Embarrassment

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 54 of 79 · 20 per page

• From Real Sex for Real Women (2008)

  Auto-immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)Since the AIDS epidemic took hold in the 1980s, there has been much misinformation about the disease. Many myths about HIV persist—for example, that only those in the gay community get infected, or only those who are promiscuous or share needles. Of course, everyone has the potential to be infected with HIV. In fact, 75 percent of women with the virus were infected through heterosexual sex. There is now a range of treatment options available for HIV; if you are affected, your doctor will discuss them with you. Other common STDsChlamydia, gonorrhea, trichomoniasis, and bacterial vaginosis often exhibit similar symptoms, which include a discharge, foul odor, pain, itchiness, or discomfort. Many of these STDs can become more problematic and lead to infertility and other chronic health problems if they are not treated, so it is crucial to see a doctor promptly. Doctors have seen everything, so never let embarrassment prevent you from seeking medical treatment and asking specific questions. Sexy safer sexMale and female condoms mean safer sex, and are a reliable method of protecting yourself and your partner from STDs. You may not think of condoms as sexy, but rolling one down the length of your lover’s penis as you sit astride him can be an extremely sensual act. As you smooth it onto his shaft, lean forward to stroke his penis, then lick him from base to tip once he’s wearing the condom, as a promise of treats to follow. [image file=image_rsrc3E3.jpg] Protection and ContraceptionSafer sex isn’t just important when you are dating casually or in an open relationship. Even those people in long-term relationships should be cautious until they are both given a clean bill of health by a doctor six months after their last unprotected sex session. Most of us will never contract an STD, incurable or otherwise, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take precautions every time we have sex with every partner. Be smart and safe, and keep your sexual and reproductive health your main priority. Protecting yourselfUnfortunately, there is no way to protect yourself completely against STDs or unwanted pregnancy, other than abstinence. Any type of skin-to-skin contact, heavy petting, or contact with the genitals can lead to the transmission of viruses. Even manual sex can lead to the spread of bacteria and potentially STDs. For instance, if your partner has a wart on his finger and touches your genitals, you can end up with genital warts. But oral is safe, right?Oral sex is sex—it is no less dangerous than intercourse when it comes down to the possible transmission of STDs. Fortunately, there are ways to protect yourself while still enjoying oral sex with your partner, until you are certain that both you and your partner are STD-free.

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

  Whilst I was chaffering for the fruit I wanted, I observed myself followed by a young gentleman, whose rich dress first attracted my notice; for the rest, he had nothing remarkable in his person, except that he was pale, thin-made, and ventured himself upon legs rather of the slenderest. Easy was it to perceive, without seeming to perceive it, that it was me he wanted to be at; and keeping his eyes fixed on me, till he came to the same basket that I stood at, and cheapening, or rather giving the first price asked for the fruit, began his approaches. Now most certainly I was not at all out of figure to pass for a modest girl. I had neither the feathers, nor fumet of a taudry town-miss: a straw hat, a white gown, clean linen, and above all, a certain natural and easy air of modesty (which the appearances of never forsook me, even on those occasions that I most broke in upon it, in practice) were all signs that gave him no opening to conjecture my condition. He spoke to me; and this address from a stranger throwing a blush into my cheeks, that still set him wider of the truth, I answered him, with an awkwardness and confusion the more apt to impose, as there really was a mixture of the genuine in them. But when proceeding, on the foot of having broken the ice, to join discourse, he went into other leading questions, I put so much innocence, simplicity, and even childishness, into my answers, that on no better foundation, liking my person as he did, I will not answer for it, he would have been sworn for my modesty. There is, in short, in the men, when once they are caught, by the eye especially, a fund of cullibility that their lordly wisdom little dreams of, and in virtue of which the most sagacious of them are seen so often our dupes. Amongst other queries he put to me, one was, whether I was married? I replied, that I was too young to think of that this many a year. To that of my age, I answered, and sunk a year upon him, passing myself for not above seventeen. As to my way of life, I told him I had served an apprenticeship to a milliner in Preston, and was come to town after a relation, that I had found, on my arrival, was dead, and now lived journey-woman to a milliner in town. That last article, indeed, was not much of the side of what I pretended to pass for; but it did pass, under favour of the growing passion I had inspired him with. After he had next got out of me, very dexterously as he thought, what I had no sort of design to make reserve of, my own, my mistress’s name, and place of abode, he loaded me with fruit, all the rarest and dearest he could pick out and sent me home, pondering on what might be the consequence of this adventure.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  You should hear her in the kitchen, Miss Butler. She’s a regular song-bird, she is, then: a regular lark. Makes your heart turn over, to hear her.’ There were murmurs of agreement throughout the room, and I saw Kitty look blinkingly my way. Then George whispered rather loudly that I must be saving my voice for serenading Freddy, and there was a fresh round of laughter that set me gazing and blushing into my lap. Kitty looked bemused.She asked then, ‘Who is Freddy?’‘Freddy is Nancy’s young feller,’ said Davy. ‘A very handsome chap. She must’ve boasted about him to you?’‘No,’ said Kitty, ‘she has not.’ She said it lightly, but I glanced up and saw that her eyes were strange, and almost sad. It was true that I had never mentioned Fred to her. The fact was, I barely thought of him as my beau these days, for since her arrival in Canterbury I had had no evenings spare to spend with him. He had recently sent me a letter to say, did I still care? - and I had put the letter in a drawer, and forgotten to reply.There was more chaff about Freddy, then; I was glad when one of Rhoda’s sisters caused a fuss, by snatching the harmonica from George and giving us a tune so horrible it made the boys all shout at her, and pull her hair, to make her stop.While they quarrelled and swore, Kitty leaned towards me and said softly, ‘Will you take me to your room, Nan, or somewhere quiet, for a bit - just you and me?’ She looked so grave suddenly I feared that she might faint. I got up, and made a path for her across the crowded room, and told my mother I was taking her upstairs; and Mother - who was gazing troubledly at Rhoda’s sister, not knowing whether to laugh at her or to scold - gave us a nod, distractedly, and we escaped.The bedroom was cooler than the parlour, and dimmer, and - although we could still hear shouts, and stamping, and blasts from the harmonica - wonderfully calm compared to the room we had just left. The window was raised, and Kitty crossed to it at once and placed her arms upon the sill. Closing her eyes against the breeze that blew in from the bay, she took a few deep, grateful breaths.‘Are you poorly?’ I said.

