Anxiety

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 131 of 501 · 20 per page

• From Manhunt (2022)

  Molly chuckled, producing a yellowed plastic dropper from one of her pack’s little zippered pouches. “It ain’t Visine, but it should work. Two in each eye.” Her expression hardened suddenly as Ramona reached for the dropper. She closed her fist around it. “Tell me you weren’t with that thing again.” Ramona laughed, fighting the urge to look around to see who might have overheard. “Fuck, no,” she said easily. “I told you, I just went a little dick-blind for a minute. I haven’t seen it since.” Liar. Stupid cunt. She’ll know. “You’ve got it made in the shade.” Molly pressed the vial into her palm and closed her fingers over it. Those flinty eyes narrowed, the wrinkles at their corners deepening into canyons. “My neck is out for you on this. Don’t fuck it up.” “Whatever.” Ramona jerked her hand away and made a beeline for the door to the stairs. Her mouth was dry. Her heart punched against her ribs. She forced herself to pause there, to control her breathing, though she couldn’t make herself look back. “Thanks, Molly.” “Anytime, kid.” She was sweating by the time she’d climbed the seven flights to Teach’s office, her footsteps echoing stark and cold in the concrete stairwell. As she paused to administer Molly’s eye drops, she kept running over everything the older woman had said to her, the tone of her voice, the look in her eyes. I never should have told her , she thought angrily, pushing her eyelids back and squeezing the first salty drop into her right eye. Never should have gotten drunk, even if I am her favorite. Finishing, she dashed saline solution from her cheeks and finger-combed her bangs into presentability. She’d been waiting for this ever since they left Baltimore. Three years in the Legion clawing her way up from errand girl to first lieutenant under Captain Lara Rodham, who’d been killed and eaten by men in the mess after those trannies tried to bushwhack them up near Haverhill. She could still see the stricken expression on the big one’s face after she’d missed Teach, plugging Annie in the shoulder with a three-foot arrow like she was fucking Robin Hood. The other women had panicked, getting in one another’s way, firing their crossbows—they never used guns outside of a city if they could help it—at nothing. She’d kept it together. She’d almost gotten that big Frankenstein bitch. Opened her cheek up like a box cutter slicing through packing tape. I want a cigarette. She forced herself to take a long, deep breath and let it out as slowly as she could, then stepped through the swinging door and into the seventh-floor hall. Wall-to-wall carpeting the color of overcooked hamburger greeted her. The fluorescents overhead were dark—nothing nonessential came on in Boston until after sunset—but light poured in through the open office doors that lined the hall on either side.

• From An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness (1995)

  Throughout the setting up and running of the clinic I was fortunate to have the support of the chairman of my department. He backed my being director of a medical clinic despite the fact that I was not a physician, and despite the fact that he knew I had manic-depressive illness. Rather than using my illness as a reason to curtail my clinical and teaching responsibilities, he—after being assured that I was receiving good psychiatric care and that the medical director of the clinic knew about my condition—encouraged me to use it to try and develop better treatments and to help change public attitudes. Although he never said, I assume my chairman found out about my illness after my first episode of severe psychotic mania; my ward chief certainly knew, and I imagine that the information quickly drifted upward. In any event, my chairman treated the issue strictly as a medical one. He first broached the subject by coming up to me at a meeting, putting his arm around me, and saying, “I understand you have some problems with your moods. I’m sorry. For God’s sake, just be sure to keep taking your lithium.” Now and again, after that, he would ask me how I was doing and make sure that I was still taking my medication. He was straightforward, supportive, and never suggested for a moment that I stop or curtail my clinical work. My concerns about openly discussing my illness with others, however, were enormous. My first psychotic episode occurred long before I received my license from the California Board of Medical Examiners. During the period of time between starting lithium and passing my written and oral board examinations, I observed many medical students, clinical psychology interns, and residents denied permission to continue their studies because of psychiatric illness. This happens far less often now—indeed, most graduate and medical schools encourage students who become ill to get treatment and, if at all possible, to return to their clinical work—but my early years on the faculty at UCLA were plagued by fears that my illness would be discovered, that I would be reported to one kind of hospital or licensing board or another, and that I would be required to give up my clinical practice and teaching.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  "'It is nothing, only for some time back I have been getting sick of coffee.' "'Sick of coffee? you never said so before.' "'Did I not?' said I, absently. "'Will you have some chocolate, or some tea?' "'Can I not fast for once?' "'Yes, if you are ill—or if you have some great sin to atone for.' "I looked at her and shuddered. Could she be reading my thoughts better than myself? "'A sin?' quoth I, with an astonished look. "'Well, you know even the righteous——' "'And what then?' said I, interrupting her snappishly; but to make up for my supercilious way of speaking, I added in gentler tones: "'I do not feel hungry; still, to please you, I'll have a glass of champagne and a biscuit.' "'Champagne, did you say?' "'Yes.' "'So early in the morning, and on an empty stomach.' "'Well, then I'll have nothing at all,' I answered pettishly. 'I see you are afraid I'm going to turn drunkard.' "My mother said nothing, she only looked at me wistfully for a few minutes, an expression of deep sorrow was seen in her face, then—without adding another word—she rang the bell and ordered the wine to be brought." "But what made her so sad?" "Later on, I understood that she was frightened that I was already getting to be like my father." "And your father—?" "I'll tell you his story another time. "After I had gulped down a glass or two of champagne, I felt revived by the exhilarating wine: our conversation then turned on the concert, and although I longed to ask my mother if she knew anything about Teleny, still I durst not utter the name which was foremost on my lips, nay I had even to restrain myself not to repeat it aloud every now and then. "At last my mother spoke of him herself, commending first his playing and then his beauty. "'What, do you find him good-looking?' I asked abruptly. "'I should think so,' replied she, arching her eyebrows in an astonished way, 'is there anybody who does not? Every woman finds him an Adonis; but then you men differ so much from us in your admiration for your own sex, that you sometimes find insipid those whom we are taken up with. Anyhow, he is sure to succeed as an artist, as all the ladies will be falling in love with him.' "I tried not to wince upon hearing these last words, but do what I could, it was impossible to keep my features quite motionless.

