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 6 of 344 · 20 per page

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I make a note to myself: we don’t know what people have gone through or are going through or will go through, so always be kind. The next day, Jessica and I are hanging out in the second-floor lounge overlooking the lobby when we notice a large group file in. There are about fifty people and they’re all 20/30something, mostly male and casually but intentionally dressed: narrow jeans rolled up just so, cool retro T-shirts, carefully groomed hipster beards. We assess which men are the cutest and which of those are wearing wedding bands. We lean further and further over the ledge to see more clearly until a couple of them spot us and look up quizzically. In our embarrassment, we quickly duck behind the plants and laugh about how we must appear to them: two middle-aged women in yoga pants ogling the fresh blood. In truth, I would willingly throw myself at any of them, so badly do I want to be wanted. A new and essential understanding of my current status is starting to become clear to me: I’m looking for men all the time now. I want to be noticed, I want to be flirted with and touched, and there’s no limit – aside from when I’m with my kids – as to when or where that can happen. For better or for worse, I am free and very, very available. * On Friday, I say goodbye to Jessica and drive to Upstate New York, where Hudson is performing in a play at a theatre camp. I’m eager to see him and hear about his time at camp, but my heart is heavy: it’s been five months since he has spoken to Michael, with whom he had always been close – in fact, much closer than he had been with me – and there’s no way around the fact that Michael’s absence this weekend is going to be keenly felt. I feel like sloppy seconds, knowing I am not the parent Hudson would have chosen loyalty to if he had had an option. I pull into the motel parking lot, where my mother is sitting on a bench near the entrance waiting for me to arrive, watching Hasidic Jewish families bustle in and out of the kosher grocery store in the adjacent parking lot before Shabbat beckons them home. Alarmed by the squalid state of the motel, she decides she will spend the whole weekend with me as she cannot bear the idea of my spending any time in this decrepit place alone. I insist that I will be fine but she’s stalwart, her eyes fixing leerily on the man who has come to deliver a broken-down cot so that I have a place to sleep now that she will be in the bed. I feel a flutter of anxiety, knowing I will not get so much as five minutes alone this weekend and that she will be watching me like a hawk.

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

  With the near prospect and the most ardent desire for martyrdom, the author has no more fervent wish than the perfect inward and outward unity of the faithful; and to this the episcopate seems to him indispensable. In his view Christ is the invisible supreme head, the one great universal bishop of all the churches scattered over the earth. The human bishop is the centre of unity for the single congregation, and stands in it as the vicar of Christ and even of God.190 The people, therefore, should unconditionally obey him, and do nothing without his will. Blessed are they who are one with the bishop, as the church is with Christ, and Christ with the Father, so that all harmonizes in unity. Apostasy from the bishop is apostasy from Christ, who acts in and through the bishops as his organs. We shall give passages from the shorter Greek text (as edited by Zahn): If any one is able to continue in purity (ejn aJgneiva/ i.e., in the state of celibacy), to the honor of the flesh of our Lord, let him continue so without boasting; if he boasts, he is lost (ajpwvleto) if he become known more than the bishop,191 he is corrupt (e[fqartai). It is becoming, therefore, to men and women who marry, that they marry by the counsel of the bishop, that the marriage may be in the Lord, and not in lust. Let ever thing be done for the honor of God. Look to the bishop, that God also [may look] upon you. I will be in harmony with those who are subject to the bishop, and the presbyters, and the deacons; with them may I have a portion near God!" This passage is one of the strongest, and occurs in the Syriac Epistle to Polycarp as well as in the shorter Greek recension.192 It characteristically connected episcopacy with celibacy: the ascetic system of Catholicism starts in celibacy, as the hierarchical organization of Catholicism takes its rise in episcopacy. "It becomes you to be in harmony with the mind (or sentence, gnwvmh/) of the bishop, as also ye do.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  My chin rested on the place where his tail met his skin. The scales were slimy and hard at the same time. But his balls were delicious, like raw oysters. “Oh my God,” he whispered. He reached down and began to jerk himself as I licked his balls. “Don’t stop licking,” he said. “Don’t stop.” It wasn’t the romantic jerking I would have liked to have seen, his beautiful body in a slow search of pleasure. This was the second time in one summer that a boy jerking off wasn’t what I would have wanted it to be. He was more frantic and urgent, like he was trying to get it done, like he wanted to prove to me that he could get it up and stay up. Maybe he just needed a lot of friction in order to feel pleasure. I wondered if his cock being exposed to saltwater had made it numb. Maybe this was just how men jerked themselves when no one was watching. Maybe he was comfortable around me. “It feels so good,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I feel you so much. I’m going to, oh my God —” My pussy surged. I took my mouth off his balls and put it on the head of his cock, grabbing his balls with my hand and rubbing them in a circle. They were tight. His come in my mouth didn’t taste bitter, like some men, but it wasn’t exactly sweet