Anne Rice - Erotic Writings of

Anne Rice is one of the most read authors in America today. Her stories are a rich blending of the visible and rice5.jpg (26495 bytes) perpetual worlds, epics that challenge the reader while entertaining them. Her books are deeply etched with tapestries of history, philosophy, religion, belief, and supernatural forces, bringing us into the lives of characters that push our physical world beyond that which we perceive. They allow us to examine realms that we would normally not investigate in our normal day to day lives. Each time we enter into one of Rice's books, we can be sure to feel a little saddened when we reach the end.

Perhaps more than a little, as we step back into our own realities, after having spent so much time in the invigorating world she creates for us with such vivid and believable characters.

Anne Rice has published works under three names: Her own, and the pen names A.N. Roquelaure, and Anne Rampling. Under her own name she has published two historical novels, five books in the Vampire chronicles series, three books on the lives of the Mayfair Witches, and three other novels, including the latest - Violin.

Rice has also published works of erotica. As Anne Rampling she has published two such books and under the pen name A.N. Roquelaure, she wrote the Beauty series, a trilogy of erotic work.

Anne Rice has published erotica that has the same vividness and level of intensity as her other works.

As Anne Rampling, Rice has published Exit to Eden and Belinda, both erotica, though Belinda has less of a raw erotic tone than does Exit, and is more of a romance involving an older man and a teenage girl.

Under the pen name A.N. Roquelaure, Anne wrote the Beauty series, a trilogy of erotic work:

The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)
Beauty’s Punishment (1984)
Beauty’s Release (1985)

Her reasons for choosing the name A.N. Roquelaure are quite interesting. Rouquelaure was in fact a cloak designed by Count Rouqelaure in the 18^th century, and Anne used it because of it’s meaning – ‘Anne under a cloak’ as well as because it had the right sound for erotica.

"I love being a controversial writer. It's only in a free, open marketplace where people can develop," – Anne Rice

The Beauty trilogy has sparked some controversy when the Collumbus Metropolitan Library (Ohio) pulled the rice10.gif (11055 bytes) books from the shelves. The books were banned by the library after one person complained about them. The library stated that the books were hard core S&M pornography, but when asked to produce the library’s written definition of "pornography," the library’s director, Larry Black, admitted that he did not have one.

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The Columbus Metropolitan Library has admitted that while the books were on the shelves, they were widely circulated and popular, and no previous complaints were received. In an April 28^th, 1996 article in the Columbus Dispatch written by Connie A Higgins, Staff Reporter, Rice was quoted as saying that the removal of the Beauty trilogy from the Columbus Metropolitan Library was "absurd."

Normally Rice is reluctant to discuss her books but in this case that changed. "I feel a moral obligation to say something," she said "The idea of banning pornography is absurd because it's too difficult to define pornography," she said in a telephone interview from her home in New Orleans. "One reason I never defended the trilogy on a social merit is because I don't believe it has to be defended... But I feel I have to go to bat for this," Rice said.

She went on to say that the library's action is censorship and that censorship is dangerous and destructive. Rice said that she's proud to call the Beauty books pornography; That the books are about fantasies filled with satin, silk and perfume. They are for people to enjoy fantasies that thousands and thousands of others share. "I wanted to write them as authentically as I could. The books are framed to make people feel comfortable," Rice said. The books are not crude or grim like ''darker'' pornographic materials, she said: "The books are very elegant and playful. But no one is hurt; everyone goes home happy."

Many people have voiced the opinion that the library has no right to control what others read and that the removal of the books is setting a dangerous precedent.

Rice said she was surprised and pleased with the response from those who objected to the library's decision. "Censorship is foolish. I grew up under censorship where you couldn't get James Joyce's (Ulysses)," she said. ''People will not be hurt with what we read; we can't make that decision for others." Rice said she has been pleased by the positive response from people who have read the Beauty books - mothers and daughters, children who ask her to sign their parents' books and couples who read the books in bed.

(Authors note: a request to receive confirmation from The Columbus Metropolitan Library as to whether the books were still banned was made, but to date no response has been received.)

An excerpt of erotica by Anne Rice

From
"The Vampire Lestat"

...It was thirst that awakened me.