• From Manhunt (2022)

  She wondered idly what it would be like to sit without a constant background hum of will it hold me, will I fit, will it hold me, will I fit . It felt like that on top of Beth, sometimes. Was she hurting her? If not, how long until she did? What if she got fatter and hurt Beth then, lulled into a false sense of security by prior enthusiasm, by the other woman’s hoarsely eager panting under her, by her bright eyes and the hands that kneaded and held her overspilling flesh as though there were not enough of it? She fished a cigarette from the tarnished holder Fran had given her years ago, a yellowing picture of some white lady pasted onto its inner lid, and smoked in silence for a while. Everything is a war , she told herself. At least this is the right side. At least you’re not harvesting a teenager’s eggs to help her have a little The Omen baby. And Beth is safe here. Fran and Robbie are safe. As safe as anyone gets, anymore. On her left, George ran out of the house’s shadow with a sparkling laugh, streaking from the front door with Leda following behind, bleached dreadlocks coiled over one shoulder like a heavy knotted rope. Ramona hated Raymond. She hated it so much she could hardly think straight, so much it made her want to scream. All the bougie seaside shit, the empty storefronts, the sugar shacks and oceanfront spas. And the restaurant. As she paced the full-length window in the living room of the Shaw house she worked a finger through the blood-speckled bandages Piper had wrapped for her that morning to dig at the flaky dead skin and dried blood of one of her self-inflicted cuts. She was sick of her sling, even if Jules said it made her look rakish, whatever the fuck that meant, and she was sick of being fussed over and swabbed with hydrogen peroxide. Maybe she’d feel better if she just cut the arm off. That had been her mom’s sole joke, whenever one of them whined about a nick or scrape. You want me to cut it off? Want me to break the other one? You’ll forget all about it. She glanced out the window toward the shrinking wreckage of Hyannis and started at the sight of Karin’s reflection in the doorway at her back. “Don’t sneak around like that,” she snapped. “You gave me a fucking heart attack.” The tall, thin girl blanched apologetically. “Sorry, major. Just thought you’d want to know Jules handled that situation downtown. The t-girls in the old library.” “You don’t sound too happy about it.”

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  “I’m not interested in reconstruction,” I said, dismissively. “I’ll have the mastectomy and then I’ll go home without expanders. That’s my decision.” Dr. Montoll opened his mouth to speak, but Isaac cut him off. “The patient has made her decision, doctor.” He was staring straight at me when he said it. I pulled my lips tight, in thanks. “If my services aren’t needed, you’ll excuse me,” Dr. Montoll said, before making his exit. I looked at my hands. Dr. Akela sat on the edge of my bed. We spoke for a few minutes about the radiation I’d have to go through after my surgery. Six weeks. I had to admire her bedside manner; she was warm and personal. On her way out she touched Isaac lightly on the back of his arm. Mine. Isaac waited until the door clicked shut before he took a step forward. I braced myself for an influx of questions, but instead he said, “You can get dressed now. Are you free for lunch?” I blinked up at him. “Isn’t that a conflict of interest? Eating lunch with a patient?” He smiled. “Yes, we’d have to go somewhere other than the hospital cafeteria.” I was about to say no, when I heard the lyrics of the song he gave me this morning, playing in my head. Who gave someone a song that said, No need to worry because everybody will die when they had cancer? I liked it. It was the honesty. “All right,” I said. He glanced at his watch. “Meet you in the parking lot in ten?” I nodded. I got dressed and made my way downstairs. “I’m over this way,” he said, once I found him in the parking lot. He’d changed out of his scrubs and was wearing a white shirt and grey pinstriped pants. I followed him to his car, and he opened the door for me. It was too much. I freaked. “I can’t do this,” I said. I backed away from the car. “I’m sorry. I need to get home.” I didn’t look back as I walked toward my car. He probably thought I was losing my mind. There was a good chance I was. Isaac was waiting for me when I got home a few hours later, leaning against his car with his face turned upward. Soak it up, Isaac, I thought. Tomorrow my clouds will be back. For a brief second, I thought about not turning into my driveway and heading up to Canada instead. But I’d been driving around for hours and the needle to my gas tank was pointing to E. I wanted to go home. I walked past him to the front door. We were barely past the foyer when I said, “Why didn’t you ask me why I don’t want reconstruction?” “Because if you want to tell me, you will.” “We’re not friends, Isaac!” “No?” “I don’t have friends. Can’t you see that?”