either. It was a feminine taste. It tasted like the smell of his tail, oceanic, a little fishy. I felt as though I had eaten his pussy, that I was yang or yin, or whichever the male was, and he was female for a moment. I thought of the god of the sea, Poseidon, the father of Triton. Was Aphrodite his lover? No, Demeter was his lover—the earth goddess—they were siblings but also lovers. What did that make Aphrodite on her clamshell, then? To Sappho, Aphrodite was the ultimate sex deity. In Hesiod, Kronos, the king of Titans, castrated Uranus, the sky god, and Aphrodite rose out of the water from his spilled seed—transformed into a woman out of sparkling seafoam. Perhaps they were all one person. The gods were always switching identities, changing genders, inhabiting new bodies as though they were clothes. So Poseidon, with his long beard and muscular chest, was in a way also a woman. A woman, a man, what was the difference between the two anyway? It seemed in that moment very little. I felt that we were twins—two strands of the same DNA or one egg split in two—sibling lovers, like Poseidon and Demeter. At the very least we were two eggs sharing one womb. He was both the womb and not the womb.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  “That sounds interesting, actually. Nothingness is good. Almost as good as filling up every space,” he smiled. “And destruction. Destruction can be sexy.” I shivered a little bit. “I guess the gaps are sort of a reminder that, in love, things get disconnected,” I said. “People just disappear.” “Maybe they leave room for something more infinite,” he said. “Maybe,” I said. “All I know is it’s not going very well. I’m not enjoying it.” “But you’re still doing it?” he said. “Yes,” I said. “I guess I like torturing myself.” “That can also be sexy if done right, I suppose.” Was he fucking with me? I stood up. I didn’t know whether to move closer to him or away from him on the rock, so I looked up at the moon, which was a crescent. I thought about licking it or putting it inside me. “Well, Lucy, I wish you only the best with the self-torture,” he said. “And with your next date.” “Thanks,” I said. “Maybe I’ll see you out here again?” “Maybe,” he said. “Okay.” “Have a good night,” he said. And with that he pushed off the rock and began to breaststroke away. 15.When I got home I was turned on. That little fucker. Who was he, even, lurking around in the ocean? I decided to take immediate action. Brushing past Dominic, who sniffed at me suspiciously and growled a little, I took to my phone. It was time to send Tinder Garrett a message. Hey I changed my mind. Want to meet up after all? I wrote. He wrote back within seconds: guess it didn’t work out with the other dude? haha, I said. want to come to downtown? i work in a loft down here. meet me on the roof of the Ace Hotel tmrw @ 7 sounds good I wrote, so casually. Immediately after that message came a text. It was from Jamie. How are you? I miss you. My stomach dropped. Claire was right! It was like he could smell that I was out with other men. Now it was raining attention. There was Adam, Garrett, Theo, and Jamie. I wanted to wait to text him back but wrote immediately, of course. I’m fine. deep in therapy, as instructed And how is megan? There was a pause. She is good Well, that was that… She’s no you, of course

• From The Pisces (2018)

  The swimmer leaned on the rock with his arms. They were thick and meaty—not cut like a bodybuilder’s, but you could see the muscles underneath what looked like a layer of baby chub. They reminded me of eating a piece of fish with thick skin and a small layer of fat, strong and also soft, very white. I wanted to bite them. His chest was hairless, and I noticed that the color of his nipples matched perfectly his lips, like pencil erasers. He looked like he was twenty-one, at most. If this was death then death was hot. “Doesn’t it scare you to be night-swimming? Isn’t the water freezing?” I asked. “I’ve got a wet suit on my lower half,” he said. “But no, it doesn’t scare me. I like the way the splashes look in the moonlight and I like having the ocean to myself. Well, almost to myself.” “Yeah, it’s nice out here,” I said. The wine was wearing off. I suddenly felt exhausted. His teeth were shiny white, but not like an actor’s. They didn’t look bleached or fake. They were practically iridescent, like the inside of a shell. There was something almost feminine about him, pretty, but his jaw was well defined. These surfer boys. I always forgot that they were real. I mean, I knew that they existed. I knew they were alive. But it really seemed to me that the surfing was a costume, like they were only pretending to be so enamored of it. How could anyone be that devoted to something so lacking a destination? Just wave after wave, over and over. I wished someone were that enamored of me. But their love for surfing was real. It was a fact. They really loved surfing as much as they appeared to love it. This one didn’t have a board, though. This wasn’t a surfer. This was a swimmer. “What’s your name?” he asked. “Lucy.” I felt old. “Nice to meet you, Lucy,” he said. “I’m Theo.” When he said his name, his hotness increased. He was real, there in the water, real in a way that I wasn’t. He was swimming and wet and I was—what was I doing? I thought of all my books, the ones waiting for me in piles back in my parching Phoenix apartment, collecting dust. I thought of the university library. I imagined the library growing and growing, the books piling up on the edge of this ocean. One wave could destroy them all. They were so dry, like they were actually made of dust. My skin, too, felt like an old book: powdery parchment etched with lines that supposedly contained knowledge, but when you looked closer they were only empty scribbles. Not the right kind of knowledge. If you put me in the water, I too would dissolve. I was sure of it. “Do you always swim at night?” “Yes,” he said. “The waves are more intense but it makes you stronger.”

