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 179 of 267 · 20 per page

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

  Then I stumbled downstairs in the dark. It was like going down, down into a deep well. I only remember running through the gloomy streets—running like a madman, whither I knew not. "I felt cursed like Cain, or like the Eternal Wanderer, so I ran on at random. "I had fled from them, would that I had been able to flee from myself likewise. "All at once, at the corner of the street, I ran against someone. We both recoiled from each other. I, aghast and terror-stricken; he, simply astonished." "And whom did you meet?" "My own image. A man exactly like myself—my Döppelgänger , in fact. He stared at me for an instant, and then passed on. I, instead, ran with whatever strength was left in me. "My head was reeling, my strength was breaking down, I stumbled several times, still I ran on. "Was I mad? "All at once, panting, breathless, bruised in body and in mind, I found myself standing on the bridge—nay, on the very same spot on which I had stood some months before. "I uttered a harsh, jarring laugh that frightened me. So it had come to this, after all. "I cast a hurried glance around me. A dark shadow loomed in the distance. Was it my other self? "Trembling, shuddering, maddened, without a moment's thought, I climbed on the parapet and plunged head foremost into the foaming flood beneath. "I was again in the very midst of a whirlpool, I heard the noise of rushing waters in my ears; darkness was pressing closely round me, a world of thoughts flitted through my brain with astonishing rapidity, and then, for some time, nothing more. "Only I vaguely remember opening my eyes, and seeing as in a looking-glass my own ghastly face staring at me. "A blank came over me again. When at last I recovered my senses I found myself in the Morgue —that dreadful charnel-house, the Morgue! They had believed me dead, and had carried me thither. "I looked around me, I saw nothing but unknown faces. My other self was nowhere to be seen." "But did he really exist?" "He did." "And who was he?" "A man of my own age, and so exactly like myself that we might have been taken for twin brothers." "And he had saved your life?" "Yes; it appears that on meeting me, he was not only struck with the strong likeness that existed between us, but also by the wildness of my appearance, therefore he was prompted to follow me. Having seen me throw myself into the water, he ran after me and managed to get me out." "And did you see him again?" "I did, poor fellow! But that is another strange incident of my too-eventful life. Perhaps I'll tell it you some other time."

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

  "Yes, Father," she answered between sobs, "permit me to embrace my friends." " 'Tis useless," replied the monk; "we have no time for lachrymose scenes; they are waiting for us; come." Then she asked whether she were obliged to take her belongings with her. "No," said the superior; "does not everything belong to the house? You have no further need of any of it"; then, checking himself, as might one who has said too much: "Those old clothes have become useless; you will have some cut to fit your size, they will be more becoming to you; be content to take along only what you are wearing." I asked the monk whether I might be allowed to accompany Omphale to the door of the house; his reply was a glance that made me recoil in terror.... Omphale goes out, she turns toward us eyes filled with uneasiness and tears, and the minute she is gone I fling myself down upon the bed, desperate. Chapter 27 One morning, quite unexpectedly, Antonin appeared in our chamber and announced that the Reverend Father Severino, allied to the Pope and his protege, had just been named General of the Benedictine Order by His Holiness.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I close my eyes, choking on my own spit and tears, and I can almost feel it tug and pull as she takes Isaac. Please don’t let it break, I silently plead to him. I need to know that some cords can’t be cut. Then the drugs take me. Before I shower, before I eat, before I crawl into bed and sleep off my fourteen-month nightmare, I call a cab. I have him pull into my garage, then I stand next to his window and check him out. Small guy, early twenties, bald by choice. I can see the shadows of where his hair should be. He’s fighting that receding hairline with a shaved head. Defiant and a little ballsy, because we can all see why he’s doing it. His eyes are wide and shifty; either the news vans freaked him out, or he’s having withdrawals. He’ll do, I think. I climb into the front seat. “Do you mind?” I ask. But I don’t really care if he says no. I buckle my seatbelt. “Take me to one of those stores with the lumber and the tools.” He spits out a couple options and I shrug. “Whatever.” We pull past the news vans and I smile at them. I don’t know why except that it’s kind of funny. I used to be famous for my books, now I’m famous for something else. It kind of constipates your mind; being famous for something that someone else did to you. I make my cabbie wait while I run into the home fix-it store he chose. The building is expansive. I walk quickly past the lighting and the doorknobs until I find what I am looking for. I am there for thirty-five minutes while two employees see to my order. I have no purse or credit cards, just the wad of hundred dollar bills I shoved into my back pocket before I left the house. I kept them in an old cookie tin in my pantry for one day; a rainy day, a needy day, a day I just felt like blowing a wad of cash. Now there were only a few days left, so I figured it was time to spend. I toss three of the bills at the cashier and wheel my purchases out to the cab. I won’t let him help me. I stack everything in the trunk, and climb back into the front seat. My legs bounce all the way back. Flashes, doors, questions hurled up my driveway. Once again, I have him pull into the garage. He helps me this time, stacking everything just inside the door that leads into the foyer. I hand him the rest of the wad from my cookie tin. “For one day,” I say. His eyes bulge. He thinks I’m crazy, but hey, I’m handing him lots of money. He leaves before I can change my mind. I watch him pull out and quickly close the garage door.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I’d like to check on you tomorrow, if that’s okay.” I nodded. “Do you have someone that can come over? Stay with you tonight?” I hesitated. I didn’t want to tell him that I didn’t. “I’ll be fine,” I said. When he was gone, I pushed the sofa to the front door and wedged it between the jamb and the wall. It was no more a barrier against someone intruding than my small, ineffective fists, but it made me feel better. I undressed in the foyer, kicking off the lightweight pants and shirt the nurse gave me at the hospital after she bagged mine for evidence. Naked, I carried them to the fireplace, setting them on the floor next to me as I opened the grate and arranged the logs. I lit a fire and waited until it was hot and hungry. Then I threw everything in, and watched the worst day of my life burn. Carrying a Brillo pad and a half-full jug of bleach to the downstairs bathroom, I turned the water to the hottest setting. The bathroom filled with steam. When the mirrors were hazed, and I couldn’t see myself, I climbed into the shower and watched my skin turn red. I scrubbed my body until my skin bled and the water turned pink around my feet. Screwing the cap off the bleach, I lifted it above my shoulders, and poured. I cried out and had to hold myself up while I did it again. Then I lay on the floor with my knees spread apart and my hips raised, and poured it into my body. They’d given me a pill, told me it would take care of an unwanted pregnancy. Just in case, the nurse said. But, I wanted to kill everything he touched—every skin cell. I needed to make sure there was nothing left of him on any part of me. I walked naked to the kitchen and pulled a knife from the block I kept next to the fridge. Using the tip, I ran it up and down the inside of my arm, tracing my favorite vein. Too many windows; my house had too many ways to break in. What if he’d been watching me? If he knew where I lived? I pierced the skin with that last thought and dragged the tip about two inches. I watched the blood trickle down my arm, mesmerized by the sight. When my doorbell rang, the knife clattered to the floor. I was so afraid, I couldn’t move. It rang again. Grabbing a dishtowel I held it over the cut on my arm and looked toward the door. If they were here to hurt me, they probably wouldn’t ring the doorbell. I grabbed for laundry basket that was resting on my kitchen counter, pulling out a clean t-shirt and jeans. They dragged stubbornly over my damp skin as I rushed to put them on.

