Anxiety

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Between Us

  White Canadians judged Jon’s emotions without regard for the affective context; they just looked at Jon’s face. As immigrants became part of North American social life, their emotion model gradually seemed to shift from OURS to MINE. Though both Asian Canadian and Asian international students in Canada relied too on the emotional displays of the surrounding people when they were asked to judge how happy, angry, or sad Jon was, their emotion judgments became less reliant on the emotions of the surrounding people with increased exposure to North American culture. The eye-tracking data show even Asian international students, who had spent relatively little time in Canada, focused on the central person’s emotions more than the Japanese students in Japan; yet not even the Asian Canadians had bridged the gap with the European Canadians. Describing changes in emotional lives as a result of immigrating to another culture is no easy task, and the available research only scratches the surface. With exposure to another culture, emotional lives presumably change in many different ways: we may learn to feel and perceive emotions differently, and to act and interact differently with others. There are many new steps immigrants or sojourners learn, and it is not so clear which are the most essential for dancing with the majority. What is clear is that most immigrants do not learn all these new dance steps in their lifetime, but at the same time even a relatively brief exposure to another culture affects the way we do emotions. Learning Emotions It may have taken my Sephardic Jewish ancestors a full century to get attuned to the emotions of the rest of Amsterdam because for the longest time they were completely segregated: They had their own schools, their own governing board, their own jurisdiction, their own social and cultural events, and they married among themselves. They seldom interacted with majority others, and if they did, it was primarily to do business, a very narrow context for doing emotions. In the late ’70s, social psychologist Yasuko Minoura followed more than seventy Japanese-born school-aged children whose parents’ jobs took them temporarily to the United States. She interviewed them extensively, and found most emotional learning took place in children whose social lives had become American. The children who were comfortable articulating their own strengths (“pride”), made their wishes clear (i.e., made clear what made them “happy”), and took their own decisions (i.e., they pursued what made them “happy”) had spent more time in the United States, had the largest number of American friends, and also were more proficient in English—all suggesting that they were more immersed in U.S. culture.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  My parents lived in a modest home. They’d spent the last ten years making upgrades. If she thought the outside was pretty I couldn’t wait to see what she thought of my mother’s pink granite kitchen counters, or the fountain depicting a peeing boy they installed in the middle of the foyer. When I lived at home we’d had linoleum and plumbing that only worked a tenth of the time. She made no comment about the giant reindeer lawn ornaments, or the wreath almost the size of the front door. She hopped out without any reservation and followed me to the house of my very happy childhood. I looked at her before I opened the door, dressed in running clothes, her hair messy and stuck to her face. What type of woman jumped in the car with you on Christmas Day to meet your family, without putting on a cardigan and a dress? This one. She made every woman I’d ever been with feel insignificant and fake. This was going to be fun. [image file=image24.jpg] “Is this you, Senna?” He was looking at me intensely. I didn’t know what he was thinking, but I knew what I was thinking: Damn Nick and his book. I could barely … I didn’t know how to … My thoughts were trembling out of my hands. “You’re shaking,” Isaac said. He set the book on the nightstand and poured me a glass of water. The cup was one of those heavy plastic things, the color of too many colors of Play-Doh mixed together. It grossed me out, but I took it and sipped. The cup felt too heavy. Some of the water spilled down the front of my hospital gown, plastering it to my skin. I handed the cup back to Isaac, who set it aside without taking his eyes off my face. He put each one of his hands over mine to steady them. It absorbed a little of my shaking. “He wrote this for you,” Isaac said. His eyes were dark, like he had too many thoughts and they were filling him up. I didn’t want to answer. There was no mistaking the similarities in name—Senna/Brenna. There was also no mistaking the actual story itself. The fine line that squiggled between fiction and truth. It made me sick that Nick told the story. Our story? His version of our story. Some things should be buried and left to rot. I pointed to the book. “Take it,” I said. “Throw it away.” His eyebrows drew together. “Why?” “Because I don’t want the past.” He stared at me for a long minute, then picked up the book, tucked it under his arm and walked for the door. “Wait!”

