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.

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• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  We were driving farther and father north. I sat in the front seat with the owner of the camp and looked out at the tall pines, so blue they were almost black against the gray spring sky. The road was the same color as the sky. When we came to the top of a gentle rise and looked down, the road below seemed forlorn and distant, enchanted into the shadows. But as we sped through the valley, the road came close and brightened and the crowns of the blue-black trees slid over the car’s polished metal hood. In the backseat behind me lolled a special camper my mother, upon the advice of the owner, had warned me to avoid (“Be polite, but don’t let him get you alone”). She seemed reluctant to explain what the danger was, but when I pressed her she finally said, “He’s oversexed. He’s tried to take advantage of the younger boys.” She then went on to assure me that I mustn’t despise the poor boy; he was, after all, brain-damaged in some way, under medication, unable to read. If God had gifted me with a fine mind He’d done so only that I might serve my fellow man. In this brief parting word of warning, my mother had managed to communicate to me her own fascination with the wild boy. The day had turned cool and the car windows were closed. The motor ran so smoothly that the ticking of the dashboard clock could be heard. When I cracked the vent open I heard volleys of birdsong but the birds themselves were hiding. In the valley below, empty of all signs of humanity except for the road, a mist was curling through the pines. I didn’t really know the owner of the camp, and so I felt awkward beside him, ready to discuss whatever he chose but afraid of tiring him with my chatter. I sat half-rigid with expectation, a smile up my sleeve. And I felt the sex-crazed boy behind me who was half stretched out on the backseat, the sunlight from between the passing pines rhythmically stroking his body.

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

  Available space in a cop vehicle—a factor as circumstantial as that may determine whether or not a man's future is mangled. Gay publications advertise insurance against arrest; homosexuals make sure they have change with them at all times for emergency jail calls. The anxiety this creates—not knowing whether one will return home with a partner, harming no one, or end up in jail—is a prime factor of the gay experience and results in rebellious promiscuity. Two attorneys knowledgeable in the field estimate that in Los Angeles County alone approximately two-hundred men are arrested each month on lewd-conduct charges; this results in the dreaded, life-usurping, permanent registration with the police—as a “sex offender.” One hundred more men are arrested monthly on gay-prostitution charges. (In a bow to capitalistic enterprise, male prostitution is not considered a registerable sex offense, but free, mutual solicitation is.) A man is in a bar, another sits next to him, smiles. “Hi.” “Hi.” Knees touch. “Wanna get together?” “Okay.” Outside, the first man is confronted by another man; both the man who invited him and the one approaching are cops. “You're under arrest!”—and the nightmare begins. Handcuffs. You see the despising face that smiled and encouraged earlier. Jail doors lock. Found guilty of lewd conduct, you'll have to register as a sex offender—all because you accepted an invitation to sex! At best, to arrest anyone for suggesting or agreeing to a sexual contact, or for having one, is insane; at worst, it's criminal. Homosexuality is not a victimless crime—the homosexual is the victim, the cop the criminal. A man sits in a gay bar with his sister, whom he's finally told about his sex life. He's happy, she's accepted it lovingly; she had wanted to see his world, and now they're celebrating their new closeness. A vice cop mistakes her from behind for a drag queen and pulls her roughly back by the hair. The brother protests. Cops batter him to the floor. The seriously beaten man is jailed. “Resisting lawful arrest,” the cops claim. A youngman is in a small town outside LA. Lonely. He's never made it with a man before, but wants to. A man offers him a ride. He gets into the car. The man is fondling himself, the youngman answers. You're busted. The judge threatens to hold you incommunicado for three months—for “psychiatric examination,” insisting that all homosexuals are insane. Lights flash in a bar. Outrageously dressed men identify themselves as cops. Handcuffs snap on whoever is near. A cop dangles one more set of handcuffs. “You!” he chooses at random. And you become a “sex offender” for life. Each time a chief of police rants in public against homosexuals, he unleashes a wave of lunatic attackers into known gay areas. Murderers, muggers, robbers raid homosexual areas with weapons. Cops, who systematically harass cruising gays, pointedly ignore calls for help in menaced areas.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  As they finished and squeezed by Lionel, he saw that they were about his age, twenty-four, or a little older. They smelled like tobacco and bright, vegetal things—orchids, hydrangeas. They said hey and hi and excuse me, and he stepped back to let them pass. When the kitchen was empty and everyone had settled down to eat, Lionel made his own plate of baked asparagus, brown rice, kale salad. He leaned against the flaking yellow counter and pushed the food around until it had all been drawn across and through itself. The kitchen was humid, redolent of people and their colognes, shampoos, lotions. But the open window let in a shaft of cold, clear air. The wind whistled as it caught stray openings in the screen. “Lionel!” the host called from the other room. “Lionel, what are you doing in there? Come on!” He felt silly being summoned. When he was in the doorway, the host clapped loudly in a way that made the overhead lights flicker brighter in Lionel’s vision. His teeth hurt. “There he is, there he is!” The others did not clap, which made the host’s gesture seem both pitiful and cruel. Lionel could see the full array of people who had come to the potluck. The chubby man on the floor between two chairs kept insisting that he was fine. A blond woman sat with both feet on her chair and a plate balanced on her knees. The host shared the chaise with a couple who looked like siblings, in matching black corduroy pants and gray socks. The woman had a messy topknot, and the man wore his scraggly hair down to his shoulders