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

  There she went into a public house, and from thence sent for a mid servant, whose name I had given her, as the properest to inform her. The maid readily came, and as readily, when Mrs. Jones enquired of her what had become of Mr. Charles, or whether he was gone out of town, acquainted her with the disposal of her master’s son, which, the very day after, was no secret to the servants. Such sure measures had he taken, for the most cruel punishment of his child for having more interest with his grandmother than he had, though he made use of a pretence, plausible enough, to get rid of him in this secret abrupt manner, for fear her fondness should have interposed a bar to his leaving England, and proceeding on a voyage he had concerted for him; which pretext was, that it was indispensably necessary to secure a considerable inheritance that devolved to him by the death of a rich merchant (his own brother) at one of the factories in the South Seas, of which he had lately received advice, together with a copy of the will. In consequence of which resolution, to send away his son, he had, unknown to him, made the necessary preparations for fitting him out, struck a bargain with the captain of a ship, whose punctual execution of his orders he had secured, by his interest with his principal owners and patron; and, in short, concerted his measures so secretly, and effectually, that whilst the son thought he was going down to the river, that would take him a few hours, he was stopt on board of a ship, debarred from writing, and more strictly watched than a State criminal. Thus was the idol of my soul torn from me, and forced on a long voyage, without taking leave of one friend, or receiving one line of comfort, except a dry explanation and instructions, from his father, how to proceed when he should arrive at his destined port, enclosing, withal, some letters of recommendation to a factor there: all these particulars I did not learn minutely till some time after. The maid, at the same time, added, that she was sure this usage of her sweet young master would be the death of his grand-mamma, as indeed it proved true; for the old lady, on hearing it, did not survive the news a whole month, and as her fortune consisted in an annuity, out of which she had laid up no reserves, she left nothing worth mentioning to her so fatally envied darling, but absolutely refused to see his father before she died.

