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.

Page 38 of 344 · 20 per page

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  She rose on one elbow and held the cock like the handle of a trowel and pulled slowly on it. She felt it thicken and was filled with longings in various directions. “What’s your name?” the nice-looking young man asked, gasping slightly. Marcela decided to make a name up. “My name is Lucky Eyes,” she said. She pointed his cock up and then kissed its tip and filled her mouth once with it. “Oh, please don’t do that cause I’ll shoot for sure in two seconds. I’m real full of come cause your tits make me hot.” Marcela lay down and breathed. “Where are we going?” “Into the massage room.” “Oh. Who will be massaging me?” “Lanasha, the head masseuse, while Bono and I watch in the other room.” He pointed to a one-way mirror. “Then we’re supposed to take you to the groanrooms.” “Oh.” In the massage room there were Japanese screens and a pile of folded cloths, and bowls of water and liquids. “Is it okay to leave my bra on?” said Marcela. “Lanasha will take care of everything,” said the boy. Then he shyly squeezed her and said, “Thank you for holding me. It felt really good. I’m Ross.” Some trance music came on, and Marcela lay on her stomach feeling very peaceful, still in her bra, with a towel covering her butt and throbbing cuntspot. Soon she heard the sound of a sliding paper door. Lanasha, a large Filipina woman in a red dress, came in and sat in a chair next to her table. “I am here to give you a teaching massage,” Lanasha said. “What would you most like to learn?” “Everything, I think,” said Marcela. “I’ve not been to a sex resort before. Last week I let a man hold my breasts, but besides that I’ve been pretty darned nonsexual lately. It’s been almost a year. I’ve started to worry about it, actually.” Lanasha unhooked Marcela’s bra and tickled her back with the loose ends of it. Then she began making odd paddling motions over her shoulder blades and down the small of her back. Once, she lifted the towel. “You have a very lovely bottom—all men will like it,” the masseuse said. “Thank you.” Lanasha squirted oil on Marcela’s bottom. “Do you know what the Gumuz boys sing in the Sudan?” she said. “No, what?” “They sing, ‘My girl’s got big boobies and a big soft ass; she is the shapeliest woman in the world.’ ” “Catchy song,” said Marcela. “Can I ask you something?” “Sure.” “Do you enjoy having a man behind you? Because I miss seeing his face make those nice twisty expressions that I see men make in dirty movies.” Lanasha smiled. “What you do is you send your whole self back to your bottom.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  He wanted me to have my hair cut very short like a boy. He liked to do me in the anus.” “Did you enjoy that?” asked Wade. “Yes, because of a time I ate a pinecone seed.” “Really? It was eating a pinecone seed that made you like anal sex?” “Yes, it was,” said Koizumi. “When I was thirteen, I wanted a boyfriend. We lived in a small town in northern Saskatchewan. The only friends I had were two sisters, Natasha and Brigid. I told Natasha that I wanted to see a boy without any clothes on, and she said she did, too. So we went to her sister, Brigid, who was older, and we said, ‘Brigid, we would like to see a boy without any clothes on.’ She said, ‘You mean a picture of a boy?’ And we said, ‘No, not a picture, a real boy.’ And she said, ‘Then follow me.’ So we followed her out to the hill behind their house, where there was a tree that had lots of large pinecones on it. Brigid said, ‘Choose a nice pinecone and pull a seed off it and put it in your mouth and chew on it a little and swallow it.’ We asked her what would happen and she said, ‘A special pinecone will grow inside of you. You’ll feel like you’re constipated. In a few hours, you will need to take the biggest poop of your life, and it will hurt a lot when it comes out, but not unbearably.’ And we said, ‘Okay, but how will this help us see a boy naked?’ ” “That would have been my question, too,” said Wade. “Brigid said, ‘The pinecone is called a boycone, and the best place to allow it out is in the creek.’ She said, ‘When it comes out, wash the cone in the creek and it’ll crack open and a miniature boy will hop out, and if you rub him he will grow rapidly until he is a full-sized boy, and you can talk to him and look at him naked.’ We said, ‘Can we eat the pinecone seed right now to get started?’ And Brigid said, ‘Go ahead.’ And then she went inside to bake a pie. My friend Natasha got scared and said she didn’t want to do it. But I said I would. I chose a nice big pinecone from the tree, and I pulled a seed from it and chewed it up, and nothing happened. We sat on the hill and looked at the telephone pole against the sky and talked about how much we liked boys.” “Nothing happened?” said Wade. “Natasha kept asking me if I felt anything, and I said no.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  I thought about you yesterday. I did rude things to an orange.” She gently put his knee down and washed his stomach. She washed his legs. She didn’t touch his cock, although it was the most beautiful cock she’d ever seen. It lay there. “This is pleasant,” he said. “I’m lying here while a woman scrubs me.” She scrubbed his calves and thighs. “Uh, would you mind also washing my private places?” he said. “Oh, I’d like to, but I’m afraid I can’t,” said Shandee. He looked at her with eyebrows raised. “If I start washing your private places,” Shandee explained, “I’ll get carried away and want to jerk you and watch you come, and you heard what Lila said—we’re not allowed to.” He made a whimpering sound. “Just look at my cock. Look at how bad it needs you. Is it really true that you don’t mind that it curves?” “Believe me, I don’t mind,” Shandee said. “Your cock is a revelation. Some have a hammer, and some have a sickle.” With this she pressed the spray pedal and drenched Ruzty’s body with warm soapy water. The cock still stood, hunched over, proud and pale and purple tipped. She sponged his forehead gently. “You poor thing,” she said. She hit the spray pedal again and drenched his balls with warm unsoapy water, watching them metamorphose. His mouth was open so she kissed it, and then she looked down at his cock again. She simply couldn’t stop staring at it. “Just hold it for one second, will you, please?” he said. “I’m quite desperate.” “Oh, okay,” she said. She held his cock in her orange sponge mittens. In a flash he grabbed a sprayer and sprayed her shirt. “You!” she said. She looked down. The dark buttons of her nipples were visible through the white fabric. “Watch what your nipples do to me,” he said, and he tightened his cock muscles so that his scythe squirmed and nodded like some strange plant. “Whooo!” said Shandee. “Take off the mittens and hold it, please, please!” “I’m going to get in trouble, but okay.” She pulled off her sponge mittens and held her hands under the soapy water till they were slippery. Then she took hold of Ruzty’s cock, which was as hard as a summer squash. She splayed her fingers and moved them over his balls and then over his stomach. She could see his thigh muscles tighten. His cock was straining, and she had to stroke it. She took it in her hand and felt its thickness and its sense of certainty.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  When she got home that afternoon, she washed the hand carefully in the sink and then took him back to her room and dimmed the lights and put on Appleseed’s “When Are We Going (to Do It).” She said, “I’m ready for you to hold me now, any way you want.” His hand brushed over her lips—she was wearing Terranova again—and she opened her mouth and tasted his fingers, and he circled her tongue and tweaked it, and then as she steadied him he crawled down. She put her feet together and let her knees fall open. His hand found her stash and she looked down and saw his fingers half buried in her folds, and then she felt a warm filling feeling as first one, then two of Dave’s fingers slid inside. She held his arm and helped him angle his fingers in and then pull them out. Then she pulled him up to her clitty and he circled it. “Oh, that’s nice,” she said. Just before she came, he stopped and held his hand up to her mouth. “What is it, baby?” she asked. His fingers made the O and then he pushed the O shape to her mouth. She put her tongue through it, and her mind and neck and body stretched until they were very long and flowed through his fingers, and then his fingers flowed with her. She was pulled in a whoosh of wispiness, and she landed and condensed. Before her was a sign in the grass: “Welcome to the House of Holes.” She looked down at her hands. They were still holding Dave’s arm. [image "decoration" file=image_rsrc2SW.jpg] Ned Gets Sniffed [image "decoration" file=image_rsrc2SX.jpg] Ned tapped the ball on the seventh green, using his new teryllium putter. It made an odd tight circle around the hole and then dropped in. “Did you see that weirdness?” said Ned, looking around for his golfer friends. But they were talking and hadn’t seen it. No matter. Ned leaned to pull out the ball and heard strange sounds coming from the hole. He got down on his stomach to listen better. A woman’s voice said, “Hi, Ned, my name is Tendresse. Come talk to me at the House of Holes.”