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  [image file=image14.jpg] He came every night. Sometimes as early as three o’ clock in the afternoon, sometimes as late as nine. It was alarming how quickly a person could acquiesce to something—something like a stranger in your house, sleeping and scooping grounds into your Mr. Coffee. When he started buying groceries and cooking meals it felt permanent. Like I suddenly had a roommate or a family member I never signed up for. But on the nights he came late I found myself anxious, pacing the hallways in three pairs of socks, unable to stay in one room for more than a few seconds before I moved to the next. The worst part was, when he arrived, I immediately retreated to my bedroom to hide. None of the relief I felt at seeing the lights of his car reflected through my windows was allowed to show. It was cold, but it was survival. I wanted to ask him why he was late. Was it surgery? Did they make it? But I didn’t dare. Every morning I woke up to find another of his business cards on the counter. I stopped throwing them away after a few days and let them pile up near the fruit bowl. The fruit bowl that was always filled with fruit, because he bought it and put it there: red and green apples, yellow pears, the occasional fuzzy kiwi. We didn’t speak much. It was a silent relationship, which I was fine with. He fed me and I said thank you, then he went to sleep on my couch. I started to wonder how well I’d be sleeping if he wasn’t guarding the door. If I’d sleep at all. The couch was short—too short for his six-foot frame; it was the smaller of the two that I owned. One day while he was at the hospital I took a break from staring at the fire to push the longer couch in front of the door. I left him a better pillow and a warmer blanket. There was one particular night that he didn’t arrive until almost eleven. I’d given up on him coming altogether, thinking our strange relationship had finally run its course. I was on my way up the stairs when I heard a quiet knock on the door. Just a rap rap rap. It could have been a gust of wind it was so light. But in my hope I heard it. He didn’t look at me when I opened the door. Or wouldn’t. Or couldn’t. He seemed to be finding my pavers particularly interesting, and then the spot just above my left shoulder. He had dark crescents under his eyes, two hollow moons cradling his lashes. It would have been a hard call to decide who looked worse—me in my layers of clothing or Isaac with his droopy shoulders. We both looked beat up.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I shook my head. “You’re a surgeon because you have a fixation on death.” He didn’t say anything, but slightly hesitated as he cut into a zucchini—barely noticeable, but my eyes caught mostly everything. “We all do don’t we? We are consumed with our own mortality. Some people eat right and exercise to preserve their lives, others drink and do drugs daring fate to take theirs, and then there are the floaters—the ones who try to ignore their mortality altogether because they’re afraid of it.” “Which are you?” He set down his knife and looked at me. “I’ve been all three. And now I’m undecided.” Truth. When was the last time I heard such stark truth? I stared at him for a long time as he spooned food onto plates. When he set a plate down in front of me, I said it. It was like a sneeze ejecting from my body without permission, and when it was out I felt mildly embarrassed. “I have breast cancer.” Every part of him stopped moving except his eyes, which dragged slowly to mine. We stayed like that for … one … two … three … four seconds. It was like he was waiting for the punch line. I felt compelled to say something else. A first for me. “I don’t feel anything. Not even fear. Can you tell me what to feel, Isaac?” His throat spasmed, then he licked his lips. “It’s emotional Morphine,” he said finally. “Just go with it.” And that was it. That’s all we said for that night. [image file=image16.jpg] Isaac drove me to the hospital the next day. It was only my third time leaving the house and the thought of going back there made me sick to my stomach. I couldn’t eat the eggs or drink the coffee he put in front of me. He didn’t push me to eat like most people would, or give me the concerned eyes that most people would. It was all matter of fact; if you don’t want to eat—don’t. The moment you are diagnosed with cancer a gavel comes down on life, you start being afraid. And since I was already afraid, it felt compounded; fear pressing against fear. And just like that you inherit a cancer gremlin. I imagined it looked mutated, like my genes. It was sinister. Lurking. It kept you awake at night, gnawing on your insides, turning your mind into a distillery of fear. Fear trumps good sense. I wasn’t ready to go back to the hospital; it was the last place I was really afraid, but I had to because cancer was eating at my body.