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 Canterbury Tales (2009)

  ‘I grant you that. I have no quarrel with virgins. If they want to remain pure, in body and soul, I will not stop them. I can’t criticize and, in any case, I make no great claims for myself. But let me put it this way. Not all the vessels in a house are necessarily made of gold. The wooden ones are good for certain purposes. A man can put his lips to wood as well as gold. Although it may not glitter, it serves its function. God calls men and women to different vocations. All of us have different talents - some can do this, others can do that. I can do that. ‘I know that virginity is a form of perfection. Chastity is close to holiness. Christ Himself is perfection. But He did not tell people to surrender everything for the sake of the poor. He did not order them to give up their worldly goods and follow His footsteps. That was reserved for perfectionists, as I said. But, my lords, I am not one of those. I have a few years left in me yet, and I am going to devote them to the arts of married life. I will couple and thrive. ‘And tell me this. Why does God give us those parts between our legs? Cunts are not made for nothing, are they? They are not unnecessary. Some will say that they have been created so that we can urinate. Others will say that they are just the marks to distinguish female from male. You know that isn’t true. All experience tells us otherwise. I hope that none of you priests and nuns will be angry with me, but I must say this. We have been given our private parts for pleasure as well as necessity. We must procreate as well as pee, within the limits set by God. Why else is there the ruling that a wife must freely render her body to her husband? How is he going to receive it without using his you-know-what? I’ll say it once again. Our parts are there for two purposes, for purging piss and for propagation.

• From Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990)

  In an effort to affirm the psychoanalytic insight into unconscious incestuous fantasy, Lévi-Strauss refers to the “magic of this dream, its power to mould men’s thoughts unbeknown to them … the acts it evokes have never been committed, because culture opposes them at all times and all places.”12 This rather astonishing statement provides insight not only into Lévi-Strauss’s apparent powers of denial (acts of incest “have never been committed”!), but the central difficulty with assuming the efficacy of that prohibition. That the prohibition exists in no way suggests that it works. Rather, its existence appears to suggest that desires, actions, indeed, pervasive social practices of incest are generated precisely in virtue of the eroticization of that taboo. That incestuous desires are phantasmatic in no way implies that they are not also “social facts.” The question is, rather, how do such phantasms become generated and, indeed, instituted as a consequence of their prohibition? Further, how does the social conviction, here symptomatically articulated through Lévi-Strauss, that the prohibition is efficacious disavow and, hence, clear a social space in which incestuous practices are free to reproduce themselves without proscription? For Lévi-Strauss, the taboo against the act of heterosexual incest between son and mother as well as that incestuous fantasy are instated as universal truths of culture. How is incestuous heterosexuality constituted as the ostensibly natural and preartificial matrix for desire, and how is desire established as a heterosexual male prerogative? The naturalization of both heterosexuality and masculine sexual agency are discursive constructions nowhere accounted for but everywhere assumed within this founding structuralist frame. The Lacanian appropriation of Lévi-Strauss focuses on the prohibition against incest and the rule of exogamy in the reproduction of culture, where culture is understood primarily as a set of linguistic structures and significations. For Lacan, the Law which forbids the incestuous union between boy and mother initiates the structures of kinship, a series of highly regulated libidinal displacements that take place through language. Although the structures of language, collectively understood as the Symbolic, maintain an ontological integrity apart from the various speaking agents through whom they work, the Law reasserts and individuates itself within the terms of every infantile entrance into culture. Speech emerges only upon the condition of dissatisfaction, where dissatisfaction is instituted through incestuous prohibition; the original jouissance is lost through the primary repression that founds the subject. In its place emerges the sign which is similarly barred from the signifier and which seeks in what it signifies a recovery of that irrecoverable pleasure. Founded through that prohibition, the subject speaks only to displace desire onto the metonymic substitutions for that irretrievable pleasure. Language is the residue and alternative accomplishment of dissatisfied desire, the variegated cultural production of a sublimation that never really satisfies. That language inevitably fails to signify is the necessary consequence of the prohibition which grounds the possibility of language and marks the vanity of its referential gestures.