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  In one room, a man had entirely removed his pants and underpants. He stood in his dress shoes, naked from the waist down, his feet tightly together, his fist shuttling over his small tuber. In the next one, a guy in jeans was leaning way back, his jeans unzipped and open, his dick-ball ensemble flaccidly out and about. In the third was Dune. He hadn’t yet taken his pants down. Breathing softly so as not to fog the glass, Rhumpa watched Dune remove his suede jacket and hang it on a hook on the back of the door. She watched him study the video of her dancing with her finger in her snatch patch. For a while he didn’t move, and she couldn’t tell what he was thinking; then all of a sudden he wrenched open his belt, unbuttoned his pants, and slid his boxers down. His dick bobbled once and stood still, its tip angling up slightly. He enclosed it with two hands and looked back at Rhumpa’s movie. “He’s gorgeous—what a penis!” said Rhumpa to herself, enraptured. She was desperate to nibble on his pectoral manslabs; desperate to knead his suede-soft balls. She wanted him every-where, in all holes at once—she wanted to show him the real her and not a movie of her. Dune now leaned with his left hand splayed flat against the wall, holding the other hand fisted and motionless in the air about a foot in front of his crotch. He nosed his free-hanging cock into the tightness of his fist and began pumping his hips, driving the unyielding dicklength deep into his hand tunnel. His long hair hung in his face. When, in her video, Rhumpa put one foot on the chair and held her pussylips open, Dune started thrusting hard. Again and again the head of his cock poked out, dark and bull-necked, from his immobile fist, until finally, at the end of one long plunge, he held still for an instant and sent a hot and heavy lasso of manstarch slapping against the video screen. Even through the soundproofing, Rhumpa thought she could hear his primeval cry. He squeezed his Pollock one last time, shaking the orgasmal dregs onto the floor. Breathless, elated at what she’d seen, Rhumpa wandered in a daze of dicklust back to her hotel room. She put on a dress, one dangly earring, sunglasses, and a soft sweater with big buttons, and then slowly she took everything off except the sunglasses. She lay on the bed and stuck two fingers up her simmering chickenshack and shook them. She found a can of Red Bull in the mini-fridge and humped its coldness. She thought about plaid patterns and polka dots.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  Mmmmmm. Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She could feel his hands trying to clench and grasp and pull from her all the knowledge of her palm-smothering abundance. Then he sighed and nodded, indicating that he was done. “How will you remember them?” she asked. “I have ‘absolute shape’—I never forget any shapes I really care about. Come, unvise me. I’ll walk you out to the peckerwood tree.” “Should I put my pants back on?” “Absolutely not. Never put that bottom away!” The light snuck in sideways through the trees as they walked, and Luna felt that it was a sexual sneaking in, as if the trees were long legs that could be seen beneath the skirt of the leafy canopy. Then she saw a different angle of trees, and they seemed strong and male. Her underpants, she discovered, were wet. They stopped. “This is the pearwood penis tree,” said Jason. He took off his leather apron. They listened. “Hear the fluids in it, the sap?” he said. “Hear the mushrooms growing at the base?” She listened. “Yes.” “Good, cause you’re going to hug it while I fuck you.” “I thought I was going to fuck the tree.” “After me. That’s how we wake the sleeping giant.” He grabbed her ass and pulled her panties down, turning her so that she held the tree. He shoved himself deep into her. It felt sudden and tremendous, and she made a surprised sigh: “Ooof!” Then she began to hear different sounds—a cracking and a ticking as several small buds of bark appeared on the tree trunk about three feet off the ground. The bark split open, showing a pale, smooth, fleshy branch, and then the branch, thus exposed, began to straighen, while the nodular wooden balls remained covered with a finely wrinkled bark. Jason was slamming his hips into her. He thumped into her hard, so that she almost lost her grip on the trunk. “Oh, oh, oh, god, Oh, shit! Oh, fuck! Here it comes, baby, ooooooooohhhhhhhhhh! Aaaaaaaaah!” Jerk after jerk of Jason’s artisanal come filled her rejoicing twathole. “Now quick, hop on this new cockbranch.” She grabbed it and held it—it was still warm from its accelerated growing. And then she heard the summer wind begin—a warm wind that made a different kind of rustling in the leaves because the leaves were drier now—and the light that snuck in between the boughs and boles was splaying and scattering, half of it reflected off the water, half direct from the setting sun. “Fuck me deep, tall, strong penis tree,” she said.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  Would you like me to tell you the history of the sherry cobbler?” “Tell it in the minutest detail,” Cardell said. But Jackie had an odd look. “Wait a sec,” she said. She began breathing strangely and put her hand on Cardell’s arm. “I need your help with something. Stand behind me.” Cardell stood behind where she sat on the bar stool. She leaned forward, so that her head was almost on her arms, and pushed her bottom back toward him so that she was almost off the stool. “What’s happening?” Cardell asked. “Put your hand under my dress.” “Here?” “Yeah, just pretend you’re whispering something to me. I’m trying to lay an egg.” The end of the bar where they were was dark and nobody else was sitting nearby, so it was possible to do as she asked. “Now what?” “I’m not sure.” Jackie sat for a moment, leaning forward. Then she straightened and brushed the hair out of her eyes. “Nope, not quite yet.” Cardell sat back down and finished his drink. “Ah, Nelly!” he said. “The great breakthrough,” Jackie was saying, “came in 1842 when Charles Dickens came to the U.S. on his speaking tour. Somebody served him up a big, ice-cold sherry cobbler. It was the first drink made with crushed ice, you know.” “No, I didn’t,” Cardell said. “Oh, yes. And the first drink people drank through a straw.” “Doubly revolutionary,” said Cardell. “Did Charles Dickens like it?” “Loved it, and he had his character Martin Chuzzlewit drink one.” “Ah, old Chuzzlewit,” Cardell said, in a wuffly English accent. “And where do you come down on the question of the size of Dickens’s dick? Big? Little? Doesn’t matter? ” “We just don’t know,” said Jackie, with a look of mild ex-asperation. “It’s one of the great mysteries. Now shush and let me tell you about the sherry cobbler.” “They’re real good,” said Cardell. “Then let’s have two more immediately,” said Jackie. “They’re best drunk as fast as possible.” She ordered with a practiced move of her fingers—this woman knew her way around a bar. “Watch out for the spins, though. There’s a book of Oxford bar recipes that says that sherry cobblers have ‘more than once induced vertigo.’ Published in 1827.” “1827, that early, really?” She pointed at him. “You see, the straw allowed you to drink the mixture in a supercooled state.” “And that’s why Martin Chuzzlewit’s eyes rolled back in his head and he said, ‘Good Lord Nelson O’Reilly, what is this marvel?’ ” “Right, he gets totally smashed,” said Jackie. “I mean squashed. And that, you see, ushered in the so-called golden age of the sherry cobbler.” “Can I say,” murmured Cardell, wobbling his head seductively, “that I loved feeling the hot heat coming from under your dress?” “That’s what it’s there for,” said Jackie. “That’s what what’s there for?” “My li’l pussy.” “Oh, your li’l private space heater.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  The address was way out along the shore. Jessica drove there, and then she saw an exit she’d never seen before, Exit 23-O, that went into a tunnel. When she came out the landscape had changed slightly. Everything had a brighter look. There was a house with several side buildings and wings and a gravel road in front of it in a horseshoe shape. She rang the doorbell. Zilka led her to an office and introduced her to Lila. “I wish my tattoos were gone,” Jessica said. “Why?” Lila asked. “They’re not right for me now. I’m done with them. I hate them.” “There is a way,” said Lila. “But it involves sex.” “It always involves sex,” said Zilka. “I knew it would, somehow,” said Jessica. “I suppose if that’s what it involves, that’s what it involves.” Lila picked up the phone. “Krock? Where’s Hax? Can you ask him to come to my office?” Hax looked a little like Bobby McFerrin, Jessica thought. He was tall and wore a white shirt. His shoulders weren’t enormously muscular, but wiry and graceful. There was something infinitely appealing about his shoulders. “Show me the tattoos you do not want,” Hax said. “Well, there are four.” “I can remove them.” He stood and held out his hand. “Come.” He took her to a massage room. “Undress.” “All the way?” “No, unless you have a tattoo under where your panties are.” “I do.” “Then take them off. Just common sense. I have to be able to see and touch your tattoos. Let me show you my body.” He pulled up his T-shirt. His coffee-colored chest had a bizarre overlay of blue and green patterns. “All these designs were tattooed onto women at one time. I lifted them, and now they’re on me. Such a sad thing that women tattoo themselves. It is a way of hiding.” “You think?” said Jessica. “In my case I did the one on my back, and then I liked it, and it was like building a collection of something.” “Yes. But it is collecting something that hides you. It is a way of not being naked while being naked. My job is to return you to your nakedness. Turn over and let me please see your pussy for a moment, if I may?” She turned. “Why do you have no hair on your pussy?” “I don’t know,” she said. “I just don’t. It’s the fashion.” “That, too, is a way of hiding. No hair means you are dressed in hairlessness. You are finding a way to be clothed when you aren’t clothed. Hair is your true nakedness. Do you want your true nakedness back?” Jessica nodded. “Can you do that?” He held out his hands. “These hands can do it. If we are lucky. You must make me feel your nakedness. If I feel it then your hair will grow and your tattoos will lift and come onto me. Try.”

