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.

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• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  —No soy tan joven —me burlo—. Tengo edad suficiente para muchas, de hecho. —¿Sí? —gime, poniéndose más grande y duro en mí mano—. Aguanta, cariño. Saca sus dedos, agarra la parte posterior de mis muslos, y me levanta, presionándome contra la pared. Su polla es larga, dura y lista, y lo siento provocando mi entrada. Sí. —¡Oye, Pike! —grita Dutch. Los dos levantamos la cabeza, Pike me baja al suelo, y vuelve la cabeza, mirando por el cristal esmerilado. —¡Estoy en la ducha! —gruñe, protegiendo mi cuerpo de la vista. —Sí, duh —bromea su amigo—. Tu teléfono sonó un par de veces. Parece Lindsay. Voy a ponerlo en el mostrador aquí. Pike presiona su cuerpo sobre mí, por lo que Dutch solo vería un cuerpo aquí si mirara el cristal. —Sí, gracias —dice secamente. Me muerdo el labio inferior, sintiéndome traviesa. Me apoyo en él, besando su mandíbula y acariciándolo. —Jordan... —gruñe entre dientes. Me río en silencio. —Shhh... —Escucho que me regaña. —Voy a poner el juego —grita Dutch—. Te esperaré abajo. —De acuerdo. Hay una pausa y luego Dutch vuelve a hablar. —Así que, ¿a dónde fue Jordan? No la vi allí abajo. —¿Cómo se supone que voy a saberlo? —Lanza Pike de regreso, perdiendo la paciencia—. ¿Saldrías de aquí? —Bien, bien —dice. Pero luego agrega—: Solo dile que no se olvide de recoger toda su ropa del suelo cuando salga de la ducha contigo, ¿de acuerdo? Mis ojos se abren, mi boca cae y entierro mi rostro en el cuerpo de Pike justo a tiempo para ahogar mi risa. Oh, mierda. La puerta del baño se cierra, la cabeza de Pike cae sobre mi hombro, y el calor del momento ha salido del edificio cuando la vergüenza calienta mis mejillas.

• From City of Night (1963)

  “I just Didnt Know What To Do!—except run to you as fast as I could!” the queen protested vehemently. “Me and Whorina—well, we went with Kathy to the Maison Blanche, to pick up, you know, some drag things for Mardi Gras.... And, oh, we created quite a stir, I want to tell you: All those tourists just Turning and Looking at Us—... Then Kathy, she just blacks out—” She covered her eyes to indicate the intensity of the blackness. “—all of a sudden—you know, Sylvia, like she does—those awful spells she gets! Well, she just fell back on the escalator, and it hauled her down, and—... Well, I didnt know what to do! Like I say: Me and Whorina—well, see... we had just—well, taken certain items which didnt exactly belong on our persons; and when-well, see, honey, then I—...” “What about Kathy?” Sylvia said harshly, exasperated. “Well,” the queen says, inflating herself with her importance as the harbinger of some, to me, obscure doom, “like I say, she just passed out. Oh, those horrible dizzy spells—” Sylvia brushed quickly past her, leaving the bar. When I returned that night—separating at the door from the man I had just made it with—Sylvia was back too. “Youre really keeping busy.” She smiled a strange smile. Embarrassed, I didnt answer. “The first season, it’s always great,” she said. “Maybe youre one of those thatll keep coming back each year. Some do.” She studied me for a long moment. “Somehow I doubt that youll be back,” she said flatly. “What happened to—... ?” I asked, to stop her from going on in that direction. “Kathy? Shes okay now. They took her home. She gets those spells—more and more often. She hardly ever comes out any more, except during the carnival.” “Has she seen a doctor?” “Yes. I made her go. I wish I hadnt.” And that was all she said; but a dark look had brushed her face like a shadow. A lighthaired, heavily muscled youngman was standing behind Sylvia, ready to surprise her. He had the kind of good-looks that is a combination of hinted toughness and the All-American wholesomeness depicted in hundreds of advertisements: the epitomized face of America’s young vagrants. But I noticed immediately the telltale brand about his eyes: the eyes of someone who has seen much too much. Suddenly this youngman with the massive arms no longer looked so young. And I remembered Skipper.... He placed his hands quickly on Sylvia’s shoulders. “Jocko!” she greeted him warmly. “Back as usual,” he said. “This is one of the ones I was telling you about—who come back every year,” Sylvia told me. “Youre later than usual,” she said to him. “How was Miami?” “I didnt stay there long. I had to split,” he said. “I been in St Louis.” Sylvia frowned. Again I get the impression that she doesnt want to know too much. “Well, welcome back—again,” she said, looking at him tenderly, almost sadly. “Always back,” he said, moving away.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  Oh little Saint Hugh of Lincoln, you were also slain by the Jews. Your death, so short a time ago, is still fresh in our memory. Pray for us sinners now, and at the time of our death. May God have mercy on our souls. Pray for us, Mother of God, so that your grace may descend upon us. Amen. Heere is ended the Prioresses Tale Prologue to Sir Thopas Bihoold the murye wordes of the Hoost to Chaucer All of the company seemed grave, and reflective, at the end of the Prioress’s tale. But then the Host changed the mood by making a joke at my expense. He looked at me, and winked at the others. ‘What sort of man are you?’ he asked. ‘You look as if you are trying to catch a rabbit. All you ever do is stare down at the ground. Come closer to me. That’s better. Look up. Smile. Fellow pilgrims, this is a good man. You see the extent of his waist? It’s just like mine. He is a big boy. I am sure that some nice young woman would love to embrace him, plump though he is. Yet he is always abstracted. He is always miles away. Come on, man, tell us a funny story. The others have. Now it is your turn.’ ‘Host,’ I said, ‘don’t take this personally. But I don’t know any stories. I can’t tell any stories. All I can recall is an old rhyme that I learned in my childhood.’ ‘That will do,’ Harry Bailey replied. ‘From the expression on your face, I think it will be an interesting one.’ Sir Thopas Heere bigynneth Chaucers Tale of Thopas THE FIRST FIT Listen carefully, please, to me And I will tell the company A funny little story. At some time in history There was a knight and gent Good at battle and at tournament. What was his name? Sir Thopas. He lived in a far, no, distant country Not very near the sea. He dwelled in a city called Hamelin Famous for its porcelain. His father was a rich man, and grand. In fact he ruled the entire land. What was his name? I don’t know. Now Sir Thopas was a brave knight. His hair was black, his face was bright. His lips were red as a carnation. But then so was his complexion. I could have said, red as a rose, But I will confine that to his nose. How big was his nose? Enormous. His hair was as yellow as mustard paste, And he wore it right down to his waist. His shoes were from the Vendôme And his clothes were made in Rome. They were so expensive That his father looked pensive. How much did they cost? Thousands. He could hunt for wild rabbit And had acquired the habit Of hawking for game. He could wrestle and tame The most ferocious ox. He could whip the bollocks Off any contestant. He was no maiden aunt.

