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 143 of 501 · 20 per page

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  Maybe a person could only deal with one dose of mental atrophy at a time. I slid into the passenger seat. He’d changed the radio station, but he switched it back to the classical one before he put the car in reverse. He didn’t look at me. Not until we arrived at my house and he opened the front door with my keys. Then he looked at me, and I wanted to disappear into the cracks between my brick driveway. I didn’t know what color his eyes were; I didn’t want to know. I pushed past him into the foyer and stopped dead. I didn’t know where to go—the kitchen? The bedroom? My office? Everywhere seemed stupid. Pointless. I wanted to be alone. I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted to die. I didn’t want to die. I went to my barstool, the one positioned to get the perfect view of the lake, and I sat. Isaac moved into the kitchen. He started to make coffee and then stopped, turning to look at me. “Do you mind if I put on some music? With words?” I shook my head. His eyes were grey. He set his phone on top of the breadbox while he spooned grinds into the filter. This time he played something more upbeat. A man’s voice. The beats were so strange I stopped my incessant ability to not feel and listened. “Alt-J,” he said, when he saw that I was listening. “The song is called Breezeblocks.” He glanced at my face. “It’s different, right? I used to be in a band. So I get a kick out of their beats.” “But, you’re a doctor.” I realized how stupid that sounded when it was already out. I pulled an inch-wide chunk of grey hair free, and wound it around my finger twice, right by the roots. I left it there, with my elbow resting on the counter. My security blanket. “I wasn’t always a doctor,” he said, grabbing two mugs out of my cabinet. “But when I became one, my love of music remained … and the tattoos remained.” I glanced at his forearms where they peeked out of his shirtsleeves. I was still looking when he brought me my coffee. I caught the tips of the words that faced me. After he handed me the coffee, he started making food. I didn’t have an appetite, but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. I didn’t want to, but I listened to the words of the song he was playing. The last time I listened to this type of music the boy bands had just taken the world by storm and filled every radio with their cliché-licked songs. I wanted to ask him who was singing, but he beat me to it. “Florence and the Machine. Do you like it?” “You’re fixated on death.” “I’m a surgeon,” he said, not looking up from where he was dicing vegetables.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  [image file=image27.jpg] I haven’t cut myself since the day I met Isaac. I don’t know why. It might be because he made me feel things, and I didn’t need a blade to feel anymore. That’s why we do it, right? Cut ourselves to feel? Saphira would have said so. The dragon and her existential bullshit. “Since humans can choose to be eitherrrr cruel or good, they arrre, in fact, neither of these things essentially.” Now I am feeling too many things. I crave my white room. What was the opposite of cutting? Wrapping yourself in a cocoon and never coming out. I roll myself in the feather comforter on the attic bed—that’s what we we’re calling it—the attic. My room. The place where my kidnapper put me in pajamas and laid me. Laid me out to what? I don’t know, but I’m starting to like it in the attic. I can’t hear the music as well when I’m wrapped in feathers. Landscape has not stopped playing. The first of our songs. The one he gave to me to let me know he understood. “You look like a joint,” Isaac says. He hardly ever comes up here. I feel him touch my hair, which is sticking out of the top of my cocoon. I bury my face in the white and try to suffocate myself. I traded comforters with him. He took the red because I couldn’t stand to look at it. “There is something downstairs you should probably see,” he says. He’s touching my hair in a way that’s lulling me. If he wants me to get up he’s going to have to stop doing that. I came straight up here after we carried the wood into the house and discovered the electric fence. Isaac must have found something more outside. “Unless it’s a dead body, I don’t want to see it.” “You’d want to see a dead body?” “Yes.” “It’s not a dead body, but I need you to come with me.” He unrolls me from my self-made joint, and pulls me to my feet. He doesn’t let go right away. He squeezes where he holds. Then he pulls me along by my hand like I’m a child. I stumble after him. He leads me downstairs. To the wood closet. Pulling open the door, he holds me by the tops of my arms, forcing me to stand in front of him and look inside.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  It seems unlikely. Is it our punishment now that we figured out the code? A reward and a punishment: you can go outside, but now it’s only a matter of time before you run out of fuel and freeze to death. Tick-tock, tick-tock. He squeezes me tighter. I can feel how tense his muscles are underneath my palms. “If he comes back,” I say. “I’m going to kill him.” I haven’t cut myself since the day I met Isaac. I don’t know why. It might be because he made me feel things, and I didn’t need a blade to feel anymore. That’s why we do it, right? Cut ourselves to feel? Saphira would have said so. The dragon and her existential bullshit. “Since humans can choose to be eitherrrr cruel or good, they arrre, in fact, neither of these things essentially.” Now I am feeling too many things. I crave my white room. What was the opposite of cutting? Wrapping yourself in a cocoon and never coming out. I roll myself in the feather comforter on the attic bed—that’s what we we’re calling it—the attic. My room. The place where my kidnapper put me in pajamas and laid me. Laid me out to what? I don’t