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 Looking for Alaska (2005)

  four days before THE COLONEL WOULDN’T TELL ME a word about the pre-prank, except that it was to be called Barn Night, and that when I packed, I should pack for two days. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were torture. The Colonel was always with Alaska, and I was never invited. So I spent an inordinate amount of time studying for finals, which helped my GPA considerably. And I finally finished my religion paper. My answer to the question was straightforward enough, really. Most Christians and Muslims believe in a heaven and a hell, though there’s a lot of disagreement within both religions over what, exactly, will get you into one afterlife or the other. Buddhists are more complicated—because of the Buddha’s doctrine of anatta, which basically says that people don’t have eternal souls. Instead, they have a bundle of energy, and that bundle of energy is transitory, migrating from one body to another, reincarnating endlessly until it eventually reaches enlightenment. I never liked writing concluding paragraphs to papers—where you just repeat what you’ve already said with phrases like In summation, and To conclude. I didn’t do that—instead I talked about why I thought it was an important question. People, I thought, wanted security. They couldn’t bear the idea of death being a big black nothing, couldn’t bear the thought of their loved ones not existing, and couldn’t even imagine themselves not existing. I finally decided that people believed in an afterlife because they couldn’t bear not to. three days before ON FRIDAY, after a surprisingly successful precalc exam that brought my first set of Culver Creek finals to a close, I packed clothes (“Think New York trendy,” the Colonel advised. “Think black. Think sensible. Comfortable, but warm.”) and my sleeping bag into a backpack, and we picked up Takumi in his room and walked to the Eagle’s house. The Eagle was wearing his only outfit, and I wondered whether he just had thirty identical white button-down shirts and thirty identical black ties in his closet. I pictured him waking up in the morning, staring at his closet, and thinking, Hmm…hmm…how about a white shirt and a black tie? Talk about a guy who could use a wife. — “I’m taking Miles and Takumi home for the weekend to New Hope,” the Colonel told him. “Miles liked his taste of New Hope that much?” the Eagle asked me. “Yee haw! There’s a-gonna be a hoedown at the trailer park!” the Colonel said. He could actually have a Southern accent when he wanted to, although like most everyone at Culver Creek, he didn’t usually speak with one. “Hold on one moment while I call your mom,” the Eagle said to the Colonel. Takumi looked at me with poorly disguised panic, and I felt lunch—fried chicken—rising in my stomach. But the Colonel just smiled. “Sure thing.” “Chip and Miles and Takumi will be at your house this weekend?…Yes, ma’am.…Ha!…Okay. Bye now.” The Eagle looked up at the Colonel.

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  She kept glancing up at me, her eyes widening as if to say, Well? I could tell she wanted me to ask her about something, but I couldn’t tell what, because my stomach wouldn’t shut up, which was forcing me deep inside a worry that I’d somehow contracted a parasitic infection. I could half hear Mychal telling Daisy about his new art project, in which he was using Photoshop to average the faces of a hundred people named Mychal, and the average of their faces would be this new, one-hundred-and-first Mychal, which was an interesting idea, and I wanted to listen, but the cafeteria was so loud, and I couldn’t stop wondering whether there was something wrong with the microbial balance of power inside me. Excessive abdominal noise is an uncommon, but not unprecedented, presenting symptom of infection with the bacteria Clostridium difficile , which can be fatal. I pulled out my phone and searched “human microbiome” to reread Wikipedia’s introduction to the trillions of microorganisms currently inside me. I clicked over to the article about C. diff , scrolling to the part about how most C. diff infections occur in hospitals. I scrolled down farther to a list of symptoms, none of which I had, except for the excessive abdominal noises, although I knew from previous searches that the Cleveland Clinic had reported the case of one person who’d died of C. diff after presenting at the hospital with only abdominal pain and fever. I reminded myself that I didn’t have a fever, and my self replied: You don’t have a fever YET . At the cafeteria, where a shrinking slice of my consciousness still resided, Daisy was telling Mychal that his averaging project shouldn’t be about people named Mychal but about imprisoned men who’d later been exonerated. “It’ll be easier, anyway,” she said, “because they all have mug shots taken from the same angle, and then it’s not just about names but about race and class and mass incarceration,” and Mychal was like, “You’re a genius, Daisy,” and she said, “You sound surprised,” and meanwhile I was thinking that if half the cells inside of you are not you, doesn’t that challenge the whole notion of me as a singular pronoun, let alone as the author of my fate? And I fell pretty far down that recursive wormhole until it transported me completely out of the White River High School cafeteria into some non-sensorial place only properly crazy people get to visit. Ever since I was little, I’ve pressed my right thumbnail into the finger pad of my middle finger, and so now there’s this weird callus over my fingerprint. After so many years of doing this, I can open up a crack in the skin really easily, so I cover it up with a Band-Aid to try to prevent infection.