• From City of Night (1963)

  “Damn it!” Neil said, looking out the window. “It’s Carl! Whenever hes been drinking, he comes over!” Opening the door, he pretended surprise: “Carl!—how nice to see you!” Carl, a large, masculine, somewhat goodlooking man in his 30s, strutted in arrogantly in motorcycle clothes. His breath reeked of liquor. “Just seeing how the leather half lives,” he said, and sat down—unasked, and much to Neil’s evident chagrin. “Well, of course, Im always glad to see you, but we—” Neil began. Carl interrupted: “Oh, just pretend Im not here.” “Difficult to do,” Neil muttered. Then (and I can almost hear him thinking, “Well, Whu-I NOT?”): “Well. Carl, if you are going to stay—for a little while—you can take some pictures for us. That way I can be in them too.” “Sure... sweetie,” Carl said. Neil stared warningly at him, evidently annoyed by the endearment. Now both Neil and I are dressed in cop uniforms, and Neil is going down on me. Now we’re cowboys, and hes on the floor begging (not) to be hurt. Now hes in a seventeenth-century costume, and Im a pirate threatening him.... He acted out each scene impassionately.... Protesting again when I got into my own clothes, Neil is now dressed in a tight “improvised” costume—boots, belt, straps, glittering studs. “Dont let him fool you,” Neil said maliciously to me when the picturetaking was over and Carl had gone to the head. “Carl’s not quite as butch as hes pretending to be. Hes really the end!—but even people like him serve a function....I’ll tell you something about him, before he gets back. Sometimes, when he plays the sadist (though hes more often the masochist now), he picks up the nelliest queens—the most effeminate types, types I wouldnt even talk to! Theres this one little queen—a chorus boy—who goes around telling about when he went home with Carl. Carl put on a uniform (he has an insignificant collection) and stood menacingly over the little queen and said: ‘I am your fuehrer; you do everything I tell you.’ And the queen—ho-ho—you know what she said to him? She broke her wrist and lisped at Carl: ‘Oh, Mary, youre too much!’—and she swished out. You can imagine how Carl avoids her like poison!... Youd never believe it, to look at him now, but when a friend first brought Carl over—oh, several years ago—you should have seen him: shy; he wouldnt do anything. But now!... Poor Carl—the things that happen to him.... I’ll tell you something else—very funny—ho, ho! One time he stomped into a bar and slid on some spilled beer. (He drinks a lot now—and for some strange reason, as I say, he always comes here when hes drunk.) Anyway, he slid on the spilled beer and fell with legs up—and the queen was there and she shrieked: ‘Highheels and all!’... Carl is the one who gave me that silly leather handkerchief.... And Carl, in the middle of summer—...”

