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 Collected Essays (1998)

  For another, the idea of free dom necessarily carries with it the idea of sexual freedom: the freedom to meet, sleep with, and marry whom one chooses. It would be fascinating, but I am afraid we must postpone it OTH ER ES SAYS t(>r the moment, to consider just why so many people appear to be convinced that Negroes would then immediately meet, sleep with, and marry white women; who, remarkably enough, arc only protected from such undesirable alliances by the maj esty and vigilance of the law. The duplicit y of the Negro leader was more than matched by the duplicit y of the people with whom he had to deal. They, and most of the country, tclt at the very bottom of their hearts that the Negro was interior to them and, theref ore, merited the treatment that he got. But it was not always pol itic to say this, either. It certainly could never be said over the bargaining table, where white and black men met. The Negro leader was there to torcc from his adversary whatever he could get: new schools, new schoolrooms, new houses, new jobs. He was invested with very little power be cause the Negro vote had so very little power. (Other Negro leaders were trying to correct that. ) It was not easy to wring concessions from the people at the bargaining table, who had, af ter all, no intention of giving their power away. People sel dom do give their power away, torccs beyond their control take their power from them; and I am afraid that much of the liberal cant about progress is but a sentimental reflection of this implacable fact. (Liberal cant about love and heroism also obscures, not to say blasp hemes, the great love and heroism of many white people. Our racial story would be inconceivably more grim if these people, in the teeth of the most fantastic odds, did not continue to appear; but they were almost never, of course, to be t<nmd at the bargaining table .) Whatever con cession the Negro leader carried away from the bargaining table was \\'On with the tacit understanding that he, in return, would influence the people he represented in the direction that the people in power wished them to be influenced.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  ‘Before you say anything else I want to ask you, take time to consider it. Because, though I say it myself, I think it would prove to interest you a very great deal. It wouldn’t be an immense amount of work, in a sense. I’ve got masses of papers. All my diaries and what-have-you since I was a child—you could have it all to read.’ It seemed at first a monstrous request, although I could see it was quite reasonable in a way. If he had had an interesting life, which it appeared he had, he could not possibly hope to write it up himself now. If I didn’t do it, nothing might come of it. It was partly because I idly disliked any intrusion into my constant leisure—my leisure itself having taken on an urgent, all-consuming quality—that I instinctively repelled the idea. But it was not, after all, impossible. ‘I’ll think about it, of course,’ I said non-committally. ‘Give me a few days.’ He was extremely grateful. And of course he would be able to see the shape and possibilities of the whole project, when I had barely begun to imagine what it might entail. Suddenly he looked drained again. ‘We’ll go upstairs, my dear, and then you’d better push off.’ We left the Romans in the dark, and climbed to the hall, where I handed my host over to a silently hostile Lewis. He held him there, almost by force, in the picture-lined gloom, and together they watched me fumble with the lock, and let myself out. When I arrived in the changing-room Phil was drying: not the preliminary stand-up towelling but those final points to which he paid so much attention, and which were executed sitting down. Naked on the bench, legs wide apart, one foot raised in front of him, he rubbed his towel carefully between each toe, and patted powder (I looked, yes, Trouble for Men!) into the dry pink crevices. I approached him at an angle—noticed how his ass spread on the cheap deal of the bench, showing just a shadowy hint of hair between the buttocks, admired the band of muscle which had begun to harden above his hips, and coming round him and picking a locker not far away, glanced down at his cock and balls trailing on the edge of the seat. He looked up at me for a second with his dark, bright, expressionless eyes. ‘Hi, Phil.’ ‘Hullo,’ he said, glancing up again. There was something more than usually inhibited about his manner, and his selfconsciousness came out in a flush. I was casual in the extreme, walked over to the mirror, looked with satisfaction at myself, and at him. Though I was ostensibly chasing a speck of dirt in my eye, my gaze searched the mirror in more depth, to find his attention flickering time and again towards me.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  He is there now, almost better I think, though I have put him to sleep. Hassan has been bringing in meals for us both—Taha cd manage for the first time this evening some broth, & I sat with him & ate some gazelle & some beans—excellently done, though I was stern with the cook & told him Taha was very ill & that he must treat him with consideration & not bother him. I thought this was important, as I was out for most of the day & the invalid has been more or less in his hands. Yesterday he was very bad & I spent much of the night with him, huddling on a stool under the mosquito net, giving him analgesics & mopping his brow. It was terribly hot & he seemed to be on fire: the sweat stood on his brow within seconds of my sponging it away, his long eye-lashes fluttered, his mouth hung open. He drank literally gallons of water. When at last he slept—murmuring and shifting incessantly—I felt again for a moment alone, weary & longing for sleep myself, yet sick with anxiety that I had not done it right, that he wd not recover. Of course when I went to bed I lay awake & tossed about & sweated as if it had been me that had been the scorpion’s victim. Then almost at once the dawn came up through the shutters, the heat, that seemed only to have faded for a moment, built up alarmingly & for once the beautiful simplicity of the house revealed itself as a menacing bareness, a kind of trap in which to escape from one room was only to be imprisoned in the next. I felt my responsibility weigh on me, at the same time as it buoyed me up—an asphyxiating feeling. More strictly it was like a cramp when swimming—a sudden challenge in a friendly element, threatening where before it had only sustained.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  Heavens!’ he added theatrically. ‘It is to you I owe my presence here.’ ‘There’s really no need. I did what anyone would have done.’ He raised a finger and knocked it on my chest. ‘Lunch,’ he said, nodding his head. ‘You’ll come to luncheon—my Club, nothing extraordinary, but it will do.’ ‘Well, that’s very kind of you …’ I felt drawn because I thought he was interesting and might have a distracting story to tell. If he were a nuisance I needn’t see him again: there was also Arthur and the odder story of home and love and guilt, and I didn’t know that I wanted to take on anything new. ‘I think you should come on Friday,’ he said. Then: ‘Who knows, I may be dead by Friday. Perhaps better make it tomorrow—I should still be quick then.’ It was a bizarre usage, which it took me a second or two to see; I had a fleeting image of him chasing me round a huge mahogany table. ‘Well, that would be very nice.’ ‘Nice for me, William,’ he insisted. It seemed to be settled in his mind, and he wandered away holding his towel in front of him as though he expected to bump into something. I had to seek him out when I had finished dressing, to enquire which Club it was and what name would find him. At home it was always very hot; the central heating throbbed away as if we feared exposure, and often, though high up and not overlooked, we kept the curtains drawn in the daytime, only a mild bloom of pinkish light penetrating into the rooms from outside. The creation of this climate was barely conscious, as people in crisis habitually transform their surroundings, the miserable sitting cold through the dusk without turning lights on, and the endangered, like Arthur and I, craving rosiness and security. The penumbra helped us to hide from each other. As soon as the new terms were forced upon us by Arthur’s coming back he must have felt as much as I did a sinking of the heart at our incompatibility. Inflicted with this new anxiety, we were afraid to annoy or burden each other. He spent much of the time asleep or sitting in a chair; and he bathed long and often. Very young and worried, he seemed to fear my resentment, and his gestures towards me took on a nervous respect; I would go to the dining-room and read alone, and he would come in with a cup of tea and touch me on the arm.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  ‘For God’s sake!’ The reply was desperate, muffled and close at hand. ‘Open the bloody door—please!’ I can only have taken a second to work this out, but already there came the pent-up banging I’d heard before. I crossed the room to a smaller door whose handle I tried and a moment later turned its stiff brass key; it was a door which was rarely locked, but which, gratifyingly, still could be if need be. Charles was not gratified. He had retreated to the other side of what was evidently a little dressing-room, with a chest-of-drawers, an open wardrobe, and a corner washbasin against which he leant, red in the face, his tie and collar undone, a look of both apprehension and fury on his face. He made me think of a boxer, penned in his corner, honour-bound to make a final and fatal sortie. He had no idea who I was. ‘Where’s Lewis?’ Though questioning me he seemed to look through me. He was out of breath. ‘Has Graham gone?’ I went towards him with my arms open, but he stepped forward with no purpose of greeting or reconciliation. He lurched past me, though I turned to support him and in the event merely pawed at his shoulder, and followed him closely into the bedroom. There he grappled with a chair which was lying on its side on the floor; the stooping and the effort seemed too much and I stepped around him to help. ‘Charles, it’s William.’ He took no notice of this until he had righted the chair, and dropped on to it heavily. Then he looked at me silently and intently. ‘They’ve gone,’ he said, after a while in which I squatted in front of him and watched him with an anxious smile. ‘They locked me in there—or Lewis did. He didn’t want me to get involved. Look at this room.’ Already Charles was struggling to his feet, though he reached towards me, and I felt he had gone through a transformation, and while doubting its logic, accepted that I was there. I held his considerable weight against me, while his left arm draped round my shoulders and we tottered towards the bed like a pair of drunks. When we got to it he held out his other arm in an eloquent gesture of amazement and desolation.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  We agreed that depending on what he had to say, Myers could change everything for us. We had made a lot of progress in disproving the testimony of Bill Hooks; with the appearance of Darnell Houston, the new evidence about the condition of Walter’s truck, and the discovery of the assistance given Hooks by law enforcement, his testimony was now riddled with credibility issues. But getting a recantation from Myers would be a much bigger deal. Myers’s bizarre accusations and testimony were the basis of the State’s entire case. Having read Myers’s testimony and reviewed the records that were available about him, I knew that he had a tragic background and a complex personality. Walter and his family had described Myers as pure evil for the lies he had told during the trial. The experience of being so coldly lied about at trial by someone you don’t even know was one of the most disquieting parts of the trial for Walter. When Walter called me at the office the next day, I told him we’d heard from Myers and that we were going to see what he had to say. Walter warned me: “He’s a snake. Be careful.” — Michael and I drove two hours to the state prison in Springville, in St. Clair County. The prison is in a rural area northeast of Birmingham, where the Alabama terrain starts to turn rocky and mountainous. The maximum-security prison was more recently built than Holman or Donaldson, the other maximum-security prisons in Alabama, but no one would suggest that St. Clair was modern. Michael and I cleared security at the prison entrance; the guard who patted us down said he’d been working at the prison for three months, and this was the first time he’d had a legal visit during his shift. We were directed down a long corridor that led to a flight of stairs that took us deeper inside the prison. We were admitted through several secure metal doors into the large room that served as the visitation area. It was typical: There were vending machines against the back walls and small rectangular tables where inmates could meet with family members. The familiarity of the setting did little to calm us. Michael and I put our notepads and pens on one of the tables and then paced around the room, waiting for Myers.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  ‘You see, I didn’t know until today that you even knew him.’ ‘I didn’t even know until yesterday that you did.’ He did not smile, and I suspected some slight friction, or horripilation of jealousy like that of the cattily possessive Lewis. ‘He knows a huge number of people,’ he said more tolerantly. ‘How did you get caught up with him?’ It seemed disloyal to tell the truth so I said simply that I had met him at the Corry. ‘He doesn’t go there very often these days,’ said Bill, as if to imply that in that case I had been exceptionally lucky. ‘No, it was fortunate. The thing is, Bill, I would value your help—what you know about him. I would acknowledge it of course in the book.’ He appeared satisfied by this. ‘I suspect you may be a leading witness.’ ‘You make it sound like a trial or something,’ said Bill. I picked up my beer and looked at him interrogatively. ‘Do you want me to tell you now?’ he asked, clearly uncertain, as I was, about how biographers worked. ‘Not now,’ I smiled. ‘But I’d like it if we could get together soon. You’re not touching your drink.’ ‘I’m sorry, Will. I’d like to in a way, but I think with the mood I’m in tonight it wouldn’t be a good thing. It’s never a good thing, to be honest, when I go back on the booze. Somehow it always lands me in trouble.’ Looking at his ungainly muscularity, I wondered if it nursed and suppressed an instinct for violence. Perhaps his self-denial had been painfully learnt, and was the clue to a double life whose difficult side was all in the past.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  It’s all come horrifically at the same time. And we’re only kids ourselves,’ I huffed. James felt entitled to draw on professional language. ‘I guess if those things are building up and building up, when they erupt there will be a bit of a mess. There will be pockmarks,’ he seventeenth-centurily went on. I got him to play me some more positive music, some courtly, phlegmatic Haydn; and I turned the conversation round artificially to more general subjects. We watched a mirthless comedy on the television from beginning to end. It was only when we were in bed, and I was now dry-throated and woozy-headed from the drink, that I came back to the subject. ‘It’s the way we didn’t know about it,’ I murmured. ‘The gruesome incongruity of it.’ ‘Isn’t there a kind of blind spot,’ James said, ‘for that period just before one was born? One knows about the Second World War, one knows about Suez, I suppose, but what people were actually getting up to in those years … There’s an empty, motiveless space until one appears on the scene. What do you know about your own family anyway? They’re such secretive organisms, I can’t be doing with them.’ I felt his erection—the idiot emblem of the day—yearning against my thigh, and waited resignedly as his hands wandered down towards my own. It was a curious experience, for while he stroked he seemed instinctively to be feeling for other symptoms, exercising that slight pressure which discovers a tender kidney or a swollen gland. He was rather fastidious when he reached his objective too. I turned on my front, and he gave a little humorous sigh and tipped his forehead against mine while I told him of a thing that happened on the train. It was while I was coming to see him and had taken place just in front of me, an ordinary thing and yet calmly beyond the turmoil of my own mood, in fact wonderfully self-sufficient and entire. Among the crowd that got on at Tottenham Court Road were a black couple with a baby: they took the two places against the glass partition, so that the man and I sat—as I had done with Gabriel shortly before—knee to knee. Once he had looked at me politely as I shifted to make room for him he had no interest in me at all—and I hardly took notice of him. His wife held the impassive and very young child in her arms: despite the heat it was dressed in a quilted one-piece suit, but with the hood back. My thoughts were all elsewhere, though I saw the man, about thirty, I suppose, lean over the baby’s open flawless face, and smile down on it, out of pure pleasure and love. His fingertips moved from his own softly bearded lips and gently stroked and almost held within their span his child’s lolling wispy head.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  ORIGEN. The holy Virgin knew that He was not the Son of Joseph, and yet calls her husband His father according to the belief of the Jews, who thought that He was conceived in the common way. Now to speak generally we may say, that the Holy Spirit honoured Joseph by the name of father, because he brought up the Child Jesus; but more technically, that it might not seem superfluous in St. Luke, bringing down the genealogy from David to Joseph. But why sought they Him sorrowing? Was it that he might have perished or been lost? It could not be. For what should cause them to dread the loss of Him whom they knew to be the Lord? But as whenever you read the Scriptures you search out their meaning with pains, not that you suppose them to have erred or to contain anything incorrect, but that the truth which they have inherent in them you are anxious to find out; so they sought Jesus, lest perchance leaving them he should have returned to heaven, thither to descend when He would. He then who seeks Jesus must go about it not carelessly and idly, as many seek Him who never find Him, but with labour and sorrow. GLOSS. (ordin.) Or they feared lest Herod who sought Him in His infancy, now that He was advanced to boyhood might find an opportunity of putting Him to death. GREEK EXPOSITOR. (Metaphrastes et Geometer.) But the Lord Himself sets every thing at rest, and correcting as it were her saying concerning him who was His reputed father, manifests His true Father, teaching us not to walk on the ground, but to raise ourselves on high, as it follows, And he says unto them, What is it that you ask of me? BEDE. He blames them not that they seek Him as their son, but compels them to raise the eyes of their mind to what was rather due to Him whose eternal Son He was. Hence it follows, Knew ye not? &c. AMBROSE. There are two generations in Christ, one from His Father, the other from His mother; the Father’s more divine, the mother’s that which has come down for our use and advantage. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. He says this then by way of shewing that He surpasses all human standards, and hinting that the Holy Virgin was made the handmaid of the work in bringing His flesh unto the world, but that He Himself was by nature and in truth God, and the Son of the Father most high. Now from this let the followers of Valentinus, hearing that the temple was of God, be ashamed to say that the Creator, and the God of the law and of the temple, is not also the Father of Christ.