• From Going Clear (2013)

  “I’m not involved with that.” In any case, for someone like Travolta, who was so publicly associated with the church, it would be hard to just walk away. He had been asked to declare himself publicly, and he had done so, again and again. The star was staying in a private house in Houston. He and Taylor met in the evening, after dinner, over a plate of chocolate-chip cookies that she had brought. She explained that she had left the Sea Org and was with her children now, then quickly changed the subject and asked about him. He described the problems he was having. Former Scientologists have given conflicting accounts of Travolta’s stressful relationship with the church at that time. The church hierarchy was desperately concerned that their most valuable member would be revealed as gay; at the same time, the hierarchy was prepared to use that against him. Bill Franks, the church’s former executive director, told Time magazine that Travolta was worried that if he defected, the church would expose his sexual identity. Jesse Prince has stated that Travolta was threatening to marry a man, although that wasn’t a legal option at the time. In Franks’s opinion, the church had Travolta trapped. At one point, the star sought assurance from Franks that his private confessions wouldn’t be used against him. “ My sessions are protected, right?” he asked Franks. In truth, intelligence officers inside the church had already been directed to gather material—called a Dead Agent pack—that would be used against Travolta if he turned. In Houston, however, Travolta told Taylor that he didn’t really feel that he needed to be recovered—he was just taking a break. However, Taylor did persuade him to buy a costly package of auditing so that he could get back on the Bridge. He had stopped his coursework after completing OT III. After that, Taylor received a letter from Hubbard saying, “ Well done.” The founder asked if there was anything she needed. She asked nothing for herself, but begged Hubbard to do a “Folder Error Summary” on Travolta, in which the founder would personally review all the star’s auditing over the years to spot any mistakes—a tremendous honor for any Scientologist. A Messenger assured her that it would be done. Not long afterward, however, Travolta stopped talking to Taylor. She got a call from Priscilla Presley, who asked what was going on. Presley had run into Travolta and he said that they should get together. “ I’ll call Spanky,” Presley had told him. “No, don’t go through Spanky,” Travolta said. When Spanky heard this, she realized she had been declared a Suppressive Person. Nobody had bothered to tell her, but from now on, no Scientologist would be allowed to talk to her. Taylor never tried to speak to Paul Haggis again, worried that she might compromise his relationship to the church. For his part, Haggis had no idea what had happened to Spanky. He wondered why she had just disappeared.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  Concerned that Sweeney would confront Travolta during the publicity for the film, Rinder and Davis planned to travel together to London, but on the day of departure, Davis failed to show up. Someone went to his room, but he was nowhere to be found. Rinder had to travel to London alone. He learned from Miscavige’s communicator that Davis had blown. Sweeney immediately sensed that something was up and kept pestering Rinder about where Davis was. Rinder told him Davis had the flu. As part of the film promotion, Travolta arrived at the red-carpet London premiere on a motorcycle. Sweeney was standing in the crowd in Leicester Square, well away from the star, crying out, “ Are you a member of a sinister, brainwashing cult?” Travolta’s fans shouted Sweeney down. Later, Sweeney asked Rinder if it was true that Miscavige had beaten him, claiming to have an eyewitness. “ Who’s the witness?” Rinder asked. “He wishes to remain confidential because he says he is scared.” “John, that is typical of what you do,” Rinder said. “He says that David Miscavige knocked you to the ground.” “Absolute rubbish, rubbish, rubbish, not true, rubbish.” Rinder threatened to sue if Sweeney aired such allegations. When the BBC program ran, there was no mention of physical abuse. Rinder felt that he had spared the church considerable embarrassment. But, far from being grateful, Miscavige told him that Sweeney’s piece should never have run at all. He ordered Rinder to report to an RPF facility in England. Rinder decided he’d had enough. He blew. Davis called the church and returned voluntarily from Las Vegas, where he had been hiding.5 He was sent to Clearwater, where he was security-checked by Jessica Feshbach. The aim of the check is to gain a confession using an E-Meter. It can function as a powerful form of thought control. Davis and Feshbach subsequently married. ON A RAINY MORNING in late September 2010, I finally got my meeting with Tommy Davis. The profile of Paul Haggis I had been preparing was nearing publication. Davis and Feshbach, along with four attorneys representing the church, traveled to Manhattan to meet with me; my editor, Daniel Zalewski, and David Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker ; the two lead fact-checkers on the story, Jennifer Stahl and Tim Farrington, as well as the head of the magazine’s fact-checking department, Peter Canby; and our lawyer, Lynn Oberlander. Leading the Scientology legal delegation was Anthony Michael Glassman, a former assistant US attorney who now has a boutique law firm in Beverly Hills, specializing in representing movie stars. On his website, he boasts of a $10 million judgment against the New York Times . The stakes were obvious to everyone. The Scientology delegation brought with them forty-eight three-ring binders of supporting material, stretching nearly seven linear feet, to respond to the 971 questions the checkers had posed. It was an impressive display. The binders were labeled according to categories, such as “Disappearance of L.