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  Ross slapped hands with Bono. Marcela felt Lanasha’s strong practiced hands pulling her asscheeks open, and then she felt a middle finger twiddle purposefully in her ass. And then, finally, Bono’s length of badness stuffed her gasping twat full of warm, brown dick muscle. Bono had more control. He said little, but he developed an oval rhythm, angling and slamming his smooth musclemeat in and out. He slammed fourteen strokes, and then he said, “It’s gonna pop soon!” “Wait, stop, not quite yet,” she said, freezing. “I want to frig myself off while you’re still hard in me.” “Okay, but if you move the tiniest bit I’ll come for sure.” Marcela held three fingers together and circled and swizzled over her clit hood, while Lanasha’s finger darted and dithered in her ass. As she began to come, her cunt muscles tried to close around Bono’s motionless blood-pulsing truncheon. “Now!” she said. Bono pulled out almost to the helmet and slide-slammed back into her slippery salope, then out, then back in, and once more, and then five hard short strokes. “UHLLLLLLLL!” he said, followed by lots of snuffling. She felt a cold spray of sweat droplets on her back, and, inside, she again felt the long warm twitch of liberated jizm. “Oh, that’s it, fill me up with all that goodness.” She lay panting on the massage table. Lanasha rubbed the backs of her legs with a cool washcloth. [image "decoration" file=image_rsrc2SW.jpg] Shandee Wears the Sponge Gloves [image "decoration" file=image_rsrc2SX.jpg] Shandee left Dave’s arm to sleep late in the hotel room. She met Zilka for melon and a croissant at the terrace restaurant overlooking the Garden of the Wholesome Delightful Fuckers. Zilka was wearing a striped shirt with the collar up. Her hair was amazing. Shandee wanted to know more about how she had lost her clit, but she didn’t want to ask her about it right away, so instead she asked how Zilka spent her days. Zilka said she helped Lila, and after work she went out to the Trou or hung out at the Darkrooms. “The Darkrooms are good because you can just talk to a guy,” Zilka said. “Before I lost my clit I would have been dancing or sleeping with somebody—not now.” “So—how did it happen?” Shandee asked. “When I was a stripper, I headlined at the Wiggle Room in San Antonio for almost a year, and I flew all over the Midwest. I was going through security, and this awful woman with bad hair stole my clit from me.” “That’s terrible,” said Shandee. “Yeah, it kind of is.” Zilka was sad and silent for a moment, and then she pointed. “You see that cable over there? That’s a ride called Fuck the Lake. Over there’s the midway, where you can do Spank the Pretty Ass, or Hold the Young Hung Hard-on. The Masturboats are over on the river. They’re moored right now.” “Zilka, can you tell me how it happened?” said Shandee.

