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 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 Going Clear (2013)

  Although there was no convincing evidence proving that the facts were wrong or that the reporter was biased, the case went all the way to the US Supreme Court, which sustained the district court’s initial ruling against the church. In the process, it cost Time more money in defense costs than any other case in its history. Rathbun’s strategy followed Hubbard’s dictate that the purpose of a lawsuit is “to harass and discourage rather than win.” Hubbard also wrote: “If attacked on some vulnerable point by anyone or anything or any organization, always find or manufacture enough threat against them to cause them to sue for peace.... Don’t ever defend. Always attack.” He added: “NEVER agree to an investigation of Scientology. ONLY agree to an investigation of the attackers.” He advised Scientologists: “Start feeding lurid, blood, sex, crime, actual evidence on the attackers to the press.... Make it rough, rough on attackers all the way.... There has never yet been an attacker who was not reeking with crime. All we had to do was look for it and murder would come out.” These were maxims that Rathbun took as his guidelines. The Time article capsized Miscavige’s attempts to break free of the negative associations so many people had with Scientology. But there was an even larger battle under way, one in which the church’s very existence was at stake: its fight with the IRS to regain its tax-exempt status as a bona fide religion, which it had lost in 1967. The government’s stance was that the Church of Scientology was in fact a commercial enterprise, with “virtually incomprehensible financial procedures” and a “scripturally based hostility to taxation.” The IRS had ruled that the church was largely operated to benefit its founder. Miscavige inherited some of that liability when he took over after Hubbard’s death. A tax exemption would not only put the imprimatur of the American government on the church as a certified religion, rather than a corrupt, profit-making concern, but it would also provide a substantial amount of immunity from civil suits and the persistent federal criminal investigations. A decision against the tax exemption, on the other hand, would destroy the entire enterprise, because Hubbard had decided in 1973 that the church should not pay its back taxes. Twenty years later, the church was $1 billion in arrears, with only $125 million in reserves. The founder had placed Scientology’s head on the executioner’s block. The war between the church and the IRS had already gone on for more than two decades, with both sides waging a campaign of intimidation and espionage. Miscavige accused the Criminal Investigation Division of the IRS of engaging in surveillance of church leaders, wiretaps, and illegal opening of the church’s mail.

• 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 The Erotic Mind (1995)

  Finally, some people have false memories, although I hesitate to say so.3 After all, most people will go to great lengths to downplay abusive experiences. The last thing they need is an additional worry that they might be fabricating or exaggerating. Most men and women who were abused as children have at least vague memories even if they have been clouded by years of denial and rationalization. Usually, it’s a matter of bringing to light something the person already suspects or knows. But beware of anyone, especially a therapist or counselor, who tries to convince you that you were abused—especially if you never thought of it before. Fragile memories can easily be suppressed, but they can also be distorted or embellished by those who are overeager to see abuse as the cause of all problems and unhappiness. Never let anyone impose his or her intuitions on you, for this is just another type of violation. You must be free to discover your own truth. TRAUMATIC APHRODISIACSIt’s easy to see how abusive experiences that foster self-hate can disrupt someone’s ability to experience intimate touching as pleasurable and result in aversive feelings toward some or all forms of sex. Whereas Regina’s aversion focused particularly on intercourse, for others all sensuous touch is so thoroughly contaminated by negativity that they are unable to make any meaningful distinction between pleasure and pain. To them, pleasure hurts—so they vigorously avoid it. For reasons that aren’t well understood, women are more likely than men to develop sexual aversions in response to trauma, although some abused men also become pleasure-phobic. Contrary to the rules of logic and common sense, some cope with intolerable pain by transforming it into the most irresistible of all aphrodisiacs. This is possible because of one of the most curious oddities of the erotic mind. On the razor’s edge between affirmation and degradation, beyond the usual categories of pleasure and pain, there exists an overpowering form of emotional and physical excitation that I call pleasure-pain. I’m not talking about nonproblematic forms of intense stimulation—slapping, pinching, or biting, for instance—that passionate lovers or S-M enthusiasts frequently enjoy at the boundary of pleasure and pain. Such experiences can be completely compatible with a fulfilling sex life. Our concern here is with a qualitatively different type of experience in which pleasure and pain have become so thoroughly fused together that sensations, thoughts, and feelings that would normally be experienced as highly noxious instead become inexhaustible sources of erotic fuel.4 THE PUZZLE OF PARAPHILIASThe effects of pleasure-pain are most dramatically expressed in paraphilias (from the Greek, meaning “outside of love”). These are “kinky” sex rituals that so thoroughly take over some people’s eroticism they are unable to reach orgasm without acting out or fantasizing a highly specific scenario. A paraphilia is always intensely exciting, but rarely much fun. It is the ultimate manifestation of pure, focused lust in its most grueling and compulsive form.5

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  “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. His skin was warm like it had been sitting in the sun all day. I watched in mild fascination as he used both of our hands to turn the key. When the door swung open, I stood frozen on the spot, with my back toward him. “I’m gonna go home tonight,” he said. He was so close I could feel his breath moving tendrils of my hair. “Will you be all right?” I nodded. “Call me if you need me.” I nodded again.