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  I had decided I could love a girl without feeling any desire whatsoever. This was probably the most foolhardy undertaking since the beginning of human history. Without being aware of it myself, I was undertaking to be—please forgive my natural inclination toward hyperbole—a Copernicus in the theory of love. In doing so I had obviously arrived unwittingly at nothing more than a belief in the platonic concept of love.Although probably seeming to contradict what I have said earlier, I believed in this platonic concept honestly, at full face value, purely. In any case was it not purity itself rather than the concept in which I was believing? Was it not purity to which I had sworn allegiance? But more of this later. If at times I seemed not to believe in platonic love, this too could be blamed on my brain, so apt to prefer the concept of carnal love, which was lacking in my heart, and on that fatigue produced by my artificiality, so apt to accompany any satisfaction of my craze to appear to be an adult. In short, blame it on my unrest. The last year of the war came and I reached the age of twenty. Early in the year all the students at my university were sent to work at the N airplane factory, near the city of M. Eighty percent of the students became factory hands, while the frail students, who formed the remaining twenty percent, were given some sort of clerical jobs. I fell into the latter category. And yet at the time of my physical examination the year before, I had received the classification of 2(b). Having thus been declared eligible for military service, I had the constant worry that my summons would come tomorrow, if not today. The airplane factory, located in a desolate area seething with dust, was so huge that it took thirty minutes simply to walk across it from one end to the other, and it hummed with the labor of several thousand workers. I was one of them, bearing the designation of Temporary Employee 953, with Identification No. 4409. This great factory operated upon a mysterious system of production costs: taking no account of the economic dictum that capital investment should produce a return, it was dedicated to a monstrous nothingness. No wonder then that each morning the workers had to recite a mystic oath. I have never seen such a strange factory. In it all the techniques of modern science and management, together with the exact and rational thinking of many superior brains, were dedicated to a single end—Death. Producing the Zero-model combat plane used by the suicide squadrons, this great factory resembled a secret cult that operated thunderously—groaning, shrieking, roaring. I did not see how such a colossal organization could exist without some religious grandiloquence.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And when you come to me for protection, I shall say: “I cannot protect you, Mary, the world has deprived me of my right to protect; I am utterly helpless, I can only love you.” ’ And now Stephen was trembling. In spite of her strength and her splendid physique, she must stand there and tremble. She felt deathly cold, her teeth chattered with cold, and when she moved her steps were unsteady. She must climb the wide stairs with infinite care, in case she should inadvertently stumble; must lift her feet slowly, and with infinite care, because if she stumbled she might wake Mary. 4 Ten days later Stephen was saying to her mother: ‘I’ve been needing a change for a very long time. It’s rather lucky that a girl I met in the Unit is free and able to go with me. We’ve taken a villa at Orotava, it’s supposed to be furnished and they’re leaving the servants, but heaven only knows what the house will be like, it belongs to a Spaniard; however, there’ll be sunshine.’ ‘I believe Orotava’s delightful,’ said Anna. But Puddle, who was looking at Stephen, said nothing. That night Stephen knocked at Puddle’s door: ‘May I come in?’ ‘Yes, come in do, my dear. Come and sit by the fire—shall I make you some cocoa?’ ‘No, thanks.’ A long pause while Puddle slipped into her dressing-gown of soft, grey Viyella. Then she also drew a chair up to the fire, and after a little: ‘It’s good to see you—your old teacher’s been missing you rather badly.’ ‘Not more than I’ve been missing her, Puddle.’ Was that quite true? Stephen suddenly flushed, and both of them grew very silent. Puddle knew quite well that Stephen was unhappy. They had not lived side by side all these years, for Puddle to fail now in intuition; she felt certain that something grave had happened, and her instinct warned her of what this might be, so that she secretly trembled a little. For no young and inexperienced girl sat beside her, but a woman of nearly thirty-two, who was far beyond the reach of her guidance. This woman would settle her problems for herself and in her own way—had indeed always done so. Puddle must try to be tactful in her questions. She said gently: ‘Tell me about your new friend. You met her in the Unit?’ ‘Yes—we met in the Unit, as I told you this evening—her name’s Mary Llewellyn.’ ‘How old is she, Stephen?’ ‘Not quite twenty-two.’ Puddle said: ‘Very young—not yet twenty-two . . .’ then she glanced at Stephen, and fell silent. But now Stephen went on talking more quickly: ‘I’m glad you asked me about her, Puddle, because I intend to give her a home. She’s got no one except some distant cousins, and as far as I can see they don’t want her.

