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 Mud Vein (2014)

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

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

  I peered into the alcove destined for me; it was eight feet square, daylight entered it, as in the great room, by a very high window fitted all over with iron. The only furniture was a bidet, a lavatory basin and a chaise perce'e. I re-emerged; my companions, eager to see me, gathered round in a circle: they were seven, I made the eighth. Omphale, inhabiting the other room, was only in this to indoctrinate me; were I to wish it, she would remain with me, and one of the others would take her place in her own chamber; I asked to have the arrangement made. But before coming to Omphale's story, it seems to me essential to describe the seven new companions fate had given me; I will proceed according to age, as I did with the others. The youngest was twelve years old: a very animated, very spirited physiognomy, the loveliest hair, the prettiest mouth. The second was sixteen: she was one of the most beautiful blondes imaginable, with truly delicious features and all the grace, all the sweetness of her age, mingled with a certain interesting quality, the product of her sadness, which rendered her yet a thousand times more beautiful. The third was twenty-three; very pretty, but an excessive effrontery, too much impudence degraded, so I thought, the charms Nature had endowed her with. The fourth was twenty-six: she had the figure of Venus; but perhaps her forms were rather too pronounced; a dazzling fair skin; a sweet, open, laughing countenance, beautiful eyes, a mouth a trifle large but admirably furnished, and superb blond hair. The fifth was thirty-two; she was four months pregnant; with an oval, somewhat melancholic face, large soulful eyes; she was very pale, her health was delicate, she had a harmonious voice but the rest seemed somehow spoiled. She was naturally libertine: she was, I was told, exhausting herself. The sixth was thirty-three; a tall strapping woman, the loveliest face in the world, the loveliest flesh. The seventh was thirty-eight; a true model of figure and beauty: she was the superintendent of my room; Omphale forewarned me of her malicious temper and, principally, of her taste for women. "To yield is the best way of pleasing her," my companion told me; "resist her, and you will bring down upon your head every misfortune that can befall you in this house. Bear it in mind." Omphale asked permission of Ursule, which was the superintendent's name, to instruct me; Ursule consented upon condition I kiss her.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  He takes one look at my face and says, “You knew.” I knew. “I suspected.” He looks incredulous. “That the power would come back?” “That something would happen,” I correct him. I knew that the power would come back. He disappears again, and I hear his steps pounding down the stairs. Clomp, clomp, clomp. I count them until he reaches the bottom. Then I hear the front door hit the wall as he swings it wide. I flinch at all the cold air he’s letting in, then remember that the power is back. HEAT! LIGHT! A WORKING TOILET! I feel impassive. This is a game. The zookeeper gave us light. As a gift. On Christmas Day. It’s symbolic. He thinks light came into my life on Christmas Day when I met Isaac. “You’re just a badly written character,” I say out loud. “I’ll kill you off, my darling.” When Isaac comes back his face is ashen. “The zookeper was here,” he says. I get chills. They skitter up my legs and arms like little spiders. “How do you know?” He holds out his hand. “We have to go downstairs.” I let him pull me up. He doesn’t like me to walk on the leg, which means he’s making an exception, which means this is dirt serious. I use him as a crutch. When we reach the ladder he helps me sit on the floor. Then he climbs down first. He has me lower my injured leg through the hole first. It takes me ten minutes to get it right, to maneuver it while not falling over. But I am determined. I don’t want to be in the attic a second longer. When both legs are through, he reaches for my waist. I think we’re both going to fall, but he gets me down. Steady hands, I remind myself. A surgeon’s steady hands. He hands me something. It’s a tree branch—almost as tall as I am—shaped like a wishbone. A crutch. “Where did you get this?” “It’s part of our Christmas present.” He stares intently into my eyes, and motions for the stairs. A few weeks ago we were burning everything we could. There is no way this could have escaped our fire. I lean on my crutch as I hobble for the stairs. I want to scream at how long it takes to make it to the bottom. I look around. I haven’t seen this part of the house since I broke my leg. I have a need to walk around, touch things, but Isaac pushes me toward the door. It’s dark outside. So cold. I shiver. “I can’t see anything, Isaac.” My foot is about to sink into the snow when my cast hits something. They never found the man who raped me.

• 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. Likewise, it was hard to gauge the state of my relationships: Did people like me? Did we have a friendship? I was not sure what the daily reassurances meant exactly, and I could not tell if people really cared for me. Or was that even a question to ask? One time, I had new friends over for dinner. The meal was tasty, and the conversation was engaged, and at times intimate. We had fun. It seemed to me that this could be the beginning of a real friendship; that is, until my guests left and thanked me for dinner. I felt crushed, because it had now dawned on me that we had failed to make a true connection. The way I was raised, where there is gratitude (i.e., thanking someone for dinner), there is no room for friendship. “Thank you for dinner” felt to me as an act of distancing, rather than an expression of appreciation.