• From The Fermata (1994)

  We made an appointment. Then something suddenly occurred to me that I couldn’t resist bringing up. “What I still don’t understand,” I said, “is why it’s all happening exclusively in my right wrist. Shouldn’t I have a touch of it on the left side?” “Are you a heavy user of the backspace key?” she asked. “Several of my patients have reconfigured their keyboard so that they controlled the backspace key with their left hands, eliminating that constant reaching up with the little finger as they corrected their typos, and they improved immediately.” “Interesting. Maybe that’s it,” I said, nodding thoughtfully, signaling that I was thinking of something else. “Maybe that’s it.” “Well? What were you going to attribute it to?” the doctor asked. “How shall I put this? The stories I write are quite—they’re pornographic stories.” She took this in. Her face was sensual and intelligent and canny. “I don’t see why what you write would make a bit of difference to your wrist. A letter f is a letter f to the nerve concerned, no matter what risqué thing it happens to be spelling.” “That’s right,” I said eagerly, “and yet the letter e is the most frequent letter in English, right? And the letter e is a left-hand letter. So it should be as much a left-wrist problem as a right-wrist problem!” “That’s why I mentioned the backspace key,” the doctor explained patiently. “Or it could easily be the cursor keys, or the mouse. The mouse gives people terrible trouble.” “I use hot keys almost exclusively,” I said haughtily. “All I’m saying is, you have to look very carefully at how you really move at the keyboard and make some subtle changes. People think they can install a wrist pad or do a few exercises and everything will be hunky-dory. It doesn’t always work that way.” I looked at her name-tag. I liked very much that her first name was Susan. I said, “I’ll do that. But—what just occurred to me is—well—I write pornography. ” “I know. So?” “Well, as I write I often find that I get myself in something of a lather. I imagine someone reading it, you know, a female someone reading it, and I find that …” I held my hands out as if what I was going to say was self-evident. Suddenly she understood and laughed. “Ah, ah, ah. You’re just trying to tell me that you masturbate while you write.” “Exactly,” I said with relief. “With my right hand.” “Constantly? Are you constantly masturbating while you write?” “Not constantly , no. I’ll type, say, a word or a phrase and then masturbate a little, and then another phrase, masturbate a little more, like that.” “Are these alternating sessions protracted?” asked Dr.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I did so. ‘Now a turn - that’s right. Now be a dear and light me a fag.’ I did this for her too, then waited while she drew on her cigarette and coughed again.‘She’s too real,’ she said at last, to Walter.‘Too real?’‘Too real. She looks like a boy. Which I know she is supposed to - but, if you follow me, she looks like a real boy. Her face and her figure and her bearing on her feet. And that ain’t quite the idea now, is it?’Now I felt more awkward than ever. I looked at Kitty and she gave a nervous kind of laugh. Walter, however, had lost his frown, and his eyes looked blue and wide as a child’s. ‘Damn it, Ma,’ he said, ‘but you’re right!’ He put his hand to his brow, then stepped to the door: we heard his heavy, rapid tread upon the stairs, heard footsteps in the room above our heads - Sims’s and Percy’s room - and then the slam of a door, higher up. When he returned he held a strange assortment of objects: a pair of gentleman’s shoes, a sewing-basket, a couple of ribbons, and Kitty’s make-up box. These he dumped about me on the carpet. Then, with a hasty ‘Pardon me, Nancy’, he pulled the jacket from me, and the boots. The jacket he handed to Kitty, along with the sewing-basket: ‘Put a few tucks down the inside of that waist,’ he said, pointing to the seam. The boots he cast aside, and replaced with the pair of shoes - Sims’s shoes they were, and small, low-heeled and rather dainty; and Walter made them daintier still by tying ribbons in a bow at the laces. To advertise the bows a bit - and because, without my boots, I was now a little shorter - he caught hold of the bottom of my trouser-legs, and gave them cuffs.Next he seized my head and tilted it back, and worked upon my lips and lashes with carmine and spit-black from Kitty’s box: he did this gently as a girl. Then he plucked the cigarette from behind my ear and cast it on to the mantel. Finally he turned to Kitty and snapped his fingers. She, infected by his air of haste and purpose, had begun to sew as he had shown her. Now she raised the jacket to her cheek to bite the final length of cotton from it, and when that was done he took it from her and shrugged me into it and buttoned it over my breast.Then he stood back, and cocked his head.I gazed down at myself once again.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Then she led us from the parlour, and up the stairs. We climbed for three flights, the stairwell growing dimmer as we ascended, then lightening: the last set of steps were slim and uncarpeted, and had a little skylight above them, a quartered pane streaked with soot and pigeon-droppings, through which the blue of the September sky showed unexpectedly vivid and clear - as if the sky itself were a ceiling, and, climbing, we had come nearer to it.At the top of these steps there was a door, and behind this a very small room - not a bed-sitting room as I had expected, but a tiny parlour with a pair of ancient, sagging armchairs set before a hearth, and a shallow, old-fashioned dresser. Beside the dresser was another door, leading to a second chamber which a sloping roof made even smaller than the first. Kitty and I stepped to its threshold and stood, side by side, gazing at what lay beyond: a wash-hand stand; a lyre-backed chair; an alcove with a curtain before it; and a bed - a bed with a high, thick mattress and an iron bedstead, and beneath it a chamber-pot - a bed rather narrower than the one I was used to sharing with my sister at home.‘You won’t mind doubling up, of course,’ said Mrs Dendy, who had followed us to the bedroom. ‘You’ll be quite on top of each other in here I’m afraid - though not so tight as my boys downstairs, who only have the one room. But Mr Bliss did insist on a decent bit of space for the two of you.’ She smiled at me, and I looked away. Kitty, however, said very brightly: ‘It’s perfect, Mrs Dendy. Miss Astley and I will be as cosy here as two peg-dolls in a dolls’ house - won’t we, Nan?’Her cheeks, I saw, had grown a little pink - but that might have been from the climb up from the parlour.

