical passion for life when we seek the erotic, as Eros was spirited away by his love for Psyche.
From Wikipedia:
The story of Eros and Psyche had a longstanding tradition as a folktale of the ancient Greco-Roman world long before it was committed to literature in Apuleius‘ Latin novel, The Golden Ass. This is apparent and an interesting intermingling of character roles. The novel itself is picaresque Roman style, yet Psyche and Aphrodite retain their Greek parts. It is only Eros whose role hails from his part in the Roman pantheon.
The story is told as a digression and structural parallel to the main storyline of Apuleius’ novel. It tells of the struggle for love and trust between Eros and Psyche. Aphrodite is jealous of the beauty of mortal Psyche, as men are leaving her altars barren to worship a mere human woman instead, and so commands her son Eros to cause Psyche to fall in love with the ugliest creature on earth. Eros falls in love with Psyche himself and spirits her away to his home. Their fragile peace is ruined by a visit from Psyche’s jealous sisters, who cause Psyche to betray the trust of her husband. Wounded, Eros leaves his wife, and Psyche wanders the Earth, looking for her lost love.
In Apuleius’s The Golden Ass, Psyche bears Cupid a daughter, Voluptas (“Pleasure, Desire”).
“Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves. So anyone who’s in love gets sad when they think of their lover. It’s like stepping back inside a room you have fond memories of, one you haven’t seen in a long time.” ~ Haruki Murakami
I could say that I’ve been asleep. Dreaming, for how long I’m not sure, perhaps years. My soul has been caught in the tide of reverie and longing. There are layers of my being that I do not reveal that are sediment, deep within. Places within me that I didn’t know existed. Just as grains of sand are eroded rock and shell, thousands of years have created it— our souls have mysteries like that. When the light sparks and the glimmer of something beautiful is discovered, then that is the moment. It is a memory. So I have been going along this current of memory, like the ocean waves, lost in it, not caring where it takes me. I have had many lovers in my life and many erotic experiences. All fragments of my erotic landscape. It’s all there to use as a palette, along with the imagination. Writing about the erotic is really an adventure on the soul level.
“Writing is a process, a journey into memory and the soul.” ~Isabel Allende
You might say I’ve been in the mood for love. I’ve been dormant, sleeping within. But there has been a marvelous phenomenon happening inside of me lately, an awakening of my soul. This awakening has been sparked, like Sleeping Beauty, by a kiss of life, and now I am vibrating with passion. Like any birth, there is blood involved, and pain, and things that I had not known about myself. All this time, I think I have been sleeping. Now it’s all fire and passion and living in every moment. I haven’t had much time to sleep. My mind is restless, and I am hyper-aware, even my flesh is alive with sensitivity. My soul is awake and my heart is full of passionate fire. Awakening.
“Erotica is using a feather; pornography is using the whole chicken.” ~Isabel Allende
I’ve been writing stories, erotic love stories, but in the process of writing, I am learning something new about myself. I make discoveries. It’s like sifting through soil, finding fragile treasures, tiny shells, whorls of prismatic layers and inner pearly chambers. Inside oneself is the treasure. My erotic self is tender within and soft. I am beginning to see the beauty of this process, searching through my memory, finding things that I never realized until the writing revealed it to me. When I say “erotic” what I am attempting to say is “passionate nature” and thus, we are naturally erotic and passionate beings. Passion is about life. And life is about sex and love, and all the complexities of being human. It is our instinct, to love. Longing is the yearning, to discover what lies within.
“Writing is like making love. Don’t worry about the orgasm, just concentrate on the process.” ~Isabel Allende
When I first started writing erotica, I had no idea what path I was choosing. It is easy to say, “Oh, yes, I will write about sex,” as if doing so automatically makes it something delicious to write about. But what ends up happening in the process is an unearthing of one’s psyche and all the contents. It’s a veritable Pandora’s Box. Sex is life. So I’m writing about life. Yes, even creating fiction is writing about life. Creating characters that are part of one’s self, so you really cannot get away with hiding it all. Sooner or later, it all comes to surface. As a painter, I thought of my paints and brushes as my language. Writing poetry and erotica were secondary. I kept it secret like a diary. It revealed too much of myself. Painting, on the other hand, was pure expression, all color and light. I didn’t have to explain my reasons or confess my darknesses and shadows. I just had to apply the paint to the canvas and allow the feeling to come through.