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

  He spreads, he presses, thrusts, tears, all his efforts are in vain; in his fury the monster lashes out against the altar at which he cannot speak his prayers; he strikes it, he pinches it, he bites it; these brutalities are succeeded by renewed challenges; the chastened flesh yields, the gate cedes, the ram bursts through; terrible screams rise from my throat; the entire mass is swifty engulfed, and darting its venom the next moment, robbed then of its strength, the snake gives ground before the movements I make to expel it, and Severino weeps with rage. Never in my life have I suffered so much. Clement steps forward; he is armed with a cat-o'-nine-tails; his perfidious designs glitter in his eyes. "'Tis I," says he to Severino, "'tis I who shall avenge you, Father, I shall correct this silly drab for having resisted your pleasures." He has no need of anyone else to hold me; with one arm he enlaces me and forces me, belly down, across his knees; what is going to serve his caprices is nicely discovered. At first, he tries a few blows, it seems they are merely intended as a prelude; soon inflamed by lust, the beast strikes with all his force; nothing is exempt from his ferocity; everything from the small of my back to the lower part of my thighs, the traitor lays cuts upon it all; daring to mix love with these moments of cruelty, he fastens his mouth to mine and wishes to inhale the sighs agony wrests from me... my tears flow, he laps them up, now he kisses, now he threatens, but the rain of blows continues; while he operates, one of the women excites him; kneeling before him, she works with each hand at diverse tasks; the greater her success, the more violent the strokes delivered me; I am nigh to being rent and nothing yet announces the end of my sufferings; he has exhausted every possibility, still he drives on; the end I await is to be the work of his delirium alone; a new cruelty stiffens him: my breasts are at the brute's mercy, he irritates them, uses his teeth upon them, the cannibal snaps, bites, this excess determines the Crisis, the incense escapes him. Frightful cries, terrifying blasphemies, shouts characterize its spurtings, and the monk, enervated, turns me over to Jerome. "I will be no more of a threat to your virtue than Clement was," said this libertine as he caressed the blood-spattered altar at which Clement had just sacrificed, "but I should indeed like to kiss the furrows where the plow passed; I too am worthy to open them, and should like to pay them my modest respects; but I should like even more," went on the old satyr, inserting a finger where Severino had lodged himself, "I should like to have the hen lay, and 'twould be most agreeable to devour its egg... does one exist?

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

  "With them there was a young Zouave sub-lieutenant and a dapper and dashing fellow, and a slim and swarthy youth, apparently an Arab. "The meeting did not seem to have been a carnal one. Anyhow, the soldier was entertaining his friends with his lively talk, and by the few words which my ear caught I understood that the topic was an interesting one. Moreover, as they passed by each bench, the couples seated thereon nudged each other as if they were acquainted with them. "As I passed them I shrugged up my shoulders, and buried my head in my collar. I even put up my handkerchief to my face. Still, notwithstanding all my precautions, Teleny seemed to have recognized me, although I had walked on without taking the slightest notice of him. "I heard their merry laugh as I passed; an echo of loathsome words was still ringing in my ears; sickening faces of effete, womanish men traversed the street, trying to beguile me by all that is nauseous. "I hurried on, sick at heart, disappointed, hating myself and my fellow-creatures, musing whether I was any better than all these worshippers of Priapus who were inured to vice. I was pining for the love of one man who did not care more for me than for any of these sodomites. "It was late at night, and I walked on without exactly knowing where my steps were taking me to. I had not to cross the water on my way home, what then made me do so? Anyhow, all at once I found myself standing in the very middle of the bridge, staring vacantly at the open space in front of me. "The river, like a silvery thoroughfare, parted the town in two. On either side huge shadowy houses rose out of the mist; blurred domes, dim towers, vaporous and gigantic spires soared, quivering, up to the clouds, and faded away in the fog. "Underneath I could perceive the sheen of the cold, bleak, and bickering river, flowing faster and faster, as if fretful at not being able to outdo itself in its own speed, chafing against the arches that stopped it, curling in tiny breakers, and whirling away in angry eddies, whilst the dark pillars shed patches of ink-black shade on the glittering and shivering stream. "As I looked upon these dancing, restless shadows, I saw a myriad of fiery, snake-like elves gliding to and fro through them, winking and beckoning to me as they twirled and they rolled, luring me down to rest in those Lethèan waters. "They were right. Rest must be found below those dark arches, on the soft, slushy sand of that swirling river. "How deep and fathomless those waters seemed!