• From The City of God

  [498] This is one of the passages cited by Sir William Hamilton, along with the Cogito, ergo sum of Descartes, in confirmation of his proof, that in so far as we are conscious of certain modes of existence, in so far we possess an absolute certainty that we exist. See note A in Hamilton's Reid, p. 744. Chapter 27. --Of Existence, and Knowledge of It, and the Love of Both. And truly the very fact of existing is by some natural spell so pleasant, that even the wretched are, for no other reason, unwilling to perish; and, when they feel that they are wretched, wish not that they themselves be annihilated, but that their misery be so. Take even those who, both in their own esteem, and in point of fact, are utterly wretched, and who are reckoned so, not only by wise men on account of their folly, but by those who count themselves blessed, and who think them wretched because they are poor and destitute,--if any one should give these men an immortality, in which their misery should be deathless, and should offer the alternative, that if they shrank from existing eternally in the same misery they might be annihilated, and exist nowhere at all, nor in any condition, on the instant they would joyfully, nay exultantly, make election to exist always, even in such a condition, rather than not exist at all. The well-known feeling of such men witnesses to this. For when we see that they fear to die, and will rather live in such misfortune than end it by death, is it not obvious enough how nature shrinks from annihilation? And, accordingly, when they know that they must die, they seek, as a great boon, that this mercy be shown them, that they may a little longer live in the same misery, and delay to end it by death. And so they indubitably prove with what glad alacrity they would accept immortality, even though it secured to them endless destruction. What! do not even all irrational animals, to whom such calculations are unknown, from the huge dragons down to the least worms, all testify that they wish to exist, and therefore shun death by every movement in their power? Nay, the very plants and shrubs, which have no such life as enables them to shun destruction by movements we can see, do not they all seek in their own fashion to conserve their existence, by rooting themselves more and more deeply in the earth, that so they may draw nourishment, and throw out healthy branches towards the sky? In fine, even the lifeless bodies, which want not only sensation but seminal life, yet either seek the upper air or sink deep, or are balanced in an intermediate position, so that they may protect their existence in that situation where they can exist in most accordance with their nature.

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  For Augustine, the scriptures offered exactly the most vivid image of this triple temptation: the temptation of Jesus by the devil in the fourth chapter of Matthew’s gospel.116 The devil comes upon Jesus in the desert and finds him fasting and hungry. He says, take these stones and make them bread and eat: that’s for the hankerings of the flesh, Augustine will say. When Jesus resists, the devil suggests he go up on a rock and throw himself down and see if the angels will catch him: hankering of the eyes, curiosity, desire to see if hidden powers can be controlled by special knowledge, says Augustine. So then, still trying, the devil takes Jesus up on a mountaintop and shows him the kingdoms of the earth laid out at his feet and offers them to Jesus in return for devil worship: worldly ambition, to be sure, and disloyalty to the divine father. If the devil took that approach with Jesus, then it was probably the best (or worst) he could do, and he will approach ordinary mortals the same way. So if we take that piece of theory out of the middle of the Confessions and apply it to the beginnings of Augustine’s story, what happens to him? The infant Augustine is indiscriminately malicious and self-centered, but that is only a token of what is to come. By the end of the first book, Augustine is uncharacteristically accentuating the positive, the way in which three-ishnesses suggest that there was much good in the boy. For I existed then, I lived, and I was conscious…. I sinned in this, that I sought pleasure, exaltation, and truth not in god but in his creatures, and so I fell into pain, depression, and error. Thanks to you, my sweetness, my honor, my confidence: my god, thanks to you for your gifts.117 Then he discovers sex: book 2 is the book of the temptation of the flesh, and with it the primordial sin, the perplexing theft of fruit in the garden. A good biographer might worry about whether Augustine’s adolescent sex life was much to speak of, and whether he and his friends really did steal those pears, but he would miss the point of the narrative. Augustine’s strategy needs him to cave in to the hankerings of the flesh here, to lose the divine spirit and start down a bad slope. So the story tells us in the abstract that he was awash in sexual temptation, refracts this through the attitudes of his parents (paternal pride, maternal anxiety), and then settles on the story of the pear theft as an image of primordial sin with sexual overtones—quite in the same spirit as Augustine’s interpretation of the story of Adam and Eve. The third book takes Augustine to Carthage. To Carthage I came and there crackled around me on all sides the sizzling frying pan of sinful loves. I was not yet in love but I was in love with love….118

• From Augustine: A New Biography (2005)

