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 Mud Vein (2014)

  Maybe a person could only deal with one dose of mental atrophy at a time. I slid into the passenger seat. He’d changed the radio station, but he switched it back to the classical one before he put the car in reverse. He didn’t look at me. Not until we arrived at my house and he opened the front door with my keys. Then he looked at me, and I wanted to disappear into the cracks between my brick driveway. I didn’t know what color his eyes were; I didn’t want to know. I pushed past him into the foyer and stopped dead. I didn’t know where to go—the kitchen? The bedroom? My office? Everywhere seemed stupid. Pointless. I wanted to be alone. I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted to die. I didn’t want to die. I went to my barstool, the one positioned to get the perfect view of the lake, and I sat. Isaac moved into the kitchen. He started to make coffee and then stopped, turning to look at me. “Do you mind if I put on some music? With words?” I shook my head. His eyes were grey. He set his phone on top of the breadbox while he spooned grinds into the filter. This time he played something more upbeat. A man’s voice. The beats were so strange I stopped my incessant ability to not feel and listened. “Alt-J,” he said, when he saw that I was listening. “The song is called Breezeblocks.” He glanced at my face. “It’s different, right? I used to be in a band. So I get a kick out of their beats.” “But, you’re a doctor.” I realized how stupid that sounded when it was already out. I pulled an inch-wide chunk of grey hair free, and wound it around my finger twice, right by the roots. I left it there, with my elbow resting on the counter. My security blanket. “I wasn’t always a doctor,” he said, grabbing two mugs out of my cabinet. “But when I became one, my love of music remained … and the tattoos remained.” I glanced at his forearms where they peeked out of his shirtsleeves. I was still looking when he brought me my coffee. I caught the tips of the words that faced me. After he handed me the coffee, he started making food. I didn’t have an appetite, but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. I didn’t want to, but I listened to the words of the song he was playing. The last time I listened to this type of music the boy bands had just taken the world by storm and filled every radio with their cliché-licked songs. I wanted to ask him who was singing, but he beat me to it. “Florence and the Machine. Do you like it?” “You’re fixated on death.” “I’m a surgeon,” he said, not looking up from where he was dicing vegetables.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  [image file=image27.jpg] I haven’t cut myself since the day I met Isaac. I don’t know why. It might be because he made me feel things, and I didn’t need a blade to feel anymore. That’s why we do it, right? Cut ourselves to feel? Saphira would have said so. The dragon and her existential bullshit. “Since humans can choose to be eitherrrr cruel or good, they arrre, in fact, neither of these things essentially.” Now I am feeling too many things. I crave my white room. What was the opposite of cutting? Wrapping yourself in a cocoon and never coming out. I roll myself in the feather comforter on the attic bed—that’s what we we’re calling it—the attic. My room. The place where my kidnapper put me in pajamas and laid me. Laid me out to what? I don’t know, but I’m starting to like it in the attic. I can’t hear the music as well when I’m wrapped in feathers. Landscape has not stopped playing. The first of our songs. The one he gave to me to let me know he understood. “You look like a joint,” Isaac says. He hardly ever comes up here. I feel him touch my hair, which is sticking out of the top of my cocoon. I bury my face in the white and try to suffocate myself. I traded comforters with him. He took the red because I couldn’t stand to look at it. “There is something downstairs you should probably see,” he says. He’s touching my hair in a way that’s lulling me. If he wants me to get up he’s going to have to stop doing that. I came straight up here after we carried the wood into the house and discovered the electric fence. Isaac must have found something more outside. “Unless it’s a dead body, I don’t want to see it.” “You’d want to see a dead body?” “Yes.” “It’s not a dead body, but I need you to come with me.” He unrolls me from my self-made joint, and pulls me to my feet. He doesn’t let go right away. He squeezes where he holds. Then he pulls me along by my hand like I’m a child. I stumble after him. He leads me downstairs. To the wood closet. Pulling open the door, he holds me by the tops of my arms, forcing me to stand in front of him and look inside.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  It seems unlikely. Is it our punishment now that we figured out the code? A reward and a punishment: you can go outside, but now it’s only a matter of time before you run out of fuel and freeze to death. Tick-tock, tick-tock. He squeezes me tighter. I can feel how tense his muscles are underneath my palms. “If he comes back,” I say. “I’m going to kill him.” I haven’t cut myself since the day I met Isaac. I don’t know why. It might be because he made me feel things, and I didn’t need a blade to feel anymore. That’s why we do it, right? Cut ourselves to feel? Saphira would have said so. The dragon and her existential bullshit. “Since humans can choose to be eitherrrr cruel or good, they arrre, in fact, neither of these things essentially.” Now I am feeling too many things. I crave my white room. What was the opposite of cutting? Wrapping yourself in a cocoon and never coming out. I roll myself in the feather comforter on the attic bed—that’s what we we’re calling it—the attic. My room. The place where my kidnapper put me in pajamas and laid me. Laid me out to what? I don’t know, but I’m starting to like it