Despair

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 149 of 267 · 20 per page

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Butler and Bliss, the column was headed, Theatreland’s Happiest Newly-Weds! The photograph was of Kitty and Walter in their wedding-suits. I gazed at it in stupefaction for a moment, then I placed my hand over the page and gave a cry - a quick, sharp, agonised cry, as if the paper was hot and had burned me. The cry became a low, ragged moan that went on, and on, until I wondered that I had breath enough left to make it. Soon I heard footsteps on the stairs: Mrs Best was at the door, calling my name in curiosity and fear. At that I ceased my racket, and became a little calmer: I did not want her in my room, prying into my grief or offering useless words of comfort. I called to her that I was quite all right - that I had had a dream, merely, which had upset me; and after a moment I heard her take her leave. I looked again at the paper on my knee, and read the story which accompanied the photograph. It said that Walter and Kitty had married at the end of March, and honeymooned on the Continent; that Kitty was currently resting from the stage, but was expected to return to the halls - in an entirely new act, and with Walter as her partner - in the autumn. Her old partner, it said, Miss Nan King, who had been taken ill whilst playing at the Britannia Theatre, Hoxton, was busy with plans for a new career of her own... Reading this I felt a sudden, sickening desire not to moan, or weep - but to laugh. I put my fingers to my lips and held them shut, as if to stem a tide of rising vomit. I had not laughed in what seemed to be a hundred years or more; I feared more than anything to hear the sound of my own mirth now, for I knew it would be terrible. When this fit had passed, I turned again to the paper. I had wanted at first to destroy it, to tear or crumple it and cast it on the fire. Now, however, I felt I could not let it from my sight. I ran a finger-nail around the edge of the article, then tore, slowly and neatly, where I had scored. The paper that was left over I did cast into the grate; but the slip of newsprint that bore Kitty and Walter’s wedding-portrait I held carefully, in the palm of my hand - as carefully as if it were a moth’s wing that might tarnish with too much fingering. After a moment’s thought I stepped to the looking-glass. There was a gap between the glass itself and the frame which held it, and into this I placed one edge of the piece of paper.

• From Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships (2000)

  Now she is a psychotherapist and sits on the national board of the reFOCUS support network for former cult members. I walked out of the Emissaries of Divine Light after having been involved for thirteen years, from age nineteen to thirty-two. I was fortunate to have a lot of able, immediate support, in friends, as well as in a therapist who had a little knowledge of cults. The biggest single factor was that they were all willing to be educated. They believed me, and they listened endlessly. Information was extremely important. I couldn't get my hands on enough of it-to educate myself and to start my mind working again. It felt so good to be thinking! Talking to other former cult members was-and still is-particularly valuable and helpful to me, to understand what happened, grieve, laugh, and find the value in it all. It has felt safest to share my pain with them. I can remember intense moments of despair over having been had, and for losing my elaborate and all-consuming belief system. I had been so dedicated, with such a sense of purpose. After I left, I didn't know what I thought or felt, or what I could trust in others or myself. I was desperate for direction, yet didn't trust any from outside me and could find none within me. One day, I reacted to a man's shirt. It was chartreuse in color, and I remember saying to myself what an ugly color it was. Almost immediately, I realized I had just expressed an opinion. I knew something about myself: I didn't like that color. It was a little thing, but it felt so important to finally get a handle on a real feeling that was my own. It was also extremely important for me to redefine the language I'd come to use. I strongly recommend making lists of words, looking the words up in the dictionary, and reestablishing their actual use and meaning. It was important to do this with feelings, too. It was a struggle to identify emotions beyond good and bad. It was important to feel pain, to feel anxious, to feel confused, to feel melancholy, and to specifically name each feeling. This process helped me reclaim all of myself. Learning how to relate in healthy ways was also a big deal. Relearning trust, both in others and myself, is only,now becoming less of an issue for me. I am also learningto be comfortable with ambiguity, instead of demanding (or at least longing for) solid, black-and-white answers. About two years after I exited the group, I went to an Al-Anon meeting (a 12step program for loved ones, friends, and families of alcoholics). It was quite helpful to learn that others could understand my experience even if they had not been there themselves. This helped me avoid becoming elitist or isolated in my selfpity. Interestingly enough, the person who had the easiest time understanding my cult experience was a Vietnam vet.

• From Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships (2000)