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  And still, in the end I had been classified 2(b). So now I was summoned—to join a rough rural unit. My mother wept sorrowfully, and even my father seemed no little dejected. As for me, hero though I fancied myself, the sight of the summons aroused no enthusiasm in me; but on the other hand, there was my hope of dying an easy death. All in all, I had the feeling that everything was as it should be. A cold that I had caught at the factory became much worse as I was going on an interisland steamer to join my unit. By the time I reached the home of close family friends in the village of our legal residence—we had not owned a single bit of land there since my grandfather's bankruptcy—I had such a violent fever that I was unable to stand up. Thanks, however, to the careful nursing I received in that house and especially to the efficacy of the vast quantity of febrifuge I took, I was finally able to make my way through the barracks gate, amidst a spirited send-off given me by the family friends. My fever, which had only been checked by the medicines, now returned. During the physical examination that preceded final enlistment I had to stand around waiting stark naked, like a wild beast, and I sneezed constantly. The stripling of an army doctor who examined me mistook the wheezing of my bronchial tubes for a chest rattle, and then my haphazard answers concerning my medical history further confirmed him in his error. Hence I was given a blood test, the results of which, influenced by the high fever of my cold, led to a mistaken diagnosis of incipient tuberculosis. I was ordered home the same day as unfit for service. Once I had put the barracks gate behind me, I broke into a run down the bleak and wintry slope that descended to the village. Just as at the airplane factory, my legs carried me running toward something that in any case was not Death—whatever it was, it was not Death. . . . On the train that night, shrinking from the wind that blew in through a broken window glass, I suffered with fever chills and a headache. Where shall I go now? I asked myself. Thanks to my father's inherent inability to make a final decision about anything, my family still remained unevacuated from our Tokyo house. Shall I go there, to that house where everyone is cowering with suspense?

