Desire

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 The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Of all the hucksters, only “Birdie” managed, in all seasons, to achieve the miracle of bringing us real goodies at a reasonable price. He was a tiny man of no specific age, who had adopted as his dress for all times an ancient pair of tuxedo pants, a jacket that had a patch over the left elbow, and a cap of Persian lamb that seemed to overwhelm his birdlike head. He owed his nickname to the sweets of the “Bird” brand that he sold in a biscuit box. This tin box could easily be concealed whenever the cops turned up, as the police, God alone knows why, seemed to be intent on mercilessly pursuing all the little hucksters; so Birdie’s biscuit box was his stroke of genius, his secret weapon of defense that allowed him to remain invulnerable, whereas all his colleagues were sooner or later arrested. This miracle box always contained a few defective candies from one or the other of the better makers, some excellent pastries that had been spoiled in the process of baking, or some candied almonds that had failed to acquire the right color while cooking, all of this stock having been sold to Birdie for next to nothing. Even if we failed to get any of these treats, we found at least some cakes made of heavy semolina that were full of bits of straw and somehow numbed our stomachs that were always underfed. For some time Birdie had been offering us flat Nestlé chocolate bars, together with a colored card. The Nestlé firm was launching a very successful commercial campaign: in the wrapping of each bar they put one or two of these picture cards of which a complete set would fill an album. The prize, for whoever turned in a full album by a certain deadline, was something pretty serious: a bicycle, if I remember right. Each one of these chocolate bars cost seven pennies, but since I had only two pennies a day to spend, I was disqualified from the start. However, I was not aware of this handicap and, as the Nestlé firm gave its albums away free, I went to collect one too. Every Friday, on the morning before Sabbath, classes began and finished an hour earlier, which seemed to us to be a considerable gain. For this reason, among others, I particularly enjoyed my Fridays, whereas my mother could never get accustomed to this interruption of our daily routine. Harried by her responsibilities in preparing the three Sabbath meals, she never made a success of the first one, actually the least important one.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  He was a man of commanding presence and exceeding robust and having for some days let tend the lady excellently well and she being thereby altogether restored, he saw her lovely past all conception and was grieved beyond measure that he could not understand her nor she him and so he might not learn who she was. Nevertheless, being inordinately inflamed by her charms, he studied, with pleasing and amorous gestures, to engage her to do his pleasure without contention; but to no avail; she altogether rejected his advances and so much the more waxed Pericone's ardour. The lady, seeing this and having now abidden there some days, perceived, by the usances of the folk, that she was among Christians and in a country where, even if she could, it had little profited her to make herself known and foresaw that, in the end, either perforce or for love, needs must she resign herself to do Pericone's pleasure, but resolved nevertheless by dint of magnanimity to override the wretchedness of her fortune; wherefore she commanded her women, of whom but three were left her, that they should never discover to any who she was, except they found themselves whereas they might look for manifest furtherance in the regaining of their liberty, and urgently exhorted them, moreover, to preserve their chastity, avouching herself determined that none, save her husband, should ever enjoy her. They commended her for this and promised to observe her commandment to the best of their power. Meanwhile Pericone, waxing daily more inflamed, insomuch as he saw the thing desired so near and yet so straitly denied, and seeing that his blandishments availed him nothing, resolved to employ craft and artifice, reserving force unto the last. Wherefore, having observed bytimes that wine was pleasing to the lady, as being unused to drink thereof, for that her law forbade it, he bethought himself that he might avail to take her with this, as with a minister of enus. Accordingly, feigning to reck no more of that whereof she showed herself so chary, he made one night by way of special festival a goodly supper, whereto he bade the lady, and therein, the repast being gladdened with many things, he took order with him who served her that he should give her to drink of various wines mingled. The cupbearer did his bidding punctually and she, being nowise on her guard against this and allured by the pleasantness of the drink, took more thereof than consisted with her modesty; whereupon, forgetting all her past troubles, she waxed merry and seeing some women dance after the fashion of Majorca, herself danced in the Alexandrian manner.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  There was in Lunigiana, a country not very far hence, a monastery whilere more abounding in sanctity and monks than it is nowadays, and therein, among others, was a young monk, whose vigour and lustiness neither fasts nor vigils availed to mortify. It chanced one day, towards noontide, when all the other monks slept, that, as he went all alone round about the convent,[48] which stood in a very solitary place, he espied a very well-favoured lass, belike some husbandman's daughter of the country, who went about the fields culling certain herbs, and no sooner had he set eyes on her than he was violently assailed by carnal appetite. Wherefore, accosting her, he entered into parley with her and so led on from one thing to another that he came to an accord with her and brought her to his cell, unperceived of any; but whilst, carried away by overmuch ardour, he disported himself with her less cautiously than was prudent, it chanced that the abbot arose from sleep and softly passing by the monk's cell, heard the racket that the twain made together; whereupon he came stealthily up to the door to listen, that he might the better recognize the voices, and manifestly perceiving that there was a woman in the cell, was at first minded to cause open to him, but after bethought himself to hold another course in the matter and, returning to his chamber, awaited the monk's coming forth. [Footnote 48: Lit. his church (_sua chiesa_); but the context seems to indicate that the monastery itself is meant.] The latter, all taken up as he was with the wench and his exceeding pleasure and delight in her company, was none the less on his guard and himseeming he heard some scuffling of feet in the dormitory, he set his eye to a crevice and plainly saw the abbot stand hearkening unto him; whereby he understood but too well that the latter must have gotten wind of the wench's presence in his cell and knowing that sore punishment would ensue to him thereof, he was beyond measure chagrined. However, without discovering aught of his concern to the girl, he hastily revolved many things in himself, seeking to find some means of escape, and presently hit upon a rare device, which went straight to the mark he aimed at. Accordingly, making a show of thinking he had abidden long enough with the damsel, he said to her, 'I must go cast about for a means how thou mayest win forth hence, without being seen; wherefore do thou abide quietly until my return.'