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I am very pleased to have another girl about the place - two girls, I should say - flashy or otherwise.’ As she spoke she gave me a quick, satisfied glance that showed plain enough which kind she thought I was; then - as Kitty took. the seat beside her, leaving me with Percy for a neighbour - she went on: ‘Walter says you will be very big, Miss Butler. I hear you’re to start at the Star tomorrow night. I remember that as a very fine hall.’ ‘So I’ve heard. Do call me Kitty...’ ‘And what about you, Miss Astley?’ asked Percy as they chatted. ‘Have you been a dresser for long? You seem awful young for it.’ ‘I’m not really a dresser at all, yet. Kitty is still training me up-’ ‘Training you up?’ This was Tootsie again. ‘Take my advice and don’t train her too well, Kitty, or some other artiste’ll take her from you. I’ve seen that happen.’ ‘Take her from me?’ said Kitty with a smile. ‘Oh, I couldn’t have that. It is Nan that brings me my good luck...’ I looked at my plate, and felt myself redden, until Mrs Dendy, still busy with her platter, held a piece of quivering meat my way and coughed: ‘A bit of tongue, Miss Astley dear?’ The supper-talk was all, of course, theatrical tittle-tattle, and terribly dense and strange to my ears. There was no one in that house, it seemed, who had not some link with the profession. Even plain little Minnie - the eighth member of our party, the girl who had brought us tea on our arrival and had returned now to help Mrs Dendy dish and serve and clear the plates - even she belonged to a ballet troupe, and had a contract at a concert hall in Lambeth. Why, even the dog, Bransby, which soon nosed its way into the parlour to beg for scraps, and to lean his slavering jaw against Professor Emery’s knee - even he was an old artiste, and had once toured the South Coast in a dancing dog act, and had a stage name: ‘Archie’. It was a Sunday night, and nobody had a hall to rush to after supper; no one seemed to have anything to do, indeed, except sit and smoke and gossip.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Menea sus cejas y le lanzo una mirada sucia. —Ni siquiera quiero abrir el paquete ahora. —¡Buenas noches! —se burla y se aleja de la acera. Imbécil. Amo a mi hermana, pero sabe cómo avergonzarme. Después de abrir la puerta de entrada, entro, la cierro, bloqueo la cerradura y miro alrededor de la sala oscura. Está ordenado, y paso frente a la entrada de la cocina, mirando la pequeña luz de la cocina dejada de forma que pueda ver. El fregadero está vacío de platos por lo que puedo ver, y exhalo, amando la sensación de volver a una casa limpia. Subo las escaleras, la casa emite un silencio espeluznante a mi alrededor. Caminando por el pasillo oscuro, levanto la cabeza y veo la puerta del dormitorio de Pike justo delante de mí. Está cerrado y no brilla luz debajo de la puerta. Abro la primera puerta a la izquierda y enciendo el interruptor, descubriendo lo que ya sospechaba. La cama está vacía, Cole todavía está afuera. Dejo caer mi bolso, cierro la puerta silenciosamente y saco mi teléfono del bolsillo trasero. Estoy en casa. ¿Dónde estás?, escribo y espero a que aparezcan los tres pequeños puntos, mostrándome que está respondiendo. Pero después de unos minutos, no pasa nada, y arrojo mi teléfono a la cama. Tiene que estar trabajando en ocho horas, y será mejor que vaya. De lo contrario, no vendrá conmigo cuando ahorre lo suficiente como para salir de aquí. Me quito los zapatos y me dirijo hacia la cama, lista para desplomarme y descansar mis pies cansados, pero me detengo, recordando el “algo” que mi hermana dijo que puso en mi bolso. Dando la vuelta, recojo mi bolso y lo abro, poniéndolo en la cama. Y allí, justo en la parte superior, hay una bolsa de compras con rayas rosas que no puse ahí. Es de Victoria's Secret. Al desenrollar el paquete, alcanzo el interior y al instante lleno mi mano con tela. Reprimo un gemido, y mis ilusiones mueren. Saco las bragas de encaje de color crema y la camisola a juego que no se ve lo suficientemente grande como para cubrir mucho. El escote es bajo, y no es lo suficientemente larga como para cubrir mi estómago. Definitivamente es bonito. Y sexy. Pero es increíblemente pequeño. Cole tendría un día de campo, viniendo a la cama para encontrarme en esto. Sin juegos preliminares. Estaría encima de mí en un segundo. Pero ¿por qué me compró esto? No es que no use ropa interior sexy. No necesito lecciones sobre cómo mantener a un chico interesado, gracias. Pero luego veo un pedazo de papel sobre la cama que debe haber estado con la ropa. Recojo la media hoja y leo el volante. Noche de aficionados ¡Mójate! (Tu camiseta, como sea) 27 de mayo a las 9 p.m. The Hook en Jamison Lane ¡¡Gran Premio $300!!

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  It was the truth, and yet I felt like an impostor - as if I had just said, ‘I am Lord Rosebery’. I did not look at Florence — though out of the corner of my eye I saw her mouth fly open. I looked at the tattooed woman, and gave her a modest little shrug. She, for her part, had stepped back; now she slapped our stall until it shook, and called, laughing, to her friend. ‘Jenny, you have won your coin! The gal says she is Nan King, all right!’ At her words the group at the billiard-table let up a cry, and half the room fell silent. The gay girls in the neighbouring stall got up, to peer over at me; I heard ‘Nan King, it is Nan King there!’ whispered at every table. The tattooed tom’s friend - Jenny - came stepping over, and held her hand out to me. ‘Miss King,’ she said, ‘I knew it was you the moment you come in. What happy times I used to have, watching you and Miss Butler at the Paragon!’ ‘You’re very kind,’ I said, taking her hand. As I did so, I caught Florence’s eye. ‘Nance,’ she asked, ‘what is all this? Did you really work the halls? Why did you never say?’ ‘It was all rather long ago ...’ She shook her head, and looked me over. ‘You don’t mean you didn’t know your friend was such a star?’ asked Jenny now, overhearing. ‘We didn’t know that she was any kind of star,’ said Annie. ‘Her and Kitty Butler - what a team! There never was a pair o’ mashers like ’em...’ ‘Mashers!’ said Florence. ‘Why yes,’ continued Jenny. Then: ‘Why, just a minute - I believe there is the very thing to show it, here...’ She pushed her way through the crowd of gaping women to the bar, and here I saw her catch the barmaid’s eye, then gesture towards the wall behind the rows of upturned bottles. There was a faded piece of baize there, with a hundred old notes and picture-postcards fastened to it; I saw Mrs Swindles reach into the layers of curling paper for a second, then draw out something small and bent. This she handed to Jenny; in a moment it had been placed before me, and I found myself gazing at a photograph: Kitty and I, faint but unmistakable, in Oxford bags and boaters. I had my hand upon her shoulder, and a cigarette, unlit, between the fingers. I looked and looked at the picture.