Erotic Passage of the Day

[Ligeia]

Hsi-men Ch'ing already had six wives, yet they were not enough to satisfy his lust. He fornicated with slave girls and wet nurses in the household, and also with prostitutes, relying more and more on aphrodisiacs. Finally, he collapsed and died at the age of thirty-three, having worn himself out from sexual excess.


The Golden Lotus - Wang Shih-cheng

[Bleak&Icy]

"Sonnet XI" by Pablo Neruda (trans. Stephen Tapscott)

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

-- from Cien sonetos de amor

[Ligeia]

Beautiful Matthew. Thank you.

[Bleak&Icy]

From "Six Songs for Chloë" by A. D. Hope

II. The Perfume

... marked males of the silkworm moth have been known to fly upwind seven
miles to a fragrant female of their kind ... the chemical compound with
which a female silkworm moth attracts mates is highly specific; no other
species seem aware of it. In 1959, the Nobel Laureate Adolph Butenandt of
the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Munich succeeded in analysing
it. He found it to be an alcohol with sixteen carbon atoms per molecule ....
-- L. and M. Milne, The Senses of Animals and Men.

O Chloë, have you heard it,
This news I sing to you?
It's true, my lovely bird, it
Is absolutely true!
A biochemist probing
Has caught without a doubt
The Queen of Love disrobing
And found her secret out.

What drives the Bombyx mori
To fly, intrepid male,
Lured by the old, old story
Six miles against the gale?
The formula, my Honey,
Is now in print to prove
What is, and no baloney,
The very stuff of love.

At Munich on the Isar
Those molecules were found
Which everyone agrees are
What makes the world go round;
What draws the male creation
To love, my darling doll,
Turns out, on trituration,
To be an alcohol.

A Nobel Laureatus
Called Adolph Butenandt
Contrived to isolate us
This strong intoxicant.
The boys are celebrating
And singing at the club:
Here's Bottoms up! to mating,
Since Venus keeps a pub!

My angel, 0, my angel,
What is it you suffuse,
What redolent evangel,
What nosegay of good news?
What draws me like a dragnet
And holds and keeps me tight?
What odds! my fragrant magnet,
I shall be drunk tonight!

III. Going to Bed

Chloë, let down that chestnut hair;
Let it flow full; let it fall free;
Loosen that zone, those clasps that bare
Your breasts: then leave the rest to me.

First like a cloud your dress shall float
Over your shoulders and away;
And next the faithless petticoat
Those exquisite, breathing flanks display;

Stockings and drawers I shall peel off
From your lithe legs and lovely thighs,
And think the rustling silks you slough
The foam from which, new-born, you rise.

Thus Love in mime despoils this world:
Fashions, beliefs and customs fall;
In brutal, naked grace unfurled
He shows the root and ground of all.

But when his power has stripped us stark,
These purged and primal selves shall find
A better and a brighter mark
Than those poor ventures of mankind;

For we whose fate is to retrace
The labyrinth and re-wind the clew,
All patterns of the past erase
And find our world begins anew.

Our nature then puts off, my dear,
What parts it from the true divine:
Bare as the gods we must appear
And as those blessed beings shine.

A single, soaring flame shall bound,
Frame and enfold our nakedness;
And with that glory clothed and crowned
Our souls shall want no other dress.

No roof can shelter us, no house
That falls to ruin as fabrics must;
No crumbling temple hear our vows
Or sanction that immortal lust.

Our bed must be the bracken brown
Or the waste dunes beside the sea,
And the wide heaven arching down
Our portion of eternity.

IV. The Quarrel

Chloë, be still!
Not one word more;
The gale is not so shrill
Under my door.

Shriek, then, fury, shriek:
Call me brute and worse!
Where was I this week?
I was writing verse.

Do you doubt me then?
Have you sworn to prove
That I spent it in
Bed making love?

Who then, who, hell-cat?
Only tell me her name.
What, do you dare say that:
Chloë, hush, for shame!

Never think a few
Tears will soften me.
I've a mind to lay you
Across my knee.

What was that, you vixen,
Words I hear you spit?
'You and who else then?"
Let me show you, pet.