• From Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)

  some days than on others. On rainy days, a New York cab never remains free for long, and the driver quickly achieves his target; not so in pleasant weather, when cabs often waste time cruising the streets looking for fares. Economic logic implies that cabdrivers should work many hours on rainy days and treat themselves to some leisure on mild days, when they can “buy” leisure at a lower price. The logic of loss aversion suggests the opposite: drivers who have a fixed daily target will work many more hours when the pickings are slim and go home early when rain-drenched customers are begging to be taken somewhere. The economists Devin Pope and Maurice Schweitzer, at the University of Pennsylvania, reasoned that golf provides a perfect example of a reference point: par. Every hole on the golf course has a number of strokes associated with it; the par number provides the baseline for good—but not outstanding—performance. For a professional golfer, a birdie (one stroke under par) is a gain, and a bogey (one stroke over par) is a loss. The economists compared two situations a player might face when near the hole: putt to avoid a bogey putt to achieve a birdie Every stroke counts in golf, and in professional golf every stroke counts a lot. According to prospect theory, however, some strokes count more than others. Failing to make par is a loss, but missing a birdie putt is a foregone gain, not a loss. Pope and Schweitzer reasoned from loss aversion that players would try a little harder when putting for par (to avoid a bogey) than when putting for a birdie. They analyzed more than 2.5 million putts in exquisite detail to test that prediction. They were right. Whether the putt was easy or hard, at every distance from the hole, the players were more successful when putting for par than for a birdie. The difference in their rate of success when going for par (to avoid a bogey) or for a birdie was 3.6%. This difference is not trivial. Tiger Woods was one of the “participants” in their study. If in his best years Tiger Woods had managed to putt as well for birdies as he did for par, his average tournament score would have improved by one stroke and his earnings by almost $1 million per season. These fierce competitors certainly do not make a conscious decision to slack off on birdie putts, but their intense aversion to a bogey apparently contributes to extra concentration on the task at hand. The study of putts illustrates the power of a theoretical concept as an aid to thinking. Who would have thought it worthwhile to spend months analyzing

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  I might be like, “So I was driving down the street and then BOOM a deer jumps out of the woods and almost hits my car, and I almost peed my pants.” That’s a grammatically disastrous sentence, but the reason I switch tenses there is because when describing the moment of crisis—the deer jumping out into the street—I feel as if it is still happening, and I want to express to you that it was so intense that on some level the experience is not over . We like to be very rigid in the way we imagine tense—some things are happening, other things have happened, etc. But one of the reasons we’ve created SO MANY tenses in English is that the way we actually experience time is quite complicated. When Pudge is talking about Alaska’s death, he is telling you a story that for him is still happening, a story that he hasn’t processed and put behind him. For me at least, that’s how trauma works. As Faulkner famously put it, “The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.” Do you know what Alaska’s last words were? No, I don’t know her last words. From the moment I began to think about the story, I knew I’d never be inside the car with her that night, and that my readers wouldn’t be, either. I wanted Pudge to believe in the value of dying declarations as a way of closing the book on a human life, but then to be denied that closure when it comes to the death of someone he loves. He has to live with not knowing—not knowing her last words, and more importantly not knowing whether she committed suicide. I wanted the story to explore whether it is possible to live a hopeful life when you so often do not get answers to questions that deserve answers. Why did you decide to use the word ‘disintegrating’ to describe the school after the Eagle told everyone of Alaska’s death? Julie and I actually talked a fair bit about that word choice before arriving at disintegrating , so I’m happy to be asked the question! What I like about disintegration in that moment is that it implies there had been up until then an integration. Pudge had assimilated into the culture of Culver Creek, and although certainly not all the students like each other, there is a feeling of balance and unity and integration with the Culver Creek bubble: Almost everything that has occurred so far in the story has been either about people living on that campus or visiting it. There are no outside events at Culver Creek. You only see Jake when he visits. The kids on other basketball teams are only relevant when they come to campus. It’s a self-contained universe. There are trips to McDonald’s and Coosa Liquors, but they’re all about Pudge and his fellow students.

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

  The visiting schedule was set up on the basis of a compromise meeting the demands of both parents. The wishes and needs of each child—now eight and thirteen years old—were never consulted or considered. It’s shocking to realize how often this goes on throughout the country. Typically children are not asked to participate in formulating court-ordered or mediated plans that make for radical changes in their lives. Neither parent asked either Joan or Paula how they felt about it. After their day in court, each parent retreated into an entrenched position, rigidly adhering to court orders and communicating with each other as little as possible. After his long absence, the children hardly knew their father. Paula, in her characteristic blunt manner, retreated into a sulky silence. For her part, Joan wailed, “Where is he going to take us? What will I do there? What should I tell my friends? Why do I have to go?” Joan and Paula were excited at the prospect of having a real-life dad like other children but they couldn’t understand where he had been the last few years. They didn’t know how to ask this and he did not explain. They were also frightened of being left alone with a strange man in an unfamiliar place. Joan, as a young adolescent, was especially embarrassed about having her first menstrual period at her father’s home. She worried sick about how she would tell him. In this family and many others, no one talked about how the children would spend time with their father. No one thought to help the man or the daughters figure out ways to get to know one another after such a long absence. The parents never met alone or with an adviser to explain the children’s interests or their natural concern about how the visits would cut into their social lives and friendships. The court made no provision for a gradual implementation of the new schedule. Basically the children were treated like objects and sent off on the assumption that of course everything would work out for the best. Paula’s mom arranged for a neighbor to take the girls to the bus station for the trip up to Santa Rosa every other Friday afternoon. Their dad met them at the depot or, if he was working late, had them take a cab to his apartment. Unaware of his children’s anxieties, the father did what he remembered doing when they were young. He took them to the playground. When this bombed, he took them to the movies. But with a limited selection of G-rated films in Santa Rosa, he finally resorted to the video store.