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

  "She struck me, indeed, as a talented person, when I knew her." "Quite so; in other circumstances she might have proved even a superior woman. Very orderly and practical in all her household arrangements, she always found plenty of time for everything. If her life was not according to what we generally call 'the principles of morality,' or rather, Christian hypocrisy, the fault was my father's, not hers, as I shall perhaps tell you some other time. "As I entered the breakfast-room, my mother was struck with the change in my appearance, and she asked me if I was feeling unwell. "'I must have a little fever,' I replied; 'besides, the weather is so sultry and oppressive.' "'Oppressive?' quoth she, smiling. "'Is it not?' "'No; on the contrary, it is quite bracing. See, the barometer has risen considerably.' "'Well, then, it must have been your concert that upset my nerves.' "'My concert!' said my mother, smiling, and handing me some coffee. "It was useless for me to try to taste it, the very sight of it turned me sick. "My mother looked at me rather anxiously. "'It is nothing, only for some time back I have been getting sick of coffee.' "'Sick of coffee? you never said so before.' "'Did I not?' said I, absently. "'Will you have some chocolate, or some tea?' "'Can I not fast for once?' "'Yes, if you are ill—or if you have some great sin to atone for.' "I looked at her and shuddered. Could she be reading my thoughts better than myself? "'A sin?' quoth I, with an astonished look. "'Well, you know even the righteous —— ' "'And what then?' said I, interrupting her snappishly; but to make up for my supercilious way of speaking, I added in gentler tones: "'I do not feel hungry; still, to please you, I'll have a glass of champagne and a biscuit.' "'Champagne, did you say?' "'Yes.' "'So early in the morning, and on an empty stomach.' "'Well, then I'll have nothing at all,' I answered pettishly. 'I see you are afraid I'm going to turn drunkard.' "My mother said nothing, she only looked at me wistfully for a few minutes, an expression of deep sorrow was seen in her face, then—without adding another word—she rang the bell and ordered the wine to be brought." "But what made her so sad?" "Later on, I understood that she was frightened that I was already getting to be like my father."

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I close my eyes and listen to his heart. This is the first time—the very first time—that I am meeting this side of Isaac. After all these years. Without his permission I turn on the flashlight and aim it at him like it’s a spotlight. He gives me a warning look, but I just smile and keep it on him. This moment deserves a little something special. It’s four days ‘til Christmas. Give or take a day or two. I do my best to keep track, but I’ve lost days along the way. They dropped out from under me and messed up my mental calendar. You’re the one who went crazy and pissed herself like some dink in a mental institution. Isaac says I was like that for a week. Which still makes it Christmas. Christmas in the dark. Christmas in the attic room. Christmas drinking melted snow and eating pinto beans out of a can. Christmas was when we met. Christmas was when the bad thing happened. The zookeeper will do something on Christmas. I know it. And that’s when it hits me. It was sitting there in my subconscious the whole time. I moan out loud. Isaac is downstairs so he doesn’t hear me. And then I can’t quite catch my breath. “Isaac,” I wheeze. “Isaac!” I hate this feeling. And I hate how it hits me out of nowhere so that I can never be prepared. I don’t know what’s more overwhelming at this moment, the fact that I can’t breathe, or the realization that was powerful enough to steal my breath away. Either way, I have to get to a nebulizer. Isaac found them down the table. He brought one up. Where did he put it? I look helplessly around the room. The top of the wardrobe. I get out of bed. It’s a struggle. When I’m halfway there he walks in carrying our wood ration for the day. He drops his armload when he sees my face. He darts to the wardrobe and grabs the nebulizer. Then he’s pushing it between my lips. I feel a cold rush; the vapor hits my lungs and I can breathe again. Isaac looks pissed. “What happened?” “I had an asthma attack, idiot.” “Senna,” he says, swinging me into his arms and carrying me back to the bed. “Ninety percent of the time your asthma attacks are stress induced. Now. What happened?” “I didn’t know I needed anything extra,” I snap. “Other than being imprisoned in a house made of ice with my…” I lose my words. “Doctor,” he finishes. I twist my body so that I’m facing away from him. I need to think. I need to form a structure for this theory. The Rubik’s cube twists. Isaac gives me space. I’m locked in a house with my doctor. He’s right. I’m locked in a house with my doctor. I’m locked in a house with my doctor. With my doctor. Doctor… Christmas comes. Isaac is very quiet.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  Then the glances would come from other teachers, then someone would inform the principal, and then pretty soon we would be called in for meetings and threatened with punishment if we continued this little texting game. I could try to convince them it was harmless. “It was an author game!”—I would say—but they would kick me out, fire me. I’d end up homeless, living out of my Roller Skate, begging Holly to take me in, along with her delinquent alcoholic of a brother. She would say family comes first, and I’d be stuck in my car until Marco eventually found me and shot me in the head. Or had one of his Cuban cronies do it for him. At my funeral, they would all be muttering “Supposedly it was just an ‘author game’... if you can believe that!” I’d be dead, and it would all be James Joyce’s fault. Yeah, so maybe my mind can turn everything into the worst-case scenario. My mother was a worrier. But, these thoughts of being murdered in my house-car didn’t stop us from talking. We continued the game, back and forth with authors we had read: London, Hughes, Achebe, Stein, Chesterton, Dostoevsky, Browning, Longfellow. On and on we went, and she seemed to have a story behind every author she was familiar with, every story she had read. I hadn’t met anyone who shared my love of literature to quite the extent that she seemed to. As the lunch bell chimed and my class dismissed, she was immediately at my door waiting for me. “You are a persistent man,” she said, smiling. She was doing bad things to my mind. I was contemplating a throw down on the death couch with her, but if I was worried about texting getting me fired and killed, having sex with her in my classroom would probably achieve that end much more quickly. “Can you blame me for trying?” I asked, getting up from my desk to meet her at the door. “No,” she replied, “I’m just not used to someone so competitive.” “Please,” I said as we began walking down the hall, “you are married to a professional athlete. I am fairly certain he’s competitive.” “That’s different,” she said. “So, you need to read James Joyce,” she added, clearly wanting nothing to do with the fact that I brought her husband into the conversation. “Okay. I will.” “Really?” “Yeah, tell me what to read and I will.” “Okay. Well you have to read Dubliners then.

