There is a special glee in discovering that a pornographic book has been written by, or is attributed to, a famous person. This pleasure goes beyond that found in tabloid headlines and “inside journalism” TV shows that daily entertain us with stories of the marital infidelities, illegitimate offspring, current bed mates and sexual peculiarities of our favorite celebrities. Gossip, based on the amount of time people spend reading, listening to and engaging in it, must be the world’s favorite pastime, save for sex. Tell-all autobiographies and scandal-stirring biographies are the order of the day the public feels cheated if there isn’t some sort of illicit sex to be confessed.
Uncovering anonymous authorship of erotica is different from all this gossipy type of intrigue. It’s more akin to finding X-rated pictures of current celebrities for example, the Sylvester Stallone skin flick, the porno shots of Barbara Payton with Franchot Tone and Tom Neal, the explicit photos of former Miss America Vanessa Williams, or the sans culotte snaps of Carmen Miranda. Even unsubstantiated reports of celebrities participating in pornography garner interest. People still wonder if Chuck Connors and Marilyn Monroe really did star in stag films nearly forty years ago.
Time was that such secret discoveries were the stuff of scandal, blackmail and social ostracism. Ken Anger’s book, Hollywood Babylon, documented just this in pre-sexual revolution America. Today, however, there is a different attitude. Many authors freely admit that they write sexually explicit material, either by doing so under their real names or by revealing their pseudonyms. One such is Anne Rice, who authored her S/M Beauty trilogy under the name of A.N. Roquelaure. Where authors or their families or estates formerly sued for libel when accused of having penned an erotic piece, they now sue for the royalties instead! The Henry Miller estate was happy to accept payment for allowing his byline to be used on the work Opus Pistorum which authorship Miller denied during his lifetime . And currently, in Europe, the estate of Felix Salten, author of the classic story for children, Bambi, is trying to collect money for editions of Josephine Mutzenbacher, a pornographic novel that has long been attributed to Salten.
Which brings us to this month’s Book Bonus, an excerpt from the novel, Teleny, and its presumed author, the celebrated Oscar Wilde. Since its first publication, in 1893, the book has been attributed to this flamboyant fin de si cle dandy and bon vivant. Famous as he was for his bon mots, novels and plays eg., Salom , The Importance of Being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Gray , he was equally infamous as a convicted sodomite. His imprisonment in 1895 destroyed his health and brilliant career. Notwithstanding all the researches into Wilde’s life and work, it has still not been definitely ascertained whether or not he actually wrote Teleny. The rumor that he did has persisted for nearly a century, however.
Teleny, or The Reverse of the Medal: A Physiological Romance of Today, is a haunting, disturbing novel of male homosexual love and yearning. Set in Paris, the story’s narrator, Camille Des Grieux, the cultured and effete scion of an upper-crust family, falls madly in love with Ren Teleny, a handsome pianist, currently the rage of the town. The story unfolds in the form of a clinical psychosexual history, elicited from Des Grieux by an anonymous, almost phantom, “overnarrator.” Much as a hired psychiatrist would do it, he induces Des Grieux to tell his tale without sparing any of his thoughts, emotions and fantasies that attended and fueled his ill-fated love affair. As the plot unfolds, Des Grieux recalls his early sexual development, his deep love for his mother, his confused distaste for women and his early fumbling and failed heterosexual attempts. He recounts the intense lust that had seized him when he’d first laid eyes on Teleny, and the emotions that had controlled him as he’d voyeuristically spied on the bisexual artist, and that finally had led him in a tragic physical relationship that violated contemporary Victorian morality.
The writing in Teleny is decidedly uneven. Classical, biblical and literary allusions are jumbled together. Parts of the book display delicate and graceful language and imagery. Other parts are strong narrative descriptions of heterosexual activity, while still others empathetically portray the anguish and repressed yearnings of a tortured homosexual whose soul is screaming for release. Finally, there are poignant and turbulent scenes of homosexual sex. Over all else, however, is an air of smothering depression, a florid ennui. Teleny manifests little of the style and language of Oscar Wilde: Why, then, the persistent attribution?