  In that mob, there would be a few Christian philosophers, just as there had been a very few philosophers in the olden days. Those philosophers would be every bit as wise, sedate, elegant, and refined as the classical ones had been. Anything the old-timers could do—this was Ambrose’s position—the Christians could do better. He made this explicit in books like his Duties of Ministers (De officiis ministrorum), in which he rewrote Cicero’s own De officiis in a Christian key. In a lost treatise with the striking title, On Philosophy, That Is to Say, on Baptism (De philosophia sive de sacramento regenerationis), Ambrose made the claim that the path to true philosophy led through the purgative and healing waters of baptism. The few quotations we have from this treatise come from Augustine’s later writings, and one that he uses repeatedly emphasizes the role of sexual continence: “Continence is the pedestal of piety, for it gives people slipping and sliding in the pitfalls of this world a firm place to stand.”136 Without this encouragement, it would have been easy for Augustine to accept a good society marriage and pursue his philosophical life with the support of his wife’s financial resources. We know he was heading in that direction for a time at least.137 Augustine with a pious and continent wife, like his contemporary and friend-by-letters Paulinus of Nola—there’s an alternative that’s hard to imagine! In saying all this, Ambrose was playing his own part in what we will discuss later, the contest that raged in the Latin west from the 380s to the 420s over the nature and focus of Christian asceticism. He had inherited the idea that there would be Christian ascetics, and in this rather eccentric view of the Christian as true philosopher he found his own particular rationalization.138 So to follow his newfound, if aloof and distant, father, Augustine would become a philosopher in the new style. To do that, he needed to make up his mind about sex. It was not as if the issue had not been on the brain for a long time. The Manichees had preached continence, and Augustine had probably practiced some form of birth control in order that his relationship with his common-law wife might appear seemly in Manichee circles.139 The challenge was one Augustine was expecting and was ready for, and Ambrose gave him a way and a reason to meet it.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  θυμός, ὁ, the soul or spirit, as the principle of life, feeling and thought, esp. of strong feeling and passion (rightly derived from θύω by Plat. Crat. 419 E, ἀπὸ τῆς θύσεως καὶ ζέσεως τῆς ψυχῆς, cf. θύω): 1. like Lat. anima, spiritus, in purely physical sense, the soul, breath, life, θυμὸν ἀπαυρᾶν, ἀφελέσθαι, ἐξαίνυσθαι, ὀλέσαι, often in Hom.; ἐξείλετο θυμόν Od. 22.388; ἐπεί Ke... ῥεθέων ἐκ θυμὸν ἕληται Il. 22. 68 ; θυμὸς ᾧὥχετ᾽ ἀπὸ μελέων 13.671; τὸν λίπε θυμός 4. 470; λίπε δ᾽ ὀστέα θυμός 12. 386; ἀπὸ δ᾽ ἔπτατο θυμύς 16. 469, Od. το. 163; ὠκὺς δ᾽ ἐκ μελέων θυμὸς πτάτο Il, 23. 880, cf. 13. 671; θυμὸν ἀποπνείειν 4. 524; ὀλίγος δ᾽ ἔτι θυμὸς ἐνῆεν 1. 593; θυμὸν ἀγείρειν to collect oneself (cf. θυμη- γερέων), μόγις δ᾽ ἐσαγείρετο θυμόν 21. 417; ἐς φρένα θυμὸς ἀγέρθη 22. 475; ἄψορρόν οἱ θυμὸς ἐνὶ στήθεσσιν ἀγέρθη 4.1523; joined with ψυχή, θυμοῦ καὶ ψυχῆς κεκαδών 11. 334 :—so also of animals, 3. 204.» 12. 150, etc.:—this sense is rare in Att., Aesch. Ag. 1388, Eur. Bacch. 620. 2. spirit, strength, τείρετο δ᾽ ἀνδρῶν θυμὸς ὑπ᾽ εἰρεσίης Od. το. 78; ἐν δὲ θυμὸς τείρεθ᾽ ὁμοῦ καμάτῳ τε καὶ ἱδρῷ Il. 17. 744. 8. πάτασσε δὲ θυμὸς ἑκάστου each man’s heart beat high, 22.270, ch 7. 216. II. like Lat. animus, the soul, as shewn by the feelings and passions, the heart; and so, 1. of the feeling of desire, wish, etc., in Hom. esp. desire for meat and drink, appetite, mee ὅτε θυμὸς ἀνώγοι Il. 4. 263; ἔπιον θ᾽ ὅσον ἤθελε θυμός 9.1773 οὐδέ τι θυμὸς ἐδεύετο δαιτὸς ἐΐσης 1. 486; πλησάμενος .. θυμὸν ἐδητύος ἠδὲ ποτῆτος Od. 17. 603, cf. 19. 198 :—also, τί με θυμὸς ἐνὲ στήθεσσι κελεύει ; Il. 7. 68 ; ο. inf., βαλέειν δέ E θυμὸς ἀνώγει his heart bade him shoot, 8. 322; βαλέειν δέ € ἵετο θυμός Ib. 301; κέλεται δέ EO. ἀγήνωρ .. ἐλθεῖν, of a lion, 12. 3003 also, ἀνίησιν, ἐποτρύνει 0. τινα, OF 0. ἐπέσσυταί τινι, ἐφορμᾶται Hom. ; ἤθελε θυμῷ he wished in his heart or with all his heart, τό. 255., 21.65; ἵετο θυμῷ Lat. ferebatur animo, 2.589; GAN ἀπὸ θυμοῦ... ἔσεαι -- ἀποθύμιος, τ. 563 :—so after Hom., θυμῷ βουλόμενος wishing with all one’s heart, Hdt. 5. 49; θυμὸς ὁρμαί- νει, ὀτρύνει Pind, O. 3. 45, 68; θυμὸς ἡδονὴν φέρει Soph. ΕἸ. 280 :— θυμός ἐστί μοι, θ. γίγνεταί μοι, c. inf., 1 have a mind to do.., Hat. τ. 1., 8.116, Χεη,, etc.; βῆξαι θυμός a mind to cough, Hipp. Progn. 686

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Putting them together and forbidding them to have sex is “like putting straw and fire together and forbidding them to smoke or burn.” Sex is natural, and “the Pope has as little power to command this [chastity] as he has to forbid eating, drinking, the natural movement of the bowels, or growing fat.” 40 This is a forthright attitude toward sex, and part of his acceptance of physicality, which is also reflected in his scatological and animal humor when discussing the body. The remarkable tolerance of corporeality struck a new note in theological thinking. Significantly, the tract identified the German princes as the only authorities who could undertake reform: not the emperor, not the Pope, not the bishops, not the local towns and municipalities. Given the failure of the Church to reform itself, the princes must function as “emergency bishops,” Luther argued. They were not mere vassals of the emperor, but divinely instituted rulers with their own authority. 41 This would give carte blanche to the princes to organize what would eventually become the new, reformed church, and to set up church governments under their rule right across Germany; it provided the intellectual foundation for what would become a territorial church. In the years that followed, towns and territories would appoint evangelical preachers, and institute the reforms Luther had proposed: establishing schools, abolishing begging, reorganizing poor relief, closing brothels, and dissolving monasteries. As a result, the responsibilities of both secular and religious authorities would be redefined. In the process, Protestant secular rulers would also seize the chance to gain control of some of the vast wealth of the Church. 42 Some of the rhetoric of To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation may echo what Luther might have heard at Mansfeld or at Eisenach as his parents’ generation grumbled about hard times in the mining industry. Some sections—on brothels, finance, and the law—reveal a man who looks over the monastery walls, who wants to intervene and change the secular world. This wider perspective may well have been won through the long journeys by foot he had made through central Germany on his way to Augsburg and Heidelberg, or through the men of influence he had met over the previous few years. It may also have been shaped by his discussions with Spalatin, well abreast of imperial as well as local politics. Luther now began to see it as his duty to take a stand on political matters: Lay society was no longer the world “outside,” which those who entered the monastery left behind once and for all.