know, but I’m starting to like it in the attic. I can’t hear the music as well when I’m wrapped in feathers. Landscape has not stopped playing. The first of our songs. The one he gave to me to let me know he understood. “You look like a joint,” Isaac says. He hardly ever comes up here. I feel him touch my hair, which is sticking out of the top of my cocoon. I bury my face in the white and try to suffocate myself. I traded comforters with him. He took the red because I couldn’t stand to look at it. “There is something downstairs you should probably see,” he says. He’s touching my hair in a way that’s lulling me. If he wants me to get up he’s going to have to stop doing that. I came straight up here after we carried the wood into the house and discovered the electric fence. Isaac must have found something more outside. “Unless it’s a dead body, I don’t want to see it.” “You’d want to see a dead body?” “Yes.” “It’s not a dead body, but I need you to come with me.” He unrolls me from my self-made joint, and pulls me to my feet. He doesn’t let go right away. He squeezes where he holds. Then he pulls me along by my hand like I’m a child. I stumble after him. He leads me downstairs. To the wood closet. Pulling open the door, he holds me by the tops of my arms, forcing me to stand in front of him and look inside. I see only the wood at first.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  [image file=image27.jpg] I haven’t cut myself since the day I met Isaac. I don’t know why. It might be because he made me feel things, and I didn’t need a blade to feel anymore. That’s why we do it, right? Cut ourselves to feel? Saphira would have said so. The dragon and her existential bullshit. “Since humans can choose to be eitherrrr cruel or good, they arrre, in fact, neither of these things essentially.” Now I am feeling too many things. I crave my white room. What was the opposite of cutting? Wrapping yourself in a cocoon and never coming out. I roll myself in the feather comforter on the attic bed—that’s what we we’re calling it—the attic. My room. The place where my kidnapper put me in pajamas and laid me. Laid me out to what? I don’t know, but I’m starting to like it in the attic. I can’t hear the music as well when I’m wrapped in feathers. Landscape has not stopped playing. The first of our songs. The one he gave to me to let me know he understood. “You look like a joint,” Isaac says. He hardly ever comes up here. I feel him touch my hair, which is sticking out of the top of my cocoon. I bury my face in the white and try to suffocate myself. I traded comforters with him. He took the red because I couldn’t stand to look at it. “There is something downstairs you should probably see,” he says. He’s touching my hair in a way that’s lulling me. If he wants me to get up he’s going to have to stop doing that. I came straight up here after we carried the wood into the house and discovered the electric fence. Isaac must have found something more outside. “Unless it’s a dead body, I don’t want to see it.” “You’d want to see a dead body?” “Yes.” “It’s not a dead body, but I need you to come with me.” He unrolls me from my self-made joint, and pulls me to my feet. He doesn’t let go right away. He squeezes where he holds. Then he pulls me along by my hand like I’m a child. I stumble after him. He leads me downstairs. To the wood closet. Pulling open the door, he holds me by the tops of my arms, forcing me to stand in front of him and look inside.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  His arms left my body, and I crawled forward and stepped out of bed. I didn’t look at him as I walked to the bathroom. I washed my face and took two aspirin for my headache. When I came out he was gone. I counted the cards on the counter. He didn’t leave one that day. He didn’t come back that night, or the next. Or the next. Or the next. Or the next. There were no more dreams, but not for lack of horror. I was afraid to sleep, so I didn’t. I sat in my office at night, drinking coffee and thinking of his red bike. It was the only color in the room—Isaac’s red bike. On January thirty-first my father called me. I was in the kitchen when the phone vibrated on the counter. There was no house phone, just my cell. I answered without looking. “Hello, Senna.” His voice always distinct, nasally with an accent he tried not to have. My father was born in Wales and moved to America when he was twenty. He retained the European mentality and accent and dressed like a cowboy. It was one of the saddest things I’d ever seen. “How was your Christmas?” I immediately felt cold. “Fine. How was yours?” He began a detailed minute-by-minute account of how he spent Christmas Day. I was, for the most part, grateful I didn’t have to speak. He wrapped things up by telling me about his promotion at work; he said the same thing he repeated every time we spoke. “I’m thinking about taking a trip out there to see you, Senna. Should be soon. Bill said I get an extra week’s vacation this year because I’ve been with the company twenty years.” I’d lived in Washington for eight years and he’d never come to visit me once. “That’d be great. Listen Dad, I’ve got some friends coming over. I should go.” We said our goodbyes and I hung up, resting my forehead on the wall. That would be it from him until the end of April, when he would call again. The phone rang a second time. I almost didn’t answer it, but the area code is from Washington. “Senna Richards, this is the office of Dr. Albert Monroe.” I racked my brain trying to place the doctor and his specialty, and then for the second time that day, my blood ran cold. “Something came up on your scan. Dr. Monroe would like you to come in to the office.” I was leaving my house the next morning, walking to my car when his hybrid pulled into my horseshoe driveway. I stopped to watch him climb out and pull on his jacket. It was casual, almost beautiful in its grace. He’d never come this early before.