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  1969 S uddenly, a whole new cast of characters was wandering in and out of the office. Rising sales enabled me to hire more and more reps. Most were ex-runners, and eccentrics, as only ex-runners can be. But when it came to selling they were all business. Because they were inspired by what we were trying to do, and because they worked solely on commission (two dollars a pair), they were burning up the roads, hitting every high school and college track meet within a thousand-mile radius, and their extraordinary efforts were boosting our numbers even more. We’d posted $150,000 in sales in 1968, and in 1969 we were on our way to just under $300,000. Though Wallace was still breathing down my neck, hassling me to slow down and moaning about my lack of equity, I decided that Blue Ribbon was doing well enough to justify a salary for its founder. Right before my thirty-first birthday I made the bold move. I quit Portland State and went full-time at my company, paying myself a fairly generous eighteen thousand dollars a year. Above all, I told myself, the best reason for leaving Portland State was that I’d already gotten more out of the school—Penny—than I’d ever hoped. I got something else, too; I just didn’t know it at the time. Nor did I dream how valuable it would prove to be. IN MY LAST week on campus, walking through the halls, I noticed a group of young women standing around an easel. One of them was daubing at a large canvas, and just as I passed I heard her lamenting that she couldn’t afford to take a class on oil painting. I stopped, admired the canvas. “ My company could use an artist,” I said. “What?” she said. “My company needs someone to do some advertising. Would you like to make some extra money?” I still didn’t see any bang-for-the-buck in advertising, but I was starting to accept that I could no longer ignore it. The Standard Insurance Company had just run a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal , touting Blue Ribbon as one of the dynamic young companies among its clients. The ad featured a photo of Bowerman and me… staring at a shoe. Not as if we were shoe innovators; more as if we’d never seen a shoe before. We looked like morons. It was embarrassing. In some of our ads the model was none other than Johnson. See Johnson rocking a blue tracksuit. See Johnson waving a javelin. When it came to advertising, our approach was primitive and slapdash. We were making it up as we went along, learning on the fly, and it showed. In one ad—for the Tiger marathon flat, I think—we referred to the new fabric as “swooshfiber.” To this day none of us remembers who first came up with the word, or what it meant. But it sounded good.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  into the breast pocket. Strasser, affirming his status as the world’s foremost antisartorialist, now reached into his pocket and pulled out a long string of extra gabardine and used it to blow his nose. At last a clerk collected all the documents, and we all capped our pens, and Hilliard instructed Kitami to hand over the check. Kitami looked up, dazed. “I have no check.” What did I see in his face at that moment? Was it spite? Was it defeat? I don’t know. I looked away, scanned the faces around the conference table. They were easier to read. The lawyers were in total shock. A man comes to a settlement conference without a check? No one spoke. Now Kitami looked ashamed; he knew he’d erred. “I will mail check when I return to Japan,” he said. Hilliard was gruff. “See that it’s mailed as soon as possible,” he told his client. I picked up my briefcase and followed Cousin Houser and Strasser out of the conference room. Behind me came Kitami and the other lawyers. We all stood and waited for the elevator. When the doors opened we all crowded on, shoulder to shoulder, Strasser himself taking up half the car. No one spoke as we dropped to the street. No one breathed. Awkward doesn’t begin to describe it. Surely, I thought, Washington and Cornwallis weren’t forced to ride the same horse away from Yorktown. STRASSER CAME TO the office some days after the verdict, to wind things down, to say good-bye. We steered him into the conference room and everyone gathered around and gave him a thunderous ovation. His eyes were teary as he raised a hand and acknowledged our cheers and thanks. “Speech!” someone yelled. “I’ve made so many close friends here,” he said, choking up. “I’m going to miss you all. And I’m going to miss working on this case. Working on the side of right.” Applause. “I’m going to miss defending this wonderful company.” Woodell and Hayes and I looked at each other. One of us said: “So why don’t you come work here?” Strasser turned red and laughed. That laugh—I was struck again by the incongruous falsetto. He waved his hand, pshaw, as if we were kidding. We weren’t kidding. A short while later I invited Strasser to lunch at the Stockpot in Beaverton. I brought along Hayes, who by now was working full-time for Blue Ribbon, and we made a hard pitch. Of all the pitches in my life, this might have been the most carefully prepared and rehearsed, because I wanted Strasser, and I knew there would be pushback. He had before him a clear path to the very top of Cousin Houser’s firm, or any other firm he might choose. Without much effort he could become partner, secure a life of means, privilege, prestige. That was the known, and we were offering him The Unknown.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  I can’t imagine what made me use the word “spy” so wantonly, so boldly, other than the fact that James Bond was all the rage just then. Nor can I understand why, when I was revealing so much, I didn’t reveal the spy’s name. It was Fujimoto, whose bicycle I’d replaced. I think I must have known, on some level, that the memo was a mistake, a terribly stupid thing to do. And that I would live to regret it. I think I knew. But I often found myself as perplexing as Japanese business practices. KITAMI AND MR. Onitsuka both attended the Games in Mexico City, and afterward they both flew to Los Angeles. I flew down from Oregon to meet them for dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Santa Monica. I was late, of course, and by the time I arrived they were full of sake. Like schoolboys on holiday: Each was wearing a souvenir sombrero, loudly woohooing. I tried hard to mirror their festive mood. I matched them shot for shot, helped them finish off several platters of sushi, and generally bonded with them both. At my hotel that night I went to bed thinking, hoping, I’d been paranoid about Kitami. The next morning we all flew to Portland so they could meet the gang at Blue Ribbon. I realized that in my letters to Onitsuka, not to mention my conversations with them, I might have overplayed the grandeur of our “worldwide headquarters.” Sure enough I saw Kitami’s face drop as he walked in. I also saw Mr. Onitsuka looking around, bewildered. I hastened to apologize. “It may look small,” I said, laughing tightly, “but we do a lot of business out of this room!” They looked at the broken windows, the javelin window closer, the wavy plywood room divider. They looked at Woodell in his wheelchair. They felt the walls vibrating from the Pink Bucket jukebox. They looked at each other, dubious. I told myself: Whelp, it’s all over. Sensing my embarrassment, Mr. Onitsuka put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “It is… most charming,” he said. On the far wall Woodell had hung a large, handsome map of the United States, and he’d put a red pushpin everywhere we’d sold a pair of Tigers in the last five years. The map was covered with red pushpins. For one merciful moment it diverted attention from our office space. Then Kitami pointed at eastern Montana. “No pins,” he said. “Obviously salesman here not doing job.” DAYS WENT SWOOSHING by. I was trying to build a company and a marriage. Penny and I were learning to live together, learning to meld our personalities and idiosyncrasies, though we agreed that she was the one with all the personality and I was the idiosyncratic one. Therefore it was she who had more to learn.