• From Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can Get Out (2014)

  These questions solicited answers from the young man that provided further evidence of the pervasiveness of Amway’s influence in his life. He admitted that his time was increasingly taken up with Amway and that the people he now socialized with were largely other Amway distributors. We also discussed his attendance at Amway conferences, seminars, and meetings and looked at how the company and its supporters controlled these activities and environments. Didn’t all these factors contribute to the creation of a kind of encapsulated Amway world or subculture, in which only positive affirmations about the company were encouraged, recognized, and allowed? How could anyone within such a subculture meaningfully consider alternate ideas? Was it really possible for alternate ideas to penetrate this environment? Could any criticism of Amway and its business practices be seriously considered and thought through within this environment? These questions ended our first day. At the beginning of the second day, we discussed in more detail how Amway, through its subculture and domination of time and associations, could be seen as what psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton calls “Milieu Control.”1160 I asked whether it was possible that his new Amway life had effectively come to control much of his communication and had effectively shut out, dismissed, or eliminated anything negative that might contradict or criticize Amway’s basic assumptions or its business plan. At this point the young man became uneasy and asked whether this meant that Amway was somehow engaged in what could be called “brainwashing.” Building on the thought-reform model, I cited another criterion Lifton described called “Sacred Science.” That is, the group or organization encourages “an aura of sacredness around its basic dogma,” and “this sacredness is evident in the prohibition (whether or not explicit) against the questioning of basic assumptions, and in the reverence which is demanded for the originators of the Word, the present bearers of the Word, and the Word itself.”1161 I asked the young man whether seriously questioning the Amway business plan was possible. Would criticism of the plan be tolerated? He answered that any distributor who criticized the business plan was likely to be pressured to cease such criticism. If the distributor persisted in criticism, he or she would probably be labeled as negative and made to feel so uncomfortable that he or she would leave Amway. I asked whether the plan was possibly wrong in some aspect. Could Amway’s business plan be improved based on constructive criticism—for example, addressing the issue of market saturation? The young man responded that he couldn’t recall an instance when any mistakes or imperfection was acknowledged in regard to the Amway business plan. He added that if a distributor didn’t get positive results through the plan, the failure was somehow due to that distributor’s personal failure to execute the plan properly. There was never any criticism of the plan itself. I asked him whether a perfect business plan actually existed. Didn’t businesses frequently benefit by encouraging constructive criticism from within?