• 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 Going Clear (2013)

  He says that Whitehill confided that she hadn’t told the local agents what the investigation was about, in case the office had been infiltrated. Amy Scobee also spoke to Whitehill for two full days, mainly about the abuse she had witnessed. Whitehill and Valerie Venegas, the lead agent on the case, also interviewed former Sea Org members in California. One was Gary Morehead, who had developed the blow drill. He explained how his security team would use emotional and psychological pressure to bring escapees back; but failing that, physical force has been used. 7 Whitehill and Venegas worked on a special task force devoted to human trafficking. The laws regarding trafficking were built largely around forced prostitution, but they also pertain to slave labor. Under federal law, slavery is defined, in part, by the use of coercion, torture, starvation, imprisonment, threats, and psychological abuse. The California Penal Code lists several indicators that someone may be a victim of human trafficking: signs of trauma or fatigue; being afraid or unable to talk because of censorship or security measures that prevent communication with others; working in one place without the freedom to move about; owing a debt to one’s employer; and not having control over identification documents. Those conditions resemble the accounts of many former Sea Org members who lived at Gold Base. If proven, those allegations would still be difficult to prosecute given the religious status of Scientology. Marc Headley escaped from Gold Base in 2005; he says this was after being beaten by Miscavige. 8 His defection was especially painful for the church, because Marc says he was the first person Tom Cruise audited. In Scientology, the auditor bears a significant responsibility for the progress of his subject. “If you audit somebody and that person leaves the organization, there’s only one person whose fault that is—the auditor,” Headley explained. Later that year, Marc’s wife, Claire, also escaped. In 2009, they sued the church, claiming that the working conditions at Gold Base violated labor and human-trafficking laws. The church responded that the Headleys were ministers who had voluntarily submitted to the rigors of their calling, and that the First Amendment protected Scientology’s religious practices. The court agreed with this argument and dismissed the Headleys’ complaints, awarding the church forty thousand dollars in litigation costs. In April 2010, John Brousseau also fled. He, too, represented a dangerous liability to the church.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  Though I have no doubt we’d spring, quick as cats, if we needed to. I touch the handle of my knife. Both Isaac and I have set our knives on the table in front of us; the knives are pointed in a face off. He doesn’t have to say anything for me to know that there is suspicion on his face. I wear it too. We look silly; abducted and locked in a house, waiting for whoever did this to return. “Ransom,” I say. My voice is raspy. It catches in my throat before I can say anything else. I swallow and look up at Isaac. His eyes dart to the corners of the room. His leg is bouncing up and down, I can feel the vibrations of it in the wood. Every few minutes his eyes move to the window, then back to the door. “Maybe…” I catch the pause after maybe . He wants to say more, but he doesn’t trust me. And if I were to really examine my theory it would most likely fall apart. Kidnappings made for ransom were fast and messy; guns pointed at your head, urgent demands. Not keypads on the door and enough food to last through one of George R.R. Martin’s long winters. I lay my hands flat on the table, fingertips pointing inward, and rest my chin over them. My pinkie is touching the handle of my knife. We wait. The cabin is so eerily silent we would hear a car or person approaching from a mile away, but we keep checking anyway. Waiting … waiting. Finally, Isaac gets up. I hear him walking from room to room. I wonder if he is looking for something or if he just needs to move. I realize it’s probably the latter. He can’t sit still when he’s nervous. When he comes back in the kitchen, I break the silence. “What if they’re not coming back?” He doesn’t answer me for the longest time. “There is a pantry, there—” he nods toward a narrow door to the left of the table. “It’s stocked with enough food to last for months. There is a fifty-pound bag of flour. But the wood closet only has enough wood to last a few weeks. Four at most if we ration it.” I don’t want to think about the gargantuan bag of flour, so I pretend I didn’t hear him. The wood, however, bothers me. I’d rather not freeze to death. There are plenty of trees outside. If we could get outside, that is. We’d have wood. “The carousel room,” he says. “Do you find it strange?” His voice is clear, precise. It’s the one he uses with his patients.