• From Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990)

  Within lesbian contexts, the “identification” with masculinity that appears as butch identity is not a simple assimilation of lesbianism back into the terms of heterosexuality. As one lesbian femme explained, she likes her boys to be girls, meaning that “being a girl” contextualizes and resignifies “masculinity” in a butch identity. As a result, that masculinity, if that it can be called, is always brought into relief against a culturally intelligible “female body.” It is precisely this dissonant juxtaposition and the sexual tension that its transgression generates that constitute the object of desire. In other words, the object [and clearly, there is not just one] of lesbian-femme desire is neither some decontextualized female body nor a discrete yet superimposed masculine identity, but the destabilization of both terms as they come into erotic interplay. Similarly, some heterosexual or bisexual women may well prefer that the relation of “figure” to “ground” work in the opposite direction—that is, they may prefer that their girls be boys. In that case, the perception of “feminine” identity would be juxtaposed on the “male body” as ground, but both terms would, through the juxtaposition, lose their internal stability and distinctness from each other. Clearly, this way of thinking about gendered exchanges of desire admits of much greater complexity, for the play of masculine and feminine, as well as the inversion of ground to figure can constitute a highly complex and structured production of desire. Significantly, both the sexed body as “ground” and the butch or femme identity as “figure” can shift, invert, and create erotic havoc of various sorts. Neither can lay claim to “the real,” although either can qualify as an object of belief, depending on the dynamic of the sexual exchange. The idea that butch and femme are in some sense “replicas” or “copies” of heterosexual exchange underestimates the erotic significance of these identities as internally dissonant and complex in their resignification of the hegemonic categories by which they are enabled. Lesbian femmes may recall the heterosexual scene, as it were, but also displace it at the same time. In both butch and femme identities, the very notion of an original or natural identity is put into question; indeed, it is precisely that question as it is embodied in these identities that becomes one source of their erotic significance. Although Wittig does not discuss the meaning of butch/femme identities, her notion of fictive sex suggests a similar dissimulation of a natural or original notion of gendered coherence assumed to exist among sexed bodies, gender identities, and sexualities. Implicit in Wittig’s description of sex as a fictive category is the notion that the various components of “sex” may well disaggregate. In such a break-down of bodily coherence, the category of sex could no longer operate descriptively in any given cultural domain. If the category of “sex” is established through repeated acts, then conversely, the social action of bodies within the cultural field can withdraw the very power of reality that they themselves invested in the category.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  Ovid, my master, you know the truth of human life. You have said that there is no subtlety, no deception, that lovers will not pursue for the sake of their passion. Nothing is too arduous. Nothing is too complicated for them. There was the case of Pyramus and Thisbe who, strictly watched and supervised, managed to hold converse through a wall. No man could have discovered their method. Back to the story. On the morning of 7 June (I am not sure of the year), January, urged by his wife, conceived a great desire for some sportive tricks in the garden. He wanted to play with her. So on that morning he cooed to May, ‘Rise up, my dearest, my lovely baby. The voice of the turtle-dove can be heard in the land, my dove, and the winter storms have gone. Rise up now. Open your dove-like eyes. Come forth with me. Oh, your breasts are sweeter than wine. The garden is walled. No one can see us. Walk out with me, white and fair as you are. You have captured my heart with your spotless beauty and virtue. Come. Let us go to play. I have chosen you for my pleasure.’ These were the lecherous words of the old man. May, meanwhile, had made a sign to Damian that he should go before them through the wicket-gate. So Damian took the counterfeit key, opened the gate, and silently made his way into the garden. No one saw or heard him. Once inside, he sat quietly beneath a bush. January, as blind as a stone, now entered the garden; he was holding May’s hand. As soon as he had closed the gate behind him, with a great clatter, he turned to her. ‘Now, wife,’ he said, ‘only the two of us are here. You are the creature I love best in all the world. As God is my witness I would rather cut my own throat than offend you. Do you remember how I chose you? Not out of greed, dear heart, but out of love for you. I may be old and blind, but I will explain to you the blessings of fidelity. It is a debt you owe to Jesus Christ, and to your own honour. And of course you will inherit everything - palace, money, everything. I will sign a contract to that effect before tomorrow evening. Now in return I will ask you for a little kiss. Your lips will seal the bargain. Don’t blame me for being jealous, by the way. You are so deeply imprinted on my heart that, when I consider your beauty in contrast to my old age, I cannot bear to be out of your company. I must always have you beside me, precious one, for the love I feel for you. Now kiss me, dearest. Let’s go for a stroll.’

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  “Oh yeah …” Von said. “We know them.” Bru just stood there gulping Coke from a can. After an uncomfortable silence, Von asked, “So … where’ve you two been hiding?” “You’re the ones who’ve been hiding,” Caitlin said. “How would you know unless you’ve been looking?” Von asked. Caitlin punched him in the arm, like in the old days. But this time he grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder like a sack of dirty laundry. She was laughing as she whacked his naked back. “Put me down, you idiot!” Max clapped his hands and started singing “Upside Down,” a three-year-old Diana Ross impersonator. Vix could feel Bru watching her as she watched them. “Okay, that’s enough,” Tim said, the expression on his face changing. “It’s time for Max’s lunch.” Von returned Caitlin to the ground. She was glowing. “See you around,” she said to him. “Not if I see you first,” he answered. “Yeah … see you around,” Bru said to Vix. “Not if I see you first,” she answered, playing their game. Oh, she was glad she’d given her sweatshirt to Caitlin. Glad she was wearing just shorts over her yellow suit. Glad she was tan and her long dark hair swung from side to side, that her skin was clear that day, and most of all, that she filled out the top of her suit, that she filled it out really well. They went to see My Brilliant Career , about a young Australian woman who’s determined to have a career as a writer, and the man who loves her. Afterward they had a heated discussion. “She made the right decision,” Caitlin said. “He was an asshole. She’d have been miserable the rest of her life with him.” “Not necessarily,” Vix said. “She could have had him and her career.” “Please!” “Well, maybe not back then. But now …” “Now? You think things are different now?” “Look at Tim and Loren. They both have brilliant careers.” “Oh, sure … but which one is pregnant?” “So … she’ll have the baby and then she’ll go back to work.” “I suppose you want a dozen screaming brats. I suppose your brilliant career is going to be mother.” “I really hate it when you tell me what I want! Just because I like kids doesn’t mean I’m going to have them. For your information I haven’t made that decision yet.” Tim asked if they could baby-sit one night during his last week of vacation so he and Loren could take Kitty out to dinner. Max was already in his pajamas when they got there, ready for bed. Loren looked pretty in a loose white dress, funky earrings, her hair French braided. Tim made a big thing out of admiring her. “Do I have the most beautiful wife in the western world … or what?” he asked, kissing Loren in front of them while Max danced in a circle, hugging their legs. They got back just before eleven.