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  This is nothing, I tell myself. There is a bone sticking out of your leg. It can’t kill you. But it can. Who knows what type of infection I might get after this? My pep talk doesn’t bring me comfort. If Isaac dies, his death will kill me. My leg is preventing me from getting to Isaac. Ignore the leg. Get to Isaac. It’s easier to sit on the stairs and lift myself backward, sticking my injured leg straight out while I use my arms and good leg to lift myself. I toss my sack up ahead of me. I feel every bump, every movement. The pain is so intense I am beyond screaming. It is taking concentration not to pass out. I’m sweating. I can feel fat rivulets rolling down the sides of my face and the back of my neck. I use the railing to lift myself up on the top step, then I hop to the ladder. This is going to be the hard part. Unlike the ladder in the well, this one angles straight up. There is nothing to lean on and the rungs are narrow and slippery. I sob with my face pressed against the wall. Then I pull myself together and drag myself up Mt. Everest. I lay the logs. I light them. Just one at first, then I add a second. I put his head in my lap and rub his chest. I’ve done so much research as a writer; I know that when someone has hypothermia you’re supposed to focus on building heat in the chest, head and neck. Rubbing their limbs will push cold blood back toward the heart, lungs and brain, making things worse. I know I’m supposed to give him the heat from my body, but I can’t get my pants off, and even if I could I wouldn’t know how and where to put my body with a bone sticking out of it. I feel so much guilt. So much. Isaac was right. I knew the zookeeper was playing a game with me. I knew it when I saw the lighters and the carousel room. But I shut down and refused to help him figure things out. I shut down. Why? God. If I’d put two and two together, we could have found that well weeks ago. If he dies it’s my fault. He’s here and it’s my fault. I don’t even know why. But I want to. This is a game, and if I want to get out, I have to find the truth. The Carousel There is a carousel in Mukilteo. It sits in a copse of evergreens at the bottom of a hill called The Devil’s Backbone.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I get catatonic at that point. My thoughts, having run in circles for most of the day, shut down. I just stare until Isaac eventually carries in a plate of food and sets it on the table next to the bed. I don’t touch anything. Not for days, until he pleads with me to eat. To move. To talk to him. I stare at one of the two walls and see how long I can go without feeling. I pee in the bed. The first time it’s an accident; my bladder, stretched like a water balloon, reaches its limit. There’s another time. In my sleep I roll away from it, find a new spot. I wake up closer to the fireplace, my clothes barely damp. It doesn’t bother me. I’m finally in the place where nothing bothers me. Spalsh I squirm under hot water, writhing in shock. I come up gasping, trying to claw my way out of the tub. He dropped me in like a human bath bead. Water sloshes over the side of the tub and soaks into his pant legs and socks. I fight for a few more seconds, his hands holding me in the water. I don’t have the energy to fight. I let myself sink. The bath is so full that I can submerge myself completely. I sink, sink, sink into the ocean. But there is no rest, because he grabs me under my arms and pulls me up to a sitting position. I gasp and grab the sides of the tub. I’m naked except for a sports bra and panties. He pours shampoo on my head; I bat at his hands like a child until his fingers find my scalp. Then I let him. My body, rigid a second ago, slouches as he rubs the fight out of my head. He washes me, using his hands and a sponge that looks like it came straight from a coral reef. Surgeon’s hands rub across my muscles and my skin until I’m so relaxed I can barely move. I close my eyes when he rinses my hair. Both of his hands are holding my head up, cradling it so I don’t sink beneath the water’s surface. When they suddenly stop moving I open my eyes. Isaac is staring at me from above. His eyebrows are almost touching, so deep is his consternation. I reach up without thinking and cradle his cheek with my hand. I would be worried that he could see through my thin, white sports bra, but there is nothing to see. I’m practically a boy. I take my hand away and then I start to chortle. It sounds like a burst of madness. Why do I even wear a sports bra? It’s so stupid. I should just walk around topless. I laugh harder, swallowing a mouthful of water as my body rolls to the side. I am choking—choking and laughing. Isaac pulls me up.

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

  What is the good of letting those creatures live who, no longer able to count upon their parents' aid either because they are without parents or because they are not wanted or recognized by them, henceforth are useful for nothing and simply weigh upon the State: that much surplus commodity, you see, and the market is glutted already; bastards, orphans, malformed infants should be condemned to death immediately they are pupped: the first and the second because, no longer having anyone who wishes or who is able to take care of them, they are mere dregs which one day can have nothing but an undesirable effect upon the society they contaminate; the others because they cannot be of any usefulness to it; the one and the other of these categories are to society what are excrescences to the flesh, battening upon the healthy members' sap, degrading them, enfeebling them; or, if you prefer, they are like those vegetable parasites which, attaching themselves to sound plants, cause them to deteriorate by sucking up their nutritive juices. It's a shocking outrage, these alms destined to feed scum, these most luxuriously appointed houses they have the madness to construct quite as if the human species were so rare, so precious one had to preserve it down to its last vile portion! But enough of politics whereof, my child, you are not likely to understand anything; why lament your fate? for it is in your power, and yours only, to remedy it." "Great Heavens! at the price of what!" "At the price of an illusion, of something that has none but the value wherewith your pride invests it. Well," continued this barbarian, getting to his feet and opening the door, "that is all I can do for you; consent to it, or deliver me from your presence; I have no fondness for beggars...." My tears flowed fast, I was unable to check them; would you believe it, Madame? they irritated rather than melted this man. He shut the door and, seizing my dress at the shoulder, he said most brutally he was going to force from me what I would not accord him voluntarily.