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  Two new “Christianities” had therefore emerged in response to a shift in the intellectual environment, both of which could claim support from past scriptures and luminaries. With quiet and sustained reflection, this dispute could easily have been settled peaceably. Instead it became entangled with imperial politics. Constantine, of course, had no understanding of these theological issues but was determined nevertheless to repair this breach of ecclesiastical consensus. In May 325 he summoned the bishops to a council in Nicaea to settle the matter once and for all. Here Athanasius managed to get the emperor’s ear and forced his position through. Most of the bishops, anxious not to incur Constantine’s displeasure, signed Athanasius’s creed but continued to preach as they had before. Nicaea solved nothing, and the Arian controversy dragged on for another sixty years. Constantine, out of his depth theologically, would eventually veer to the other side and take the Arian position that was promoted by the more cultured, aristocratic bishops.28 Athanasius, no aristocrat himself, was reviled by his enemies as an upstart “from the lowest depths of society” who was “no different from a common artisan.” For all his talk of kenosis, Athanasius never lost his pointy elbows or his theological certainty, which was inspired in no small part by the new monastic movement that had emerged in the deserts around Alexandria. [image file=image_rsrcDZA.jpg] In 270, the year of Constantine’s birth, a young Egyptian peasant had walked to church lost in thought. Antony had just inherited a sizable piece of land from his parents but found this good fortune an intolerable burden. He was only eighteen years old, yet now he had to provide for his sister, take a wife, have children, and toil on the farm for the rest of his life to support them all. In Egypt, where famine loomed whenever the Nile failed to flood, starvation was always a real threat, and most people accepted this relentless struggle as inevitable.29 But Jesus had said: “I am telling you not to worry about your life and what you are to eat and about your body and how to clothe it.”30 Antony also remembered that the first Christians had sold all their possessions and given the proceeds to the poor.31 Still musing on these texts, he entered the church only to hear the priest reading Jesus’s words to a rich young man: “If you wish to be perfect, go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.”32 Immediately Antony sold his property and embarked on a quest for freedom and holiness that would become a countercultural challenge to both the Christianized Roman state and the new worldly, imperial Christianity. Like other monastic communities we have considered, Antony’s followers would try to model a more egalitarian and compassionate way for people to live together.

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

  According to tradition we were to partake of a farewell supper and make jolly together, before separating in our divers paths in life." "Yes, I remember those merry suppers of the Quartier Latin." "When the supper was over—" "And everyone more or less tipsy—" "Precisely; it was agreed that we should pass the evening in visiting some of the houses of nightly entertainment. Although I was myself rather merry, and usually up to any kind of joke, still I felt somewhat shy, and would willingly have given my friends the slip, rather than expose myself to their ridicule and to all the horrors of syphilis; but do what I could it was impossible to get rid of them. "They called me a sneak, they imagined that I wanted to spend the evening with some mistress, a pretty grisette, or a fashionable cocotte, for the term horizontale had not yet come into fashion. Another hinted that I was tied to my mammy's apron-strings, that my dad had not allowed me to take the latch-key. A third said that I wanted to go and 'menarmi la rilla' as Aretino crudely expresses it. "Seeing that it was impossible to escape, I consented with a good grace to accompany them. "A certain Biou, young in years, but old in craft, who—like an elderly tom-cat—had, at sixteen, already lost an eye in a battle of love, (having got some syphilitic virus into it), proposed to shew us life in the unknown parts of the real Quartier Latin. "'First,' said he, 'I'll take you to a place where we'll spend little and have some jolly fun; it'll just put us 'en train' and from there we'll go to another house, to fire off our pistols, or I should rather say our revolvers, for mine is a seven shot barrel.' "His single eye twinkled with delight, and his trousers were stirred from within as he said this. We all agreed to his proposal, I especially feeling quite glad that I might at first remain only a spectator. I wondered, however, what the sight would be like. "We had an endless drive through the narrow straggling streets, alleys, and by-ways, where painted women appeared in gorgeous dresses at the filthy windows of some wretched houses. "As it was getting late, all the shops were now shut, except the fruiterers, who sold fried fish, mussels, and potatoes. These disgorged an offensive smell of dirt, grease, and hot oil, which mixed itself up with the stench of the gutters and that of the cesspools in the middle of the streets.

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

  Phœbe at this redoubled her laugh, and whilst I expected a very serious solution of my doubts and apprehensions in this matter, only told me that “she never heard of a mortal wound being given in those parts, by that terrible weapon, and that some she knew younger, and as delicately made as myself, had outlived the operation; that she believed, at the worst, I should take a great deal of liking; that true it was, there was a great diversity of sizes in those parts, owing to nature, child-bearing, frequent over-stretching with unmerciful machines, but that at a certain age and habit of body, even the most experienced in those affairs could not well distinguish between the maid and the woman, supposing too an absence of all artifice, in their natural situation: but that since chance had thrown in my way one sight of that sort, she would procure me another, that should feast my eyes more delicately, and go a great way in the cure of my fears from that imaginary disproportion”. On this she asked me if I knew Polly Phillips? “Undoubterly,” says I, “the fair girl which was so tender of me when I was sick, and has been, as you told me, but two months in the house.” “The same,” says Phœbe. “You must know then, she is kept by a young Genoes merchant, whom his uncle, who is immensely rich, and whose darling he is, on a pretex of settling some accounts, but in reality to humour his inclinations for travelling, and seeing the world. He met casually with this Polly once in company, and taking a likning to her, makes it worth her while to keep entirely to him. He comes to her here twice or thrice a week, and she receives him in the light closet up one pair of stairs, where he enjoys her in a taste, I suppose, peculiar to the heat, or perhaps the caprices of his own country, I say no more, but to-morrow being his day, you shall see what passes between them, from a place only known to your mistress and myself.”