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  Then I landed a job as a clerk-typist at a huge engineering and construction firm in the city, in the nuclear quality-assurance department, where I labored under a tsunami wave of triplicate forms and memos. It was very upsetting. It was also so boring that it made my eyes feel ringed with dark circles, like Lurch. I finally figured out that most of this paperwork could be tossed without there being any real … well … fallout, and this freed me up to write short stories instead. “Do it every day for a while,” my father kept saying. “Do it as you would do scales on the piano. Do it by prearrangement with yourself. Do it as a debt of honor. And make a commitment to finishing things.” So in addition to writing furtively at the office, I wrote every night for an hour or more, often in coffeehouses with a notepad and my pen, drinking great quantities of wine because this is what writers do; this was what my father and all his friends did. It worked for them, although there was now a new and disturbing trend—they had started committing suicide. This was very painful for my father, of course. But we both kept writing. I eventually moved out to Bolinas, where my father and younger brother had moved the year before when my parents split up. I began to teach tennis and clean houses for a living. Every day for a couple of years I wrote little snippets and vignettes, but mainly I concentrated on my magnum opus, a short story called “Arnold.” A bald, bearded psychiatrist named Arnold is hanging out one day with a slightly depressed young female writer and her slightly depressed younger brother. Arnold gives them all sorts of helpful psychological advice but then, at the end, gives up, gets down on his haunches, and waddles around quacking like a duck to amuse them. This is a theme I have always loved, where a couple of totally hopeless cases run into someone, like a clown or a foreigner, who gives them a little spin for a while and who says in effect, “I’m lost, too! But look—I know how to catch rabbits!” It was a terrible story. I wrote a lot of other things, too. I took notes on the people around me, in my town, in my family, in my memory. I took notes on my own state of mind, my grandiosity, the low self-esteem. I wrote down the funny stuff I overheard. I learned to be like a ship’s rat, veined ears trembling, and I learned to scribble it all down. But mostly I worked on my short story “Arnold.” Every few months I would send it to my father’s agent in New York, Elizabeth McKee. “Well,” she’d write back, “it’s really coming along now.” I did this for several years. I wanted to be published so badly.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  “I think about that a lot …” Vix wriggles away and sees that Bru and Caitlin have arrived. The Bride and Groom. The Happy Couple. Bru is looking directly at her. Damn! He looks good. She’s been hoping he’d turned flabby, that she’ll feel nothing, nothing but relief that she’s not the one marrying him tomorrow. But the old physical reflexes kick in, her knees go weak, her palms grow clammy. The moment of truth, Victoria. Don’t blow it! They make eye contact. He gives her his soulful look, that look that could melt her insides. You’re my girl, Victoria. You’ll always be my girl . She has no idea what he’s really thinking. Maybe it’s more like, Get a look at Victoria! Jeez … has she gained weight or is it just that stupid T-shirt? She grabs a glass of champagne as it’s passed on a tray, holds it up as if to toast him, then gulps it down. He smiles as she ducks out of Von’s reach. There, it’s over … they’ve acknowledged one another and she’s survived . She makes her way across the room to Sharkey. She hasn’t seen him since Lamb’s fiftieth. There’s a woman at his side with a small child clinging to her back like a koala. He introduces her to Vix as Wren, and the child as her daughter, Natasha. Wren has a hair wrap and wears a long Indian print skirt. Is this a romantic relationship? Does Sharkey have a woman in his life? You might as well marry into it, Victoria. What about the brother? She feels like laughing, either that or crying, but she’s her mother’s daughter. She doesn’t wash her linen in public. Sharkey hugs Vix carefully, bending his body so that nothing of importance touches her and vice versa. “Are you okay?” he asks, and she understands that his question has nothing to do with her health. “I’m fine, really …” she tells him, helping herself to a second glass of champagne. “Good. That’s good.” He moved back east after he got his Ph.D. and is a post doc in the artificial intelligence program at M.I.T. “Daniel and Gus are here,” he says, nodding in their direction. Vix follows his gaze and there they are. The Chicago Boys together again. She’s Alice, fallen down the rabbit hole. Her whole history is connected to the guests at this party. Daniel is tall and slim, with thinning hair, impeccably dressed in Polo Sport, and wearing that same bored expression as the day she met him. He practices law now, with his father’s firm in Chicago. Vix knows that Abby has some unspoken wish for the two of them to wind up together. She wonders if Daniel knows it, too. Gus is a big man with a thick neck, broad shoulders, dark hair. Vix hasn’t seen him since the summer she walked out on Caitlin, eight years ago.