  He elevates those who attend the meeting while at the same time demanding that they shape up or face the fate of the rejected group. Expulsions from this group are frequent and arbitrary, often forgiven, and then threatened again for some trumped-up act of noncompliance. Likewise, in abusive relationships or family cults, the threat of abandonment or rejection is a powerful means of manipulation. Unless castaways receive counseling or at least some education about cults and the social psychology of influence, many are prone to suffer an extreme sense of loss and isolation, such as that portrayed here: George 0., a high-ranking member of a small political cult, was encouraged to sell drugs to raise money for the group. When arrested, he found himself alone to shoulder the consequences, which included lack of financial support for legal expenses and a hefty jail term. Later when he returned to the group, he was ejected because he dared to voice disappointment with the group's lack of support. Shunned and on his own, George yearned for the political "highs" he felt while in the group, the warmth and solidarity of his comrades, and the sense of elitism. George went into a deep depression. He felt he was a total failure and politically useless. Finally, allowed back after months of pleading and apologizing, he was placed on probation and given menial tasks. Shortly afterward, George was commanded by the leader to perform sexual acts on him. Totally demoralized, George was asked to leave the group again, with no explanation offered. Embittered and confused, he felt a combined sense of failure and loss, which led to an even deeper depression than before, pushing him to the brink of suicide. While in the cult, George found it impossible to question his superior's behavior or disobey orders. Only after leaving could he begin to analyze and question. His despair eventually led him to seek answers and see the group in a clear light. With this insight, he was able to mourn his losses and rebuild his life. Loss of the LeaderThe loss of the leader may cause a group to disband, unless there is a member with similar emotional characteristics and leadership qualities who can convince the group to follow him. Often there is a struggle for leadership, which may result in some groups becoming less authoritarian while others become even more restrictive and abusive. Whether the leader "retires" to a warmer climate, gets arrested, is overthrown by his followers, or dies, the initial effect of his absence is disorienting to the group. Members react in various ways: they may rationalize the loss, blame society, wait for the return or rebirth of their leader or for their promised salvation, blame themselves, or simply drift apart. This rationalization, or making excuses, is an emotional defense against anxiety. It is typically used in cults to explain behaviors that contradict or violate the teachings. Rationalization stops analytical thinking and reinforces dependency.

• From Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge (2004)

  As her madness seized control, Virginie refused to allow the servants in to clean and sat alone in her black rooms, filled with rats and trash, contemplating her lost beauty and the vanished days of splendor. Virginie was sixty-two when her servants, after seven days of trying to gain access to her room, forced their way in and found her decomposing body being gnawed by rats. Her will stipulated that two of her dead dogs, which had been stuffed, should be adorned with jeweled collars and keep a vigil at her coffin during her wake. Before the coffin was closed, the two dogs were to be put inside and serve as cushions for her feet. She wanted to enter eternity in the gown that she had worn when she first slept with the emperor, the gray batiste edged with fine lace, adorned with her famous nine-string black and white pearl necklace and two bracelets. But Virginie’s wishes were not carried out. Her jewels were sold to pay her debts at a well-attended auction, fetching some two million francs. No one knows what happened to the stuffed dogs. Only one curious visitor attended her funeral. Unlike Virginie, Edward VII’s mistress Daisy Warwick didn’t mind the loss of her beauty, but she was shocked to find her predecessor in the royal bed, Lillie Langtry, still waging the fruitless fight. During World War I, there was a curious meeting of these two aging mistresses of a dead king—Lillie in her sixties, Daisy in her mid-fifties. “Whatever happens, I do not intend to grow old!” Lillie protested. “Why shouldn’t beauty vanquish time?”51 “I forgot what I answered,” Daisy reported, “for I was busy analyzing what she had said. I stole a glance at her, and certainly Time’s ravages, although perceptible to the discerning eye of one who had known her at the zenith of her beauty, were disguised with consummate artistry, while her figure was still lovely. But it came to me then that there was tragedy in the life of this woman whose beauty had once been world-famous, for she had found no time in the intervals of pursuing pleasure to secure contentment for the evening of her day. Now that she saw the evening approach, Lillie Langtry could only protest that it was not evening at all, but just the prolongation of a day that was, in truth, already dead.”52

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  The shoes were placed upon my feet, and laced. ‘Stand up!’ said Diana; and when I had done so she caught me by the shoulder and propelled me from her bedroom, through the parlour, and out into the darkened hall beyond. Behind me, the ladies followed, Mrs Hooper and Maria with Zena gripped between them. When I hesitated, Diana prodded me forwards, so that I almost stumbled and fell. Now, at last, I began to weep. I said, ‘Diana, you cannot mean this -!’ But her gaze was cold. She seized me, and pinched me, and made me walk faster. Down we went - all flushed and panting and fantastically costumed as we were - down through the centre of that tall house, in a great jagged spiral, like a tableau of the damned heading for hell. We passed the drawing-room: there were some ladies there still, lolling upon the cushions, and when they saw us they called, What were we doing? And a lady in our party answered, that Diana had caught her boy and her maid in her own bed, and was throwing them out - they must be sure to come and watch it. And so, the lower we went, the greater came the press of ladies at my back, and the louder the laughter and the ribald cries. We reached the basement, and it grew colder; when Diana opened the door that led from the kitchen to the garden at the rear of the house, the wind blew hard upon my weeping eyes, and made them sting. I said, ‘You cannot, you cannot!’ The cold was sobering me. I had had a vision, of my chamber, my closet, my dressing-table, my linen; my cigarette case, my cuff-links, my walking-cane with the silver tip; my suit of bone-coloured linen; my shoes, with the leather so handsome and fine I had once put out my tongue and licked it. My watch, with the strap that secured it to my wrist. Diana pushed me forward, and I turned and grabbed her arm. ‘Don’t cast me from you, Diana!’ I said. ‘Let me stay! I’ll be good! Let me stay, and I’ll pleasure you!’ But as I begged, she kept me marching, backwards; until at last we reached the high wooden gate, beside the carriage-house, at the far end of the garden. There was a smaller door set into the gate, and now Diana stepped to pull it open; beyond seemed perfect blackness. She took Zena from Mrs Hooper, and held her by the neck. ‘Show your face in Felicity Place again,’ she said, ‘or remind me of your creeping, miserable little existence by any word or deed, and I shall keep my promise, and return you to that gaol, and make sure you stay there, till you rot. Do you understand?’ Zena nodded. She was thrust into the square of darkness, and swallowed by it. Then Diana turned for me. She said: ‘The same applies to you, you trollop.’