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  Even before she joined Jejah, I valued what clues I could find. I’d studied, for instance, the handful of old novels she’d brought from L.A. Soft with use, they proved Phoebe’s claim that she used to love reading. She’d underlined words, filled margins, the penciled notes fading. I asked why she’d stopped; I lost interest in it, she said. I’d examined the glyphs as I might have a coded map, directions to Phoebe’s shining, inmost psyche, that visible opacity, which showed itself in allowing me to sight it hiding. Privation is lust; isolation, desire. I craved what she withheld. I always wanted to know more about how it felt, being Phoebe. Then, Phoebe took up Jejah, and I sat in the circle while she divulged secrets: more, often, than she’d let slip with me. He raised questions; obedient, she replied. I tried to believe she was also talking in my direction, but it was obvious she wasn’t. If, alone, on the way home from a meeting, I alluded to what she’d said, she’d give me a quick kiss, a laugh. No, let’s talk about you, she said. I haven’t had a minute with you all night. Tell me about the lunch shift. Did you find out who hid the pipe in the trash? – In the Seoul before you and I lived, John Leal told us, a unified land, everyone learned the same songs. It wasn’t unusual, he said, in this city of Phoebe’s birth, to have one person begin singing a ballad in public. Others would join in. He loved to picture it, the heads lifting to sing in chorus. If this Seoul hadn’t existed, he still wanted to think it had. Korea dispatched more Christian apostles abroad than any nation but the U.S. Per capita, it placed first. It could well take the lead. The next fount of revival, he called it. No one was more spiritual than Koreans could be; no believers, more devoted. It was a land of purists. He talked about present-day Seoul, where lit-up, blinking signs jutted out like flags on a pole. You’ll have to see it, he said. –

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  Evaluating the scene would give him a cue to Roger’s emotional status. “I don’t feel too good about the way the scene ended,” he lied. “Maybe that kid really wanted to be a slave. If he just wanted to be dominated, I should’ve pushed his limits.” The master waved a dismissive hand. “You were damned good to that kid, better than he deserved. Nothing wrong with what you gave him. He got exactly what he asked for, with bells on.” “Maybe. I haven’t had this whip for very long. I have a lot to learn about how to use it.” “Didn’t look that way to me.” “Well, somebody like you ought to know. But I wonder if I was hitting him too hard. Do you think you could help me figure it out? I really like this quirt a lot. Makes my arm feel so good. I want to use it again, but I’m afraid the same thing will happen.” The specter of that brutal length of braid never biting flesh again made the master blanch. “Of course. Of course. But what exactly do you need to know? You don’t have much choice about the amount of force it takes to crack it,” he said. “Once you flick your wrist the speed is standard.” He was leaning on the pillar. The spoiler put his untasted beer down against the wall and came up to him, carrying the quirt coiled in his right hand. He touched his arm deferentially and said, “You could tell me how you think it feels.” Oh, why the hell not? It was the kind of thing you would do for a friend who wasn’t sure he wanted to buy something he’d just spotted at The Noose, let him try out a few licks on your thigh, then take it out of his hand and whack his ass with it. “Sure,” the master said, turning around, doffing his jacket and the khaki police shirt underneath it. The spoiler took his clothing, hung it up (there was no shortage of hooks), and returned to run his fingertips across the bare, heavy shoulders. He palpated the skin, gauging its thickness, the ratio of fat to muscle beneath it, the placement of shoulder blades and spine. And, since he did not know if he would be allowed to touch this man intimately again, he tried to memorize every pore and freckle. “If you could watch in the mirror,” he suggested, “just to check my form.”