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I look out the window as I peel potatoes over the sink. And then I look down at the peelings, all piled up and gross looking. We should eat those. We will probably be starving soon, wishing we had a sliver of potato skin. I scoop up shreds and hold them in my palm, not sure what to do with them. I counted the potatoes before I chose four of the smallest ones out of the fifty-pound bag. Seventy potatoes. How long could we stretch that? And the flour, and rice and oatmeal? It seemed like a lot, but we had no idea how long we’d be imprisoned here. Imprisoned. Here. I eat the skins. At least they won’t go to waste that way. God. I am grimacing and gagging on my potato skin when I drop the potato I’m holding into the sink and press the heel of my hand to my forehead. I have to focus. Stay positive. I can’t let myself sink into that dark place. My therapist tried to teach me techniques to cope with emotional overload. Why hadn’t I listened? I remember something about a garden … walking through it and touching flowers. Was that what she’d said? I try to picture the garden now, but all I see are the shadows that the trees make and the possibility that someone is hiding behind a hedge. I am so fucked up. “Need help?” I look over my shoulder and see Isaac. I’d sent him upstairs to take a nap. He looks rested. Surgeons are used to the lack of sleep. He’s taken a shower and his hair is still wet. “Sure.” I point to the remaining potato and he picks up a knife. “Feels like old times,” I half smile. “Except I’m not catatonic and you don’t have that perpetually worried look on your face.” “Don’t I? This situation is kind of dire.” I put my knife down. “No, actually. You look calm. Why is that?” “Acceptance. Embrace the suck.” “Really?” I feel his smile. Across the two feet of air between us and a sink speckled with new potato skins. For a minute my chest constricts, then the peeling is done and he moves away, taking his soap smell with him. I have a need to know where a person is in a room at all times. I hear him in the fridge, he crosses the room, sits down at the table. By the noises he’s making I can tell that he has two glasses and a bottle of something. I wash my hands and turn away from the sink. He is sitting at the table with a bottle of whiskey in his hands. My mouth drops open. “Where did you find that?” He grins. “Back of the pantry behind a container of croutons.” “I hate croutons.” He nods like I’ve said something profound.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  Isaac pushes the box closer to where I’m sitting so that I’m able to reach inside. The pages are all pulled from their binding, lined in four rows. I lift another page. The style lines up with the first book, lyrical with an old-fashioned feel to the prose. There is something strange about the writing, something I know I should remember, and cannot. I start pulling out pages at random. Separating the pages of Nick’s book from the new one. I work quickly, my fingers lifting and piling, lifting and piling. Isaac watches me from where he leans against the wall, his arms folded, lips pursed. I know that underneath his lips his two front teeth slightly overlap. I don’t know why I have this thought, at this time, but as I sort pages my thoughts are on Isaac’s two front teeth. I am about halfway through the box when I realize that there is a third book. This one is mine. My fingers linger over the bright white pages—white because I told the publisher if they printed on cream I would sue them for breach of contract. Three books. One written for MV, one written for Nick … but the third…? My eyes reach over to the unknown pile. Who belongs to that book? And what is the zookeeper trying to tell me? Isaac pushes himself off the wall and steps toward the pile that belongs to Nick. “We have to finish reading this one,” he says. My face drains of blood and I can feel a tingling along the tops of my shoulders as they tighten. I hand him the pile. “It’s out of order and the pages aren’t numbered. Good luck.” Our fingers touch. Gooseflesh rises on my arms and I look away quickly. [image file=image35.jpg] We work to set the books in order. Through the longest night, the night that never ends. It’s good to have something to do, to keep you from waltzing down crazy street—not that we haven’t already been there. It’s a street you only want to visit a couple times in your life. We have power again … heat. So we take advantage by not sleeping, our fingers flying over pages, our brows creased with the strain. Isaac has Nick’s book. I take on the task of the other two—mine and…? It seems that there are too many pages to make up only three books. I wonder if we will discover a fourth.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  He has left; I am in a state of the most violent agitation; I shall not describe the night I passed: my tormented imagination together with the physical hurt done me by the monster's initial cruelties made it one of the most dreadful I had ever gone through. One has no conception of what anguish is suffered by the wretch who from hour to hour awaits his ordeal, from whom hope has fled, and who knows not whether this breath he draws may not be his last. Uncertain of the torture, he pictures it in a thousand forms, one more frightful than the other; the least noise he hears may be that of his approaching assassins; the blood freezes in his veins, his heart grows faint, and the blade which is to put a period to his days is less cruel than those terrible instants swollen with the menace of death. In all likelihood the Count began by revenging himself upon his wife: you will be as convinced of it as I by the event which saved me. For thirty-six hours I lingered in the critical condition I have just described; during that time I was brought no relief; and then my door was opened and the Count appeared: he was alone, fury glittered in his eyes. "You must be fully cognizant of the death you are going to undergo: this perverse blood has got to be made to seep out of you: you will be bled three times a day, I want to see how long you can survive the treatment. 