Lovers and mystics are familiar with this sense of grandeur, this taste of joy - in abandoning oneself to the will of others.
Anne DesclosI wrote 'The story of O' alone, for Dominique Aury, to interest him, to please him, to occupy him. I wasn't young, nor particularly pretty. I needed something which might interest a man like him.
Anne DesclosO felt that her mouth was beautiful, since her lover condescended to thrust himself into it . . .
Anne DesclosBy my makeup and temperament I wasn't really prey to physical desires. Everything happened in my head.
Anne DesclosA man in love ... is the master, so it seems, but only if his lady friend permits it! The need to interchange the roles of slave and master for the sake of the relationship is never more clearly demonstrated than in the course of an affair. Never is the complicity between victim and executioner more essential. Even chained, down on her knees, begging for mercy, it is the woman, finally, who is in command ... the all powerful slave, dragging herself along the ground at her master's heels, is now really the god. The man is only her priest, living in fear and trembling of her displeasure.
Anne Desclos