“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” ~Anaïs Nin
I love Anaïs Nin’s “Delta of Venus” and “Little Birds” out of all her writings. I admire her use of dream-like imagery and poetic layering. I like that her characters are imperfect and human. When I read various writers’ works in erotica anthologies, I enjoy some the modern stories, but in general, the lewd and formulaic writing is disappointing. I want to say I enjoy most of it, but, just like anything worth its weight in salt, most of the stuff our there sounds the same. I don’t want to churn out the stories full of “cock” and “pussy” and “cunt” and “thrust” without those words being used in a creative way, adding some juice to them; those names for our body parts that deserve more than being thrown about in between verbs and periods and paragraphs. Reinventing those “fuck words” with new life and energy, charging them with cosmic fuel.
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ~Anaïs Nin
So, in the quest to write erotica, I have begun to discover, I am writing about life, love and human beings. Writing about being human, sexual and flawed, vulnerable, and other aspects. Fantasy, dreams. Romanticism, shadowy recesses and hidden corners of my erotic mind come into the realm of the written word.
I want it messy. I want it raw and real and vibrant. I want romance and longing. Passion. I know it may sound cliche or corny, but I want love. I want to be covered in the musky scent of sex. I want the stories I write to express something about human emotion and how life isn’t perfect. I want to create dreams and pleasure. I want to write about passion and the impermanent and sometimes heartbreaking beauty of life.
(painting by Gajin Fujita)
Henry Miller loved Anaïs Nin. She was married to Hugh Guiler. Her diaries, Vol.1, 1931–1934, were written when Anaïs lived a bohemian life with Henry Miller during her time in Paris. Her husband (Guiler) is not mentioned in her diary at that time. Henry and Anaïs remained lovers and kindled their passion for one another as artists, as writers, in love with each other; in love with life and the creative fire, passion.
Henry Miller to Anaïs Nin on March 4, 1932
“Three minutes after you have gone. No, I can’t restrain it. I tell you what you already know – I love you. It is this I destroyed over and over again. At Dijon I wrote you long passionate letters – if you had remained in Switzerland I would have sent them – but how could I send them to Louveciennes? Anais, I can’t say much now – I am in a fever. I could scarcely talk to you because I was continually on the point of getting up and throwing my arms around you.”
Anaïs Nin to Henry Miller on March 26, 1932
“This is strange, Henry. Before, as soon as I came home from all sorts of places I would sit down and write in my journal. Now I want to write you, talk with you. [...] I love when you say all that happens is good, it is good. I say all that happens is wonderful. For me it is all symphonic, and I am so aroused by living – god, Henry, in you alone I have found the same swelling of enthusiasm, the same quick rising of the blood, the fullness, the fullness … Before, I almost used to think there was something wrong. Everybody else seemed to have the brakes on. [...] I never feel the brakes. I overflow. And when I feel your excitement about life flaring, next to mine, then it makes me dizzy.”
Passionate souls and creative spirits, Anaïs and Henry wrote erotica together with other writers and artist friends, for a dollar per page commissioned by a secretive patron. The patron was a wealthy Oklahoma oil millionaire Roy Milisander Johnson. He commissioned these erotic manuscripts from writers like Anaïs and Henry. But. He wanted the poetry cut out. He just asked for the matter-of-fact details of sex.
Anaïs Nin on writing erotica for the eccentric patron:
“I gather poets around me and we all write beautiful erotica. As we have to suppress poetry, lyrical flight, and are condemned to focus only on sensuality, we have violent explosions of poetry. Writing erotica becomes a road to sainthood rather than to debauchery…We have to cut out the poetry, and are haunted by the marvelous tales we cannot tell. We have sat around, imagined this old man, talked of how much we hate him, because he will not allow us to make a fusion of sexuality with feeling, sensuality and emotion, and lyrical flights which intensify eroticism.”
Anaïs could not continue removing the poetry from the erotic. The wealthy patron became an albatross to her creative juices, and, finding the arrangement intolerable, she and the other writers could not go on writing sex without the poetry of life. She wrote a letter which the patron never received:
“Dear Collector;
We hate you. Sex loses all its its power and magic when it becomes explicit, mechanical, overdone, when it becomes a mechanistic obsession. It becomes a bore. You have taught us more than anyone I know how wrong it is not to mix it with emotion, hunger, desire, lust, whims, caprices, personal ties, deeper relationships, which change its colour, flavour, rhythms, intensities…You are shrinking your world of sensations. You are withering it, starving it, draining its blood…”
And in the art of writing erotica, life is what it’s all about. Life and living passionately, as if every single moment was as precious as our breath. A great big “Yes” when we are lost in pleasure. A “Yes” when we are in the arms of our lover.