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

  "Why, it's you!" said he, casting scornful eyes upon me, "I was deceived by the letter; I thought it written by a woman more honest than you and whom I would have helped with all my heart; but what would you have me do for an imbecile of your breed? What! you're guilty of a hundred crimes one more shocking than the other, and when someone suggests a way for you to earn your livelihood you stubbornly reject the proposal? Never has stupidity been carried to these lengths." "Oh, Monsieur I" I cried, "I am not in the least guilty." "Then what the devil must one do in order to be?" the harsh creature sharply rejoined. "The first time in my life I clapped eyes on you, there you were, in the thick of a pack of bandits who wanted to assassinate me; and now it is in the municipal prison I discover you, accused of three or four new crimes and wearing, so they tell me, a mark on your shoulder which proclaims your former misdeeds. If that is what you designate by the word honest, do inform me of what it would require not to be." "Just Heaven, Monsieur!" I replied, "can you excoriate that period in my life when I knew you, and should it not rather be for me to make you blush at the memory of what passed then? You know very well, Monsieur, the bandits who captured you, and amongst whom you found me, kept me with them by force; they wanted to kill you, I saved your life by facilitating your escape while making mine; and what, cruel man, did you do to thank me for my aid? is it possible you can recall your actions without horror? You yourself wanted to murder me; you dazed me by terrible blows and, profiting from my half-unconscious state, you snatched from me what I prized most highly; through an unexampled refinement of cruelty, you plundered me of the little money I possessed quite as if you had desired to summon humiliation and misery to complete your victim's obliteration! And great was your success, barbaric one! indeed, it has been entire; 'tis you who precipitated me into desolation; 'tis you who made the abyss to yawn, and 'tis thanks to you I fell into it and have not ceased to fall since that accursed moment.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I walk back toward the shed and peer inside. There are piles and piles of chopped wood. An axe rests against the wall closest to where I stand to the back of the shed are several large metal containers. I am about to go investigate them when Isaac comes back for more wood. “What are those?” I ask. “Diesel,” he says, without looking up. “For the generator?” “Yes, Senna. For the generator.” I don’t understand the edge in his voice. Why he’s speaking to me like he is. I crouch down beside him and reach for the logs, loading my arms. We walk back together and stock the wood closet in the cabin. I am about to follow him outside for more when he stops me. “Stay here,” he says, touching my arm. “I’ll do the rest.” If he hadn’t touched my arm, I would have insisted on helping. But there is something to his touch. Something he is telling me. I crouch in front of the fire he’s built until my shivering stops. Isaac makes a dozen more trips before our wood closet is full, then he starts piling logs in the corners of the room. In case we get locked in again, I think. “Could we leave the door open? Wedge something in between the door jamb so it can’t close?” Isaac runs a hand along the back of his neck. His clothes are filthy and covered in a thousand flecks of wood. “Would we be guarding it, too? In case someone closes it in the middle of the night?” I shake my head. “There is no one here, Isaac. They dropped us off and left us here.” He seems to be torn about telling me something. This pisses me off. He’s always had the tendency to treat me like I’m fragile. “What, Isaac?” I snap. “Just say it.” “The generator,” he says. “I’ve seen them before. They have underground tanks with a hose system attached.” I don’t get it at first. A generator … no windows on the back of the house … a hose system to refill the diesel. “Oh my God.” I collapse on the couch and stick my head between my knees. I can feel myself gasping for air. I hear Isaac’s footsteps on the wood floor. He grabs me by the shoulders and drags me to my feet. “Look at me, Senna.” I do. “Calm down. Breathe. I can’t afford to have anything happen to you, okay?” I nod. He shakes me until my head snaps back. “Okay?” he says again. “Okay,” I mimic. He lets me go, but doesn’t step away. He pulls me into a hug and my face buries itself in the crook of his neck. “He’s been filling that tank hasn’t he? That’s why there are no windows on the back of the house.” Isaac’s silence is confirmation enough. “Will he come back? Now that we have the door open and can fill it ourselves?”