under a felt baseball cap. An androgynous person, tall, striking, with a platinum buzzcut and septum piercing gestured at a black woman in overalls with pierced cheeks. Some skinny gay men in Breton sweaters, one black- white, the other white-black, were flirting with an equally skinny black man wearing sunglasses. A woman in chinos sat scowling at the space between her knees. Their faces were a wall of pleasant, bland expressions, but then they sank back into their own conversations. The chatter rose above the low music. Near the defunct fireplace, over which someone had mounted a set of steer horns, Lionel squeezed into an opening on the floor next to a man in a burgundy turtleneck. The man was densely, unnecessarily muscular and looked like someone who enjoyed being looked at and could hold eye contact. The conversation was difficult to catch. Everyone was talking in extended references to other moments, other events, other parties, and each reference, instead of drawing two things into relation, was instead the whole of the idiom, the entirety of the gesture. Which was fine, okay, he had gone to college with men who talked only in references to Will Ferrell movies and Adam McKay jokes.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  It was different in the café. He had that feeling again, the one like watching an intimate function at a friend’s house, the way two people who loved each other shared a context that had nothing to do with him. He was stupid for staying, for listening, when Charles and Sophie told him to stay put. He should have listened to himself. After all, his duty was to himself. Like that old line from his doctors: Your duty is to your health. You owe yourself that much. “I think I should bounce, you guys,” he said. Charles did not look at him. Sophie frowned. “Didn’t I say to stay right where you are?” “It’s getting a little weird, Sophie, isn’t it?” he asked, trying to be funny, but sounding only desperate to himself. “No,” she said. Charles knocked back the entire boot of tonic. “You don’t have to prove anything to her, Lionel. If you want to go, you can go.” Charles pointed to the door over Lionel’s shoulder. Sophie turned her head then, and she put her arm around Charles’s neck in a gesture that was at once playful and threatening. She was smaller than he was, but her arms were taut and strong. She clenched and Charles reached down, lifted her up, and settled her on his lap with no more effort than moving a coat from a chair. “Behave,” Charles said. “ You behave,” was Sophie’s reply, but Lionel did see her arm slacken. “Where did you go earlier?” Charles sighed. “Rehearsal. For the spring shows.” “Who’s choreographing?” “Farnland,” Charles groaned, closing his eyes. “I don’t know they let him choreograph still. After the incident .” She said the word with cartoonish exaggeration, turning to Lionel and giving him a very pointed look. “It wasn’t an incident,” Charles said. “Come on. Don’t spread rumors.” She looked at Lionel. “Farnland— allegedly —had an affair with one of the high school boys.” “Sophie, be serious.” The tension in the conversation cut against the casualness of their physical closeness. Sophie’s arm dangled around Charles’s shoulders. He had one arm wrapped around her waist, holding her steady, but with his free hand he swirled the espresso, breaking up the crema. Their limbs were loose and relaxed. But it was clear that this was a thing they disagreed about, and not for the first time, which made Lionel wonder why Sophie had brought it up in the first place. In front of him. “I’m just reporting the facts.” “You mean gossip,” Charles said. “Why’d you go with him, anyway? You could have danced in the stupid classical piece with the rest of us. You don’t even like contemporary.” “It’s neoclassical inspired , for one thing. Don’t be a bitch about it.” “Ah, yes, his Balanchine homage,” Sophie said. Charles closed his eyes again. “And for two, he asked me. Plus, he knows that guy in Seattle.” “PNB?

• From Hot Daddies: Gay Erotic Fiction (2011)

  Damian felt a tendril of pleasure glide down his neck and spine as Richard ruffled his hair, but then there was a spike of sadness. “Now more than ever, I wish I didn’t have to leave L.A.” Richard’s face became serious. “I...I’m going to beg you to stay here, even if it’s just for one night or a few hours. I want you to have a better plan than just taking a bus to anywhere. What if someone else gets you in the same situation?” Richard reached for his wallet. “Here, take forty dollars and buy some travel toiletries. Some extra underwear. I need to go close the clinic, but meet me back here in a couple hours. I plan to drive you at least a couple hundred miles out of L.A. to make sure you get away safe and sound.” Damian smiled with relief. “I would appreciate that so much, sir.” Damian did not return as promised. Richard worried, but he had no way to contact the young man. Over the next few days, he monitored DaddiesInDamian.com and was disappointed to see new videos appearing. Damian must have decided to stay. It upset him further that he could see Damian now had to argue over condoms each time. Stan appeared furious that Damian broke character as the perfect submissive, and Richard knew Damian would soon lose the safe sex battle. On the fourth day after they’d made love, Damian called in tears. “I was on my way back to your house, and they kidnapped me off the street!” he said. “I called the police, but they couldn’t care less about some fag porn boy, and now Stan says he’s slipping me shit so I’ll be arrested if I call the police again. I think it’s true because I feel drugged and out of it.” Richard was horrified. “I’ll think of something, baby. Just hang in there.” That night Richard studied the videos from Damian’s site. The layout of the house wasn’t evident; scenes were mostly shot by the pool. Richard noted that Stan and his cohort, Bob, were definitely big men. With his eyes always on Damian’s body, he hadn’t noticed they had the muscle necessary to keep a strapping farm boy prisoner. He felt the weight of his guilt in his chest. Why hadn’t he trusted Damian before? He set his mouth in determination. “Well,” Richard said to himself, “they haven’t tangled with a marine.” He closed the porn site, opened a new document and began a résumé. Damian could hardly believe his eyes. What was Dr. Preston doing here? He watched from the kitchen window awaiting his cue. “Welcome, uh…Louis, is it?” Stan scanned Richard’s fake C.V. Richard nodded. “Quite a place you’ve got here.” “Why, thank you.” Stan went through the same spiel he always did, making the job sound unappealing except for “one thing.” “In fact, why don’t I show you what I mean,” Stan said finally.