in the attic. I can’t hear the music as well when I’m wrapped in feathers. Landscape has not stopped playing. The first of our songs. The one he gave to me to let me know he understood. “You look like a joint,” Isaac says. He hardly ever comes up here. I feel him touch my hair, which is sticking out of the top of my cocoon. I bury my face in the white and try to suffocate myself. I traded comforters with him. He took the red because I couldn’t stand to look at it. “There is something downstairs you should probably see,” he says. He’s touching my hair in a way that’s lulling me. If he wants me to get up he’s going to have to stop doing that. I came straight up here after we carried the wood into the house and discovered the electric fence. Isaac must have found something more outside. “Unless it’s a dead body, I don’t want to see it.” “You’d want to see a dead body?” “Yes.” “It’s not a dead body, but I need you to come with me.” He unrolls me from my self-made joint, and pulls me to my feet. He doesn’t let go right away. He squeezes where he holds. Then he pulls me along by my hand like I’m a child. I stumble after him. He leads me downstairs. To the wood closet. Pulling open the door, he holds me by the tops of my arms, forcing me to stand in front of him and look inside. I see only the wood at first.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  [image file=image27.jpg] I haven’t cut myself since the day I met Isaac. I don’t know why. It might be because he made me feel things, and I didn’t need a blade to feel anymore. That’s why we do it, right? Cut ourselves to feel? Saphira would have said so. The dragon and her existential bullshit. “Since humans can choose to be eitherrrr cruel or good, they arrre, in fact, neither of these things essentially.” Now I am feeling too many things. I crave my white room. What was the opposite of cutting? Wrapping yourself in a cocoon and never coming out. I roll myself in the feather comforter on the attic bed—that’s what we we’re calling it—the attic. My room. The place where my kidnapper put me in pajamas and laid me. Laid me out to what? I don’t know, but I’m starting to like it in the attic. I can’t hear the music as well when I’m wrapped in feathers. Landscape has not stopped playing. The first of our songs. The one he gave to me to let me know he understood. “You look like a joint,” Isaac says. He hardly ever comes up here. I feel him touch my hair, which is sticking out of the top of my cocoon. I bury my face in the white and try to suffocate myself. I traded comforters with him. He took the red because I couldn’t stand to look at it. “There is something downstairs you should probably see,” he says. He’s touching my hair in a way that’s lulling me. If he wants me to get up he’s going to have to stop doing that. I came straight up here after we carried the wood into the house and discovered the electric fence. Isaac must have found something more outside. “Unless it’s a dead body, I don’t want to see it.” “You’d want to see a dead body?” “Yes.” “It’s not a dead body, but I need you to come with me.” He unrolls me from my self-made joint, and pulls me to my feet. He doesn’t let go right away. He squeezes where he holds. Then he pulls me along by my hand like I’m a child. I stumble after him. He leads me downstairs. To the wood closet. Pulling open the door, he holds me by the tops of my arms, forcing me to stand in front of him and look inside.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  His arms left my body, and I crawled forward and stepped out of bed. I didn’t look at him as I walked to the bathroom. I washed my face and took two aspirin for my headache. When I came out he was gone. I counted the cards on the counter. He didn’t leave one that day. He didn’t come back that night, or the next. Or the next. Or the next. Or the next. There were no more dreams, but not for lack of horror. I was afraid to sleep, so I didn’t. I sat in my office at night, drinking coffee and thinking of his red bike. It was the only color in the room—Isaac’s red bike. On January thirty-first my father called me. I was in the kitchen when the phone vibrated on the counter. There was no house phone, just my cell. I answered without looking. “Hello, Senna.” His voice always distinct, nasally with an accent he tried not to have. My father was born in Wales and moved to America when he was twenty. He retained the European mentality and accent and dressed like a cowboy. It was one of the saddest things I’d ever seen. “How was your Christmas?” I immediately felt cold. “Fine. How was yours?” He began a detailed minute-by-minute account of how he spent Christmas Day. I was, for the most part, grateful I didn’t have to speak. He wrapped things up by telling me about his promotion at work; he said the same thing he repeated every time we spoke. “I’m thinking about taking a trip out there to see you, Senna. Should be soon. Bill said I get an extra week’s vacation this year because I’ve been with the company twenty years.” I’d lived in Washington for eight years and he’d never come to visit me once. “That’d be great. Listen Dad, I’ve got some friends coming over. I should go.” We said our goodbyes and I hung up, resting my forehead on the wall. That would be it from him until the end of April, when he would call again. The phone rang a second time. I almost didn’t answer it, but the area code is from Washington. “Senna Richards, this is the office of Dr. Albert Monroe.” I racked my brain trying to place the doctor and his specialty, and then for the second time that day, my blood ran cold. “Something came up on your scan. Dr. Monroe would like you to come in to the office.” I was leaving my house the next morning, walking to my car when his hybrid pulled into my horseshoe driveway. I stopped to watch him climb out and pull on his jacket. It was casual, almost beautiful in its grace. He’d never come this early before.