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  It was unnerving. Really, that itch was getting worse. She smothered an image of Clarissa slowly lifting her short, black skirt and slowly pulling down her damnably tight silk panties and firmly bending her over the counter for a vigorous spanking. Then Clarissa would take one of the long wooden spoons and … oh, she had been kept waiting for so long. Would Berenice ever take pity on her, perhaps today? “Tell me about you and Mother and how she enslaved you and you lost her and found her and laid your fortune at her feet so you could wear a maid’s uniform every day and she had me, and you both decided to bring me up without any of the flaws that were present in your early education and—” “Oh, that’s quite a long story!” Elise laughed. “You won’t have time to hear all that before you leave for the train.” “I’ll eat two waffles, at least, and we will too have time, if you start now while everything’s cooking. I must have a story, Elise, please, I was so good last night and they probably won’t tell the little girls any stories at this dismal place you’re shipping me off to.” “You know perfectly well that Hightowers is a fine institution, the very best finishing school we could find for you, and you will hardly suffer any—” “Elise,” wailed Clarissa, “pleeeease!” “Well! Yes, if you promise not to interrupt.” “Goody!” Clarissa wielded the silver strawberry huller with enthusiasm, making a small mountain of green tops, and plopped berry after berry into the colander. “Come on, tell me, tell me!” “I’m pouring. Don’t distract me.” Elise held the bowl over the hot waffle iron. She ladled batter onto the black teeth, then closed the lid and turned over her timer. The timer was a small sculpture: two women, one upside down, bound together by their hair. The sand ran down a crystal column, which they were also bound to by their long, flowing locks. “Your grandmamma—my mother—was an opera singer,” she began. “We never stopped traveling, and we never knew what the next train stop would bring. Sometimes Mamma was a success, her role would be all the rage, she would be the most fashionable woman in town. Then we were well received. We would stay in expensive hotels and life would be a mad whirl, a series of gala events. Mysterious messengers would deliver letters, flowers, perfume, and even more exotic gifts. We would receive a constant stream of visitors—millionaires, society matrons, opium-eaters, pretty young men who would eye Mamma’s paint-pots and costumes with thinly concealed longing. There were always conspiracies, music, candy, wine, new sights to see, a blooming passion or a plot to crush some enterprising social climber’s hopes.

• From White Oleander (1999)

  I felt the radiant heat of him across the narrow gap between us in the darkness. We had never stood so close. “You and Starr having a beef?” he asked me softly. I exhaled vapor, imagined I was smoking, like Dietrich in The Blue Angel . “What did she say?” “Nothing. She’s just been acting funny lately.” Shooting stars hurled themselves into the empty places, burned up. Just for the pleasure of it. Just like this. I could have swallowed the night whole. Ray toked too hard, coughed, spat. “Must be hard on her, getting older, pretty girls coming up in the same house.” I gazed up as if I hadn’t heard, but what I was thinking was, tell me more about the pretty girls. I was embarrassed for wanting it, it was base, what did pretty matter? I had thought that so many times with my mother. A person didn’t need to be beautiful, they just needed to be loved. But I couldn’t help wanting it. If that was the way I could be loved, to be beautiful, I’d take it. “She still looks good,” I said, thinking that it wouldn’t be so hard on her if he didn’t follow me out into the star-filled night, if he didn’t watch me the way he did, touching his mouth with his fingertips. But I didn’t want him to stop. I was sorry for Starr, but not enough. I had the sin virus. I was the center of my own universe, it was the stars that were moving, rearranging themselves around me, and I liked the way he looked at me. Who had ever looked at me, who had ever noticed me? If this was evil, let God change my mind. Dear Astrid, Do not tell me how much you admire this man, how he cares for you! I don’t know which is worse, your Jesus phase or the advent of a middle-aged suitor. You must find a boy your own age, someone mild and beautiful to be your lover. Someone who will tremble for your touch, offer you a marguerite by its long stem with his eyes lowered, someone whose fingers are a poem. Never lie down for the father. I forbid it, do you understand? Mother. You couldn’t stop it, Mother. I didn’t have to listen to you anymore. IT WAS SPRING , painting the hillsides with orange drifts of California poppies, dotting the cracks in gas stations and parking lots with poppies and blue lupine and Indian paintbrush. Even in the burn zones, the passes were matted with yellow mustard as we jounced along in Ray’s old pickup truck. I told him I wanted to see the new development up in Lancaster, the custom cabinetry he’d been working on. Maybe he could pick me up after school sometime. “You know how funny Starr’s been,” I said.

• From White Oleander (1999)

  He had changed out of his church clothes, back into his regular T-shirt and jeans. We played Chinese checkers with the boys and avoided each other’s glances, but it was work, being in the same room without touching, especially with Starr sitting next to him, one hand up high on his soft-washed jeans. I couldn’t stand it. After Davey won, I went outside and walked around down in the wash. All I could think of was her hand on his jeans. I was bad, I had done bad things, I had hurt people, and the worst of it was, I didn’t want to stop. Blue shadows climbed the tawny round slopes of the mountain, like hands modeling the shape of a lover’s thighs. A lizard perched on a rock, thinking he was invisible. I threw a pebble at him, watched him dart away into the chaparral. I tore up a leaf of laurel sumac and held it to my nose, hoping it would clear my head. I smelled him first, the smell of dope wafting on the twilight air. He was in the yard, sunlight striking his face and warming it like a stone. The sight of him caught in my throat. Now I knew I’d been waiting for him. I climbed onto a rise so he could see me, to the east, on the blind side of the trailer, then descended into a bowl of sand between the boulders. A minute later, I heard him walking up the riverbed, dry already though it was only April. I knew Davey would read all this tomorrow in our tracks. But the moment I touched Ray, I knew we could never be apart, no matter how much we wanted to, no matter who we hurt. His lips on my neck, his hands under my shirt, pulling my pants open, peeling them down. My thighs craved the naked touch of his hips, we fit together like magnets as we sank into the sand. I didn’t care about scorpions or the western diamondback. I didn’t care about rocks or who might see us. “Baby, what are you doing to me,” he whispered into my hair. THE LAST TIME I had heard two adults fight was the night my mother stabbed Barry in the hand. Smashing, crashing. I covered my head with the pillow, but I could still hear every word through the thin walls, Starr’s drunken screeching, Ray’s murmuring rebuttals. “You used to get it up fine, before you started fucking that little bitch. Admit it, you bastard, you’ve been fucking her!” I crouched deeper into my sleeping bag, sweating, pretending it wasn’t me, it was some other girl, I was just a kid, I had nothing to do with this. “Fuck my sponsor!

