As for M. de Charlus's part in the transaction, I noticed later on that there were for him various kinds of conduction, some of which, by their multiplicity, their scarcely visibile instantaneousness, and above all the absense of contact between the two actors, recalled still more forcibly those flowes that in a garden are fertilised by the pollen of a neighbouring lower which they may never touch. There were in face certain persons whom it was sufficient for him for him to invite to his house, and to hold for an hour or two under the domination of his talk, for his desire, inflamed by some earlier encounter, to be assuaged.
Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, p. 652
This reminds me of a friend of mine (and I think I already shared this story), who shall remain nameless, who was famous/infamous for, as a senior in college, for ending up with freshmen or sophomore women at his room (usually they were the instigators - he was considered quite the catch) on the weekend. He would never have sex with them. Instead, they would usually end up in some state of undress, if not completely undressed, and he would end up sending them home. He wasn't being mean, rather it was a combination of him truly not wanting to take advantage of them - and for him it was enough that they wanted to have sex. Actually having sex was almost beside the point. It sounds like for M. de Charlus that was sometimes more than enough. Although, Proust certainly punctuates that sentence with enough sexually charged words to make it seem more powerful: hold, domination, desire, inflamed. For me, I will testify that at times it was as much a turn-on that another woman actually wanted to have sex with me than the reality of having sex.
Indeed.
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