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  This is inherently interesting material, since this is the task before all of us: sometimes we have to have one hand on this rock here, one hand on that one, and each big toe seeking out firm if temporary footing, and while we’re scaling that rock face, there’s no time for bubbles, champagne, and a witty aside. You don’t mind that people in this situation are not being charming. You are glad to see them doing something you will need to do down the line, and with dignity. The challenge and the dignity make it interesting enough. Besides, deciding what is interesting is about as subjective as things get. People hand me books and articles to read that they promise are fascinating, and I wake up holding the book, with a jerk—like when you wake up from a little nap at the movies, thinking that you are falling out of an airplane. Here, for me, is the last word on interesting, from a short story by Abigail Thomas: My mother’s first criterion for a man is that he be interesting. What this really means is that he be able to appreciate my mother, whose jokes hinge on some grammatical subtlety or a working knowledge of higher mathematics. You get the picture. Robbie is about as interesting as a pair of red high-top Converse sneakers. But Robbie points to the mattress on the floor. He grins, slowly unbuckling his belt, drops his jeans. “Lie down,” says Robbie . This is interesting enough for me . Another thing: we want a sense that an important character, like a narrator, is reliable. We want to believe that a character is not playing games or being coy or manipulative, but is telling the truth to the best of his or her ability. (Unless a major characteristic of his or hers is coyness or manipulation or lying.) We do not wish to be crudely manipulated. Of course, we enter into a work of fiction to be manipulated, but in a pleasurable way. We want to be massaged by a masseur, not whapped by a carpet beater. This brings us to the matter of how we, as writers, tell the truth. A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way. It’s a lie if you make something up. But you make it up in the name of the truth, and then you give your heart to expressing it clearly. You make up your characters, partly from experience, partly out of the thin air of the subconscious, and you need to feel committed to telling the exact truth about them, even though you are making them up. I suppose the basic moral reason for doing this is the Golden Rule.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  “What’s she like?” Caitlin asked. “Nothing like you!” “Good.” It was Maia who explained to Vix that Caitlin wasn’t getting lower rates by waking her in the middle of the night. It was daytime in Rome when she placed those calls. Forget commuting to the Vineyard. Forget once a week, forget once a month. Her course load was so much more than she’d bargained for she had to give up her second job working weekends at Filene’s, and just stick with three nights a week at the Coop. Bru came up for Columbus Day weekend. He took a room in a Motel 6 outside of town. She had a sore throat and a fever. All she wanted was to climb into bed and sleep. He scolded her for getting sick. “You don’t know how to take care of yourself.” “Now you sound like Abby.” “Maybe Abby knows what she’s talking about.” Abby had called before the weekend urging Vix to set up an appointment with her doctor. “I’m not that sick,” Vix had told her. “It’s just a little cough.” “Little coughs can turn into pneumonia if you don’t take care of them.” “I’m taking care ... really.” She could hear Abby sigh. And now Bru was lecturing. “I keep telling you, you need vitamins. There’s a new health food store in Vineyard Haven. The owner really knows her stuff. I’m going to talk to her about you. See what she says. There must be a reason you’re always so run down.” Although he was concerned about her health he was turned on by her fever. Her body felt so hot, he said, inside and out. He couldn’t get enough of her. No, he wasn’t scared of catching her germs. And if he did it would be worth it. They had to make up for all that time apart. All those nights they’d fallen asleep dreaming of one another. “You know what I’ve discovered about myself?” she asked him late Sunday afternoon, when her fever finally broke and she was soaking in the Motel 6 bathtub.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  May, hearing his words, began to weep very gently. Then she recovered herself, and replied to him. ‘I have a soul to keep spotless, just like you, and of course I must guard my honour. The tender flower of my womanhood is in your hands. I gave it to you when the priest bound us together in holy matrimony. And I tell you this, my dear lord. I pray to God that the day never comes when I bring shame to my family or bring dishonour to my own name. I will never be unfaithful. I would rather die the most painful death in the world. If I prove false to you, then sew me in a sack and drop me in the nearest river. I am a gentlewoman, not a whore. Why do you talk to me this way? Well, men are ever untrue. They never stop reproaching their wives. They never stop being suspicious and distrustful.’ She caught sight of Damian sitting beneath the bush. She coughed lightly and then, using sign language, told him to climb a nearby pear tree full of fruit. He was on his feet and up the tree in a flash. He knew exactly what she intended, and could read her mind better than January ever could. She had written him a letter, in any case, where she had explained her plan. So for the time being I will leave him in the pear tree, with May and January strolling happily between the beds of flowers. Bright was the day and through the trembling air the golden rays of Phoebus descended to the earth, warming all the flowers with their caress. He was at that time in Gemini, I suspect, close to the summer solstice. The bright sun would soon begin its decline. It so happened on this day that Pluto, king of the fairies, entered the garden on the farther side. He was accompanied by his wife, Proserpina, and all the ladies of her entourage. He had taken her from Etna, if you remember, when she was gathering wild flowers on the mountainside. You can read the story in Claudian’s The Rape of Proserpina, where he describes the dark chariot in which she was driven away.