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  “Now before we move on in the service, I want those of you who are white to cross the aisle and hug the necks of your brothers and sisters. Tell ’em Jesus loves them and you do too.” That, at least, we could do. Chapter SixTHE END WAS ALWAYS UPON US AND THE SITUATION ALWAYS DIRE. THE revival in Bossier City just upped the ante. Unable to recoup the thousands he had spent on the revival, Brother Terrell left Bossier City owing everyone in town, plus the monthly equipment payments and staff salaries. It all added up to what Brother Terrell called his financial burden, and it got worse with each revival. If we didn’t raise a certain amount of money, we would lose the tent or the eighteen-wheeler or the sound system. Millions would die and go to hell. Their blood would be on our hands. Meanwhile, we had our own blood to worry about. As tensions increased in the South, the three-foot-wide aisle that divided black from white did not satisfy the more violent racists. Brother Terrell was beaten a few more times. One story has cops looking on as one thug holds Brother Terrell and another slugs away. Harassment by local officials increased. Our speakers were always too loud, the aisles in the tent too narrow, and the electrical system not quite up to code. Everything about us disturbed the peace. Authorities threatened to charge Brother Terrell with practicing medicine without a license, a tool that had been used before against faithhealing evangelists. One set of cops dropped all pretense and said they were taking him to jail for preaching to a mixed-race crowd. Brother Terrell grinned and held out his wrists to be handcuffed. “Last I heard that wasn’t illegal, but at least you boys are honest,” he said.Our lives were a mess, and when the baby was born everything became even messier. There was less sleep, less space, less money, and more arguments, especially when Brother Terrell insisted on naming his new daughter after my mother. Betty Ann agreed, reluctantly I assume, and then called the child by the nickname Tina instead. The adults all seemed on the verge of a nervous breakdown. They displayed tremors in their hands with solemnity and pride.“Look at that,” they said, holding their hands out at right angles to their bodies. “My nerves are shot.” Nervousness was a badge of honor; why, I never figured out, but it carried over to us kids. When Pam and I argued with Randall or resisted his schemes in any way, he held his hand out and told us we were turning him into a nervous wreck. He played up the tremble to win our sympathy, but when he held a pencil or spread peanut butter on bread, I could see that his hands really did shake. I faked a quiver in my fingers on occasion, but Randall outed me. My insides were another matter.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  liance with England by marrying his daughter to the son of the English wanted. . . . • Now, one king, James I. James seemed open to the idea, but he stalled for time. day, when Masetto Spain's ambassador to the English court, a man called Gondomar, was given happened to he taking a rest after a spell of the task of advancing Philip's plan. He set his sights on the king's favorite, strenuous work, he was the Duke (former Earl) of Buckingham. approached by two very Gondomar knew the duke's main weakness: vanity. Buckingham hun- young nuns who were out walking in the garden. gered for the glory and adventure that would add to his fame; he was bored Since he gave them the with his limited tasks, and he pouted and whined about this. The ambas- impression that he was sador first flattered him profusely—the duke was the ablest man in the asleep, they began to stare at him, and the bolder of country and it was a shame he was given so little to do. Then, he began to the two said to her whisper to him of a great adventure. The duke, as Gondomar knew, was in companion: • "If I could favor of the match with the Spanish princess, but these damned marriage be sure that you would keep it a secret, I would negotiations with King James were taking so long, and getting nowhere. tell you about an idea that What if the duke were to accompany the king's son, his good friend Prince has often crossed my mind, Charles, to Spain? Of course, this would have to be done in secret, without and one that might well guards or escorts, for the English government and its ministers would never work out to our mutual benefit." • "Do tell me," sanction such a trip. But that would make it all the more dangerous and ro-replied the other. "You can mantic. Once in Madrid, the prince could throw himself at Princess be quite certain that I Maria's feet, declare his undying love, and carry her back to England in tri- shan't talk about it to anyone. " • The bold one umph. What a chivalrous deed it would be and all for love. The duke began to speak more would get all the credit and it would make his name famous for centuries. plainly. • "I wonder," she The duke fell for the idea, and convinced Charles to go along; after said, "whether you have ever considered what a much arguing, they also convinced a reluctant King James. The trip was a strict life we have to lead, near disaster (Charles would have had to convert to Catholicism to win and how the only men who Maria), and the marriage never happened, but Gondomar had done his job. ever dare set foot in this place are the steward, who

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  of fascination about the stayed in the palace. He missed councils, ignored his family and friends, ne-heart of the susceptible glected his public functions. He lost track of time. When a delegation came monarch. . . . "Inflamed to talk to him of urgent matters, he was too distracted to listen. If anything by wine, she now begins to sing / The songs of Wu to but Hsi Shih took up his time, he worried unbearably that she would be please the fatuous king; / angry. And in the dance of Tsu Finally word reached him of a growing crisis: the fortune he had spent she subtly blends /All rhythmic movements to her on the palace had bankrupted the treasury, and the people were discon-sensuous ends." . . . But tented. He returned to the capital, but it was too late: an army from the she could do more than kingdom of Yueh had invaded Wu, and had reached the capital. All was sing and dance to amuse lost. Fu Chai had no time to rejoin his beloved Hsi Shih. Instead of letting the king. She had wit, and her grasp of politics himself be captured by the king of Yueh, the man who had once served in astonished him. When his stables, he committed suicide. there was anything she Little did he know that Kou Chien had plotted this invasion for years, wanted she could shed tears which so moved her lover's and that Hsi Shih's elaborate seduction was the main part of his plan. heart that he could refuse her nothing. For she was, as Fan Li had said, the one and only, the Interpretation. Kou Chien wanted to make sure that his invasion of Wu incomparable Hsi Shih, would not fail. His enemy was not Fu Chai's armies, or his wealth and his whose magnetic personality resources, but his mind. If he could be deeply distracted, his mind filled attracted everyone, many with something other than affairs of state, he would fall like ripe fruit. even against their own will. . . . • Embroidered Kou Chien found the most beautiful maiden in his realm. For three silk curtains encrusted with years he had her trained in all of the arts—not just singing, dancing, and coral and gems, scented calligraphy, but how to dress, how to talk, how to play the coquette. And it furniture and screens inlaid with jade and mother-of- worked: Hsi Shih did not allow Fu Chai a moment's rest. Everything about pearl were among the her was exotic and unfamiliar. The more attention he paid to her hair, her luxuries which surrounded moods, her glances, the way she moved, the less he thought about diplo-the favorite. . . . On one of the hills near the palace macy and war. He was driven to distraction. there was a celebrated pool