• From Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women (Erotic Fiction) (2006)

  And so it was that, as she went up and down the length of the room, she searched in vain for her prince. There were indeed a few times when she believed she might have found him, but in her fear of choosing the wrong man she always held back from speaking. Yet she clung to those men who reminded her of the one she loved and, yes, even allowed a few of them to take her, right there in the room, thinking that she had at last found her prince, only to discover moments later that he could not have been him after all. Her whole body shook with frustration and anxiety over the enormity of the task that lay before her. She was in a constant state of arousal as she wandered about the room, doing unimaginable things with complete strangers. And as the night wore on, she could not determine one touch from the next, but only hoped for a miraculous sign that would enlighten her and free her from the degrading search she had been forced to endure. And all the while she knew that her prince was there, silently listening to her moans and cries as she traversed the room, and perceiving her inability to quit the arms of each impostor before giving a little bit of herself to him. Tears poured down her cheeks as she pressed on, discouraged, but unable to give up until she found him. She wondered if she had encountered the servant from the dining room yet, and if so, how far she had allowed him to go with her. Was he one of the men who had taken her right there on the floor, easing the aching hunger she felt, if only for the moment? Blindly she stumbled on, praying for a miracle. And there, in front of her, stood yet another man. She approached him with the tears still on her cheeks. Abruptly the man clutched her in a fierce embrace and crushed her lips under his. She could not remember having ever been kissed so violently and struggled to get away from the savage grasp that was bruising her skin. He did not relent, however, and she almost cried out for help, but at that same moment she remembered that she could not speak. If she spoke out she would not only lose her prince forever, but possibly be obliged to remain with this brute as well! A real terror seized her, as she realized that the violent stranger might force himself on her, without her even being able to utter a single word.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Moreover, when the mind is inclined to a thing, it is no longer impartial between two alternatives. And that to which the mind is more inclined it chooses, unless by a rational discussion, not unattended with trouble, it is withdrawn from taking that side: hence sudden emergencies afford the best sign of the inward bent of the mind. But it is impossible for the mind of man to be so continually watchful as rationally to discuss whatever it ought to do or not to do. Consequently the mind will at times choose that to which it is inclined by the present inclination: so, if the inclination be to sin, it will not stand long clear of sin, thereby putting an obstacle in the way of grace, unless it be brought back to the state of righteousness. Further we must consider the assaults of passion, the allurements of sense, the endless occasions of evil-doing, the ready incitements of sin, sure to prevail, unless the will be withheld from them by a firm adherence to the last end, which is the work of grace. Hence appears the folly of the Pelagian view, that a man in sin can go on avoiding further sins without grace. On the contrary the Lord bids us pray: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. But though persons in sin cannot of their own power help putting obstacles in the way of grace, unless they be forestalled by some aid of grace, still this lack of power is imputable to them for a fault, because it is left behind in them by a fault going before; as a drunken man is not excused from murder, committed in drunkenness, when he gets drunk by fault of his own. Besides, though this person in sin has it not in his unaided power altogether to avoid sin, still he has power here and now to avoid this or that sin: hence whatever he commits, he voluntarily commits, and the fault is imputed to him not undeservedly. CHAPTER CLXII

• From Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women (Erotic Fiction) (2006)