“All night I could not sleep, because of the moonlight on my bed, I kept on hearing a voice calling: Out of Nowhere, Nothing answered “yes.” ~ Zi Ye (6th-3rd century B.C.E.) Chinese poet
(painting by Gajin Fujita)
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by Dorianne Laux (b. 1952)
She is about to come.
This time, they are sitting up, joined below the belly,
feet cupped like sleek hands praying
at the base of each other’s spines.
And when something lifts within her
toward a light she’s sure, once again,
she can’t bear, she opens her eyes
and sees his face turned away,
one arm behind him, hand splayed
palm down on the mattress, to brace himself
so he can lever his hips, touch
with the bright tip the innermost spot.
And she finds she can’t bear it—
not his beautiful neck, stretched and corded,
not his hair fallen to one side like beach grass,
not the curved wing of his ear, washed thin
with daylight, deep pink of the inner body—
What she can’t bear is that she can’t see his face,
not that she thinks this exactly— she is rocking
and breathing— it’s more her body’s thought,
opening, as it is, into its own sheer truth.
So that when her hand lifts of its own volition
and slaps him, twice on the chest,
on that pad of muscled flesh just above the nipple,
slaps him twice, fast, like a nursing child
trying to get a mother’s attention,
she’s startled by the sound,
though when he turns his face to hers—
which is what her body wants, his eyes
pulled open, as if she had bitten—
she does reach out and bite him, on the shoulder,
not hard, but with the power infants have
over those who have borne them, tied as they are
to the body, and so, tied to the pleasure,
the exquisite pain of this world.
And when she lifts her face he sees
where she’s gone, knows she can’t speak,
is traveling toward something essential,
toward the core of her need, so he simply
watches, steadily, with an animal calm
as she arches and screams, watches the face that,
if she could see it, she would never let him see.
*
Se Praj (17th century)
Your breasts will not fall.
Why clothe them with flowers?
Your folded arms are a wall,
love inviting me over.
*
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Happy July the 5th… I am creating some new articles for a few publications and for both blogs (Erotica du Jour and The Sensual Foodie) Plus, there have been so many things going on in my private life. My son is in baseball camp as well as ‘all stars’ league, so lots of baseball mom action: making sure he has enough water, food and rest, basically. And doing laundry. Constantly laundry. Then, my two younger girls are, well, young girls. They wake up early and refuse to go to bed (so I can write). But, I have perfected the art of banana pancakes recently, which is no small feat. Yes, I have finally mastered the ‘fluffy pancake secret’. Add bananas to that, and you have very fluffy, delicious banana pancakes. And, I have attempted to go to bed early(er) and get up early(er) although I do hit the snooze button quite often. Despite my snooze button fetish, I have promised myself that I would get into great shape this summer. Yet, waking up early for a walk/run on the beach has happened once this past week. I had hoped to do it every day, but when I don’t get to bed early enough, well, I do need my beauty rest. I weigh out the positives while I hit the snooze button. More sleep (beauty), or more exercise (fitness)? Or, more articles to post (intellectualism)? So, I hope to catch up with creating fresh and interesting articles for my love child Erotica du Jour. In an effort to make this a dynamic and sexy blog, I decided to create two new categories for your pleasure:
It was snowing in Kyoto. I was walking all the way to my Master’s house, carrying my koto close to my chest, facing the falling snow. The tiny snowflakes touched my face like light kisses. It was a pleasant feeling. I hadn’t noticed how cold I was while the little flakes were touching my face. It was a game I was playing with myself while walking, a distraction, to ignore the rest of my body being so cold. My tabi socks were becoming damp with every step, as my geta were not high enough to manage the snowy walk.
Over many years of visits, I became more relaxed while alone with Master Genji. I was becoming older, and had already had my mizu-age. I found that I could choose the men that I found attractive, and create an idea in my mind of what they might be like to make love with. I held their face in my memory, and fantasized about them later when I was alone in my bed. Master Genji was quite handsome. He was a tall man, with a slight build, and a bright, intelligent face. His body exuded a quiet strength, much like a beautiful river. When he was very near, to help me with my koto strings, he had the soft fragrance of tea. There was another, more masculine scent mingled with the scent of tea. It was a compelling scent, to be near him. Master Genji was older than most of my other teachers. However, he was still young looking, at the age of fourty-six.