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  We avoided Tourist Homes, country cousins of Funeral ones, old-fashioned, genteel and showerless, with elaborate dressing tables in depressingly white-and-pink little bedrooms, and photographs of the landlady’s children in all their instars. But I did surrender, now and then, to Lo’s predilection for “real” hotels. She would pick out in the book, while I petted her in the parked car in the silence of a dusk-mellowed, mysterious side-road, some highly recommended lake lodge which offered all sorts of things magnified by the flashlight she moved over them, such as congenial company, between-meals snacks, outdoor barbecues—but which in my mind conjured up odious visions of stinking high school boys in sweatshirts and an ember-red cheek pressing against hers, while poor Dr. Humbert, embracing nothing but two masculine knees, would cold-humor his piles on the damp turf. Most tempting to her, too, were those “Colonial” Inns, which apart from “gracious atmosphere” and picture windows, promised “unlimited quantities of M-m-m food.” Treasured recollections of my father’s palatial hotel sometimes led me to seek for its like in the strange country we traveled through. I was soon discouraged; but Lo kept following the scent of rich food ads, while I derived a not exclusively economic kick from such roadside signs as TIMBER HOTEL, Children under 14 Free. On the other hand, I shudder when recalling that soi-disant “high-class” resort in a Midwestern state, which advertised “raid-the-icebox” midnight snacks and, intrigued by my accent, wanted to know my dead wife’s and dead mother’s maiden names. A two-days’ stay there cost me a hundred and twenty-four dollars! And do you remember, Miranda, that other “ultrasmart” robbers’ den with complimentary morning coffee and circulating ice water, and no children under sixteen (no Lolitas, of course)? Immediately upon arrival at one of the plainer motor courts which became our habitual haunts, she would set the electric fan a-whirr, or induce me to drop a quarter into the radio, or she would read all the signs and inquire with a whine why she could not go riding up some advertised trail or swimming in that local pool of warm mineral water. Most often, in the slouching, bored way she cultivated, Lo would fall prostrate and abominably desirable into a red springchair or a green chaise longue, or a steamer chair of striped canvas with footrest and canopy, or a sling chair, or any other lawn chair under a garden umbrella on the patio, and it would take hours of blandishments, threats and promises to make her lend me for a few seconds her brown limbs in the seclusion of the five-dollar room before undertaking anything she might prefer to my poor joy.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  Next day, after lunch, I went to see “our” doctor, a friendly fellow whose perfect bedside manner and complete reliance on a few patented drugs adequately masked his ignorance of, and indifference to, medical science. The fact that Lo would have to come back to Ramsdale was a treasure of anticipation. For this event I wanted to be fully prepared. I had in fact begun my campaign earlier, before Charlotte made that cruel decision of hers. I had to be sure when my lovely child arrived, that very night, and then night after night, until St. Algebra took her away from me, I would possess the means of putting two creatures to sleep so thoroughly that neither sound nor touch should rouse them. Throughout most of July I had been experimenting with various sleeping powders, trying them out on Charlotte, a great taker of pills. The last dose I had given her (she thought it was a tablet of mild bromides—to anoint her nerves) had knocked her out for four solid hours. I had put the radio at full blast. I had blazed in her face an olisbos-like flashlight. I had pushed her, pinched her, prodded her—and nothing had disturbed the rhythm of her calm and powerful breathing. However, when I had done such a simple thing as kiss her, she had awakened at once, as fresh and strong as an octopus (I barely escaped). This would not do, I thought; had to get something still safer. At first, Dr. Byron did not seem to believe me when I said his last prescription was no match for my insomnia. He suggested I try again, and for a moment diverted my attention by showing me photographs of his family. He had a fascinating child of Dolly’s age; but I saw through his tricks and insisted he prescribe the mightiest pill extant. He suggested I play golf, but finally agreed to give me something that, he said, “would really work”; and going to a cabinet, he produced a vial of violet-blue capsules banded with dark purple at one end, which, he said, had just been placed on the market and were intended not for neurotics whom a draft of water could calm if properly administered, but only for great sleepless artists who had to die for a few hours in order to live for centuries. I love to fool doctors, and though inwardly rejoicing, pocketed the pills with a skeptical shrug. Incidentally, I had had to be careful with him. Once, in another connection, a stupid lapse on my part made me mention my last sanatorium, and I thought I saw the tips of his ears twitch. Being not at all keen for Charlotte or anybody else to know that period of my past, I had hastily explained that I had once done some research among the insane for a novel. But no matter; the old rogue certainly had a sweet girleen.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  If Miri heard that expression one more time she was sure she would explode, just like the planes. If life goes on, then why shouldn’t she go with Frekki Strasser to the Paper Mill Playhouse? “Out of the question,” Irene said. “Because…” Miri prompted. “Because you can’t trust the Monskys.” “You think Frekki is going to kidnap me and send me to another planet in a flying saucer?” “You’ll discuss it with your mother.” “Ben Sapphire wants to take you to Miami Beach,” she told Irene. “Who’s to say he’s not going to kidnap you and take you on a flying saucer?” “I should be so lucky.” “You’d like to get on a flying saucer with Ben Sapphire?” “What’s all this about flying saucers?” It was true that Ben Sapphire wanted to take Irene on a trip to Miami Beach. He reminded them his wife was heading there when her plane went down in the Elizabeth River. As if they needed reminding. Miri still saw that plane in her sleep. She could feel the heat. She’d