  Next I make my husband aware that I want something from him, but I always ask if he will do it before I tell him what it is! He will generally answer in the affirmative, even if there is a tiny pause before he does so, and sometimes even a little disclaimer, such as, “if I can,” or something to that effect. But I do not pay much attention to those. The important thing is that, like most husbands, he is willing to please me if he can. It is always more agreeable to my husband to please me when he imagines himself a wonderful benefactor by doing so. What does it matter if I sometimes think I should be entitled to these little “gifts,” without having to appeal to my husband’s ego? Such thoughts are not worth developing, for they are obstacles between a woman and what she wants. They are mere romantic notions that, if allowed, will interfere with the objectives of a lady. And furthermore, they have nothing whatever to do with love, for whatever his faults, I know that my husband loves me. But in this particular instance, I was still uneasy about telling my husband what it was that I wanted. I knew that the thing would at first be distasteful to him, so I delayed a little longer, warning him that it would be difficult, but stressing its importance to me. So heartfelt was my supplication that I actually summoned tears to my eyes, and was even compelled to pause a moment in order to compose myself before I could continue. With the utmost concern, my husband took my hands in his and assured me fervently that he would indeed do everything in his power to fulfill my wish to the letter. Having his full commitment, I proceeded. “My wish, dear husband, is to know the intimate details of the most unique and exciting sexual encounter you have experienced.” I watched his concern turn to shock. Then he laughed. I suppose it was a silly thing for me to have made such a fuss about, but you must realize that, as a proper lady, very little was expected of me in the bedroom. Indeed, very little happened there at all, of late. I worried that he would not take me seriously. Slowly his laughter died down, and he gave me a fatherly smile. Just as I had feared, he was about to placate me with one of our own dull experiences. I placed my hand on his lips.

• From Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can Get Out (2014)

  We discussed the three most basic stages of coercive persuasion, according to MIT professor Edgar Schein. These include “unfreezing,” “changing,” and then “refreezing” a person after the desired mind-set has been achieved. 1132 How had the daughter’s boyfriend unfrozen her? Psychologist Margaret Singer calls the unfreezing phase of coercive persuasion “the destabilizing of a person’s sense of self.” 1133 How had the boyfriend destabilized the daughter? We discussed the laser-like intensity of their relationship—the seemingly endless talks they had and how much time the boyfriend had demanded. This aspect had been evident first at the vacation resort, later through their ongoing Internet calls, and ultimately through his demands that she drop out of school and move in with him. I asked the daughter whether the boyfriend had used their prolonged talks as a means to change her life goals and alter her family values. She agreed that this constant conversation and communication were the impetus and catalyst for the changes that had taken place in her personal and academic life. Through these discourses the boyfriend had managed to alter the daughter’s direction in life, including her goals and individual values. We then discussed in more detail how the boyfriend had persuaded her to drop out of school and move in with him in less than sixty days. Wasn’t that a sudden change? Had she previously considered making such dramatic changes in her life before meeting the boyfriend? The girl’s parents said they became concerned not only because these changes were happening so fast but also because their daughter had given up her personal goals, friends, and family. It appeared that she had sacrificed everything in her life to satisfy the needs of the boyfriend. I then pointed out how such rapid and singularly motivated change fit within the framework of coercive persuasion, as Singer suggested. Had the boyfriend manipulated the daughter to reinterpret her life? As Singer summarized, had she ultimately accepted “a new version of reality”? 1134 How had the boyfriend impacted the historical relationships in her life? Did this explain why she had so suddenly changed her goals and family values? How had the daughter changed from a loving family member, concerned about friends, to someone who barely communicated with anyone other than the boyfriend? The daughter acknowledged that the rapid and radical changes in recent months had occurred as a direct result of the boyfriend’s persuasive power and growing influence. At this juncture in the intervention, we began to examine the basic characteristics of thought reform, as psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton outlined. 1135 The single most basic and important element of thought reform, as Lifton defined, is “Milieu Control”—that is, control of the environment. We now began to discuss how isolated the daughter had recently become. The parents commented about the apparent control of communication between them and their daughter in recent weeks. They said it had seemed like the boyfriend was now filtering everything. Was this pattern of control similar to Lifton’s Milieu Control?

• From Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women (Erotic Fiction) (2006)

  The girl turned to the servant who answered the bell, an older woman who regarded her kindly. “I should be grateful if you could offer any advice,” she implored. “Remove your clothes,” said the old woman calmly. “What!” exclaimed the girl. “Remove your clothes,” repeated the woman. “That is how you know him and you will choose the man you know.” “But, what if…” she paused, uncertain. “It is the only way,” replied the shrewd old woman. “You will not get another chance after this.” Seeing the wisdom in the old woman’s words, she quickly removed her clothing. Then she opened the door and walked into the blackness beyond. The door closed immediately behind her. Although the room was silent, she could feel the presence of the men who crowded the large room. Slowly she moved forward. It occurred to her suddenly that she hadn’t even touched the face of her prince, for he had thwarted her every attempt to seek his identity. She had only that one glimpse of him by candlelight. She knew him only as a lover. Would that be enough to help her now? All of a sudden, she felt someone beside her. She reached out her hand in the dark and discovered a man standing there. The thought of the smirking servant crossed her mind, and she recoiled instantly. But the man reached out a steady hand and held her. With her heart racing, she let him draw her near. His hands slid down the length of her body, touching her intimately. She tried to concentrate on his hands and recall exactly how her prince’s hands had felt when they were touching her. Were these his hands that caressed her now? The man reached a hand between her legs, prying her open and thrusting a finger inside her warm body. But something was wrong. The fingers that were digging into her flesh were cold, not warm like her lover’s. With a small cry of horror, she tore herself from the impostor’s hands. The next man she encountered had much warmer hands. Like the former, he touched her body intimately, without reserve. Did all men grasp and clutch at a woman in exactly the same manner? But there seemed to be something familiar in this one’s touch. She turned up her face towards his in the darkness. His lips immediately came down on hers in a soft kiss. Pressing her body close to his, she slowly wound her arms around his neck, thinking this man could be her prince. Her body began responding to his warm kisses and caresses, and yet, a slow dawning crept up within her that this man could not be her prince after all, for his kisses were much too wet!