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

  Toward daylight I went to sleep. I awoke. She had not returned. Everything in the house went on as usual, and all looked at me in astonishment, questioningly. The children’s eyes were full of reproach for me. “And always the same feeling of anxiety about her, and of hatred because of this anxiety. “Toward eleven o’clock in the morning came her sister, her ambassadress. Then began the usual phrases: ‘She is in a terrible state. What is the matter?’ ‘Why, nothing has happened.’ I spoke of her asperity of character, and I added that I had done nothing, and that I would not take the first step. If she wants a divorce, so much the better! My sister-in-law would not listen to this idea, and went away without having gained anything. I was obstinate, and I said boldly and determinedly, in talking to her, that I would not take the first step. Immediately she had gone I went into the other room, and saw the children in a frightened and pitiful state, and there I found myself already inclined to take this first step. But I was bound by my word. Again I walked up and down, always smoking. At breakfast I drank brandy and wine, and I reached the point which I unconsciously desired, the point where I no longer saw the stupidity and baseness of my situation. “Toward three o’clock she came. I thought that she was appeased, or admitted her defeat. I began to tell her that I was provoked by her reproaches. She answered me, with the same severe and terribly downcast face, that she had not come for explanations, but to take the children, that we could not live together. I answered that it was not my fault, that she had put me beside myself. She looked at me with a severe and solemn air, and said: ‘Say no more. You will repent it.’ I said that I could not tolerate comedies. Then she cried out something that I did not understand, and rushed toward her room. The key turned in the lock, and she shut herself up. I pushed at the door. There was no response. Furious, I went away. “A half hour later Lise came running all in tears. ‘What! Has anything happened? We cannot hear Mamma!’ We went toward my wife’s room. I pushed the door with all my might. The bolt was scarcely drawn, and the door opened. In a skirt, with high boots, my wife lay awkwardly on the bed. On the table an empty opium phial. We restored her to life. Tears and then reconciliation!

• From How to Be a Great Lover (1999)

  There is only one way to be 100 percent sure you don’t get a sexually transmitted disease: to remain abstinent. But for those of us interested in becoming sexually masterful that does seem a trifle unrealistic, does it not? Almost equally as safe, which we’ll get into thoroughly in Chapter 6, is to give and receive pleasure solely by the use of the hands. Provided your hands have no open wounds, abrasions, or cracked skin, this form of sexual pleasure is virtually risk free, and with a bit of know-how and creativity, manual stimulation can be a most fulfilling form of sexual pleasure. Still, variety is the spice of life, and even the most exciting form of pleasure in exclusion of all others can become monotonous after a while. What we can do is make sex as safe as possible and dramatically reduce the risk of contracting an STD. Meeting a stranger’s eyes across a crowded room and falling into bed with him without so much as an exchange of names is a scene best left for Fantasy Island. Responsible adults talk about sex beforehand. Until you’ve both tested negative for all sexually transmitted diseases and waited the appropriate incubation period to ensure a clean bill of health (without engaging in any risk behaviors, such as unprotected sex with another partner or IV drug use), you should agree up front to use condoms every single time you engage in vaginal, oral, or anal sex. Condoms are now available for men and women, so you should both carry some at all times just in case. Even genital-to-genital contact without intercourse can transmit STDs such as HIV or syphilis. Foreplay involving any contact at all without condoms can be a problem. Now, the female condom will protect you from unwanted pregnancy, and from diseases obtained through vaginal and anal sex. But it will not protect you from diseases that can be contracted by oral sex, as regular condoms can. You can also reduce the risk of contracting an STD by limiting your sexual partners. You are more likely to get a sexually transmitted disease if either of you has more than one partner. That’s why the value of trust should never go underestimated in a relationship. What is often brushed aside or chalked up as one little indiscretion could literally be a matter of life and death. This is not a judgment; it’s a fact. If you can justify a reason to cheat on your lover or spouse, that’s your business. But please, be safe. Finally, if you use intravenous drugs, don’t share needles.

