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 Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Moreover. It would seem unfitting to receive from another without making him a return: since the equality of justice is observed in giving and taking.—It is, however, allowable to live on the alms of others, for those who tender them some kind of service. Hence it would not seem unreasonable that the ministers of the altar, and preachers, who give the people doctrine and other godly things, should receive their livelihood from them: for the workman is worthy of his meat, as our Lord says (Matth. 10:10). For this reason the Apostle says (1 Cor. 9:13–14) that the Lord ordained that they who preach the Gospel, should live by the Gospel: and that they that serve the altar partake with the altar. Consequently it were unfitting for those who perform no ministerial duty for the people, to receive from the people the necessaries of life. Further. This mode of living would seem to be harmful to others. For some there are who need to be supported by the bounty of others, through being unable to support themselves by reason of poverty or sickness. And this bounty would needs be lessened, if those who embrace voluntary poverty had to be supported by the offerings of others: since people are both unable and unwilling to support a large number of poor. Hence the Apostle (1 Tim. 4.) commands that if a man have a widow related to him, let him minister to her, that the Church may look after those who are widows indeed. It is therefore unseemly that those who choose voluntary poverty should follow this way of living. Moreover. A free mind is a most necessary condition for perfect virtue: for without it a man easily becomes a partaker of other men’s sins: either by express consent, or by flattering approval, or at least by dissimulation. Now, this freedom is considerably prejudiced by the aforesaid manner of life: for a man cannot but fear to offend one on whose kindness he lives. Consequently this manner of life is a hindrance to perfect virtue, which is the end of voluntary poverty: and so it would seem inexpedient to those who are voluntarily poor. Besides. We cannot be sure of that which depends on another’s will. Now, the giving of his own depends on the will of the giver. Therefore this way of living does not provide sufficiently for the voluntarily poor as regards their being sure of a livelihood.

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

  Chapman suggested that we come to his office in the Monroe County courthouse so that they could turn over all the files together. We agreed. When we arrived, the men were already there. Tate was a tall, heavy-set white man who had come to the meeting in boots, jeans, and a light shirt. Ikner was another white man in his mid-forties, wearing the same outfit. Neither of them smiled much—they greeted Michael and me with the bemused curiosity to which I was getting accustomed. The men knew that we were accusing them of misconduct, but for the most part they remained civil. At one point Tate told Michael that he knew, as soon as he saw him, that he was “a Yankee.” Michael smiled and replied, “Well, actually, I’m a Nittany Lion.” The joke died in the silent room. Undeterred, Michael continued, “I went to Penn State. The mascot at Penn State is—” “We kicked your ass in ’78.” Tate made the statement as if he had just won the lottery. Penn State and the University of Alabama had been football rivals in the 1970s, when both schools had had successful programs and iconic coaches, Bear Bryant at Alabama and Joe Paterno at Penn State. Alabama had defeated the number-one-ranked Penn State team 14–7 to win the 1978 national championship. Michael, a huge college football fan and a “JoePa” devotee, looked at me as if seeking nonverbal permission to say something reckless. I gave him a cautionary stare; to my great relief, he seemed to understand. “How much is ‘Johnny D’ paying y’all?” Tate asked, using the nickname Walter’s friends and family had given him. “We work for a nonprofit. We don’t charge the people we represent anything,” I said as blandly and politely as I could. “Well, you’re getting money from somewhere to do what you do.” I decided to let that pass and move things forward. “I thought that it might be a good idea to sign something that verifies these are all the files you all have on this case. Can we index what you’re turning over to us and then all sign?” “We don’t need to do anything that formal, Bryan. These men are officers of the court, just like you and I. You should just take the files,” Chapman said, apparently sensing that this suggestion had provoked Tate and Ikner. “Well, there could be files that have inadvertently been missed or documents that dropped out. I’m just trying to document that what we receive is what you give us—same number of pages, same file folder headings, et cetera. I’m not questioning anyone’s integrity.” “The hell you ain’t.” Tate was direct. He looked at Chapman. “We can sign something confirming what we give him. I think we may need a record of that more than he does.”

