Show him what a woman is

Sixth-century Cham sculpture excavated at the site of My Thuat in Vietnam

Photograph: Leonard de Selva/Corbis

Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden over sex. But in the oldest story known to man, sex is the baptism into civilization, and the instrument of civilization is a woman's carnal skill.

See, I'm reading Gilgamesh, the Mitchell translation. It's amazing. At the start, a trapper comes to Gilgamesh, the king, reporting that he's seen a huge, wild man (Enkidu) at the watering hole, one that not only lives in communion with the beasts, but who is also springing his traps and setting animals free. He's terrified of the creature.

This is where it gets really interesting. Instead of sending out a hunting party to kill the creature, as would happen in 99% of stories, Gilgamesh sends one woman after it. Not to kill it, but to transform it. She's a sacred prostitute named Shamhat:


The trapper found Shamhat, Ishtar's priestess,
and they went off into the wilderness.
For three days they walked...
...Early in the morning
on the third day, Enkidu came and knelt down
to drink clear water with the antelope and deer.
They looked in amazement. The man was huge
and beautiful. Deep in Shamat's loins
desire stirred. Her breath quickened
as she stared at this primordial being.
"Look," the trapper said, "there he is.
Now use your love arts. Strip off your robe
and lie here naked, with your legs apart.
Stir up his lust when he approaches,
touch him, excite him, take his breath
with your kisses, show him what a woman is
The animals who knew him in the wilderness
will be bewildered, and will leave him forever."

She stripped off her robe and lay there naked,
with her legs apart, touching herself.
Enkidu saw her and warily approached.
He sniffed the air. He gazed at her body.
He drew close. Shamhat touched him on the thigh,
touched his penis, and put him inside her.
She used her love-arts, she took his breath
with her kisses, held nothing back, and showed him
what a woman is. For seven days
he stayed erect and made love wit her,
until he had had enough. At last
he stood up and walked toward the waterhole
to rejoin his animals. But the gazelles
saw him and scattered, the antelope and deer
bounded away. He tried to catch up,
but his body was exhausted, his life-force was spent,
his knees trembled, he could no longer run
like an animal, as he had before.
He turned back to Shamhat, and as he walked
he knew that his mind had somehow grown larger,
he knew things now that an animal can't know.


Enkidu goes on to become Gilgamesh's best friend, but his extraction from nature is beautiful, erotic and poignant.

Excerpt Monday

Andromeda Chained to a Rock by Paul Gustave Dore, c. 1869
image courtesy of Wikimedia

Once a month I get together with some other authors and post an excerpt. The organizing body for this grand experiment is Excerpt Monday. Check them out for more info., and check out the links at the bottom if you'd like to excerpt surf.

This month's excerpt is from my WIP, an erotic medieval/fantasy romance. This is how it opens. Please let me know if you like the mood and voice--and most importantly, if you'd keep reading. It's sort of an experiment.


***


Cry Surrender by Evie Byrne

Chapter One


They came at night. The whole of the nunnery emptied out in a panic, the sisters flitting about like ghosts in their bedclothes, their wails echoing through the cloisters. The men’s torches tossed red, fanged shadows across the walls, transforming a place of peace into the halls of hell. Yet they had not touched the holy women--not yet. The Angel’s mercenaries only resembled barbarians. They shouted and shoved, but they did not molest.

I knelt among the sisters and prayed that it would remain so, until I heard the clatter of hooves on cobblestones. Breaking off my prayer, I glanced up and saw a demon in black armor, mounted on a black horse, wearing the crest of the Black Angel.

“Most accursed,” hissed the sister by my side. “He is anathema.”

Hearing that, I should have returned to my prayers with twice the fervor, but I could not take my eyes off him, even if were to be damned for it. Lucas de Gris, Angelus Domitor--the Pope’s Conquering Angel, scourge of the Cathar heretics, fallen from grace, but not from power.

The rumors around him had reached even my cloistered ears. They said he was deformed, a monster as ill-favored as he was ruthless. They said he’d been born in Saracen lands and bore the marks of the ungodly. Some even said that he was a Saracen himself, but none knew for certain, for it was also said no living man had ever seen his face.

Had Lucifer himself strolled into the cloisters, I could not be more amazed. My praying hands fell limp in my lap and I stared at him like a simpleton.

