moist-handed

Updated: May 1, 2025

"The moist-handed Madonna Imperia, a most rare and divine creature," remarks Lazarillo in Middleton's comedy Blurt, Master-Constable, to quote one of many allusions to this point in the Elizabethan drama. The lips are sometimes noted as red and everted, perhaps thick ; Tardieu remarked that the typically erotic woman has thick red lips.

Havelock Ellis - Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 : Erotic Symbolism; The Mechanism of Detumescence; The Psychic State in Pregnancy

But even he, oftener than not, comes moist-handed, and in a ready-tied tie. As if that matters, and yet somehow, it does. Leander wore none, or had he, would have worn it flowing. Then bed, and the routine of its unfolding and coaxing the pillow from beneath the iron clamp. An alarm-clock crashing through the stuff of dreams. Coffee within reach of the range.

Fannie Hurst - Gaslight Sonatas