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

  I haven’t a strong imagination, and like you I am weak in execution. But when I make up my mind to do something, I carry it through, and the more certainly, the more opposition I meet. Leave me alone!” She pushed me away, and got up. “Wanda!” I likewise rose, and stood facing her. “Now you know what I am,” she continued. “Once more I warn you. You still have the choice. I am not compelling you to be my slave.” “Wanda,” I replied with emotion and tears filling my eyes, “don’t you know how I love you?” Her lips quivered contemptuously. “You are mistaken, you make yourself out worse than you are; you are good and noble by nature—” “What do you know about my nature,” she interrupted vehemently, “you will get to know me as I am.” “Wanda!” “Decide, will you submit, unconditionally?” “And if I say no.” “Then—” She stepped close up to me, cold and contemptuous. As she stood before me now, the arms folded across her breast, with an evil smile about her lips, she was in fact the despotic woman of my dreams. Her expression seemed hard, and nothing lay in her eyes that promised kindness or mercy. “Well—” she said at last. “You are angry,” I cried, “you will punish me.” “Oh no!” she replied, “I shall let you go. You are free. I am not holding you.” “Wanda—I, who love you so—” “Yes, you, my dear sir, you who adore me,” she exclaimed contemptuously, “but who are a coward, a liar, and a breaker of promises. Leave me instantly—” “Wanda I—” “Wretch!” My blood rose in my heart. I threw myself down at her feet and began to cry. “Tears, too!” She began to laugh. Oh, this laughter was frightful. “Leave me—I don’t want to see you again.” “Oh my God!” I cried, beside myself. “I will do whatever you command, be your slave, a mere object with which you can do what you will—only don’t send me away—I can’t bear it—I cannot live without you.” I embraced her knees, and covered her hand with kisses. “Yes, you must be a slave, and feel the lash, for you are not a man,” she said calmly. She said this to me with perfect composure, not angrily, not even excitedly, and it was what hurt most. “Now I know you, your dog-like nature, that adores where it is kicked, and the more, the more it is maltreated. Now I know you, and now you shall come to know me.” She walked up and down with long strides, while I remained crushed on my knees; my head was hanging supine, tears flowed from my eyes. “Come here,” Wanda commanded harshly, sitting down on the ottoman. I obeyed her command, and sat down beside her. She looked at me sombrely, and then a light suddenly seemed to illuminate the interior of her eye.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I asked him about it once, and he said, “There are tools for everything. I am a doctor. I use the right tool for the right purpose .” He is aggravated with me. I shoot him a look every few bites, but his eyes are on his food. When I am finished, I stand up and take my plate to the sink. I wash and dry it. Put it back in the cabinet. I stand behind him as he finishes up his meal, and watch the back of his head. I can see grey in his hair, it’s mostly at his temples. Just a little bit. The last time I saw him there had been no grey. Maybe in vitro put it there. Or his wife. Or surgery. I was born with mine, so who knows? When he pushes back from the table, I turn around quickly and busy myself with wiping the counter. Three wipes in and the chore seems foolish. I’m cleaning my captor’s house. It feels a little like betrayal: live in filth or clean your prison. I should burn it to the ground. I finish wiping, rinse the rag, fold it neatly and hang it over the faucet. Before I go back upstairs, I grab an armful of wood from the wood closet. We all but collide at the foot of the stairs. “Let me carry it for you.” I cling to my wood. “Don’t you have to stay to guard the door?” “No one is coming, Senna.” He looks almost sad. He tries to take the wood from me. I yank my arms out of reach. “You don’t know that,” I retort. He looks at my freckles. “Hush,” he says, softly. “They would have come by now. It’s been fourteen days.” I shake my head. “It hasn’t been that long…” I mentally do the calculations. We’ve been here for … fourteen days. He’s right. Fourteen. My God. Where are the search parties? Where are the police? Where are we? But, most importantly, where is the person who brought us here? I yield my wood. Isaac half smiles at me. I follow him up the stairs and climb the ladder to the attic room so he can hand me the logs. “Night, Senna.” I look at the bright sun streaming into the window behind me. “Morning, Isaac.” We are nowhere. Isaac is losing it. Most days he paces in front of the kitchen window for hours, his eyes on the snow like it’s speaking to him. It looks like he’s seeing something, but there is nothing to see—only mounds of white in the middle of white, spread out over white, covered in white. We are nowhere and snow doesn’t speak.

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

  We see that marriage exists, that all humanity—at least the larger portion—lives conjugally, and that many husbands and wives honestly end a long life together.” The nervous gentleman smiled ill-naturedly. “And what then? You say that marriage is based upon love, and when I give voice to a doubt as to the existence of any other love than sensual love, you prove to me the existence of love by marriage. But in our day marriage is only a violence and falsehood.” “No, pardon me,” said the lawyer. “I say only that marriages have existed and do exist.” “But how and why do they exist? They have existed, and they do exist, for people who have seen, and do see, in marriage something sacramental, a sacrament that is binding before God. For such people marriages exist, but to us they are only hypocrisy and violence. We feel it, and, to clear ourselves, we preach free love; but, really, to preach free love is only a call backward to the promiscuity of the sexes (excuse me, he said to the lady), the haphazard sin of certain raskolniks . The old foundation is shattered; we must build a new one, but we must not preach debauchery.” He grew so warm that all became silent, looking at him in astonishment. “And yet the transition state is terrible. People feel that haphazard sin is inadmissible. It is necessary in some way or other to regulate the sexual relations; but there exists no other foundation than the old one, in which nobody longer believes? People marry in the old fashion, without believing in what they do, and the result is falsehood, violence. When it is falsehood alone, it is easily endured. The husband and wife simply deceive the world by professing to live monogamically. If they really are polygamous and polyandrous, it is bad, but acceptable. But when, as often happens, the husband and the wife have taken upon themselves the obligation to live together all their lives (they themselves do not know why), and from the second month have already a desire to separate, but continue to live together just the same, then comes that infernal existence in which they resort to drink, in which they fire revolvers, in which they assassinate each other, in which they poison each other.” All were silent, but we felt ill at ease. “Yes, these critical episodes happen in marital life. For instance, there is the Posdnicheff affair,” said the lawyer, wishing to stop the conversation on this embarrassing and too exciting ground. “Have you read how he killed his wife through jealousy?” The lady said that she had not read it. The nervous gentleman said nothing, and changed color. “I see that you have divined who I am,” said he, suddenly, after a pause. “No, I have not had that pleasure.” “It is no great pleasure.