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  My knock was answered by a pale little girl who stared hard at me while I enquired after the vacant rooms, then turned and called into the darkness behind her. After a second, a lady came; and she, too, looked me over. I thought then of how I must appear, in my expensive dress but hatless and gloveless, and with red eyes and a running nose. But I considered this image of myself rather listlessly, as if it did not much concern me; and the lady at last must have thought me harmless enough. She said her name was Mrs Best, that she had one room left for rent; that the charge was five shillings a week - or seven, with attendance; and that she liked her rent in advance. Would the terms suit me? I gave a quick, half-hearted show of calculation - I felt quite incapable of serious thought - then said that they would. The room to which she led me was cramped and mean and perfectly colourless; everything in it - the wallpaper, the carpets, even the tiles beside the hearth - having been rubbed or bleached or grimed to some variety of grey. There was no gas, only two oil-lamps with cracked and sooty chimneys. Above the mantel there was one small looking-glass, as cloudy and as speckled as the back of an old man’s hand. The window faced the Market. It was all about as different from our house at Stamford Hill as it was possible for any room to be: that, at least, gave me a dreary kind of satisfaction and relief. All I really saw, however, was the bed - a horrible old down mattress, yellow at the edges and blackened in the middle with an ancient bloodstain the size of a saucer - and the door. The bed, for all its rankness, seemed at that moment wonderfully inviting. The door was solid, and had a key in it. I told Mrs Best therefore that I should like to take the room at once, and drew out the envelope that held my money. When she saw that, she sniffed - I think she took me for a gay girl. ‘It is only fair to tell you now,’ she said, ‘that the house I keep here is a tidy one; and I like my lodgers ditto. I have had trouble with single ladies in the past. I don’t care what you do or who you see outside my house; but one thing I won’t have, that’s men-friends in a single lady’s room ...’ I said that I would give her no trouble on that score.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  After a while I started fucking men again—one by one. No longer obedient, I started telling them how to do it—“like this,” “like that”—and they obliged. Having been slave to the King, I was all Queen with them, spreading the word to my jesters, even as I closed my eyes and pretended they were him. Every now and then it worked. And when it worked, it was worst of all: the tears streamed down my cheeks while they thought I was in ecstasy. Is not every affair after the Great One just another state of mourning, prolonged and disguised as some form of continuity or bravery when there is neither? But I didn’t let anyone else—and a few tried—into my sacred backyard. Now a tunnel of despair, it had become hallowed ground, a battlefield, now quiet, but filled with ghosts. If those walls could talk . . . I figured no one else would ever get in there. How could they possibly earn the right? Who could ever be worthy? Who, in their right mind, would even dare? BACKDOOR BUDDHA The loss continued, intolerable and relentless, and the other men only made it worse. I needed help. Badly. Peace of mind was a distant intellectual concept; I was crying every day. I had finally suffered enough. Enough to finally say “enough.” My dignity was shattered. In an effort to wrest myself out of my self-pity, I signed up for a two-week retreat with seventeen hundred Buddhists five thousand miles away in an obscure part of England. To leave where he was. It was like tearing off my own flesh to escape the hold he had on me. Free, I had no skin. Like a burn victim. The Buddhists I met were truly lovely people, welcoming me into their world without judgment despite the fact that I was probably only there for a quick fix in my moment of desperation. But even the wisdom of a quick fix, if it’s Buddhist, can linger long after one’s ego has regained its footing. And so while they all meditated on peace for all, I meditated on peace for me, feeling like the child among them. Everyone I met at the retreat, all strangers, asked me with genuine interest how I was. And so I told them. One after the other smiled broadly at my tale of lost love. “Ah! But you are so fortunate!” said one man, beaming. “So very fortunate!” He almost looked envious. The explanation: any experience of great pain is releasing negative karma, and this release is nothing more than a cleansing, a clearing of the way to nirvana. Well, while nirvana without A-Man in my ass seemed a most unlikely prospect, I had now become the one thing I wasn’t before: willing. Willing to entertain the possibility of sanity without him, just as I had been willing three years earlier to entertain the possibility of giving myself to him for just one afternoon—and look where that had led me.