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I looked about me. It was a Sunday and the Strand was rather quiet - but I didn’t know it; it might have been the race-track at the Derby to me, so deafening and dizzying was the clatter of the traffic, so swift the passage of the horses. I felt safer in the carriage, and only rather queer, to be so close to a gentleman I did not know, being transported I knew not where, in a city that was vaster and smokier and more alarming than I could have thought possible.There was much, of course, to look at. Mr Bliss had suggested we take in the sights a little before we headed for Brixton, so now we rolled into Trafalgar Square - towards Nelson on his pillar, and the fountains, and the lovely, bone-coloured front of the National Gallery, and the view down Whitehall to the Houses of Parliament.‘My brother,’ I said, as I pressed my face to the window to gaze at it all, ‘said I would be run down by a tram in Trafalgar Square, if ever I came to London.’Mr Bliss looked grave. ‘Your brother was very sensible to warn you, Miss Astley - but sadly misinformed. There are no trams in Trafalgar Square - only buses and hansoms, and broughams like our own. Trams are for common people; you should have to go quite as far as Kilburn, I’m afraid, or Camden Town, in order to be struck by a tram.’I smiled uncertainly. I did not know, quite, what to make of Mr Bliss, to whom my future and my happiness had been so recently, and so unexpectedly, entrusted. While he addressed himself to Kitty, and directed our attention every so often to some scene or character in the street beyond, I studied him. He was a little younger, I saw, than I had taken him to be at first. That night in Kitty’s dressing-room I had thought him almost middle-aged; now I guessed him to be one- or two-and-thirty, at the most. He was an impressive, rather than a handsome, man, but for all his flash and his speeches, rather homely: I thought he must have a little wife who loved him, and a baby; and that if he did not - which, in fact, was the case - that he should have. I knew nothing, then, of his history, but learned later that he came from an old, respectable, theatrical family (his real name was no more Bliss, of course, than Kitty’s was Butler); that he had left the legitimate stage when he was still a young man, in order to work the halls as a comic singer; and that he managed, now, a dozen artistes, but still, on occasion, took a turn before the footlights - as ‘Walter Waters, Character Baritone’ - for sheer love of the profession.

• 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 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 Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  “Mitchell would never have been able to have such power over a non-Mormon girl.” Once he’d gained psychological control of Elizabeth, Mitchell felt sufficiently confident that she wouldn’t flee or try to alert the police that he often took her to public places, albeit with her blond braids covered in a head scarf and her face hidden behind a burqa-like veil. In September, Mitchell even brought Elizabeth, thus disguised, to a lively, beer-fueled party in downtown Salt Lake attended by more than a hundred revelers (most of whom were not particularly pious), where she was photographed by one partygoer but not recognized. On at least one occasion while Elizabeth was under Mitchell’s control, according to one of her uncles, for the better part of a day Mitchell left the girl “completely by herself, but she didn’t try to run away.” On July 24, acting with customary brazenness, Mitchell attempted to kidnap a fifteen-year-old cousin of Elizabeth’s. Resorting to the same method he’d used previously, Mitchell placed a chair beneath an open window, cut through its screen with his knife, and was preparing to crawl into the girl’s home when he inadvertently knocked some framed pictures onto the floor, creating a racket that woke up the household and caused him to flee. Because the police were convinced at the time that they already had the prime suspect in custody—another former laborer for the Smarts, Richard Ricci, who had a fishy alibi and a voluminous criminal history going back thirty years—it didn’t occur to the cops that the sliced screen and chair left at the scene of this attempted break-in were significant clues. They failed to give serious consideration to the possibility that Elizabeth’s abductor might be someone other than Ricci and might still be on the loose, attempting to kidnap other girls. Late one night in October, Mary Katherine—the younger sister who was the only outside witness to the crime—abruptly told Ed Smart, “Dad, I think I know who it is.” She was pretty sure that the person she had seen abducting Elizabeth was the small bearded man who had helped fix the roof—the self-proclaimed prophet who had called himself Immanuel. Smart reported his daughter’s belated disclosure to the Salt Lake City police, but because Mary Katherine had waited four months to identify the perpetrator, detectives didn’t give it much credence. They nevertheless worked with the Smart family to produce three composite sketches of Immanuel, based on their hazy memories of what he had looked like when he’d worked around their house in November 2001. The Smarts thought the last of these renderings was a reasonable likeness and wanted to go public with it, but the cops refused, arguing that it wasn’t accurate enough and would only inundate them with false leads. Besides, they still thought Ricci (who had died in jail on August 27 of a brain hemorrhage) was the culprit. Frustrated, the Smarts took matters into their own hands.