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

  He continued to finger me: whether because of habit in the youth, whether because of the satyr's dexterity, in a very brief space Nature, vanquished, caused there to flow into the mouth of the one what was ejected from the member of the other. That was how the libertine exhausted the unfortunate children he kept in his house, whose number we will shortly see; 'twas thus he sapped their strength, and that was what caused the languor in which I beheld them to be. And now let us see how he managed to keep women in the same state of prostration and what was the true cause of his own vigor's preservation. The homage the Count rendered me had been protracted, but during it not a trace of infidelity to his chosen temple had he revealed; neither his glances, nor his kisses, nor his hands, nor his desires strayed away from it for an instant; after having sucked the other lad and having in likewise gathered and devoured his sperm: "Come," he said to me, drawing me into an adjacent room before I could gather up my clothes, "come, I am going to show you how we manage." I was unable to dissimulate my anxiety, it was terrible; but there was no other way to put a different aspect upon my fate, I had to quaff to the lees the potion in the chalice tendered to me. Two other boys of sixteen, quite as handsome, quite as peaked as the first two we had left in the salon, were working upon a tapestry when we entered the room. Upon our entrance they rose. "Narcisse," said the Count to one of them, "here is the Countess' new chambermaid; I must test her; hand me the lancets." Narcisse opens a cupboard and immediately produces all a surgeon's gear. I allow your imagination to fancy my state; my executioner spied my embarrassment, and it merely excited his mirth. "Put her in place, Zephire," Monsieur de Gernande said to another of the youths, and this boy approached me with a smile. "Don't be afraid, Mademoiselle," said he, "it can only do you the greatest good. Take your place here." It was a question of kneeling lightly upon the edge of a tabouret located in the middle of the room; one's arms were elevated and attached to two black straps which descended from the ceiling. No sooner have I assumed the posture than the Count steps up scalpel in hand: he can scarcely breathe, his eyes are alive with sparks, his face smites me with terror; he ties bands about both my arms, and in a flash he has lanced each of them. A cry bursts from between his teeth, it is accompanied by two or three blasphemies when he catches sight of my blood; he retires to a distance of six feet and sits down.

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

  In the second place, you are going to pass, insofar as the public is concerned, for the Marquise's murderer; if she yet breathes, I am going to see to it she carries this notion into the grave, the entire household will share it; and there you have two trials still to face instead of one: instead of a vile usurer, you have for an adversary a rich and powerful man who is determined to hound you into Hell itself if you misuse the life his compassion leaves to you." Chapter 16 Monsieur Rodin kept a school for children of both sexes; during his wife's lifetime he had obtained the required charter and they had not seen fit to deprive him of it after he had lost her. Monsieur Rodin's pupils were few but select: in all, there were but fourteen girls and fourteen boys: he never accepted them under twelve and they were always sent away upon reaching the age of sixteen; never had monarch prettier subjects than Rodin. If there were brought to him one who had some physical defect or a face that left something to be desired, he knew how to invent twenty excuses for rejecting him, all his arguments were very ingenious, they were always colored by sophistries to which no one seemed able to reply; thus, either his corps of little day students had incomplete ranks, or the children who filled them were always charming. These youngsters did not take their meals with him, but came twice a day, from seven to eleven in the morning, from four to eight in the afternoon. If until then I had not yet seen all of this little troupe it was because, having arrived at Rodin's during the holidays, his scholars were not attending classes; toward the end of my recovery they reappeared. Rodin himself took charge of the boys' instruction, his governess looked after that of the girls, whom he would visit as soon as he had completed his own lessons; he taught his young pupils writing, arithmetic, a little history, drawing, music, and for all that no other master but himself was employed. I early expressed to Rosalie my astonishment that her father, while performing his functions as a doctor, could at the same time act as a schoolmaster; it struck me as odd, said I, that being able to live comfortably without exercising either the one or the other of these professions, he devoted himself to both.