'Tis an experiment I have been all afire to make, you know; my thanks to you for furnishing me the means." And, for the time being occupying himself with no passion but his vengeance, the monster made me stretch forth an arm, pricked it and stopped the wound after he had drawn two bowls of blood. He had scarcely finished when cries were heard. "Oh, my Lord, my Lord !" exclaimed one of the servants who came running up to him, "come as quick as ever you can, Madame is dying, she wishes to speak to you before she gives up her soul." And the old woman turned and flew back to her mistress. However habituated one may be to crime, it is rarely that news of its accomplishment does not strike terror into him who has committed it; this fear avenges Virtue: Virtue resumes possession of its rights: Gernande goes out in alarm, he forgets to secure the dungeon's doors; although enfeebled by a forty hours' fast and the blood I have lost, I exploit my opportunity, leap from my cell, find my way unimpeded, traverse the court, the park, and reach the forest without having been perceived.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  “He can refuel it,” I say. “I think that as long as we stay put, he will refill the generator. If we figure out the code and get out, we will lose power and freeze.” He thinks long and hard about this. It sounds right. To me, at least. “Why?” asks Isaac. “Why would you think that?” “It’s in the Bible,” I say, and then automatically flinch. “You’re going to have to break this one down for me, Senna,” he says, frowning. His voice is terse. He’s losing patience with me, which isn’t really fair since we are both sinking in the same ship. “Have you seen the picture hanging next to the door?” He nods. Of course. How could he miss it? There are seven prints hanging on the walls of this house. When you spend six weeks locked up somewhere, you spend a lot of time examining the art on the walls. “It’s a painting by F. Cayley. It’s supposed to be of Adam and Eve when they find out they have to leave Eden.” He shakes his head. “I thought it was just of two very depressed people on the beach.” I smile. “We are like the first two people,” I say. “Adam and Eve?” He’s already so full of disbelief I don’t even want to tell him the rest. I shrug. “Sure.” “Go on,” he says. “God put them in the garden and told them not to eat the forbidden fruit, remember?” Now it’s Isaac’s turn to shrug. “Yeah, I guess. Sunday school one-o- one.” “Once they were tempted and ate the fruit they were on their own, exiled from God’s provision and his protection in the place he created for them.” When Isaac doesn’t say anything, I go on. “They leave perfection and have to fend for themselves—hunt, garden, experience cold and death and childbirth.” I flush after the last word leaves my mouth. It was dumb of me to mention childbirth considering Daphne and their unborn baby. But Isaac doesn’t skip a beat. “So you’re saying,” he says, crinkling his eyebrows together, “that so long as we stay here—in the place our kidnapper provided for us—we will be safe and he will keep the heat and food coming?” “It’s just a wild guess, Isaac. I don’t really know.” “So what’s the forbidden fruit?” I tap my finger on the tabletop. “The keypad, maybe…” “This is sick,” he says. “And if one painting means that much, what else is hidden in here?” I don’t want to think about it. “I’ll make dinner tonight,” I say.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  The sentiment makes me sick. The rest of the prints scattered throughout the house include: Hitler and the dragon, Freud and the lake, Darwin under the bridge with the mysterious cloaked figure. My least favorite is “Winter” in which a man is riding a yak over a snow-covered village while two eyes peer coldly at me. That one feels like a message. When I have counted everything in my closet and Isaac’s, I start counting things in the kitchen. I note the colors of the furniture and the walls. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I need to do something with my brain. When I run out of things to count, I talk to Isaac. He makes us coffee like he used to, and we sit at the table. “Why did you want to fly away on your red bike?” He raises his eyebrows. He’s not used to questions from me. “I don’t know anything about you,” I say. “You never seemed to want to.” That stings. It’s not entirely untrue. I have that whole stay the hell away from me thing going on. “I didn’t.” I count the kitchen cabinets. I forgot to do that. “Why not?” He spins his coffee cup in a circle, and lifts it to his mouth. Before he can take a sip he sets it down again. I have to take a moment to think about that one. “It’s just who I am.” “Because you choose to be?” “This conversation was supposed to be about you.” He finally takes a sip of his coffee. Then he pushes his mug across the table to me. I’ve already finished mine. It’s a peace offering. “My dad was a drinker. He used to rough up my mom. Not so much a unique story,” he shrugs. “What about you?” I consider pulling my usual stunts of avoid and retreat, but I decide to surprise him instead. It gets boring always being the same. “My mom left before I hit puberty. She was a writer. She said my dad sucked all of the life out of her, but I think suburban life did. After she left, my dad went a little crazy.” I take a sip of Isaac’s coffee and avoid his eyes. “What kind of crazy?” I purse my lips. “Rules. Lots of rules. He became emotionally volatile.” I finish off his coffee and he stands up to get the whiskey. He pours us each a shot. “You trying to keep me talking, Doctor?” “Yes, ma’am.” “Tequila works better.” He smiles. “I’ll just run down to the liquor store and grab a bottle.” I take my shot and spill my guts. I’m not even drunk. Saphira would be so proud of me. I crinkle my nose when I think of her. What does she think about all of this? She probably thinks I dipped out of town. She was always accusing me of … what was the word she used?