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  “I don’t know.” Katrina shakes her head. “I don’t know if I understand either of you, why you’d do that.” The way her wonder shades those words sounds to Reese like doubt, almost a whispered insult. “Don’t tell Diana,” Reese says, trying not to plead. “It doesn’t have to be a big deal. I can never see him again. It’s a dumb affair. People have them.” “T don’t know,” Katrina says, then repeats, “I don’t know. ’m going to call a car. Do you think you could give me some space for a few minutes?” Reese nods. Outside, she walks past the cowboy and his wife, willing herself to stare at the ground, afraid that recognition might show on her face. Diana, blinding in her gorgeous skirt, calls out a bright goodbye. Reese waves without looking, pointing vaguely. “My car is waiting down the block,” she protests lamely, then redoubles her rush away. Around the corner, she ducks into a bodega, breathes deeply by the Doritos. The clerk asks if she’s okay, so she nods decisively and grabs two bottles of Corona, in case she needs to get buzzed in the very near future. After buying them, she fumbles them in her purse, and the clerk makes a sour face. Only in leaving does she realize that this makes her look desperate, that it calls attention to her in a way she normally makes a habit to avoid. She still isn’t processing information well. She considers going back to find Katrina, but instead calls her own car. Whenever she tried to mend feelings in the wreckage of a panic, she made things worse. It hurt, the fear, but if she could make it through, experience told her that this could be okay. This is just how things go. It can be salvaged. Nothing has yet happened. She and her lover just locked eyes across a restaurant. No one said anything. It wasn’t Katrina’s business. Don’t panic, don’t rush to fix everything. Everyone just use a little goddamn discretion and things will be fine. What Reese didn’t understand but began to grasp as the cramped shared ride disgorged her at her apartment, was that things had already fallen apart. The lack of drama in the moment had suckered her into underestimation. Years of queer meltdowns had convinced her, wrongly, of the unmistakable current of action that accompanies a true meltdown. Like, when Amy punched Stanley. That was the kind of meltdown Reese had come to expect. Not a series of glares and a car home alone. No polite manners and certainly not well- adjusted adult emotional regulation of rage.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  Katrina frowns and admits that no, she doesn’t know very many trans women. The biggest impact a trans woman ever had in her life was a year or so ago, when a good friend’s husband had an affair with a trans woman. “One husband that you know of!” Reese says brightly. “I bet a lot more husbands that you don’t know about have also.” Ames shakes his head. “Reese! Can you not?” Katrina cuts him off, both hands steadying her drink. “No, wait, I like her approach to this conversation way better than yours!” “Why? What was his approach?” Reese asks. Katrina scrunches up her nose like a rabbit, then says, “I would describe it as getting me pregnant, then dumping a huge transsexual revelation on me with almost no time to process.” “Oh yeah,” Reese says. “That’s a classic. That’s like the second most popular way to announce one’s current, future, or past transsexuality.” Inwardly, Reese senses the moment coming under her reins. She doesn’t want to do a whole getting-to-know-you thing. She wants to talk about the pregnancy. She wants to talk about why the three of them have seated themselves on a couch in the back of a Midtown hotel surrounded by bland carpeting and various attempts at gay branding. Moreover, Reese knows how to team up with another woman to tease a man. Which is what she supposes Ames is to Katrina. Teasing men is very much in her wheelhouse. She finds the strategy to be an effective method to endear herself with other women, provided that she’s careful not to outright flirt. Ames does not defend himself. He shrugs and adjusts his jacket. “Ts it a classic?” Katrina glances briefly at Ames, but lets her doubtful expression come to rest on Reese. “Nothing about this has felt classic so far. I don’t even know what to tell my friends. I haven’t told them, actually. I don’t know where to begin.” “What do you tell them instead?” Reese asks. “What can I tell them? That I seduced my employee because he wore cowboy boots to work and looked good in a button-down?” “T like her,” Reese says to Ames. “That’s the second time you’ve said something like that,” Katrina shoots back, before Ames can respond. “What did you expect of me?”