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  That evening she showed her smart neckties to Puddle, whose manner was most unsatisfactory—she grunted. And now some one seemed to be always near Stephen, some one for whom these things were accomplished—the purchase of the three new suits, the brown shoes, the six carefully chosen, expensive neckties. Her long walks on the hills were a part of this person, as were also the hearts of the wild dog-roses, the delicate network of veins on the leaves and the queer June break in the cuckoo’s rhythm. The night with its large summer stars and its silence, was pregnant with a new and mysterious purpose, so that lying at the mercy of that age-old purpose, Stephen would feel little shivers of pleasure creeping out of the night and into her body. She would get up and stand by the open window, thinking always of Angela Crossby. 2 Sunday came and with it church in the morning; then two interminable hours after lunch, during which Stephen changed her necktie three times, and brushed back her thick chestnut hair with water, and examined her shoes for imaginary dust, and finally gave a hard rub to her nails with a nail pad snatched brusquely away from Puddle. When the moment for departure arrived at last, she said rather tentatively to Anna: ‘Aren’t you going to call on the Crossbys, Mother?’ Anna shook her head: ‘No, I can’t do that, Stephen—I go nowhere these days; you know that, my dear.’ But her voice was quite gentle, so Stephen said quickly: ‘Well then, may I invite Mrs. Crossby to Morton?’ Anna hesitated a moment, then she nodded: ‘I suppose so—that is if you really wish to.’ The drive only took about twenty minutes, for now Stephen was so nervous that she positively flew. She who had been puffed up with elation and self-satisfaction was crumbling completely—in spite of her careful new necktie she was crumbling at the mere thought of Angela Crossby. Arrived at The Grange she felt over life-size; her hands seemed enormous, all out of proportion, and she thought that the butler stared at her hands. ‘Miss Gordon?’ he inquired. ‘Yes,’ she mumbled, ‘Miss Gordon.’ Then he coughed as he did on the telephone, and quite suddenly Stephen felt foolish. She was shown into a small oak-panelled parlour whose long, open casements looked on to the herb-garden. A fire of apple wood burnt on the hearth, in spite of the fact that the weather was warm, for Angela was always inclined to feel chilly—the result, so she said, of the English climate. The fire gave off rather a sweet, pungent odour—the odour of slightly damp logs and dry ashes. By way of a really propitious beginning, Tony barked until he nearly burst his stitches, so that Angela, who was lying on the lounge, had perforce to get up in order to soothe him. An extremely round bullfinch in an ornate, brass cage, was piping a tune with his wings half extended.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  There is something that makes a man look so vulnerable when he is handling himself and I think I should stay out of it altogether but maybe that’s considered rude or unfriendly? Our bodies glisten with sweat – even though the rain has cooled the air outside, it’s stuffy and close in here without air conditioning – and we slide against each other, which one could interpret as hot and sexy or just unseemly. I’m choosing to go with hot and sexy, that this is what lust looks like. He is inside me for only a few moments when we both come, but without skipping a beat, he peels off the condom, tosses it on the floor and we keep going, new condoms appearing every so often, seemingly out of thin air. He is at once aggressively manly and appealingly tender, touching me gently but insistently. There seems to be no beginning or ending to this sex, just a middle chapter that stretches on. He is six years younger than me and his virility is matched by my insatiable curiosity and thrill at being desired. Of the four men I’ve slept with since I’ve started this journey, this is the most physically satisfying sex I’ve had. He laughs with enthusiasm when I sigh deeply and tell him in a grave voice that I really love sex. He seems to know exactly how and where to touch me, and I can’t get enough of his hard, sleek body. It’s as if I’m being cracked open again and again; it’s not explosive so much as a feeling of being totally present in my body and with his. It feels good to be wanted, to want, to be appreciated, to know that I am quenching someone’s thirst, to know my body is capable of both giving and receiving, to match his vigor with my own. When we have finally expended our sexual energy, we lie wrapped around each other. As much as I am shocked to discover how much I love touching and being touched, I am surprised by how nourishing I find this part, this calm after the storm. I feel completely enveloped as our hearts return to their regular rhythms and we lie, exhausted but sated, in the aftermath of the intimacy we have shared. Why , I wonder, do I feel I could stay in this spot for hours but when I was married, instead of reveling in the physical connection, I ran from it? Within seconds of having sex, I was already rolling back to curl in a ball on my side of the bed, so relieved that this obligation could be checked off my list and I could go back in my corner to be left alone. I usually orgasmed and I enjoyed sex once I mustered up the energy, but I could take it or leave it – and the affection that came with it I recoiled from, believing myself to be a physically unaffectionate person.