A giant he seemed. His armor gleamed in the torchlight, silver chasing flashed across it like lightening against a black sky. Where he was not covered with plate, he was covered was mail. Where there was not mail, there was leather.

I wondered what it would be like to be clothed in gleaming steel and mounted high on a horse fit for a god. Legend was he’d never been wounded in battle, though some said now that he’d lost the Pope’s blessing, his final wounding would come soon enough.

“Tessa! Thank our Blessed Mother you’re here.” My only friend, Agnes, threw herself into my arms and began to weep.

“Shh, my love.” I rocked Agnes and stroked her hair, but kept my eyes on the Angel. Even the golden relics in the church sanctuary could not compare to its polished, perfect smoothness of his armor, its pristine invulnerability. I longed to run my hands over the smooth, molded planes of his cuirass. Would it be hot or cold to the touch?

“He will kill us all,” Agnes sobbed.

“No, never think it.”

Agnes raised her head. Her pretty grey eyes were red and swollen. “You’re not afraid.”

This did not come as a question, but as a statement--and an accusation. Agnes’s face hardened. She knew me too well. “What are you thinking about?”

Freedom.

The Angel had come for a woman. What else would he want? St. Alban’s had no significant treasure, no relics except for a knuckle bone reputing to have belonged to St. Gerome but may have just as well have belonged to his mother, his butcher or his pet pig. Our Psalter wasn’t even jeweled. No, the Angel had come for me. This was how the devil granted wishes.

Glancing around to make sure no one could hear, Agnes whispered, “You can’t be in your wits. Not with these men. Not with him.”

I could not explain the calm certainty that filled me. It felt like the hand of God, though I knew to think so was blasphemy.

“They’ll do unspeakable things to you.” Agnes' voice cracked with misery. She dug her fingers into the soft flesh of my arms. “They’ll cut your throat and leave your body in a ditch.”

A man standing next to the Angel rapped his pike on the cobblestones and shouted for silence. The weeping and praying ceased and all eyes turned to him. In a rough, country accent the man said, “My lord wishes you to know he wishes none of you harm. Who is the Abbess?”

Our Abbess stepped forward, her back rigid. I had never seen her without her habit. She almost looked human.

The man made a slight bow. “Lady, we will leave peacefully this night, and place this in your hand--” He brought forth a purse which he hefted in his palm. “All we ask in return is one convent-raised virgin to be my lord’s companion.”

The Abbess addressed the Angel directly. “You mistake St. Alban’s for a bawdy house, Sir Lucas. I suggest you take yourself to one directly.”

The Angel did not answer, or respond in any way, though his horse danced restlessly under him. The answer came from his man, and it came fast and stinging as a whip. “If you do not cooperate, my lady, you might mistake St. Alban’s for a charnel house.”

An even deeper hush, if possible, fell over the courtyard. No one dared look right or left. I know they all prayed, Not me, oh please not me, dear Lord. But my wicked heart began to beat double time. All I needed was courage--the same fool courage I’d need to plunge off a cliff.

I did not allow myself to think another moment. I leapt to my feet. “Take me.”

Agnes caught me around the legs, dragged me to the ground and pinned my body with her own. But she couldn't hide me any longer.

From beneath her elbow, I watched the Angel knee his horse toward us. He kept a tight hand on his mount--a horse too massive for close quarters, too spirited to pass willingly through throngs of wailing, pleading women. It tossed its great head and worried the bit, snorted clouds of steam and struck sparks off the stones with its steel shod hooves.

I shivered Under Agnes’s warm weight. I shivered because I knew this moment was true and real, as no moment in my life had been true. I’d met my destiny.

In one quick movement, I rolled out from under Agnes. A hoof the size of a trencher landed just in front of my nose. I looked up.

And up.

Up the legs of the horse, its long shanks wrapped with corded muscle, its fine, quivering skin streaked with sweat. Up to the Black Angel’s foot, encased in a pointed boot, a long silver spur at his ankle. Up his silver worked greaves, each delicate filigree and floret etched painfully clear to my eye. Up his armored flanks, past his powerful arms bent at the reins. Up his breast, formed like a god’s and encased in a molded steel cuirass, and finally to his face.

Lord Be Merciful.

A finely wrought mask served as his visor. It was the face of a summer youth rendered in steel, a visage as beautiful as it was cruel.