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  These kids grow up. Dr. Martin Smith of the University of British Columbia and distinguished colleagues published a meta-analytic review of twenty-five years of research on perfectionistic personalities. The biggest takeaway? While a lot of people mellow as they age, easing up on themselves and caring less about what others think, something different happens as type As get older: the wheels start to come off. As we fall short of our impossible expectations for ourselves again and again, we feel like failures. Life goes down the path of Walt Disney rather than Fred Rogers. Or we flame out. In the words of Smith and his colleagues, “In a challenging, messy and imperfect world, perfectionists may burn out as they age, leaving them more unstable and less diligent.” Life does not get easier for people with perfectionism. One way that perfectionism does not make life easy is its contribution to actual disorders. Perfectionism itself isn’t a diagnosis, but a meta-analysis of 284 different studies reiterated the link between perfectionism and depression, eating disorders, social anxiety, OCD, and non-suicidal self-injury. It even reaches its tendrils into problems that, on the surface, seem unrelated, like sexual dysfunction, mood swings in bipolar disorder, panic attacks, and migraines. A sobering meta-analysis of forty-five different studies went even further, linking perfectionism to suicide. The Alaska Suicide Follow-Back Study tracked suicides in the state of Alaska from 2003 to 2006. With great care, the researchers interviewed grieving parents who had lost teens and young adults. Without any prompting at all, 62 percent of the bereaved parents described their deceased children as perfectionistic. The most alarming takeaway? Suicide among people with perfectionism comes out of nowhere. Many said they had no idea their children were even suffering. These promising young people hid their distress from everyone. But internally, they agonized to the point of believing the world would be better off without them. Perfectionism isn’t technically a disease, but it can be fatal. * * * Throughout twenty years of working with clients and research participants, I’ve witnessed the effects of this rising tide of perfectionism. I see them in my client Gus, who came to me looking to optimize his performance at work. A tall, mustachioed product designer at a cookware company, Gus either went all out or got stuck. “I have two gears,” he liked to say, “overdrive and park.” His approach was all or nothing, but because it took so much time and energy to reach his “all” standards, he frequently felt stuck at “nothing.” He worked long hours but was embarrassed to tell me that many of them were spent in procrastination. When he did manage to be productive, he found himself focusing on inconsequential tasks he had already mastered rather than novel, high- profile projects where he had to make decisions or figure things out on the fly.

• From Less (2017)

  Not in the way I had; not in the casual sprawl of all those years. It was as if I had been informed of his death. So many times I had left his house and closed the door, and now, carelessly, I had locked it behind me. Married—it seemed instantly so stupid of me. Around me everywhere, that shade of Lessian blue. We would run into each other now, of course, on the street or at a party somewhere, and maybe even get a drink together, but it would be having a drink with a ghost. Arthur Less. It could never be anyone else. From somewhere high above the earth, I began a plummeting descent. There was no air to breathe. The world was rushing in to fill the void where Arthur Less had always been. I hadn’t known that I assumed he would wait there forever in that white bed below his window. I hadn’t known I needed him there. Like a landmark, a pyramid-shaped stone or a cypress, that we assume will never move. So we can find our way home. And then, inevitably, one day—it’s gone. And we realize that we thought we were the only changing thing, the only variable, in the world; that the objects and people in our lives are there for our pleasure, like the playing pieces of a game, and cannot move of their own accord; that they are held in place by our need for them, by our love. How stupid. Arthur Less, who was supposed to remain in that bed forever, now on a trip around the world—and who knows where he might be? Lost to me. I started shaking. It seemed so long ago I had seen him at that party, looking like a man lost in Grand Central Station, that crown prince of innocence. Watching him only a moment before my father introduced me: “Arthur, you remember my son, Freddy.” I sat upright in bed for a long time, shivering, though it was warm in Tahiti. Shivering, shaking; I suppose it was what you would call an attack of something or other. From behind me, I heard rustling and then a stillness. Then I heard his voice, my new husband, Tom, who loved me, and therefore saw everything: “I really wish you weren’t crying right now.”

• From Less (2017)

  Over the walkway railing, he rests one scuffed wingtip on the decorative concrete ledge. It is only five feet away, the narrow window. A matter of flinging out his arm to catch the shutter. The smallest of leaps to the adjoining ledge. Pressed against the wall, and already yellow paint is flaking onto his shirt, and already he can hear his audience of birds cooing appreciatively. A Berlin sunrise glows over the rooftops, bringing with it a smell of bread and car exhaust. Arthur Less, minor American author known mostly for his connection to the Russian River School of artists, especially the poet Robert Brownburn, took his own life this morning in Berlin, Pegasus’s press release will read. He was fifty years old. What witness is there to see your Mr. Professor dangling from the fourth floor of his apartment building? Throwing out a foot, then a hand, to edge himself toward the kitchen window? Using all his upper-body strength to pull himself over the protective railing and to fall, in a cloud of dust, into the darkness beyond? Just a new mother, walking her baby around her apartment in the early morning. Seeing a scene perhaps out of a foreign comedy. She knows he is not a thief; he is clearly just an American. Less is not known as a teacher, in the same way Melville was not known as a customs inspector. And yet both held the respective positions. Though he was once an endowed chair at Robert’s university, he has no formal training except the drunken, cigarette-filled evenings of his youth, when Robert’s friends gathered and yelled, taunted, and played games with words. As a result, Less feels uncomfortable lecturing. Instead, he re-creates those lost days with his students. Remembering those middle-aged men sitting with a bottle of whiskey, a Norton book of poetry, and scissors, he cuts up a paragraph of Lolita and has the young doctoral students reassemble the text as they desire. In these collages, Humbert Humbert becomes an addled old man rather than a diabolical one, mixing up cocktail ingredients and, instead of confronting the betrayed Charlotte Haze, going back for more ice. He gives them a page of Joyce and a bottle of Wite-Out—and Molly Bloom merely says “Yes.” A game to write a persuasive opening sentence for a book they have never read (this is difficult, as these diligent students have read everything ) leads to a chilling start to Woolf’s The Waves: I was too far out in the ocean to hear the lifeguard shouting, “Shark! Shark!”