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  Did mermaids menstruate? Perhaps this was part of Theo’s attraction to me, my feet in the dirt and the blood in my pussy. My feet on the desert sand, dirty feet, dirty legs, bloody legs, blood dripping down my legs and onto all the earth. Both of us dry on our chests, but me wet in the pussy like a red hearth: the only wetness for days, no other water. Did mermaids even get wet in their cunts? Was it hard fucking them in the water, as beautiful as they were? I remembered trying to fuck in a pool years ago at a motel in Phoenix. It wasn’t easy. You got dried up from the water and couldn’t slide around right. So what would happen in the ocean? What did they use for lubrication? I gasped when I saw his cock. It was harder than I’d ever seen it, thick and pink, aiming straight at me like a meaty arrow. I gasped again when I saw the pool of blood on my sister’s white sofa. I was not so blinded by passion that I didn’t care if I had ruined it. I couldn’t destroy Annika’s house just because my new boyfriend was a merman with a penchant for period sex. But Theo saw the stain as a memento and looked proud: as though we should both autograph it. Saltwater stained boats, but in a beautiful way—weathering them, rendering the wood a soft, gray color. So too was our stain to him an act of nature. Perhaps he saw it as a triumph, even, a miracle marking our existence together on land, rather than any cause for alarm. And so I pretended to own my bodily secretions, as though I was proud of what we had made, instead of feeling inwardly ashamed. I pretended to celebrate by kissing him. With his tongue in my mouth and little bits of dried blood flaking off of his cheek, he put his dick in me. I couldn’t believe how strong it was. “Fuck me,” I said. “Fuck me with your Triton spear.” We both laughed. We were looking in each other’s eyes and he was rubbing my organs from the inside. My flow was very heavy and he was sliding in and out, pumping inside me. I had never come from sex before, but maybe I would this time. Maybe I would. “Oh my God, I’m either going to come or piss,” I laughed. “I’m either going to come or piss, I don’t know which one.” “So come and piss,” he said. “Come and piss!” But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t let go, or maybe I wasn’t about to come—only piss. Whatever it was, I couldn’t reach it. But it felt so good to fuck him and I felt so connected to him and to all of the lovers throughout time. Missionary was so classical: simple, romantic, and ancient.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  Perhaps I do not even need him, to feel like this? No, I needed him and maybe it was okay to need him. This is how love was spiritual, when it felt like this: unity with each other, the self, and all. And if this wasn’t love, then this was how lust could be a thing of value: a peak experience, something worth the pain of coming down. Was this true or was it a lie? So many things were both true and a lie, depending on how you felt in the moment. In this moment it felt like love. I was bold and ready to ask him. “I was wondering if you would ever possibly come to my house?” I asked. “I mean, it is my sister’s house but I live there alone.” “I would love to be in a house with you,” he said. “I would love to make love to you without having to look over our shoulders for anyone coming. To be totally alone.” “You would?” I giggled. “Yes,” he said. “Have you ever been in a home on land?” “Yes,” he said. “A few times, many years ago.” I didn’t press him. “But this was a home very close to the water,” he said. “It wasn’t really a home. It was a deserted boathouse right on the ocean. An old fishermen’s boathouse. I just don’t see how I could possibly come to your sister’s home. I think it is too far. First of all, I can’t be seen. How would I get across the sand?” “I’ve been thinking about this,” I said. He seemed so excited by the idea that I didn’t feel weird letting him know that this was something I had spent a lot of time thinking about. It was like I had let go now and decided to trust him. Something in me had suddenly decided that it didn’t really matter what would happen. Either I was going to scare him off or I wasn’t, but if it was going to happen, it would happen. I didn’t have to stifle my fears and desires. Just being around him, inside his supernatural aura, gave me the confidence to speak, like the way wine gives you confidence. I was languid and casual. Later I would likely replay everything and pick apart what I had said. Had I been too forward? And God forbid it ended that night when we said goodbye. If he disappeared and I never saw him again, I would blame myself for pushing him away with my omnivorous need. But for now I didn’t feel at risk of losing him, since he was very much here with me. “What if I took a shopping cart and brought it to the ocean?” I asked. “It’s Venice and there are so many people with shopping carts. We could hoist you into it and cover you up with a blanket.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I wondered if other people felt comfortable within niceness, or whether they didn’t even notice that things were nice. Maybe they expected everything to be nice. Maybe nice was like air to them. I can’t say that I was enjoying it, exactly, or even relaxing, but I felt that I was absorbing the stupidity and slowness of the niceness. Like I was siphoning off its worst qualities. Actually, it did feel good. I just wanted to drool and be dumb. Two glasses of wine later and I was almost there. I ordered another one. Then I got nervous. What was I doing? I should be home actually working on my book. Where was my life going? I couldn’t think about it. I ate some olives and stared down the sun. I was wearing the same black dress that I had worn with Adam. I had liked it so much when I got it, but now that it was no longer new it didn’t feel good enough. Now that I had owned it for more than a minute it had gotten some of me on it. My mouth tasted acidic. I felt rumpled, like I was wearing dirty laundry. I kind of forgot that Garrett was coming until he tapped me on the shoulder. He was undeniably gorgeous in real life: six feet tall with a close-cut beard that looked like an evil shadow. Under the beard you could still see the outline of his jaw, which was strong and handsome. His jaw was in attendance. Also, he had the hair—the Tinder hair I called it, because a lot of the boys on there had that same look. It was like a not-so-secret code amongst the young and hip, this haircut where the sides were shaved all butch but the top was long, in what resembled a pompadour. His shirt was gingham and he smelled like the woods. He ordered a whiskey and ginger ale and asked what I wanted. I was afraid that if I drank any more I would fall off my chair, so I told him that I had just met a friend for cocktails prior and was okay for right now. Instead I ordered a sparkling water and avocado toast. Garrett told me that he would be flying to New York the following day to teach classes in design at different universities. I kept staring at his jawline. I had forgotten they made them like that. He was boring, never asking me about myself, but I was so engaged by his jaw that it made what he said more interesting. It was his jaw that was speaking, not his mouth. The jaw also made me a little sad. It made me forget he had a girlfriend and then remember again. Like, in spite of his boringness, I kind of wanted the jaw to be mine. He did a good job not talking about the girlfriend. It would be easy for someone else to forget he had one.