wake up drenched with sweat and have to change her pajamas. Once she was awake she found it hard to get back to sleep. To calm her nerves, to take her mind off Plane Crash City, she’d look into her kaleidoscope, telling herself, You’re getting sleepy, you’re getting very sleepy… If all else failed there were stories in the paper that gave her other things to think about. ACTION! CAMERA!One of many candid camera shots taken during the play “Goodbye, My Fancy,” presented by the Vail-Deane School Dramatic Club, assisted by the Pingry Players. You could tell the pretty blonde in the photo in the paper wearing the strapless dress with a full skirt was the lead. She was probably the most popular girl at Vail-Deane. Miri imagined herself at Vail-Deane, wearing a blue jumper and white blouse, the school uniform. All the girls at Vail-Deane were rich. They dated the boys at Pingry, who came from the same kinds of families. Some of the boys crossed themselves before basketball games. Miri had been to a game once with Suzanne, who had a cousin at Pingry. All of them went off to fancy colleges. Then they married each other and lived in single-family houses with big backyards, had chubby babies and drank themselves to death. Miri knew the part about drinking themselves to death wasn’t necessarily true. She was just trying it out to make their lives seem less perfect. IreneBen called Irene his “safety net.” Without you I’m lost. Your warmth calms me. She could think of worse things for a man to say to her. Rusty once accused her of rescuing people the way some people rescue stray animals. The way Mason had rescued Fred. Miri had told her about that, about how he’d found Fred starving and wet in a snowstorm when he was just a puppy. No collar. No tags. Mason had nursed him back to health.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  “You girls and your secret marriages,” the doctor said. “If I had a daughter who did that I’d never forgive her.” What kind of father can’t forgive his daughter? She was glad he wasn’t her father. She believed Baba would forgive her anything. It was Mama she was worried about. Dr. Strasser took out the speculum and felt around inside her with his hand, pressing down, making her even more uncomfortable. The nurse told her to breathe. “I don’t see any evidence of a miscarriage. Everything looks fine. Would you like me to fit you for a diaphragm, Mrs….” “McKittrick,” Christina said, trying it out. “And yes, I’d like a diaphragm.” She was so glad she’d read up on her choices last night. “Do you have your husband’s approval to use birth control?” Her husband’s approval? “Yes.” “If you use it properly—and that means every time—you shouldn’t have to worry about being pregnant until you want to be.” After she was dressed and seated in his office, he said, “I see you’re from Elizabeth.” She nodded. “Plane Crash City.” “We don’t call it that.” She knew people who weren’t from Elizabeth did. Wasn’t there a story in the paper about letters to the editor addressed to Plane Crash City, New Jersey? “Terrible,” he said. “A tragedy.” “Three tragedies. And I saw two of them.” He looked up. “That would give you more than enough anxiety to miss your period.” “Yes.” “Newark Airport being closed is a real pain in the neck for me. Every time I want to fly to a conference or take a vacation I’ll have to shlep into New York, all the way to LaGuardia or Idlewild.” “I’m sorry,” Christina said. He laughed. “You’re a nice girl, Mrs. McKittrick. Good luck in your marriage.” “Thank you, Dr. Strasser.” “And don’t forget. Every time.” “What?” “The diaphragm. It doesn’t work if you don’t use it.” —SHE ASKED HER PARENTS if she could invite Jack to the house, just to say hello. “He rescued all those people from the burning plane.” Mama and Baba looked at each other. “We’re friends.” “They’re friends,” Baba said to Mama. Later, when the doorbell rang, Athena answered. “Hello, Jack.” “Hello, Athena.” “We were in the same year at school,” Athena explained to Mama and Baba. “And now?” Baba asked Jack. “What do you do now?” “Now I’m an electrician, sir.” “Your parents are living?” Mama asked. “I’m afraid not, Mrs. Demetrious.” “Family is everything,” Mama said. “Yes, it is,” Jack said. “You understand our Christina is precious to us,” Baba said. “Yes, sir.” “And she will marry a Greek boy someday. You understand that, too?” “I understand your wishes for your daughter, sir. And I respect them.” “Good,” Baba said. Mama grabbed hold of Baba’s arm, as if to steady herself. Athena tried to hide a smile. —THAT NIGHT they made love using both her new diaphragm and a rubber, because she wasn’t sure she was using the diaphragm correctly.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  Royer’s permission for any more stories,” she said. “But what about your job?” Miri asked. Tiny shook her head. “There are other jobs.” [image "Elizabeth Daily Post" file=Image00035.jpg] [image "Elizabeth Daily Post" file=Image00035.jpg] CRASH PROBE REVEALS TWO ENGINES FAILEDExtraordinary Release of Preliminary FindingsBy Henry AmmermanFEB. 28 — Both of the right engines failed on the National Airlines four-engine DC-6 that crashed into the Janet Memorial Home’s yard on Feb. 11. The CAB investigator also announced that the DC-6’s radial 18-cylinder Pratt & Whitney “Double Wasp” engines are being disassembled piece by piece and nut by nut at the facilities of Pacific Airmotive Co. in Linden. This is the same type of engine that powered the Convair 240 that crashed near Battin High School last month and the C-46 that crashed into the Elizabeth River in December, when an engine exploded. The “Double Wasp” is one of the most widely used engines in aviation, with a reputation for reliability earned during the adverse conditions of World War II. Crowds continue to gather at the crash site, which has taken on a carnival air, with a hawker selling bags of popcorn and families taking their children to see the remains of the devastation. 