You lie there,” he said softly, and he shut the door, so that it was dark, quite dark.
With a queer obedience, she lay down on the blanket. Then she felt the soft, groping, helplessly desirous hand touching her body, feeling for her face. The hand stroked her face softly, softly, with infinite soothing and assurance, and at last there was the soft touch of a kiss on her cheek.
She lay quite still, in a sort of sleep, in a sort of dream. Then she quivered as she felt his hand groping softly, yet with queer thwarted clumsiness, among her clothing. Yet the hand knew, too, how to unclothe her where it wanted. He drew down the thin silk sheath, slowly, carefully, right down and over her feet. Then with a quiver of exquisite pleasure he touched the warm soft body, and touched her navel for a moment in a kiss. And he had to come in to her at once, to enter the peace on earth of her soft, quiescent body. It was the moment of pure peace for him, the entry into the body of the woman.
She lay still, in a kind of sleep, always in a kind of sleep. The activity, the orgasm was his, all his; she could strive for herself no more. Even the tightness of his arms round her, even the intense movement of his body, and the springing of his seed in her, was a kind of sleep, from which she did not begin to rouse till he had finished and lay softly panting against her breast.
From “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” by D.H. Lawrence
This passage is considered one of the best descriptions of sex in literature. There is no doubt that it is a terrific piece of writing. Do you remember my first and second posts? I commented on Hemingway’s description of Robert Jordan and Maria’s intimate encounter in a meadow. It is in chapter 13 of the novel “For Whom the Bells Toll.” Here is the scene:
“Then there was the smell of the heather crushed and the roughness of the bent stalks under her head and the sun bright on her closed eyes and all his life he would remember the curve of her throat and her head pushed back into the heather roots and her lips that moved smally and by themselves and the fluttering of the lashes on the eyes tight closed against the sun and against everything, and for her everything was red, orange, gold-red from the sun on the closed eyes, and it all was that color, all of it, the filling, the possessing , the having, all of that color, all in a blindness of that color.
For him it was a dark passage which led to nowhere, then to nowhere, then again to nowhere, once again to nowhere, always and forever to nowhere, heavy on the elbows in the earth to nowhere, dark, never any end to nowhere, hung on all time always to unknowing nowhere, this time and again for always to nowhere, now not to be borne once again always and to nowhere, now beyond all bearing up, up ,up and into nowhere, suddenly, scaldingly, holdingly all nowhere gone and time absolutely still and they were both there, time having stopped and he felt the earth move out and away from under them.”
What do you think about these descriptions? Which one do you like best, Lawrence’s or Hemingway’s? Have you come across a good literary narrative of the sexual act you want to share? Do you think the writer should be blunt like Lawrence or subtle like Hemingway? If you read my posts, you know my preference–Hemingway’s. Let me know what you think. Write to me at louis@louisvillalba.com
I would like to thank Pixabay for providing this picture of a romantic kiss.
P.S.: My last email featured a story entitled “Fate and the Nuclear Era”. If you have yet to subscribe to Our Circle of Friends, please go to www. theclassicwriter.com and join us. As a token of appreciation, you will be able to download “The Silver Teacup,” an exciting collection of short stories.
Warm regards,
Louis