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

  CHAPTER 19 ABUSIVE, CONTROLLING RELATIONSHIP INTERVENTION Parents contacted me about their teenage daughter, who had become deeply enmeshed in an abusive and controlling relationship and was subsequently estranged from her family. This situation initially developed during a family summer vacation when the daughter met a young man, who was several years older. He was staying at the same resort with his mother. Before the family’s relatively brief vacation had ended, the two young people seemed inseparable. At the beginning the girl’s parents reserved judgment, even though the relationship had developed so rapidly. But after the family returned home, the daughter spent hours every day, locked in her bedroom and talking with the boyfriend through the Internet. Day after day these conversations continued and soon became the focus of the teenage girl’s life. The daughter appeared to be obsessed with the relationship and left little time for anything else in her life. She became increasingly isolated from her family and old friends. The fall came, and it was time for the daughter to begin her first year of college. The school she attended was away from home and offered dormitory rooms for its students. The parents hoped their daughter would find some meaningful balance between school and the boyfriend. In a few weeks, however, the girl dropped out of college and moved into an apartment with the boyfriend in another state. All these changes rapidly occurred within the space of only two months. Alarmed by the abrupt changes in their daughter’s life, the father and mother became profoundly concerned about the relationship. When they discussed their concerns with their daughter, communication with her subsequently became less frequent and far more difficult. It seemed like the girl was being coached before and sometimes during her conversations. After some consideration the mother and father concluded that their daughter was under undue influence. The parents contacted me for a consultation. I was careful to explain that my intervention approach is purely educational and doesn’t include any form of counseling or therapy. I advised the parents that if they wanted counseling, therapy, a psychological evaluation, or assessment for their daughter, I wasn’t qualified to provide it. After a meeting at my office and further consideration, they determined that an intervention was necessary. Together we began to carefully plan how and when this intervention would take place. The mother’s birthday was coming up, and after a considerable conciliatory effort, the family was able to persuade the daughter to come home and celebrate the event with her family. The intervention was scheduled to take place during her visit. The daughter agreed to come alone without the boyfriend. At first the boyfriend was reluctant about the trip, but when the parents intimated that they might be willing to help their daughter out financially, he changed his mind. The parents and I met for our preparation at my hotel the day before the intervention was set to begin.

• 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 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.

• 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 Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  The Mormons had long possessed a strong and spectacular sense of otherness and unity: They saw themselves not only as God’s modern chosen people, but also as a people whose faith and identity had been forged by a long and bloody history, and by outright banishment. They were a people apart—a people with its own myths and purposes, and with a history of astonishing violence. MIKAL GILMORE, SHOT IN THE HEART For more than fifteen years—ever since Rulon Jeffs became leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints—the inhabitants of Colorado City were sustained by their conviction that he was the “one mighty and strong,” the Lord’s anointed emissary on earth, a prophet whom God had granted eternal life. But Uncle Rulon had been gravely ill for a long time, and on September 8, 2002, his heart stopped beating and a physician pronounced him dead. That was four days ago; now, as the reality of their leader’s death has begun to sink in, the town’s residents are desperately trying to reconcile their faith in his immortality with the inescapable fact that he is deceased. Today, on a warm and cloudless Thursday afternoon, more than five thousand people—mostly devout fundamentalists, but a few Gentiles and mainline Mormons as well—have assembled in Colorado City from as far away as Canada and Mexico to pay their respects and bury Uncle Rulon. The men and boys somberly filing out of the funeral service that has just concluded in the LeRoy Johnson Meeting House are dressed in their Sunday best. The women and girls wear ankle-length dresses in pastel shades of pink, lavender, and blue that could be straight out of the nineteenth century; their hair, pulled back into long, chaste braids, first rises from their foreheads in fabulous crests, painstakingly arranged, that bring to mind breaking surf. Above the grieving throngs, the cliffs of Canaan Mountain glow in the angled sunlight, profiled against a blue autumn sky. Uncle Rulon, who was three months shy of his ninety-third birthday when he passed on, left behind an estimated seventy-five bereft wives and at least sixty-five children. There is much uncertainty about how the next of kin and the rest of his followers will cope in his absence. An air of vague anxiety hangs over the community. The same kind of apprehension gripped Colorado City in 1986, when the prophet who preceded Uncle Rulon—LeRoy Johnson, the much adored Uncle Roy—perished at the age of ninety-eight. Uncle Roy was also supposed to live forever. After his death, Uncle Rulon assumed leadership of the sect, but his right to claim Uncle Roy’s mantle was furiously contested by those loyal to a prominent bishop named Marion Hammon. Hammon’s followers, amounting to nearly a third of the community, left the fold en masse, moved onto a swath of desert just across the highway, and founded their own fundamentalist church—which became known as the Second Ward (the original church was called the First Ward).