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

  He continued to finger me: whether because of habit in the youth, whether because of the satyr's dexterity, in a very brief space Nature, vanquished, caused there to flow into the mouth of the one what was ejected from the member of the other. That was how the libertine exhausted the unfortunate children he kept in his house, whose number we will shortly see; 'twas thus he sapped their strength, and that was what caused the languor in which I beheld them to be. And now let us see how he managed to keep women in the same state of prostration and what was the true cause of his own vigor's preservation. The homage the Count rendered me had been protracted, but during it not a trace of infidelity to his chosen temple had he revealed; neither his glances, nor his kisses, nor his hands, nor his desires strayed away from it for an instant; after having sucked the other lad and having in likewise gathered and devoured his sperm: "Come," he said to me, drawing me into an adjacent room before I could gather up my clothes, "come, I am going to show you how we manage." I was unable to dissimulate my anxiety, it was terrible; but there was no other way to put a different aspect upon my fate, I had to quaff to the lees the potion in the chalice tendered to me. Two other boys of sixteen, quite as handsome, quite as peaked as the first two we had left in the salon, were working upon a tapestry when we entered the room. Upon our entrance they rose. "Narcisse," said the Count to one of them, "here is the Countess' new chambermaid; I must test her; hand me the lancets." Narcisse opens a cupboard and immediately produces all a surgeon's gear. I allow your imagination to fancy my state; my executioner spied my embarrassment, and it merely excited his mirth. "Put her in place, Zephire," Monsieur de Gernande said to another of the youths, and this boy approached me with a smile. "Don't be afraid, Mademoiselle," said he, "it can only do you the greatest good. Take your place here." It was a question of kneeling lightly upon the edge of a tabouret located in the middle of the room; one's arms were elevated and attached to two black straps which descended from the ceiling. No sooner have I assumed the posture than the Count steps up scalpel in hand: he can scarcely breathe, his eyes are alive with sparks, his face smites me with terror; he ties bands about both my arms, and in a flash he has lanced each of them. A cry bursts from between his teeth, it is accompanied by two or three blasphemies when he catches sight of my blood; he retires to a distance of six feet and sits down.

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

  In the second place, you are going to pass, insofar as the public is concerned, for the Marquise's murderer; if she yet breathes, I am going to see to it she carries this notion into the grave, the entire household will share it; and there you have two trials still to face instead of one: instead of a vile usurer, you have for an adversary a rich and powerful man who is determined to hound you into Hell itself if you misuse the life his compassion leaves to you." Chapter 16 Monsieur Rodin kept a school for children of both sexes; during his wife's lifetime he had obtained the required charter and they had not seen fit to deprive him of it after he had lost her. Monsieur Rodin's pupils were few but select: in all, there were but fourteen girls and fourteen boys: he never accepted them under twelve and they were always sent away upon reaching the age of sixteen; never had monarch prettier subjects than Rodin. If there were brought to him one who had some physical defect or a face that left something to be desired, he knew how to invent twenty excuses for rejecting him, all his arguments were very ingenious, they were always colored by sophistries to which no one seemed able to reply; thus, either his corps of little day students had incomplete ranks, or the children who filled them were always charming. These youngsters did not take their meals with him, but came twice a day, from seven to eleven in the morning, from four to eight in the afternoon. If until then I had not yet seen all of this little troupe it was because, having arrived at Rodin's during the holidays, his scholars were not attending classes; toward the end of my recovery they reappeared. Rodin himself took charge of the boys' instruction, his governess looked after that of the girls, whom he would visit as soon as he had completed his own lessons; he taught his young pupils writing, arithmetic, a little history, drawing, music, and for all that no other master but himself was employed. I early expressed to Rosalie my astonishment that her father, while performing his functions as a doctor, could at the same time act as a schoolmaster; it struck me as odd, said I, that being able to live comfortably without exercising either the one or the other of these professions, he devoted himself to both.