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

  How can I explain it to my friends and family?" the Goldbergs suggest the following: Remember that when you joined the cult, you chose the best course of action available to you with the information you had at the time.... It may be helpful to review in your mind the reasons you joined, and what you thought you were accomplishing by joining. Should you be embarrassed for wanting a better world or for searching for ways to serve God? Should you be embarrassed for wanting to better yourself or to get help with problems? For the most part, the qualities you had that made you vulnerable to the cult were positive qualities. Your good qualities [were] used against you. We all make mistakes in life or do things we wish we hadn't done. The degree to which we're embarrassed by these mistakes depends on how public the mistake is, the amount of support and understanding we have from those around us, and the difficulty we have in accepting our human limitations. It's important for you to examine the degree to which you are continuing the same harsh, judgmental attitude toward yourself that was expected in the cult.... Instead of focusing on your supposed failings, you may want to recognize that when you were able to see what was happening in the cult, you had the courage to leave.... Give yourself credit for that.' The bottom line is that you get to decide what feels safe and what you feel prepared to discuss or explain. Immediately after leaving a cult, most people tend not to talk openly about the experience to new acquaintances, coworkers, or distant family. Often they don't disclose to anyone for months, sometimes a year or more, though they may speak sooner to close friends and immediate family members, therapists, counselors, or other former cult members. The delay, however, may have more to do with the stigma society places on cult involvement than with former members' acceptance of their own experience. Restoring Former Relationships [image file=img/page0179_0000.svg] Many members exiting a cult may not have seen or had meaningful contact with relatives or friends for many years. They may have been unable to attend important family events, or spend any private time with friends. Some of these relatives and friends probably experienced a range of emotions-guilt, anger, anxiety, sadness-about their loved one's cult affiliation.? A great deal of pain is caused by these prolonged and sometimes hostile separations, and, therefore, an important stage in postcult healing involves mending those relationships. Reconnecting with PeopleBecause of their exclusive nature, cults tend to put pressure on members to cut ties with the past. Most likely, messages from family and friends are discouraged, not responded to, or answered with cult rhetoric. Some families may have had a prior history of difficult relationships. Parents may have been too controlling or overly involved in their children's lives. Privacy may have been discouraged or nonexistent.

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

  To demonstrate the power of mindfulness on social anxiety, a 2011 study trained folks with capital-S Social Anxiety for just ten minutes in either mindfulness, distraction (paying attention to something unrelated to the task at hand), or nothing at all. The mindfulness training taught participants to focus on their breath and to gently bring their mind back when it wandered away (as minds tend to do—indeed, when you first try to be mindful, you will find your ability to focus falls somewhere on the spectrum between “untrained puppy” and “toddler”). In the study, the instructions to the mindful group concluded, “The purpose is to be aware of your thoughts and feelings and accept your experience in the present moment.” After the training, participants were put to the test. They were asked to remember a recent experience where they felt really anxious, awkward, or embarrassed in a social situation like a party, meeting, presentation, or date. They were instructed to bring it to mind as vividly as possible and then were left alone to stew in the juices of their humiliating memory for five minutes. The participants rated how upset they were and then applied their new thinking strategy—mindfulness, distraction, or nothing—for five more minutes and again rated how upset they were. As you might guess, mindfulness won out. In the mindfulness group, distress went down steadily and significantly over the five minutes. In the distraction group distress didn’t go down at all, and in the control group it actually went up. And remember, this was after just ten minutes of training. If you’re a beginner, here are three mindfulness exercises to try, each of which only takes a few minutes. 5-4-3-2-1. This is a use-anywhere little exercise that can pull you out of worry and ground you in reality. Here’s how to do it: Work your way through your five senses. First, look around and name five things you can see. For me, I see my laptop, a mug of Earl Grey tea, an ornery printer, a stack of blue sticky notes, a biography of Albert Ellis. Next, name four things you can hear—a car outside, a bird chirping, the neighbor’s air conditioner, water running somewhere. Next, three things you can touch—my feet in my shoes, my back against my chair, the keyboard keys against my fingers. Two things you can smell—the aroma of the tea, the musty smell of the biography. And finally, one thing you can taste—for me, I take a slurp of Earl Grey, but if there’s nothing at hand you can simply pay attention to how your mouth tastes (generally gross) or, alternatively, say one nice thing about yourself (never gross).