• From How to Be a Great Lover (1999)

  We will cover where toys come from, who uses them, how to use them, and the seminar favorites for an Adult Play Chest. Every industry has its trade shows and the adult novelty industry is no different. I attend the Adult Novelty Manufacturers Expo semiannually to ensure I have the latest and newest products available. Even if you are shy or have never used toys before, there may be a toy here that will increase your pleasure and add some spark to your sex life. All of the following items and products have been tested by the elite corps of “The Sexuality Seminar Field Researchers,” who are women just like you! These field researchers are from every demographic group imaginable: female, male, celebrities, non-celebs, executives, non-executives, married, single, straight, gay, bi, golfers, non-golfers, and ranging in age from eighteen to sixty-six. And because they knew their responses would be used by people looking for accurate guidance, they were completely candid about what did and did not work. Know that for a number of people everything about sex toys can be daunting and nervewracking. Remember, the job of a toy is to enhance, not to take over. There are those who may feel that using toys is entirely too risky—they have visions of horrified relatives finding things in a closet upon one’s untimely demise. Whatever your choice, you have to be comfortable with it. For our purposes the discussion will focus on toys and products, not videos, books, or aphrodisiacs, although there will be recommendations and sources at the end of this chapter. WHO COMES UP WITH THESE IDEAS? The use of sex-enhancing tools has occurred throughout history. The Kama Sutra discusses sexual aids; the Japanese came up with “happy” boxes that contained dildo-like items of varying size and shape. East Indian paintings from the 1700s show lovers using sexual accoutrements, and dildos are further immortalized on Greek pottery and in Egyptian frescos. The source of ideas for sex toys is threefold. A manufacturer who requested anonymity laughingly told me the number one source of design ideas are the egos of the managers and manufacturing owners. There is a constant need to introduce something “new” via a change in color, shape, or new material. Often, as in the fashion industry, they are knockoffs of another manufacturer’s design.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  Words—I could just make out the tip of them. My eyes slid up the sleeves of his shirt and rested on his neck. I didn’t want to look in his eyes when I handed him my keys. A doctor who loved words. Imagine that. I was curious. What did a man who had held a screaming woman all night have written on his body? I sat in the passenger seat and instructed Isaac where to go. My radio was on the classical station. He turned it up to hear what was playing and then lowered it back down. “Do you ever listen to music with words?” “No. Turn left here.” He turned the corner and shot me a curious look. “Why not?” “Because simplicity speaks the loudest.” I cleared my throat and stared straight ahead. I sounded like such a chump. I felt him looking at me, cutting into me like one of his patients. I didn’t want to be dissected. “Your book,” he said. “People talk about it. It’s not simple.” I don’t say anything. “You need simplicity to create complexity,” he said. “I get it. I suppose too much can clog up your creativity.” Exactly. I shrugged. “This is it,” I said softly. He turned into a medical complex and pulled into a parking spot near the main entrance. “I’ll wait for you right here.” He didn’t ask where I was going or what I was here for. He simply parked the car where he could see me walk in and out of the building and waited. I liked that. Dr. Monroe was an oncologist. In mid December I found a lump in my right breast. I forgot about the worry of cancer in the wake of a more immediate and needier pain. I sat in his waiting room, my hands pressed between my knees, a strange man waiting in my car, and all I could think about were Isaac’s words. The ones on his arms and the ones that came out of his mouth. A red bicycle in a stark white room. A door opened next to the reception window. A nurse said my name. “Senna Richards.” I stood. I went. I had breast cancer. I could talk about the moment Dr. Monroe confirmed it, the emotions I felt. The words he said to me afterwards, meant to comfort, reassure; but the bottom line was, I had breast cancer. I thought about his red bike as I walked to the car. No tears. No shock. Just a red bike that could fly. I didn’t know why I wasn’t feeling anything.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I was wearing a navy blue jacket over my shirt. I took it off and flung it on the couch. Then I piled my hair on top of my head and tied it into a knot. “So why are you here?” He looked at me then. “I want you to be okay.” Too much. I ran upstairs. I was crazy. I knew that. Normal people didn’t leave conversations right in the middle. Normal people didn’t let strangers sleep on their couch. Two years ago I purchased a stationary bike from an eighty-eight year old widower with pink hair named Delfie. She’d put an ad in the Penny Saver after she’d had hip replacement and couldn’t damn well use it, as she’d said. I’d picked it up the same day I made the call. After all the hassle and tassle of hauling the thing up the stairs, I’d yet to sit on it. I walked over to where it was collecting dust in the corner of my bedroom and climbed on. I had to adjust Delfie’s setting on the padded seat. I pedaled until my legs felt like jelly. I was panting when I climbed off, my bare feet sore from the plastic pedals. I walked on the sides of my feet to my night table. I flipped open