“Your face, it’s so pink Koyuki-chan,” Master Genji exclaimed. “let me warm you, here, you’ve got snowflakes all over your face.” His large, slender hands brushed the icy flakes from my cheeks, eyebrows, and lips. This was surprising, as I had never felt a man so casually touch my face before. He immediately grabbed me solidly by my shoulders, and hurried me into the center of the house, near the hibachi. The room was deliciously warm, glowing with heat. Master Genji was dressed in his usual attire; an indigo dyed yukata, which complimented his ivory-colored skin. After he brought me close to the hibachi, he went into another room and fetched a different kimono.
It must be his wife’s kimono, I realized.
In his hands were dry tabi, and a cloth. He took my koto, which I found myself clutching still, as I was very chilled. Master Genji brushed my face with the cloth. “Koyuki-chan, I am sorry, forgive me, but the house maids are not here today, and my wife has gone to visit a friend in Nara.” He looked apologetic, and a little embarrassed. He brushed off the snow gently. He sat me down near the blazing hot hibachi, and slowly, began to remove my tabi sock from my left foot. He stopped. He was nervous. His hands were shaking.
“Forgive me, Koyuki-chan, please…” as he cautiously removed my tabi, revealing my bare foot. The heat of his hands on my bare skin felt like nothing I had ever felt before. His smooth palms felt like the softest silk, contrasting with the rough tips of his callused fingers, from constant koto playing. I gasped, from the touch of our skin. His hands pulled away. “Oh, so sorry Koyuki-chan, I only want you to be warm.” He was sweating, damp on his forehead. His face looked like a teenage boy’s, an amazed look of wonderment. “If you don’t want me to remove your tabi, but, you see, they are wet with snow, and…”
“Genji-sensei, I don’t mind. Please,” and I guided his shaking hands back to my bare foot. He caressed my toes with the movement, putting on the dry tabi. My big toe was cozy inside the warm, dry sock, then the other toes followed, encased in the fabric. He finished pulling the sock up to my ankle, as both of his hands lifted, the motion causing his fingers to graze my leg while administering the sock. He then removed my other tabi sock, and replaced it again with a dry tabi.
“I will now have to help you into this kimono, Koyuki-chan,” he stammered. “We cannot allow you to stay in your damp kimono, or you will become ill.” My koto was placed near the sitting area by the fire. I remembered Master Genji’s fine hands helping me place my own fingers upon the strings. He was a caring teacher. All of our lessons were leading to this moment, I felt, and suddenly I realized what the older geisha were discussing about men. This was what they called desire.
“Yes, Genji-sensei,” I answered, allowing him to undress me. He was as hesitant as my first patron, Yujiro. I remembered the sensation of being completely naked in front of a man, as Master Genji removed my obi, and then the many layers of my kimono, unraveling. Not wanting to upset Master Genji, I closed my eyes while he undressed me. I could only hear his breath. His warm hands, barely touched my belly as he unwrapped the layers of fabric. His breath went silent. Only his palm was firm against my body, unmoving. Soon after, he began breathing quickly, as I was waiting for the dry kimono. I simply stood there in the warm room, waiting, naked. His fingers, so skilled with musical instruments, traced my body. I felt his fingers, drawing along my body. I kept my eyes closed. I allowed him to touch me. His fingers, gently, traced along my collarbone, down my arms. He held my wrist, down to my hands. His large hand enveloped mine, slipped away. With his other hand, he lifted my arm, and put the dry kimono sleeve on. Half on, the kimono fabric was hanging with its heavy weight of silk down my bare back. My nipples were hardening. Master Genji traced my breasts, lightly, and touched, drawing a circle around the bud of my left nipple.
His mouth, suddenly.
The heat of his mouth was near my breast. It sent shivers throughout my body, and the tiny hairs along my skin stood on end. He traced my other breast with his fingers. He lifted my other arm into the sleeve. The kimono fabric clothed my back and arms, with my breasts and stomach, legs, exposed, fully bare. Master Genji was quiet again. His breathing stopped. He led my hand to his yukata, and I felt the heat of his arousal. His penis was so stiff, incredibly hard, like a large flute. The indigo fabric he wore was covering his male desire.
We said nothing.