• From Between Us

  To the contrary, they were reticent to share prideful happiness situations. On Mayumi Karasawa’s strong recommendation, we thus turned the order of the emotions around for the Japanese respondents. And much against my intuition, starting the interview by reporting an instance of shame broke the ice for Japanese respondents. When shame is a step towards remedying your shortcomings and mending a relationship in jeopardy, it is good to be talking about it. Shame was “right,” and in our survey studies, Japanese respondents reported higher frequencies of shame than their U.S. counterparts. If shame sets off a downward spiral in WEIRD cultures, it has the exact opposite effect in cultures where it is “right.” In many of those cultures, it motivates you to invest in the relationship at stake, adding to its reputation as a socially beneficial emotion. In their study on shame, Bagozzi and his colleagues compared Dutch salespeople to their Filipino counterparts. Like the Dutch, the Filipino salespeople recognized shame as feeling exposed, a failure, and small and weak. But shame did not make the Filipino salespeople withdraw or stumble. To the contrary, shame signaled that they had to invest in the customer relationship that was not going well. Rather than making them want to hide, shame made them reach out to their customers. Separately, Filipino salespeople who felt shame reported better sales interactions and higher sales volumes—showing the yields of their investment in the customer relationship. There are other cultures in which showing shame breeds acceptance. Among the Minangkabau and the Taiwanese, for example, the shameful child is a good child who saves their parents’ face. Shame is shared by the members of the secure family network and gains them acceptance in the broader community. The Japanese friend or spouse expressing shame or self-criticism meets cultural expectations, and can count on their friend’s or spouse’s acceptance and support. And in fact, Japanese college students indicated that they encountered many situations eliciting strong shame—the opposite of their American counterparts. The Japanese students seem to seek out shame situations, rather than avoid them as the American students did. Shame means you know your place or your shortcomings, and in a culture where this does not change anything in the relationships, this is a good thing. Yet, in other cultures where your position is less assured, and where social regard is subject to continuous negotiation, shame is the marker of losing ground. This is the case in honor cultures, when insults threaten the very thing that is important: the positive image that others have of you. Shame is “right” under these circumstances because it keeps you focused on your social position, but the social dynamics are very different from the cultures where your position is assured. During the interviews in the Netherlands (chapter 2), it struck me that many Turkish participants reportedly ended the relationship with whomever offended them.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  That year the band had a number one song, “The Joker,” and Thompson rode into town with a glow of fame around him. “He had a weird stare,” De Vocht remembered. “He invited my sister to meet Steve Miller and John Travolta.” Within a year, most of De Vocht’s family had joined the Church of Scientology. In July 1977, thirteen-year- old Tom De Vocht signed the billion-year contract for the Sea Org. De Vocht became one of Miscavige’s allies and moved up the bureaucratic ladder quickly. In 1986, he was appointed the Commanding Officer of the Commodore’s Messengers Org at Flag. In 2001, Miscavige called him, complaining, “Tom, I can’t get my building done.” The new headquarters for the Religious Technology Center at Gold Base, Building 50, was years behind schedule and well over budget. Miscavige directed De Vocht to come to Gold Base and oversee the construction. The first day he got there, De Vocht realized that “this building is going to be the end of me.” Forty-seven million dollars—more than a thousand dollars per square foot—had previously been spent on the new center. The building had already been completed a couple of times, using the highest-grade materials—cold rolled steel, and anigre, a beautiful but extremely hard, pinkish African wood—only to have components ripped out because they didn’t meet Miscavige’s standards. Miscavige’s desk, also made of steel, was so heavy that De Vocht worried whether the structure would support it. He discovered that there were no actual architectural drawings for the building; there were only renderings of what it should look like. The stucco exterior walls were already cracked because the whole edifice was at a 1.25-inch tilt. The walls weren’t actually connected to the floors. Even a minor earthquake (Gold Base was just west of the San Andreas Fault) might cause the whole building to collapse. De Vocht recommended that the building be torn down and rebuilt from scratch, but Miscavige rejected that idea. The expense of essentially rebuilding a poorly constructed building from the inside was immense. When De Vocht had almost finished construction, having spent an additional $60 million, Miscavige still had a list of complaints. He was also critical of the landscaping. Gold Base is in a desert, but Miscavige demanded that the building appear to be set in a forest. One morning, De Vocht says, Miscavige and his wife were inspecting the large vault in the legal department of Building 50, when the leader stopped in his tracks and began rubbing his head. He turned pale. “Where did we put the gold bullion?” he asked his wife. For a full minute, Miscavige kept rubbing his head and asking about the gold, but then he snapped out of it and went on as if nothing had happened.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  On a visit to his parents’ house, Gregory against his will, and even without his previous knowledge, was ordained presbyter by his father before the assembled congregation on a feast day of the year 361. Such forced elections and ordinations, though very offensive to our taste, were at that time frequent, especially upon the urgent wish of the people, whose voice in many instances proved to be indeed the voice of God. Basil also, and Augustine, were ordained presbyters, Athanasius and Ambrose bishops, against their will. Gregory fled soon after, it is true, to his friend in Pontus, but out of regard to his aged parents and the pressing call of the church, he returned to Nazianzum towards Easter in 362, and delivered his first pulpit discourse, in which he justified himself in his conduct, and said: "It has its advantage to hold back a little from the call of God, as Moses, and after him Jeremiah, did on account of their age; but it has also its advantage to come forward readily, when God calls, like Aaron and Isaiah; provided both be done with a devout spirit, the one on account of inherent weakness, the other in reliance upon the strength of him who calls." His enemies accused him of haughty contempt of the priestly office; but he gave as the most important reason of his flight, that he did not consider himself worthy to preside over a flock, and to undertake the care of immortal souls, especially in such stormy times. Basil, who, as metropolitan, to strengthen the catholic interest against Arianism, set about the establishment of new bishoprics in the small towns of Cappadocia, intrusted to his young friend one such charge in Sasima, a poor market town at the junction of three highways, destitute of water, verdure, and society, frequented only by rude wagoners, and at the time an apple of discord between him and his opponent, the bishop Anthimus of Tyana. A very strange way of showing friendship, unjustifiable even by the supposition that Basil wished to exercise the humility and self-denial of Gregory.1974 No wonder that, though a bishopric in itself was of no account to Gregory, this act deeply wounded his sense of honor, and produced a temporary alienation between him and Basil.1975 At the combined request of his friend and his aged father, he suffered himself indeed to be consecrated to the new office; but it is very doubtful whether he ever went to Sasima.1976 At all events we soon afterwards find him in his solitude, and then again, in 372, assistant of his father in Nazianzum. In a remarkable discourse delivered in the presence of his father in 372, he represented to the congregation his peculiar fluctuation between an innate love of the contemplative life of seclusion and the call of the Spirit to public labor.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  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?” “I can see that,” he said. I waited for him to say something more, but he didn’t.