I sought his eyes behind that mask, but saw only darkness.



***



Other Excerpt Monday participants, for your clickage:


Our brave organizers:

Mel Berthier, Urban Fantasy (PG 13)
and
Bria Quinlan, Rom Com (PG)

Joining us this week:

Kinsey W. Holley, Paranormal (PG)
Caitlynn Lowe, Epic Fantasy (PG)
Dara Soren, Paranormal (PG)

Babette James, Fantasy Romance (PG13)
Christina DeLorenzo, YA (PG 13)
Nika Dixon, Romantic Suspense (PG 13)
Bryn Donovan, Paranormal Romance (PG13)
Kaige, Historic Romance (PG-13)
Julia Knight, Fantasy Romance (PG 13)
Adelle Laudan, Contemporary Romance (PG 13)
Jeannie Lin, Historical Romance (PG13)
RF Long, Paranormal (PG13)
Rebecca Savage, romantic suspense (PG 13)
Crista McHugh, Paranormal Romance (PG 13)
Leigh Royals, Historical Romance (PG 13)

Jax Cassidy, Contemporary Romance (R)
Maya Doyle, Paranormal Romance (R)
Cate Hart, Paranormal (R)
Ali Katz, Historical Erotic Romance (R)
Inez Kelley, Romantic Comedy (R)
Aislinn Kerry, Paranormal Romance (R)
Elise Logan, Fantasy Romance (R)
Cherrie Lynn, Paranormal Romance (R)
Alina Morgan, Urban Fantasy (R)
Vivienne Westlake, Erotic Historical (R)

Stephanie Adkins, Erotic Romance (NC 17)
Evie Byrne, Medieval Paranormal Romance (NC 17)
Kim Knox, Erotic SF Romance (NC17)
Lauren Murphy, Erotic Romance (NC 17)
Kirsten Saell, Erotic Romance (NC 17)

Coming to her again and again

Fresco from the Casa del Centenario, Pompeii

Poem No. 2
Gaius Valerius Catullus (c. 84-54 B.C.)

Sparrow, my Lesbia's pet that she holds
between her breasts and lets flutter
in her hands and on her head, laughing
as he chirps coming to her again
and again. She teases him with her
fingertips, earning stinging pecks to
her delight. I wish I could dampen my
desire for her by playing with you, little
sparrow. I would dream of her naked smell
through your pecks to quench my miseries.

Translation by Ewan Whyte

An object fit for worship

I can't tell you how much I love this image. It's not even an image, it's an object. Many of the images I show here exist in abstraction. Remade into pixels, most images float free of both medium and context. This one, however, is firmly grounded on paper, and in time.

It is a well-loved image. It's spent a lot of time in a wallet, and has been passed around among friends. The left corner is worn off because that's the corner he held with his left hand while jerking off with his right hand.

The image itself is gorgeous. I'm no fan of the bj images where the woman looks like a wide mouthed bass latched onto a scud. This is gentle, almost reverent. That gorgeous cock is disembodied--an object for worship. In fact, the whole image is so simple and solemn it reminds me of a religious icon.


As with the last post, this card came from the Erotic Postcards page at AMEA. Please visit them to see similar images, as well as their other erotic collections.

A particularly honest sort of porn

Porn from the early days of photography (c. 1900) tends to be striking in one of two ways.

It is either wonderfully direct and unpolished:





That is to say, the photographic vocabulary of pornography as we know it has not yet been developed.




Or it is sweetly goofy.

When I see this one, I can't help but hear A Bicycle Built for Two in my head:

All three of these images are from the Erotic Postcards page at AMEA. Please visit them to see similar images, as well as their other erotic collections.

Coco de Mer Redux

All images in this post from the Coco de Mer photo editorial

I've mentioned this photo editorial before, but that was almost a year ago, and but a brief mention. I thought it deserved a re-visit because the images are so striking.

Coco de Mer is an erotic emporium based in London and Los Angeles, but they have a lovely, non-squidgy website of some of the most gorgeous erotic equipment you're likely to ever see. They also offer classes and diverse free web content--such as these pictures, or their own little arty porn flix. I might blog about these later, but go ahead and check them out.

Excerpt Monday: Moving Violations in a Gondola

Welcome to Excerpt Monday, a day when a group of writers share excerpts on their websites. Please scroll down for links to other writers. Check them out! You might find a new favorite.