26 [image "image" file=Image00005.jpg] [image file=Image00005.jpg] ChristinaChristina’s period was late. She was beside herself with worry. Jack said to give it another two weeks. It was probably the stress of the crash. He swore he’d pulled out in time. She was distracted at school but everyone knew she’d been at the scene of the third crash, everyone knew she’d tried to help the injured. Even Mama and Baba were kind. Athena said she was getting too much attention, that the family was babying her, that staying at the crash site that night might not have been the best decision she’d ever made. But the aunts and uncles threw a family party for her. Really, it was Jack who rushed into the burning plane. Jack and Mason and Mason’s friends from Janet. But she couldn’t tell them that. She didn’t want to bring up the subject of Jack. Finally, when they were alone in the kitchen, Mama asked, not unkindly, “You were out on a date with that boy?” “Not so much a date,” Christina tried to explain. “We’re just friends. We went to Twin City, the roller rink.” But Mama was more interested in Jack than skating. “So who is this friend? He’s a Greek boy?” “His name is Jack McKittrick.” “McKittrick?” “Yes.” “He’s Irish?” “Half, yes.” “And he’s not a boyfriend?” “No. But what if he was?” “A boyfriend?” Christina nodded. “I’m not saying he is…but just suppose…” Mama sucked in her breath. It felt like she was sucking in all the air in the room. Christina felt dizzy, like she might faint. She steadied herself against the kitchen table. Finally, Mama spoke. “Baba and I would be very disappointed, very concerned.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  “Oho!” DeQuincey shouted. Then he said in a stage whisper to me, “She thinks we’ll be the first to chicken out.” (I liked that we.) “But she’s got us pegged all wrong.” He raced about the room turning off lights and saying over and over again. “Ooh-la-la,” as though sexual adventure must be French. In the past, whenever the Scotts had come close to a decisive action, they’d annihilated it through paralyzing discussion. That’s what kept them together, I imagine, their Sisyphean talk. He’d annoy her, she’d lapse into ponderous, savage silence, he’d cajole her out of it, she’d tongue-lash him, he’d whimper, then cringingly strike back, she’d retreat, he’d pursue—and all these feints and thrusts they simultaneously analyzed from so many angles and with such a strange blend of vanity, self-hatred, Christian moralizing and cross-cultural reference that finally nothing took place. Rachel didn’t walk out on DeQuincey. DeQuincey didn’t burn his poems, his “life work,” as he threatened to. She didn’t send Tim off to her monster father in Miami (“At least he’s a real man, and absolute evil is preferable, far preferable to your mauvais foi”). He didn’t run away to become an Augustinian. She didn’t turn on the gas to asphyxiate them all. None of this happened. They outsat each other, the air turned blue with tobacco smoke, irony and exhaustion. Dawn made its killjoy appearance, like a parent returning home to halt the children’s party, by now a seedy, nearly comatose event. But tonight talk wasn’t sapping resolve. In fact tonight the Scotts seemed in collusion, as though they’d decided in advance to seduce me. Given my failure with the black prostitute, I feared I wouldn’t be able to get it up for any woman, much less a teacher’s wife. But I didn’t want to be the one to back down. When we all three finally got into bed, DeQuincey kept the wisecracks coming. He was the eternal kid who’s forgotten to change his underwear, who keeps his socks on and can hardly wait to dive in (“Oh boy, oh boy”). Rachel, however, lost her bravado. She wasn’t frightened or ashamed but she was shy, even a little romantic. She lay between us. DeQuincey took no interest in me; perhaps Christ really had driven out all his homosexual devils. As it ended up, he mounted her while I stroked her face. When we were all dressed again, the Scotts seemed exhilarated—too much so, to my mind, considering how little had happened. Only gradually did I come to understand that whereas the Scotts certainly did have a serious Anglican admiration of sin, they had an equally strong horror of seeming to themselves bourgeois. Their desire to be bohemian outweighed their resolve to be good. Our “orgy,” as they called it, reassured them that their morality must be of a higher sort, no mere suburban primness.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  At this point I have a curious confession to make. You will laugh—but really and truly I somehow never managed to find out quite exactly what the legal situation was. I do not know it yet. Oh, I have learned a few odds and ends. Alabama prohibits a guardian from changing the ward’s residence without an order of the court; Minnesota, to whom I take off my hat, provides that when a relative assumes permanent care and custody of any child under fourteen, the authority of a court does not come into play. Query: is the stepfather of a gaspingly adorable pubescent pet, a stepfather of only one month’s standing, a neurotic widower of mature years and small but independent means, with the parapets of Europe, a divorce and a few madhouses behind him, is he to be considered a relative, and thus a natural guardian? And if not, must I, and could I reasonably dare notify some Welfare Board and file a petition (how do you file a petition?), and have a court’s agent investigate meek, fishy me and dangerous Dolores Haze? The many books on marriage, rape, adoption and so on, that I guiltily consulted at the public libraries of big and small towns, told me nothing beyond darkly insinuating that the state is the super-guardian of minor children. Pilvin and Zapel, if I remember their names right, in an impressive volume on the legal side of marriage, completely ignored stepfathers with motherless girls on their hands and knees. My best friend, a social service monograph (Chicago, 1936), which was dug out for me at great pains from a dusty storage recess by an innocent old spinster, said “There is no principle that every minor must have a guardian; the court is passive and enters the fray only when the child’s situation becomes conspicuously perilous.” A guardian, I concluded, was appointed only when he expressed his solemn and formal desire; but months might elapse before he was given notice to appear at a hearing and grow his pair of gray wings, and in the meantime the fair daemon child was legally left to her own devices which, after all, was the case of Dolores Haze. Then came the hearing. A few questions from the bench, a few reassuring answers from the attorney, a smile, a nod, a light drizzle outside, and the appointment was made. And still I dared not. Keep away, be a mouse, curl up in your hole. Courts became extravagantly active only when there was some monetary question involved: two greedy guardians, a robbed orphan, a third, Kill greedier, party. But here all was in perfect order, an inventory had been made, and her mother’s small property was waiting untouched for Dolores Haze to grow up. The best policy seemed to be to refrain from any application. Or would some busybody, some Humane Society, butt in if I kept too quiet?