The most surprising thing happened. Master Genji touched the most delicate part of my body. My eyes still closed, I could only feel his fingers, with the slightest pressure, upon my sex. He circled my clitoris with the faintest touch. His free hand delighted along my bare skin. I felt his rhythms, playing my body like an instrument. My mouth flowering apart, I heard from my breast, a sound coming out. It was like sighing. My heart was beating faster, quickening. My clitoris was alive with all sensations, as Master Genji circled it as light as the feathery flutter of a bird’s wings, as sweetly as he touched the strings of his koto. My voice was uncontrollable. His long fingers penetrated me, plunging inside of my wetness, an oyster-like slippery sensation from within my sex. My clitoris was so sensitive, as Master Genji’s fingers deftly played my sexual place. Struck by some intense emotion, he gathered me up into his arms, and brought me into his sleeping area. My eyes opened for a moment. I saw a different Genji. He quickly unrolled his futon mat on the tatami as if it were putting out a fire lit deep in his body. This was no longer the gentle Master Genji I knew as my teacher, but some demon spirit inside of him.
“Spread your legs, Koyuki-chan, please.” He demanded. I was surprised by his urgency and command. Only had I heard such a voice come from him when I hadn’t practiced enough, and made too many clumsy mistakes while playing my koto.
I did as Master Genji asked me to do.
His hands were ready to make me sing, like his koto. He slid two fingers inside of me, while his other hand circled my clitoris again. Every once in awhile, Master Genji’s mouth would wet my clitoris, and it was a great discovery to realize this part of my body. I made deep resonant sounds while his slender fingers curved and bowed into my sex. The pressure and rhythm he used, brought my body closer to the most blissful feeling I have ever experienced. I sighed, my eyes fluttering, unopened. To open my eyes would break the spell. Every limb and part of my body vibrating with pleasure, as I felt wave upon wave of rising wave, wild rippling sensations dancing through me that I had never known before.
It seemed that my body was full of music, nothing but deep and beautiful sounds rising into the air, singing as a bird, calling into the winter sky. Slowly my whole body was but an instrument of love, and Master Genji, with his magical fingers, played me, with hands that knew every sound I could create. Oh, and deep within, at the deepest part of my being, from the center of my softest place, as his fingers delved deeper, touching and tickling, circling, the more my voice cried out with the strange sounds, notes, the song of my pleasure. The unknown within me was revealed, in a shivering ripple, a vibrato of a string, my deepest and highest octaves.
As I found the courage to open my eyes, Master Genji was looking upon me with great tenderness. Something tremendous had begun. I was no longer the young girl that walked into the house of Master Genji. I was, suddenly, on a snowy afternoon, a woman.
]]> https://eroticadujour.com/little-snowrough-draft-of-my-edo-period-erotica/feed/ 3Anais Nin has been a great inspiration to me. I read her diaries, her erotica, Delta of Venus, and Little Birds, during the years that I lived in New Orleans. I feel that Anais is a part of my soul. Without her existence, without her writing erotica, it is possible I would have not attempted to write erotica myself. I was writing poetry, living as an exotic dancer, and as an artist, in New Orleans. My life was infused with sensuality and art. It was natural, then, that Anais spoke to me in a dream, and inspired me to follow in her footsteps.
{This story was written in homage to Anais Nin}
He could not sleep. It was too hot, even in the late evening. There was barely a breeze from the open window of the cottage. The sheets were rough upon his skin, as he shifted his body against the bed. He felt restless after seeing her that day.
He was walking alone, heading towards the beach, as the late afternoon rain showered everything with color. Turquoise water, emerald green leaves, every color, sparkled in the light. Clouds drifted into vapor, becoming a brilliant violet. As he walked along the sand, taking in all sensations, rhythms, colors, he felt as if he were entering a dream, the vibrancy of the setting sun changing the world into a magnificent and indescribable hue. Then, something else in the distance took his eyes off of the sunset. A shape, a woman, against the dark rocks. The sound of waves breaking, the roll and whisper upon the shore, the sound of everything meeting together; heat and water, ocean and sunlight, as his bare feet brought him closer to her.
Her naked skin, drops of rain upon her body, beaded like jewels. He was keenly aware of his breath, inhaling the voluptuous summer air, as his eyes dazzled along her with all of its sparkling light. She was not just a woman; it seemed, but some kind of mythical sea siren. Constellations of water, an entire galaxy before him, the wonder of her flesh as she dozed in the heat, there, washed ashore like Venus, born from the sea foam.