This month I'm sharing an excerpt from Dante's Inferno, a novella-length historical romance that I released with Samhain last year-- my first published work. It's a silly and sexy 18th-century Venetian romp, a game of mistaken identities played out during the confusion of Carnival.

In this scene the hero, a sea captain named Dante, has spent the entire day searching the streets of Venice for a woman he mistook for a whore in a hasty alley-way encounter the night before. He wants her again, and is prepared to go to any lengths to get her.

In the meanwhile, the lady in question, a widow named Serena, has sworn never to be as reckless as she was the previous night. However, she is haunted by the rough pleasures she experienced in that dark alley, and Dante is very persuasive.

The scene begins when he accosts her and her servant on the street:


*

By the time he found her, the blood pounded in his ears. How he could be so obsessed with a woman in a mask, he did not know. He took a broad stance in her path. When she found her way blocked, she jumped backward, skittish, and her companion stepped forward to shield her. Dante held his hands wide to show them he was harmless and bowed. Like them, he wore the bautta that night, for he reasoned she would recognize him better with it than without.

“My lady, I believe I made your acquaintance last night.” He offered her a self-deprecating smile. “All too briefly, I’m afraid. I have hoped for an opportunity to address you again. My name is—”

She slipped in front of her protector and put a hand up to stop his words. “Please, don’t.” She spoke in a husky whisper that sent shivers down his spine.

He caught her hand and brought it to his mouth. If her man wanted to fight for her, he was more than ready, and he was bigger. “How else can I come to know you better?” he asked.

She cast a quick glance back at her companion, then edged closer to him. “Signore, please, this is not safe.”

“Is that your man?” he asked in a low voice, keeping hold of her hand. “Would you like to be free of him?”

“That is my servant,” she said.

Better and better. No bloodshed to start. “I could not sleep last night because of you, donna molto bella.”

He laid a long kiss on her knuckles, felt her hand jerk then relax. Encouraged, he slipped his thumb into her palm and caressed it as he spoke. “I fear I may have offended you by taking you for something you are not. I wish to make amends.”

“You’ve not offended me,” she whispered, almost too low to be heard. “I must go now.”

Afraid to lose her again, Dante gambled on frankness. It would either frighten her away or reel her in. Keeping hold of her hand, he stood as close to her as he could without touching her, and spoke into her ear. “Last night you came out seeking pleasure, did you not? You didn’t find as much of it as you could with me, and I regret that. If you would spend tonight with me, I will show you pleasure beyond imagining.”

“You think much of your abilities, sir,” she said, trying to reclaim her hand.

This show of coyness amused him, considering her manners the night before. “I am confident in my talents.”

“Tell me, does one need talent to lie with whores?”

Dante could not repress a smile. He rather liked women with claws. “Whores will teach you many things you cannot learn from ladies.”

She weighed his words, then asked in her sultry whisper, “Do you have the French disease?”

“What?” he exclaimed. Her white mask regarded him impassively in the torchlight. The brim of her hat cast a shadow over her eyes so he could not read their expression. Then her mouth, that damned mouth which drove him to this insanity, curled up at the corners, laughing at him. “I do not!”

She spun around and returned to her servant. They engaged in a conversation of urgent whispers that he could not catch. He rocked on his heels while he waited. She returned in a whirl of robes and asked, “How do I know that you are not lying?”

He drew up to his full, indignant height. “I am a gentleman. I would not lie about such a thing.”

“What if you are not a gentleman at all?”

“You didn’t care so much about that last night!” he snapped. She turned her back on him.

“Wait.” Dante leapt forward to block her path. “I apologize. Please, let me show you what a gentleman I am. I will pleasure you and take none for myself. I will not so much as loosen a button of my own clothing. I swear it. It’s the least I can do after being so selfish last night.”

Another long pause, and then the glorious question, “Where would we go?”

“To a gondola,” he answered, grabbing at the first of many fantasies he had already woven involving her. Back she went to the servant, and this time launched into a full blown argument with him. Most likely he was assigned to watch her movements for her keeper. Dante considered offering him something to smooth their way, but before he could, she ended the argument and returned to stand in front of him.