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I hide from him up in my attic bedroom, and sometimes when I’m tired of that I lie on the floor in the carousel room and stare at the horses. He doesn’t come in here, says it creeps him out. I try to hum songs, because that’s what one of my characters would do, but it makes me feel nutty. No matter where I am, I can feel him pulsing through the walls. He’s always been intense. That’s what makes him a good doctor. He’s trying to figure out why we are here, why no one has come. I should, too, I guess, but I can’t focus. Every time I start wondering why someone would do this my head starts throbbing. If I press at my thoughts I will implode. Like a grapefruit in the microwave, I think. When we are in the same room his eyes press on me. They press like fingers into my flesh—harder and harder until I pull away, run to my trapdoor and hide. He doesn’t come up to my room anymore. He started sleeping in the room where I found him tied up, instead of on the couch. It happened after the six-week mark. He just moved in there one night and stopped guarding the door. “What are you doing?” I said, following him to the bed. He pulled off his shirt and I quickly averted my eyes. “Going to bed.” I watched in bewilderment as he tossed his shirt aside. “What if … what about…?” “No one is coming,” he said, ripping the sheets aside and climbing in. He wouldn’t look at me. I wondered what he didn’t want me to see in his eyes. I hadn’t argued with him. I’d carried my blankets and my knife downstairs and sat on the sofa, my eyes on the door. Isaac may be letting his guard down, but I wasn’t going to. I wasn’t going to trust my prison. I sure as hell wasn’t going to accept this as permanent. I brewed a pot of coffee, grabbed some beef jerky and took watch. When he’d come downstairs the next morning, and found me still awake, he’d acted surprised. He brought me a fresh cup of coffee and some oatmeal, then sent me off to bed. “Good morning, Isaac.” “Good night, Senna.” I hadn’t slept. I could go ungodly amounts of time without sleep. Instead, I’d pulled a chair to the window that sat directly above the kitchen and watched the snow with him. Now, a week later, I wake up with clarity as sharp and cold as the snow outside my window. Sometimes, when I am writing a book, I’ll go to sleep with a plot hole in my story that I don’t know how to fix. When I wake up, I know.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Kissing me then with much affection, and recommending me to my repose, he presently fell fast asleep, which, as soon as I had well satisfied myself of, I with much composure of body, so as not to wake him by any motion, with much ease and safety too, played of Mrs. Cole’s device for perfecting the signs of my virginity. In each of the head bed-posts, just above where the bedsteads are inserted into them, there was a small drawer, so artfully adapted to the mouldings of the timber-work, that it might have escaped even the most curious search: which drawers were easily opened or shut by the touch of a spring, and were fitted each with a shallow glass tumbler, full of a prepared fluid blood, in which lay soaked, for ready use, a sponge, that required no more than gently reaching the hand to it, taking it out and properly squeezing between the thighs, when it yelded a great deal more of the red liquid than would save a girl’s honour; after which, replacing it, and touching the spring, all possibility of discovery, or even of suspicion, was taken away; and this was not the work of the fourth part of a minute, and of which ever side one lay, the thing was equally easy and practicable, by the double care taken to have each bed-post provided alike. True it is, that had he waked and caught me in the act, it would at least have covered me with shame and confusion; but them, that he did not, was, with the precautions I took, a risk of a thousand to one in my favour. At ease now, and out of all fear of any doubt or suspicion on his side, I addressed myself in good earnest to my repose, but could obtain none; and in about half an hour’s time my gentleman waked again, and turning towards me, I feigned a sound sleep, which he did not long respect; but girding himself again to renew the onset, he began to kiss and caress me, when now making as if I just waked, I complained of the disturbance, and of the cruel pain that this little rest had stole my senses from. Eager, however, for the pleasure, as well of consummating an entire triumph over my virginity, he said every thing that could overcome my resistance, and bribe my patience to the end, which now I was ready to listen to, from being secure of the bloody proofs I had prepared of his victorious violence, though I still thought it good policy not to let him in yet a while. I answered then only to his importunities in sighs and moans, “that I was so hurt, I could not bear it... I was sure he had done me a mischief; that he had... he was such a bad man!”

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  "As my thoughts were entirely absorbed, it was some time before I noticed that a man, who had sprung up from somewhere, was walking by my side. I grew nervous; for I fancied that he not only tried to keep pace with me but also to catch my attention, for he hummed and whistled snatches of songs, coughed, cleared his throat, and scraped his feet. "All these sounds fell upon my dreamy ears, but failed to arouse my attention. All my senses were fixed on the two figures in front of me. He therefore walked on, then turned round on his heels, and stared at me. My eyes saw all this without heeding him in the least. "He lingered once more, let me pass, walked on at a brisker pace, and was again beside me. Finally, I looked at him. Though it was cold, he was but slightly dressed. He wore a short, black velvet jacket and a pair of light grey, closely-fitting trousers marking the shape of the thighs and buttocks like tights. "As I looked at him he stared at me again, then smiled with that vacant, vapid, idiotic, facial contraction of a raccrocheuse. Then, always looking at me with an inviting leer, he directed his steps towards a neighbouring Vespasienne. "'What is there so peculiar about me?' I mused, 'that the fellow is ogling me in that way?' "Without turning round, however, or noticing him any further, I walked on, my eyes fixed on Teleny. "As I passed by another bench, some one again scraped his feet and cleared his throat, evidently bent on making me turn my head. I did so. There was nothing more remarkable about him than there is in the first man you meet. Seeing me look at him, he either unbuttoned or buttoned up his trousers. "After a while I again heard steps coming from behind; the person was close up to me. I smelt a strong scent—if the noxious odour of musk or of patchouli can be called a scent. "The person touched me slightly as he passed by. He begged my pardon; it was the man of the velvet jacket, or his Dromio. I looked at him as he again stared at me and grinned. His eyes were painted with khol, his cheeks were dabbed with rouge. He was quite beardless. For a moment, I doubted whether he was a man or a woman; but when he stopped again before the column I was fully persuaded of his sex. "Some one else came with mincing steps, and shaking his buttocks, from behind one of these pissoirs.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  “He probably has a Daphne, too, by now. You’re not human unless you pair off with someone, right? Find your soulmate or the love of your life—or whatever.” I wave it away like I don’t care. “People have a need to feel connected to someone else,” Isaac says. “There is nothing wrong with that. There is also nothing wrong with being too burned to stay away from it.” My head jerks up. What? Does he think he’s the soul whisperer? “I don’t need anyone,” I assure him. “I know.” “No you don’t,” I insist. I feel bad for snapping at him, especially since I initiated the conversation. But I don’t like what he’s insinuating—that he knows me or something. Isaac looks down at his empty bowl. “You’re so self-assured, sometimes I forget to check on you. Are you okay, Senna? Have you been—” I cut him off. “I’ve been fine, Isaac. Let’s not go there.” I stand up. “I’m going to mess with the keypad.” I can feel his eyes on me as I leave. I stand at the door and start pressing random number combinations. We have been taking turns trying to guess the four-digit code, a pretty stupid idea since there are ten thousand possible combinations, except there is nothing else to do, so why not? Isaac found a pen and we write the codes we try on the wall next to the door so we don’t use repeats. We have hidden knives in every room of the house: a steak knife under each mattress, a serrated knife the length of my forearm underneath the couch cushions in the little living room, a butcher knife in the bathroom under the sink, a carving knife in the upstairs hallway on the windowsill. We have to find a better place for the upstairs hallway knife, I keep thinking. Anyone can grab it. Anyone. Grab … it… My finger is suspended over the button that reads 5. I can feel my chest constricting slowly, like there is an invisible boa constrictor giving me a snake hug. My breath is coming quickly, too quickly. I turn until my back is against the door and slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the floor. I can’t catch my breath. I am drowning in a sea of air; it is all around me but I can’t get enough of it into my lungs to live. Isaac must hear my wheezing. He shoots around the corner and crouches in front of me. “Senna … Senna! Look at me!” I find his face, try to focus on his eyes. If I can only catch my breath… He takes my hand, his voice imploring me. “Senna, breathe. Nice and slow. Can you hear my voice? Try to match your breathing to my voice.”