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I still had not exchanged a word with Alice.Father asked after Kitty, and I said that she was well. Where was she playing now? they asked me. Where were we living? Rosina said, there had been talk that I had gone upon the stage myself -? And at that I only answered, that I did ‘sometimes join Kitty in the act’.‘Well, fancy that!’I cannot say what squeamishness still made me keep the fact of my success from them. It was, I think, because the act - as I have said - was so entangled with my love: I could not bear to have them pry at it, or frown at it, or pass the idea of it on to others, carelessly ...It was, I suppose now, a kind of priggishness; indeed, I hadn’t been amongst them more than half-an-hour before George, my cousin, gave a cry: ‘What’s happened to your accent, Nance? You’ve gone all lardy-dah.’ I looked at him in real surprise, then listened hard next time I spoke. It was quite true, my voice had changed. I was not posh, as he had claimed, but there is a certain lilt that theatre people have - a rather odd, unpredictable mixture of all the accents of the halls, from coster-man to lion comique; and I, all unknowingly, had picked it up. I sounded rather like Kitty - occasionally, even like Walter. I had never realised it till now.We drank our tea; there was a lot of fussing over the little boy. Someone handed him to me for me to nurse - when I took him, however, he cried.‘Oh dear!’ said his mother, tickling him. ‘Your Aunty Nance will think you a real cry-baby.’ She took him from me, then held him near my face: ‘Shake hands!’ She seized his arm and waved it. ‘Shake hands with Aunty Nancy, like a proper little gent!’ He jerked at her hip, like some great swollen pistol that at any second might go off; but I dutifully took his fingers in my own, and squeezed them. Of course, he snatched his hand away at once, and only wailed the louder. Everybody laughed. George caught the baby up and swung him high, so that his hair brushed the cracked and yellowed plaster of the ceiling. ‘Who’s a little soldier, then?’ he cried.I looked at Alice, and she glanced away.The baby quietened at last; the room grew warmer. I saw Rhoda lean towards my brother and whisper, and when he nodded, she coughed. She said, ‘Nancy, you won’t have heard our bit of good news.’ I looked at her properly. She had her jacket off and her feet, I noticed, were bare but for a pair of woollen stockings. She seemed very much at home.Now she held out her hand.

• From Real Sex for Real Women (2008)

  If you feel embarrassed or hesitant about bringing erotic material into your relationship, it is worth remembering that it can play a helpful role in enhancing or re-energizing your sex life. [image file=image_rsrc3DB.jpg] Sex files: Erotic adventuresErotica and new techniques can add novelty and excitement to a routine sex life, but it’s good to discuss them together first. If you’re unsure about something, find out about it before dismissing it. This is how one couple addressed boredom and rejuvenated their sex life. [image file=image_rsrc3DC.jpg] Background Jan, 27, and Ian, 26, have been together for three years. They are both busy advertising executives. They have a regular sex life and are happy in their relationship. The problem Jan and Ian came to see me because Jan was troubled by a sexual request of Ian’s. While making love, Ian had asked Jan to put her finger in his anus. Although they are a sexually open couple, Jan felt taken aback, and worried that this signaled a homosexual preference. Ian had responded by telling Jan that he felt their sex life was getting predictable and he wanted to try something new. “I just want to experiment so we don’t get bored. I want to know what it’s like to be touched anally during sex.” Jan’s hesitations remained, but she conceded that they tended to have sex at the same time of day, in the same place, and in the same position. Finding solutions An important first step in solving Jan’s and Ian’s problem was to reassure Jan that anal play is a normal part of a healthy heterosexual relationship. I explained that the anal area is rich in nerve endings and that being stimulated there can feel fantastic. This applies to everyone—male or female, straight or gay. Once Jan was reassured, we talked about the fact that it’s easy to get into a sexual rut and, over time, this can lessen your motivation to have sex. So to reinvigorate their sex life I suggested that Jan and Ian look at erotica together—in the form of books, videos, websites, or magazines. I asked Jan to read some erotic literature by herself. I hoped this would give her the confidence and inspiration to start thinking up her own fantasies. Then she’d be able to bring her own ideas to bed. As a joint assignment I asked Ian and Jan to get together once a week to share their sexual desires and fantasies. I thought that once they found their sexual “voices” and got used to talking explicitly, they’d find it easy to shake up their sex life. I also asked them to write down their sexual fantasies on slips of paper and put them in a box. Then, if things started to get dull again, they’d have ideas to draw upon.