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  He stops on the sidewalk. She stops with him, but doesn’t turn. She is holding herself very erect. “Katrina,” he asks, “are you okay?” “T couldn’t bear it,” she said. “The thought of hearing a heartbeat. The woman, she heard it in my voice, and, like, her entire demeanor changed. She clicked out of this whole happy welcome thing into, like, professional mode. Like counselor mode.” “Yeah,” says Ames. He’s heard a recording of a baby’s heartbeat before. The rabbit-fast whooshing of a tiny creature. Such a sound is happening right now, he realizes, inside Katrina—they just lack the ability to detect it. They are still linked at the elbow, and he feels too close to her, physically. But he makes himself hold on to her, and then after a moment, he wants to be closer again, so he takes his hand out of his jacket and puts it in her pocket, beside her hand. “T’ve been so afraid to call,” Katrina says. “Every day I tell myself to call my doctor, to ask about what’s happening inside my body. I can barely bring myself to search online for information. How late is too late, what an abortion entails. When I have to decide what. I’ve been paralyzed about it. And then, this woman called me. It was just because that’s her job and probably a calendar told her to, but it felt like it was meant to happen. She walked me through what happens in an abortion, told me that the sooner I did it, the easier it would be. She helped me schedule it, so all I had to do was call a number to confirm.” They are standing on the sidewalk facing each other, and other pedestrians are breaking around them, like water around a snag in a river. Ames puts his hand on her arm and they step under the awning of a Cajun restaurant. “Did you call that number?” “T can’t do this, Ames,” she says. “I need the stability of a partner who can promise that he’s more or less going to be the same person. I need the stability of someone who can help provide for a child. I want to know what my future will look like. I want to be able to do that for my family too. And you told me you can’t do that. So what choice do I really have?” Ames braces as the future crumbles before him, their own private earthquake. “You have no choice,” he sighs. “And yet, the choice is yours. My choices are the same way.” Katrina scheduled her procedure for four in the afternoon. It is now eleven A.M. and Reese, Katrina, and Ames sit in the living room of Katrina’s apartment. Yesterday, Ames begged Katrina to let him accompany her, and finally she acquiesced. To his surprise, Katrina responded that, if Reese wanted, Reese could come too. “That’s generous of you,” Ames had said carefully. “Are you sure?”

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  “IT just have to put down some information,” the woman says. “Starting with your due date?” Reese realizes that the woman is speaking to her. That between Katrina’s business attire and Reese’s loose dress, these two lesbians have a quasi butch-femme thing going, and the femme is the one assumed to be with child. Katrina also realizes this, but rather than correct the woman, she gives Reese’s hand a squeeze and says, “When did the doctor say?” This is a little gift from Katrina, a tiny way of sharing the pregnancy. The only problem is that Reese doesn’t remember Katrina’s exact due date. “Ummm,” says Reese, stretching it out, waiting for something to come to her, or something else to happen. “Was it the fifth? December fifth?” Katrina interjects, the threat of a smirk hovering at the edges of her face. “Yes,” Reese says after a moment of hesitation, “that was it, December fifth.” “Great, December fifth,” says the woman. She approves. That gives them plenty of time to fill their registry. The idea to create a baby registry came from Maya. The week before, Katrina had a Skype call with her mother scheduled for a time when Reese happened to be over at her apartment. In a seemingly spur-of- the-moment tone, Katrina asked to introduce the two of them. Reese’s first instinct was to decline. Unfortunately, there was no graceful way to say no. Especially since Katrina attributed her mother’s new West Coast chill as instrumental in recognizing how raising a child with Reese and Ames might actually be a situation Katrina had been looking for all along, but been blinded to by her heteronormativity. That was the word Katrina had started to use —“heteronormativity’—which Reese figured must be a new arrival to Katrina’s everyday vocabulary. Katrina had learned the word, but not yet the queer cynicism that made such words impossible to say aloud without first dunking them in a bath of irony. But whatever! If heteronormativity was what allowed Reese and Maya _ to enthusiastically endorse transsexual co-parenting, then let’s all get tickets to heteronormativity! “Of course, I'll meet her,” Reese said, pushing down her reluctance. “I’d love to! She'll be our child’s grandmother. Just let me maybe touch up some makeup beforehand?” Katrina shook her head, excited. “You look great! Anyway, she doesn’t care about that.” “No, but I care,” Reese insisted. “Please. It'll give me better confidence.”

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  “Do you think they have any bitters?” Katrina asks in reply. “T can see. I bet they have at least Angostura or Peychaud’s.” “Some Angostura in sparkling water, can you ask for that?” “Yes, I can do that.” It was as though they had decided to speak like the couple in that famous Hemingway story, both much too stoic to ever refer directly to anything but their drinks as their unborn child slowly sucks the air from a room. But Reese is not a stoic and terse character in a Hemingway story. She is not one to say that hills look like white elephants when what she wants to ask, now that Ames has walked off and she has Katrina alone, is: So! What the fuck are we doing here? How about this baby? Yet the baby isn’t her subject to address. Not yet anyway. So instead, she compliments Katrina on her soft pink nails, and launches into a round of small talk. At some point, one of the nearby corporate men says the word “transgender.” Then the other guy says the word “trans.” It is impossible for Reese to tell exactly what they are talking about. But she has stopped talking midsentence to listen, and Katrina looks at her questioningly. “Oh, sorry,” Reese says, coming to. “I heard those guys say the word ‘trans.’ I’m, like, really curious about how trans stuff gets discussed by guys like that. They say trans like they are tasting the word for the first time, and that they are discovering that actually... you know what? It tastes okay!” Katrina laughs and listens. When Ames returns with the drinks, Katrina and Reese are sitting silently, eavesdropping on the men in hopes of a trans reprise. At Ames’s reappearance Reese sits up straight to receive her martini and napkin, and decides to launch in. “So anyway, speaking of trans,” Reese decides to say to Katrina. “Does your work send you to lots of queer events like this, or is this your first time being out with one and a half trans women?” Katrina frowns for a moment, looks around the room, as if trying to spot half a trans woman among the cocktail drinkers. Then a butterfly of laughter flutters out of her. “You mean Ames? Is he the half?” “Tt’s certainly not me,” Reese says. “Oh my god, Reese,” Ames interjects from where he is perched on the couch’s edge on the other side of Katrina. “What?” Reese asks him. “Is it such an unreasonable question? It’s what I always ask new people whenever we're about to engage in some intimate talk: like, ‘Have you ever met a trans woman, or should we do the 101?’ I like to establish a baseline. It’s pretty much the only opening question I ever ask cis people, actually: ‘What do you need to know to recognize my basic humanity?’ ” Ames groans. “Reese, where is your chill?”