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Their attention felt like metal prods inserted into his joints. “I need,” Lionel rasped, but then he stood up on his gummy legs. He went around the back of the chaise, and the host reached for him. The others called out: Is he all right? If I had to sit next to Charlie— Charles, what did you do? First door on the right! • • • LAST FALL, Lionel tried to kill himself. His attempt had not been subtle, so his father had flown in from his suburb of Houston and his mother had driven from her suburb of Detroit. They converged on him in Madison, furious and terrified as they reprimanded him for yet again being so careless with himself. He was held in UW Hospital for a few days. Held, because he could not leave of his own volition. What Lionel remembered with great clarity was the pain in his lower back: a hot ache just over his sacrum that throbbed all night. The doctor frowned at his EKG. The nurses spent a lot of time monitoring his respiration rate and his blood pressure. They told him to calm down and to think positive thoughts. They asked him about what he did, what he studied, said that he was young, that he was healthy, that he was okay, safe. He didn’t have to be so afraid. But his pulse stayed high, and eventually they had to give him a sedative, and he dropped into a blank void of sleep. When his parents showed up, he was bloodshot and cold. His father guffawed and said, You look homeless. The doctor flinched at that, but Lionel knew he was only trying to make a joke. To be easy. His father was an engineer who worked in oil. He had worked on a new method to extract oil from shale. Before Houston his father had been in North Dakota, and before North Dakota he had been in Wyoming, and before Wyoming he had been married. Lionel’s mother cried when she saw him and asked why he had done it, but the doctor said, We don’t ask that here. That is private. His mother looked at the doctor and said, Nothing about my child is private from me, and Lionel had wanted to say that his mother had taken the locks off his door when he was little and never put them back. His parents left that first time, going back to his place to get his toiletries and a change of clothes. The doctor said Lionel didn’t have to go with them when they returned for him if he did not want to. He could stay. Lionel asked the doctor about the pain in his lower back, and the doctor offered to give him Valium, but said it was habit-forming. It’s not that bad, Lionel said then. The pain was all right.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Bones. Milton smirks to himself. There’s a thought. What he wants is not to maim himself but rather to pry open the world, bone it, remove the ugly hardness of it all, the way one might take the spine from a deer or a fish or some other animal snared. Milton lifts the knife from his hand and stabs it into the table. When he was younger, he killed senselessly because the thrill of the act was like dipping his face into a clear, rushing stream. He didn’t have to consider the lives he ended. It was as if they were merely parts of a game, tokens to trade with his friends. If there was any merciful part of his childhood, it was that, the cleanness of it, how the act didn’t taint them, how the violence seemed to leave no trace at all. But he’s older now, and the meat of the world is full of bones. Everybody’s walking around all the time full of bones, full of jagged shards, flecks of hardness that need taking out and would, upon swallowing, prompt a person to choke. There’s no mercy in the basement tonight. Nolan, Milton thinks, and he squats by the table and thumbs the numb place left by the knife. He digs his nail into the thin, translucent space left by the knife until he sees the blood pooling beneath the skin. The pain abates quickly and leaves behind a memory so friable, so delicate, that it’s like blowing an eyelash and making a wish. Idaho. Milton lies down on the floor. The oblong shapes of boxed-up boyhood toys throw curious shadows that shift along the walls and the raw, unfinished struts of the basement. They look like the muscles of some enormous animal, getting ready to leap, to strike, to snatch him down into its shadowy belly. MASS Aleksander Igorevich Shapovalov—Sasha to those who loved him most in the world and Alek to everyone else, including himself—stared at the radiographic scans presented to him by his doctor in the intimate corner examination room and tried to think of what he’d tell his mother. “There’s a good chance it’ s nothing,” Dr. Ngost said. “But you’ll have to get a biopsy.” “A biopsy,” Alek said. “Yes. We’ll take a small piece of the mass and examine it. Then we’ll know more.” “But I don’t feel sick,” Alek said. “I just came because of this cough. I don’t feel sick.” “There’s a chance that you aren’t. There’s a chance it’s just a mass that we can take out. It happens sometimes. The body is full of odd turns.” “Full of odd turns,” Alek repeated—a nonsense phrase, too casual. Full of odd turns, like a clock or some other machine, routes and paths inside him swerving this way and that, and then suddenly an aberration, a deviation, a mass swelling up from below.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  Then, as her mother passed around little dessert cakes, Christina said, “Mama, Baba—you know I love you.” She’d been practicing in her room. She hoped it wasn’t a mistake to bring this up in front of the whole family but she wanted to get it over with all at once and she figured her parents would be less likely to go cuckoo in front of her grandparents and little Alex. She had their attention now. Mama and Baba looked from one to the other. “I’ve got an opportunity,” she continued, “a wonderful job opportunity with Dr. Osner in another place—” “What place?” her mother asked. “Las Vegas,” she said. “Las Vegas.” Her mother repeated this twice, then asked, “Where is Las Vegas?” Athena said, “You don’t mean Las Vegas, Nevada? You’re not telling Mama and Baba you’re moving to Las Vegas, Nevada?” She had hoped Athena would keep her mouth shut, for once. She should have known better. “How far is this place?” Mama asked. “Almost as far as California,” Athena said, holding her pregnant belly. She’d already gained close to forty pounds. Her maternity dress was snug across her middle. Mama clutched her chest. “Nico,” she said to Baba. “Do something!” “I’m not moving there.” Christina tried to reassure them. “Think of it as college. Two years of college but it won’t cost you anything. Instead I’ll be getting paid. And I’ll come home for the holidays.” Baba said, “That Irish boy, he’s going, too?” Now Mama screamed. “No!” She banged her fist on the table hard enough to make the glasses and the silverware jump. Alex climbed onto Thad’s lap and wrapped his fat little arms around his father’s neck. “You’re breaking their hearts, Christina,” Athena said. “You don’t understand,” Christina said to her parents. “Jack is 1-A—he could be called up at any time. You know what that means? He could be sent to Korea. Would you be happy then?” Thad got up from the table and carried Alex, who had begun to whimper, out of the room. Athena glared at Christina. “You have a way of ruining everything, even Sunday dinner. You do this and I’m the one who’s going to have to pick up the pieces around here. It will all fall on my shoulders. You are the most selfish person I’ve ever known.” The grandparents began jabbering to one another in Greek. Baba said, “Girls—you are sisters! Stop this fighting.” But Athena didn’t stop. Her face heated up. “As if I don’t already have too many fish to fry, between the store and Alex and the baby I’m about to have and a husb—” Before Athena could finish she cried out, “Oh!” Then “Oh!” again. “What is it?” Mama asked. “I think my water broke. I think I’m in labor. Somebody get Thad. Somebody get my bag!” Everyone jumped up from the table at once. Everyone except Christina and her grandmother. Yaya moved next to her and rested her hand on Christina’s.