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  A nerve-racking politeness beset me. I offered her a chair and she sat upon the edge of it. The flowers were for me, yes, but she had not the courage to thrust the bouquet into my arms, and I could see her gazing distractedly around for a vase into which she might put them. There was only an enamel washbasin full of half-peeled potatoes. I began to wish she had not come. I would have liked to offer her some tea but my electric ring was broken and I had no money to take her out — at this time I was sliding ever more steeply into debt. Besides, I had sent Hamid out to have my only summer suit ironed and was clad in a torn dressing-gown. She for her part looked wonderfully, intimidatingly smart, with a new summer frock of a crisp vine-leaf pattern and a straw hat like a great gold bell. I began to pray passionately that Hamid would come back and create a diversion. I would have offered her a cigarette but my packet was empty and I was forced to accept one of her own from the little filigree cigarette-case she always carried. This I smoked with what I hoped was an air of composure and told her that I had accepted a new job near Sidi Gabr, which would mean a little extra money. She said she was going back to work; her contract had been renewed: but they were giving her less money. After a few minutes of this sort of thing she said that she must be leaving as she had a tea-appointment. I showed her out on the landing and asked her to come again whenever she wished. She thanked me, still clutching the flowers which she was too timid to thrust upon me and walked slowly downstairs. After she had gone I sat on the bed and uttered every foul swear-word I could remember in four languages — though it was not clear to me whom I was addressing. By the time one-eyed Hamid came shuffling in I was still in a fury and turned my anger upon him. This startled him considerably: it was a long time since I had lost my temper with him, and he retired into the scullery muttering and shaking his head and invoking the spirits to help him.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Mrs Dendy followed his gaze, then gave a tremendous cough. ‘Well, Nancy!’ she said, ‘and look at you! You have become quite the handsome young lady - and right beneath our noses!’And at that, Kitty herself turned to me - and showed me such a look of wonder and confusion that it was as if, just for a second, she had never seen me before; and I do not know whose cheeks at that moment were the pinker - mine, or hers.Then she gave a tight little smile. ‘Very nice,’ she said, and looked away; so that I thought, miserably, that the dress must suit me even less than I had hoped, and readied myself for a wretched party.But the party was not wretched; it was gay and genial and loud, and very crowded. The manager had had to build a platform from the end of the stage to the back of the pit, to carry us all, and he had hired the orchestra to play reels and waltzes, and set tables in the wings bearing pastries and jellies, and barrels of beer and bowls of punch, and row upon row of bottles of wine.We were much complimented, Kitty and I, on our new dresses; and over me, in particular, people smiled and exclaimed - mouthing at me across the noisy hall, ‘How fine you look!’ One woman - the conjuror’s assistant - took my hand and said, ‘My dear, you’re so grown-up tonight, I didn’t recognise you!’: just what Mrs Dendy had said an hour before. Her words impressed me. Kitty and I stood side by side all evening but when, some time after midnight, she moved away to join a group that had gathered about the champagne tables, I hung back, rather pensive. I wasn’t used to thinking of myself as a grown-up woman, but now, clad in that handsome frock of blue and cream, satin and lace, I began at last to feel like one - and to realise, indeed, that I was one: that I was eighteen, and had left my father’s house perhaps for ever, and earned my own living, and paid rent for my own rooms in London. I watched myself as if from a distance - watched as I supped at my wine as if it were ginger beer, and chatted and larked with the stage-hands, who had once so frightened me; watched as I took a cigarette from a fellow from the orchestra, and lit it, and drew upon it with a sigh of satisfaction.

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  ‘Only’ said Scobie, sitting helplessly down on the bed again and relapsing into a gloom which gave his funny little face an even more comical expression (he still wore the Dolly Varden), ‘only when the Influence comes over me. When I’m not fully Answerable, old man.’ He sat there looking crushed. I gave a low whistle of surprise which the parrot immediately copied. This was indeed serious. I understood now why the deliberations which had consumed him all morning had been so full of heart-searching. Obviously if one went around in a rig like that in the Arab quarter.… He must have been following my train of thought, for he said ‘It’s only sometimes when the Fleet’s in.’ Then he went on with a touch of self-righteousness: ‘Of course, if there was ever any trouble, I’d say I was in disguise. I am a policeman when you come to think of it. After all, even Lawrence of Arabia wore a nightshirt, didn’t he?’ I nodded. ‘But not a Dolly Varden’ I said. ‘You must admit, Scobie, it’s most original …’ and here the laughter overtook me. Scobie watched me laugh, still sitting on the bed in that fantastic headpiece. ‘Take if off!’ I implored. He looked serious and preoccupied now, but made no motion. ‘Now you know all’ he said. ‘The best and the worst in the old skipper. Now what I was going to—’ At this moment there came a knock at the landing door. With surprising presence of mind Scobie leaped spryly into the cupboard, locking himself noisily in. I went to the door. On the landing stood a servant with a pitcher full of some liquid which he said was for the Effendi Skob. I took it from him and got rid of him, before returning to the room and shouting to the old man who emerged once more — now completely himself, bareheaded and blazered. ‘That was a near shave’ he breathed. ‘What was it?’ I indicated the pitcher. ‘Oh, that — it’s for the Mock Whisky. Every three hours.’ ‘Well,’ I said at last, still struggling with these new and indigestible revelations of temperament, ‘I must be going.’ I was still hovering explosively between amazement and laughter at the thought of Scobie’s second life at full moon — how had he managed to avoid a scandal all these years? — when he said: ‘Just a minute, old man. I only told you all this because I want you to do me a favour.’ His false eye rolled around earnestly now under the pressure of thought. He sagged again. ‘A thing like that could do me Untold Harm’ he said. ‘Untold Harm, old man.’ ‘I should think it could.’ ‘Old man,’ said Scobie, ‘I want you to confiscate my duds. It’s the only way of controlling the Influence.’ ‘Confiscate them?’ ‘Take them away. Lock them up. It’ll save me, old man. I know it will. The whim is too strong for me otherwise, when it comes.’