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  with long, silvery hair, a concha belt, and hand-tooled leather boots. Vix had never been to a party like that, in a house like that, with grownups like that. She’d brought Caitlin a blank book for her birthday, covered in blue denim, with a silver chain as a page marker. She only hoped it was worthy of Caitlin’s thoughts and feelings. She dreamed about touching her hair, her sun-kissed skin. She wrote her parents a letter, making a case for letting her go, not the least being Caitlin’s promise that it wouldn’t cost them a penny. But Tawny didn’t buy it. She claimed Caitlin came from an unstable family. “Just one look at that mother ...” “But we won’t be with her mother,” Vix countered, “we’ll be with her father and he’s very stable.” “How do you know?” “Everybody knows. He’s going to call you. You can ask him yourself.” In the end, it was her father who convinced Tawny to let her go. Her father, a man who looked surprised when he opened their front door to find he had four noisy children inside. A man of so few words he could spend a whole weekend without speaking, but if he did, his voice dropped way low on the last part of every sentence and someone was always asking, What? What’d you say, Dad? But he was never unkind. She imagined jumping into his arms, hugging him as hard as she could to show how thankful she was, but that would have embarrassed both of them so she said, “Thanks, Dad.” And he mumbled something, something she didn’t get, while he rested his hand on top of her head. Until then the highlight of her childhood had been the weekend her father installed a molded laminate shower in the half-bath in her parents’ room. When it was hooked up and working Vix, Lewis, and Lanie all begged to be first to try it out. Her father looked right at her and said, “We’ll do it in age order. Vix gets to go first.” How proud she was that day! How grateful to her father for recognizing her as having a special place in the family. First daughter. Eldest child. A yellow shower with its own glass door. She’d wanted to stand under the warm water forever. Only later did she realize how

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  I have a few years left in me yet, and I am going to devote them to the arts of married life. I will couple and thrive. ‘And tell me this. Why does God give us those parts between our legs? Cunts are not made for nothing, are they? They are not unnecessary. Some will say that they have been created so that we can urinate. Others will say that they are just the marks to distinguish female from male. You know that isn’t true. All experience tells us otherwise. I hope that none of you priests and nuns will be angry with me, but I must say this. We have been given our private parts for pleasure as well as necessity. We must procreate as well as pee, within the limits set by God. Why else is there the ruling that a wife must freely render her body to her husband? How is he going to receive it without using his you-know-what? I’ll say it once again. Our parts are there for two purposes, for purging piss and for propagation. ‘Now I am not claiming that every man and woman is bound to propagate. That would be absurd. That would be to deny the virtue of chastity. Christ was a virgin. And He had a male body, did He not? Many saints have been virginal, too. I expect that they had private parts. I will say nothing against them. They are loaves of the purest white bread, and we wives are buns of coarse barley. And yet Mark tells us that Christ Himself fed the multitude with barley bread. I am not fussy. I will fulfil the role that God gave me. I will use my hole, my instrument, my cunt, with as good a grace as He bequeathed it to me. If I am grudging about it, God will never forgive me. My husband can have it morning and night, whenever it pleases him. He can pay his debt any time. I want him to be my debtor and my slave. I will be troubling his flesh, as they put it, while I am married to him. I am given power over his body for the rest of my life. Is that not so? That is what Paul says. Paul also orders husbands to love their wives. I quite agree -’ The Pardoner suddenly rose from his saddle and interrupted her. ‘Now, dame,’ he said. ‘By God and the cross you have been a noble orator in your cause. I was just about to get married myself but, hearing you, I am having second thoughts. Why should I put my flesh to so much trouble, as you put it? I don’t think I will be wed at all.’ ‘Just wait a minute,’ she said. ‘I haven’t begun my story yet. You may not find it a wholesome draught. It will not be as sweet as ale. But drink it down.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  The other two will keep watch over the treasure. As long as he comes back quickly with provisions - and says nothing when he is in town - we will be able to carry home the gold tonight to whatever place we think best. Do you agree?’ Then he picked up three sticks and, bidding them to draw in turn, put them tightly within his fist. The youngest of them chose the longest stick and so, according to the plan, he ran off towards the town as quickly as he could. As soon as he was out of sight the one who had conceived the plan turned to his friend. ‘You know that you are my sworn brother,’ he said in a low voice. ‘So I will tell you something to your advantage. We are alone. He has gone into town. You saw him. There is plenty of gold here to share among the three of us. No doubt about it. But what if I arranged it so that only two of us would benefit? Wouldn’t that be a friendly thing to do?’ The other one was puzzled. ‘How are you going to do that? He knows that the two of us are guarding the gold until his return. What are we going to do? What are we going to tell him?’ ‘If you swear to keep this secret,’ he whispered, ‘I will tell you in a few words what has to be done.’ ‘I swear. I will never betray you.’ ‘Listen closely then. Two people are stronger than one. Is that not so? When he comes back, get up as if you were about to play; pretend to wrestle with him, and at the same time I will stab him in the back. You must use your knife on him, too. Then we will be able to share out the gold between us, my dear friend, just you and me. We will be able to indulge ourselves. Why, we will dice all the day long!’ So these two scoundrels agreed to kill their friend and newly sworn brother. The youngest man, who had gone into town, had also been considering the situation. All he could see, and think of, were those glistening piles of coin. ‘Lord,’ he said to himself, ‘if only I could keep all that treasure for myself! No one in God’s world would be more pleased and happy.’ It was at this point that Satan, the foul enemy of mankind, whispered to him that he should procure poison and feed it to his two friends. When a man is living in such sin as he was, the fiend is permitted to tempt him even further. So he determined, there and then, to purchase poison and do murder without compunction or regret.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Poso la mirada en su camisa, viendo la empapada camisa azul marino pegada a su cuerpo, ajustada y moldeando cada centímetro de su pecho y estómago. Una franja de sus caderas y barriga se asoma justo debajo de donde se pega la camisa. Su piel es perfecta, sus curvas hermosas. Me trago el nudo en la garganta y me alejo rápidamente. Definitivamente tiene un cuerpo que no recuerdo que las chicas de diecinueve años hayan tenido a esa edad, pero solo tiene diecinueve años. Y es de Cole. No es mía. No la mires de nuevo. Dutch aparece y me da la pistola de grapas, y empiezo a reajustar la lona. Retrocede bajo mis brazos extendidos, ella se vuelve a colocar entre mis brazos extendidos y coloca sus manos debajo de las mías y se estira para sostener la lona mientras la engrapo. Algo cálido pasa bajo mi piel, pero lo sacudo. —¿Tengo que… llevarte a casa? —le pregunto—. ¿No tienes clase o algo hoy? —Horario de verano —contesta, mirándome—. Solo tengo una clase este trimestre, pero no es hasta mañana. Sin embargo, tengo que trabajar en el bar más tarde. Me pregunto cómo va y viene a trabajar, o a la universidad, ya que Cole comienza su día a las diez y no sale del trabajo hasta las seis. No tiene un vehículo para ir a trabajar. Lo que me recuerda… Tomaré algunas herramientas antes de irme de aquí que no tengo en casa. Tal vez pueda ayudar a Cole a trabajar en su VW hoy. Después de aproximadamente otra hora, todo está tan ajustado como se puede, el equipo está asegurado y guardado, y todos están empapados hasta los huesos. Dejo que los chicos se vayan. Odio perder tiempo, pero los veranos son lluviosos y hemos hecho lo que hemos podido. Demonios, ni siquiera la mitad de ellos apareció de todos modos. Subo a la camioneta con Jordan y me quito la chaqueta mojada, mientras ella se abrocha el cinturón de seguridad junto a mí. Enciendo el motor y espero a que el estacionamiento se despeje un poco antes de finalmente salir, ambos en silencio. Hace tanto silencio de repente, y me doy cuenta que la lluvia había sido tan constante durante las últimas horas que no había podido escuchar una voz a menos que se gritara. O un movimiento, a menos que fuera el mío. Ahora, mis oídos buscan instintivamente algo a lo que aferrarse, a la lluvia golpeando mi camioneta como balas de goma, la fricción del cuero en el volante en mi puño. El chapoteo de la lluvia debajo de los neumáticos cuando avanzo por la carretera, mi motor retumbando como una canción de cuna. Pero, aun así, es tan silencioso. Ella respira profundamente. Su abrigo cruje mientras desliza sus manos debajo de sus muslos. Escucho un suave clic y muevo mis ojos al piso donde está entrechocando suavemente sus zapatos. Se lame los labios, y hago una mueca. Jesús.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  25 SHE WAS THE ONE to suggest Bru meet her at the Flying Horses. After all, that’s where it all began. She got there early and, on a whim, bought a ticket and rode an outside horse. She’d worried for weeks about how it would be when she and Bru saw each other again. Would the feelings still be there or would they take one look, turn, and run in opposite directions? She wasn’t the same person she’d been last summer. She’d never be the same person. She was amazed, when she thought about it, that she could still eat, fall asleep at night, get up, brush her teeth, even laugh with friends, when all the time there was a hollow numbness someplace inside her. The boy who collected the rings was a thin teenager with unwashed hair and bad skin, nothing like the National Treasure of her first island summer, with his sun-streaked ponytail and muscled arms. A small girl in denim overalls rode the horse next to hers and as the carousel began to spin she grasped the pole tightly with both hands and shrieked. When they were in full whirl she caught a glimpse of Bru, moving through the crowd. She resisted the urge to call out to him and watched, instead, as he scouted the area, his thumbs hooked in the pockets of his jeans. She didn’t recognize his shirt. She was wearing something new, too, a white cotton pullover with a deep V neck. She’d let her hair hang loose, the way he liked it, and she’d dabbed Love’s Baby Soft on all his favorite places. When he spotted her he jumped onto the moving carousel. She held her breath as he worked his way toward her, that slow smile lighting up his face. Then he was alongside her. She licked her lips because suddenly her mouth went dry. He touched her bare shoulder, making her knees go weak, her stomach tumble. “How’re you doing?” “I’m okay. How about you?” “Pretty good.” He looked deep into her eyes and she could feel the heat between her legs. So, that part of her hadn’t died. “How’s Caitlin?” She didn’t want to think about Caitlin. “She’s in Europe.” “Yeah, Von’s disappointed. How come she took off like that without telling him?” “I guess he wasn’t that important to her.” “Not like you and me.” “No. Not like you and me.”