• From Going Clear (2013)

  Moreover, she was pregnant again. It happened a few weeks after she entered RPF, during a brief marital visit from her husband. There was no maternal care or any easing of the intensely physical work she was made to do with the other “RPF’ers,” as they called themselves. For one two- week stretch, they were putting in thirty hours at a stretch with only three hours off. Like everyone else, Taylor ate slop from a bucket—table scraps or rice and beans. After six months on this diet she still wasn’t showing her pregnancy; indeed, she was losing weight. She worried that she was going to lose the baby. A pair of missionaires came to see Taylor one day with a strange request. They were thinking about how to reward the RPF’ers for having done the renovations to the Advanced Org building, which were now almost complete. “We would like you to arrange a private screening of Saturday Night Fever,” they told her. Of course, no one in the RPF had been able to see the movie, despite the fact that it was an international sensation. Getting to Travolta wasn’t easy, however. He was now the top box-office star in the world. Playboy called him “America’s newest sex symbol.” The church hierarchy was worried that he was also drifting away from Scientology. A screening of his movie would underscore his commitment to the religion at a moment when that seemed in doubt. As the church’s liaison to Travolta, Taylor was the obvious person to make the arrangements. “First of all, I can’t use the phone,” Taylor told the missionaires. “Secondly, I can’t leave the building. Maybe you’d like a Beatles reunion while you’re asking for that.” “We just think you could take care of this,” they replied. Taylor had to figure out a way to get a print of the film from Travolta without having to explain why she had failed to pick him up at the airport and then disappeared from his life for months, without a word. A couple of days later, the missionaires arranged for her to use a pay phone on one of the lower floors of the building. Taylor called Kate Edwards, Travolta’s creative director at the time. “Spanky! Where are you?” Edwards cried. Travolta and his production company had been looking for her frantically. “Honey, I can’t really talk,” Taylor said. She told Edwards that she was in the Los Angeles complex. “I’ve been specially selected to do a program that will help me,” she explained vaguely. She said she had an urgent favor to ask—a print of the film. That was a problem. The movie was being shown around the world and all the prints were out. The only one available was Travolta’s personal copy, but Edwards said she would make the request. “Johnny said if you ever called and needed something, just do it,” Edwards assured her. “You can’t tell John about this call!”

• From Manhunt (2022)

  Molly chuckled, producing a yellowed plastic dropper from one of her pack’s little zippered pouches. “It ain’t Visine, but it should work. Two in each eye.” Her expression hardened suddenly as Ramona reached for the dropper. She closed her fist around it. “Tell me you weren’t with that thing again.” Ramona laughed, fighting the urge to look around to see who might have overheard. “Fuck, no,” she said easily. “I told you, I just went a little dick-blind for a minute. I haven’t seen it since.” Liar. Stupid cunt. She’ll know. “You’ve got it made in the shade.” Molly pressed the vial into her palm and closed her fingers over it. Those flinty eyes narrowed, the wrinkles at their corners deepening into canyons. “My neck is out for you on this. Don’t fuck it up.” “Whatever.” Ramona jerked her hand away and made a beeline for the door to the stairs. Her mouth was dry. Her heart punched against her ribs. She forced herself to pause there, to control her breathing, though she couldn’t make herself look back. “Thanks, Molly.” “Anytime, kid.” She was sweating by the time she’d climbed the seven flights to Teach’s office, her footsteps echoing stark and cold in the concrete stairwell. As she paused to administer Molly’s eye drops, she kept running over everything the older woman had said to her, the tone of her voice, the look in her eyes. I never should have told her , she thought angrily, pushing her eyelids back and squeezing the first salty drop into her right eye. Never should have gotten drunk, even if I am her favorite. Finishing, she dashed saline solution from her cheeks and finger-combed her bangs into presentability. She’d been waiting for this ever since they left Baltimore. Three years in the Legion clawing her way up from errand girl to first lieutenant under Captain Lara Rodham, who’d been killed and eaten by men in the mess after those trannies tried to bushwhack them up near Haverhill. She could still see the stricken expression on the big one’s face after she’d missed Teach, plugging Annie in the shoulder with a three-foot arrow like she was fucking Robin Hood. The other women had panicked, getting in one another’s way, firing their crossbows—they never used guns outside of a city if they could help it—at nothing. She’d kept it together. She’d almost gotten that big Frankenstein bitch. Opened her cheek up like a box cutter slicing through packing tape. I want a cigarette. She forced herself to take a long, deep breath and let it out as slowly as she could, then stepped through the swinging door and into the seventh-floor hall. Wall-to-wall carpeting the color of overcooked hamburger greeted her. The fluorescents overhead were dark—nothing nonessential came on in Boston until after sunset—but light poured in through the open office doors that lined the hall on either side.