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  Our crystal ball shows the trend is likely to continue: in a meta-analysis of ten different studies, Flett and Hewitt found that one in three children and teens today deal with some “clearly maladaptive” form of perfectionism, where they grind themselves into the ground like a cigarette butt under a stiletto trying to meet their own standards. And then? These kids grow up. Dr. Martin Smith of the University of British Columbia and distinguished colleagues published a meta-analytic review of twenty-five years of research on perfectionistic personalities. The biggest takeaway? While a lot of people mellow as they age, easing up on themselves and caring less about what others think, something different happens as type As get older: the wheels start to come off. As we fall short of our impossible expectations for ourselves again and again, we feel like failures. Life goes down the path of Walt Disney rather than Fred Rogers. Or we flame out. In the words of Smith and his colleagues, “In a challenging, messy and imperfect world, perfectionists may burn out as they age, leaving them more unstable and less diligent.” Life does not get easier for people with perfectionism. One way that perfectionism does not make life easy is its contribution to actual disorders. Perfectionism itself isn’t a diagnosis, but a meta-analysis of 284 different studies reiterated the link between perfectionism and depression, eating disorders, social anxiety, OCD, and non-suicidal self-injury. It even reaches its tendrils into problems that, on the surface, seem unrelated, like sexual dysfunction, mood swings in bipolar disorder, panic attacks, and migraines. A sobering meta-analysis of forty-five different studies went even further, linking perfectionism to suicide. The Alaska Suicide Follow-Back Study tracked suicides in the state of Alaska from 2003 to 2006. With great care, the researchers interviewed grieving parents who had lost teens and young adults. Without any prompting at all, 62 percent of the bereaved parents described their deceased children as perfectionistic. The most alarming takeaway? Suicide among people with perfectionism comes out of nowhere. Many said they had no idea their children were even suffering. These promising young people hid their distress from everyone. But internally, they agonized to the point of believing the world would be better off without them. Perfectionism isn’t technically a disease, but it can be fatal. * * *

• From How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety (2018)

  Back on campus, Parkhurst and Hopmeyer, who is now a researcher at Occidental College, pondered what the kids had said. The researchers had used a well-established method to measure popularity: Each kid got a list of others in their grade. Students were asked to circle the names of the three kids they liked best and the three kids they liked least. Then they were asked to do the same for those who were “kind,” “someone you can trust,” “cooperates,” “starts fights,” “easy to push around,” and “can’t take teasing.” It was a simple tally: You were popular if you got lots of “like most” votes and few “like least” votes. You were unpopular if you got lots of “like least” votes and few “like most” votes. Easy-peasy. But in the face of the kids’ feedback, Parkhurst and Hopmeyer reconsidered how to measure popularity. Maybe popularity wasn’t just a tally of likes and dislikes. They did another study, this time with one simple tweak: they added “popular” to the list. Then they crunched the numbers again. What they found changed the game. With the new method, being chosen as “popular” didn’t actually mean a kid was well liked; it meant they were dominant. The kids who were pegged as “popular” did get lots of “likes,” but they also got many “dislikes.” These alpha dogs and queen bees were liked by some, but mostly by other high-status kids. With others, they racked up the eye rolls. It’s easy to mistake being dominant for being liked, because dominant kids get a lot of attention. Their visibility is high. The shy among us despair, thinking, I’ll never be able to do that, or, That’s not me. But you don’t need to be someone you’re not. You don’t need to own the room to be liked. You don’t need to be a big shot, alpha, or self-important. True, honest, by-the-numbers popularity, as Parkhurst and her colleagues discovered, didn’t come from commanding attention or gaining deference. It didn’t even come from having the most confidence. Instead, the kids with the most “like most” votes and the fewest “like least” votes were those who were also rated as the package deal of kind, cooperative, and trustworthy. Dominance, it turns out, equaled perceived popularity. Warmheartedness equaled actual popularity. This phenomenon continues into adulthood. An oft-cited study found that in first impressions of others we prioritize warmth over anything else, which is defined as—you guessed it—kindness and trustworthiness. It’s startling, then, to realize that the shouts and whispers of the Inner Critic are mostly about competence and confidence—we worry we’ll do something stupid, look weird, seem incompetent. We work hard to increase our competence and confidence, but we’re barking up the wrong tree. Competence and confidence aren’t what others are hoping for in a friend—they’re hoping for warmth.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Sé que está enojada. Sé por qué está enojada. Y sé que todos hacemos cosas estúpidas cuando estamos enojados. Me está alejando, y solo necesito tiempo para pensar. Solo algo de tiempo. —No hagas esto —le digo. —Entonces no me hagas preguntas estúpidas. Su pecho se levanta y cae con respiraciones superficiales, y se ve miserable. No sé qué hacer. —Esto me está matando —le susurro, disparando mis ojos a su ventana para asegurarme que Lindsay no está mirando—. Jodidamente matando, saber que estás en su cama. —Entonces debiste haberles dicho la verdad —responde—. Que podían usar mi habitación todo lo que quisiera, porque ahora duermo en tu cama. Se pone de pie, sacudiéndose el polvo del culo, y ya no puedo mirarla a los ojos. Ella duerme en mi cama ahora. Sí, lo hace. Y la quiero allí más que nada en este momento. —Si me quieres, vamos a tener que enfrentarlo tarde o temprano —dice—. No puedes mantenerme encerrada aquí, Pike. Quiero hacer cosas contigo, salir contigo, ir a cenar, besarte y no tener que preocuparme de estar a puertas cerradas cuando lo hago. Guardo silencio un momento, y no espera a que encuentre mi lengua. Camina hacia la casa, y miro frenéticamente hacia la ventana antes de ir a buscarla. Agarrando su mano, la jalo por la esquina de la casa y la apoyo contra la pared. —No podemos —suplico, mirándola—. Aún no. Lo que estamos haciendo no está bien. Todos hablarán. Cole no lo entenderá. Sus ojos brillan con lágrimas mientras me mira, pero su mandíbula se tensa de ira. Retrocedo un paso, pasando mi mano por mi cabello. —¿Qué pasa si esto termina en dos semanas, y he destruido la relación que tengo con mi hijo, porque no pude mantener mi polla en mis pantalones? —le digo— . ¡Solo debí haber mantenido mis manos lejos de ti! ¿Por qué no pude resistir? ¿Eh? Es una pregunta retórica, pero es la verdad. Debí haber mantenido mis manos alejadas. ¿Quién diablos sabe cómo tomará esto Cole? ¿Cuánto más profundo podría Lindsay hundir sus garras en él por esto? Todo lo que hice en mi vida fue para él. No fui a la universidad porque ella no iba a trabajar, y necesitábamos dinero. Trabajé duro, así podía pagar todo lo que necesitaba. Finalmente se está acercando, y esto podría arruinar todo. Guarda silencio por un tiempo, y lo odio. Quiero saber qué está pensando, y cuando está enojada al menos sé que quiere pelear. En este momento, su respiración es lenta y constante, y solo me mira, demasiado tranquila. Asiente para sí misma. —No vale la pena —descifra. Y luego comienza a alejarse—. Sé que tienes razón. —Jordan… —No, está bien. —Se detiene—. Lo entiendo. Sabía que mi hermana tenía razón. Esto nunca iba a suceder. Eso no es… Pero es lo que quise decir, ¿verdad? Si no puedo decírselo ahora, ¿alguna vez planeaba hacerlo? ¿Cuándo sería más fácil? ¿Después de hubieran terminado por un par de años?