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Quite the lady, ain’t she, Pa?’ His cheek grew redder than ever.Father straightened, and looked me over, then gave a wide smile that seemed to pull, somewhat, at the corners of his eyes.‘Very smart,’ he said. ‘Your mother won’t know you, hardly.’I did indeed, I suppose, look a little dressy, but I had not thought about it until that moment. All my clothes were good ones, these days, for I had long ago got rid of those girlish hand-me-downs with which I’d first left home. I had only wanted, that morning, to look nice. Now I felt self-conscious.The self-consciousness did not diminish as I walked, on Father’s arm, the little distance to our oyster-shop. The house, I thought, was shabbier than ever. The weather-boards above the shop showed more wood, now, than blue paint; and the sign - Astley’s Oysters, the Best in Kent - hung on one hinge, and was cracked where the rainwater had soaked it. The stairs we climbed were dark and narrow, the room into which I finally emerged smaller and more cramped than I could have believed possible. Worst of all the street, the stairs, the room, the people in it, all reeked of fish! It was a stink that was as familiar to me as the scent of my own armpit; but I was startled, now, to think that I had ever lived in it and thought it ordinary.My surprise, I hope, was lost in the general bustle of my arrival. I had expected Mother and Alice to be waiting for me; they were - but so were half-a-dozen other people, each one of whom exclaimed when I appeared, and stepped forward (except for Alice) to embrace me. I had to smile and submit to being squeezed and patted until I grew quite breathless. Rhoda - still my brother’s sweetheart - was there, looking perter than ever; Aunty Ro, too, had come along to welcome me back, together with her son, my cousin George, and her daughter, Liza, and Liza’s baby - except that the baby was not a baby at all now, but a little boy in frills. Liza, I saw, was large with child again; I had been told this in a letter, I believe, but had forgotten it.I took off my hat once all the welcomes had been said, and my heavy coat with it. Mother looked me up and down. She said, ‘My goodness, Nance, how tall and fine you look! I do believe you’re taller, almost, than your Father.’ I did feel tall in that tiny, overcrowded room: but I could hardly, I thought, have really grown. It was just that I was standing rather straighter. I gazed around - a little proud, despite my awkwardness - and found a seat, and tea was brought.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  And Bill said that he must go.I nodded, and held my hand out to him. As he shook it, he seemed to hesitate again. Then he said, very quickly, ‘You know, we was all really sorry, when you took off like that, from the Brit.’ I shrugged. ‘And Kitty,’ he went on, ‘well, Kitty was sorriest of all of us. She put notices, with Walter, in the Era and the Ref, week after week. Did you never see ’em, Nan, those notices?’‘No, Bill, I never did.’He shook his head. ‘And now, here you are, dressed up like a lord!’ But he gave my suit a dubious glance, and added: ‘You’re sure though, are you, that you’re doing all right?’I didn’t answer him. I only looked over to Diana again. She was tilting her head to gaze after me; beside her stood Maria, and Satin, and Dickie. Dickie held our tray of drinks, and had placed her monocle at her eye. She said, ‘The wine will warm, Diana,’ in a pettish sort of voice: the lobby was thinned of people, I could hear her very clearly.Diana tilted her head again: ‘What is the boy doing?’‘He is talking to the nigger,’ answered Maria, ‘at the cloaks!’I felt my cheeks flame red, and looked quickly back at Bill. His gaze had followed mine, but now had been caught by a gentleman offering a coat, and he was lifting the garment over the counter, and already turning with it to the row of hooks.‘Good-bye, Bill,’ I said, and he nodded over his shoulder, and gave me a sad little smile of farewell. I took a step away - but then, very quickly, I returned to the counter and put my hand upon his arm. I said: ‘What’s Kitty’s place, on the bill at the Mo?’‘Her place?’ He thought about it, folding another cloak. ‘I’m not sure. Second half, near the start, half-past nine or so ...’Then Maria’s voice came calling: ‘Is there trouble, Neville, over the tip?’I knew then that if I lingered near him any longer some terrible sort of scene would ensue.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  They all worked; but, like Annie Page, the sanitary inspector, not one of them had a dull, straightforward kind of job - making felt hats, or dressing feathers, or serving in a shop. Instead they all worked for charities or in homes: they all had lists of cripples, or immigrants, or orphaned girls, whom it was their continual ambition to set up in jobs, houses, and friendly societies. Every story they told began the same: ‘I had a girl come into the office today...’‘I had a girl come into the office today, fresh from gaol, and her mother has taken her baby and disappeared with it ...’‘I had a poor woman come into the office today: she was brought over from India as a maid, and now the family won’t pay her passage back ...’‘There was a woman come in today: she has been ruined by a gent, and the gent has given her such a thump she -’ This particular story, however, never got finished: the girl who was telling it caught sight of me, perched on an armchair at Florence’s elbow; then she flushed pink, and put her cup to her lips, and turned the subject. They had all had my history-my pretend history - from Florence herself. When they weren’t blushing into their tea-cups over it, they were taking me aside to ask me, privately, Was I quite well now? and to recommend some man who would prove helpful if I thought to take my case to court, or else some vegetable treatment that would ease the bruising at my cheek ...All of Ralph and Florence’s circle, in fact, were quite sickeningly kind and earnest and conscientious over matters like this. As I could not help but find out very early on, the Banners were big in the local labour movement - they always had some desperate project on hand, some plan to get a parliamentary act passed or opposed; the parlour, as a consequence, was always full of people holding emergency meetings or dreary debates. Ralph was a cutter in a silk factory, and secretary of the silk workers’ union. Florence - as well as working at the Stratford girls’ home, Freemantle House - volunteered for a thing called the Women’s Cooperative Guild: it was Guild work (not lists, as I had imagined, of friendless girls) which had kept her up so late on the night of my arrival at her home - and which, indeed, kept her up late on many subsequent nights, balancing budgets and writing letters.