• From City of Night (1963)

  A week later, alone, I ran into the same man. This time he knew me and he came and talked to me. “Do you have a young friend whod like to come up and have dinner with us?” he asked me. “I havent seen Petey-boy here today,” he said, glancing around for him. “If you find another nice youngman, we’ll have a lovely dinner, and youll each be $10.00 richer.” “Ten?” I said. “Why, child,” he said somewhat indignantly, “I always give ten.” From my expression, he understood what had happened. “That Pete!” he said, and I thought he was going to stamp his foot. “Hes done it to me again. Why, I bet he only gave you five.” I felt embarrassed to admit I’d been taken, and I said, no, he’d given me ten. “Well, Im relieved!” the man said. “Hes done that before, you know—gives his young friend only five, and keeps fifteen. But what can I do? It embarrasses me so, when Ive first met a youngman, to give him the money. I dont really know what to do.” Then he smiles Tolerantly. “But Petey is a lovely youngman—only—only—” He frowns slightly. “—only I wish he wouldnt call me Mom.” When I saw Pete again, one night in Bryant Park, I mentioned the money to him. He looked at his feet, pretending—I was sure he was pretending—embarrassment. “You gotta learn not to trust no one too much,” he mumbled. Then he reached for his wallet, brought out three dollars. “Thats all I got now,” he said, sighing (“What Am I Going To Do Now?!”). “Here, take em,” he said. I did, and he stared at me in surprise. “Youre learning, spote,” he said. A few days later I got even with him. I told him I knew a girl who wanted to be a stripper. I had met her not too long ago in the lobby of an apartment house I had just scored in. Her name was Flip, and she asked me to come up with her—just like that She shows me sexy pictures of herself, turning me on. She was very pretty, very young. To the groaning sounds of “Night Train” she began to do a strip—then stopped coquettishly; tells me poutingly shes sorry, she cant go all the way: “You see, zoll—” (Thats how she said doll.) “—little Flip’s got the mean rag on.” Suddenly I realized without doubt that Flip was a man. She was the first dragqueen I had ever been with. I didnt let her know I had found out, and she went ahead and did what she told me she liked anyway.... When it was over, she says: “If you know any other cute zolls, tell them about me. Im always Ready, zoll.”

• From Memoirs of Fanny Hill (1749)

  As if this had been the signal agreed on for pulling off all their clothes, a scheme which the heat of the season perfectly favoured, Polly began to draw her pins, and as she had no stays to unlace, she was in a trice, with her gallant’s officious assistance, undressed to all but her shift. When he saw this, his breeches were immediately loosened, waist and knee bands, and slipped over his ankles, clean off; his shirt collar was unbottoned too: then, first giving Polly an encouraging kiss, he stole, as it were, the shift off the girl, who being, I suppose, broke and familiarized to this humour, blushed indeed, but less than I did at the apparition of her, now standing stark naked, just as she came ont of the hands of pure nature, with her black hair loose and a-float down her dazzling white neck and shoulders, whilst the deepened carnation of her cheeks went off gradually into the hue of glazed snow: for such were the blended tints polish of her skin. This girl could not be above eighteen: her face regular and sweet featured, her shape exquisite; nor could I help envying her two ripe enchanting breasts, finely plumped out in flesh, but withal so round, so firm, that they sustained themselves, in scorn of any stay: then their nipples, pointing different ways, marked their pleasing separation; beneath them lay the delicious tract of the belly, which terminated in a parting of rift scarce discerning, that modesty seemed to retire downward, and seek shelter between two plump fleshy thighs: the curling hair that overspread its delightful front, clothed it with the richest sable fur in the universe: in short, she was evidently a subject for the painters to court her, sitting to them for a pattern female beauty, in all the true pride and pomp of nakedness. The young Italian (still in his shirt) stood gazing and transported at the sight of beauties that might have fired a dying hermit; his eager eyes devoured her, as she shifted attitudes at his discretion: neither were his hands excluded their share of the high feast, but wandered, on the hunt of pleasure, over every part and inch of her body, so qualified to afford the most exquisite sense of it. In the mean time time, one could not help observing the swell of his shirt before, that bolstered out, and pointed out the condition of things behind the curtain: but he soon removed it, by slipping his shirt over his head; and now, as to nakedness, they had nothing to reproach one another.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  Each time he returned from the men’s room there was another toast, and Gorman thought he was playing it safe by raising his water glass. To our American friends! To our Taiwanese friends! After another huge gulp of spiked water, Gorman looked at me, panic-stricken. “I think I’m going to pass out,” he said. “Have some more water,” I said. “Tastes funny.” “Nah.” Despite offloading my booze onto Gorman, I was woozy when I got back to my room. I had trouble getting ready for bed. I had trouble finding the bed. I fell asleep while brushing my teeth. Midbrush. I woke sometime later and tried to find my extra contact lenses. I found them. Then dropped them on the floor. There was a knock. Gorman. He walked in and asked me something about our next day’s itinerary. He found me on my hands and knees, searching for my contact lenses in a pool of my own sick. “Phil, you okay?” “Follow your mentor’s lead,” I mumbled. THAT MORNING WE flew to Taipei, the capital, and toured a couple more factories. In the evening we strolled Xinsheng South Road, with its dozens of shrines and temples, churches and mosques. The Road to Heaven, locals called it. Indeed, I told Gorman, Xinsheng means “New Life.” When we returned to our hotel I got a strange and unexpected phone call. Jerry Hsieh—pronounced Shay—was “paying his respects.” I’d met Hsieh before. In one of the shoe factories I’d visited the year before. He was working for Mitsubishi and the great Jonas Senter. He’d impressed me with his intensity and work ethic. And youth. Unlike all the other shoe dogs I’d met, he was young, twentysomething, and looked much younger. Like an overgrown toddler. He said he’d heard we were in the country. Then, like a CIA operative, he added: “I know why you are here...” He invited us to visit him in his office, an invitation that seemed to indicate he was now working for himself, not Mitsubishi.