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I stand at the door and start pressing random number combinations. We have been taking turns trying to guess the four-digit code, a pretty stupid idea since there are ten thousand possible combinations, except there is nothing else to do, so why not? Isaac found a pen and we write the codes we try on the wall next to the door so we don’t use repeats. We have hidden knives in every room of the house: a steak knife under each mattress, a serrated knife the length of my forearm underneath the couch cushions in the little living room, a butcher knife in the bathroom under the sink, a carving knife in the upstairs hallway on the windowsill. We have to find a better place for the upstairs hallway knife , I keep thinking. Anyone can grab it. A nyone. Grab … it… My finger is suspended over the button that reads 5. I can feel my chest constricting slowly, like there is an invisible boa constrictor giving me a snake hug. My breath is coming quickly, too quickly. I turn until my back is against the door and slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the floor. I can’t catch my breath. I am drowning in a sea of air; it is all around me but I can’t get enough of it into my lungs to live. Isaac must hear my wheezing. He shoots around the corner and crouches in front of me. “Senna … Senna! Look at me!” I find his face, try to focus on his eyes. If I can only catch my breath… He takes my hand, his voice imploring me. “Senna, breathe. Nice and slow. Can you hear my voice? Try to match your breathing to my voice.” I try. His voice is distinct. I could pick it out in a lineup of voices. It’s an octave above an alto. Deep enough to lull you to sleep, lilting enough to keep you awake. I follow the patterns of his speech as he speaks to me—the dragged out consonants, the slight rasp over his “e’s”. I watch his mouth. His incisors slightly overlap his front two teeth, which also overlap; a perfectly imperfect flaw. Gradually, my breathing slows. I focus on his hands, which are holding mine. Surgeon’s hands. The best hands to be in. I trace the veins that run along the backs of them. His thumbs are rubbing circles on the skin between my thumb and forefinger. He has square nails. Manly. So many of the men I’ve dated have had oval nail beds. Square is better. I feel my lungs open. I take in air hungrily. He’s helping me. Square is better, I say over and over again. It is my mantra. Square is better. I am exhausted. Isaac doesn’t skip a beat. He picks me up and carries me to the sofa.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I try. His voice is distinct. I could pick it out in a lineup of voices. It’s an octave above an alto. Deep enough to lull you to sleep, lilting enough to keep you awake. I follow the patterns of his speech as he speaks to me—the dragged out consonants, the slight rasp over his “e’s”. I watch his mouth. His incisors slightly overlap his front two teeth, which also overlap; a perfectly imperfect flaw. Gradually, my breathing slows. I focus on his hands, which are holding mine. Surgeon’s hands. The best hands to be in. I trace the veins that run along the backs of them. His thumbs are rubbing circles on the skin between my thumb and forefinger. He has square nails. Manly. So many of the men I’ve dated have had oval nail beds. Square is better. I feel my lungs open. I take in air hungrily. He’s helping me. Square is better, I say over and over again. It is my mantra. Square is better. I am exhausted. Isaac doesn’t skip a beat. He picks me up and carries me to the sofa. He’s good at taking care of people. He takes care of you without you having to ask. He disappears into the kitchen and comes back a minute later with a glass of water. I take it from him. “He knew to buy the exact clothes sizes that we wear, but he didn’t know I have asthma?” Isaac frowns. “Have you checked in all of the cabinets for an inhaler?” “Yes. The first day.” He looks at the floor between his feet. “Maybe he didn’t want you to have an inhaler.” I grunt. “So, this sicko kidnaps me and brings me out here to die of an asthma attack? Anti-climactic.” “I don’t know,” he says. It’s hard for a doctor to say those words. He told me that once. Doctors were supposed to have the answers. “None of this makes sense,” he says. “Why someone would take me … put me here with you. How did they even make the connection between us?” I don’t know the answers to any of this. I turn my head away. Look at the picture of the sparrows. “You need to take it easy. Be—” I cut him off. “I’m okay, Isaac.” I place a hand on his arm and immediately pull it away. He looks at the spot where I touched him, then stands up and walks out of the room. I press everything together—my eyes, my palms, my lips, the hole inside of me that will never be sewn back together. “Isaac,” I breathe. But he doesn’t hear me. [image file=image7.jpg] I start sleeping in the room with the trapdoor after the first week. It’s warmer up there. Isaac makes me lock it as soon as my feet disappear up the ladder. “Just in case,” he says. “They have a key too, but it will buy you time.” Sure. Great.