See, I've got you, precious,
Skirt folded back
To give that delicious
Bottom one smack.

One more, permit me!--
Then another one
--Hell, girl you bit me
Almost to the bone!

Girls should be made of
Sugar and spice;
Girls should be afraid of
Brutal men and mice.

But not my Chloë; she's
A brimstone wench;
Dragon, cockatrice
Would not make her blench.

Chloë, what is this?
After lightning, rain?
Do you sob and kiss,
Are you mild again?

Do you hate me less?
Do you nod your head?
Yes, Yes, Yes!
Chloë, come to bed!

V. The Lamp

Night and the sea; the firelight glowing;
We sit in silence by the hearth;
I musing, you beside me sewing,
We glean the long day's aftermath.

After the romping surf, the laughter,
The salt and sun, the roaring beach,
These flames glancing on wall and rafter
Are tongues of pentecostal speech.

And while their whispers come and go, I
Turn to watch you in your grace,
My gallant, radiant, reckless Chloë,
Who love and lead me such a chase,

To find it vanished, that incessant
Fulfilment of the urgent Now:
For here, absolved from past and present,
There broods a girl I do not know.

The clear, the gay, the brilliant nature
Matching your body's pride, gives place
To a soft, wavering change of feature:
This grave, remote and troubled face;

A face all women have in common
When, lost within themselves, alone,
They hear the demiourgos summon
And draw their ocean like the moon.

The moon is up; the beaches glisten,
The land grows faceless as the sea;
And you withdraw and, while you listen,
Put on your anonymity.

I hear my pulses, as they travel,
Drop one by one to the abyss;
I feel the skein of life unravel
And ask in dread: who then is this ?

Who is this shade that sits beside me
And on what errand has she come:
To drive me on the dark, or guide me,
To tempt, or bring my spirit home ?

Or is she lost herself, uncertain
And helpless on that timeless track ?
Whichever way, I draw the curtain
And light the lamp that brings us back.

[Bleak&Icy]

Within a few moments the young woman from downstairs appears at the door, and, directed by a hurried gesture from the secretary, walks over to him.

The Divinity Student looks back at Woodwind and his clerks, another flash of burning paper.

"I've been hired."

She inclines her head a little to the left.

"You'll be the new word-finder then."

He has nothing to say. He nods.

She is satisfied and extends her hand.

"Let me show you."

He follows her into the hall and up the stairs to the fourth floor landing. The red walls narrow until he's hunching his shoulders inwards to get past. Her perfume is wafting back in her wake, passing in currents over his face until he feels ready to topple over backwards. Finally they come to a small door in the cul-de-sac, set directly into the center of the wall. She turns to open it for him; he looks intently into her face, her bookish face, which returns his gaze calmly. The doorway is narrow, he has to brush up against her to get into the room, passing through a curtain of her perfume and the serene scrutiny of her sphinxlike gaze. He steps up onto a high scuffed floor, and she smiles as he turns back to her.

"Come on." She walks across the small office with its low ceiling to the back wall, a little window there with asymmetrical panes, shining with dusty light that seems to collect within the membrane of her blouse, making it glow like a paper lantern. She indicates a desk to him.

-- The Divinity Student by Michael Cisco

[Ligeia]

During the brightest days of her unparalleled beauty, most surely I had never loved her. In the strange anomaly of my existence, feelings with me, had never been of the heart, and my passions always were of the mind. Through the gray of the early morning - among the trellised shadows of the forest at noonday - and in the silence of my library at night - she had flitted by my eyes, and I had seen her - not as the living and breathing Berenice, but as the Berenice of a dream; not as a being of the earth, earthy, but as the abstraction of such a being; not as a thing to admire, but to analyze; not as an object of love, but as the theme of the most abstruse although desultory speculation. And now - now I shuddered in her presence, and grew pale at her approach; yet, bitterly lamenting her fallen and desolate condition, I called to mind that she had loved me long, and, in an evil moment, I spoke to her of marriage.