• From Between Us

  In my own country, I was used to being a socially adept and emotionally intelligent person. But when I arrived at the University of Michigan in November 1993, I felt emotionally out of sync. My new colleagues were gracious, happy, and outgoing. They exchanged niceties with each other and with me. I liked their company, and I liked how they treated me. Yet, things were not easy, because I was unable to reciprocate in appropriate ways: I felt my own emotional shortcomings. In conversations, it did not come naturally to me to be outgoing and appreciative, to offer compliments, or to acknowledge effort and intention. I was not happy or grateful enough; not as happy as I clearly felt I ought to be, given the situation and given how everybody else was acting. It bothered me that I was emotionally underperforming, and I was not merely imagining that I was. I simply was not smooth. One day, a colleague asked me if I would like to have lunch with her the next day. I replied in truth, “Tomorrow I can’t.” My new friend Michele Acker overheard the conversation, and coached me privately that I could have been more forthcoming and pleasant: “I would love to go out for lunch with you, can we do it some other time though? I already have plans for tomorrow. . . .” Instead, she said I sounded rude. Rude? It certainly wasn’t what I meant to be; in my mind, it was simply informative. I also had difficulty making sense of others’ emotions. When Michele and I entered a drugstore, and she greeted the store clerk with an enthusiastic “How are you?,” I asked her if she knew this woman (she did not). The interest she displayed in the clerk’s well-being did not seem to fit the situation. The clerk, without missing a beat, reciprocated with a smooth, “Wonderful, and what about yourself?” I was left wondering what I had missed in this enthusiastic exchange between strangers.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I am startled by the randomness of his question. We don’t talk about normal things. Our conversations are about survival. My hand trembles when I take the cup. Who could think about children at a time like this? Two pals just sitting around, chatting about their life expectations? I want to rip open my shirt and remind him that he cut off my breasts. Remind him that we are prisoners. People in our predicament didn’t talk about the possibility of children. But still … because it is Isaac who asks me, and because he has given so much, I let my mind rove over what he’s saying. I once saw a toddler throw a fit at Heathrow Airport. Her older sister confiscated an iPhone from the little girl’s hands when she threatened to send it flying across the floor. As with most children, the tiny girl, who teetered on fresh, newly-walking legs, had a loud, indignant response. She wailed, dropped to her knees and made an awful herky-jerky noise that sounded like an ambulance siren. It rose and fell in crescendo, causing people to look and wince. As she wailed, she slid backwards on the ground until she was lying face up, her knees bent underneath her. I watched in astonishment as her arms flailed about, alternating between what looked like the backstroke and an interpretive butterfly dance. Her face was pressed into an anguished scowl, her mouth still sending out those godawful noises, when all of a sudden she scrambled to her feet, and ran laughing toward a fountain a few yards away. As far as I was concerned children had bipolar disorder. They were angry, unpredictable, emotional ambulance-sirens with pigtails, grubby hands and food-crusted mouths that twisted from smiles to frowns and back again as quick as a breath. No, thank you very much. If I wanted a three-foot warlord as my master, I’d hire a rabid monkey to do the job. “No,” I say. He takes a long sip. Nods. “I didn’t think so.” I wait for him to tell me why he asked, but he doesn’t. After a few minutes it clicks together— snap, snap, snap —and I feel sick. Isaac hasn’t been eating. He hasn’t been sleeping. He hasn’t been speaking much. I’ve watched him deteriorate slowly over the last week, coming alive only for the delivery of the white box. I suddenly feel less angry about his out-of-place question. More concerned. “How long have we been here?” I ask. “Nine months.” My Rubik’s cube brain twists. More of my anger dissipates. When we first woke up here he told me that Daphne was eight weeks pregnant. “She carried to term,” I say, firmly.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  He didn’t know anything. Not about me, at least. “Don’t run,” he said, coming to stand in the spot where the kitchen met the living room. “You haven’t left the house in three weeks. It’s just dinner.” “Get out,” I said, pointing to the door. He didn’t move. “I won’t let anything happen to you, Senna.” The silence that followed was so loud that I could hear my faucet dripping, my heart beating, the scratchy feet of fear as it crawled out of my pores. Thirty seconds, two minutes, one minute, five. I don’t know how long we stood there in a silent standoff. He hadn’t really said my name since the night he found me outside. We’d been two strangers. Now that he’d said it, it made everything feel real. This is really happening , I thought. All of it. He moved in for the kill. “We’ll walk to the car,” he said. “I’ll open the door for you, because that’s what I do. We will drive to a great Greek place. Best gyros you’ve ever tasted-open twenty-four hours. You get to choose the music in the car. I’ll open your door, we’ll go inside, get a table by the window. We want the table by the window because the restaurant is across the street from a gym, and the gym is next door to a doughnut shop. And we’ll want to count how many gym goers stop for doughnuts after they work out. We’ll talk