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  As they forged their national identities in the peculiarly tense conditions of India, Muslims and Hindus would both fall prey to the besetting sin of secular nationalism: its inability to tolerate minorities. And because their outlook was still permeated by spirituality, this nationalist bias distorted their traditional religious vision. As violence between Muslims and Hindus escalated during the 1920s, the Arya Samaj became more militant.12 At a conference in 1927, it formed a military cadre, the Arya Vir Dal (“Troop of Aryan Horses”). It declared that the new Aryan hero must develop the virtues of the Kshatriya—courage, physical strength, and, especially, proficiency in the use of weapons. His principal duty was to defend the rights of the Aryan nation against the Muslims and the British.13 The Arya was anxious not to be outdone by the Rashtriya Svayamsevak Sangh (“National Volunteer Association”), usually referred to as RSS, founded in central India three years earlier by Keshav B. Hedgewar. Where the Arya had adapted the British idea of “religion” to “Hinduism,” RSS had fused traditional religious ideals with Western nationalism. It was primarily a character-building organization designed to develop an ethos of service, based on loyalty, discipline, and a respect for the Hindu heritage, and it appealed particularly to the urban middle classes. Its hero was the seventeenth-century warrior Shivaji who, empowered by his fidelity to traditional Hindu ritual as well as his organizational skills, had led a successful revolt against the Moghuls. He had managed to weld recruits from disparate peasant castes into a unified army, and RSS vowed to do the same in British India.14 Thus a new religiosity was coming to birth in India, one that cultivated Hindu strength not by evoking ahimsa but by developing the traditional warrior ethos. Yet this combination of the Kshatriya ideal with secular nationalism was dangerous. For RSS, Mother India was not simply a territorial entity but a living goddess. She had always been revered as a holy land, and her seas, rivers, and mountains were sacred, but for centuries she had been desecrated by foreigners and would shortly be raped by partition. Traditionally, the Mother Goddess had embraced everyone, but with its new nationalist intolerance of minorities, RSS insisted that she could no longer admit Muslims or East Asian Buddhists.

• From An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness (1995)

  Throughout the setting up and running of the clinic I was fortunate to have the support of the chairman of my department. He backed my being director of a medical clinic despite the fact that I was not a physician, and despite the fact that he knew I had manic-depressive illness. Rather than using my illness as a reason to curtail my clinical and teaching responsibilities, he—after being assured that I was receiving good psychiatric care and that the medical director of the clinic knew about my condition—encouraged me to use it to try and develop better treatments and to help change public attitudes. Although he never said, I assume my chairman found out about my illness after my first episode of severe psychotic mania; my ward chief certainly knew, and I imagine that the information quickly drifted upward. In any event, my chairman treated the issue strictly as a medical one. He first broached the subject by coming up to me at a meeting, putting his arm around me, and saying, “I understand you have some problems with your moods. I’m sorry. For God’s sake, just be sure to keep taking your lithium.” Now and again, after that, he would ask me how I was doing and make sure that I was still taking my medication. He was straightforward, supportive, and never suggested for a moment that I stop or curtail my clinical work. My concerns about openly discussing my illness with others, however, were enormous. My first psychotic episode occurred long before I received my license from the California Board of Medical Examiners. During the period of time between starting lithium and passing my written and oral board examinations, I observed many medical students, clinical psychology interns, and residents denied permission to continue their studies because of psychiatric illness. This happens far less often now—indeed, most graduate and medical schools encourage students who become ill to get treatment and, if at all possible, to return to their clinical work—but my early years on the faculty at UCLA were plagued by fears that my illness would be discovered, that I would be reported to one kind of hospital or licensing board or another, and that I would be required to give up my clinical practice and teaching.