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  "I remember languidly wishing that my life could pass away in that placidly dull and dreamy state, so like a mesmeric trance, when the benumbed body is thrown into a death-like torpor, and the mind, 'Like an ember among fallen ashes,' is just wakeful enough to feel the consciousness of ease and of peaceful rest. "All at once we were roused from our pleasant somnolence by the jarring sound of an electric bell. "Teleny jumped up, hastened to wrap himself in a dressing-gown, and to attend to the summons. A few moments afterwards he came back with a telegram in his hand. "'What is it?' I asked. "'A message from ——,' he replied, looking at me wistfully, and with a certain trepidation in his voice. "'And you have to go?' "'I suppose I must,' said he, with a mournful sadness in his eyes. "'Is it so distasteful to you?' "'Distasteful is not the word; it is unbearable. This is the first parting, and——' "'Yes, but only for a day or two.' "'A day or two,' added he, gloomily, 'is the space that divides life from death:— "It is the little rift within the lute, That by-and-by will make the music mute, And ever widening slowly silence all."' "'Teleny, you have had for some days a weight on your mind—something that I cannot fathom. Will you not tell your friend what it is?' "He opened his eyes widely, as if he were looking into the depths of limitless space, whilst a painful expression was seen upon his lips; and then he added slowly,— "'My fate. Have you forgotten the prophetic vision you had that evening of the charity concert?' "'What! Adrian mourning over dead Antinöus?' "'Yes.' "'A fancy bred in my over-heated brain by the conflicting qualities of your Hungarian music, so stirringly sensuous and at the same time so gorgeously mournful.' "He shook his head sadly. "'No, it was something more than idle fancy.' "'A change has been taking place in you, Teleny. Perhaps it is the religious or spiritual element of your nature that is predominating just now over the sensual, but you are not what you were.' "'I feel that I have been too happy, but that our happiness is built on sand—a bond like ours——' "'Not blessed by the Church, repugnant to the nice feelings of most men.' "'Well—yes, in such a love there is always "A little pitted speck in garnered fruit That, rotting inward, slowly moulders all." Why did we meet—or, rather, why was not one of us born a woman? Had you only been some poor girl——' "'Come, leave aside your morbid fancies, and tell me candidly if you would have loved me more than you do.' "He looked at me sadly, but could not bring himself to utter an untruth. Still, after awhile he added, sighing:— '"There is a love that is to last, When the hot days of youth are past." Tell me, Camille, is such love ours?' "'Why not?

• From Manhunt (2022)

  If the Matriarchy could put real firepower on the water … Teach’s smile widened. “There,” she said, plucking a dumpling from the plate between them and popping it into her mouth. She sucked grease from her fingers. “Now she has it.” The Screw ran six levels deep into the hard, cold granite, starting at the motor pool and its double airlock and decon valve and moving on through UV greenhouses, security, the front offices for trade and “participation,” the squash courts and the swimming pool and the indoor basketball court, residential A, security, the kitchens, fungal beds where farmers used processed shit from septic two levels down to grow designer mushrooms in the dark, Sophie’s thread-spanning apartment, and the cisterns, and just above the surgical theater which served as Indi’s lab, there was a square little afterthought of a library, a three-story shaft full of tightly packed shelving. It was quiet when Robbie arrived a few minutes before midnight, ducking out of the deserted central spiral and down a narrow corridor past the empty reference desk. Banks of darkened fluorescents wired to timers hung above each row in the stacks. The floor was carpeted in cut gray berber. In the far-right corner a narrow staircase led down to the second floor, which, since the stacks on the first ran one through ten, was where the note he’d found finally led him. Nowhere else in the Screw was ordered like the stacks. Robbie took the stairs. A lone bank of lights buzzed below, visible through the rails. He reached the bottom of the shaft and looked down the eleventh row. A trans woman stood under the buzzing fluorescents at the row’s end. She was tall and lean, her head shaved down to black stubble. She wore a long black skirt and a mustard-colored cardigan, and on the back of one dark, long-fingered hand was a tattoo of twining beach roses that wound up past the cuff of her sweater. Her dark eyes held the wan light strangely, like prisms. “You’re Robbie.” “Nice to meet you,” he mumbled, not quite knowing what else to say. The thought that this was some kind of perverse loyalty test had crossed his mind more than a few times. He had a knife he’d taken off one of the women at the blast doors hidden up his sleeve. “I got—” She shook her head to silence him, an almost imperceptible gesture. “I’m Zia. I run the stacks. Have you been down here before?” Robbie shook his head. “You can help me with reshelving.