• From Less (2017)

  At the party, Freddy stared out the window, where the fog erased downtown. These days he ate vegetables but still called his legal father Carlos. In his suit he was painfully thin, with a concave chest, and, while lacking youth’s verve, Freddy had all of youth’s passions; one could sit back with a bag of popcorn and watch the romances and comedies of his mind projected onto his face, and the lenses of his tortoiseshell glasses swirled with his thoughts like the iridescent membranes of soap bubbles. Freddy turned at the sound of his name; it was a woman in a white silk suit and amber beads, with a cool Diana Ross demeanor: “Freddy, honey, I heard you were back in school.” What was he studying to be? she asked gently. Proud smile: “A high school English teacher.” This caused her face to flower. “God, that’s nice to hear! I never see young people going into teaching.” “To be honest, I think it’s mostly that I don’t like people my age.” She picked the olive from her martini. “That’ll be hard on your love life.” “I suppose. But I don’t really have a love life,” Freddy said, taking a long gulp from his champagne, finishing it. “We just have to find you the right man. You know my son, Tom—” From beside them: “He’s actually a poet!” Carlos, appearing with a listing glass of white wine. The woman (courtesy requires introductions: Caroline Dennis, in software; Freddy would come to know her very well) yipped. Freddy eyed her carefully and gave a shy smile. “I’m a terrible poet. Carlos is just remembering that’s what I wanted to be when I was a kid.” “Which was last year,” Carlos said, smiling. Freddy stood silently; his dark curls quivered with whatever shook his mind. Mrs. Dennis gave a sequined laugh. She said she loved poetry. She had always been into Bukowski “and that bag.” “You like Bukowski?” Freddy asked. “Oh no,” said Carlos. “I’m sorry, Caroline. But I think he’s even worse than I am.” Mrs. Dennis’s chest flushed, Carlos drew her attention to a painting done by an old pal of the Russian River School, and Freddy, unable to swallow even the vegetables of small talk, stalked to the bar for another champagne. Arthur Less at the front door, one of those low walls with a white door, concealing the house that drops down the hill behind it, and what will people say? Oh, you look well. I heard about you and Robert. Who is keeping the house? How could he know that nine years lay beyond that door? “Hello, Arthur! What is that you’re wearing?” “Carlos.” Twenty years later and still, that day, in that room: old rivals at battle. Beside him: a young man with curly hair and glasses, standing at attention. “Arthur, you remember my son, Freddy…”

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  Tum ti Tum Tum ti charms.…’ Somewhere here the melody fell down a cliff and was lost to sight, though Scobie hummed out the stave and beat time with his finger. He was sitting down on the bed now and staring at his shabby shoes. Abruptly, without apparent premeditation (though he closed his eyes fast as if to shut the subject away out of sight forever) Scobie lay back on the bed, hands behind his head, and said: ‘Before you go, there’s a small confession I’d like to make to you, old man. Right?’ I sat down on the uncomfortable chair and nodded. ‘Right’ he said emphatically and drew a breath. ‘Well then: sometimes at the full moon, I’m Took. I come under An Influence.’ This was on the face of it a somewhat puzzling departure from accepted form, for the old man looked quite disturbed by his own revelation. He gobbled for a moment and then went on in a small humbled voice devoid of his customary swagger. ‘I don’t know what comes over me.’ I did not quite understand all this. ‘Do you mean you walk in your sleep, or what?’ He shook his head and gulped again. ‘Do you turn into a werewolf, Scobie?’ Once more he shook his head like a child upon the point of tears. ‘I slip on female duds and my Dolly Varden’ he said, and opened his eyes fully to stare pathetically at me. ‘You what?’ I said. To my intense surprise he rose now and walked stiffly to a cupboard which he unlocked. Inside, hanging up, moth-eaten and unbrushed, was a suit of female clothes of ancient cut, and on a nail beside it a greasy old cloche hat which I took to be the so-called ‘Dolly Varden’. A pair of antediluvian court shoes with very high heels and long pointed toes completed this staggering outfit. He did not know how quite to respond to the laugh which I was now compelled to utter. He gave a weak giggle. ‘It’s silly, isn’t it?’ he said, still hovering somewhere on the edge of tears despite his smiling face, and still by his tone inviting sympathy in misfortune. ‘I don’t know what comes over me. And yet, you know, it’s always the old thrill.…’ A sudden and characteristic change of mood came over him at the words: his disharmony, his discomfiture gave place to a new jauntiness. His look became arch now, not wistful, and crossing to the mirror before my astonished eyes, he placed the hat upon his bald head. In a second he replaced his own image with that of a little old tart, button-eyed and razor-nosed — a tart of the Waterloo Bridge epoch, a veritable Tuppeny Upright. Laughter and astonishment packed themselves into a huge parcel inside me, neither finding expression. ‘For God’s sake!’ I said at last. ‘You don’t go around like that, do you, Scobie?’