• From Hot Daddies: Gay Erotic Fiction (2011)

  “Pull up your pants, boy,” Daddy commanded. Which I did. Like, fast. Daddy and Craig stood on each side of me; we all linked arms and ran into the waves. Well, they sorta carried me. But I didn’t give a damn who saw my ass. After all, it had been anointed a bubblebutt. I would’ve wiggled it at any nosy onlookers, had there been any; seagulls didn’t count. They dropped me in waist-deep water. I stood with my arms folded across my chest. “Com’on, boy, enjoy the water,” Daddy cajoled. “Uh, I’ll catch up. I’ll just take it one drop at a time.” Craig grabbed Daddy’s arm. They disappeared into a wave like two frolicking dolphins, black-clad butt and white-clad butt, yin and yang. They emerged on the other side of the crest, put their arms around each other, and sunk from view. What the hell is going on down there? Well, it couldn’t last too long. Craig popped up, his suit at midthigh, gulped some air and sank from view. Next Daddy rose, floating on his stomach, his suit also inappropriately placed. His tan torso, which played counterpoint with his bobbing white butt, glistened in the noonday sun, each droplet of water a small prism that captured the light and scattered it into minuscule rainbows. Two arms appeared around his waist, and he pumped his ass a few times before he jackknifed. The water churned as arms, legs and torsos swirled like intertwined pinwheels. A large wave plunged over them and they burst through the surface, sputtering, and stood in crotchdeep water. Their suits were still midthigh, and two hard dicks pointed at each other as they bobbed in and out of the receding wave. They threw back their heads and howled. Then they wrapped their arms about each other and kissed while reluctantly but diligently tugging each other’s suits to respectable, responsible positions, though two bulges remained more than evident. Can their inseams tolerate any more abuse? I turned and slogged back to the blanket. I sat and locked my arms around my bent knees. I like to watch Daddy grooving with a woman or two at a party, maybe even pumpin’ pussy, but that’s just play. This man-to-man stuff is scary. I didn’t know Daddy could be attracted to older men. He’s stepping out of his role—jeez—maybe it just is a role. Like, is he a real Daddy? Gosh, he has to follow his heart, but can it be away from me? The two men lunged through knee-deep water and marched across the shallows. They were holding hands and laughing as they ran up to me. I stared uncertainly at them. Daddy sat and draped his arm around my neck. I shrugged. Daddy glanced at Craig, who stood with his hands at his side. “Craig, move your towel over there,” he requested.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  The new and beautiful post office I had just emerged from stood between a dormant movie house and a conspiracy of poplars. The time was 9 A.M. mountain time. The street was Main Street. I paced its blue side peering at the opposite one: charming it into beauty, was one of those fragile young summer mornings with flashes of glass here and there and a general air of faltering and almost fainting at the prospect of an intolerably torrid noon. Crossing over, I loafed and leafed, as it were, through one long block: Drugs, Real Estate, Fashions, Auto Parts, Cafe, Sporting Goods, Real Estate, Furniture, Appliances, Western Union, Cleaners, Grocery. Officer, officer, my daughter has run away. In collusion with a detective; in love with a blackmailer. Took advantage of my utter helplessness. I peered into all the stores. I deliberated inly if I should talk to any of the sparse foot-passengers. I did not. I sat for a while in the parked car. I inspected the public garden on the east side. I went back to Fashions and Auto Parts. I told myself with a burst of furious sarcasm—un ricanement—that I was crazy to suspect her, that she would turn up in a minute. She did. I wheeled around and shook off the hand she had placed on my sleeve with a timid and imbecile smile. “Get into the car,” I said. She obeyed, and I went on pacing up and down, struggling with nameless thoughts, trying to plan some way of tackling her duplicity. Presently she left the car and was at my side again. My sense of hearing gradually got tuned in to station Lo again, and I became aware she was telling me that she had met a former girl friend. “Yes? Whom?” “A Beardsley girl.” “Good. I know every name in your group. Alice Adams?” “This girl was not in my group.” “Good. I have a complete student list with me. Her name please.” “She was not in my school. She is just a town girl in Beardsley.” “Good. I have the Beardsley directory with me too. We’ll look up all the Browns.” “I only know her first name.” “Mary or Jane?” “No—Dolly, like me.” “So that’s the dead end” (the mirror you break your nose against). “Good. Let us try another angle. You have been absent twenty-eight minutes. What did the two Dollys do?” “We went to a drugstore.” “And you had there—?” “Oh, just a couple of Cokes.” “Careful, Dolly. We can check that, you know.” “At least, she had. I had a glass of water.” “Good. Was it that place there?” “Sure.” “Good, come on, we’ll grill the soda jerk.” “Wait a sec. Come to think it might have been further down—just around the corner.”