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  No quiero molestar a Jordan. Se alejó y no he sabido nada de ella, así que eso me dice que hice lo correcto. Ella está bien, y será más feliz. Pero yo no. Esto no se ha terminado para mí. Necesitas tú corazón para poder salir de la cama, caminar, hablar, trabajar, y comer, y ella se lo llevó cuando se fue. No era mucho, antes que ella apareciera, pero lo que había dentro de mí, se lo llevó. Soy jodidamente miserable. —Por favor dile… —me detengo, admitiendo en voz alta lo que temía admitir—. Que la amo. Shel no dice nada, y ni siquiera puedo mirarla a los ojos y ver que está pensando lo que sé es verdad. Lo arruiné. Estoy a punto de irme cuando Cam se acerca. —Han pasado dos meses —le dice a Shel—. Y todavía tiene un aspecto de mierda. —Ese no es problema de Jordan. —Y no somos las guardianes de Jordan —responde Cam—. Se fue una vez y puede volver a alejarse si es lo que decide. No tenemos que protegerla. Shel duda, me lanza una mirada, y finalmente se da por vencida, caminando alrededor de Cam al otro lado del bar. Cam se dirige a mí. —Mira, no sabemos exactamente dónde está —dice—. Me llama y se reporta cada pocas semanas. Pero tiene una amiga cuya familia tiene un motel al este de Virginia. Ha estado intentando que Jordan vaya a visitarla e incluso le ofreció un trabajo durante un verano. —Duda y luego se encoje de hombros—. Sin mucho dinero, no puedo imaginar a Jordan yendo a otro lugar. Virginia. Eso está a doce horas conduciendo. ¿Lo habrá hecho con el VW? Supongo que si Cam dice que ha estado llamando, está a salvo. Y ésta es la mejor pista que voy a poder conseguir. Sus clases de otoño inician en una semana, y si tuviera la intención de regresar ya lo habría hecho, ¿no es así? Querría sus cosas fuera de mi casa, y tendría que averiguar dónde va a vivir. ¿Estaba planeando regresar a casa? Necesito encontrarla. No puedo esperar. Doy la vuelta pero luego me detengo. —¿Cuál es el nombre del motel? —le pregunto a Cam. Pero ella solo suspira. —Hmmm, no puedo recordarlo —dice, jugando conmigo—. Supongo que si la quieres lo suficiente, la encontrarás. Y luego se aleja satisfecha por estarlo haciendo más difícil para mí. Podría llamar, supongo, pero si logro encontrarla quizás solo me cuelgue. Necesito encontrarla. Necesito al menos verla una última vez y decirle que la amo y que ella lo es todo. Y que estoy muerto sin ella. Presiono el ratón, moviendo el seis de corazones rojos y todo debajo de éste al siete de tréboles negros. Luego abro la nueva carta, presionando dos veces, y viendo el As moviéndose automáticamente a la casilla libre.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Dutch está afuera, sentado en una silla de jardín, inclinado hacia delante, sus codos sobre sus rodillas y mirándome como si fuera un toro en una tienda de China, a punto de romper una mierda en cualquier momento. Han pasado nueve días desde que vi a mi hijo o a Jordan, y cada día que pasa siento que se están alejando cada vez más de mí. Como si hubiera seguido adelante y como si nunca hubiera existido para ella. Cualquier esperanza que tenía se está agotando rápidamente. He llamado, enviado mensajes de texto y dejado mensajes para ambos, y la única ventaja que tengo es una dirección para escribirle a Cole. Tuve que acosar a su reclutador para que me la consiguiera. Envié mi primera carta ayer. En cuanto a Jordan, la única certeza que he podido obtener de que está bien es de Dutch, que tuvo noticias de su esposa, quien supo por Shel que Jordan está fuera de la ciudad visitando amigos y está bien. ¿Regresará? Dejé de llamar después de unos días, porque claramente no quiere hablar y estoy intentando respetar sus deseos, pero... si llamara ahora mismo, iría a buscarla desde cualquier lugar y le daría todo lo que quisiera. Por el resto de mi vida ella puede tener todo lo que quiera. —Pike, no puedes casarte con ella —declara Dutch como si supiera dónde está mi cabeza—. Lo sabes, ¿verdad? Le doy la espalda, volviendo a colocar las herramientas desechadas en el banco de trabajo y despejando lentamente la mesa. Hace nueve días hubiera estado de acuerdo con él. Hubiera dicho que tenía razón. La gente hablará. Probablemente ya estén hablando. Lo harán sucio e incorrecto y sus amigas de la escuela secundaria bromearán sobre ella, y nadie nos tomaría en serio. Todo lo que verían es su edad y cómo cambió del hijo a su padre, y sería la comidilla de la ciudad. Pero ahora no estoy tan seguro. ¿A quién le importa lo que piensen? Lo superaríamos, y el círculo de amigos de Jordan es tan pequeño como el mío. A ella no le importará lo que los extraños tengan que decir al respecto. Seríamos jodidamente felices, y finalmente la gente seguiría adelante. Ella me quería. Quería amarme. Estaba lista para nosotros. Sacudo la cabeza, argumentando: —Ella es diferente. —No, no lo es —responde Dutch—. Es joven y llena de esperanza. Como solíamos ser. Me giro lentamente y lo miro. No es como que él se oponga a mí. Pero lo escucho mientras continúa. —Todo es nuevo y fresco para ella —dice—. Está entusiasmada con la vida y te hace recordar cómo se sentía. Antes que creciéramos y nos diéramos cuenta que no íbamos a ser pilotos de caza salvando el mundo o reyes de Wall Street montados en alargadas limusinas. —Se ríe en voz baja, recostándose en la silla—. Antes que hubiera facturas que pagar y responsabilidades que aumentaban a medida que pasaban los años.