• From Between Us

  To the contrary, they were reticent to share prideful happiness situations. On Mayumi Karasawa’s strong recommendation, we thus turned the order of the emotions around for the Japanese respondents. And much against my intuition, starting the interview by reporting an instance of shame broke the ice for Japanese respondents. When shame is a step towards remedying your shortcomings and mending a relationship in jeopardy, it is good to be talking about it. Shame was “right,” and in our survey studies, Japanese respondents reported higher frequencies of shame than their U.S. counterparts. If shame sets off a downward spiral in WEIRD cultures, it has the exact opposite effect in cultures where it is “right.” In many of those cultures, it motivates you to invest in the relationship at stake, adding to its reputation as a socially beneficial emotion. In their study on shame, Bagozzi and his colleagues compared Dutch salespeople to their Filipino counterparts. Like the Dutch, the Filipino salespeople recognized shame as feeling exposed, a failure, and small and weak. But shame did not make the Filipino salespeople withdraw or stumble. To the contrary, shame signaled that they had to invest in the customer relationship that was not going well. Rather than making them want to hide, shame made them reach out to their customers. Separately, Filipino salespeople who felt shame reported better sales interactions and higher sales volumes—showing the yields of their investment in the customer relationship. There are other cultures in which showing shame breeds acceptance. Among the Minangkabau and the Taiwanese, for example, the shameful child is a good child who saves their parents’ face. Shame is shared by the members of the secure family network and gains them acceptance in the broader community. The Japanese friend or spouse expressing shame or self-criticism meets cultural expectations, and can count on their friend’s or spouse’s acceptance and support. And in fact, Japanese college students indicated that they encountered many situations eliciting strong shame—the opposite of their American counterparts. The Japanese students seem to seek out shame situations, rather than avoid them as the American students did. Shame means you know your place or your shortcomings, and in a culture where this does not change anything in the relationships, this is a good thing. Yet, in other cultures where your position is less assured, and where social regard is subject to continuous negotiation, shame is the marker of losing ground. This is the case in honor cultures, when insults threaten the very thing that is important: the positive image that others have of you. Shame is “right” under these circumstances because it keeps you focused on your social position, but the social dynamics are very different from the cultures where your position is assured. During the interviews in the Netherlands (chapter 2), it struck me that many Turkish participants reportedly ended the relationship with whomever offended them.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  That year the band had a number one song, “The Joker,” and Thompson rode into town with a glow of fame around him. “He had a weird stare,” De Vocht remembered. “He invited my sister to meet Steve Miller and John Travolta.” Within a year, most of De Vocht’s family had joined the Church of Scientology. In July 1977, thirteen-year- old Tom De Vocht signed the billion-year contract for the Sea Org. De Vocht became one of Miscavige’s allies and moved up the bureaucratic ladder quickly. In 1986, he was appointed the Commanding Officer of the Commodore’s Messengers Org at Flag. In 2001, Miscavige called him, complaining, “Tom, I can’t get my building done.” The new headquarters for the Religious Technology Center at Gold Base, Building 50, was years behind schedule and well over budget. Miscavige directed De Vocht to come to Gold Base and oversee the construction. The first day he got there, De Vocht realized that “this building is going to be the end of me.” Forty-seven million dollars—more than a thousand dollars per square foot—had previously been spent on the new center. The building had already been completed a couple of times, using the highest-grade materials—cold rolled steel, and anigre, a beautiful but extremely hard, pinkish African wood—only to have components ripped out because they didn’t meet Miscavige’s standards. Miscavige’s desk, also made of steel, was so heavy that De Vocht worried whether the structure would support it. He discovered that there were no actual architectural drawings for the building; there were only renderings of what it should look like. The stucco exterior walls were already cracked because the whole edifice was at a 1.25-inch tilt. The walls weren’t actually connected to the floors. Even a minor earthquake (Gold Base was just west of the San Andreas Fault) might cause the whole building to collapse. De Vocht recommended that the building be torn down and rebuilt from scratch, but Miscavige rejected that idea. The expense of essentially rebuilding a poorly constructed building from the inside was immense. When De Vocht had almost finished construction, having spent an additional $60 million, Miscavige still had a list of complaints. He was also critical of the landscaping. Gold Base is in a desert, but Miscavige demanded that the building appear to be set in a forest. One morning, De Vocht says, Miscavige and his wife were inspecting the large vault in the legal department of Building 50, when the leader stopped in his tracks and began rubbing his head. He turned pale. “Where did we put the gold bullion?” he asked his wife. For a full minute, Miscavige kept rubbing his head and asking about the gold, but then he snapped out of it and went on as if nothing had happened.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  He had become an informal spokesperson for Scientology defectors who, like him, believed that the church had broken away from Hubbard’s original teachings. He called Haggis, who was shooting in Pittsburgh, and asked if he could publish the letter on his blog. “You’re a journalist, you don’t need my permission,” Haggis said, although he did ask him to excise the portion of the letter that dealt with his dinner with John Travolta and Kelly Preston and the part about his daughter Katy’s homosexuality. Haggis didn’t think about the consequences of his decision. He thought it would show up on a couple of websites. He was a writer, not a movie star. But Rathbun got fifty-five thousand hits on his blog that afternoon. The next morning, the story was in newspapers around the world. Haggis got a call from Tommy Davis. “Paul, what the hell!” 1 Four years before, the church had actively campaigned against Proposition 63, the Mental Health Services Act, which raised taxes to provide for increased care for the mentally ill; the proposition passed. 2 Mary Benjamin says they were never parties to the suit. 3 Cruise’s attorney, Bertram Fields, denies this took place: “Mr. Cruise has never asked Mr. Haggis or anyone else to denounce media attacks on Mr. Cruise on the Larry King show or anywhere else or to do anything like that.” 4 The church characterizes this as an attempt at extortion. 5 The church forwarded a letter to me from Katy Haggis’s friend in which she denies losing a job because of their friendship and asserts that the church is welcoming to everyone, regardless of their sexual orientation. The friend, whose parents are both employed by the church, did not respond to a request to talk further. 6 Tommy Davis gave me an affidavit, signed by Scobee, in which she admits to having liaisons. Scobee told me there were only two incidents, both of which involved a kiss and nothing more. She says she did not write the affidavit; she says she only signed it in the hope of leaving the church on good terms so that she could stay in touch with relatives. The church maintains that it does not use confidential information derived from auditing sessions. 7 The church denies that blow drills exist. 8 According to Tommy Davis, “Mr. Miscavige has never physically assaulted Marc Headley or anyone else.”