It was this image of this woman that rippled inside him. He soaked in the dampness of the air from the passing tropical rain. Within him, it conjured sadness, an ache. He missed Sabina.
He had been alone this trip, returning to the posada on the remote beach where he had once brought Sabina. It was when they were first lovers. He returned there to remember their happiness, and to soothe himself of their parting. To complete the circle, of eight years together, he decided to return to the place where it began. It wasn’t, at the time, so important to him. He thought impulsively to bring her to this beach, just so that he could be alone with her, without his family, hers, all of the bustling city life and complications in the way. He had barely known her for long. It was just a simple place to be alone.
And then, he loved her. How it entered his heart without him knowing. He loved her with an immense love, and the realization that she was no longer his, pained him deeply. He tried not to remember the sound of her voice a few months ago, when she told him she loved another. Here, on this beach, he would only remember their happiness, their desire.
Getting out of bed, he decided to go for a swim. The thick foliage of cashew and mango trees surrounded the little cottage; their swaying silhouettes cast dark blue shapes in the full moon’s light. The scent of musky fruit hung in the air, as pungent as the memory of Sabina’s body underneath him.
He walked along the path to the ocean. As he reached the shore he quickly stripped off his white linen pants, throwing them down on the sand. Swimming at night without clothes on made his body feel exhilarated, alive. He ran into the surf; the warm, dark water flowed like liquid silver under the light of the brilliant moon. Stars glimmered thousands of eyes, points of light, so far away. Everything was breathing with the luminous moonlight.
His body felt buoyant in the salt water. He noticed the pleasant way his limbs felt pushing and pulling himself through the surf, tingling with an extraordinary sensation of being.
Looking ashore, the silver strip of white beach glowed. It was then that he saw her again, the woman. She was walking toward the water from the path. This time she wore a white dress, the billowing fabric waving loosely around her legs as she walked. It was the sight of her that seemed like a dream, with the moonlight illuminating the white fabric of her dress, her skin, the sand. Watching her, the water lapping to his shoulders, he immediately felt his penis becoming hard. As she came to the place where his pants lay, she stopped to undress, stepping from her clothing and rushing into the water to join him. The motion of the water around his hard penis, watching her swim nearer to him, he surrendered to the pleasure and wonder. She swam closer, smiling at him. He smiled, softly, naturally, and without any words between them, she swam closer still, her body touching his, the slip of her skin brushing against him. She dove into a wave, and he followed, chasing her. Laughing, the woman broke out of a wave and raised her body into shallower water, running farther away.
“Catch me,” she said breathlessly, diving into another swell of water. He chased her, swimming quickly to reach her, wanting her. She dove and raced through the water as swiftly as a dolphin, swimming closer toward the black rocks where he first saw her.
He chased her until his arms finally clasped around her body, in the water, capturing her, her skin against his. She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him nearer, feeling her breasts against him, her belly, and the soft hair of her sex against his thigh. His penis became hard again, brushing against her. She held it in her hand under the water, gently, teasing it with the softness of her touch. It was then that he kissed her, the taste of her mouth succulent, wonderful. She touched him firmly, fingers and hands searching, feeling the shape, delighting in the hardness, as they kissed. She pressed closely to him still, her hands tickling around his cock, grasping it, like some kind of wild sea anemone taking him in.
She pushed her sexual lips warmly, slippery, upon his thigh as the water waved around them. So close, he wanted to thrust himself within her, right there in the ocean. The swell of tide surrounded their bodies, as they held each other in the sea. Their mouths tasted, kissed as they delighted in each other.
Under the moon, she was more beautiful than he remembered from that afternoon. Her face, the curve of her shoulders, traced by the silver light, transfixed him. He was not sure if it was real, but the spell of this beach, it affected one like a drug. No longer was anything real as it was in the city, the harshness, the concrete. Here, it was as if his body felt more alive, almost vibrating, with all of his erotic nerves awakened.
The surf ebbed for a moment, and the softness of the light and sound surrounding them was as though a thousand feathers were falling to the earth, as though, by magic, he was drugged by desire, and had fallen into some other place. She looked into his face and whispered. “I have been waiting for you to swim at night like this. I have been in the cottage next to yours this entire time.” Her mouth was close to his. He could feel her breath warm near his lips. She held onto his shoulders in the water.
“You have been waiting, then,” he said softly.