the cover of Knotted with my pinkie. For MV I closed it, and went downstairs to see what Isaac was making for dinner. Fortune favors the brave. That’s what I repeated to myself as they prepped me for surgery. Except I didn’t say it in English, I said the Latin words: fortes fortuna juvat ... fortes fortuna juvat ... fortes fortuna juvat. Mantras sounded better in Latin. Repeat any phrase in the educated fancy-pants language most of the ancient philosophers used, you sounded like a goddamn genius. Repeat the same phrase in English, you sounded like a loon. Who wrote that phrase? A philosopher. I should have remembered his name, but I couldn’t. Nerves, I told myself. I searched for something else to focus on, something that could comfort my decision. I knew that the Bible said something about cutting out your eye if it offended you. I was cutting out my breasts. I thought that this was both my brave move and my offended one. It didn’t matter; most bravery boiled down to nothing more than a strong sense of duty that piggybacked an even stronger sense of crazy. Everything brave was a little bit crazy. I tried to focus on something else so I wouldn’t have to think about how crazy I was. There was a nurse taking my blood. The nurses were very attentive even when they were sticking needles into my flesh. Oh, sorry honey, you have small veins. This will only sting for a second. They told me to close my eyes as if I were a child. This one didn’t have any problems with finding the right vein in my arm.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I’m not one of his patients and I don’t appreciate being spoken to like one. “Yes,” I say simply. “The book?” His voice moves to gruff. “There was nothing in there about the carousel, was there?” “No,” I say. “There wasn’t” There didn’t need to be. “Do you think this could be one of your fans? Someone obsessed?” I don’t want to think about that, but it has already crossed my mind. I didn’t want to be the one responsible for this. “It’s possible,” I say cautiously. “But that doesn’t explain you.” “Have you been getting any threats, strange letters?” “No, Isaac.” He looks up when I say his name. “Senna, you need to think carefully. This could make a difference.” “I have!” I snap. “There have been no letters out of the norm, no e-mails. Nothing!” He nods, walks to the fridge. “What are you doing?” I ask, spinning in my seat to watch him. “Making us something to eat.” “I’m not hungry,” I say quickly. “We don’t know how long we’ve been out. You need to eat and drink something or you’ll dehydrate.” He starts taking things out of the fridge and putting them on the counter. He finds a glass, fills it with water from the faucet, and brings it to me. It’s a funny color. I take it. How can I eat or drink at a time like this? I force the water down because he’s standing in front of me, waiting. I stare blindly at the snow outside as he stands at the stove. The stove is gas; brand new from the looks of it. When he comes back to the table he’s carrying two plates, each piled with scrambled eggs. The smell makes me sick. He sets it down in front of me and I pick up the fork. Weapons, we have so many: forks, knives … you’d think if someone were coming back, they wouldn’t provide us with these things to attack them with. I voice my thoughts, and Isaac nods. “I know.” Of course he had already thought of this. Always two steps ahead… “Your hair is different,” he says. “It took me a minute to recognize you … upstairs.” I blink at him. Are we really talking about my hair? I feel self-conscious about my white streak. I make sure it’s tucked away, behind my ear. “I grew it out.” Put food in mouth, chew, swallow, put food in mouth, chew, swallow. We don’t speak about my hair anymore. When I am finished eating, I announce that I need to use the restroom. I ask him to come with me. The only bathroom in the house is the one in the bedroom where I found Isaac. He waits outside the door, knife in hand. Before we leave the kitchen he upgrades to a larger one. It is almost funny, but not. Big knife, big wound.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I started shaking my head before the words were out of his mouth. “I’ve seen a psychiatrist before. I’m not into it.” “I’m not talking about medicating yourself,” he said. “You need to talk about what happened. A therapist—it’s very different.” “I don’t need to see a shrink,” I said. “I’m fine. I’m dealing.” The idea of counseling petrified me; all of your inner thoughts put in a glass box, to be seen by someone who spent years studying how to properly judge thoughts. How was that okay? There was something perverse about the process and the people who chose to do it for a living. Like a man being a gynecologist. What’s in this for you, you freak? Isaac leaned forward until he was uncomfortably close to my face and I could see his irises, pure grey without any flecks or color variations. “You have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. You were just diagnosed with breast cancer. You. Are. Not. Okay.” He pushed away from the table and stood up. I opened my mouth to deny it, but I sighed instead, watching his white coat disappear through the cafeteria doors. He was wrong. My eyes found the scar from the night I cut myself. It was pink, the skin around it tight and shiny. He hadn’t said anything when he found me bleeding, hadn’t asked me how or why. He had simply fixed it. I stood up and walked in his wake. If someone was going to be digging around in my chest with a scalpel, I wanted it to be the guy who showed up and fixed things. He was standing at the main entrance to the hospital when I found him, hands tucked into his pockets. He waited until I reached him and we walked in silence to his car. We were far enough apart that we couldn’t touch, close enough together that it was clear we were together. I slid quietly into the front seat, folding my hands in my lap and staring out the window until he pulled into my driveway. I was about to get out—halfway suspended between car and driveway—when he put his hand on my arm. My eyebrows were drawn together. I could almost feel them touching. I knew what he wanted. He wanted me to promise I’d see a counselor. “Fine.” I yanked myself out of his reach and stalked toward my house. I had the key in the lock, but my hands were shaking so badly I couldn’t turn it. Isaac came up behind me and put his hand over mine.