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

  Will it be to that God you have just implored with such earnestness and who, by way of reward for your fervor, only precipitates you into further snares, each more fatal than the last? to that illusory God we ourselves outrage all day long by insulting his vain commandments?... And so, Therese, you conceive that there is no power, of whatever species you may suppose, which could possibly deliver you out of our hands, and there is neither in the category of things real nor in that of miracles, any sort of means which might permit you successfully to retain this virtue you yet glory in; which might, in fine, prevent you from becoming, in every sense and in every manner, the prey of the libidinous excesses to which we, all four of us, are going to abandon ourselves with you... Therefore, little slut, off with your clothes, offer your body to our lusts, let it be soiled by them instantly or the severest treatment will prove to you what risks a wretch like yourself runs by disobeying us." This harangue... this terrible order, I felt, left me no shifts, but would I not have been guilty had I failed to employ the means my heart prompted in me ? my situation left me this last resource: I fall at Dom Severino's feet, I employ all a despairing soul's eloquence to supplicate him not to take advantage of my state or abuse it; the bitterest tears spring from my eyes and inundate his knees, all I Imagine to be of the strongest, all I believe the most pathetic, I try everything with this man.... Great God! what was the use? could I have not known that tears merely enhance the object of a libertine's coveting? how was I able to doubt that everything I attempted in my efforts to sway those savages had the unique effect of arousing them.... "Take the bitch," said Severino in a rage, "seize her, Clement, let her be naked in a minute, and let her learn that it is not in persons like ourselves that compassion stifles Nature." My resistance had animated Clement, he was foaming at the mouth: he took hold of me, his arm shook nervously; interspersing his actions with appalling blasphemies, he had my clothing torn away in a trice. "A lovely creature," came from the superior, who ran his fingers over my flanks, "may God blast me if I've ever seen one better made; friends," the monk pursued, "let's put order into our procedures; you know our formula for welcoming newcomers: she might be exposed to the entire ceremony, don't you think?