• From Vision Quest (1979)

  She fingered the salesmen looking at us from behind the showroom window. The ambulance attendant taped Dad’s hand and the girl grabbed her shirt from my handlebars. “Pull that Ford in, park the wrecker, and go down to The Shack and wait for me,” Dad said, flipping me the wrecker keys. “Buy her a sandwich,” he said, pointing to Carla. Carla and I walked the six blocks to The Shack. I’d have taken her on the bike if I’d had an extra helmet. But I didn’t, so I had to push it along the curb. First a guy in a Dodge van stopped to give me and the bike a lift; then a guy in a Toyota pickup stopped. By the time I told them I was just walking with a friend who didn’t have a helmet and thanked them for the offer, Carla was two blocks down the street. I pushed the bike at a dead run to catch her. “I’m Louden Swain,” I puffed. “That guy back at the car lot was my dad.” “I know,” she said. “What’s your name?” I asked. God, she was beautiful. She had curly red hair that blew a little in the breeze. Her nose was small and her face was lightly freckled. Her breasts swayed slightly at the speed she walked. “Carla,” she replied. “What happened back there?” I asked. “According to your dad, that guy he punched sold me the car for too much money.” “How much did you pay?” “A hundred and forty dollars.” I could have bought that old Ford for fifty bucks. Lucas sold it to Carla for $140. Dad and I could have dropped another engine in it for that kind of money. She thought she was getting a deal because Lucas filled it with gas. Someone had primered it without sanding, so from a distance the finish looked fuzzy. Carla got off on the idea of a fuzzy car. She also liked all the space created by its lack of a backseat. “Lots of animals could have ridden there,” she said. She made it as far as the freeway ramp. We got to The Shack and Carla went in without waiting for me. I hustled the bike around to the parking lot and was sprinting back to the door when Dad pulled in. I walked over to his car. “That was fast,” I said. “Doesn’t take long to lose your job,” he replied. I didn’t press for details. We spotted Carla in a booth at the very back. Dad said hello to all the waitresses and to six or eight guys in coats and ties seated at the counter and in the booths. They acted a little funny, so I figured maybe they’d already heard what had happened. The Shack’s right on what they call “auto row,” so a lot of car-business guys eat there. I’d been meeting Dad for lunch or dinner at The Shack for as long as I could remember.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  ἔος, loving gain, greedy of gain, Theogn. 199, Pind. I. 2. 9, Ar. Pl. 591, Xen., etc.; φ. καὶ φιλοχρήματος Plat. Rep. 581 A: τὸ φ. -εφιλοκέρδεια, Ib. 586 Ὁ. φϊλοκερδία, v. sub φιλοκέρδεια. φϊλοκέρτομος, ov, fond of jeering, Od. 22. 287, Theocr. 5. 77, Anth. φϊλοκηδεμών, dvos, 6, 7, fond of one’s relatives, Xen. Ages. 11, 13. φιλοκηδής, ἔς, -- κηδεμονικός, Ar. Fr. 700. φϊιλόκηπος, ον, fond of a garden, Diog. ἵν. 9. 112. didoKiWiprorys, οὔ, 6, a lover of the cithara, Plut. 2.633 A: fem. φυ- λοκιθαρίστρια, Manass, Chron. 6046. φιλοκινδυνευτής, οὔ, 6,=sq., Byz. φιλοκίνδῦνος, ον, foud of danger, adventurous, Xen. An. 2. 6, 7, Cyr. 2. 1, 22, Dem. 158. 53; Bios ἐπίπονος καὶ φ. Isocr. 211 C; θυμοειδὴς καὶ φ. Plut. Aristid. 17; πρὸς τὰ θηρία φιλοκινδυνότατος Xen. An. 1. 9, 6:—70 φ. adventurousness, Plut. 2. 966 A, Luc., etc, :—Adv. -νῶς, eagerly, Xen, Symp. 4, 33. 2. also in bad sense, φιλοκινδυνότατος εἶ πάντων ἀνθρώπων Dem. 501. 16, cf. Ael. V. H. 12, 23. φιλοκισσοφόρος, ov, fond of wearing ivy, of Bacchus, Eur. Cycl. 616. φιλοκλαύδιος, ov, friend of Claudius, C. 1. 6844; and on coins, Mionnet. 5. 568, Eckhel 3. 492. φιλόκλαυτος, ov, fond of weeping, δάκινθοι Nonn. Ὁ. 19. 186. φιλοκλέαρχος, 6, friend of Clearchus, Plut. Artox. 13. φιλοκνήμῖς, 6, 7, fond of wearing greaves, fond of arms, Hesych. φιλόκνϊσος, ον, (κνίζω) fond of pinching, prurient, Anth. P. 11. 