“I’ll give you half an hour.” He had to lean close to hear her. “I won’t remove my mask and neither will you. The gondola must come back to the same launching point. My servant will wait there to make sure I am returned safely.”

“Two hours.”

“One.”

“Done.”

Working hard not to jig, Dante offered her his arm, and the three of them walked with great dignity to the quay at the edge of the piazza. At the water’s edge, he hired a gondola with a cabin. Dante owned a gondola, but like all of his servants, his gondolier was out looking for her. While he assisted his hard won lady into the curtained cabin, her servant spoke with the gondolier and passed him some coin.

As the gondolier poled away from the moorings, Dante paid the man double to ignore whatever her servant had told him. “I don’t care where you go. Just keep your nose to yourself and don’t whistle.”

The only light in the cabin came from a small heating brazier. In that red gloom, he could see her pressed against the seat, tense as a cat. Intense negotiation, he had found, rarely led to romance. Wine often did. He wished he had thought to bring some. “Thank you for joining me,” he began, taking the seat beside her. “What shall I call you?”

“I have no name,” she whispered.

“Why do you speak in whispers? We’re alone.”

“I have no voice.”

“I see.” He rubbed his chin. This night he had made a point of shaving. “Then I will call you Bella, if you do not mind. May I ask who is this man of yours that keeps you so fearful?”

“You don’t want to know. You don’t want to know who I am, lest you recognize me. I don’t want to know who you are and be forced to acknowledge you later. Do you understand?”

“I will respect your wishes.” He understood that there were plenty of powerful men in this city who would not appreciate his tampering with their mistress, but she spoke as if this man was well known and dangerous. Dante wondered who he might be. Already he knew most of the powerful men in the city.
Even with that reassurance, she still pressed herself back in the corner. He wondered what had happened to the wanton adventuress from the night before.

“May I take your hat?” he asked. “Your hood?” As he unfastened the neck of her hood, he felt the fast rise and fall of her breast. “Are you afraid, Bella?”

“No,” she whispered. He did not believe her.

He set the hood aside. With these coverings gone, she became a woman instead of a cipher. A woman with a small, round head balanced on a swan’s neck. A woman with fair hair gathered at her nape, and pointed little ears. In the dim light, he could read her eyes just enough to know how intently she studied him. Their color was difficult to judge. Grey or blue perhaps. Not dark. The mask covered her nose and curved over her cheeks, but unless it hid something unexpected, he suspected she would be beautiful with it off.

Her small white hands fluttered into the air tentatively, as if she were making a decision. Suddenly resolute, she threw aside his hat and pushed off his hood. She stroked either side of his head, then sank her fingers into his hair.

Smiling, he pulled the ribbon at the back of his neck and freed his hair for her, thinking—hoping—that the man who kept her possessed a total of two or three strands combed over his pate.

Her delicate fingers ranged over his mask, his jaw, and then returned to his hair. Islanders who had never seen a European before had touched him in much the same way: innocent, unabashed, curious. She traced his lips with her fingertips. That feather-light touch shot down to his toes. He cupped his hand over hers and kissed her palm.

That familiar, peculiar scent he had noticed the night before was on her hand. It evoked memories of the excitement of leaving port with a clean, newly rigged ship and hold full of stores. A woman’s scent did not usually send his mind in that particular direction. Dante turned her hand over and kissed her knuckles, inhaling deeply. The answer came to him. Linseed oil. Shipboard it was used to waterproof wood and cloth, in mixing varnish and the like, but what would she be doing with it?

He realized that she was staring at him, wondering why he snuffled at her hand. Putting aside the question of linseed oil, he released her hand. He wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her until she forgot whatever fears governed her. The night before she had needed no coaxing whatsoever, but this night, for whatever reason, she was different. So he waited her to come to him.

This confused her. He could see it in the tilt of her head. She leaned closer. Her warm breath drifted across his cheek. Inside, he screamed for her touch, but he did not move. Another endless second passed, and then the smile appeared. His heart leapt to see it. She raised one hand to his cheek and kissed him as she had the night before. Once she decided to move forward, there was nothing modest, or even coy, about her kiss. Its honesty took his breath and set him afire.

Her mouth opened to his and he left off thinking altogether. That is, until their masks knocked together. They both had to remember to hold their heads just so or that would happen. It had not bothered him so much in the alley, but now Dante bridled at the awkwardness of it all.