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  After an initial failure in her exams, Ginou had made up her mind to come up again for the baccalaureate in October. She pretended to be very serious about it and I offered to coach her in literature, which she accepted vaguely, always postponing any action till the following week. As for me, I was beginning to be sick of all this comedy of hints and double meanings. Quite obviously, I was marking time, and I began to feel a bit foolish too, almost guilty about never having dared a more direct approach. All my classmates constantly talked of petting, of kissing, and even of other things that I disapproved of. Ginou, in my eyes, was more than a mere crush that one has to make the most of while it lasts. I respected her and I owed her a certain gratitude, though I might be able to allow myself more daring liberties within the framework of this respect. The very health of my love for her demanded more. Perhaps, after all, her new swim suit, a silver-colored knitwear model with red dots that revealed every contour of her exquisite figure, had something to do with it all. On one or two occasions, I had been ashamed of my own excitement and been forced to dive immediately under water in order to conceal my very obvious emotion. But now that I had decided to follow this line of action I couldn’t rest until I had worked out a plan. The most difficult step would be to get Ginou to agree that we be left alone together in a room, behind a closed door. On Saturday afternoons, my parents generally left our overheated apartment for a neighborhood beach. It never occurred to me that Ginou, too, had thought seriously of what I was about to propose to her. I can still remember every detail of that day and of the whole scene, though our days at the beach were so much alike that they now all melt into a single image in my memory. Ever since the morning, I had repeatedly failed in my attempts to drag her away from the rest of the crowd. Then the others all agreed to rent a rowboat, but Ginou felt tired and refused to join them. So we stayed alone, a real treat to be by ourselves. We lay together, face to face, on our stomachs in the sand. Ginou’s face seemed to fill the whole landscape ahead of me, spreading beyond the sky line of the hills, filling the whole sky, while the sunlight, reflected off her tousled hair, seemed to form a halo around her. I chose my words carefully as I suggested to her that she come and prepare her French literature exams with me at home; my excuse was that I would have all my books there. We would be all by ourselves in peace and quiet. This last I stressed carefully.

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

  BEDE. Zacchæus is called the son of Abraham, not because he was born of Abraham’s seed, but because he imitates his faith, that as Abraham left his country and his father’s house, so he abandoned all his goods in giving them to the poor. And He well says, “He also,” to declare that not only those who had lived justly, but those who are raised up from a life of injustice, belong to the sons of promise. THEOPHYLACT. He said not that he “was” a son of Abraham, but that he now is. For before when he was the chief among the publicans, and bore no likeness to the righteous Abraham, he was not his son. But because some murmured that he tarried with a man who was a sinner, he adds in order to restrain them, For the Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost. PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. (ubi sup.) Why do ye accuse me if I bring sinners to righteousness? So far am I from hating them, that for their sakes I came. For I came to heal, not to judge, therefore am I the constant guest of those that are sick, and I suffer their noisomeness that I may supply remedies. But some one may ask, how does Paul bid us, If we have a brother that is a fornicator or covetous man, with such not even to take food; (1 Cor. 5:11.) whereas Christ was the guest of publicans? They were not as yet so far advanced as to be brethren, and besides, St. Paul bids us avoid our brethren only when they persist in evil, but these were converted. BEDE. Mystically, Zacchæus, which is by interpretation “justified,” signifies the Gentile believers, who were depressed and brought very low by their worldly occupations, but sanctified by God. And he was desirous to see our Saviour entering Jericho, inasmuch as he sought to share in that faith which Christ brought into the world. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. The crowd is the tumultuous state of an ignorant multitude, which cannot see the lofty top of wisdom. Zacchæus therefore, while he was in the crowd, saw not Christ, but having advanced beyond the vulgar ignorance, was thought worthy to entertain Him, whom he desired to look upon.

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

  BEDE. (in loc.) Nor is it without some mysterious allusion, that the marriage is related as taking-place on the third day. The first age of the world, before the giving of the Law, was enlightened by the example of the Patriarchs; the second, under the Law, by the writings of the Prophets; the third, under grace, by the preaching of the Evangelists, as if by the light of the third day; for our Lord had now appeared in the flesh. The name of the place too where the marriage was held, Cana of Galilee, which means, desire of migrating, has a typical signification, viz. that those are most worthy of Christ, who burn with devotional desires, and have known the passage from vice to virtue, from earthly to eternal things. The wine was made to fail, to give our Lord the opportunity of making better; that so the glory of God in man might be brought out of its hiding place: And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto Him, They have no wine. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. xxi. 1, 2) But how came it into the mother’s mind to expect so great a thing from her Son? for he had done no miracle as yet: as we read afterwards, This beginning of miracles did Jesus. His real nature, however, was beginning now to be revealed by John, and His own conversations with His disciples; besides that His conception, and the circumstances of His birth, had from the first given rise to high expectations in her mind: as Luke tells us, His mother kept all these sayings in her heart. (Luke 2:51) Why then did she never ask Him to work a miracle before? Because the time had now come that He should be made known. Before He had lived so much like an ordinary person, that she had not had the confidence to ask Him. But now that she heard that John had borne witness to Him, and that He had disciples, she asks Him confidently. ALCUIN. She represents here the Synagogue, which challenges Christ to perform a miracle. It was customary with the Jews to ask for miracles. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? AUGUSTINE. (Tr. viii. c. 5) Some who derogate from the Gospel, and say that Jesus was not born of the Virgin Mary, try to draw an argument for their error from this place; for, how, say they, could she be His mother to whom He said, What have I to do with thee? Now who is it who gives this account, and on whose authority do we believe it? The Evangelist John. But he himself says, The mother of Jesus was there. Why should He say it, unless both were true. But did He therefore come to the marriage to teach men to despise their mother?