7. φίλόκνϊσος, ον, delighting in the savour of banquets, Nonn. D. 19. 177. φιλόκοινος, ov, fond of society, Anth. Ρ. 9. 546. IL. τὸ φ. love of the common weal, Schol. Soph. O. T. 669. φϊιλοκοιρανίη, ἡ, lust of rule, Or. Sib. 14. 4. φϊλοκοιτία, 7, amorousness, Epiphan. - φιλοκόλαξ, 6, ἡ, fond of flatterers, Arist. Eth. N.8. 8,1, Rhet. 1. 11, 26. φιλόκολπος, ov, loving the bosom (of women), Eccl. φιλοκόμμοδος, 6, friend of Commodus, Hdn. 1. 17. φιλόκομος, ov, fond of one’s hair, Dio Chr. ap. Synes. 64 D, etc. φϊλοκομπέω, to be fond of boasting, Cyrill., Suid. φιλοκομπία, 7, fondness for boasting, Cyrill. φιλόκομπος, ov, fond of boasting, Phot. Bibl. 96. 32, Justin. M. φιλοκονίμων [1], 6, 7, (dvis) fond of rolling in the dust, Epich.25 Aht.; Pors. φοικικείμοναξ. tAdkompos, ov, requiring manure, Theophr. H. P.2.7,1, Geop. 12.9, 2. φιλοκορίνθιος, 6, loving the Corinthians, Themist. 335 Ὁ. φιλοκοσμέω, zo love ornament, Clem. Al. 202, Eus. H.E, 5. 18. love of the world, Eccl. iAokocpia, ἡ, love of ornament or show, Plut. Philop. 9, Clem. Al. 233. φιλόκοσμος, ov, loving ornament, Acl. V.H.12.13 . περὶ τὴν κόμην Plut. 2. 976 F. II. loving the world, Eccl. dbiAdkoupos, ov, loving tonsure, Gloss.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  ἀντίβλεψις, ews, 7, a looking in the face, a look, Xen. Hier. 1, 35, Plut. 2. 681 B. ἀντιβοάω, fut. ἤσομαι, to return a cry, of echo, Bion 1. 38: to call aloud in answer, Joseph. B. J. 3. 5, 4. ἀντιβοηθέω, to help in turn, τινί Thuc. 6. 18., 7. 58, Plat. Rep. 559 E, Xen. ἀντίβοιος, ov, (Bods) worth an ox, Soph. Fr. 353. ἀντιβολέω : impf. ἠντιβύλουν Ar. Eq. 667, Lysias 94. 11, etc.: fut. ἀντιβολήσω Od., Lysias 141. 18: aor. in Hom. ἀντεβόλησα (which is contrary to analogy, since the word is not a compd., but derived from ἀντιβάλλω, Buttm. Lexil. ἀνήνοθεν 13); with double augm. ἠντεβόλησα Ar. Fr. τοι. To meet by chance, esp. in battle, c. dat. pers. or absol., often in Hom. 2. rarely c. dat. rei, to be present at, φόνῳ ἀνδρῶν ἀντεβόλησας Od. 11. 416; τάφῳ ἀνδρῶν ἀντ. 24.87: cf. ἀβολέω. 3. c. gen. rei, to partake of, have one’s share of, μάχης καυστείρης ἀντι- βολῆσαι Il. 4. 342; οὐ μέν τευ ἐπητύος ἀντιβολήσεις Od. 21. 306; σὺ δέ κεν τάφου ἀντιβολήσαις 4. 547; γάμου ἀντ. Hes. Op. 782, cf. Pind. O. 13. 43; even, πυκινοῦ νόου ἀντ. Timon ap. Sext. Emp. P. I. 224. 4. rarely of the thing, fo fall to one’s lot, c. gen. pers., oTv- γερὸς γάμος ἀντιβολήσει... ἐμέθεν Od. 18. 272. 5. c. acc. pers. to meet as a suppliant, entreat, supplicate, often in Com., Ar. Nub. IIo, Pl. 444; c.acc. et inf., Ar. Eq. 667, Ach. 147, Dem. 575.18 :—absol., rep? τῶν ἀντιβολούντων those who supplicate, Ar. Vesp. 559; often in paren- thesis, etm’, ἀντιβολῶ Id. Eq. 109, cf. Pl. 103; (often also ἀντιβολῶ σε Plat. Com. Evp.1, a. 1.3; also in Lys. 94. 11 and 25, Xen. Ath. 1, 18): —Pass., to be supplicated, ἀντιβοληθείς Ar. Vesp. 560. 11. Causal, to cause to meet, τινά τινι Epigr. Gr. 579. ἀντιβολή, 7, a confronting, comparing, collation, ἀντιγράφων Strabo 790: opposition, Hesych. ἀντιβόλησις, ews, ἡ, -- ἀντιβολία, Plat. Apol. 37 A, Symp. 183 A. ἀντιβολία, ἡ, an entreaty, prayer, Eupol. Incert. 16, Thuc. 7. 75. ἀντιβόλιον, τό, -- ἀντίγραφον, Byz.; ἀντίβολον. τό, in Schol. Dem. ἀντιβομβέω, to return α humming sound, Ach. Tat. 3.2, cf.Eust. 1885.19. ἀντιβουλεύομαι, Med. to give contrary advice, Polyaen. I. 30, 3. ἀντιβούλομαι, Dep. fo have a contrary will, dislike, resist, Eccl. dvtiBpudivw, to delay in turn, Schol. Thuc. ἀντιβρίθω [Bpt], zo press down in the opposite scale, Philo 2. 170. ἀντιβροντάω, fut. now, to rival in thundering, τινί Luc. Timon 2; βρονταῖς ἀντ. Dio C. 59. 28. ἀντιβρυχάομαι, Dep. to roar, bellow against, τινί Eust. Opusc. 357. 78. ἀντιγάμέω, to marry in turn, Eust. 1796. 53. ἀντιγέγωνα, pf. in pres. sense, fo return a cry, Anth. P. 9. 177. ἀντιγενεηλογέω, Ion. form, to rival in pedigree, Hdt. 2. 143. ἀντιγεννάω, to generate in rivalry, Lync. ap. Ath. 285 Εἰ; or in return, Philo 1. 89. ἀντιγεραίρω, to honour in turn, App. Civ. 2. 140.