The story of Wilde’s participation in the creation of this novel has been known since 1934, when there appeared a French translation, with an introduction by Charles Hirsch. Hirsch had been a bookseller in London in the 1890s. Among his customers back then was Oscar Wilde, who had the bookseller obtain pornographic novels for him from France. Wilde one day left a bundle with Hirsch, together with instructions that it was to be given to a man who would ask for it and present Wilde’s calling card. After this form of exchange had occurred several times more, Hirsch examined the contents of one of the bundles. He discovered a manuscript, written in several different hands, with many emendations and heavy editing. The story concerned homosexual love among London’s arts set. When the final section of the manuscript had been picked up, Hirsch thought no more of it until its publication in 1893. Hirsch then found that the text had been greatly changed from the version he remembered. The prologue was missing, for one thing, and the characters’ names and backgrounds were altered, as was the locale from London to Paris. Years later, one of the covert publishers of the first edition, Leonard Smithers, confessed to having made the changes in order to avoid scandalizing British readers. The copublisher, H.S. Nichols, reissued the same text in 1906, and it was not until the 1934 French edition, adapted directly from the original manuscript, that the world could read Teleny as the author or authors had fashioned it in the first place.
Hirsch, who had visited Wilde’s house, wrote that several interiors described in Teleny closely matched Wilde’s personal living quarters. Accordingly, we may safely infer that, if Wilde didn’t write any of the novel, at least he played a role, actively or passively, in its production, and he may have acted as the chief editor who tied together and structured the various episodes into a single novel.
Wilde is certainly the character model for Teleny. As was Wilde, Teleny is a narcissistic artist, a flamboyant bisexual, and the object of a confused younger man’s mad desire. The character Des Grieux seems based on Wilde’s lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, who may have written parts of Teleny as a declaration of his affections, or as a psychological catharsis, perhaps at the urging of the likes of Havelock Ellis, the great turn-of-the-century sex psychologist himself accused of writing Suburban Souls, an erotic novel of male masochistic inclination .
Teleny is neither greater nor lesser literature for its author’s true identity. It is a genuine testament to human emotion and homosexuality in Victorian England. Here, then, is the scene in which Des Grieux espies his beloved in the company of a lady and hallucinates about what would happen. C.J. Scheiner, M.D.
“I suffered. My thoughts, night and day, were with him. My brain was always aglow my blood was overheated my body ever shivering with excitement. I daily read all the newspapers to see what they said about him and whenever his name met my eyes, the paper shook in my trembling hands. If anybody mentioned his name, I blushed and then grew pale.
“I remember what a shock of pleasure, not unmingled with jealousy, I felt when for the first time I saw his likeness in a window amongst those of other celebrities. I went and bought it at once, not simply to treasure and dote upon it, but also that other people might not look at it.”
“What! You were so very jealous?”
“Foolishly so. Unseen and at a distance, I used to follow him about after every concert he played.
“Usually he was alone. Once, however, I saw him enter a cab waiting at the back door of the theater. It had seemed to me as if someone else was within the vehicle a woman, if I had not been mistaken. I hailed another cab and followed them. Their carriage stopped at Teleny’s house. I at once bade my Jehu do the same.
“I saw Teleny alight and offer his hand to a lady, thickly veiled, who tripped out of the carriage and darted into the open doorway. The cab then went off.
“I bade my driver wait there the whole night. At dawn, the carriage of the evening before came and stopped. My driver looked up. A few minutes afterwards the door was again opened. The lady hurried out and was handed into her carriage by her lover. I followed her and stopped where she alighted.
“A few days afterwards I knew whom she was.”
“And who was she?”
“She was a lady of an unblemished reputation with whom Teleny had played some duets.
“In the cab that night, my mind was so intently fixed upon Teleny that my inward self seemed to disintegrate itself from my body and to follow like his own shadow the man I loved. I unconsciously threw myself into a kind of trance, and I had a most vivid hallucination, which, strange as it might appear, coincided with all that my friend did and felt.
“For instance, as soon as the door was shut behind them, the lady caught Teleny in her arms and gave him a long kiss. Their entrance would have lasted several seconds more, had Teleny not lost his breath.
“You smile. Yes, I suppose you yourself are aware how easily people lose their breath in kissing, when the lips do not feel that blissful intoxicating lust in all its intensity. She would have given him another kiss, but Teleny whispered to her: ‘Let us go up to my room. There we shall be far safer than here.’
“Soon they were in his apartment.