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  He would return after a weekend with his dad and sit in his room silently holding his dog, refusing to see his friends. He became increasingly withdrawn at school and reluctant to leave the house. His mother called me to ask what, if anything, she could do. She explained that her attorney had told her that any complaint on her part would be interpreted by the courts as another example of her anger at her ex-husband, which would only have made matters worse; she’d be seen as angry and unstable. So her son was left without any advocate. She could not speak for the boy because the court would assume that she had an ulterior motive. The attorney also warned her that going to court would cost a ton of money. The mother was frantic. She had lost the power to protect her child. Under the present system, where parents are silenced, no one protects the child . During any given week in this country there are thousands of unaccompanied children flying to see their parents. 2 Their number is unknown because no one keeps a record. It’s hard to believe that the courts are protecting the interests of children when we have no idea how many are flying, how frequently, at what distances, and at what tender ages. Rather, the courts are acting blindly. Neither the judge nor the mediator have any knowledge of the child’s state of mind before, during, or after the flight. Once the order is made, there’s no follow-up plan to assess the impact on the child at the time and during the months that follow. Some children can travel with poise. Others panic. How can the court or the mediator or the parents be so sure that the child’s suffering is outweighed by the value of the visit? New and better solutions that protect children, or at least do not further traumatize them, are badly needed. The system is flawed. For starters, as children mature they want their concerns heard. They don’t want to be bullied. They don’t want to cry alone. They want a say in how their schedules are determined. In this, their complaints are absolutely in accord with their best interests and with their wish to grow toward greater independence and more self-regulation. Few people emerge full-grown like Athena from the head of Zeus. We grow up slowly and gradually, taking step after step toward independent judgment and adulthood.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  And then it hit me. We have not fully appreciated how divorce continues to shape the lives of young people after they reach full adulthood. For example, we know from surveys that grown children of divorce have a higher divorce rate, but that does not tell us anything about their intimate feelings, the major turning points in their lives, how they made the choices they did, and how they think about love and marriage and being parents themselves. The only way to get to the heart of what they think and worry about is to follow them over their entire life course, from early childhood to middle adulthood. Why was it so hard for Karen? Why did it take her so long to take a chance on love? Demographers now tell us that a quarter of adults under the age of forty-four are children of divorce. We are talking about millions of people who are struggling with the residue of an experience that their parents would rather forget. One thing was crystal clear. I had stopped too soon in my inquiry of children from divorced families. Karen’s visit had opened a set of questions and challenges that I found irresistible. Within a few weeks of her visit I decided to undertake a sequel to Second Chances with the hope of finding out how others were faring at the twenty-five-year mark. This is the longest close-up study of divorce ever conducted. The youngest “children” are in their late twenties and the oldest in their early forties. This book explores what has happened to them in adulthood. How are they getting along? How many of them are happily married? Do they have children? Have many divorced or rejected marriage? Do they still consider their parents’ divorce to be the main, defining event of their young lives? Are they angry at their parents? Do they now approve of the decision? Are they compassionate? Are they cynical? Are they worried, and if so, about what? What values do they espouse in love, sex, marriage, and divorce? How disappointed or contented are they with their lives? By getting into the heads and hearts of this generation, I hope to shed light on deep changes in American attitudes that are shaping the future in unexpected ways.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  I asked. “No, the same sort of thing happened again, although this was the only time Mom really lost it in front of us. But after that incident I started to notice more and there were plenty of times when Dad would get home late or he’d talk about a customer, particularly a female customer, and I’d see Mom start to get tense. Later, I’d hear them in their room arguing and there were some mornings when Dad wasn’t there and Mom would be in her room with a headache. Once I asked her why she was crying and she told me it was because she had a headache and hadn’t had her morning tea. That’s when I started to bring her tea in bed on the weekends. I couldn’t understand why she was so mad and suspicious of Dad, but I couldn’t stand to see her so unhappy.” Children cannot stand to see their parents cry. When a marriage is in trouble, youngsters are eager to rescue an unhappy parent even though they cannot fathom the cause of adult troubles. Gary had no ability to connect his mother’s headaches with her emotional distress or depression. Her effort to explain her illness by relating it to “not having morning tea” confused her son, although it did give him something to do to help her. What’s interesting about Gary’s story is the detail of his memory. Whether he understood adult feelings is moot. But everything he saw was indelibly etched into his memory, and this became the template of his expectations of family life. “I see now what you mean by the indoor version of your family. Do you think there was any real basis for your mother’s suspicions?” He nodded, as if he had been waiting for me to ask. “One morning, after I knew Dad hadn’t been home the night before, I was feeling really low. I guess I was seriously worried that he wouldn’t come back. Mom had been all teary-eyed and silent during breakfast. I got on my bike to ride to school but I just couldn’t face going. So I rode down to Dad’s store. I thought I’d just peek in to see if he was there. He saw me looking and must’ve sensed something was wrong because he just left off helping a customer and came straight out to me. I remember he looked tired but he also looked kind of alarmed. He asked if anything was wrong at home and looked relieved when I told him there wasn’t. So we went back into his office and we talked. He said he didn’t know why Mom was so angry and suspicious but that sometimes he had to leave because it got to him and made him angry. He pointed to the old leather couch in the office and told me that when he did leave, this was where he slept. That was when I asked him if they might divorce. I’ll always remember this part.