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  Ames had worked stupidly hard to set up the deal, which culminated in this trip. In his free time, to avoid getting lost in his own thoughts, he’d spent almost every waking minute digesting the intricacies of the pet insurance market, understanding the clients in the online pet arena, and charming his counterparts in the client’s marketing department—all for a chance to show Katrina that he was a reliable person who could protect her reputation and interests, which in turn, he hoped would create a situation in which he’d have an opportune moment to propose his plans for the pregnancy. At dinner with the clients, she surprises him by ordering two bottles of champagne. She commences to fill and empty her glass much more rapidly than he has ever seen her drink, chirping happily that progress on the deal needed celebrating. Two glasses down and Katrina’s cheeks and ears have flushed, her quick eyes taking on a shine. She’s talking to the clients—the pet insurer’s marketing strategist and the assistant chief of business development—with more animation than Ames has seen all week. The men, speaking almost in tandem, like a stage act, explain how they live in a suburb called Naperville. They live in the same neighborhood, with kids who go to the same school, and wives who were friends first—one of them even hired the other. “Oh, that’s cute,” Katrina says. “I bet you two carpool.” The men consider this, and Biz Dev tentatively agrees—yes, perhaps it is indeed cute. To Ames, Katrina’s out-of-character theatrical enthusiasm, like her champagne order, demonstrates an attempt to cover for emotional distress beyond what he’d expected—she seems on the edge of some wild action—but neither man notices. Instead they marvel at the fun side that this previously all-business lady has unlocked from her safe and brought to dinner. She avoids Ames’s eye contact, and when he manages to catch hers, the brown of her eyes shines back deep and glassy rather than with the customary shrewdness he expects from her glance. The appetizers arrive: various fried breaded things, and a plate of cheeses, on top of which sits a pile of fresh cheese curds. The waiter, with the same gravitas that he names the Norwegian brunost, announces the curds are “squeaky cheese,” clarifying that they will squeak when you bite them. Katrina pops a few curds of squeaky cheese into her mouth and chews with her mouth open, biting into the curds with her molars. “Oh, can you hear that?” she asks. Biz Dev leans close to her face to listen. “I can!” he says, with more amazement than Ames feels is required for listening to someone else chew food. “Can you hear it when I do it too?”

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  “I’m fully aware that this is a dark path I’m leading you down, Anastasia, which is why I really want you to think about this. You must have some questions,” he says as he wanders into the kitchen area, releasing my hand. I do. But where to start? “You’ve signed your NDA; you can ask me anything you want and I’ll answer.” I stand at the breakfast bar watching as he opens the refrigerator and pulls out a plate of different cheeses with two large bunches of green and red grapes. He sets the plate down on the worktop and proceeds to cut up a French baguette. “Sit.” He points to one of the stools at the breakfast bar, and I obey his command. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to have to get used to it. I realize he’s been this bossy since I met him. “You mentioned paperwork.” “Yes.” “What paperwork?” “Well, apart from the NDA, a contract saying what we will and won’t do. I need to know your limits, and you need to know mine. This is consensual, Anastasia.” “And if I don’t want to do this?” “That’s fine,” he says carefully. “But we won’t have any sort of relationship?” I ask. “No.” “Why?” “This is the only sort of relationship I’m interested in.” “Why?” He shrugs. “It’s the way I am.” “How did you become this way?” “Why is anyone the way they are? That’s kind of hard to answer. Why do some people like cheese and other people hate it? Do you like cheese? Mrs. Jones—my housekeeper—has left this for a late supper.” He takes some large white plates from a cupboard and places one in front of me. We’re talking about cheese… Holy crap. “What are your rules that I have to follow?” “I have them written down. We’ll go through them once we’ve eaten.” Food. How can I eat now? “I’m really not hungry,” I whisper. “You will eat,” he says simply. Dominating Christian, it all becomes clear. “Would you like another glass of wine?” “Yes, please.” He pours wine into my glass and comes to sit beside me. I take a hasty sip. “Help yourself to food, Anastasia.” I take a small bunch of grapes. This I can manage. He narrows his eyes. “Have you been like this for a while?” I ask. “Yes.” “Is it easy to find women who want to do this?” He raises an eyebrow. “You’d be amazed,” he says dryly. “Then why me? I really don’t understand.” “Anastasia, I’ve told you. There’s something about you. I can’t leave you alone.” He smiles ironically. “I’m like a moth to a flame.” His voice darkens. “I want you very badly, especially now, when you’re biting your lip again.” He takes a deep breath and swallows. My stomach somersaults. He wants me…in a weird way, true, but this beautiful, strange, kinky man wants me.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  After the dinner portion of the night, the crowd sifted back into the conference rooms, now darkened and lit with colored lights for the after-party—an adult version of the transformation a high school gym undergoes for prom. Reese suggested they take free drinks and find somewhere quiet in the giant lobby. The lobby turns out to be prime real estate for people watching. Katrina, Reese, and Ames commandeer a bench with a strategic view of the comings and goings. A YouTube star with heavily contoured makeup throws a tantrum to the two pretty boys who make up his entourage. For some reason, former Republican-presidential- candidate John McCain’s daughter has been invited and is now here, looking as straight as humanly possible while talking to some poor hotel employee. On the bright side, the hot butch in the white suit Reese noticed earlier orders a car, while a younger brunette, stupefied with pleasure at having been selected, hangs on her arm. Beside Reese, Ames and Katrina gossip about the man and woman from their agency who had also attended the gala. Their talk turns to an incident that occurred last Monday at a company meeting, when Katrina’s unit announced a new campaign for a dating site for wealthy men. One of the artists in the campaign had animated the announcement with two stick figures falling in love, but had put photos of Ames’s and Katrina’s heads on the stick figures. Ames is sure that this proves that everyone at the office is aware of their relationship. Katrina disagrees. That kind of teasing, she says, has always been part of the agency culture. Although Ames and Katrina talk about their jobs as a matter of course, Katrina has not yet asked Reese what she does, a question for which Reese had prepared. She’s annoyed that it has not come. Ames has accused Reese of class resentments before, but now Reese can’t stop her defensiveness from welling up: She suspects that Ames has warned Katrina that Reese doesn’t have a degree, that money has always been a struggle for her. “Don’t you want the people you work with to know about you two?” Reese asks. She’s tired of dancing around the subject. “I mean, at some point with the baby...” Ames grunts and Katrina shifts uncomfortably. Then Katrina takes a breath. “Yes. We may as well talk about it.” Reese suddenly understands that Katrina means talk about it now, with her, not with the people at work. “I know Ames set this night up as just a get-to- know-each-other, but...” “Right,” agrees Reese. “Let’s just talk about it. I don’t know if this has to be awkward. I’ve been invited to be a third before, and for me, it always feels best when the agenda is up front.”