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

  Severin Kusiemski.” I handed these lines to the negress, and hastened away as fast as I could go. I arrived at the railway-station all out of breath. Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my heart and stopped. I began to weep. It is humiliating that I want to flee and I can’t. I turn back—whither?—to her, whom I abhor, and yet, at the same time, adore. Again I pause. I cannot go back. I dare not. But how am I to leave Florence. I remember that I haven’t any money, not a penny. Very well then, on foot; it is better to be an honest beggar than to eat the bread of a courtesan. But still I can’t leave. She has my pledge, my word of honor. I have to return. Perhaps she will release me. After a few rapid strides, I stop again. She has my word of honor and my bond, that I shall remain her slave as long as she desires, until she herself gives me my freedom. But I might kill myself. I go through the Cascine down to the Arno, where its yellow waters plash monotonously about a couple of stray willows. There I sit, and cast up my final accounts with existence. I let my entire life pass before me in review. On the whole, it is rather a wretched affair—a few joys, an endless number of indifferent and worthless things, and between these an abundant harvest of pains, miseries, fears, disappointments, shipwrecked hopes, afflictions, sorrow and grief. I thought of my mother, whom I loved so deeply and whom I had to watch waste away beneath a horrible disease; of my brother, who full of the promise of joy and happiness died in the flower of youth, without even having put his lips to the cup of life. I thought of my dead nurse, my childhood playmates, the friends that had striven and studied with me; of all those, covered by the cold, dead, indifferent earth. I thought of my turtle-dove, who not infrequently made his cooing bows to me, instead of to his mate.—All have returned, dust unto dust. I laughed aloud, and slid down into the water, but at the same moment I caught hold of one of the willow-branches, hanging above the yellow waves. As in a vision, I see the woman who has caused all my misery. She hovers above the level of the water, luminous in the sunlight as though she were transparent, with red flames about her head and neck. She turns her face toward me and smiles. * * * * * I am back again, dripping, wet through, glowing with shame and fever. The negress has delivered my letter; I am judged, lost, in the power of a heartless, affronted woman.

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

  The greater Bernard of Clairvaux exclaimed, "Oh! that I might, before dying, see the Church of God led back to the ideal of her early days. Then the nets were cast, not to catch gold and silver, but to save souls. The perilous times are not impending. They are here. Violence prevails on the earth."2159 The Englishman, Adam Marsh, writing to Grosseteste, spoke of "these most damnable times," his diebus damnatissimis.2160 Edmund of Abingdon, archbishop of Canterbury, dying in exile at Potigny, exclaimed, "I have lived too long, for I see all things going to ruin; Lord God receive my soul."2161 Roger Bacon found rottenness and decay everywhere, and he agreed with other moralists of his day, in making the clergy chiefly responsible for the prevailing corruption. The whole clergy, he says, "is given to pride, avarice, and self-indulgence. Where clergymen are gathered together, as at Paris and Oxford, their quarrels and strife, and their vices are a scandal to laymen."2162 With a similar lament Hildebrand, at the opening of the period, took up the duties of the papacy. The prophet Joachim looked for a new dispensation as the only relief. The real greatness of this period lies not in its relative moral and religious perfection, as compared with our own, but in a certain imposing grandeur of conception and of faith, as shown in the Crusades, the cathedrals, the Scholastic systems, and even the mistaken ideal of papal supremacy. Its institutions were not in a settled condition, and its religious life was not characterized by repose. A tremendous struggle was going on. The surface was troubled, and there was a mighty undercurrent of restlessness. It would be an ungracious and a foolish thing for this generation, the heir of twice as many centuries of Christian schooling as were the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, to boast as though Christian charity and morality and devotion to high aims had waited until now to manifest themselves. The Middle Ages, from 1050 to 1300, offer a spectacle of stirring devotion to religious aims in thought and conduct. VOLUME VI. THE MIDDLE AGES FROM BONIFACE VIII., 1294 TO THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION, 1517by DAVID S. SCHAFF, D.D. ———— PREFACEThis volume completes the history of the Church in the Middle Ages. Dr. Philip Schaff on one occasion spoke of the Middle Ages as a terra incognita in the United States,—a territory not adequately explored. These words would no longer be applicable, whether we have in mind the instruction given in our universities or theological seminaries. In Germany, during the last twenty years, the study of the period has been greatly developed, and no period at the present time, except the Apostolic age, attracts more scholarly and earnest attention and research.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  What was the point of that? I hate her so. I want to tell her that her sick game didn’t work, that I’m just the same as I’ve always been: broken, bitter and self-destructive. Something comes to me then, a quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. “Fuck you, Saphira!” I call out. Then I reach out in defiance and grab the fence. I cry out because of what I think is coming. But nothing comes. It’s then that I acknowledge that there is no humming. The fence used to hum. My vocal chords are frozen, my tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth. I unstick my tongue and try to lick my lips. But my mouth is so dry there is nothing to wet them with. I let go of the chain link and look over my shoulder at the house. I left the front door open, it’s swung wide, the one dark spot beneath the veils of snow. I don’t want to go back. The smart thing would be to go get more layers. More socks. I threw on one of Isaac’s sweatshirts before I left, over the one I was already wearing. But the air cuts through both like they’re made of tissue. I head back for the house, my leg aching. I throw on more clothes, stuff food in my pockets. Before I leave I climb the stairs to the carousel room. Kneeling in front of the chest, I search for the single puzzle piece that escaped the fire. It’s there, in the corner, overlaid with dust. I place it in my pocket, and then I walk through my prison for the last time. The fence. I lace my fingers through the wire and pull up. In Saphira’s exit with Isaac, she might have overlooked turning the fence back on. If she comes back I don’t want to be here. I’d sooner die free, cold and in the woods than locked up behind an electrical fence, turning into a human ice cube in that house. Isaac’s boots are big. I can’t fit the toes into the octagons that make up the pattern of the fence. I slip twice and my chin bumps down the metal like something out of a Looney-Tunes cartoon. I feel blood running down my neck. I don’t even bother to wipe it up. I am desperate … manic. I want out. I claw at the fence. My gloves snag on twisted pieces of steel. When I rip them away the metal catches the skin on my palm, ripping into the tender flesh. I keep going. There is barbed wire along the top of the fence, running in loops as far as I can see.