• 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 Sister Outsider (1984)

  We have, after all, survived for a reason. (How do I define my impact upon this earth?) I begin by searching for the right questions. Dear Leora, For two Black women to enter an analytic or therapeutic relationship means beginning an essentially uncharted and insecure journey. There are no prototypes, no models, no objectively accessible body of experience other than ourselves by which to examine the specific dynamics of our interactions as Black women. Yet this interaction can affect all the other psychic matter attended profoundly. It is to scrutinize that very interaction that I sought you out professionally, and I have come to see that it means picking my way through our similarities and our differences, as well as through our histories of calculated mistrust and desire. Because it has not been done before or at least not been noted, this particular scrutiny is painful and fraught with the vulnerability of all psychic scrutinies plus all of the pitfalls created by our being Black women in a white male world, and Black women who have survived. This is a scrutiny often sidestepped or considered unimportant or beside the point. EXAMPLE: I can’t tell you how many good white psychwomen have said to me, “Why should it matter if I am Black or white?” who would never think of saying, “Why does it matter if I am female or male?” EXAMPLE: I don’t know who you are in supervision with, but I can bet it’s not with another Black woman. So this territory between us feels new and frightening as well as urgent, rigged with detonating pieces of our own individual racial histories which neither of us chose but which each of us bears the scars from. And those are particular to each of us. But there is a history which we share because we are Black women in a racist sexist cauldron, and that means some part of this journey is yours, also. I have many troubled areas of self that will be neither new nor problematic to you as a trained and capable psychperson. I think you are a brave woman and I respect that, yet I doubt that your training can have prepared you to explore the tangle of need, fear, distrust, despair, and hope which operates between us, and certainly not to the depth necessary. Because neither of us is male nor white, we belong to a group of human beings that has not been thought worthy of that kind of study.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I never even noticed. “Soda,” he said, when he saw me looking. “My vice.” “I’m not hungry,” I said pushing the bowl away. He pushed it back and tapped his forefinger on the counter. “You haven’t eaten in three days.” “Why do you care?” It came out harsher than I intended. Everything I said did. I watched his face for a lie, but he just shrugged. “It’s who I am.” I ate his soup. Then he made himself comfortable on my couch and went to sleep. In his clothes. I stood on the stairs and watched him for a long time, his socked feet sticking out of the bottom of the blanket he was using. Eventually I crawled into my bed. I reached out before I closed my eyes, and touched the book on the nightstand. Just the cover. He came every night. Sometimes as early as three o’ clock in the afternoon, sometimes as late as nine. It was alarming how quickly a person could acquiesce to something—something like a stranger in your house, sleeping and scooping grounds into your Mr. Coffee. When he started buying groceries and cooking meals it felt permanent. Like I suddenly had a roommate or a family member I never signed up for. But on the nights he came late I found myself anxious, pacing the hallways in three pairs of socks, unable to stay in one room for more than a few seconds before I moved to the next. The worst part was, when he arrived, I immediately retreated to my bedroom to hide. None of the relief I felt at seeing the lights of his car reflected through my windows was allowed to show. It was cold, but it was survival. I wanted to ask him why he was late. Was it surgery? Did they make it? But I didn’t dare. Every morning I woke up to find another of his business cards on the counter. I stopped throwing them away after a few days and let them pile up near the fruit bowl. The fruit bowl that was always filled with fruit, because he bought it and put it there: red and green apples, yellow pears, the occasional fuzzy kiwi. We didn’t speak much. It was a silent relationship, which I was fine with. He fed me and I said thank you, then he went to sleep on my couch. I started to wonder how well I’d be sleeping if he wasn’t guarding the door. If I’d sleep at all. The couch was short—too short for his six-foot frame; it was the smaller of the two that I owned. One day while he was at the hospital I took a break from staring at the fire to push the longer couch in front of the door.