“She looked timidly around, and seeing herself in that young man’s room alone with him, she blushed ashamedly.
“‘Oh’ Ren ,’ said she. ‘What must you think of me?’
“‘That you love me dearly,’ quoth he. ‘Do you not?’
“‘Yes, indeed. Not wisely, but too well.’
“Thereupon, taking off her wrappers, she clasped her lover in her arms, showering her warm kisses on his head, his eyes, his cheeks and then upon his mouth. That mouth I so longed to kiss!
“With lips pressed together, she remained for some time inhaling his breath, and almost frightened at her boldness she touched his lips with the tip of her tongue. Then, taking courage, soon afterwards she slipped it in his mouth, and then, after a while, she thrust it in and out, as if she were enticing him to try the act of nature by it. She was so convulsed with lust by this kiss that she had to clasp herself to him in order not to fall, for her knees were almost giving way beneath her. At last, taking his right hand, after squeezing it hesitatingly for a moment, she placed it upon her breasts, giving him her nipple to pinch, and, as he did so, the pleasure she felt was so great that she was swooning away for joy.
“‘Oh, Teleny!’ said she. ‘I can’t! I can’t anymore.’
“And she rubbed herself against him, protruding her middle parts against his.”
“And Teleny?”
“Well, jealous as I was, I could not help feeling how different his manner was now from the rapturous way with which he had clung to me that evening, when he had taken the bunch of heliotrope from his buttonhole and had put it in mine.
“He accepted rather than returned her caresses. Anyhow, she seemed pleased, for she thought him shy.
“She was now hanging on him. Her dainty, bejeweled fingers were playing with his curly hair and patting his neck.
“He was squeezing her breasts and lightly fingering her nipples.
“She gazed deep into his eyes, and then sighed.
“‘You do not love me,’ at last she said. ‘I can see it in your eyes. You are not thinking of me, but of somebody else.’
“And it was true. At that moment he was thinking of me fondly, longingly. And then, as he did so, he got more excited, and he caught her in his arms and hugged and kissed her with far more eagerness than he had hitherto done nay, he began to suck her tongue as if it had been mine, and to thrust his own into her mouth.
“After a few moments of rapture, she stopped to take breath. ‘Yes, I am wrong. You love me. I see it now. You do not despise me because I am here, do you?’
“‘Ah! If you could only read in my heart and see how madly I love you, darling!’
“And she looked at him with longing, passionate eyes. ‘Still you think me light, don’t you? I am an adulteress!’
“And thereupon she shuddered and hid her face in her hands.
“He looked at her for a moment pitifully then he took down her hands gently and kissed her.
“‘You do not know how I have tried to resist you, but I could not. I am on fire. I cannot help myself,’ said she, lifting up her head defiantly as if she were facing the whole world. ‘Here I am. Do with me what you like, only tell me that you love no other woman but me. Swear it!’
“‘I swear,’ said he, languidly, ‘that I love no other woman.’
“She did not understand the meaning of his words.
“‘But tell it to me again. Say it often. It is so sweet to hear it repeated,’ said she with passionate eagerness.
“‘I assure you that I have never cared for any woman so much as I do for you.’
“‘Cared?’ said she, disappointed.
“‘Loved, I mean.’
“‘And you can swear it?’
“‘On the cross, if you like,’ added he, smiling.
“‘And you do not think badly of me because I am here? Well, you are the only one for whom I have ever been unfaithful to my husband, though God knows if he be faithful to me. Still, my love does not atone for my sin, does it?’
“Teleny did not give her any answer for an instant. He looked at her with dreamy eyes, then shuddered as if awaking from a trance.
“‘Sin,’ he said, ‘is the only thing worth living for.’
“She looked at him, rather astonished, but then she answered: ‘Well, yes, you are perhaps right. It is so. The fruit of the forbidden tree was pleasant to the sight, to the taste and to the smell.’
“They sat down on a divan. When they were clasped again in each other’s arms, he slipped his hand somewhat timidly and almost unwillingly under her skirt.
“She caught hold of his hand.
“‘No, Ren , I beg of you! Could we not love each other with a platonic love? Is that not enough?’
“‘Is it enough for you?’ said he, almost superciliously.