AND I knew at once where I was, and what I was, too. There was no sweet mortal dreams of white wine or the fresh green grass beneath the apple trees in my father's orchard. In the narrow darkness of the stone coffin, I felt of my fangs with my finger and found them dangerously long and keen as little knife blades.
And a mortal was in the tower, and the thought he hadn't reach the door of the outer chamber I could hear his thoughts.
I heard his consternation when he discovered the door to the stairs unlocked. That had never happened before. I heard his fear as he discovered the burnt timbers on the floor call and called out "Master." A servant was what he was, and a somewhat treacherous one at that.
It fascinated me, this soundless hearing of his mind, but something else was disturbing me. it was his scent!
I lifted the stone lid of the sarcophagus and climbed out. The scent was faint but it was almost irresistible. It was the musky smell of the first whore in whose bed I had spent my passion. it was the roasted venison after days and days of starvation in the winter. It was new wine, or fresh apples, or water roaring over a cliff's edge on a hot day when I reached out to gulp it in handfuls.

ONLY it was immeasurably richer than that, this scent, and the appetite that wanted it was infinitely keener and more simple.
I moved through the secret tunnel like a creature swimming through the darkness and, pushing out the stone in the outer chamber, rose to my feet. There stood the mortal, staring at me, his face pale with shock.
An old, withered man he was, and by some indefinable tangle of considerations in his mind, I knew he was a stable master and a coachman. But the hearing of this was maddeningly imprecise.
Then the immediate malice he felt towards me came like the heat of a stove. And there was no misunderstanding that. His eyes raced over my face and form. the hatred boiled, crested. It was he who had procured the fine clothes I wore. he who had tended the unfortunates in the dungeon while they had lived. And why, he demanded in silent outrage, was I not there? This made me love him very much, as you can imagine. I could have crushed him to death in my bare hands for this.

THE Master!" he said desperately. "Where is he? Master!" But what did he think the master was? A sorcerer of some king, that was what he thought. And now I had the power. In sum, he didn't know anything that would be of use to me. But as I comprehended all this, as I drank it up from his mind, quite against his will, I was becoming entranced with the veins in his face and in his hands.
And that smell was intoxicating me. I could feel the dim throbbing of his heart, and then I could taste his blood, just what it would be like, and there came to me some full-blown sense of it, rich and hot as it filled me.
"The master's gone, burning in the fire," I murmured, hearing a strong monotone coming from myself. I moved slowly towards him. He glanced at the blackened ceiling. "No, this is a lie," he said. He was outraged, and his anger pulsed like a light in my eye. I felt the bitterness of his mind and its desperate reasoning.
Ah, but that living flesh could look like this! I was in the grip of a remorseless appetite. And he knew it. In some wild and unreasoning way, he sensed it; and throwing me one last malevolent glance he ran for the stairway.
Immediately I caught him. in fact, I enjoyed catching him, so simple it was. One instant I was willing myself to reach out and close the distance between us. The next I had him helpless in my hands, holding him off the floor so that his feet swung free, straining to kick me.
I held him as easily as a powerful man might hold a child, that was the proportion. His mind was a jumble of frantic thoughts, and he seemed unable to decide upon any course to save himself. But the faint humming of these thoughts was being obliterated be the vision he presented to me.

HIS eyes weren't the portals of his soul anymore. they were gelatinous orbs whose colors tantalized me. and his body was nothing but a writing morsel of hot flesh and blood, that I must have or die without.
It horrified me that this food should be alive, that delicious blood should flow through these struggling arms and fingers, and then it seemed perfect that it should. he was what he was, and I was what I was, and I was going to feast upon them.
I pulled him to my lips, I tore the bulging artery in his neck. the blood hit the roof of my mouth. I gave a little cry as I crushed him against me. it wasn't the burning fluid the master's blood had been, not that lovely elixir I had drunk from the stones of the dungeon. no, that had been light itself made liquid. Rather this was a thousand times more luscious, tasting of the thick human heart that pumped it, the very essence of that hot, almost smoky scent.
I could feel my shoulders rising, my fingers biting deeper into his flesh, and almost a humming sound rising out of me. No vision but that of his tiny gasping soul, but a swoon so powerful that he himself, what he was, had no more part in it.
It was with all my will that, before the final moment, I forced him away. How I wanted to feel his heart stop. How I wanted to feel the beats slow and cease and know I possessed him.

BUT I didn't dare. He slipped heavily from my arms, his limbs sprawling out on the stones, the whites of his eyes showing beneath his half-closed eyelids.
And I found myself unable to turn away from his death, mutely fascinated by it. Not the smallest detail must escape me. I heard his breath give out. I saw the body relax into death without a struggle.
The blood warmed me. I felt it beating in my veins. My face was hot against the palms of my hands, and my vision had grown powerfully sharp. I felt strong beyond all imagining...

Taken from the Book "Lust",
Complied by : Miller & Miller
Published by Chronicle Books
ISBN o-8118-0691-X (hc)