Lovers and mystics are familiar with this sense of grandeur, this taste of joy - in abandoning oneself to the will of others.

Keep me rather in this cage, and feed me sparingly, if you dare. Anything that brings me closer to illness and the edge of death makes me more faithful. It is only when you make me suffer that I feel safe and secure. You should never have agreed to be a god for me if you were afraid to assume the duties of a god, and we know that they are not as tender as all that. You have already seen me cry. Now you must learn to relish my tears.

O felt that her mouth was beautiful, since her lover condescended to thrust himself into it . . .

Finally a woman confesses! Confess what? What women never allowed themselves to confess. What men always criticized on them: they only obey the blood and everything is sex on them, even the spirit.

By my makeup and temperament I wasn't really prey to physical desires. Everything happened in my head.

The fact that he gave her was to him a proof, and ought to be one for her as well that she belonged to him: one can only give what belongs to you.

I think that submissiveness can [be] and is a formidable weapon, which women will use as long as it isn't taken from them.