“She pressed her lips again upon his and almost relinquished her grasp. The hand went stealthily up, but the legs, closely pressed together, prevented it from slipping between them and thus reaching the higher story. It crept slowly up, nevertheless, caressing the thighs through the fine linen underclothing, and thus, by stolen marches, it reached its aim. The hand then slipped between the opening of the drawers and began to feel the soft skin. She tried to stop him.
“‘No, no!’ said she. ‘Please, don’t! You are tickling me!’
“He then took courage and plunged his fingers boldly into the fine curly locks of the fleece that covered all her middle parts.
“She continued to hold her thighs tightly closed together, especially when the naughty fingers began to graze the edge of the moist lips. At that touch, however, her strength gave way. The nerves relaxed and allowed the tip of a finger to worm its way within the slit nay, the tiny berry protruded out to welcome it.
“After a few moments she breathed more strongly. She encircled his breast with her arms, kissed him and then hid her head on his shoulder. ‘Oh, what a rapture I feel!” she cried. ‘What a magnetic fluid you possess to make me feel as I do!’
“He did not give her any answer. Unbuttoning his trousers, he took hold of her dainty little hand, introducing it within the gap. She soon boldly caught hold of his phallus, now stiff and hard, moving lustily by its own inward strength.
“After a few moments of pleasant manipulation, their lips pressed together, he lightly pressed her down on the couch and pulled up her skirt, without for a moment taking his tongue out of her mouth or stopping his tickling of her tingling clitoris, already wet with its own tears. Then he got his legs between her thighs. That her excitement increased could be plainly seen by the shivering of the lips, which parted of themselves to give entrance to the little blind god of love.
“With one thrust he introduced himself within the precincts of love’s temple with another, the rod was halfway in with the third, he reached the very bottom of the den of pleasure. Her flesh was not only firm but she was so tight that he was fairly clasped and sucked by those pulpy lips.
“After a few seconds of this, he began to breathe strongly to pant. The milky fluid that had for days accumulated itself now rushed out in thick jets, coursing into her very womb. She showed her hysteric enjoyment by her screams, her tears, her sighs. Finally, all strength gave way arms and legs stiffened themselves she fell lifeless on the couch.
“He soon recovered his strength and rose. She was then recalled to her senses, but only to melt into a flood of tears.
“A bumper of champagne brought them both, however, to a less gloomy sense of life. A few partridge sandwiches, some lobster patties, a caviar salad with a few more glasses of champagne, together with many marrons glac s and a punch made of maraschino, pineapple juice and whiskey, drunk out of the same goblet, soon dispelled their gloominess.
“‘Why should we not put ourselves at our ease, my dear?’ said he. ‘I’ll set you the example, shall I?’
“‘By all means.’
“Thereupon Teleny took off his white tie, that uncomfortable useless appendage invented to torture mankind, and then his coat and waistcoat, and he remained only in his shirt and trousers.
“‘Now, my dear, allow me to act as your maid.’
“The beautiful woman at first refused, but yielded after some kisses, and, little by little, nothing was left of all her clothing but an almost transparent crepe de chine chemise, dark steel-blue silk stockings, and satin slippers.
“Teleny covered her bare neck and arms with kisses. This little titillation was felt all over her body, and the slit between her legs opened again in such a way that the delicate little clitoris, like a red hawthorn berry, peeped out as if to see what was going on. He held her for a moment crushed against his chest, and his merle as the Italians call it flying out of his cage, he thrust it into the opening ready to receive it. He stretched her out on the panther rug at his feet, without unclasping her.
“All sense of shyness was now overcome. He pulled off his clothes and pressed down with all his strength. She to receive his instrument far deep in her sheath clasped him with her legs so that he could hardly move. He was, therefore, only able to rub himself against her, but that was more than enough, for after a few violent shakes of their buttocks, legs pressed and breasts crushed, the burning liquid which he injected within her body gave her a spasmodic pleasure, and she fell senseless on the pantherskin whilst he rolled off of her and lay motionless by her side.
“Till then, I felt that my image had always been present before his eyes, although he was enjoying this handsome woman, but now the pleasure she had given him had made him quite forget me. I therefore hated him.
“What right had he to love anybody but myself? Did I love a single being in this world as I loved him? Could I feel pleasure with anyone else?
“No, my love was not a maudlin sentimentality. It was the maddening passion that overpowers the body and shatters the brain! If he could love women, why did he then make love to me, obliging me to love him, making me a contemptible being in my own eyes?