Berenice - Edgar Allan Poe

[Ligeia]

MY dear, my dear, I know
More than another
What makes your heart beat so;
Not even your own mother
Can know it as I know,
Who broke my heart for her
When the wild thought,
That she denies
And has forgot,
Set all her blood astir
And glittered in her eyes.

To a Young Girl - William Butler Yeats

[Odalisque]

A stable girl led Her Majesty’s black horse to the foot of the rostrum. Seemingly without effort, the Empress lifted me, placing me on her saddle bow. An attendant placed her cloak about Her Majesty’s shoulders as she slipped into the saddle with an easy, graceful movement. Then we were cantering, surrounded by splendid cavalry in gleaming armour. Her Majesty’s strong arm encircled my waist. My position on the saddle was not physically comfortable, but it thrilled me to my core. There was nowhere on the face of the earth that I’d rather have been.

“You know, Jane,” Her Majesty said, “back in the days when I was a cavalry commander, this was how I carried off the girl of my choice.”

“Captives, Your Majesty? For enslavement?”

“Only she whom I’d chosen for tumbling that night. No just any captive.”

Clasping her closely as we rode, I drifted into a fantasy in which she was still a young cavalry officer and I her captive. The reality of such a situation can’t have been pleasant for the girls she seized, unless they were unusually submissive, or from unwelcome homes; but it made a delicious dream. Inevitably, this train of thought returned to mind my own cavalry captain, Modesty Clay.

“Your Majesty,” I said diffidently, “may I ask?”

“Ask what you like, Jane.”

“You were a cavalry officer, like Modesty Clay?”

“Very much like her, at one time, except that I was younger than she is – just a couple of years older than you are now. But I did have charge of an independent company of Millicent Martial’s light cavalry. After half a dozen brilliant victories, it was obvious that I was destined for greater things. I mean promotion to general. Nobody would have expected me to become an Empress, back then.”

“Millicent Martial? I live on Millicent Martial Street.”

“I joined her army as an ensign, no older than you are now. Less than ten years later, she made me her commander-in-chief. The rest is history… Here we are!”

Looking up, I saw that we were approaching a large house of white stone, a few miles beyond the town. The architrave above the door rested on half a dozen pillars, a dome rising behind it. Beautiful gardens, with noble trees and graceful fountains, surrounded the buildings. Her Majesty had directed my luggage to be taken to Lady Tracey’s home – and this must be it. After only a little thought, I concluded that the mistress of the impressive structure must be Tracey Tigerfang, a staunch supporter of the Empress during her rise to power.

A stable girl took the horse’s bridle, and we dismounted, Her Majesty more easily and with a great deal more dignity than me. The entrance hall proved more magnificent than the exterior. The floor was of glossy red and grey slabs, above our heads the dome painted with depictions of women long on beauty but short on garments. In between, gleamed oak panelling and a few items of fine furniture – a table and several chairs, all with feet carved to represent those of a fearsome beast. Adorned by a black dress shot with silver, an elegant lady smiled at us, at her side a girl of about my age in riding breeches, whom I took to be her daughter. The Empress embraced them both, kissing first the older on the lips and then the younger on her cheek.

“I see that you brought something back from the decommissioning, Majesty,” said the older woman, “but she doesn’t have the look of a sailor.”

“No more she does, Tracey. She’s a civil servant, but intriguing for all of that.”

“A full audience?”

“Indeed.”

“Perfumed bath?”

“I think not. Perhaps Vicky would care to take her for a game of tennis.”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” the girl said. Then, to me: “Come on! We need to change.”

She led me down a panelled passageway, lit by small high windows, into a predominantly green room furnished with wooden benches and cupboards. Casting an appraising gaze over me, she selected two sets of white clothing, handing one of them to me, before starting to strip. Accepting the tennis things, I placed them on a bench before slipping from my dress.

“What’s your shoe size?” she asked, it was her first remark to me.

“Five,” I replied. “I’m Jane Brewster.”

“Charmed, I’m sure, Jane,” she said, laughing. “I’m Lady Victoria Tigerfang. You’re a civil servant – or so Her Majesty said?”

“Yes – a fiscal inspector.”