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  Gus JESUS! When she opened the bathroom door and he caught a glimpse of her in that flimsy T-shirt, and under it the swell of her breasts, he was right back where he’d been two years ago, that night Abby and Lamb had almost blown it. Something happened to him that night, something he didn’t want to think about because his father always said, You don’t shit where you eat. But that night, just for a minute, he’d wanted to take her in his arms, feel her body against his. He’d warned himself. Cool it, she’s just fifteen. Yeah ... so? he argued. He knew girls her age who put out. Hell, he knew a fourteen-year-old who gave great hand jobs. He’s kept his distance since then, afraid to give in to his feelings. But now she’s seventeen and it’s a whole different ball game, isn’t it? 17 CAITLIN CALLED IT the Summer of Their Brilliant Careers. They were working as a team for Dynamo, a cleaning service, earning good money, and Caitlin never complained about the long days or the foul condition of some of the houses. She was proud of herself for learning to clean out a toilet bowl, for scrubbing a tub until there was no scum left, things she’d never learned from Phoebe. They awarded the most disgusting bathrooms the New and Improved Dingleberry Award. They never met or even saw most of their clients but they were privy to the most intimate details of their lives. They knew who was constipated by the boxes of Fleet enemas hidden in bathroom drawers or the prune juice and raw bran stocked in the fridge. They knew their clients’ medications and why they were taking them. They knew what their clients were reading, what music they listened to, and who watched porno tapes on the VCR. They knew who was having regular sex by the pubic hairs and bunched up tissues under the blankets, the lubricants on the bedside tables, the condom wrappers in the trash. Unlike some of the girls working for the service, they were discreet. They never tried on their clients’ clothes or experimented with their makeup. They had their standards. Their favorite clients were a gay couple out on Squibnocket Pond who left them beautifully printed lists of chores and always some little goody along with it, an unusual shell or a perfect rose or a sample box of Chilmark Chocolates. They made up for the assholes on Middle Road who smashed every dish in the house and left the pieces all over the floor. When the slimeball and his girlfriend came home in a huff that afternoon and found Caitlin and Vix still cleaning up, listening to Stevie Nicks on the

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  The Miller’s Tale Heere bigynneth the Millere his tale Once upon a time there was living in Oxford an old codger, a rich old carpenter; he followed his trade faithfully enough, but he also took paying guests into his house. One of these lodgers was a poor student who had finished the university course but was more interested in learning all the arts of astrology. He knew a number of ‘operations’ and ‘conclusions’ and ‘calculations’ - I don’t know the precise terms for every one of them, but he knew enough to work out the days of rain and the days of drought. He also had a ready answer when anyone asked him to prophesy the future. He was polite. He was courteous. His name was Nicholas. He also had an eye for the ladies, and he knew how to get them into bed without any fuss. He was as mild-mannered as a maiden, and very discreet. But inwardly he burned. He had his own chamber at the top of the carpenter’s house. There he would rub the juice of sweet herbs all over his body, so that he was as fragrant as odorous liquorice or balmy ginger. Of course this aroused the women. On the shelves above his bed were the instruments of his art, the globes and the treatises, the astrolabe and the abacus with its glass counters. Here is another detail which the girls noticed: his wardrobe was draped with an old scarlet curtain. And there was a harp beside his bed on which he played at night; the chamber rang to the sound of his sweet voice, with his rendition of ‘What the Angel Said to the Virgin’ and ‘The King’s Own Tune’. You would think that he was an angel himself. But no girl near him would have been a virgin very long. So passed the happy life of young Nicholas, depending blithely on the money he earned or was given by his friends. It made no difference to him. Now his landlord had recently taken a new wife. Alison was a sparkler, eighteen years old, and of course the carpenter loved her madly. Yet he was so jealous that he took great care to keep her to himself. She was young and lusty; he was old and crusty. What if someone should beguile her? He was too stupid to have read the works of Cato. Otherwise he would have learned that it is better for a man to marry a woman who is his equal. People should marry according to their age and rank. Winter and spring do not mix, especially in bed. Well he had made his bed, according to his wish, and now he must lie in it. This young wife was a beauty, as small and delicate as a little squirrel; she used to wear a girdle of striped silk. She had an apron, as white as morning milk, with as many folds and flounces as a wedding dress.