• From Don't Feed the Monkey Mind: How to Stop the Cycle of Anxiety, Fear, and Worry (2017)

  Begin by thinking of a situation that makes you anxious. It could be a physical sensation like in the case of Maria, or it may be a situation that happens at work, or it may be related to your home life and family. Once you have a situation in mind, ask yourself these three questions: 1. What am I afraid of? 2. What’s the worst thing that could happen if this comes true? 3. What would this mean about me, my life, or my future? Using the answers to these questions, determine your perception of threat. Next, describe how these thoughts make you feel. What negative emotions and sensations can you identify? What parts of your body are affected? Make note of them in your chart. Once you’ve got a good handle on what you’re thinking and feeling, ask yourself, What do I do to keep the worst from happening? This behavior is your safety strategy. When you’ve written it in, the cycle is complete— almost. When you perform your safety strategy, which monkey mind-set or combination of mind-sets is activated? Write that in the center bubble. To keep it simple you can use whichever of the three assumptions fits best with the situation: “I must be 100% certain,” “I must not make mistakes,” or “I am responsible for everyone’s happiness and safety.” Neither Maria, Eric, nor Samantha were living the lives they wanted to live. Thinking with the monkey mind-set is like being an archer who thinks she must hit the bull’s-eye. The rest of the target counts as a miss. Only when her arrow lands dead center, within the circle of safety, will she allow herself any satisfaction, and even then only until her next “miss.” It’s an all-or-- nothing mentality, and we usually wind up with nothing. The Downward Cycle Safety strategies and their monkey mind-sets are aimed at eliminating risk. Yet without some risk, new experiences and learning are impossible. Our thoughts, our behavior, and our level of anxiety become rigid and predictable. Over time, the heart’s desires are forgotten. Eric dreaded going to work at the company he himself had founded. Marie gave up the thing she loved the most —travel—because she didn’t dare stray from her hospital. Samantha would never be able to retire because her responsibility to her son was draining both her bank account and her health. Within the cycle of anxiety, the joy of being alive is lost. Our world gets smaller and smaller.

• From Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women (Erotic Fiction) (2006)

  “Indeed I have,” he replied, glancing nonchalantly through a crystal panel to see how the servants were faring, and mentally calculating how much longer before it was time for the show to begin. He pretended not to be aware of the fact that he was fully aroused. The empress, too, struggled to ignore his condition and maintain an outward appearance that was both dignified and aloof. But the accelerated rise and fall of her breasts gave evidence of an increased need for oxygen that only becomes necessary when accommodating a racing heart. The emperor noticed this and held back a smile. He had been hoping to achieve that response by the second part of Act One. This was going better than he had anticipated. And it was time, indeed, to begin the presentation. Very slowly, the emperor reached out his hand to touch the empress’s breast. Shocked, the empress instinctively glanced out through the glass panels. At that moment, the lighting over her head seemed to get brighter, while the lights outside the theater box appeared to get dimmer. Even so, she could still see the servants clearly. They were looking expectantly at her and the emperor. She turned back to her husband questioningly, but he merely stared back at her, slowly moving his hand over her breasts, then down her belly and around the curve of her hips. A little shiver vibrated over her. One way or the other, the event had begun. The emperor waited silently for the empress to comprehend the situation, thoroughly intrigued by the mixture of confusion and reluctant arousal that were evident in her expression. “I thought there was to be a play, or…some…entertainment.” Even as she said the words a slow dawning seemed to be creeping over her. “There is,” the emperor replied. He moved behind her then and, taking her shoulders in his hands, carefully turned her so that she was facing the crystal panels directly in front of the audience of eager faces. The empress stood frozen in place, looking at the faces of the men and women who were impatiently awaiting the entertainment that she was about to provide. In their expressions she saw a variety of reactions, ranging from intrigue, shock, amazement, excitement, amusement and even arousal. There were lascivious smiles on the faces of some of the younger male servants as they stared at her openly. She looked back in horror, even as a surge of excitement gushed through her loins. The empress remained motionless, torn between a strong desire to stay and an anxiousness to leave. In that moment she was made aware of her darkest wish, and she feared it as vigorously as she wanted it. She responded to this dilemma much as a deer does, when its gaze is caught by a bright light in the dark night, and it becomes paralyzed with uncertainty.