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I sink beneath the weight of it all. Isaac stirs behind me, and then he is leaning over me, his elbows on either side of my head. “The truth is for the mind,” he says. “Lies are for the heart. So let’s just keep lying.” I kiss the man I lie to. He kisses me with truth. I am set free. Two days later Isaac gets sick. It’s the kind of sick that scares me. At first when I question him, he tells me that nothing is wrong. But then the tiny beads of sweat start to collect on his brow and upper lip like condensation. I narrow my eyes at him as we eat. He’s clearly forcing down his food. His skin looks like wax—shiny and colorless. “Okay, doctor,” I say, setting down my fork. “Diagnose yourself, and then tell me what to do.” My voice is light, but something in my gut is telling that this is bad. We don’t have any more antibiotics. We don’t really have any more anything. I checked our supplies earlier: a couple tubes of burn cream and a surplus of bandages and alcohol wipes. We’ve been trying to save the power and use the logs from the well, but we are running low on those, too. I realize I’ve been waiting too long for Isaac’s answer. He’s staring at his plate, not really seeing anything. “Isaac…” I touch his hand and my eyes grow wide. “I’d say you have a fever.” My lips feel dry. I flick my tongue over the top of them while considering Isaac’s fever. “Let’s get you upstairs, okay?” He nods. An hour later he is trembling uncontrollably. I’ve shaken like this—I can remember each time. But my trembling was emotion. The body deals with attacks the same way—emotional or not. Isaac was always the one to make it go away. I can’t do the same for him. What he needs is beyond what my body can do for him. I can’t get him to wake up. He never told me what to do. His body says he’s hot—too hot—but this cabin is a freezer. Do I keep him warm, or cool him down? I sit next to him and try to pray. If I lean close to his face I can feel the heat rising off his skin. No one taught me how to pray. I don’t know who I’m praying to: an obese god who is always grinning? A god with a woman’s head that sits on a man’s body? A god with holes in his hands and feet? I pray to whichever it is. My mouth moves with words—begging, pleading words. I’ve never spoken to God before. I partly blame him for the bad that’s happened to me.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  There are sixty-three books scattered throughout the house. I’ve picked up each one, flipped through the pages, touched the numbers at the top right corners. I started reading two of them—both classics that I’ve already read—but I can’t get my mind to focus. I have twenty-three light, colorful sweaters, six pairs of jeans, six pairs of sweatpants, twelve pairs of socks, eighteen shirts, twelve pairs of yoga pants. One pair of rain boots—in Isaac’s size. There are six additional pieces of artwork on the walls, other than the F. Cayley; each of the others is by the Ukranian illusionist, Oleg Shuplyak. In the living room is “Sparrows” one of his milder pieces. But scattered across the rest of the house are the blurred faces of famous historical figures, blended almost indecipherably with landscapes. The one in the attic room disturbs me the most. I’ve tried to pry it from the wall with a butter knife, but it’s cemented so firmly I can’t get it to budge. It depicts a hooded man, his outstretched arms wielding two scythes. His mouth gapes and his eyes are two dark, empty holes. At first all you see is the eerie emptiness—the impending violence. Then your eyes adjust and the skull comes into view: the dark sockets of eyes between the scythes, the teeth, which seconds ago were simply a pattern on a garment. My kidnapper hung death in my bedroom. The sentiment makes me sick. The rest of the prints scattered throughout the house include: Hitler and the dragon, Freud and the lake, Darwin under the bridge with the mysterious cloaked figure. My least favorite is “Winter” in which a man is riding a yak over a snow-covered village while two eyes peer coldly at me. That one feels like a message. When I have counted everything in my closet and Isaac’s, I start counting things in the kitchen. I note the colors of the furniture and the walls. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I need to do something with my brain. When I run out of things to count, I talk to Isaac. He makes us coffee like he used to, and we sit at the table. “Why did you want to fly away on your red bike?” He raises his eyebrows. He’s not used to questions from me. “I don’t know anything about you,” I say. “You never seemed to want to.” That stings. It’s not entirely untrue. I have that whole stay the hell away from me thing going on. “I didn’t.” I count the kitchen cabinets. I forgot to do that. “Why not?” He spins his coffee cup in a circle, and lifts it to his mouth. Before he can take a sip he sets it down again. I have to take a moment to think about that one. “It’s just who I am.” “Because you choose to be?” “This conversation was supposed to be about you.”