or we can just watch the doughnut shop. Whatever you want. But you have to leave the house, Senna. And I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Please.” I was shaking by the time he finished. So violently I had to sit down on the bottom stair, my fingernails bending against the wood. That meant I was considering what he was saying. Actually thinking about leaving the house, wanting to taste the gyros … see the doughnut shop. But not just that, there was something in his voice. He needed to do this. When I looked up, Isaac Asterholder was still where he was. Waiting. “Okay,” I said. It wasn’t like me, but everything had changed. And if he kept showing up for me, I could show up for him. Just this once. It was raining. I liked the cover that rain provided. It protected you from the hard brutality of the sun. It brought things to life, made them flourish. I was born in the desert where the sun and my father almost killed me. I lived in Washington because of the rain, because of how it made my life feel washed of my past. I stared out the window until Isaac handed me his iPod. It was beat-up looking. Well loved.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I stop fighting. I’m not crying, but somehow my nose is running. I reach up and wipe it as Isaac carries me to the living room and sits me down. The couch is barely a couch. We hacked parts of it away to burn when we discovered that there was a wooden frame underneath the stuffing. The cushions are gouged; they sink beneath me. The back of the sofa is gone; there is nowhere to rest my back. I sit straight, my leg poking out in front of me. My anxiety climbs every second that Isaac is gone. My ears follow him to the door, where his breath hitches as he lifts the box. It’s heavy. The door closes again. When he walks back into the room he’s carrying it like a body, his arms stretched around its sides. There is no coffee table to set it on—we hacked that up too—so he places it at the floor by my feet, and steps back. “What’s MV , Senna?” I stare at the blood, the part of the V that I smudged with my finger. “It’s me,” I say. He tilts his head forward. It feels like he’s lining up our eyes. Truth. I’m going to have to feed him some truth. “Mud Vein. I’m Mud Vein.” My mouth feels dry. I want to purge it with a gallon of snow. His eyes flicker. He’s remembering. “The dedication in his book.” Our eyes are connected, so I don’t need to nod. “Would he…?” “I don’t know anything anymore.” “What does it mean?” he asks. I lower my eyes away from his, and to the blood letters. For MV “What’s inside?” I ask. “I’ll open it when you tell me why the zookeeper addressed that box to Mud Vein.” The box is just out of my reach. To get to it I’ll have to use something to pull myself up. Since the couch no longer has a back, there is nothing I can use for leverage. Isaac, I realize, is being very strategic. I take a breath; it is broken in half by a sob that never reaches my lips. My chest convulses as I open my mouth to speak. I don’t want to tell him anything, but I must. “It’s the black vein that curves around the back of a shrimp. Nick called it the mud vein. You have to remove it to make the shrimp clean…” My voice is monotone. “Why did he call you that?” When Isaac and I ask each other questions it reminds me of a tennis match. Once you’ve sent one over the net, you know it’s going to come back, you just don’t know the direction. “Isn’t it obvious?” He blinks at me.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  “He can refuel it,” I say. “I think that as long as we stay put, he will refill the generator. If we figure out the code and get out, we will lose power and freeze.” He thinks long and hard about this. It sounds right. To me, at least. “Why?” asks Isaac. “Why would you think that?” “It’s in the Bible,” I say, and then automatically flinch. “You’re going to have to break this one down for me, Senna,” he says, frowning. His voice is terse. He’s losing patience with me, which isn’t really fair since we are both sinking in the same ship. “Have you seen the picture hanging next to the door?” He nods. Of course. How could he miss it? There are seven prints hanging on the walls of this house. When you spend six weeks locked up somewhere, you spend a lot of time examining the art on the walls. “It’s a painting by F. Cayley. It’s supposed to be of Adam and Eve when they find out they have to leave Eden.” He shakes his head. “I thought it was just of two very depressed people on the beach.” I smile. “We are like the first two people,” I say. “Adam and Eve?” He’s already so full of disbelief I don’t even want to tell him the rest. I shrug. “Sure.” “Go on,” he says. “God put them in the garden and told them not to eat the forbidden fruit, remember?” Now it’s Isaac’s turn to shrug. “Yeah, I guess. Sunday school one-o- one.” “Once they were tempted and ate the fruit they were on their own, exiled from God’s provision and his protection in the place he created for them.” When Isaac doesn’t say anything, I go on. “They leave perfection and have to fend for themselves—hunt, garden, experience cold and death and childbirth.” I flush after the last word leaves my mouth. It was dumb of me to mention childbirth considering Daphne and their unborn baby. But Isaac doesn’t skip a beat. “So you’re saying,” he says, crinkling his eyebrows together, “that so long as we stay here—in the place our kidnapper provided for us—we will be safe and he will keep the heat and food coming?” “It’s just a wild guess, Isaac. I don’t really know.” “So what’s the forbidden fruit?” I tap my finger on the tabletop. “The keypad, maybe…” “This is sick,” he says. “And if one painting means that much, what else is hidden in here?” I don’t want to think about it. “I’ll make dinner tonight,” I say.