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Exhala con fuerza, mostrando los dientes y cerrando los ojos. —Jordan... —Sacude la cabeza casi como una advertencia. Lo beso, nuestros labios se ciernen uno sobre el otro mientras el sudor se desliza por mi espalda. —¿Quieres tu polla en mi boca? —susurro. Muerde mi labio inferior suavemente y lo suelta. —Dilo otra vez. —Quiero chuparte la polla —digo de nuevo. Su polla me golpea como un martillo, y curvo los dedos de mis pies, sintiendo la cima de mi orgasmo. —Quiero lamerte —le susurro—, saborearte y hacer que te corras. Sus dedos se clavan en mi carne, y me duele la parte superior de mis muslos donde siguen golpeando la mesa, pero está haciendo que me corra de nuevo, y nada en el mundo se ha sentido tan bien. Estoy casi allí. Muevo su labio con mi lengua, sintiendo el fuego extenderse a través de mis muslos y sacudir mi interior. —¿Por favor? —susurro, retrocediendo en su polla y persiguiéndolo, también—. ¿Follarías mi boca esta noche? —¡Jordan, Jesús! —grita, y agarra mi hombro cerca del cuello y me golpea con tanta fuerza, que no puedo hablar, incluso si quisiera. Los dos nos corremos, mis nudillos se vuelven blancos mientras clavo las uñas en la mesa de madera, tensándome y apretando cada maldito músculo de mi cuerpo. —¡Pike! —grito—. Oh, Dios. Caigo sobre la mesa, abrazándome, cerrando los ojos y sintiéndolo pulsar dentro de mí. Su mano está plantada al lado de mi cabeza, y se cierne sobre mí, respirando con dificultad y sacudiéndose en mi interior un par de veces más. Quiero que se corra dentro de mí. Quiero que se derrame y quiero sentirlo. Estoy tomando la píldora, y soy saludable. Una vez que sepa que él también está saludable, le diré que las malditas gomas pueden irse a la jodida basura. Podría volver a provocarlo por video si su frustración acumulada me excita así. Unos momentos más tarde, mi respiración ha vuelto a la normalidad, y estoy agotada. —Sabes que estoy bromeando, ¿verdad? —le digo—. Solo lo haré para ti. Su mano se desliza por mi espalda húmeda, y lo escucho inhalar como si fuera a hablar, pero entonces algo golpea la puerta. —¡Jordan! —grita una voz—. Jordan, ¿estás aquí o no? Ambos saltamos, mi corazón se salta un latido. Cam. Pike se aparta de mí y me pongo las bragas, apresurándome a buscar mi sujetador y mi camisa. Escucho que la tapa del bote de la basura se cierra de golpe, y luego Pike está a mi lado mientras se apresura a meterse en su camiseta y yo en mi ropa. Pero justo en ese momento la puerta cruje y escucho la voz de Cam. —¡Jordan! —llama desde el interior de la casa. —¿Qué diablos? —gruñe Pike en voz baja, lanzándome una mirada asustada justo cuando Cam entra a la cocina. Pike se aleja un par de pasos de mí y se pasa la mano por el cabello mientras me abrocho los pantalones cortos.

• From St. Augustine's Confessions (2004)

  Lecture Nine Book III—The Journey Begins Scope: At the beginning of Book III, Augustine comes to Carthage “where the din of scandalous love-affairs raged cauldron-like around me.” But balanced against the story of his own lustful impulses is the beginning of his search for truth. At the age of 18, the young and lust-filled Augustine reads a work of Cicero as part of his training in rhetoric. Cicero urged his readers to seek those things that last forever. Of course, Cicero was not talking about fame or fortune or sex. Augustine thus begins his education, the process of turning toward the highest things. Because his mother was a Christian, he first turned to the Bible but is disappointed by the quality of the language. Because he wants things that last forever and he wants them soon and effortlessly, he becomes associated with a religious-philosophical group called the Manichees, adherents of a basically dualist way of looking at reality. Outline I. Augustine moves to Carthage to continue his studies. Carthage is the most important city in Latin-speaking North Africa and one of the great cities of the Roman Empire. II. In the course of his rhetorical studies, he read Cicero’s Hortensius. A. Although Augustine read the book for its style (form), he was drawn to its content (substance). 1. The book, which is now lost, encouraged the reader to seek eternal wisdom. 2. Augustine was won over by Cicero’s call to seek wisdom. 3. Because of his mother’s Christianity, he first sought that wisdom in the Bible. B. He was disappointed in his reading, because he found the writing itself to be inferior to the prose of Cicero and did not pursue it. ©2004 The Teaching Company. 27

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  Daniel CAITLIN. THAT BITCH! A couple of years ago he’d wanted to blow her away. Now he wouldn’t mind her blowing him. He can’t get her out of his mind. The way she taunts him when she’s in the outdoor shower, using her hands, not a washcloth. Her hands on her perfect little tits. Her hands on her soapy pussy. She closes her eyes, tilts her head way back, and sings “Eye of the Tiger.” A command performance. She knows he’s watching. Lamb would kill him if he knew. But hell, it’s not like he’s her blood relative. It’s a damn good thing he’s got Bailey to take his mind off the bitch. Bailey, who’s working as an au pair in Edgartown, going into her sophomore year at Smith. You’ll come to Northhampton, right, Daniel? You promise? Sure he’ll come ... any second now. So what if he has to tell her he loves her during the act? At that moment he does. ABBY WAS growing suspicious. “Where do you two go every night?” she asked Caitlin and Vix. “We hang out with friends,” Caitlin told her, which wasn’t exactly a lie, except the friends Abby thought they were talking about were the other girls from the cleaning service. “Sometimes we take in a movie,” Caitlin added. “We can’t get into any of the clubs. They card everyone.” “I wish you’d invite your friends to our house,” Abby said. Vix felt so deceitful. If it had been up to her she’d have gladly brought Bru to the house. But Caitlin said never. Abby was never going to know about Von or Bru. Okay, okay ... Vix had to swear never to mention them although she