“Yes.” Her mouth enclosed around his in a delicate kiss. He kissed her firmly then, his arms around her, suddenly dreaming of Sabina. He tried to push aside the thought of Sabina, but it was impossible. The more he thought of her as he kissed this woman, the more he felt his desire. They went to the shore, drifting closer to the shallow water. She pulled him down upon her, and with her hand, she guided him within her. The sudden intensity of sliding inside of her, exquisite, as pulsating, burning rushes of desire coursed through him like sea-tide. The sight and feel of her gleaming wet body, underneath him, sighing, wanting, gave him a delirious pleasure.
She was offering herself to him; he felt the sense that she washed him of all sadness, of loneliness, of the reasons that brought him here to this beach. The warm ocean tide rushed around their feet and legs like the rise and rhythm of their bodies together.
He tasted her kiss, savoring her mouth. He was lost in the world of her, afraid that it was a dream. Yet, it was real; the still tropical air, the heat of this mysterious woman beneath him, the sound of the waves. Her breath against his mouth, her hands, arms, holding to him fiercely, her sex clutching around him, stirring him to push harder, whirling his sensations into a wave a desire. He kissed her feverishly, wanting nothing but their desire as the sound of their sighs and the waves melted into each other.
Laughing as if drunk, they held each other there upon the shore.
“Come,” she said softly, “let’s go and rest.” They rose and walked together, grabbing their clothes, and nakedly, under the bright moon, went toward the cottages. She held his hand and smiled, and both were quiet, no words needed to be said. He felt content just being with her, entranced by her beauty, her gaze.
At his cottage door, he brought her into his room. He wanted to pleasure her more, and so, as she lay upon his bed, he parted her legs, drawing his mouth near to her sex. In the veiled morning light coming from the slatted window, she looked like some kind of Venus, born from the sea foam, open before him, seashell, abalone, pearl-skinned and radiant. Her breasts high and full, the arc of them curving, her belly, round and fertile, pale and luminous. His tongue lightly brushed the little pearl, her clitoris, her sex like an oyster, as the bottom of his lip grazed her sexual lips. Her scent was fragrant, a mixture of warm rain, musk, and the taste of salt from the seawater, with the sweetness of mango fruit. She responded to his tongue, sighing and moving against his mouth. Her sex was like a wide-open flower, the bud of her arousal like the pistil of an orchid.
He felt his arousal again, his cock hardening and full against the cool sheets of the bed, as he lay between her legs, his mouth upon her sex. With her eyes half open and drowsy with pleasure, she gave a soft smile and pulled him upon her. She wanted him within her again, yet, as he knelt before her, she stopped him with her hands.
She wanted to look at him in the amber daylight, whispering, telling him to lie down, to let her look at him, touch him. She smoothed her hands along his body, washing along his strong legs, wide ankles, feet, toes, gliding her hands, everywhere, upward, to his sex, teasing his hardened cock with her hands again, then his belly, his chest, arms. She knelt between his legs, meeting his eyes with hers, taking his sex in her hands, then within her mouth. Her warm tongue lapped along the length of him, taking it entirely within her lips, savoring the shape of him, languidly, sensuously. It was such an exquisite feeling that he could not bear it; the rhythmic sliding of her hands, her mouth.
The feeling came over him hungrily, impatient, wanting to possess this woman, this woman from the sea, with each undulating sensation she gave him. His body was full of fire as if all the heat of the sun were burning through him. It was as if she embodied every woman he had loved. Reaching for her, pulling her upon him, he entered her moist sex ardently, pushing into her with a surge of passion that rose from his longing.
He made love to her this way, bringing himself close to his own pleasure, and staying within her, waiting. It seemed as though hours had passed, nothing but her, shuddering and rising into the waves of her climax, diving into soft kisses, caresses like water, whispers like sea foam.
Soon the sun was strong and beating through the shade of the trees, through the slats of wood from the windows. He had surrendered to the woman from the sea, a Venus without a name, falling asleep in her arms. Not until he fully awoke in the late afternoon did he realize she was gone.
He looked for her in the cottage next to his. Glancing through the open door, he saw that nothing was there but the simple furnishings; no luggage, no sign of her. The day was shadowed by a late afternoon storm. The breezes picked up as the rain began, and he found himself running towards the hotel office, to see if she was still there, to find her. He asked the clerk at the front desk if the woman in the cottage next to his was still checked in.
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