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

  Singer stated that the purpose of such tactics is to coerce the subject to “drastically reinterpret his or her life’s history and radically alter his or her worldview and accept a new version of reality and causality.”1072 Singer describes that the net result of this process can be “dependence on the organization” and that a person may then largely become “a deployable agent of the organization.”1073 I asked the doctor whether he had met Landmark enthusiasts who repeated their training and did ongoing volunteer work for the company. Might that behavior be seen as somewhat dependent? Was Landmark using those people? He admitted that someone could perhaps perceive the situation that way but that he didn’t. We also discussed how the Forum might be compared in some ways to group therapy. Unlike group therapy led by a licensed mental health professional, however, a landmark leader has no specific licensing requirements and corresponding accountability to a licensing board or body. Moreover, a Forum leader, unlike a licensed counseling professional, has no requirement to disclose the exact nature and structure of his or her counseling approach before beginning. We also talked about some of the liabilities researchers had cited about certain types of potentially problematic encounter groups. For example: “They sometimes ignore stated goals, misrepresent their actual techniques, and obfuscate their real agenda.”1074 I pointed out again that he hadn’t been told in advance that Forum training was designed as a vehicle to impart or download Werner Erhard’s philosophy. Had he understood in detail that this was, in fact, the intent of the training? Had he made a fully informed choice to accept the ultimate goal of the LGAT? We then discussed another important liability that can be readily recognized in many LGATs such as Landmark. That is, they “lack adequate participant-selection criteria.”1075 We talked about how almost anyone might attend the Forum and potentially be impacted by its training, which again can be stressful, cathartic, and at times quite confrontational. We talked about how some people may be able to cope with such pressure, but for other participants, it might be too difficult, and they could begin to unravel and eventually experience a kind of breakdown. In fact, I pointed out that Landmark has admitted that this is an apparent issue and ongoing liability concern for the company. A Landmark spokesperson claimed that this concern has been effectively addressed by implementing a “screening process.”1076 I told the doctor this was necessary because Landmark Education, formerly known as EST, had a history of breakdowns tied to its training.1077 I shared an article two medical doctors had coauthored about psychiatric disturbances associated with EST.1078 At this juncture we talked about other cited liabilities associated with encounter groups, which might potentially lead to harm done to participants.