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  IN MY LAST week on campus, walking through the halls, I noticed a group of young women standing around an easel. One of them was daubing at a large canvas, and just as I passed I heard her lamenting that she couldn’t afford to take a class on oil painting. I stopped, admired the canvas. “My company could use an artist,” I said. “What?” she said. “My company needs someone to do some advertising. Would you like to make some extra money?” I still didn’t see any bang-for-the-buck in advertising, but I was starting to accept that I could no longer ignore it. The Standard Insurance Company had just run a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal, touting Blue Ribbon as one of the dynamic young companies among its clients. The ad featured a photo of Bowerman and me… staring at a shoe. Not as if we were shoe innovators; more as if we’d never seen a shoe before. We looked like morons. It was embarrassing. In some of our ads the model was none other than Johnson. See Johnson rocking a blue tracksuit. See Johnson waving a javelin. When it came to advertising, our approach was primitive and slapdash. We were making it up as we went along, learning on the fly, and it showed. In one ad—for the Tiger marathon flat, I think—we referred to the new fabric as “swooshfiber.” To this day none of us remembers who first came up with the word, or what it meant. But it sounded good. People were telling me constantly that advertising was important, that advertising was the next wave. I always rolled my eyes. But if icky photos and made-up words—and Johnson, posed seductively on a couch—were slipping into our ads, I needed to start paying more attention. “I’ll give you two bucks an hour,” I told this starving artist in the hallway at Portland State. “To do what?” she asked. “Design print ads,” I said, “do some lettering, logos, maybe a few charts and graphs for presentations.” It didn’t sound like much of a gig. But the poor kid was desperate. She wrote her name on a piece of paper. Carolyn Davidson. And her number. I shoved it in my pocket and forgot all about it.

• From Memoirs of Fanny Hill (1749)

  I now stood before my judges in all the truth of nature, to whom I could not appear a very disagreeable figure, if you please to recollect what I have beforesaid of my person, which time, that at certain periods of life robs use every instant of our charms, had, at that of mine, then greatly improved into full and open, bloom, for I wanted some months of eighteen. My breasts, which in the state of nudity are ever capital points, now in no more than in graceful plenitude, maintained a firmness and steady independence of any stay or support, that dared and invited the test of the touch. Then I was as tall, as slim-shaped as could be consistent with all that juicy plumpness of flesh, ever the most grateful to the senses of sight and touch, which I owed to the health and youth of my constitution. I had not, however, so thoroughly renounced all innate shame, as not to suffer great confusion at the state I saw myself in; but the whole troop round me, men and women, relieved me with every mark of applause and satisfaction, even flattering attention to raise and inspire me with even sentiments of pride on the figure I made, which my friend gallantly protested, infinitely outshone all other birthday finery whatever; so that had I leave to set down, for sincere, all the compliments these connoisseurs overwhelmed me with upon this occasion, I might flatter myself with having passed my examination with the approbation of the learned. My friend, however, who for this time had alone the disposal of me, humoured their curiosity, and perhaps his own, so far, that he placed me in all the variety of postures and lights imaginable, pointing out every beauty under every aspect of it, not without such parentheses, of kisses, such inflammatory liberties of his roving hands, as made all shame fly before them, and a blushing glow give place to a warmer one of desire, which led me even to find some relish in the present scene. But in this general survey, you may be sure, the most material spot of me was not excused the strictest visitation; nor was it but agreed, that I had not the least reason to be diffident of passing even for a maid, on occasion; so inconsiderable a flaw had my preceding adventures created there, and so soon had the blemish of an over-stretch been repaired and worn out at any age, and in my naturally small make in that part.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  Just getting ready for it felt like something to live for, some net in my life that caught me and strained me out of the ooze. It was as though some wonderful future event were being extended backward in time. The future event needed only to exist so that I could have this excitement and anticipation now. Next I went to a fancy makeup shop and bought some lipstick to match my hair color, a matte crimson. The women there treated me like an interloper and gave me strange stares. I think I talked about my date too much. I kept mentioning the tech exec and Santa Barbara so they would think that I was rich enough to be there. But they never smiled. Was I not supposed to talk to them? Could you only talk to some women about imaginary dates, while others could smell your reality the moment they looked at you? The final touch was a bikini wax. I went to a dive—some shithole where they said they could take me right away. I was