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

  I sought to free myself. “What is the matter?” asked Wanda. “I am suffering agonies.” “You are suffering—” she broke out into a loud amused laughter. “You laugh!” I moaned, “have you no idea—” She was serious all of a sudden. She raised my head in her hands, and with a violent gesture drew me to her breast. “Wanda,” I stammered. “Of course, you enjoy suffering,” she said, and laughed again, “but wait, I’ll bring you to your senses.” “No, I will no longer ask,” I exclaimed, “whether you want to belong to me for always or for only a brief moment of intoxication. I want to drain my happiness to the full. You are mine now, and I would rather lose you than never to have had you.” “Now you are sensible,” she said. She kissed me again with her murderous lips. I tore the ermine apart and the covering of lace and her naked breast surged against mine. Then my senses left me— The first thing I remember is the moment when I saw blood dripping from my hand, and she asked apathetically: “Did you scratch me?” “No, I believe, I have bitten you.” * * * * * It is strange how every relation in life assumes a different face as soon as a new person enters. We spent marvellous days together; we visited the mountains and lakes, we read together, and I completed Wanda’s portrait. And how we loved one another, how beautiful her smiling face was! Then a friend of hers arrived, a divorced woman somewhat older, more experienced, and less scrupulous than Wanda. Her influence is already making itself felt in every direction. Wanda wrinkles her brows, and displays a certain impatience with me. Has she ceased loving me? * * * * * For almost a fortnight this unbearable restraint has lain upon us. Her friend lives with her, and we are never alone. A circle of men surrounds the young women. With my seriousness and melancholy I am playing an absurd role as lover. Wanda treats me like a stranger. To-day, while out walking, she staid behind with me. I saw that this was done intentionally, and I rejoiced. But what did she tell me? “My friend doesn’t understand how I can love you. She doesn’t think you either handsome or particularly attractive otherwise. She is telling me from morning till night about the glamour of the frivolous life in the capital, hinting at the advantages to which I could lay claim, the large parties which I would find there, and the distinguished and handsome admirers which I would attract. But of what use is all this, since it happens that I love you.” For a moment I lost my breath, then I said: “I have no wish to stand in the way of your happiness, Wanda. Do not consider me.” Then I raised my hat, and let her go ahead. She looked at me surprised, but did not answer a syllable.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  We use a bucket to relieve ourselves, and it’s his job to empty that too. He goes carefully. I can hear his steps creaking across the floorboards until he reaches the landing, and then the clomp, clomp, clomp on the stairs. I lose his sound once he’s down the well, but he’s never there for more than five minutes, except when he’s doing laundry or throwing our trash over the side of the cliff. Laundry consists of filling the bathtub with snow and soap and swishing the clothes around until you think they’re clean. We never had a shortage of soap, there are stacks of white bars, wrapped in a filmy white paper on the bottom shelf of the pantry. They smell like butter, and on more than one occasion when I was bent over with hunger I thought about eating them. Isaac takes the smaller of the two flashlights—the one I found when I fucked up my leg. He leaves me the big one. He leaves it right next to my bed and tells me not to use it. But as soon as I hear his socked feet on the stairs, my fingers reach down to find the switch that turns it on. I let the light flow. Sometimes I reach over and pass my hand across it, playing with the shadows. It’s a sad, sad thing when the highlight of your day becomes five minutes with a flashlight. One day when Isaac comes back, I ask him why he doesn’t just bring everything up at once. “I need the exercise,” he says. After a week, he comes up the stairs with a handful of green bandages. “There’s no infection that I can see around the wound. It’s healing.” I notice that he didn’t say, Healing well . “The bone could still become infected, but we can hope the penicillin will take care of that.” “What’s that?” I ask, nodding toward his hands. “I’m going to put your leg in a cast. Then I can move you to the bed.” “What if the bone doesn’t fuse together properly?” I ask. He’s quiet for a long time as he works with the supplies. “It’s not going to heal properly,” he says. “You’ll most likely walk with a limp for the rest of your life. On most days, you’ll have pain.” I close my eyes. Of course. Of course. Of course. When I look up again, he’s cutting the toes off of a white sock. He fits it over my foot as gently as he can and pulls it up my leg. I force breath from my nostrils to keep from wailing. It must be one of his. The sock.