• From Between Us

  Most of these were European American. Even more interestingly, Mauss and Butler tracked anger experience and cardiac output during the same experiment. Low cardiac output is often a sign that the individual has difficulty coping with the situation (the situation is a “threat”); high cardiac output can mean that the individual feels well equipped to cope with the situation and that the situation feels under control (the situation is a “challenge”). Judging by cardiac output measures, anger affected the cultural groups in the study differently. European Americans who showed little anger had stronger anger feelings and felt more “threat” than European Americans who did show anger. In contrast, Asian Americans who showed little anger felt less angry and better equipped to cope than Asian Americans who did show anger. These findings suggest that emotional control, while effortful, allowed Asian American individuals to achieve the emotional state that they were aiming for. Moreover, the outward-in adjustment felt under control. Outside-in emotions do not always move away from strong to weaker emotions. Norms, other people’s needs and expectations, or relationship concerns may call for expression rather than suppression: either for an emotion that was not there in the first place, or for amplification of an existing emotion. Among the Ifaluk, who live on a small Micronesian island in the southwest Pacific, another person’s needs call for fago, the readiness to care for others. Fago can be translated as a mix of compassion, love, and sadness. A sister who feels fago for her brother comes to his aid. When Tamalekar, an Ifaluk man, was shamed by his ten-year-old son who had thrown rocks at a man who lived on the island and suffered from psychosis, this elicited fago in Tamalekar’s sisters. The sisters “hurried to his house with gifts and cloth to be given, by way of apology, to the family of the ‘crazy’ man.” My colleague Alba Jasini tells me that in her country of origin, Albania, the relatives of deceased people hire “professional mourners” to wail for (and with) the family, and thus raise the level of grief display to the right cultural standards. Outside-in emotions may involve excitation rather than suppression. Arguably, many rituals have a similar function of collectively supplying individuals with situationally appropriate options for behavior during emotional events. Among the Indonesian Minangkabau, people are expected to show malu (roughly equivalent to shame) when they violate any social norms. If necessary, educators force the display by highlighting the norm. Malu was induced in thirteen-year-old Andi who had his hair cut in front of the class. In Andi’s own words: “Two days ago, the teacher told me to get my hair cut. Today, she called me in front of the class and took a pair of scissors out of her desk. She gave me a haircut and the others [classmates] watched.

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

  What! sorrows are only for a time; come, be free, here is a worthy gentleman who has heard of your misfortunes, and is willing to serve you; you must be better acquainted with him, do not you now stand upon your punctilios, and this and that, but make your market while you may.” At this so delicate, and eloquent harangue, the gentleman, who saw I looked frighted and amazed, and, indeed, incapable of answering, took her up for breaking things in so abrupt a manner, as rather to shock than incline me to an acceptance of the good he intended me then, addressing himself to me, told me “he was perfectly acquainted with my whole story, and every circumstance of my distress which he owned was a cruel plunge for one of my youth and beauty to fall into.... that he had long taken a liking to my person, for which he appealed to Mrs. Jones, there present; but finding me so deeply engaged to another, he had lost all hopes of succeeding, till he had heard the sudden reverse of fortune that had happened to me, on which he had given particular orders to my landlady to see that I should want for nothing; and that, had he not been forced abroad to the Hague, on affairs he could not refuse himself to, he would himself have attended me during my sickness;... that on his return, which was the day before, he had, on learning my recovery, desired my landlady’s good offices to introduce him to me, and was as angry, at least, as I was shocked, at the manner in which she had conducted herself towards obtaining him that happiness; but, that to show me how much he disdained her procedure, and how far he was from taking any ungenerous advantage of my situation, and from exacting any security for my gratitude, he would before my face, that instant, discharge my debt entirely to my landlady, and give me her receipt in full; after which I should be at liberty either to reject or grant his suit, as he was much above putting any force upon my inclinations.” Whilst he was exposing his sentiments to me, I ventured just to look up to him, and observed his figure, which was that of a very well-looking gentleman, well made, of about forty, dressed in a suit of plain clothes, with a large diamond ring on one of his fingers, the lustre of which played in my eyes as he waved his hand in talking, and raised my notions of his importance.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  On a visit to his parents’ house, Gregory against his will, and even without his previous knowledge, was ordained presbyter by his father before the assembled congregation on a feast day of the year 361. Such forced elections and ordinations, though very offensive to our taste, were at that time frequent, especially upon the urgent wish of the people, whose voice in many instances proved to be indeed the voice of God. Basil also, and Augustine, were ordained presbyters, Athanasius and Ambrose bishops, against their will. Gregory fled soon after, it is true, to his friend in Pontus, but out of regard to his aged parents and the pressing call of the church, he returned to Nazianzum towards Easter in 362, and delivered his first pulpit discourse, in which he justified himself in his conduct, and said: "It has its advantage to hold back a little from the call of God, as Moses, and after him Jeremiah, did on account of their age; but it has also its advantage to come forward readily, when God calls, like Aaron and Isaiah; provided both be done with a devout spirit, the one on account of inherent weakness, the other in reliance upon the strength of him who calls." His enemies accused him of haughty contempt of the priestly office; but he gave as the most important reason of his flight, that he did not consider himself worthy to preside over a flock, and to undertake the care of immortal souls, especially in such stormy times. Basil, who, as metropolitan, to strengthen the catholic interest against Arianism, set about the establishment of new bishoprics in the small towns of Cappadocia, intrusted to his young friend one such charge in Sasima, a poor market town at the junction of three highways, destitute of water, verdure, and society, frequented only by rude wagoners, and at the time an apple of discord between him and his opponent, the bishop Anthimus of Tyana. A very strange way of showing friendship, unjustifiable even by the supposition that Basil wished to exercise the humility and self-denial of Gregory.1974 No wonder that, though a bishopric in itself was of no account to Gregory, this act deeply wounded his sense of honor, and produced a temporary alienation between him and Basil.1975 At the combined request of his friend and his aged father, he suffered himself indeed to be consecrated to the new office; but it is very doubtful whether he ever went to Sasima.1976 At all events we soon afterwards find him in his solitude, and then again, in 372, assistant of his father in Nazianzum. In a remarkable discourse delivered in the presence of his father in 372, he represented to the congregation his peculiar fluctuation between an innate love of the contemplative life of seclusion and the call of the Spirit to public labor.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  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?” “I can see that,” he said. I waited for him to say something more, but he didn’t.