just going to do the sides, but when the waxer—a bosomy woman named Kristina—saw my vagina, she started yelling. “Too much hair! Too much hair!” “I know! What do you think I should do with it?” “Me? I say take it all off.” “Ha, no way,” I said. “Okay, fine. I take some off. I show you. Just lie back.” I lay back on the small pillow covered in paper. The room was cold and the ceiling was covered in what looked like big pee stains and mold. “You have boyfriend?” she asked. “What he think of hair?” “No,” I said. “No boyfriend.” “Ah, see!” she said. “I will fix that. Relax.” I felt her spread on the wax. It felt too hot, but I didn’t know how warm it was supposed to be. It felt like my right labia was burning. She blew on the wax a few times with frenetic movements. “One, two, three,” she said. Then she ripped. I felt like my vagina was a tree, its roots being torn out of the ground. It was an ache, a tearing, and a burning all at once. I wanted to kill her. “Oh my God!” I yelled. I looked down. There was my full bush with one giant chunk missing. The area was pink and had a few tiny dots of blood. My crotch looked like a furry mouth with one pulled tooth. “Darling, lie back. That was nothing.” “No!” I said. “Don’t do it, please. I’m done. I’m done.” “I can’t leave you like this. You’re going to go to mans like this?” she asked, pointing to my torn-up vagina. “I don’t care!” “I go gentler,” she said. I didn’t know what to do. We were sort of fighting. I was pushing her hands away and she was applying the wax. With the second strip I started to cry. “This is fucking insane,” I said.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  Even Nelson’s car, I noticed one day in the parking lot, was a hideous shade of brown. When I mentioned this to Nelson, he laughed. He had the nerve to brag that every car he’d ever owned had been the same brown. “I might have made a mistake with Nelson,” I confided to Hayes. I WAS NO fashion plate. But I knew how to wear a decent suit. And because my company was launching an apparel line, I now started paying closer attention to what I wore, and what those around me wore. On the second front I was appalled. Bankers and investors, reps from Nissho, all kinds of people we needed to impress, were passing through our new halls, and whenever they saw Strasser in his Hawaiian shirts, or Hayes in his bulldozer-driving outfits, they did triple-takes. Sometimes our eccentricity was funny. (A top executive at Foot Locker said, “We think of you guys as gods—until we see your cars.”) But most times it was embarrassing. And potentially damaging. Thus, around Thanksgiving, 1978, I instituted a strict company dress code. The reaction wasn’t terribly enthusiastic. Corporate bullshit, many grumbled. I was mocked. Mostly I was ignored. To even a casual observer, it became clear that Strasser started dressing worse . When he showed up to work one day in baggy-seated Bermuda shorts, as if he were walking a Geiger counter down the beach, I couldn’t stand by. This was rank insubordination. I intercepted him in the halls and called him out. “You need to wear a coat and tie!” I said. “We’re not a coat-and-tie company!” he shot back. “We are now.” He walked away from me. In the coming days Strasser continued to dress with a studied, confrontational casualness. So I fined him. I instructed the bookkeeper to deduct seventy-five dollars from Strasser’s next paycheck. He threw a fit, of course. And he plotted. Days later he and Hayes came to work in coats and ties. But preposterous coats and ties. Stripes and plaids, checks with polka dots, all of it rayon and polyester—and burlap? They meant it as a farce, but also as a protest, a gesture of civil disobedience, and I was in no mood for two fashion Gandhis staging a dress-in. I disinvited them both from the next Buttface. Then I ordered them both to go home and not to come back until they could behave, and dress, like adults. “And—you’re fined again!” I yelled at Strasser. “Then you’re fucked!” he yelled back. Just then, at that exact moment, I turned. Coming toward me was Nelson, dressed worse than the lot of them. Polyester bell-bottoms, a pink silk shirt open to his navel. Strasser and Hayes were one thing, but where the heck did this new guy get off protesting my dress code? After I’d just hired him? I pointed at the door and sent him home, too. From the confused, horrified look on his face I realized he wasn’t protesting.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  Johnson turned, saw, and went white. “Oh... shit,” he said. In a frantic whisper he told us that the new guy was the store manager... with whom he’d inadvertently discussed the trial. Now Cousin Houser and Strasser went white. The three of us looked at each other, and looked at Johnson, and in unison we turned and looked at James the Just. He was banging his gavel and clearly about to explode. He stopped banging. Silence filled the courtroom. Now he started yelling. He spent a full twenty minutes tearing into us. One day after his gag order, he said, one day, someone on Team Blue Ribbon had walked into a local store and run his mouth. We stared straight ahead, like naughty children, wondering if we were about to be a mistrial. But as the judge wound down his tirade, I thought I detected the tiniest twinkle in his eye. Maybe, I thought, just maybe, James the Just is more performer than ogre. Johnson redeemed himself with his testimony. Articulate, dazzlingly anal about the tiniest details, he described the Boston and the Cortez better than anyone else in the world could, including me. Hilliard tried and tried to break him, and couldn’t. What a pleasure it was to watch Hilliard bang his head against that cement-like Johnson unflappability. Stretch versus the crab was less of a mismatch. Next we called Bowerman to the stand. I had high hopes for my old coach, but he just wasn’t himself that day. It was the first time I ever saw him flustered, even a bit intimidated, and the reasons quickly became obvious. He hadn’t prepared. Out of contempt for Onitsuka, and disdain for the whole sordid business, he’d decided to wing it. I was saddened. Cousin Houser was annoyed. Bowerman’s