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Everything she tells you will be designed to corrupt.’I bowed to her. I said, ‘I hope so, indeed.’ Mrs Jex gave a roar.‘But it speaks!’ she cried. ‘All this’ - she gestured to my face, my costume - ‘and the creature even speaks!’Diana smiled, and raised a brow. ‘After a fashion,’ she said.I blinked, but Mrs Jex still held my hand, and now she squeezed it. ‘Diana is brutal to you, Miss Nancy, but you must not mind it. Here at the Cavendish we have been positively panting to see you and make you our particular friend. You must call me “Maria”’ - she pronounced it the old-fashioned way - ‘and this is Evelyn, and Dickie. Dickie, you can see, likes to think of herself as the boy of the place.’I bowed to the ladies in turn. The former showed me a smile; the one named Dickie (this was the one with the monocle : I am sure it was of plain glass) only gave a toss to her head, and looked haughty.‘This is the new Callisto then, is it?’ she said.She wore a boiled shirt and a bow-tie, and her hair, though long and bound, was sleek with oil. She was about two- or three-and-thirty, and her waist was thick; but her upper lip, at least, was dark as a boy’s. They would have called her terribly handsome, I guessed, in about 1880.Maria pressed my fingers again, and rolled her eyes; then she tilted her head, and when I bent to her - for she was rather short - she said, ‘Now, my dear, you must satisfy our appetite. We want the whole sordid story of your encounter with Diana. She herself will tell us nothing - only that the night was warm; that the streets were gaudy; that the moon was reeling through the clouds like a drunken woman looking for lovers. Tell us, Miss Nancy, tell us, do! Was the moon really reeling through the clouds, like a drunken woman looking for her lovers?’ She took a puff of her cigar, and studied me. Evelyn and Dickie leaned and waited. I looked from them back to Maria; and then I swallowed.‘It was,’ I said at last, ‘if Diana said it was.’And at that, Maria gave a startling laugh, low and loud and rapid as the rattle of a road-drill; and Diana took my arm and made a space for me upon the sofa, and called for a waitress to bring us drinks.At the rest of the tables the ladies still looked on - some of them, I could not help but notice, rather fastidiously.

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  And I hear that weird noise again. Do you want to know what it sounds like? It sounds like this: ARGGHHHHHHHHSSSSSPPPPPPGGGHHHHHHHAAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHHAGGGGHH! It sounds like somebody is vomiting. Nope. It sounds like a 747 is landing on a runway of vomit. I’m planning on heading back to the classroom for more scintillating lessons from the history teacher. But then I hear that noise again. ARGGGHHHHHHHHSGHHSLLLSKSSSHHSDKFDJSABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ! Okay, so somebody might have the flu or something. Maybe they’re having, like, kidney failure in there. I can’t walk away. So I knock on the door. The girls’ bathroom door. “Hey,” I say. “Are you okay in there?” “Go away!” It’s a girl, which makes sense, since it is the girls’ bathroom. “Do you want me to get a teacher or something?” I ask through the bathroom door. “I said, GO AWAY!” I’m not dumb. I can pick up on subtle clues. So I walk away, but something pulls me back. I don’t know what it is. If you’re romantic, you might think it was destiny. So destiny and me lean against the wall and wait. The vomiter will eventually have to come out of the bathroom, and then I’ll know that she’s okay. And pretty soon, she does come out. And it is the lovely Penelope, and she’s chomping hard on cinnamon gum. She’d obviously tried to cover the smell of vomit with the biggest piece of cinnamon gum in the world. But it doesn’t work. She just smells like somebody vomited on a big old cinnamon tree. “What are you looking at?” she asks me. “I’m looking at an anorexic,” I say. A really HOT anorexic, I want to add, but I don’t. “I’m not anorexic,” she says. “I’m bulimic.” She says it with her nose and chin in the air. She gets all arrogant. And then I remember there are a bunch of anorexics who are PROUD to be skinny and starved freaks. They think being anorexic makes them special, makes them better than everybody else. They have their own fricking Web sites where they give advice on the best laxatives and stuff. “What’s the difference between bulimics and anorexics?” I ask. “Anorexics are anorexics all the time,” she says. “I’m only bulimic when I’m throwing up.” Wow. SHE SOUNDS JUST LIKE MY DAD! There are all kinds of addicts, I guess. We all have pain. And we all look for ways to make the pain go away. Penelope gorges on her pain and then throws it up and flushes it away. My dad drinks his pain away. So I say to Penelope what I always say to Dad when he’s drunk and depressed and ready to give up on the world. “Hey, Penelope,” I say. “Don’t give up.” Okay, so it’s not the wisest advice in the world.