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

  "Thanks to your attentions I feel a little better," said Roland; "night is approaching, let's get on to a house which should be two leagues away; by means of the horses we will secure tomorrow, we might be able to arrive at my chateau the same afternoon." Absolutely resolved to profit from the aid Heaven seemed to have sent me, I help Roland to get up, I give him my arm while we walk, and indeed, after progressing two leagues we find the inn he had mentioned. We take supper together, 'tis very proper and nice; after our meal Roland en following day we set off on two mules we have rented and which are led by a boy from the inn; we reach the frontier of Dauphine, ever heading into the highlands. We were not yet at our destination when the day ended, so we stopped at Virieu, where my patron showed me the same consideration and provided me with the same care; the next morning we resumed our way toward the mountains. We arrived at their foot toward four in the afternoon; there, the road becoming almost impassable, Roland requested my muleteer not to leave me for fear of an accident, and we penetrated into the gorges. We did but turn, wind, climb for the space of more than four leagues, and by then we had left all habitations and all traveled roads so far behind us I thought myself come to the end of the world; despite myself, I was seized by a twinge of uneasiness; Roland could not avoid seeing it, but he said nothing, and I was made yet more uncomfortable by his to a castle perched upon the crest of a mountain; it beetled over a dreadful precipice into which it seemed ready to plunge: no road seemed to lead up to it; the one we had followed, frequently by goats only, strewn with pebbles and stones, however did at last take us to this awful eyrie which much more resembled the hideaway of thieves than the dwelling place of virtuous folk. "That is where I live," said Roland, noticing I was gazing up at his castle. I confessed my astonishment to see that he lived in such isolation. "It suits me," was his abrupt reply. This response redoubled my forebodings. Not a syllable is lost upon the miserable; a word, a shift of inflection and, when 'tis a question of the speech of the person upon whom one depends, 'tis enough to stifle hope or revive it; but, being completely unable to do anything, I held my tongue and waited. We mounted by zigzags; the strange pile suddenly loomed up before us: roughly a quart separated it from us: Roland dismounted and having told me to do likewise, he returned both mules to the boy, paid him and ordered him to return.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  Three weeks later, Isaac removes my cast. He uses a kitchen knife to cut it off. It’s the same knife he carried around on our first day here. We are both wide-eyed and short of breath as the fiberglass falls away. What will we see? How much more broken will I be? In the end there is just a hairy, skinny leg that looks a little off. It reminds me of blood in a cup, a sweater in a bathtub, a rock in a mouth. It’s just visually off and I can’t tell why. I still have to use my crutch, but I like the freedom I feel after all those weeks lying in bed. Isaac still won’t speak to me. But the sun has returned. It rises again. We stop using the lights to save the generator from burning gas. I read all of Knotted, but surprisingly it doesn’t hurt as much as the nameless book my mother wrote. I see Nick a little differently; less glimmer. It’s his best work, but I’m left unimpressed with his love note. Isaac carries the rest of the supplies up from the well at the bottom of the table. He fills the cupboards and the fridge and the wood closet. So we don’t have to climb down there anymore, he tells me. It takes him all day. Then he puts the table back together. When he goes to his room I come down from the carousel room and creep into the kitchen. I’m still in my robe and my legs are cold. I feel naked without my cast. I press the back of my legs to the lip of the table, and hop up. I scoot back until I’m sitting, my legs hanging over the side. My runner’s legs look spindly and weak. A scar runs like a seam across my shin. I trace it lightly with the tip of my finger. I’m starting to look like a stitched-up Emo doll. All I need are the button eyes. I reach up, slipping my hand into the opening at the top of my robe, running my fingers across the skin on my chest. There are scars there too. Ugly ones. I’m used to being disfigured. It feels like parts of me keep being taken; eaten by disease, hacked off, snapped in two. I wonder when my body will become tired of it and just give up. I’ll never be able to run like I used to. I walk with a limp. I haven’t told Isaac, but my leg aches constantly. I like it.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

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

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

  "'It is nothing, only for some time back I have been getting sick of coffee.' "'Sick of coffee? you never said so before.' "'Did I not?' said I, absently. "'Will you have some chocolate, or some tea?' "'Can I not fast for once?' "'Yes, if you are ill—or if you have some great sin to atone for.' "I looked at her and shuddered. Could she be reading my thoughts better than myself? "'A sin?' quoth I, with an astonished look. "'Well, you know even the righteous——' "'And what then?' said I, interrupting her snappishly; but to make up for my supercilious way of speaking, I added in gentler tones: "'I do not feel hungry; still, to please you, I'll have a glass of champagne and a biscuit.' "'Champagne, did you say?' "'Yes.' "'So early in the morning, and on an empty stomach.' "'Well, then I'll have nothing at all,' I answered pettishly. 'I see you are afraid I'm going to turn drunkard.' "My mother said nothing, she only looked at me wistfully for a few minutes, an expression of deep sorrow was seen in her face, then—without adding another word—she rang the bell and ordered the wine to be brought." "But what made her so sad?" "Later on, I understood that she was frightened that I was already getting to be like my father." "And your father—?" "I'll tell you his story another time. "After I had gulped down a glass or two of champagne, I felt revived by the exhilarating wine: our conversation then turned on the concert, and although I longed to ask my mother if she knew anything about Teleny, still I durst not utter the name which was foremost on my lips, nay I had even to restrain myself not to repeat it aloud every now and then. "At last my mother spoke of him herself, commending first his playing and then his beauty. "'What, do you find him good-looking?' I asked abruptly. "'I should think so,' replied she, arching her eyebrows in an astonished way, 'is there anybody who does not? Every woman finds him an Adonis; but then you men differ so much from us in your admiration for your own sex, that you sometimes find insipid those whom we are taken up with. Anyhow, he is sure to succeed as an artist, as all the ladies will be falling in love with him.' "I tried not to wince upon hearing these last words, but do what I could, it was impossible to keep my features quite motionless.