• From White Oleander (1999)

  Starr hated to even look at them, though now the riots were going on, she’d stopped asking him to get rid of them. He took a can of green Rust-Oleum and spray-painted a human figure on a board, and for fun made it carrying a TV. He set it up against an oleander at the far end of the yard. “He’s taking your TV, Astrid. Plug him.” It was fun, the little Beretta .22. I landed four out of nine shots. He put tape over the bullet holes so I’d know which were old, which were new. I got to try all the guns eventually—the rifle, the short-nosed .38 Police Special, Smith & Wesson, even the twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun. I liked the Beretta best, but Ray insisted the Smith & Wesson was the thing to shoot, it had “stopping power.” He’d put it in my hands, showing me how to sight it, how to squeeze the trigger with my mind. The .38 was the hardest of the four to shoot and be accurate with. You had to use both hands, and keep your arms very straight, or it came back and hit you in the face. Each gun had a purpose, like a hammer or a screwdriver. The rifle was for hunting, the Beretta for potentially touchy situations—a bar, a meeting with the ex, a date, what Ray called close-in work. The shotgun was for home protection. “Get behind me, kids!” he’d say in a grandmothery voice, and we’d all run behind him as he demonstrated, spraying the oleanders with buckshot. And the .38? “Only one reason for a thirty-eight. And that’s to kill your man.” I felt like an Israeli girl soldier, in shorts and the hot wind, sighting down the barrel of the rifle, holding the .38 with both hands. It was a strange feeling, him looking at me as I aimed. I found I couldn’t quite lose myself in the target. His eyes split my attention between the C in Coke and my awareness of him watching me. And I thought, this was what it was like to be beautiful. What my mother felt. The tug of eyes, pulling you back from your flight to the target. I was in two places at once, not only in my thought, my aim, but my bare feet on the dusty yard, my legs growing stronger, my breasts in the new bra, my long tanned arms, my hair flowing white in the hot wind. He was taking my silence but giving me something in return, a fullness of being recognized. I felt beautiful, but also interrupted. I wasn’t used to being so complicated. 7 [image "image" file=Image00003.jpg] IN NOVEMBER , when the air held blue in the afternoons and the sunlight washed the boulders in gold, I turned fourteen. Starr threw me a party, with hats and streamers, and invited Carolee’s boyfriend and even my caseworker, the Jack of Spades.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The maid comforted her and going in quest of Pyrrhus found him merry and well-disposed and said to him, 'Pyrrhus I showed thee, a few days agone, in what a fire my lady and thine abideth for the love she beareth thee, and now anew I certify thee thereof, for that, an thou persist in the rigour thou showedst the other day, thou mayst be assured that she will not live long; wherefore I prithee be pleased to satisfy her of her desire, and if thou yet abide fast in thine obstinacy, whereas I have still accounted thee mighty discreet, I shall hold thee a blockhead. What can be a greater glory for thee than that such a lady, so fair and so noble, should love thee over all else? Besides, how greatly shouldst thou acknowledge thyself beholden unto Fortune, seeing that she proffereth thee a thing of such worth and so conformable to the desires of thy youth and to boot, such a resource for thy necessities! Which of thy peers knowest thou who fareth better by way of delight than thou mayst fare, an thou be wise? What other couldst thou find who may fare so well in the matter of arms and horses and apparel and monies as thou mayst do, so thou wilt but vouchsafe thy love to this lady? Open, then, thy mind to my words and return to thy senses; bethink thee that once, and no oftener, it is wont to betide that fortune cometh unto a man with smiling face and open arms, who an he know not then to welcome, if after he find himself poor and beggarly, he hath himself and not her to blame. Besides, there is no call to use that loyalty between servants and masters that behoveth between friends and kinsfolk; nay, servants should use their masters, in so far as they may, like as themselves are used of them. Thinkest thou, an thou hadst a fair wife or mother or daughter or sister, who pleased Nicostratus, that he would go questing after this loyalty that thou wouldst fain observe towards him in respect of this lady? Thou are a fool, if thou think thus; for thou mayst hold it for certain that, if blandishments and prayers sufficed him not, he would not scruple to use force in the matter, whatsoever thou mightest deem thereof. Let us, then, entreat them and their affairs even as they entreat us and ours. Profit by the favour of fortune and drive her not away, but welcome her with open arms and meet her halfway, for assuredly, and thou do it not, thou wilt yet (leave alone the death that will without fail ensue thereof to thy lady) repent thee thereof so many a time thou wilt be fain to die therefor.'