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  The accusation takes Reese’s breath away. The unfairness of it. First of all, let’s be honest: Katrina looks white. Second, are they playing Oppression Olympics? Ames begins to say it’s not like that, but Katrina still has her hand on his knee and she takes it away roughly, a rebuke. “Let me finish,” her voice remains soft. “I’m telling you how I felt. I’m telling you the things that your ideas made me feel. The angry ones and the less angry ones. But, I’m here. I called my mom, and I spent days thinking about it. I held on, even when I wanted to reject the whole suggestion. Because I tried to see things your way, Reese.” Reese blinks away the sting of precipitating tears. “So try to see things my way in return,” Katrina says. “Here is what I know. I know that I’m pregnant, and I know what being pregnant means for me. I’m excited. I told Ames this when I found out. I’m surprised to find I’m ready to take a chance on a family, with him, and I’m still ready. But we’re all swept away in what that could mean in the future, and we haven’t really thought what it means right now. I’ve been emotionally swept away too—How could I not be? For months I think I’m falling in love with this man, who is also my employee, and that alone is destabilizing. But then he responds to getting me pregnant by revealing he’s a former transsexual? Of course I got knocked over.” “It feels weird discussing this in a lobby,” Ames _ says, straightening and gesturing to a darkened hotel bar. “Can we, like, go in there to talk?” Katrina doesn’t move. “Why does it matter where we discuss this? If you can’t bear to talk about it now, in a lobby, how are we going to live it together in the open for our whole lives?” Ames looks at Reese for backup, but she just shrugs. She is impressed at Katrina’s steeliness. Yes, she sees that this woman could easily be in charge when required, a boss. It makes Reese feel safer, that the onus to be honest for this strange meeting isn’t all on her. In her head she reconsiders Katrina as a potential matriarch. Ames sighs and slumps back down, waving his hand. “Go on, babe,” he tells Katrina. “Thank you. I’ve been pregnant before, and I still have no children. Nothing came of my earlier pregnancy. We’re making the mistake I made with my ex-husband. He and I got emotionally attached to the idea of a baby. And now the three of us are making plans with the assumption that a body, my body, which has never produced a viable pregnancy, suddenly now will. There’s no way any of us should count on it working out.” Reese begins to interrupt but catches herself.

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  The roads are clear as I set off from Vancouver, Washington, toward Interstate 5. It’s early, and I don’t have to be in Seattle until two this afternoon. Fortunately, Kate has lent me her sporty Mercedes CLK. I’m not sure Wanda, my old VW Beetle, would make the journey in time. Oh, the Merc is a fun drive, and the miles slip away as I push the pedal to the metal. My destination is the headquarters of Mr. Grey’s global enterprise. It’s a huge twenty-story office building, all curved glass and steel, an architect’s utilitarian fantasy, with GREY HOUSE written discreetly in steel over the glass front doors. It’s a quarter to two when I arrive. I’m greatly relieved that I’m not late as I walk into the enormous—and frankly intimidating—glass, steel, and white sandstone lobby. Behind the solid sandstone desk, an attractive, well-groomed blond young woman smiles pleasantly at me. She’s wearing the sharpest charcoal suit jacket and white shirt I have ever seen. She looks immaculate. “I’m here to see Mr. Grey. Anastasia Steele for Katherine Kavanagh.” “Excuse me one moment, Miss Steele.” She arches her eyebrow as I stand self-consciously before her. I’m beginning to wish I’d borrowed one of Kate’s formal blazers rather than worn my navy-blue jacket. I’ve made an effort and worn my one and only skirt, my sensible brown knee-length boots, and a blue sweater. For me, this is smart. I tuck one of the escaped tendrils of my hair behind my ear as I pretend she doesn’t intimidate me. “Miss Kavanagh is expected. Please sign in here, Miss Steele. You’ll want the last elevator on the right; press for the twentieth floor.” She smiles kindly, amused no doubt, as I sign in. She hands me a security pass that has Visitor very firmly stamped on the front. I can’t help my smirk. Surely it’s obvious that I’m just visiting. I don’t fit in here at all. Nothing changes. I inwardly sigh. Thanking her, I walk to the bank of elevators and past the two security men who are both far more smartly dressed than I am in their well-cut black suits. The elevator whisks me at terminal velocity to the twentieth floor. The doors slide open, and I’m in another large lobby—again all glass, steel, and white sandstone. I’m confronted by another desk of sandstone and another young blond woman, this time dressed impeccably in black and white, who rises to greet me. “Miss Steele, could you wait here, please?” She points to a seated area of white leather chairs. Behind the leather chairs is a spacious glass-walled meeting room with an equally spacious dark-wood table and at least twenty matching chairs around it. Beyond that, there is a floor-to-ceiling window with a view of the Seattle skyline that looks out through the city toward the Sound. It’s a stunning vista, and I’m momentarily paralyzed by the view. Wow.