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

  But as for any idea as to the mysterious significance of the appearance of a new human being to replace us, there is scarcely a sign of it. “Nothing of it appears in all that is said and done. No one has any faith now in a baptism of the child, and yet that was nothing but a reminder of the human significance of the newborn babe. “They have rejected all that, but they have not replaced it, and there remain only the dresses, the laces, the little hands, the little feet, and whatever exists in the animal. But the animal has neither imagination, nor foresight, nor reason, nor a doctor. “No! not even a doctor! The chicken droops its head, overwhelmed, or the calf dies; the hen clucks and the cow lows for a time, and then these beasts continue to live, forgetting what has happened. “With us, if the child falls sick, what is to be done, how to care for it, what doctor to call, where to go? If it dies, there will be no more little hands or little feet, and then what is the use of the sufferings endured? The cow does not ask all that, and this is why children are a source of misery. The cow has no imagination, and for that reason cannot think how it might have saved the child if it had done this or that, and its grief, founded in its physical being, lasts but a very short time. It is only a condition, and not that sorrow which becomes exaggerated to the point of despair, thanks to idleness and satiety. The cow has not that reasoning faculty which would enable it to ask the why. Why endure all these tortures? What was the use of so much love, if the little ones were to die? The cow has no logic which tells it to have no more children, and, if any come accidentally, to neither love nor nurse them, that it may not suffer. But our wives reason, and reason in this way, and that is why I said that, when a man does not live as a man, he is beneath the animal.” “But then, how is it necessary to act, in your opinion, in order to treat children humanly?” I asked. “How? Why, love them humanly.” “Well, do not mothers love their children?” “They do not love them humanly, or very seldom do, and that is why they do not love them even as dogs. Mark this, a hen, a goose, a wolf, will always remain to woman inaccessible ideals of animal love.

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

  Hell's tortures are as naught to mine; the keener my agonies, the more piquant seem to be my tormenter's delights. At length, everything capitulates before his efforts, I am ripped asunder, the glittering dart sinks to the ultimate depths, but Saint-Florent, anxious to husband his strength, merely touches bottom and withdraws; I am turned over; the same obstacles: the savage one scouts them as he stands heating his engine and with his ferocious hands he molests the environs in order to put the place in fit condition for assault. He presents himself, the natural smallness of the locale renders his campaign more arduous to wage, my redoubtable vanquisher soon storms the gates, clears the entry; I am bleeding; but what does it matter to the conquering hero? Two vigorous heaves carry him into the sanctuary and there the villain consummates a dreadful sacrifice whose racking pains I should not have been able to endure another second. "My turn," cries up Cardoville, causing me to be untied, "I'll have no tailoring done, but I'm going to place the dear girl upon a camping bed which should restore her circulation, and bring out all the warmth and mobility her temperament or her virtue refuse us." Upon the spot La Rose opens a closet and draws out a cross made of gnarled, thorny, spiny wood. 'Tis thereon the infamous debauchee wishes to place me, but by means of what episode will he improve his cruel enjoyment? Before attaching me, Cardoville inserts into my behind a silver-colored ball the size of an egg; he lubricates it and drives it home: it disappears.