• From Between Us

  In my own country, I was used to being a socially adept and emotionally intelligent person. But when I arrived at the University of Michigan in November 1993, I felt emotionally out of sync. My new colleagues were gracious, happy, and outgoing. They exchanged niceties with each other and with me. I liked their company, and I liked how they treated me. Yet, things were not easy, because I was unable to reciprocate in appropriate ways: I felt my own emotional shortcomings. In conversations, it did not come naturally to me to be outgoing and appreciative, to offer compliments, or to acknowledge effort and intention. I was not happy or grateful enough; not as happy as I clearly felt I ought to be, given the situation and given how everybody else was acting. It bothered me that I was emotionally underperforming, and I was not merely imagining that I was. I simply was not smooth. One day, a colleague asked me if I would like to have lunch with her the next day. I replied in truth, “Tomorrow I can’t.” My new friend Michele Acker overheard the conversation, and coached me privately that I could have been more forthcoming and pleasant: “I would love to go out for lunch with you, can we do it some other time though? I already have plans for tomorrow. . . .” Instead, she said I sounded rude. Rude? It certainly wasn’t what I meant to be; in my mind, it was simply informative. I also had difficulty making sense of others’ emotions. When Michele and I entered a drugstore, and she greeted the store clerk with an enthusiastic “How are you?,” I asked her if she knew this woman (she did not). The interest she displayed in the clerk’s well-being did not seem to fit the situation. The clerk, without missing a beat, reciprocated with a smooth, “Wonderful, and what about yourself?” I was left wondering what I had missed in this enthusiastic exchange between strangers.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I am startled by the randomness of his question. We don’t talk about normal things. Our conversations are about survival. My hand trembles when I take the cup. Who could think about children at a time like this? Two pals just sitting around, chatting about their life expectations? I want to rip open my shirt and remind him that he cut off my breasts. Remind him that we are prisoners. People in our predicament didn’t talk about the possibility of children. But still … because it is Isaac who asks me, and because he has given so much, I let my mind rove over what he’s saying. I once saw a toddler throw a fit at Heathrow Airport. Her older sister confiscated an iPhone from the little girl’s hands when she threatened to send it flying across the floor. As with most children, the tiny girl, who teetered on fresh, newly-walking legs, had a loud, indignant response. She wailed, dropped to her knees and made an awful herky-jerky noise that sounded like an ambulance siren. It rose and fell in crescendo, causing people to look and wince. As she wailed, she slid backwards on the ground until she was lying face up, her knees bent underneath her. I watched in astonishment as her arms flailed about, alternating between what looked like the backstroke and an interpretive butterfly dance. Her face was pressed into an anguished scowl, her mouth still sending out those godawful noises, when all of a sudden she scrambled to her feet, and ran laughing toward a fountain a few yards away. As far as I was concerned children had bipolar disorder. They were angry, unpredictable, emotional ambulance-sirens with pigtails, grubby hands and food-crusted mouths that twisted from smiles to frowns and back again as quick as a breath. No, thank you very much. If I wanted a three-foot warlord as my master, I’d hire a rabid monkey to do the job. “No,” I say. He takes a long sip. Nods. “I didn’t think so.” I wait for him to tell me why he asked, but he doesn’t. After a few minutes it clicks together— snap, snap, snap —and I feel sick. Isaac hasn’t been eating. He hasn’t been sleeping. He hasn’t been speaking much. I’ve watched him deteriorate slowly over the last week, coming alive only for the delivery of the white box. I suddenly feel less angry about his out-of-place question. More concerned. “How long have we been here?” I ask. “Nine months.” My Rubik’s cube brain twists. More of my anger dissipates. When we first woke up here he told me that Daphne was eight weeks pregnant. “She carried to term,” I say, firmly.