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  I sit down, fish the questions from my backpack, and go through them, inwardly cursing Kate for not providing me with a brief biography. I know nothing about this man I’m about to interview. He could be ninety or he could be thirty. The uncertainty is galling, and my nerves resurface, making me fidget. I’ve never been comfortable with one-on-one interviews, preferring the anonymity of a group discussion where I can sit inconspicuously at the back of the room. To be honest, I prefer my own company, reading a classic British novel, curled up in a chair in the campus library. Not sitting twitching nervously in a colossal glass-and-stone edifice. I roll my eyes at myself. Get a grip, Steele. Judging from the building, which is too clinical and modern, I guess Grey is in his forties: fit, tanned, and fair-haired to match the rest of the personnel. Another elegant, flawlessly dressed blond comes out a large door to the right. What is it with all the immaculate blonds? It’s like Stepford here. Taking a deep breath, I stand up. “Miss Steele?” the latest blond asks. “Yes,” I croak and clear my throat. “Yes.” There, that sounded more confident. “Mr. Grey will see you in a moment. May I take your jacket?” “Oh, please.” I struggle out of the jacket. “Have you been offered any refreshment?” “Um, no.” Oh dear, is Blond Number One in trouble? Blond Number Two frowns and eyes the young woman at the desk. “Would you like tea, coffee, water?” she asks, turning her attention back to me. “A glass of water. Thank you.” “Olivia, please fetch Miss Steele a glass of water.” Her voice is stern. Olivia scoots up and scurries to a door on the other side of the foyer. “My apologies, Miss Steele. Olivia is our new intern. Please be seated. Mr. Grey will be another five minutes.” Olivia returns with a glass of iced water. “Here you go, Miss Steele.” “Thank you.” Blond Number Two marches over to the large desk, the clicking of her heels echoing on the sandstone floor. She sits down, and they both continue their work. Perhaps Mr. Grey insists on all his employees being blond. I’m wondering idly if that’s legal when the office door opens and a tall, elegantly dressed, attractive African American man with short dreadlocks exits. I have definitely worn the wrong clothes. He turns and says through the door, “Golf this week, Grey?” I don’t hear the reply. He turns, sees me, and smiles, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners. Olivia has jumped up and called the elevator. She seems to excel at jumping from her seat. She’s more nervous than me! “Good afternoon, ladies,” he says as he departs through the sliding door. “Mr. Grey will see you now, Miss Steele. Do go through,” Blond Number Two says.

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  Chapter TwelveFor the first time in my life, I voluntarily go for a run. I find my nasty, never-used sneakers, some sweatpants, and a T-shirt. I put my hair in pigtails, blushing at the memories they bring back, and I plug in my iPod. I can’t sit in front of that marvel of technology and look at or read any more disturbing material. I need to expend some of this excess, enervating energy. Quite frankly, I have a mind to run to The Heathman Hotel and just demand sex from the control freak. But that’s five miles, and I don’t think I’ll be able to run one mile, let alone five, and, of course, he might turn me down, which would be beyond humiliating. Kate is walking from her car as I head out the door. She nearly drops her shopping bags when she sees me. Ana Steele in sneakers. I wave and don’t stop for the inquisition. I need some serious alone time. Snow Patrol blaring in my ears, I set off into the opal-and-aquamarine dusk. I pace through the park. What am I going to do? I want him, but on his terms? I just don’t know. Perhaps I should negotiate what I want. Go through that ridiculous contract line by line and say what is acceptable and what isn’t. My research has told me that legally it’s unenforceable. He must know that. I figure that it just sets up the parameters of the relationship. It illustrates what I can expect from him and what he expects from me—my total submission. Am I prepared to give him that? Am I even capable? I am plagued by one question: Why is he like this? Is it because he was seduced at such a young age? I just don’t know. He’s still such a mystery. I stop beside a large spruce and put my hands on my knees, breathing hard, dragging precious air into my lungs. Oh, this feels good, cathartic. I feel my resolve hardening. Yes. I need to tell him what’s okay and what isn’t. I need to email him my thoughts, and then we can discuss these on Wednesday. I take a deep, cleansing breath, then jog back to the apartment. Kate has been shopping, as only she can, for clothes for her vacation to Barbados. Mainly bikinis and matching sarongs. She will look fabulous in all of them, yet she still makes me sit and comment while she tries on each and every one. There are only so many ways one can say “You look fabulous, Kate.” She has a slim, curvy figure to die for. She doesn’t do it on purpose, I know, but I haul my sorry, perspiration-clad ass into my room on the pretext of packing more boxes. Could I feel any more inadequate? Taking the awesome free technology with me, I set the laptop up on my desk and email Christian. From: Anastasia Steele Subject: Shocked of WSUV