• From The Ice Storm (1994)

  Bazooka, which was like a gold standard at Saxe Junior High and at New Canaan High School, was thus available to Mike and Sandy in gross quantities for use at school. With it, Mike was able to produce an impeccable collection of the 1973 New York Mets baseball cards (which didn’t help them win the World Series). With Bazooka Joe he had also procured fake vomit, a T-shirt that said Enjoy Cocaine in the same letters as the Enjoy Coca-Cola commercial, many types and varieties of firecrackers, such as M-80s and lady-fingers and bottle rockets, and a red Flexible Flyer sled. Sandy had turned his gum into currency, for a price slightly above retail, and filled a gigantic change bank with the money. He just liked to count the stuff. How Mike bested Sandy in the battle for Wendy’s body, a prize she was pretty willing to give up anyway, isn’t much of a story. Sandy wouldn’t look at her after the bathroom incident, and there was no one else suitable within a mile or so with whom to lock arms and make flimsy vows. She missed Sandy, but she was always missing something, and that little naked spot wasn’t going to be filled by him or by anyone else on Valley Road. It was through the chewing gum, ultimately, that Mike had lured her, alone, into the basement with him. She had walked among those boxes as carefully as if this were some vast arms shipment. The sheer amount of gum dumbfounded her! What kid in their age and class would not kill for a twenty-four-count box of Bazooka rolls? Who cared about the endless fillings, about the horror of dentistry? Today a kid is here, tomorrow she is grown! Gum! Give us gum! We are hungry for gum! And Mike was prepared to honor her wishes. He popped a piece in his mouth right then. She could smell it. She could taste the taste—amusement park and industrial cleaning agent. Together—shoulders brushed up against one another like they were already pledged to troth—they read the comic, laughing at how Sandy was like the guy, Mort, who always wore a turtleneck up over his mouth. —Seriously, Mike said. Do you want gum? —Of course, you jerk, she said. Why else would I be here? —Nasty mouth, he said. Well, there’s gonna be a little, you know, opportunity cost here. It’s a cost-of-doing-business-type thing. —Huh? —You know, Charles. Pussy. The word fell from his mouth like the name for a particularly dull frozen vegetable. Twat, pussy, cunt, muff, slit, pudenda. There were no good words for the anatomy of girls. Why were the words for beautiful things—orchids, gables, auroras—so beautiful? Would her pussy, if it were named after one of these, still sound so homely? —You want to get into my pants, Mikey?

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  It was my grandmother who gave me this letter; she lived twenty years after my mother’s death.” “Merges’s recipe for lifting the curse—redress the wrong—did you ever find out what that meant? ” “My grandmother and mother puzzled about it for years but never solved the mystery. My grandmother consulted another doctor, Dr. Brill, a famous New York psychiatrist, but he regarded her as out of touch with reality. Hysterical psychosis was his diagnosis, and he advised her to take the Weir rest cure—one to two years of total rest in a sanitarium. Given my grandmother’s finances and the nature of Merges’s curse, it is obvious that it was Dr. Brill who was out of touch with reality.” As Artemis began to put away the dishes, Ernest stopped her. “We can do that later.” “Perhaps, Ernest,” Artemis said, her voice tight and strained, “now that dinner is over, you might like to come upstairs.” After a pause, she added, “You know now that I cannot keep myself from asking this.” “Excuse me,” Ernest said, rising and heading for the front door. “Good-bye, then,” Artemis called after him. “I know. I understand completely. No excuses necessary. And no guilt, please.” “What do you know, Artemis?” asked Ernest, looking back from the open door. “Where am I going?” “You’re going far away as fast as you can. And who can blame you? I know why you go. And I understand, Ernest.” “You see, Artemis, as I told you before, you don’t know as much as you think you do. I’m going just twenty feet to my car, from which I intend to fetch my overnight bag.” When he returned, she was upstairs bathing. He cleared the dinner table, packed up the remaining food, and then, bag in hand, ascended the stairs. The next hour in the bedroom proved one thing: it wasn’t the chanterelle stew. All was as before. The warm, lush lust, the cat-licking, the sensuous tongue, the Fourth of July fireworks slowly building up to their pyrotechnic climax, the incandescent roman candles, the roar of the howitzer. For a few moments Ernest was visited by extraordinary flashbacks: all the past orgasms of his life swooooshing through him, years of jerking spasms into palms and towels and sinks and then watching a procession of the large- breasted lovers, lovely vessels of consolation, into whom he had drained the cares of his life. Gratitude! Gratitude! And then blackness as he fell into the sleep of the dead. Ernest was awakened by Merges’s howling. Again he felt the room shake; again the scratching and scraping at the wall of the house. Fear flickered, but he got quickly out of bed and—shaking his head vigorously and inhaling deeply—calmly opened the window wide, leaned out, and called, “This way, this way, Merges. Save your claws.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  The younger Garsia bought two chocolate bars at once and tore one wrapping open: all heads were bent over the card, a bird. That one belonged to a set already completed by all true collectors! He tore the second wrapping: a machine tool, which was better, but still failed to satisfy him. “I already have it. Who wants to swap it?” I would willingly have accepted it, but I had no card to give in exchange. Garsia put the pictures carefully away in his wallet, then offered the chocolate bars to Birdie: “Will you buy them back from me?” Birdie counted out two pennies twice and took the bars back without their red wrappings. The sons of rich parents, with Birdie’s help, had surely worked out that deal among themselves. Too well fed to eat all the chocolate bars that they bought, they sold them back to Birdie for two pennies, and he then sold them to us for three. That way, everyone was satisfied. I could now afford a chocolate bar every other day, if I wanted, as I needed to spend only one of my pennies on the intervening day and could save the second for the morrow. It was difficult to breakfast off bread and a single penny, but I had found a compromise: I bought a chocolate-flavored candy that I placed between my cheek and my lower jaw. I bit into my bread without touching the candy, which then melted slowly, giving me the impression that I was eating my bread with chocolate. I repeated this experiment several times and, for the days of celebration when I could afford a Nestlé bar, I also had a technique of my own for consuming my treat just as I had a plan for purchasing it. First, I economized carefully, eating my bread in large mouthfuls with as little chocolate as possible. Once I had swallowed my bread and assuaged my hunger, I then hesitated a while before suddenly gulping down all the chocolate that was left, I mean more than half the bar. All my mouth would then participate in this orgasm, with chocolate all over my gums, the lining of my cheeks, and my palate. This lasted thirty seconds, but thirty seconds of total bliss, almost making me feel nausea. But today, I had not yet had any morning breakfast, so that there could be no question of saving. The sandwich that Chaoul, the janitor, prepared for me would scarcely be enough. Saul felt reassured and went ahead, buying his daily ration of Nestlé. Unlike Garsia, he bought his bars one by one and tore the wrappings slowly, like one of those gamblers who uncover their cards one at a time, a millimeter at a time. He kept all of us on tenterhooks, crowding round him in silence. But he too had no luck.