• From Manhunt (2022)

  She wondered idly what it would be like to sit without a constant background hum of will it hold me, will I fit, will it hold me, will I fit . It felt like that on top of Beth, sometimes. Was she hurting her? If not, how long until she did? What if she got fatter and hurt Beth then, lulled into a false sense of security by prior enthusiasm, by the other woman’s hoarsely eager panting under her, by her bright eyes and the hands that kneaded and held her overspilling flesh as though there were not enough of it? She fished a cigarette from the tarnished holder Fran had given her years ago, a yellowing picture of some white lady pasted onto its inner lid, and smoked in silence for a while. Everything is a war , she told herself. At least this is the right side. At least you’re not harvesting a teenager’s eggs to help her have a little The Omen baby. And Beth is safe here. Fran and Robbie are safe. As safe as anyone gets, anymore. On her left, George ran out of the house’s shadow with a sparkling laugh, streaking from the front door with Leda following behind, bleached dreadlocks coiled over one shoulder like a heavy knotted rope. Ramona hated Raymond. She hated it so much she could hardly think straight, so much it made her want to scream. All the bougie seaside shit, the empty storefronts, the sugar shacks and oceanfront spas. And the restaurant. As she paced the full-length window in the living room of the Shaw house she worked a finger through the blood-speckled bandages Piper had wrapped for her that morning to dig at the flaky dead skin and dried blood of one of her self-inflicted cuts. She was sick of her sling, even if Jules said it made her look rakish, whatever the fuck that meant, and she was sick of being fussed over and swabbed with hydrogen peroxide. Maybe she’d feel better if she just cut the arm off. That had been her mom’s sole joke, whenever one of them whined about a nick or scrape. You want me to cut it off? Want me to break the other one? You’ll forget all about it. She glanced out the window toward the shrinking wreckage of Hyannis and started at the sight of Karin’s reflection in the doorway at her back. “Don’t sneak around like that,” she snapped. “You gave me a fucking heart attack.” The tall, thin girl blanched apologetically. “Sorry, major. Just thought you’d want to know Jules handled that situation downtown. The t-girls in the old library.” “You don’t sound too happy about it.”

