How we cite our quotes: (Section.Paragraph)
Quote #1
But she felt very warm and often stopped to mop her face on which the perspiration gathered in beads. She unfastened her white sacque at the throat. (2.1)
This is a prelude of what's to come. Alcée's not even there yet but Calixta already feels hot and bothered. The gathering storm is making her "fe[el] very warm," and she's already sweating and starting to take her clothes off. Out of context, this passage could be taken pretty sexually.
Quote #2
Alcée clasped her shoulders and looked into her face. The contact of her warm, palpitating body when he had unthinkingly drawn her into his arms, had aroused all the old-time infatuation and desire for her flesh. (2.16)
Calixta's body reminds Alcée of the old days and the way he used to feel while holding her. There are lots of words here we could focus on, but let's go with "unthinkingly." Alcée is not thinking, at least not with his head. The body is totally in charge here.
Quote #3
Oh! she remembered; for in Assumption he had kissed her and kissed and kissed her; until his senses would well nigh fail, and to save her he would resort to a desperate flight. If she was not an immaculate dove in those days, she was still inviolate; a passionate creature whose very defenselessness had made her defense, against which his honor forbade him to prevail. Now – well, now – her lips seemed in a manner free to be tasted, as well as her round, white throat and her whiter breasts. (2.18)
Consider here how all these different languages – of imprisonment and freedom, love and chastity, honor and defense, and purity and violation – are used. In the memory, it's about honor and chastity – the words of courtly love. Calixta is an "inviolate" maiden, and Alcée is "desperate" in his "defense" against her "defenselessness." As that language of honor fades away, it's replaced in the present by much more explicit language about Calixta's body. As her body becomes "free to be tasted," it also becomes free to be described, in terms of her "white throat and her whiter breasts."
Quote #4
She was a revelation in that dim, mysterious chamber; as white as the couch she lay upon. Her firm, elastic flesh that was knowing for the first time its birthright, was like a creamy lily that the sun invites to contribute its breath and perfume to the undying life of the world. (2.19)
While this line is explicitly telling us about the encounter between Calixta and Alcée, it also implicitly sheds light on Calixta's relationship with Bobinôt. It sounds like he's not exactly rocking her world. Think about it – she's been married for several years and has had a kid. It's not like sex is a new experience for her. Yet it's not until she finally has sex with Alcée during the storm that her body "know[s] for the first time its birthright." In other words, her body finally understands the kind of pleasure it can achieve.
Quote #5
"When he touched her breasts they gave themselves up in quivering ecstasy, inviting his lips. Her mouth was a fountain of delight. And when he possessed her, they seemed to swoon together at the very borderland of life's mystery." (2.21)
Calixta's body seems to be taking on a will of its own here, commanding Alcée to caress it. This passage is the most explicit the story gets, but it still cloaks the sexual intercourse behind figurative language. Instead of describing literal action, the narrator hides behind words like "possess[ion]," "swoon[ing]," and the "borderland of life's mystery." There's a euphemism for sex that you don't hear very often.
Quote #6
He was getting on nicely; and though he missed them, he was willing to bear the separation a while longer – realizing that their health and pleasure were the first things to be considered.(4.1)
It's an understatement for Alcée to say that he's "getting on nicely," considering that he just had awesome sex with the woman who got away. He's not just "getting on nicely," he's totally stoked. Still glowing from his recent encounter, he writes to his wife to tell her there's no rush to come home.
Quote #7
. . .the first free breath since her marriage seemed to restore the pleasant liberty of her maiden days. Devoted as she was to her husband, their intimate conjugal life was something which she was more than willing to forego for a while. (5.1)
It's all about reading between the lines here. Clarisse doesn't come right out and say, "I'm over having sex with my husband." She says she's "more than willing to forego" sex, which she cloaks in the idea of being "devoted" to her husband. It's almost like she throws in the devotion part to avoid the real problem – her sexual apathy.