• From White Oleander (1999)

  I imagined taking off my clothes and having a man like Uncle Ray look at me the way he looked at her. God, it was so hot. I opened the zipper of the sleeping bag, lay on top of the hot flannel. And she didn’t even hide it, she wasn’t that Christian. Always the shortest of shorts, the tightest of tops. You could see where her jeans crept up inside her labia. I wanted someone to want me that way, touch me the way Uncle Ray did her, like Barry and my mother. I wished Carolee were there. She would make funny comments about the headboard or joke about Uncle Ray having a heart attack—he was almost fifty, for Christ’s sake, lucky if he didn’t die with his boots on. He met Starr at the club when she was still waitressing, and what kind of sleazy guys went to places like that anyway. But Carolee was never home at night anymore. She climbed out the window as soon as Starr said good night and went to meet her friends in the wash. She never invited me to come with her. It hurt my feelings, but I didn’t like her friends much—girls with mean laughter and boys with shaved heads, awkward and boasting. I stroked my hands under my nightgown and felt the different skins against my fingertips—the hair on my legs, the smoothness between my thighs, and the slippery, fragrant skin of my private parts. I felt the folds, the peak, and thought of rough hands with missing fingers tracing all the secret places. On the other side of the pressboard wall, the headboard banged. MY MOTHER sent me a reading list that summer with four hundred books on it, Colette and Chinua Achebe and Mishima, Dostoyevsky and Anaïs Nin, D. H. Lawrence and Henry Miller. I imagined her lying in bed reciting their names like a rosary, running her tongue over them, round as beads. Sometimes Starr took us to the library. She waited in the car and gave us ten minutes to get our books or she’d leave without us. “I’ve got the only book I need, missy,” she said. Davey and I grabbed our books like Supermarket Sweep while Peter and Owen wistfully hovered near the library grandpa who read stories to kids. It had been better when Ray was home—he would drop us off, go have a few beers, and pick us up an hour or two later. Then the little boys would listen to the grandpa’s stories as long as he held out. But now Ray had a job doing finish carpentry in a new subdevelopment. I was used to him being home all day and missed him. He hadn’t had steady work since he’d quit his job as the shop teacher at the high school over in Sunland. He’d gotten into a fight with the principal when he wouldn’t stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance at assembly.

• From White Oleander (1999)