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I started shaking my head before the words were out of his mouth. “I’ve seen a psychiatrist before. I’m not into it.” “I’m not talking about medicating yourself,” he said. “You need to talk about what happened. A therapist—it’s very different.” “I don’t need to see a shrink,” I said. “I’m fine. I’m dealing.” The idea of counseling petrified me; all of your inner thoughts put in a glass box, to be seen by someone who spent years studying how to properly judge thoughts. How was that okay? There was something perverse about the process and the people who chose to do it for a living. Like a man being a gynecologist. What’s in this for you, you freak? Isaac leaned forward until he was uncomfortably close to my face and I could see his irises, pure grey without any flecks or color variations. “You have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. You were just diagnosed with breast cancer. You. Are. Not. Okay.” He pushed away from the table and stood up. I opened my mouth to deny it, but I sighed instead, watching his white coat disappear through the cafeteria doors. He was wrong. My eyes found the scar from the night I cut myself. It was pink, the skin around it tight and shiny. He hadn’t said anything when he found me bleeding, hadn’t asked me how or why. He had simply fixed it. I stood up and walked in his wake. If someone was going to be digging around in my chest with a scalpel, I wanted it to be the guy who showed up and fixed things. He was standing at the main entrance to the hospital when I found him, hands tucked into his pockets. He waited until I reached him and we walked in silence to his car. We were far enough apart that we couldn’t touch, close enough together that it was clear we were together. I slid quietly into the front seat, folding my hands in my lap and staring out the window until he pulled into my driveway. I was about to get out—halfway suspended between car and driveway—when he put his hand on my arm. My eyebrows were drawn together. I could almost feel them touching. I knew what he wanted. He wanted me to promise I’d see a counselor. “Fine.” I yanked myself out of his reach and stalked toward my house. I had the key in the lock, but my hands were shaking so badly I couldn’t turn it. Isaac came up behind me and put his hand over mine.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I want to purge it with a gallon of snow. His eyes flicker. He’s remembering. “The dedication in his book.” Our eyes are connected, so I don’t need to nod. “Would he…?” “I don’t know anything anymore.” “What does it mean?” he asks. I lower my eyes away from his, and to the blood letters. For MV “What’s inside?” I ask. “I’ll open it when you tell me why the zookeeper addressed that box to Mud Vein.” The box is just out of my reach. To get to it I’ll have to use something to pull myself up. Since the couch no longer has a back, there is nothing I can use for leverage. Isaac, I realize, is being very strategic. I take a breath; it is broken in half by a sob that never reaches my lips. My chest convulses as I open my mouth to speak. I don’t want to tell him anything, but I must. “It’s the black vein that curves around the back of a shrimp. Nick called it the mud vein. You have to remove it to make the shrimp clean…” My voice is monotone. “Why did he call you that?” When Isaac and I ask each other questions it reminds me of a tennis match. Once you’ve sent one over the net, you know it’s going to come back, you just don’t know the direction. “Isn’t it obvious?” He blinks at me. One second, two seconds, three seconds… “No.” “I don’t get you,” I say. “You don’t get you,” he shoots back. We have resumed our eye transmissions. I’m glaring, but his stare is more candid. After a minute he steps over to the box and opens it. I try not to lean forward. I try not to hold my breath, but there is a white box with the words For MV stenciled on the lid in blood. I am aching to know what’s inside. Isaac reaches down. I hear the gentle whisper of paper. When his hand comes up he’s holding a loose page that looks as if it’s been torn from a book. The corners have soaked up some blood. For MV Blood soaked pages, for MV… Who knew that Nick called me that, besides Nick himself? Isaac starts to read. “The punishment for her peace was upon him, and he gave her rest.” I hold out my hand. I want to see the page, know who wrote it. It wasn’t Nick; I know his style. It wasn’t me. I take the blood-stained page, careful to keep my fingers away from the red parts. I read silently what Isaac read out loud. The page is numbered 212. There is no title or author name.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  ANXIOUS APHRODISIACSAs an organism determined to survive, you are equipped to assess risks and avoid danger. Fear makes your heart and breathing rates increase. Yet each breath becomes shallower as your chest muscles and diaphragm tense up in a protective armor. Your arms and legs prepare to defend, hit, kick, or escape. Your vision, hearing, and sense of smell become ultra-sensitized. Yet your sense of touch tends to numb so that you won’t be distracted by pain. You’re pumping out adrenaline to optimize your physical strength and alertness. Whereas fear is usually a response to fairly specific and imminent dangers—including all kinds of physical and emotional attacks—anxiety is concerned with potential dangers, whether conscious or unconscious. Research at the Menninger Foundation has shown that the unconscious mind does not distinguish between real and imagined threats.6 Even when the focus of anxiety is “all in your head,” your body responds as if the danger is real. The subjective experiences of fear and anxiety have so much in common that I use the two words interchangeably throughout our discussion. The relationship between anxiety and eroticism is intricate and paradoxical. If you are highly anxious in a sexual situation, your physical capacities for arousal or orgasm or both will usually be short-circuited. Modern sex therapy can effectively teach sexually anxious people how to reduce fear and create opportunities for pleasure. However, to view anxiety solely as antithetical to arousal is to blind ourselves to a richer and more challenging reality: just as surely as anxiety can disrupt arousal, it can also create, focus, and intensify it. Depending on the situation and the individuals involved, anxiety is either an antiaphrodisiac or an aphrodisiac—occasionally both. Anxiety intensifies arousal by contributing to a generalized state of physical excitation. All forms of excitement, sexual and nonsexual alike, increase muscular tension, blood flow, and heart and breathing rates. Consequently, your body responds similarly to anxiety-provoking and sexually arousing situations. For instance, some men and women spontaneously experience sexual arousal in a wide range of frightening situations, including everything from fights to roller-coaster rides to sexual assaults.7 ANXIETY AND THE FOUR CORNERSTONESIn addition to the physiological links between fear and sexual excitement, anxiety is a natural response to many of the risks and dangers inherent in the four cornerstones. During the experience of longing and anticipation, the urge to be with the one you desire is paramount. But within your yearning may lurk uncertainty and fear. Is the attraction mutual? Will you ever see her again? Will he still feel the same way about you? Does she miss you as much as you miss her? Will the two of you be as sexually compatible as you hope, or as you have been before? Are you setting yourself up for hurt or disappointment?