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I’ve been listening to country music all summer, and I imagine myself in the front seat with my feet up on the dashboard, driving past corn fields and peach orchards. He leaves me to revel in my country fantasies as he runs back inside to use the restroom. I lean against the driver’s seat as I wait for him and then I hear a woman’s voice yelling at me to get out of the street. It’s dark out and I can’t find the body attached to the voice until she tells me to look up. She is standing on a second-storey balcony and tells me the cars come up this road too fast and she doesn’t want me to get hurt. I feel a passing worry for myself, wondering if I’m losing common sense in my attempt to be coquettish: first, entering a man’s hotel room without telling anyone I’m there and now standing blithely in the middle of a dark street. I thank her and wait on the sidewalk, wondering how many awkward goodbyes she’s witnessed from her perch. When Johnny emerges, I ask him if he wants to walk me to my car even though it’s right across the street. I am ambivalent about how to say goodbye. Does he want nothing more than to send me on my way, or is he attracted to me but keeping his distance because he knows my husband, or is he trying to follow my lead, which is unfollowable since I don’t know where I’m going? I open my car door and am once again standing in the street. “OK, well then,” I say slowly as I gaze intently at him with my eyebrows raised, daring him to make a move or lose his chance. We regard each other without speaking. Finally, he takes my not-so-subtle hint, leans in and kisses me softly on the lips. The coarse hairs of his goatee rub against my face; I’ve never kissed a man with a beard except for the short period when Michael experimented with growing one before I made him shave it off. Johnny’s beard is scratchy but not unpleasant. He pulls away and we look at each other again, and then when he leans back in, I put my hand behind his neck and pull him toward me. This time when he pulls away, I say “So would you like to go back to my house or to your house or …?” That’s about as cliché a line as I have ever uttered and I wince as the words tumble out, but I understand innately there’s momentum needed to move from a kiss goodnight to having sex, and tonight a mere kiss is not going to do the trick for me. There are a million things I need right now – numbing, fun, validation, physical attention, distraction, proof that paramour #1 is not really #1-and-done, and I will clumsily barrel ahead to close a deal.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  But even if he was available, I was not available—not for long anyway. What would happen when I went back to Phoenix? I fell asleep spooning Dominic and felt the kind of love I felt the first night I’d arrived in Venice. Only this was deeper, more tinged with dependency, like a heroin vibe, and I knew it wasn’t Dominic but Theo I was feeling. 30. I went late to see Theo. The fact that he had other plans the night before, and I didn’t know what they were, made me feel insecure. Instead I spent extra time cuddling with Dominic, the dog’s head draped over my arm so that his neck fit snug like a warm puzzle piece. I pretended that I preferred to be with the dog and could take or leave seeing the swimmer entirely. But I was playing a game: I knew that Theo was not mine alone. I mean, he said he didn’t have a girlfriend, but he was so beautiful. Of course there were other women. Everything I saw in him that I liked was available for others to see. But the way he treated me, with such reverence, made me feel like he held me above all others or anything else. If there were a gaggle of younger girls, I was his special older woman. Still, I couldn’t help but play a little bit of a game just to make him wonder. He was waiting for me when I got to the rocks. He was still in the water and was holding on to a rock, his chin resting on it. I sat down on the rock and leaned forward. With my hand, I lifted up his face to mine, kissed him wetly, our tongues in each other’s mouths. He moaned in my mouth and the moaning set off shudders inside me. I realized for the first time that he didn’t just like me or think I was pretty, but that he wanted me. In a flash I felt myself get wet inside. “I just want to take off your fucking wet suit,” I said. He looked me in the eyes. “Lie down,” he said. “With your legs over the rock.” I lay down. He took off my flip-flops and began kissing my feet, sucking my toes. “Oh my God.” I laughed. “Aren’t they sandy? Sorry if they taste weird!” He just moaned more and stroked one of my legs. I was wearing a long flowing skirt and he had one hand up it, his other hand still holding on to the rock. Then his head was up my skirt and I felt him kissing my calves, giving me licks on my knees, and then nibbles on my thighs. He kissed my pussy over my underpants.