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

  Having that much decided, I stood wide-eyed before the mirror. The woman that stared back at me looked strangely vulnerable. She was beautiful, with that poignant, forlorn beauty that belongs to those women who humbly present themselves on lace and silken platters, dressing up as best they can, in the hopes that this will bring them love, fame, money or happiness. And I thought to myself, Why, any woman can do this. It’s as easy as buying a costume! My bright-red lips smiled back at me. Suddenly I remembered one last thing. I fished through the makeup until I located a brown liner pencil. Then, very carefully, I drew a cute little mole right above my lip. There. Perfect! I allowed myself one more nervous giggle. As usual, my husband came home right on time. I hid myself in the shadows of our dining room until I should decide the moment was right. My heart pounded ridiculously in my breast. Was it my very own, familiar husband I was hiding from? He came through the front door, as always, calling my name. But on this occasion I didn’t answer him. I wanted every single detail of this evening to be different, memorable. He called out my name a second time. I heard him ascend the staircase, taking the steps two at a time. There was a shuffling sound upstairs as he called for me again, and then yet again. My heart was hammering painfully. I was almost afraid. It was a similar feeling to the one I had when playing hide and seek as a child. I heard his footsteps on the stairs, this time descending. There was concern now present in his voice as he walked into the kitchen and again called out my name. Finally I stood up and slipped quietly into the living room. I stood inconspicuously alongside one wall in the large room. In a few minutes he came into the living room and paused, scratching his head. I stood perfectly quiet and still as I watched him. After a moment he felt my presence. He turned his head precisely to where I stood frozen against the wall. Shock overtook his countenance. At first he did not even appear to recognize me. I did not laugh, or even smile, for that matter. A new emotion was coming over me, stifling my earlier urges to giggle. I could hardly breathe while my husband stood gaping at me. But at last his confusion disassembled, and in both our eyes there was recognition. He knew me. And I knew him. He realized what I wanted him to do, and I, of course, had my script memorized. He didn’t say a word as he slowly walked toward me. His eyes traveled over me, missing nothing. A smile began to form upon his lips, but then just as quickly disappeared. As we stared into each other’s eyes he was suddenly very serious.

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  But now I became obsessed with a single motto —"Be Strong!" To that end I hit upon an exercise that consisted of scowling fixedly into the face of this or that passenger on the streetcars in which I went back and forth to school. Most of the passengers, whom I chose indiscriminately, showed no particular signs of fear upon being scowled at by a pale, weak boy, but simply looked the other way as though annoyed; only rarely would one of them scowl back. When they looked away I counted it a triumph. In this way I gradually trained myself to look people in the eye. . . . Having once decided that I had renounced love, I dismissed all further thought of it from my mind. This was a hasty conclusion, lacking in perception. I was failing to take into account one of the clearest evidences there is of sexual love—the phenomenon of erection. Over a truly long period of time I had my erections, and also indulged in that "bad habit" which incited them whenever I was alone, without ever becoming aware of the significance of my actions. Although already in possession of the usual information concerning sex, I was not yet troubled with the sense of being different. I do not mean to say that I viewed those desires of mine that deviated from accepted standards as normal and orthodox; nor do I mean that I labored under the mistaken impression that my friends possessed the same desires. Surprisingly enough, I was so engrossed in tales of romance that I devoted all my elegant dreams to thoughts of love between man and maid, and to marriage, exactly as though I were a young girl who knew nothing of the world. I tossed my love for Omi onto the rubbish heap of neglected riddles, never once searching deeply for its meaning. Now when I write the word love, when I write affection, my meaning is totally different from my understanding of the words at that time. I never even dreamed that such desires as I had felt toward Omi might have a significant connection with the realities of my "life." And yet some instinct within me demanded that I seek solitude, that I remain apart as something different.

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

  But because the human mind is naturally more imperfect than other intellectual natures; and the more perfect a thing is, the more energy it shows in tending to its end; it appears that the human mind is naturally weaker in tending to God, the end of all, than are the higher minds of the angels. This weakness shows itself on two points. First, in the deficiency of intellectual power in the human soul, as compared with higher intelligences, so that it cannot go straight to intellectual truth as it is in itself (Chapp.XLI,CXIX). Secondly, in the obstacles that keep it back from throwing itself with all its force upon God; obstacles on the part of the body, which claims care for sustenance and repose; and again obstacles on the part of the lower powers of the soul, inasmuch as the excitements of phantasy and the perturbations of passion trouble that interior peace, which is so necessary for the mind freely to throw itself upon God. These obstacles cannot be wholly removed by man from his path, so long as he lives in this mortal body: for he has to attend to the things necessary for this mortal life, and is thereby hindered from always actually tending to God. But the aforesaid hindrances should be so far got under that there should be in man’s mind an intention at least, directed to God without interruption; and the more the mind can be even actually fixed on God, the more perfect will man’s life be, as keeping nearer to its last end. And this actual fixing of the mind upon God will go to strengthen the intention directed towards Him, which intention must needs come to naught unless at times the mind be fixed upon Him actually. All the precepts and counsels therefore of the divine law go to furnish man with aids for fixing his mind on God and removing obstacles to such attention.