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

  I peered into the alcove destined for me; it was eight feet square, daylight entered it, as in the great room, by a very high window fitted all over with iron. The only furniture was a bidet, a lavatory basin and a chaise perce'e. I re-emerged; my companions, eager to see me, gathered round in a circle: they were seven, I made the eighth. Omphale, inhabiting the other room, was only in this to indoctrinate me; were I to wish it, she would remain with me, and one of the others would take her place in her own chamber; I asked to have the arrangement made. But before coming to Omphale's story, it seems to me essential to describe the seven new companions fate had given me; I will proceed according to age, as I did with the others. The youngest was twelve years old: a very animated, very spirited physiognomy, the loveliest hair, the prettiest mouth. The second was sixteen: she was one of the most beautiful blondes imaginable, with truly delicious features and all the grace, all the sweetness of her age, mingled with a certain interesting quality, the product of her sadness, which rendered her yet a thousand times more beautiful. The third was twenty-three; very pretty, but an excessive effrontery, too much impudence degraded, so I thought, the charms Nature had endowed her with. The fourth was twenty-six: she had the figure of Venus; but perhaps her forms were rather too pronounced; a dazzling fair skin; a sweet, open, laughing countenance, beautiful eyes, a mouth a trifle large but admirably furnished, and superb blond hair. The fifth was thirty-two; she was four months pregnant; with an oval, somewhat melancholic face, large soulful eyes; she was very pale, her health was delicate, she had a harmonious voice but the rest seemed somehow spoiled. She was naturally libertine: she was, I was told, exhausting herself. The sixth was thirty-three; a tall strapping woman, the loveliest face in the world, the loveliest flesh. The seventh was thirty-eight; a true model of figure and beauty: she was the superintendent of my room; Omphale forewarned me of her malicious temper and, principally, of her taste for women. "To yield is the best way of pleasing her," my companion told me; "resist her, and you will bring down upon your head every misfortune that can befall you in this house. Bear it in mind." Omphale asked permission of Ursule, which was the superintendent's name, to instruct me; Ursule consented upon condition I kiss her.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