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I couldn’t believe he was there. I had never thought of it like that before in the heat of things—about a person really being inside another person. “Entered,” like they say in romance novels. With every thrust he kissed me deeply and I gasped in his mouth. He was surprisingly dexterous given his tail. We looked in each other’s eyes as we moved. I felt that we were creating something together. The sounds I was making became primal and real. But then I felt him in me just a little less, then almost not at all. Somehow he had gotten soft. He pulled out and jerked it a little. He looked ashamed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Sometimes I just get nervous the first time with a new person. It’s the pressure. But you feel so good and are really gorgeous. I want to give you so much pleasure. I want to make you feel so much.” He pulled out of me and wriggled down my body. His desire to get me off made up for him having lost his hard-on. I let myself go completely, like when we were on the rocks. I focused only on the feeling and not on anything else. This time when I came I did not come for the gods or the stars, but only for him. I called out his name as I came into his mouth. I came for so long I felt suspended in time or air or space, as though the divisions between seconds had been obliterated. Afterward, as my pussy settled, he kept his face down there, his cheek resting on my inner right thigh. I could feel us attaching and knew that any chance of breaking apart from him emotionally was not possible. I was his now. 50. After four nights I began to lose hope. The sickness reemerged and it was deeper, all the way to my bones, the way addicts describe dope sickness. I shit myself constantly. I vomited into the ocean. Whatever he had done to me had made my body dependent. I literally needed him to survive. I had heard of people who died from drug withdrawals. Whatever was leaking from me could not be good. Was I going to die of the shits and the shakes? Was I going to die a painful, shitty death? Suddenly I became terrified of dying. It seemed like I was about to stop breathing. Even just the thought that I could stop breathing and disappear was terrifying. What was scarier still was that I had done this to myself. I needed help. There were two hours until group. I needed some kind of emotional methadone, some advice at least about what they had done to tone down their withdrawals. I showered quickly, then walked from Venice to Santa Monica, afraid that if I took a car I might vomit or shit inside of it.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  He had me by the hips and kissed me hard, his tongue in my mouth. It made me feel good, like he wanted me. “Look me in the eyes,” I said. He looked into my eyes and unbuttoned Steve’s coat, lifting it off my shoulders and dropping it on the ground. Still looking me in the eyes, he hoisted me up by the waist and sat me on the big black marble sink. I was turned on by the action of what he was doing, but not turned on in my vagina yet. Or maybe my vagina was turned on, but I wasn’t there yet. Like, I was and I wasn’t. Part of me was acting and part of me was enjoying it. “Slower,” I said, to give myself time to get into it. He teased me over my underpants for a second. Then he put his fingers inside and started fingering me. My lips kept getting caught and rubbing against his fingers in an irritated way. I felt like they were puffing up like balloons. I kept trying to ask him questions. I wanted to hear that he wanted me. “What do you think of the lingerie?” “Hot, baby.” “The garters?” “So sexy.” I guess he could feel that I wasn’t super wet, because he got down on his knees in front of the sink where I was spread-eagle, pushed the undies to the side, and started to lick my clit. I moaned some more, not altogether fake, because I enjoyed hearing myself. But fake in the sense that I knew I was suddenly too self-conscious to be aroused. I slid down off the sink and got down on my knees. Then I unzipped his pants and started to suck his dick. His dick was long and skinny. I felt like it could stab me. Usually I very much enjoy dick sucking and I’m pretty intuitive at it. I like to lick it first and tease it—really prepare the dick before I suck. But he was impatient. He grabbed the back of my hair and pushed my head closer to his body, as I’ve seen people do in porn. I gagged a little on his dick, pulled back, then continued, my mouth super wet. He moaned and it was hot. Just hearing the moan come up from the depth of his belly, looking up and seeing that jaw I liked, made me feel wetter. My juices stung my irritated labia. He grabbed the back of my hair and pushed his dick into the back of my throat again, then palmed my forehead away. “Get up here,” he said. My bra and underwear were still on when he hoisted me by the waist back up onto the sink. Then he ripped open a condom wrapper with his teeth and fumbled to put it on.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  The tune sounded something like ‘Pop goes the weasel.’ At all events it was an impudent tune, and Stephen felt that she hated that bullfinch. It took all of five minutes to calm down Tony, during which Stephen stood apologetic but tongue-tied. She hardly knew whether to laugh or to cry at this very ridiculous anti-climax. Then Angela decided the matter by laughing: ‘I’m so sorry, Miss Gordon, he’s feeling peevish. It’s quite natural, poor lamb, he had a bad night, he just hates being all sewn up like a bolster.’ Stephen went over and offered him her hand, which Tony now licked, so that trouble was ended; but in getting up Angela had torn her dress, and this seemed to distress her—she kept fingering the tear. ‘Can I help?’ inquired Stephen, hoping she’d say no—which she did, quite firmly, after one look at Stephen. At last Angela settled down again on the lounge. ‘Come and sit over here,’ she suggested, smiling. Then Stephen sat down on the edge of a chair as though she were sitting in the Prickly Cradle. She forgot to inquire about Angela’s dog-bite, though the bandaged hand was placed on a cushion; and she also forgot to adjust her new necktie, which in her emotion had slipped slightly crooked. A thousand times in the last few days had she carefully rehearsed this scene of their meeting, making up long and elaborate speeches; assuming, in her mind, many dignified poses; and yet there she sat on the edge of a chair as though it were the Prickly Cradle. And now Angela was speaking in her soft, Southern drawl: ‘So you’ve found your way here at last,’ she was saying. And then, after a pause: ‘I’m so glad, Miss Gordon, do you know that your coming has given me real pleasure?’ Stephen said: ‘Yes—oh, yes—’ Then fell silent again, apparently intent on the carpet. ‘Have I dropped my cigarette ash or something?’ inquired her hostess, whose mouth twitched a little . ‘I don’t think so,’ murmured Stephen, pretending to look, then glancing up sideways at the impudent bullfinch. The bullfinch was now being sentimental; he piped very low and with great expression. ‘O, Tannebaum, O, Tannebaum, wie grün sind Deine Blätter’ he piped, hopping rather heavily from perch to perch, with one beady black orb fixed on Stephen. Then Angela said: ‘It’s a curious thing, but I feel as though I’ve known you for ages. I don’t want to behave as though we were strangers—do you think that’s very American of me? Ought I to be formal and stand-offish and British? I will if you say so, but I don’t feel British.’ And her voice, although quite steady and grave, was somehow distinctly suggestive of laughter.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  Did I look as sad and pathetic to Diana as the other women looked to me when I came in? But after group she came up to me in the parking lot. “You seem like you’re the only one there who isn’t totally insane,” she said. “I wouldn’t bet on that.” I laughed. “Can I call you? If I have questions about what to do?” “Sure,” I said. “I don’t know that I will have the answers. But I can listen.” I saw the sadness in her eyes and the mess of it all. I saw her delusions and the way that things started between her and the older tennis pro as just friends. It was like Theo: you wanted to believe they liked you as a friend. She pretended that’s what it was, because if she admitted to herself what it really was at first she would have never gotten in his car. And she had needed to get in his car. “I’m just afraid of getting worse,” she said. “My son has a friend. He is sixteen and gorgeous. And I see the way he looks at me. I used to think it wasn’t that, it couldn’t be that.” “You’re so beautiful,” I said. “How could it not be that?” “Thank you,” she said. “But I’m…you should see the young girls at their high school. I thought there could simply be no way. But now that I’ve been with Ryan, the younger tennis pro, well, I realize what it is with my son’s friend. I’m not going to go there. At least, I don’t think I would go there. But it scares me that I feel tempted.” “Wow,” I said. “That’s heavy.” “Yeah,” she said. “I didn’t want to admit that to the group. I didn’t want to say I’ve thought about, you know, having sex with my son’s friend…I didn’t say it, because…it would be very illegal. I don’t know what the group’s policy is on that. If someone is tempted to do something illegal, are they forced to report it?” “I don’t know,” I said. “But your secret is safe with me. Do you feel any better now even just telling me?” “Not really,” she said. 31. I decided to skip group. I was too deeply involved with Theo now. What would I even tell them? I’d met a merman who might disprove all of their theories about love? And why would I choose to recover unless everything was total and complete shit? If there was one sparkle, one possibility of getting as high as I could get off a person, why would I throw that potentiality away? You had to hold out for these moments until you knew for sure they were gone and never coming back. I didn’t want group to ruin the way I felt. I saw this in Diana, with whom I still spoke.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  “So cryptic,” I said. “Are you aware of death?” Asking that, I felt kind of creepy in a good way. He had a lot of power in not revealing too much of himself. Just that lack of willingness to disclose—that’s all it took for me to perceive rejection. So this gave me a little edge. Also, his observation about me and death could have been a bit scary if he wasn’t so matter-of-fact. I mean, he was a stranger, male, and likely stronger than me. He could easily pull me off a rock into the water and drown me. But I trusted him completely—at least in terms of my physical safety. And now that he had complimented me about my proximity to death and I had owned it, and thrown it right back at him, I felt cool. We had both decided now that death was my territory. I was the Professor of Death. Much more than a middle-aged woman who was beginning to get serious crushy feelings for a young stranger in the water. “I know about death,” he said. “Have you ever seen someone die?” I asked. “Like up close and one-on-one?” “Yes,” he said. “I have watched a number of people die.” “Scary, right? The dying process. I don’t feel scared about death but dying freaks me the fuck out.” “I’m not scared of dying,” he said. “You’re not?” Now he was the professor and I was the pussy. “I would say I’m less scared of dying than I am of life.” Actually, I maybe agreed with him. “I think I’m equally scared of both,” I said. This was the truth. It felt good to say it. “What is it about dying that scares you the most? Are you afraid of having regrets?” “No,” I said. “I think it’s literally the physical process. Like, the suffocation. I’m so scared to be suffocating and panicking. I get panicked even when I go to the dentist. I am not good with discomfort. So I think I’m more scared of the discomfort—my own fear around it—than anything else.” “It might be scary for a moment,” he said. “Maybe for a few minutes. But then, from what I’ve seen, you are very free.” “Maybe,” I said. “But it’s the fear before the freedom that I’m scared of. If I could just go to sleep—just like that, go to sleep and never wake up—I would do that anytime. I would do it tonight. But I’m scared to be conscious while it’s happening.” “I had that feeling about you. That you would be happy to just go to sleep.” “Why? Because I’m so boring?” “Not at all,” he said. “The opposite. But I can feel you’ve suffered.” He was so dramatic. “Yeah, well, life is the dumbest,” I said, standing up. “I’ve suffered too,” he said. “I’ve been sick.” This piqued my interest. “Yeah?”