• From Going Clear (2013)

  The writer who produces “too much of it too fast and too glibly” runs the risk of believing in his own creations. “It appears to me inevitable that anyone writing several million words of fantasy and science-fiction should ultimately begin to internalize the assumptions underlying the verbiage.” Dianetics, Hayakawa noted, was neither science nor fiction, but something else: “fictional science.” Not all scientists rejected Hubbard’s approach. One of his early supporters was Campbell’s brother-in-law Dr. Joseph Winter, a physician who had also written for Astounding Science-Fiction. Searching for a more holistic approach to medicine, Winter traveled to New Jersey to experience Hubbard’s method firsthand. “While listening to Hubbard ‘running’ one of his patients, or while being ‘run’ myself, I would find myself developing unaccountable pains in various portions of my anatomy, or becoming extremely fatigued and somnolent,” he reported. “I had nightmares of being choked, of having my genitalia cut off, and I was convinced that dianetics as a method could produce effects.” Hubbard’s method involved placing the patient in a state of “reverie,” achieved by giving the command “When I count from one to seven your eyes will close.” A tremble of the lashes as the eyelids flutter shut signals that the subject has fallen into a receptive condition. “This is not hypnotism,” Hubbard insists. Although a person in a Dianetic reverie may appear to be in a trance, the opposite is the case, he says: “The purpose of therapy is to awaken a person in every period of his life when he has been forced into ‘unconsciousness.’ Dianetics wakes people up.” Sara watched the effect that Ron was having on his patients. “He would hold hands with them and try to talk them into these phony memories,” she recalled. “He would concentrate on them and they loved it. They were so excited about someone who would just pay this much attention to them.” Dr. Winter tried out Hubbard’s techniques on his six-year-old son, who was afraid of the dark because he was terrified of being choked by ghosts. Winter asked him to remember the first time he saw a ghost. “He has on a long white apron, a little white cap on his head and a piece of white cloth on his mouth,” the boy said. He even had a name for the ghost—it happened to be the same as that of the obstetrician who delivered him.