The Punishment of Ivy Leavold Quotes

“Who can ever really explain the parameters of lust? Or what sparks arousal? By its very nature, it doesn’t make sense logically or empirically. It’s something that speaks to the deepest parts of our minds and bodies, something that bypasses reason, societal mores, and even our sense of shame.”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“I had wanted all of her just a moment ago, to consume her and to have her consume me in turn, and when we were fucking, sometimes it felt as if it would never be enough, as if I could never fuck hard enough to get as close as I needed.”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“I slowly sunk in, using one hand to gentle and stroke Ivy as I did. I wanted her to know how much I worshipped her. I wanted her to feel every inch of my need for her. I wanted her to come while I was so deep inside of her that she couldn’t tell where she ended and I began.”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“Because, despite everything, I wanted to be his little slut still. If he had ordered me to my knees to suck him off right there on the ballroom floor, I would have.”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“dropped to my knees. My face was level with her belly button, and I touched my forehead against her belly, breathing in and out as something so foreign I couldn’t name it soared inside me, expanded until I thought my chest would crack open with it.”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“I love you, wildcat,” I told her, wishing somehow that she could know how much and how truly I meant that. How I meant it on a cellular level. On a spiritual level.”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“I want to be afraid of you, Julian. I want you to try and break me, and then I want you to catch me and put me back together. We will have plenty of time for things that are slow and tender, but tonight…tonight I need you to discipline me.”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“I was going to see Ivy today and that was all that mattered.”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“You know that you own me, Ivy Leavold. Let me prove it. Let me prove it for the rest of our lives.”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“uncrossing my legs and leaning forward, pinning her with my eyes. “I am indeed a dangerous man. I am in no way safe. But I belong to Ivy Leavold as much as she belongs to me, and I will never, ever let any harm come to her.”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“existed. I would prove my devotion to Ivy by being the kind of man she didn’t think I could be. An honest one. A loving one. But once I had her back, she’d better be prepared.”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“When we were fucking, our world was perfect. When our bodies were joined, everything but our love melted away, refined into gold by the furnace of our desire.”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“I was angry. Yes, I could feel it, such a twin passion to lust, both so fiery, so energetic, both restless, agitating, primal feelings.”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“But as I held her, feeling the swelling of promise in her abdomen, I realized that I did have her. Because I’d allowed her to have all of me. And we would continue on like this every day, each delight better than the last, each high higher than the one that came before it. I had my wildcat and she had me.”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“I pressed my lips against her stomach, and she laced her hands through my hair, holding me there, and I suddenly felt like a penitent knight kneeling before a saint.”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“God, I loved her so much. I loved her so much that the word love seemed ridiculously inadequate for the magnitude of what I felt. I wanted to cut myself open and make her crawl inside of me. I wanted to live and breathe and drink every moment with her, for her, and then die for her a thousand and one times.”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“If you hadn’t left, you would’ve always wondered what would’ve happened if you had. You would have always had one hand on the door, and this way, we both know. We both know that you came back, on your own.”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“False holiness will get you nowhere in life. But living it with those you love, following your heart—that is how you become the self you want to be.”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“You find a man who matches your needs.  A man who will cherish you tenderly, who will respect you in all ways, but will insist that somewhere, somehow, in some part of your life, you totally and wholly capitulate to him.  And you’ve found him.”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“Maybe Molly wasn’t a friend, maybe I would always be jealous of her past with Julian, but she was in my sphere and I didn’t wish her anything but success. And there was something satisfying about seeing another woman wrestle her way into the world of men with nothing but sheer force of will.”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“She was shaking her head vehemently, as if disagreeing. “But I’m asking you to take them.” “Are you? Or do you want me to take them so that you don’t have to choose?”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“I took her chin in my hand and tilted her face to mine. “I think you do. Fear is part of this world, Ivy. So is uncertainty. But those things are only bad if they stifle us and keep us from living our lives the way we need.”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“Do you measure your worth by how you love? Do you measure your humanity by the power you hold over people in love or the power that people hold over you in love? Who is anyone to say this is right or this is natural? Doesn’t the very fact that you want it make it natural to you?”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“Let them think that informality and nicknames let them claim some sort of familiarity with me. They were wrong. But there was something so intimate about hearing my given name from Ivy’s lips. Like she knew me. The real me. The real Julian.”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“I appraised her dispassionately, how her breathing had grown rapid and how she seemed unable to take her eyes off me. She responded to me in the same way Ivy had responded to me the first night I’d met her. Esther’s one of us, I thought. She just doesn’t know it yet.”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“Jules woke you up—all of you—and now you’re trying to go back to sleep. Do you really think that’s the wisest?”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“I suggest you examine your definition of ‘best,’ Ivy. Are you holding your relationship to a true moral rubric or to the moral rubric you think you should have?”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“I wanted to make her better. I wanted to heal her. I also wanted to fuck her ass until she begged for forgiveness. But. Restraint.”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“Ivy wasn’t tame. She was here dressed in the same clothes, wearing the same manners as everybody else, but they no more hid her nature than the bars of a cage hid that of a tiger’s in the zoo. And the same way people were drawn to those tigers stalking agitated circles in their pens, they were drawn to Ivy.”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold

“How fully do you want to live your life? With all parts of yourself awake and feeling? Or with only the parts that some people think are decent? Jules woke you up—all of you—and now you’re trying to go back to sleep. Do you really think that’s the wisest?”
― Sierra Simone, The Punishment of Ivy Leavold