  I put my hands around his waist, pressed my face into the scratchy wool between his shoulder blades, something I’d wanted to do since he held me that first Sunday when I’d ditched church and stayed behind in the trailer. I closed my eyes and breathed in his scent, dope and sweat and new wood. He didn’t move, just gave a shuddering sigh. “You’re a kid,” he said. “I’m a fish swimming by, Ray,” I whispered into his neck. “Catch me if you want me.” For a moment he stood still as a suspect, his hands open on the window frame. Then he caught my hands, turned them over and kissed the palms, pressed them to his face. And I was the one who was trembling, it was me and my marguerite. He turned and held me. It was precisely how I had wanted to be held, all my life—by strong arms and a broad, wool-shirted chest smelling of tobacco and pot. I threw my head back and it was my first kiss, I opened my mouth for him to taste me, my lips, my tongue. I couldn’t stop shaking unless he held me very tight. He pushed me away then, gently. “Look, maybe we should go back. It isn’t right.” I didn’t care what was right anymore. I had a condom from Carolee’s drawer in my pocket, and the man I’d always wanted for once in a place we could be alone. I took off my plaid shirt, tossed it onto the floor. I took off my T-shirt. I took off my bra and let him see me, small and very pale, not Starr, but me, all I had. I untied my hiking boots, kicked them off. I unbuttoned my jeans and let them fall. Ray looked sad right then, like someone was dying, his back pressed against the smudged window. “I never wanted this to happen,” he said. “You’re a liar, Ray,” I said. Then he was kneeling in front of me, his arms around my hips, kissing my belly, my thighs, his hands on my bare bottom, fingers in the silky wetness between my legs, tasting me there. My smell on his mouth as I knelt down with him, ran my hands over his body, opened his clothes, felt for him, hard, larger than I’d thought it would be. And I thought, there was no God, there was only what you wanted. 8 [image "image" file=Image00003.jpg] ALL DAY AT SCHOOL , and in the Ray-less afternoons down the wash, or at dinner with Starr and the kids, or when we watched TV at night, Ray was my only thought, my singular obsession. How soft his skin was, softer than you’d think a man’s skin could be, and the thickness of his arms, the sinews tracing along his forearms like tree roots, and the sad way he looked at me when my clothes were gone.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I allowed her to check my progress and swallowed my pride. I learned, for instance, with some displeasure that I shaved badly and not often enough and that people made remarks, behind my back, about how carelessly I dressed, about my noticeably North-African accent when I spoke French, and about the violence of my language. So Mina assumed the task of educating me. She was quite pitiless about it and pointed out to me each time there was a trace of tattletale gray about my collar, or a button missing from my jacket, or any stain that should be removed, or a tear that needed mending. At any other moment, I would have answered that my appearance didn’t matter to me, which wasn’t really true, and I would have demanded the right to be free in my violent criticism of the histrionics and the bowing and curtseying that characterized most of my friends. But Ginou was worth all this discipline to me. She was a middle-class girl, Mina would remind me, each time I feebly protested. I grumbled, but I still accepted the idea that Ginou was a kind of lofty mountain peak that I had to conquer. Never, in all my life, have I been as humble, with a humility that lacked all bitterness. The unbelievable luck of being Ginou’s official boy friend cost me untold sacrifices. I had to explain to my mother how to starch a shirt collar, though she was never able to learn the trick. I tried to learn how to be more gallant, but I was never spontaneous enough to be the first boy to think of what should be said or done. The other boys always quickly showed me what I might have done only after considerable forethought. If a flower-vendor passed us in the street, all the girls would be wearing, in a twinkling, corsages or necklaces of blue jasmine, and they were always served ice cream or peanuts or cookies before I had even delved into my pocket for the necessary cash. Of course, it wasn’t easy for me to pay; instead of making one seem more noble, poverty actually makes one petty. In many respects, I was a rather stingy beau: I asked nobody for anything, but I also hated to give.

• From White Oleander (1999)

  It sometimes happened when she was pasting up just right, she forgot where she was, why she was there, where she’d been and would rather be, forgot about everything but the gift of cutting a perfectly straight freehand line, a pleasure as pure as when she’d just written a beautiful phrase. But then I saw what she didn’t see, the goat man enter the production room. I didn’t want to be the one to ruin her moment of grace, so I kept making my Chinese tree out of benday dots and wrong-sized photo stills from Salaam Bombay! When I glanced up, he caught my eye and put his finger to his lips, crept up behind her and tapped her shoulder. Her knife went slicing through the type. She whirled around and I thought she was going to cut him, but he showed her something that stopped her, a small envelope he put on her table. “For you and your daughter,” he said. She opened it, removed two tickets, blue-and-white. Her silence as she examined them astonished me. She stared at them, then him, jabbing the sharp end of her X-acto into the rubbery surface of the desk, a dart that stuck there for a moment before she pulled it out. “Just the concert,” she said. “No dinner, no dancing.” “Agreed,” he said, but I could see he really didn’t believe her. He didn’t know her yet. It was a gamelan concert at the art museum. Now I knew why she accepted. I only wondered how he knew exactly the right thing to propose, the one thing she would never turn down. Had he hidden in the oleanders outside our apartment? Interviewed her friends? Bribed somebody? THE NIGHT crackled as my mother and I waited for him in the forecourt of the museum. Everything had turned to static electricity in the heat. I combed my hair to watch the sparks fly from the ends. Forced to wait, my mother made small, jerky movements with her arms, her hands. “Late. How despicable. I should have known. He’s probably off rutting in some field with the other goats. Remind me never to make plans with quadrupeds.” She still had on her work clothes, though she’d had time to change. It was a sign, to indicate to him that it wasn’t a real date, that it meant nothing. All around us, women in bright summer silks and a shifting bouquet of expensive perfumes eyed her critically. Men admired her, smiled, stared. She stared back, blue eyes burning, until they grew awkward and turned away. “Men,” she said. “No matter how unappealing, each of them imagines he is somehow worthy.” I saw Barry across the plaza, his bulk jolting on his short legs. He grinned, flashing the gap between his teeth. “Sorry, but traffic was murder.” My mother turned away from the apology. Only peons made excuses for themselves, she taught me. Never apologize, never explain.