“In the paroxysm of my excitement, I writhed. I dug my nails into my flesh I cried out with jealousy and shame.
“This state of things lasted for a few moments, and then I began to wonder what he was doing, and the fit of hallucination came over me again. I saw him awakening from the slumber into which he had fallen when overpowered by enjoyment.
“As he awoke, he looked at her. Now I was able to see her plainly, for I believe that she was only visible to me through his medium.”
“But you fell asleep and dreamt all this whilst you were in the cab, did you not?”
“Oh, no! All happened as I am telling you. I related my whole vision to him some time afterwards, and he acknowledged that everything had occurred exactly as I had seen it.”
“But how could this be?”
“There was, as I told you before, a strong transmission of thoughts between us. This is by no means a remarkable coincidence. You smile and look incredulous. Well, follow the doings of the Psychical Society, and this vision will certainly not astonish you anymore.”
“Well, never mind. Go on.”
“As Teleny awoke, he looked at his mistress lying at his side.
“She was as sound asleep as anyone would be after a banquet, intoxicated by strong drink. It was the heavy sleep of lusty life.
“The breasts as if swollen with milk stood up, and the erect nipples seemed to be asking for those caresses she was so fond of over all her body there was a shivering of insatiable desire.
“Her thighs were bare, and the thick curly hair that covered her middle parts, as black as jet, was sprinkled over with pearly drops of milky dew.
“Such a sight would have awakened an eager, irrepressible desire in Joseph himself, the only chaste Israelite of whom we have ever heard, and yet Teleny, leaning on his elbow, was gazing at her with all the loathsomeness we feel when we look at a kitchen table covered with the offal of the meat, the hashed scraps, the dregs of the wines which have supplied the banquet that has just glutted us.
“I felt again that he did not love her, but me, though she had made him for a few moments forget me.
“She seemed to feel his cold glances upon her, for she shivered and, thinking she was asleep in bed, she tried to cover herself up, and her hand, fumbling for the sheet, pulled up her chemise, only uncovering herself more by that action. She woke as she did so, and caught Teleny’s reproachful glances.
“She looked around, frightened. She tried to cover herself as much as she could and then, entwining one of her arms found the young man’s neck
“‘Do not look at me like that,’ she said. ‘Am I so loathsome to you? Oh! I see it. You despise me.’ And her eyes filled with tears. ‘You are right. Why did I yield? Why did I not resist the love that was torturing me? Alas! It was I who sought you, who made love to you, and now you feel for me nothing but disgust. Tell me, is it so? You love another woman! No! Tell me you don’t!’
“‘I don’t,’ said Teleny, earnestly.
“‘Yes, but swear.’
“‘I have already sworn before, or at least offered to do so. What is the use of swearing if you don’t believe me?’
“Though all lust was gone, Teleny felt a heartfelt pity for that handsome young woman, who, maddened by love for him, had put into jeopardy her whole existence to throw herself into his arms.
“Who is the man that is not flattered by the love he inspires in a high-born, wealthy and handsome young woman who forgets her marriage to enjoy a few moments’ bliss in his arms? But then, why do women love men who care so little for them?
“Teleny did his best to comfort her, to tell her over and over again that he cared for no other woman, to assure her that he would be eternally faithful to her for her sacrifice, but pity is not love, nor is affection the eagerness of desire.
“Nature was more than satisfied her beauty had lost all its attraction. They kissed again and again. He languidly passed his hands all over her body, from the nape of the neck to the deep dent between those round hills that seemed covered with fallen snow, giving her a most delightful sensation as he did so. He caressed her breasts, suckled and bit the tiny protruding nipples, whilst his fingers were often thrust far within the warm flesh hidden under that mass of jet-black hair. She glowed, she breathed, she shivered with pleasure, but Teleny, though performing his work with masterly skill, remained cold at her side.
“‘No, I see that you don’t love me, for it is not possible that you a young man ‘
“She did not finish. Teleny felt the sting of her reproaches but remained passive, for the phallus is not stiffened by taunts.