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

  The phallus squirted out a few drops of thick, white, viscid sperm. "'Thrust it in—thrust it in!' he groaned, with a dying voice. "The hand of the manipulator was convulsed. He gave the bottle a strong shake. "We were all breathless with excitement, seeing the intense pleasure the Spahi was feeling, when all at once, amidst the perfect silence that followed each of the soldier's groans, a slight shivering sound was heard, which was at once succeeded by a loud scream of pain and terror from the prostrate man, of horror from the other. The bottle had broken; the handle and part of it came out, cutting all the edges that pressed against it, the other part remained engulfed within the anus. CHAPTER VIII "TIME passed——" "Of course, time never stops, so it is useless to say that it passed. Tell me, rather, what became of the poor Spahi?" "He died, poor fellow! At first there was a general sauve qui peut from Briancourt's. Dr. Charles sent for his instruments and extracted the pieces of glass, and I was told that the poor young man suffered the most excruciating pains like a Stoic without uttering a cry or a groan; his courage was indeed worthy of a better cause. The operation finished, Dr. Charles told the sufferer that he ought to be transported to the hospital, for he was afraid that an inflammation might take place in the pierced parts of the intestines. "'What!' said he; 'go to the hospital, and expose myself to the sneers of all the nurses and doctors—never!' "'But,' said his friend, 'should inflammation set in——' "'It would be all up with me?' "'I am afraid so.' "'And is it likely that the inflammation will take place?' "'Alas! more than likely.' "'And if it does——?' "Dr. Charles looked serious, but gave no answer. "'It might be fatal?' "'Yes.' "'Well, I'll think it over. Anyhow, I must go home—that is, to my lodgings, to put some things to rights.' "In fact, he was accompanied home, and there he begged to be left alone for half an hour. "As soon as he was by himself, he locked the door of the room, took a revolver and shot himself. The cause of the suicide remained a mystery to everybody except ourselves. "This and another case which happened shortly afterwards, cast a dampness on us all, and for some time put an end to Briancourt's symposiums." "And what was this other case?" "One you have most likely read about, for it was in all the papers at the time it occurred.

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

  You shall no longer be witness to these horrors and infamies abounding!) I defended myself, it did no good, in vain I furnished the best material to the lawyer whom a protocol of form required be given me for an instant or two; my employer accused me, the diamond had been discovered in my room; it was plain I had stolen it. When I wished to describe Monsieur du Harpin's awful traffic and prove that the misfortune that had struck me was naught but the fruit of his vengeance and the consequence of his eagerness to be rid of a creature who, through possession of his secret, had become his master, these pleadings were interpreted as so many recriminations, and I was informed that for twenty years Monsieur du Harpin had been known as a man of integrity, incapable of such a horror. I was transferred to the Conciergerie, where I saw myself upon the brink of having to pay with my life for having refused to participate in a crime; I was shortly to perish; only a new misdeed could save me: Providence willed that Crime serve at least once as an aegis unto Virtue, that crime might preserve it from the abyss which is some-day going to engulf judges together with their imbecility. I had about me a woman, probably forty years old, as celebrated for her beauty as for the variety and number of her villainies; she was called Dubois and, like the unlucky Therese, was on the eve of paying the capital penalty, but as to the exact form of it the judges were yet mightily perplexed: having rendered herself guilty of every imaginable crime, they found themselves virtually obliged to invent a new torture for her, or to expose her to one whence we ordinarily exempt our sex. This woman had become interested in me, criminally interested without doubt, since the basis of her feelings, as I learned afterward, was her extreme desire to make a proselyte of me. Only two days from the time set for our execution, Dubois came to me; it was at night. She told me not to lie down to sleep, but to stay near her side. Without attracting attention, we moved as close as we could to the prison door.

• From The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (1967)

  character, as a result of the immense tension brought about by the problem of theodicy under these circumstances. It is one thing to surrender in masochistic ecstasy to, say, Shiva in his avatar as the cosmic destroyer, Shiva as he performs his great dance of creation on a mountain of human skulls. After all, he is not the only divinity in the Hindu scheme, nor is he burdened with anything approaching the ethical quality attributed to the God of the Bible. Religious masochism takes on a peculiar profile in the Biblical orbit precisely because the problem of theodicy becomes unbearably acute when the other is defined as a totally powerful and totally righteous God, creator of both man and universe. It is the voice of this terrible God that must now be so overwhelming as to drown out the cry of protest of tormented man, and, what is more, to convert that cry into a confession of self- abasement ad maiorem Dei gloriam. The Biblical God is radically transcendentalized, that is, posited as the totally other (totaliter aliter) vis-à-vis man. In this transcendentalization there is implicit from the start the masochistic solution par excellence to the problem of theodicy —submission to the totally other, who can be neither questioned nor challenged, and who, by his very nature, is sovereignly above any human ethical and generally nomic standards. The classic loci for this submission, of course, are already to be found in the Book of Job. “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him,” declares Job. And then, after the awesome manifestation of God in the whirlwind, Job confesses his own nothingness before the sovereign power that has been revealed to him: “Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” In this “wherefore” lies the pathos and the strange logic of the masochistic attitude. The question of theodicy is asked, passionately and insistently, almost to the 90