testimony could have put us over the top. Ah well. We consoled ourselves with the knowledge that at least he hadn’t done anything to hurt us. Next Cousin Houser read into the record the deposition of Iwano, the young assistant who’d accompanied Kitami on his two trips to the United States. Happily, Iwano proved to be as guileless, as pure of heart, as he’d first seemed to me and Penny. He’d told the truth, the whole truth, and it flatly contradicted Kitami. Iwano testified that there was a firm, fixed plan in place to break our contract, to abandon us, to replace us, and that Kitami had discussed it openly many times. We then called a noted orthopedist, an expert on the impact of running shoes on feet, joints, and the spine, who explained the differences among the many brands and models on the market, and described how the Cortez and Boston differed from anything Onitsuka ever made. Essentially, he said, the Cortez was the first shoe ever that took pressure off the Achilles. Revolutionary, he said. Game-changing. While testifying, he spread out dozens of shoes, and pulled them apart, and tossed them around, which agitated James the Just.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Her fingers, I saw then, were quite yellow with tobacco stains. After a moment the tea things appeared, and while Kitty and Mrs Dendy busied themselves with the tray I looked about me. There was much to look at, for Mrs Dendy’s parlour was rather extraordinary. Its rugs and furniture were plain enough; its walls, however, were wonderful, for every one of them was crowded with pictures and photographs - so crowded, indeed, that there was barely enough space between the frames to make out the colour of the wallpaper beneath. ‘I can see you are quite taken with my little collection,’ said Mrs Dendy as she handed me my tea-cup, and I blushed to find all eyes suddenly turned my way. She gave me a smile, and lifted her yellowed fingers to fiddle with the crystal drop that hung, on a brass thread, from the hole in her ear. ‘All old tenants of mine, my dear,’ she said; ‘and some of them, as you will see, rather famous.’ I looked at the pictures again. They were all, I now saw, portraits - signed portraits most of them - of artistes from the theatres and the halls. There were, as Mrs Dendy had claimed, several faces that I knew - the Great Vance, for instance, had his photograph upon the chimney-breast, with Jolly John Nash, posed as ‘Rackity Jack’, at his side; and above the sofa there was a framed song-sheet with a sprawling, uneven dedication: ‘To Dear Ma Dendy. Kind thoughts, Good wishes. Bessie Bellwood’. But there were many more that I did not recognise, men and women with laughing faces, in gay, professional poses, and with costumes and names so bland, exotic or obscure - Jennie West, Captain Largo, Shinkaboo Lee - I could guess nothing about the nature of their turns. I marvelled to think that they had all stayed here, in Ginevra Road, with comely Mrs Dendy as their host. We talked until the tea was drunk, and our landlady had smoked two or three more cigarettes; then she slapped her knees and got slowly to her feet. ‘I dare say you would like to see your rooms, and give your faces a bit of a splash,’ she said pleasantly. She turned to Mr Bliss, who had risen politely, when she had. ‘Now, if you could just apply your obliging arm to the young ladies’ boxes and things, Wal ...’ 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.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  One by one the objects appeared, and were turned and examined in the late morning light. The room grew quite hushed. ‘My word, Nancy,’ said Father at last, ‘you have done us proud.’ I had bought him a watch-guard, thick and bright as the one that Walter wore; he held it in his hand, and it seemed brighter than ever against the red of his palm, the faded wool of his jacket. He laughed: ‘I shall look quite the thing in this, now, shan’t I?’ The laugh, however, didn’t sound quite natural. I looked at Mother. She had a silver-backed brush and a hand-glass to match: they sat in their wrappers, in her lap, as if she were afraid to pick them up. I thought at once - what had never occurred to me in Oxford Street - how queer they would look beside her cheap coloured perfume bottles, her jar of cold-cream, on her old chest of drawers with its chipped glass handles. She caught my eye, and I saw that she had thought the same. ‘Really, Nance ...’ she said; and her words were almost a reproof. There were murmurs, now, from all around the room, as people compared presents. Aunt Rosina held up a pair of garnet earrings, and blinked at them. George fingered his flask, and asked me, rather nervously, whether I had won the sweep-stakes. Only Rhoda and my brother seemed really pleased with their gifts. For Davy I had bought a pair of shoes, hand-sewn and soft as butter: now he rapped on their soles with his knuckles, then stepped over the discarded paper and strings to kiss my cheek. ‘What a little star you are,’ he said. ‘I shall save these for my wedding-day and be the best-shod bloke in Kent.’ His words seemed to remind everybody of their manners, and suddenly they all rose to kiss and thank me, and there was a general, embarrassed shuffling. I looked over their shoulders to where Alice still sat. She had taken the lid from the hat-box, but had not removed the hat, only held it, listlessly, in her fingers. Davy saw me looking. ‘What’ve you got, Sis?’ he called. When she reluctantly tipped up the box for him to see, he whistled: ‘What a stunner! With an ostrich feather and a diamond on the brim. Aren’t you going to try it on?’ ‘I will, later,’ she said. Now everyone turned to look at her. ‘Oh, what a beautiful hat!’ said Rhoda. ‘And what a lovely shade of red. What shade of red do they call that, Nancy?’ ‘“Buffalo Red”,’ I said miserably; I could not have felt more of a fool if I had given them all a pile of trash - cotton-reels and candle-stubs, toothpicks and pebbles - wrapped up in tissue and ribbons and silks. Rhoda did not notice. “‘Buffalo Red”!’ she cried. ‘Oh, Alice, do be a sport and give us a look at it on you.’ ‘Yes, go on, Alice.’