• 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)

  My hands are steady, but my heart won’t stop racing. One day (evening?), Isaac climbs up the ladder and lowers himself next to where I am sitting, cross-legged in front of the fire. I have been thinking about suicide. Not my own, just suicide. There are so many ways. I don’t know why people are so uncreative when they kill themselves. We usually don’t leave the front door unguarded, but I can tell he wants to talk. I unfold my legs and stretch them toward the fire, wiggling my toes. We are running out of firewood, and Isaac says he’s not sure how big the generator is, but we could be running out of fuel in that too. “What are you thinking?” I ask, watching his face. “The carousel room, Senna. I think it means something.” “I don’t want to talk about the carousel room. It freaks me out.” His head snaps sharply toward me. “We’re gonna talk about it. Unless you’d like to stay locked up here forever.” I shake my head, twist my skunk streak around my finger. “It’s a coincidence. It doesn’t mean anything.” He pulls his lips back from his teeth and his head rocks from side to side. “Daphne is pregnant.” It’s that silent moment when you hear the rushing of water in your eyes. My eyes jerk to his face. “Eight weeks the last time I saw her.” He licks his lips and turns to look at me. “We did three rounds of in vitro to get pregnant, had two miscarriages.” He rubs his forehead. “Daphne is pregnant and I need to talk about the carousel room.” I nod dumbly. I feel something. I push it away. Bury it. “Who knows about what happened?” he asks, gently. I watch the fire eat the logs. For a minute I’m not sure which instance he’s referring to. There were so many. The carousel, I remind myself. It’s such a strange memory. Nothing fancy. But private. “Only you. That’s why it seems unlikely…” I look at him. “Did you—?” “No … no, Senna, never. That was our moment. I didn’t even want to think about it after.” I believe him. For a long second our eyes are locked and the past seems to float between us—a frail soap bubble. I break eye contact first, looking down at my socks. Patterned socks, not white. I searched for white, but all that was stocked for me were knee length patterned socks. A deviation from my character. I wear my new, colorful socks over my tights. Today, they are purple and grey. Diagonal stripes. “Senna…?” “Yes, sorry. I was thinking about my socks.” He laughs through his nose, like he’d rather not laugh. I’d rather he not laugh, too. “Isaac, what happened on the carousel was … personal. I don’t tell people things.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  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. I look out the window as I peel potatoes over the sink. And then I look down at the peelings, all piled up and gross looking. We should eat those. We will probably be starving soon, wishing we had a sliver of potato skin. I scoop up shreds and hold them in my palm, not sure what to do with them. I counted the potatoes before I chose four of the smallest ones out of the fifty-pound bag. Seventy potatoes. How long could we stretch that? And the flour, and rice and oatmeal? It seemed like a lot, but we had no idea how long we’d be imprisoned here. Imprisoned. Here. I eat the skins. At least they won’t go to waste that way. God. I am grimacing and gagging on my potato skin when I drop the potato I’m holding into the sink and press the heel of my hand to my forehead. I have to focus. Stay positive. I can’t let myself sink into that dark place. My therapist tried to teach me techniques to cope with emotional overload. Why hadn’t I listened? I remember something about a garden … walking through it and touching flowers. Was that what she’d said?

• From How to Be a Great Lover (1999)

  Your best defense against gagging whenever you take your lover’s penis into your mouth is to be in control. One of the best ways to assert your control is to use what I call The Seal and The Ring: first, with your thumb and forefinger forming an adjustable “okay” sign, place your fingers around your mouth; this way you not only add length to your mouth (the average penis is five to six inches, and our average mouths are only two to three inches). This is known as The Seal. Then, with your thumb and forefinger, tighten and release the pressure, determining exactly how deeply his penis enters your mouth; this is known as The Ring. If, during an oral encounter, you find that in spite of your best efforts he is too far into your mouth, making you feel as if you’re going to choke, try these suggestions for relaxing the gag reflex: • Stop your mouth motion until the sensation passes, keeping your hand in motion so that he does not lose the sensation and his erection. • Go on to another move, such as licking or “The Big W”. • Slow down and breathe deeply. While he may attribute your deep breathing to sexual excitement, you’ll be giving your upper palate a chance to relax. • Shift the angle at which his penis is entering your mouth. A simple position change can make a big difference. If his penis comes into your mouth straight on, it will go directly to the back of your throat. This would make any woman gag. The trick is to be between his legs and have your mouth come down onto his penis from above. Remember, the object is for you do be doing this to him, not the other way around. If you come down onto his penis, you will have the control necessary to stop it from going any farther than is comfortable for you. No need to worry that he will be making an “L” turn down your throat. The area at the back of the soft palate is very flexible and can easily accommodate the average penis. By using The Seal and The Ring, you can effectively create a deep throat sensation without having the entire penis in your mouth. One man, a producer of infomercials from the Midwest, described his experience: “My wife is able to take me into the back of her mouth when I am fully erect and I can feel the back of her throat. It is really soft and moist. Then she does the swallowing motion when I am back there. It feels terrific, but not as terrific as when I am soft; when I’m soft, the feeling is ten times more intense.” Secret from Lou’s Archives

• 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)

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