• From A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell-Scott) (1957)

  ἀ-πλήθυντος, ov, not multiplied, Porphyr. Sent. 35. Adv. - τως, Ib. ἄ-πληκτος, ov, unstricken, of a horse needing no whip or spur, Eupol. Πόλ. 2, Plat. Phaedr. 253 D, like ἀκέντητος in Pind. O. 1. 33: metaph., Plut. 2. 721 E:—wunwounded, without receiving a blow, φροῦδοι δ᾽ amr. Eur. Rhes. 814; of a plant, wninjured, Theophr. Η, P. 9. 14, 1. 11. act. not irritating or pungent, in Medic., as Antyll, Matth. 109 :—Adv. —rws, Oribas. 2. 218 Daremb. ἀ-πλημμελής, ἔς, sinless, Cyrill. ἀπλήμων, ον. -- ἄπληστος, Hesych. ἀ-πλήξ, ἢγος, 6, ἡ, -εἄπληκτος I, Arr. Epict. 4. 1, 124; sensu obsc., Luc. Amor. 54. ἀ-πληροφόρητος, ov, without confidence, Eccl. Adv. —tTws, Eccl. ἀ-πληροφορία, ἡ, want of confidence or faith, Byz. ἀπλήρωτος, ov, insatiable, Luc. Merc. Cond. 39; “Αιδης Anth. P. ap- pend. 122; πάντων Plut. 2. 524 B. 2. unfilled, Poll. τ. 121. ἀ-πλησίαστος, ον, --ἄπλατος, Schol. Pind. P. 12. 15. ἀπληστεύομαι, Dep. to be insatiable, τινος in a thing, Hipparch. ap. Stob. 575.8; ἔν τινι LXX3 περί τι Eccl. ἀπληστία, 7, insatiate desire, greediness, whether of food or money, ὑπὸ τῆς ἀπληστίας Pherecr. Incert. 6; εἰς τοσαύτην ἀπλ. ἀφίκοντο Lys. 121. 42; διὰ τὴν ἀπλ. Plat. Gorg. 493 Β. 2. ς. gen. rei, insatiate desire of, πλούτου, χρυσοῦ Id. Rep. 562 B, Legg. 831 D; λέχους Eur. Andr. 218; τῆς εὐχῆς, referring to Midas, Arist. Pol. 1. 9, 11. ἀπλήστ-οινος, ov, insatiate in wine, Timon ap. Ath. 424 B. ἀπληστό-κορος, ov, insatiate, Or. Sib. 14. Be ἄ-πληστος, ov, not to be filled, insatiate, greedy, Theogn. 109, Soph. El. 1336, Arist. H. A. 8. 2, 27, etc.; often confounded with ἄπλαστος (i. e. dAaros), Elmsl. and Herm. Med. 149, Dind. Aesch. Pr. 371. 2. c. gen., ἄπλ. χρημάτων, αἵματος insatiate of money, blood, Hdt. 1. 187, 212, Plat. Legg. 773 E, etc.; κακῶν Aesch. Eum. 976. II. Adv., ἀπλήστως ἔχειν Plat. Gorg. 493 C, al.; ἀπλ. διακεῖσθαι or ἔχειν πρός τι Xen. Cyr. 4. 1, 14, Isocr. 109 Ὁ, 160 A; περί τι Id. Antid. § 311:— Comp. -οτέρως Byz.:—also neut. pl., aiagas ἄπληστα C. 1. 2240; and ἀπληστεί Hdn. Epim. 257. ἄπλητος, ov, Ep. form of ἀπλᾶτος (q. v.), Ruhnk. h. Hom. Cer. 83. ἁπλο-ειδής, és, simple or single, Theol. Arithm. 52. ἁπλόη, ἡ, -- ἁπλότης, Synes. 288 B. ἁπλό-θριξ, ὁ, ἡ, with plain, untrimmed hair, Ptol. ἄπλοια, ἡ, Ion, and poét. ἀπλοΐη, Call. Dian. 230, Anth. P. 7. 640: (ἄπλουϑ) :—impossibility of sailing, detention in port, esp. from stress of weather, Aesch. Ag. 188; ἀπλοίᾳ χρῆσθαι Eur. 1. A. 88; ἡσύχαζεν ὑπὸ ἀπλοίας Thuc. 4. 4, cf. 6. 22: also in pl., ἀποπλέειν... ὡρμημένον αὐτὸν ἴσχον ἄπλοιαι Hdt. 2. 119:—for Aesch. Ag. 150, v. sub ἐχενηΐς. ἁπλοΐζομαι, Dep.: (ἁπλοῦ) :----ἰο behave simply, deal openly or frankly, πρὸς τοὺς φίλους Xen. Mem. 4. 2, 18, cf. Dio C. 65.7. The Act. in same sense, Schol. Od. 6. 187. ἁπλοϊκεύομαι, Dep. =foreg., Eust. Opusc. 118. 18. ἁπλοϊκός, ἡ, dv, like an ἁπλοῦς, simple, natural, plain, Phintys ap. 174

• From Shunned (2018)

  Something fluttered inside my chest and then relaxed. I knew intuitively this person would not judge me or look down upon me. I wanted to believe his openness was caused by something he saw in me, something that put him at ease in the same way. “From what I hear,” Ross said, “your story is quite different from mine.” And then he paused to focus his gaze on me, the way a TV reporter might do as he shifts his microphone and awaits a reply. I noticed the soft skin of his lips and wondered what it would be like to kiss them. “What have you heard?” I was in a coy mood and jumped down off the counter, standing about a foot away from him. “You seem to already know a few things about me, and I wouldn’t want to bore you by repeating anything.” He smiled like someone who had been caught stealing a glimpse of another’s poker hand. “At my insistence, Bill has told me a thing or two about you—all of it good, of course. Ed Torres and I work together, and he’s been talking you up for months now. Ever since you moved in to his congregation, he’s been telling me about this wonderful woman I should meet. He keeps encouraging me to come over and visit your congregation’s Sunday meeting.” A wave of heat radiated through my chest and cheeks as I imagined having unknowingly been the central topic of several conversations. In Witness circles, visiting someone’s congregation was a classic courtship move. “Please go on,” Ross said. “Bill said you were raised in The Truth, just like he was. But I understand your dad isn’t a Witness, which means your mom took the lead teaching you, just like Ellen did with Emily and Paige. Is that right?” His genuine curiosity summoned my story into focus. I told him that my mom’s immediate family were all Witnesses and had raised her with those principles. They lived in the small town of Dundee in the Willamette Valley, decades before it became a denizen of world-renowned pinot noirs. Dad was a dashing football player at Newberg High School. Mom was a cheerleader. They became sweethearts. A better athlete than student, Dad enlisted in the navy when he was barely nineteen. After basic training, he shipped off to Korea. Mom got a job as an operator at the phone company and waited. When he returned, my parents got married and the newlyweds settled near the navy base in San Diego. All three of their children were born there. During those years, Mom took the path of least resistance and became an inactive Witness, though she never forgot The Truth. By all accounts, they had a good life and were happy. One day, when they were just about school age, my brother and sister came home and asked Mom for permission to go to church.

• From Shunned (2018)

  As my job shifted to include more business development, I started making joint sales calls with Geoff Singer, a man from another division of the bank. Our services were complementary, so we agreed to leverage our connections by forming an alliance and calling on prospective banking clients together. There was a kinship between us from the very beginning. Our first challenge was to travel to Los Angeles, where I would introduce him to one of my best clients and convince her to promote his credit card products alongside the consumer loans my group provided. Geoff and I walked out of the meeting with her verbal commitment and celebrated with lunch at my favorite restaurant in Pasadena. “I hope you don’t mind my asking,” Geoff said, “but what formal sales training have you had?” “None.” “None whatsoever?” He squinted and cocked his head. I considered telling him my Witness story but thought better of it. “Well, if you want my advice,” he said, “don’t ever get any. You’re a natural salesperson, very articulate and trustworthy. Formal training would spoil you.” He was eighteen years my senior. His experience and opinions meant something to me. He looked at me with limpid eyes, and I knew I could trust him. I learned he’d been divorced for several years and had two children. He told me fascinating stories about his time in the military, with two-year rotations in Moscow, Paris, and Vienna, working on “secret stuff.” This made me laugh, but he was quite serious. Our sales efforts required regular strategy meetings back in Portland. Gradually, meetings that could be handled by phone were taking place in person, followed by lunch or a quick drink after work. We became a resource for each other, sharing news from the grapevine about the potential reorganization and adding our own interpretations to what we heard. I could feel myself being drawn to Geoff, flirting with him, looking forward to our meetings, paying extra attention to what I wore on those days. He walked into the office with a leonine grace that exuded confidence but fell short of the arrogance and aloofness common among successful executives. One day, an after-work drink turned into a spontaneous dinner. Neither of us had anyone waiting at home, and we weren’t ready for the conversation to end. We had given each other unspoken permission to make even more personal inquiries, and so we started sharing what had failed about our marriages. That was the day it first occurred to me that maybe my marriage had been a success.