“How quaint. We expected her to bring back a sailor. She likes sailors. At all events, you seem to have taken Her Majesty’s fancy.”

“Yes, I do, Victoria. But I’m not sure why.”

“Oh – I think I can see why. I wouldn’t mind a tumble with you myself, if you weren’t marked out for Her Majesty. We all need to tread carefully, even great ladies. Perhaps especially great ladies.”

“Thank you,” I said, choosing to ignore the second half of what she had said, “you look pretty good, yourself. All the same, I don’t know why Her Majesty wants us to play tennis, of all things.”

“Don’t you really? You’re sweet, Jane.”

“It’s not as though I’m good at the game. I’m absolutely certain to disgrace myself.”

“Don’t worry about that, Jane. This particular game is definitely not about winning. All that counts is effort.”

“It’s nice of you to say so, but…”

“I wouldn’t call it nice, Jane, not exactly nice, but what I said is true – really.”

My tennis things, apart from the shoes and socks, were a little too small for me – especially the underwear. Whilst I was able to struggle into the garments, they were very tight for vigorous exercise. With me continuing to hesitate over whether I should ask for a larger size, Victoria led me out to a walled court, where she soon lobbed the first ball. It seemed too late to express my reservations about the clothing. My opponent, clearly an excellent player, hit ball after ball with measured ease. As instructed, I devoted a great deal of effort to the game, but my racquet scarcely made contact with the ball two times out of three. Vicky looked perfectly at ease, whilst I was soon soaked in sweat.

“Splendid!” it was Her Majesty’s voice, perhaps twenty minutes into the game. “I think that will do.”

“Your Majesty,” I responded, wheeling round and curtseying in a single movement. “I’ll just rub myself down, and then I’ll be at your pleasure.”

“You will give me a lot more pleasure, young lady, without the rub down. Come!”

Trotting after the Empress, it occurred to me for the first time that she desired me dripping with sweat. More – my perspiration had been the entire point of the tennis game. This also accounted for the tight clothing – not an accident, but design.

P. F. Jeffery -- Jane


First Entr'acte of the novel in progress

[Ligeia]

Never seek to tell thy love,
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind doth move
Silently, invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart,
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears.
Ah! she did depart!

Soon after she was gone from me,
A traveller came by,
Silently, invisibly:
He took her with a sigh.

Love's Secret - William Blake

[Ligeia]

All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
Are all but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o'er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay
Beside the ruined tower.

The moonshine stealing o'er the scene
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve!

She leant against the armed man,
The statue of the armed knight;
She stood and listened to my lay,
Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!
She loves me best, whene'er I sing
The songs that make her grieve.

I played a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story -
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he wooed
The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined: and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another's love
Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
And she forgave me, that I gazed
Too fondly on her face!

But when I told the cruel scorn
That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,
And that he crossed the mountain-woods,
Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den,
And sometimes from the darksome shade,
And sometimes starting up at once
In green and sunny glade, -

There came and looked him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a Fiend,
This miserable Knight!

And that, unknowing what he did,
He leaped amid a murderous band,
And saved from outrage worse than death
The Lady of the Land;

And how she wept, and clasped his knees;
And how she tended him in vain;
And ever strove to expiate
The scorn that crazed his brain; -

And that she nursed him in a cave;
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest-leaves
A dying man he lay; -

His dying words -but when I reached
That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faltering voice and pausing harp
Disturbed her soul with pity!

All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve;
The music and the doleful tale,
The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued,
Subdued and cherished long!

She wept with pity and delight,
She blushed with love, and virgin shame;
And like the murmur of a dream,
I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heaved -she stepped aside,
As conscious of my look she stepped -
Then suddenly, with timorous eye,
She fled to me and wept.

She half enclosed me with her arms,
She pressed me with a meek embrace;
And bending back her head, looked up,
And gazed upon my face.

'Twas partly love, and partly fear,
And partly 'twas a bashful art,
That I might rather feel, than see,
The swelling of her heart.

I calmed her fears, and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin pride;
And so I won my Genevieve,
My bright and beauteous Bride.

Love - Samuel Taylor Coleridge