“She took the lifeless object in her delicate fingers. She rubbed and manipulated it. She even rolled it between her two soft hands. It remained like a piece of dough. She sighed as piteously as Ovid’s mistress must have done on a like occasion. She did like this woman did some hundreds of years before. She bent down and took the tip of that inert piece of flesh between her lips the pulpy lips which looked like a tiny apricot, so round, sappy and luscious. Soon it was all in her mouth, and she sucked it with much evident pleasure. As it went in and out, she tickled the prepuce with her expert tongue.
“The phallus, though somewhat harder, remained limp and nerveless.
“You know, our ignorant forefathers believed in the practice called nouer les aiguillettes that is, rendering the male incapable of performing the pleasant work for which nature has destined him. We, the enlightened generation, have discarded such gross superstitions, and still our ignorant forefathers were sometimes right.”
“What! You do not mean to say that you believe in such tomfoolery?”
“It might be tomfoolery, as you say, but still it is a fact. Hypnotize a person and then you will see if you can get the mastery over him or not.”
“Still, you had not hypnotized Teleny?”
“No, but our natures seemed to be bound to one another by a secret affinity.
“At that moment I felt a secret shame for Teleny Not being able to understand the working of his brain, she seemed to regard him in the light of a young cock that, having crowed lustily once or twice at early dawn, has strained his neck to such a pitch that he can only emit hoarse, feeble, gurgling sounds out of it after that.
“Moreover, I almost felt sorry for that woman, and I thought if I were only in her place, how disappointed I should be. And I sighed, repeating almost audibly: ‘Were I but in her stead.’
“The image which had formed itself within my mind so vividly was all at once reverberated within Ren ‘s brain, and he thought if instead of this lady’s mouth, those lips were my lips. And his phallus at once stiffened and awoke into life. The glands swelled with blood. Not only an erection took place, but it almost ejaculated. The countess for she was a countess was herself surprised at this sudden change, and stopped, for she had now obtained what she wanted.
“Teleny, however, began to fear that if he had his mistress’s face before his eyes, my image might entirely vanish, and that beautiful as she was he would never be able to accomplish his work to the end. So he began by covering her with kisses: then deftly turned her over. She yielded without understanding what was required of her. He bent her pliant body on her knees, so that she presented a most beautiful sight to his view.
“This splendid sight ravished him to such an extent that his hitherto limp tool acquired its full size and stiffness, and in its lusty vigor leapt in such a way that it knocked against his navel. Placing himself between her legs, he tried to introduce the glans within the aperture of her two lips, now thick and swollen by dint of much rubbing.
“Wide apart as her legs were, he first had to open the lips with his fingers on account of the mass of bushy hair that grew all around them, for now the tiny curls had entangled themselves together like tendrils, as if to bar the entrance. Therefore, when he had brushed the hair aside, he pressed his tool in it, but the turgid dry flesh arrested him. The clitoris, thus pressed, danced with delight, so that he took it in his hand and rubbed and shook it softly and gently on the top part of her lips.
“She began to shake and to rub herself with delight. She groaned, she sobbed hysterically, and when he felt himself bathed with delicious tears, he thrust his instrument far within her body, clasping her tightly around the neck. So, after a few bold strokes, he managed to get in the whole of the rod down to the very root of the column, crushing his hair against hers, so far in the utmost recesses of the womb that it gave her a pleasurable pain as it touched the neck of the vagina.
“For about ten minutes which to her felt like an eternity she continued panting, throbbing, gasping, groaning, shrieking, roaring, laughing and crying in the vehemence of her delight.
“‘Oh! Oh! I am feeling it again! In in quick quicker! There! There! Enough! Stop!”
“But he did not listen to her, and he went on plunging and replunging with increasing vigor. Having vainly begged for a truce, she began to move again with renewed life.
“Having her from behind, his whole thoughts were thus concentrated upon me, and the tightness of the orifice in which the penis was sheathed, added to the titillation produced by the lips of the womb, gave him such an overpowering sensation that he redoubled his strength and shoved his instrument with such mighty strokes that the frail woman shook under the repeated thumps. Her knees were almost giving way under the force he displayed. When again, all at once, the floodgates of the seminal ducts were open and he squirted a jet of molten liquid into the innermost recesses of her womb.
“A moment of delirium followed. The contraction of her muscles gripped him and sucked him up eagerly, greedily, and after a short spasmodic convulsion, they both fell senseless side by side, still tightly wedged together.
“And so it ended.”