• From The Pisces (2018)

  Craving the fake light was a completely real feeling, even if those around you could see that you were just another junkie. I think this is what was most frightening: me and my Theo haze and Claire and her druglike need were the same thing. I didn’t want to look at it; I didn’t want to look at her. To look at her would be to see the danger that I was facing on the other side of Theo’s visit, the darkness that inevitably fell when you spent too much time basking in the sun of a man. To look at her was to know that I was inevitably the cause of my own darkness, my own nothingness. The more you went for the ephemeral light, the more the void opened on the other side. It was waiting for me right there. I set my alarm for five. I wanted time to try to look beautiful, even though the wind and salt air always washed away anything I did to my hair or face. Dominic, never an early riser, was still asleep—sprawled in the bed where I had been, one ear above the sheets. I picked him up, carried him to the little white loveseat in the bedroom, and covered him with a blanket. He didn’t stir. Then I changed the sheets on the bed so they would smell clean and not like wet dog. I got in the deep tub and soaked. It was cold out and the hot water felt good to my bones. I brushed my teeth, then drenched myself in one of my sister’s expensive body oils: something called Exotic Seduction made with jasmine, ylang-ylang, vanilla, and lavender oils. I dabbed two extra drops on my nipples and one in my belly button. I applied spearmint lip gloss and rubbed some honey wax in my hair. Then I put on a knee-length gray cotton sundress and a wool sweater. I brought two large blankets outside and placed them in the wagon, unlocked the gate, and started dragging it across the sand. It was quiet. No one was out. If anyone saw me they would have thought I was using the wagon to carry my beach stuff out for the day. I was simply having a beach day.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  But a close examination of her knees in the bath, revealed them to be flawless except for old scars and a crisp, brown scab from a recent tumble—this, of course, was very disappointing. She picked off the scab, and that hurt her a little, but not, she felt sure, like a real housemaid’s knee. However, she decided to continue in prayer, and not to be too easily downhearted. For more than three weeks she sweated and prayed, and pestered poor Collins with endless daily questions: ‘Is your knee better yet?’ ‘Don’t you think my knee’s swollen?’ ‘Have you faith? ’Cause I have—’ ‘Does it hurt you less, Collins?’ But Collins would always reply in the same way: ‘It’s no better, thank you, Miss Stephen.’ At the end of the fourth week Stephen suddenly stopped praying, and she said to Our Lord: ‘You don’t love Collins, Jesus, but I do, and I’m going to get housemaid’s knee. You see if I don’t!’ Then she felt rather frightened, and added more humbly: ‘I mean, I do want to—You don’t mind, do You, Lord Jesus?’ The nursery floor was covered with carpet, which was obviously rather unfortunate for Stephen; had it only been parquet like the drawing- room and study, she felt it would better have served her purpose. All the same it was hard if she knelt long enough—it was so hard, indeed, that she had to grit her teeth if she stayed on her knees for more than twenty minutes. This was much worse than barking one’s shins in the garden; it was much worse even than picking off a scab! Nelson helped her a little. She would think: ‘Now I’m Nelson. I’m in the middle of the Battle of Trafalgar—I’ve got shots in my knees!’ But then she would remember that Nelson had been spared such torment. However, it was really rather fine to be suffering—it certainly seemed to bring Collins much nearer; it seemed to make Stephen feel that she owned her by right of this diligent pain. There were endless spots on the old nursery carpet, and these spots Stephen could pretend to be cleaning; always careful to copy Collins’ movements, rubbing backwards and forwards while groaning a little. When she got up at last, she must hold her left leg and limp, still groaning a little. Enormous new holes appeared in her stockings, through which she could examine her aching knees, and this led to rebuke: ‘Stop your nonsense, Miss Stephen! It’s scandalous the way you’re tearing your stockings!’ But Stephen smiled grimly and went on with the nonsense, spurred by love to an open defiance. On the eighth day, however, it dawned upon Stephen that Collins should be shown the proof of her devotion. Her knees were particularly scarified that morning, so she limped off in search of the unsuspecting housemaid. Collins stared: ‘Good gracious, whatever’s the matter?

• From The Pisces (2018)

  That made me pause for a moment. Was it a sign that being with Theo was deeply misguided? My knee hurt and there was sand in the cut. But all I wanted was for him to take care of my knee. I wanted to show it to him and be babied. When I got back to the house I didn’t wash or bandage the cut. I wanted him to see what happened—to know that I hurt myself and needed to be taken care of. Even though he was entering my world, it wasn’t all easy for me. I was making sacrifices and taking risks too. He wasn’t the only one for whom this was difficult. I’ve always felt that injuries are a bit romantic, in the sense that you’re forced to be vulnerable and have someone else take care of you. I wanted to stay vulnerable. I wondered if he would suck the blood out of the wound like a vampire, the same way he wanted to lick my menstrual blood. Of course, he wasn’t a vampire, he was some other kind of mythic creature, but it didn’t matter. Even if he had legs, no tail, and was a real vampire, I wouldn’t care. I would put my knee to his mouth and say, “Drink, please. I hope you enjoy it.” I wanted him to help heal and soothe me, even if it meant consuming me away. I realized I was tired. I couldn’t be more tired. Dominic was already whimpering. I guess he could smell Theo on me. “It’s time to take a nap now,” I said, and got the tranquilizers from the cupboard. I didn’t know how I would explain to my sister where all of the tranquilizers had gone. Maybe she wouldn’t notice or maybe she would think that I had taken them. Perhaps I could score some more tranquilizers to give to him, or go to the vet and get more. Maybe a different vet so that no one would know what was happening. I gave him the tranquilizers in a pill pocket and put his head on my lap. “Nothing is beautiful and everything is nothing,” I said to him. “Everything is nothing and everything is beautiful.” I had no idea what I was talking about but I felt hypnotized with joy and potentiality. When his sighs deepened, I closed the pantry door and tiptoed away. Walking back across the beach with the wagon, I was limping. This is how we get injured for love, I thought. This is how love can hurt us. I felt great and noble, like a woman coming to claim her man in battle, or perhaps a man who was coming to rescue his woman. I had to be the rescuer, because he was more handicapped than I was. His legs were in worse shape than mine. At least mine could move on earth.