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

  Two days following the conclusion of our criminal pact, the Count learned that an uncle, upon whose succession he had not in the least counted, had just left him an income of eighty thousand pounds.... "O Heaven!" I said to myself upon hearing the news, "is it then in thuswise celestial justice punishes the basest conspiracy!" And straightway repenting this blasphemy spoken against Providence, I cast myself upon my knees and implored the Almighty's forgiveness, and happily supposed that this unexpected development should at least change the Count's plans.... What was my error! "Ah, my dear Therese," he said that same evening, having run to my room, "how prosperity does rain down upon me! Often I have told you so: the idea of a crime or an execution is the surest means to attract good fortune; none exists save for villains." "What!" I responded, "this unhoped for bounty does not persuade you, Monsieur, patiently to await the death you wished to hasten?" "Wait?" the Count replied sharply, "I do not intend to wait two minutes, Therese; are you not aware I am twenty-eight? Well, it is hard to wait at my age.... No, let this affect our scheme not in the slightest, give me the comfort of seeing everything brought to an end before the time comes for us to return to Paris.... Tomorrow, at the very latest the day after tomorrow, I beseech you. There has been delay enough: the hour approaches for the payment of the first quarter of your annuity... for performing the act which guarantees you the money...." As best I could, I disguised the fright this desperate eagerness inspired in me, and I renewed my resolution of the day before, well persuaded that if I were not to execute the horrible crime I had engaged to commit, the Count would soon notice I was playing a trick upon him and that, if I were to warn Madame de Bressac, whatever would be her reaction to the project's disclosure, the young Count, observing himself deceived one way or another, would promptly resort to more certain methods which, causing his aunt equally to perish, would also expose me to all her nephew's vengeance. There remained the alternative of consulting the law, but nothing in the world could have induced me to adopt it; I decided to forewarn the Marquise; of all possible measures, that seemed the best, and I elected it.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  Haggis or anyone else to denounce media attacks on Mr. Cruise on the Larry King show or anywhere else or to do anything like that.” 4 The church characterizes this as an attempt at extortion. 5 The church forwarded a letter to me from Katy Haggis’s friend in which she denies losing a job because of their friendship and asserts that the church is welcoming to everyone, regardless of their sexual orientation. The friend, whose parents are both employed by the church, did not respond to a request to talk further. 6 Tommy Davis gave me an affidavit, signed by Scobee, in which she admits to having liaisons. Scobee told me there were only two incidents, both of which involved a kiss and nothing more. She says she did not write the affidavit; she says she only signed it in the hope of leaving the church on good terms so that she could stay in touch with relatives. The church maintains that it does not use confidential information derived from auditing sessions. 7 The church denies that blow drills exist. 8 According to Tommy Davis, “Mr. Miscavige has never physically assaulted Marc Headley or anyone else.” 9 Davis later said that he had never followed a Sea Org member who had blown and had only gone to see Brousseau because he was “a very good friend of mine” (Deposition of Thomas Davis, Marc Headley v. Church of Scientology International , and Claire Headley v. Church of Scientology International , US District Court, Central District of California, July 2, 2010). 10 Valerie Venegas told one of her sources that higher-up officials had spiked it; later, she blamed me, because I had uncovered the probe and had called to verify it with the agents (Tony Ortega, “FBI Investigation of Scientology: Already Over before We Even Heard of It,” Village Voice Blogs , Mar. 19, 2012). 11 Tommy Davis says that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s name never came up. 11 [image file=Image00007.jpg] TommyW hen I first contacted Davis in April 2010, asking for his cooperation on a profile I was writing about Haggis for the New Yorker , he expressed a reluctance to talk, saying that he had already spent a month responding to similar queries. “ It made little difference,” he said. “The last thing I’m interested in is dredging all this up again.” He kept putting me off, saying that he was too busy to get together, although he promised that we would meet when he was more available. “ I want our time to be undistracted,” he explained in an e-mail. “We should plan on spending at least a full day together as there is a lot I would want to show you.” We finally arranged to meet on Memorial Day weekend. I flew to Los Angeles and spent much of that weekend waiting for him to call. On Sunday at three o’clock, Davis appeared at my hotel, with Jessica Feshbach. We sat at a table on the patio.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  “I’m not interested in reconstruction,” I said, dismissively. “I’ll have the mastectomy and then I’ll go home without expanders. That’s my decision.” Dr. Montoll opened his mouth to speak, but Isaac cut him off. “The patient has made her decision, doctor.” He was staring straight at me when he said it. I pulled my lips tight, in thanks. “If my services aren’t needed, you’ll excuse me,” Dr. Montoll said, before making his exit. I looked at my hands. Dr. Akela sat on the edge of my bed. We spoke for a few minutes about the radiation I’d have to go through after my surgery. Six weeks. I had to admire her bedside manner; she was warm and personal. On her way out she touched Isaac lightly on the back of his arm. Mine. Isaac waited until the door clicked shut before he took a step forward. I braced myself for an influx of questions, but instead he said, “You can get dressed now. Are you free for lunch?” I blinked up at him. “Isn’t that a conflict of interest? Eating lunch with a patient?” He smiled. “Yes, we’d have to go somewhere other than the hospital cafeteria.” I was about to say no, when I heard the lyrics of the song he gave me this morning, playing in my head. Who gave someone a song that said, No need to worry because everybody will die when they had cancer? I liked it. It was the honesty. “All right,” I said. He glanced at his watch. “Meet you in the parking lot in ten?” I nodded. I got dressed and made my way downstairs. “I’m over this way,” he said, once I found him in the parking lot. He’d changed out of his scrubs and was wearing a white shirt and grey pinstriped pants. I followed him to his car, and he opened the door for me. It was too much. I freaked. “I can’t do this,” I said. I backed away from the car. “I’m sorry. I need to get home.” I didn’t look back as I walked toward my car. He probably thought I was losing my mind. There was a good chance I was. Isaac was waiting for me when I got home a few hours later, leaning against his car with his face turned upward. Soak it up, Isaac, I thought. Tomorrow my clouds will be back. For a brief second, I thought about not turning into my driveway and heading up to Canada instead. But I’d been driving around for hours and the needle to my gas tank was pointing to E. I wanted to go home. I walked past him to the front door. We were barely past the foyer when I said, “Why didn’t you ask me why I don’t want reconstruction?” “Because if you want to tell me, you will.” “We’re not friends, Isaac!” “No?” “I don’t have friends. Can’t you see that?”

• From Mud Vein (2014)

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