“Surely we can take these things off now, Bella?”

“Already you question my rules?” Her smile curled against his lips.

“You are a cruel woman, cara mia.” To hold her was to want her, but he had given up that claim for this night. This night was about penance. So he prepared to suffer.

Her stays pushed her breasts into perfect half-circles above the neck of her gown. He kissed the crest of each one while he loosened the ties at her back. Bella sat at the edge of the seat, her breath coming in shallow pants. The stays gave and he peeled down the fine linen of her shift to cup his hand over one warm breast. She softened and leaned into his hand, openly sensual. Dante began to suspect she would not be hard to please.

“Your breasts are beautiful, Bella, like white doves.” Pressing her back against the seat, he first stroked her entire breast using only the tips of his fingers, then caressed deeply with his palms. Like her, her breasts were not large, but they were creamy white, high set, virginal. As he teased their tips to hardness, her breath caught over and over. Taking the weight of first one in his hand, then the other, he dipped his head down and laved the nipples, soothing them in turn, then sucking them deep into his mouth. Under his attentions she made a wonderful noise, very like purring. Running his tongue along the underside of her breast, he reveled in the elemental pleasure of her satin skin against his cheek, her salty taste, the purely female scent rising from her bodice.

They had nothing but time, so he decided to draw out every moment. Leaving one hand on her breast, he began to lay slow kisses along her collarbones, dipping his tongue in the hollow between them. He lingered over her pulse. Only a little of her skin was exposed to his attentions. He did not plan to miss an inch of it. With slow deliberation, he kissed his way up the long line of her throat, sucking, nipping until she moaned.

One of her hands flexed in his hair, the other slid down to the back of his neck. Her breathing had slowed. She was right where he wanted her––very pleased, but not too warm. He nuzzled beneath her chin and behind her ear. Under his hands and mouth, he felt her limbs grow soft and loose. He could do anything with her now. Several appealing options occurred to him, none of which were legal that night.

“Bella, sit in my lap,” he whispered, reluctant to disturb her dream. She quirked one corner of her mouth up as if she knew his plans and conspired with him. He could not help but kiss her for it, kiss her rather more than he intended. Then she slipped her sweet tongue into his mouth and he lost track of all his resolutions.

She slid down the seat to lie on her back and pulled him over her decisively. Madonna Santisimma! He felt a lurch, thought it was the gondola at first, then realized it was his heart, his stomach, his cock. Blind, burning, he crushed her against the seat and pillaged her mouth, while she urged him on flagrantly, parting her legs for him, pressing her hips against his. Without any conscious intention, his hands began to bunch her skirts higher and higher and skimmed up her supple, bare thighs. All his blood screamed for possession, honor be damned.

***

Please visit the Excerpt Monday homepage to learn more about this program, and to see a complete listing of participating authors. I think I have most of this month's links below. The rating refers to entire contents of the website on which the excerpt rests:
Excerpt Monday Hosts:

Mel Berthier, Urban Fantasy (PG 13)
Bria Quinlan, Rom Com (PG)

Participants:

Christina DeLorenzo, YA (PG 13)
Bryn Donovan, Paranormal (PG)
MG Braden, Contemporary Romance (PG 13)
Babette James, Fantasy Romance (PG 13)
Cynthia Justlin, Contemporary Romance (PG 13)
Kaige, Historical Romance (PG 13)
Adelle Laundan, Contemporary Romance (PG 13)
Jeannie Lin, Historical Romance (PG 13)
RF Long, Paranormal (PG 13)
Crista McHugh, Paranormal (PG 13)
Dara Sorensen, Paranormal (PG)

Grace Draven, Fantasy Romance (R)
Cate Hart, YA- Paranormal (R)
Aithne Jarretta, Paranormal (R)

Kim Knox, Erotic- Sci-fi Suspense (R)
Inez Kelley, Contemporary Romantic Comedy (R)
Aislinn Kerry, Paranormal (R)
Cherrie Lynn, Erotic- Contemporary Romance (R)
Alina Morgan, Urban Fantasy (R)

Stephanie Adkins, Erotic- Supsense (NC 17)
Ella Drake, Sci-Fi Romance (NC 17)
Annie Nicholas, Sci-Fi Romance (NC 17)
Kirsten Saell, Erotic – Fantasy (NC 17)