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

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  “I don’t need to see a shrink,” I said. “I’m fine. I’m dealing.” The idea of counseling petrified me; all of your inner thoughts put in a glass box, to be seen by someone who spent years studying how to properly judge thoughts. How was that okay? There was something perverse about the process and the people who chose to do it for a living. Like a man being a gynecologist. What’s in this for you, you freak? Isaac leaned forward until he was uncomfortably close to my face and I could see his irises, pure grey without any flecks or color variations. “You have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. You were just diagnosed with breast cancer. You. Are. Not. Okay.” He pushed away from the table and stood up. I opened my mouth to deny it, but I sighed instead, watching his white coat disappear through the cafeteria doors. He was wrong. My eyes found the scar from the night I cut myself. It was pink, the skin around it tight and shiny. He hadn’t said anything when he found me bleeding, hadn’t asked me how or why. He had simply fixed it. I stood up and walked in his wake. If someone was going to be digging around in my chest with a scalpel, I wanted it to be the guy who showed up and fixed things. He was standing at the main entrance to the hospital when I found him, hands tucked into his pockets. He waited until I reached him and we walked in silence to his car. We were far enough apart that we couldn’t touch, close enough together that it was clear we were together. I slid quietly into the front seat, folding my hands in my lap and staring out the window until he pulled into my driveway. I was about to get out—halfway suspended between car and driveway—when he put his hand on my arm. My eyebrows were drawn together. I could almost feel them touching. I knew what he wanted. He wanted me to promise I’d see a counselor. “Fine.” I yanked myself out of his reach and stalked toward my house. I had the key in the lock, but my hands were shaking so badly I couldn’t turn it. Isaac came up behind me and put his hand over mine. His skin was warm like it had been sitting in the sun all day. I watched in mild fascination as he used both of our hands to turn the key. When the door swung open, I stood frozen on the spot, with my back toward him. “I’m gonna go home tonight,” he said. He was so close I could feel his breath moving tendrils of my hair. “Will you be all right?” I nodded. “Call me if you need me.” I nodded again.

• From How to Be a Great Lover (1999)

  There is only one way to be 100 percent sure you don’t get a sexually transmitted disease: to remain abstinent. But for those of us interested in becoming sexually masterful that does seem a trifle unrealistic, does it not? Almost equally as safe, which we’ll get into thoroughly in Chapter 6, is to give and receive pleasure solely by the use of the hands. Provided your hands have no open wounds, abrasions, or cracked skin, this form of sexual pleasure is virtually risk free, and with a bit of know-how and creativity, manual stimulation can be a most fulfilling form of sexual pleasure. Still, variety is the spice of life, and even the most exciting form of pleasure in exclusion of all others can become monotonous after a while. What we can do is make sex as safe as possible and dramatically reduce the risk of contracting an STD. Meeting a stranger’s eyes across a crowded room and falling into bed with him without so much as an exchange of names is a scene best left for Fantasy Island. Responsible adults talk about sex beforehand. Until you’ve both tested negative for all sexually transmitted diseases and waited the appropriate incubation period to ensure a clean bill of health (without engaging in any risk behaviors, such as unprotected sex with another partner or IV drug use), you should agree up front to use condoms every single time you engage in vaginal, oral, or anal sex. Condoms are now available for men and women, so you should both carry some at all times just in case. Even genital-to-genital contact without intercourse can transmit STDs such as HIV or syphilis. Foreplay involving any contact at all without condoms can be a problem. Now, the female condom will protect you from unwanted pregnancy, and from diseases obtained through vaginal and anal sex. But it will not protect you from diseases that can be contracted by oral sex, as regular condoms can. You can also reduce the risk of contracting an STD by limiting your sexual partners. You are more likely to get a sexually transmitted disease if either of you has more than one partner. That’s why the value of trust should never go underestimated in a relationship. What is often brushed aside or chalked up as one little indiscretion could literally be a matter of life and death. This is not a judgment; it’s a fact. If you can justify a reason to cheat on your lover or spouse, that’s your business. But please, be safe. Finally, if you use intravenous drugs, don’t share needles.