Fear

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 Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  I only noticed a few signs of life coming from kitchens situated in the vaults below the central part of the structure; all the rest was as deserted as the chateau's site was lonely. No one was there to greet us when we entered; one of my guides went off in the direction of the kitchens, the other presented me to the Count. He was at the far end of a spacious and superb apartment, his body enveloped in an oriental satin dressing gown, reclining upon an ottoman, and having hard by him two young men so indecently, or rather so ridiculously, costumed, their hair dressed with such elegance and skill, that at first I took them for girls; a closer inspection allowed me to recognize them for two youths, one of about fifteen, the other perhaps sixteen. Their faces struck me as charming, but in such a state of dissipated softness and weariness, that at the outset I thought they were ill. "My Lord, here is a girl," said my guide, "she seems to us to be what might suit you: she is properly bred and gentle and asks only to find a situation; we hope you will be content with her." " 'Tis well," the Count said with scarcely a glance in my direction; "you, Saint-Louis, will close the doors when you go out and you will say that no one is to enter unless I ring." Then the Count rose to his feet and came up to examine me. While he makes a detailed investigation I can describe him to you: the portrait's singularity merits an instant's attention. Monsieur de Gernande was at that time a man of fifty, almost six feet tall and monstrously fat. Nothing could be more terrifying than his face, the length of his nose, his wicked black eyes, his large ill-furnished mouth, his formidable high forehead, the sound of his fearful raucous voice, his enormous hands; all combined to make a gigantic individual whose presence inspired much more fear than reassurance. We will soon be able to decide whether the morals and actions of this species of centaur were in keeping with his awesome looks. After the most abrupt and cavalier scrutiny, the Count demanded to Know my age.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I let my eyes travel the length of them, all the way up to the ceiling before I bolt upright, coming fully awake. I am not in my bedroom. I stare around the room in shock. Whose bedroom? I think back to the night before. Had I— No way. I haven’t even looked at a man since … there is no way I went home with someone. Besides, last night I had dinner with my editor. We’d had a couple glasses of wine. Chianti doesn’t make you black out. My breathing is shallow as I try to remember what happened after I left the restaurant. Gas, I’d stopped for gas at the Red Sea Service Station on Magnolia and Queen Anne. What after that? I can’t remember. I look down at the duvet clutched between my white knuckles. Red … feather … unfamiliar. I swing my legs over the side of the bed and the room wobbles and tilts. I feel sick right away. Day after a huge drinking binge sick. I gasp for air, trying to breathe deeply enough to quell my nausea. Chianti doesn’t do this, I tell myself again. “I’m dreaming,” I say out loud. But I’m not. I know that. I stand up and I am dizzy for a good ten seconds before I am able to take my first step. I bend over and vomit … right on the wood floor. My stomach is empty, but it heaves anyway. I lift my hand to wipe my mouth and my arm feels wrong—too heavy. This isn’t a hangover. I’ve been drugged. I stay bent over for several more seconds before I straighten up. I feel like I’m on the Tilt-A-Whirl at the fair. I stumble forward, taking in my surroundings. The room is round. It’s freezing. There is a fireplace—with no fire—and a four-poster bed. There is no door. Where is the door? Panic kicks in and I run in a clumsy circle, grabbing onto the bed to steady myself when my legs buckle. “Where is the door?” I can see my breath steaming into the air. I focus on that, watch it expand and dissipate. My eyes take a long time to re-focus. I’m not sure how long I stand there, except my feet start to ache. I look down at my toes. I can barely feel them. I have to move. Do something. Get out. On the wall in front of me there is a window. I amble forward and rip aside the flimsy curtain. The first thing I notice is that I’m on the second floor. The second thing I notice—oh God! My brain sends a chill down the rest of my body—a warning. You are done, Senna, it says. Over. Dead. Someone took you.

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

  She, however, attributed the change to the tonics I was taking, little guessing the real nature of these tonics. Later, she thought I must have some kind of liaison or other, but she did not interfere with my private affairs; she knew that the time for sowing my wild oats had come, and she left me complete freedom of action." "Well, you were a lucky fellow." "Yes, but perfect happiness cannot last long. Hell gapes on the threshold of heaven, and one step plunges us from ethereal light into erebian darkness. So it has ever been with me in this chequered life of mine. A fortnight after that memorable night of unbearable anguish and of thrilling delight, I awoke in the midst of felicity to find myself in thorough wretchedness. "One morning, as I went in to breakfast, I found on the table a note which the postman had brought the evening before. I never received letters at home, having hardly any correspondence, save a business one, which was always transacted at the office. The handwriting was unknown to me. It must be some tradesman, thought I, leisurely buttering my bread. At last I tore the envelope open. It was a card of two lines without any address or signature." "And —— ?" "Have you ever by accident placed your hand on a strong galvanic battery, and got through your fingers a shock that for a moment bereaves you of your very reason? If so, you can have but a faint impression of what that bit of paper produced on my nerves. I was stunned by it. Having read those few words I saw nothing more, for the room began to spin round me." "Well, but what was there to terrify you in such a way?" "Only these few harsh, grating words that have remained indelibly engraved on my mind. "'If you do not give up your lover T… you shall branded as an enculé .' "This horrible, infamous, anonymous threat, in all its crude harshness came so unexpectedly that it was, as the Italians express it, like a clap of thunder on a bright sunshiny day. "Little dreaming of its contents, I had opened it carelessly in my mother's presence; but hardly had I perused it than a state of utter prostration came over me, so that I had not even strength enough to hold up that tiny bit of paper. "My hands were trembling like aspen leaves—nay, my whole body was quivering; so thoroughly was I cowed down with fear and appalled with shame.

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

  The latter, born unprovided with possessions, must have but one desire if he has any esprit: to become rich at no matter what price; if he succeeds, he obtains what he wanted and should be content; if he is put on the rack, what's he to regret since he has nothing to lose? Those laws decreed against banditry are null if they are not extended to apply to the powerful bandit; that the law inspire any dread in the miserable is impossible, for the sword is the miserable man's only resource." "And do you believe," I broke in, "that in another world Celestial Justice does not await him whom crime has not affrighted in this one?" "I believe," this dangerous woman answered, "that if there were a God there would be less evil on earth; I believe that since evil exists, these disorders are either expressly ordained by this God, and there you have a barbarous fellow, or he is incapable of preventing them and right away you have a feeble God; in either case, an abominable being, a being whose lightning I should defy and whose laws contemn. Ah, Therese I is not atheism preferable to the one and the other of these extremes? that's my doctrine, dear lass, it's been mine since childhood and I'll surely not renounce it while I live." "You make me shudder, Madame," I said, getting to my feet; "will you pardon me? for I am unable to listen any longer to your sophistries and blasphemies." "One moment, Therese," said Dubois, holding me back, "if I cannot conquer your reason, I may at least captivate your heart. I have need of you, do not refuse me your aid; here are a thousand louis: they will be yours as soon as the blow is struck." Heedless of all but my penchant for doing good, I immediately asked Dubois what was involved so as to forestall, if 'twere possible, the crime she was getting ready to commit. "Here it is," she said: "have you noticed that young tradesman from Lyon who has been taking his meals here for the past four or five days?" "Who? Dubreuil?"

• From Going Clear (2013)

  She was made to stand in a garbage can for twelve hours, as the other detainees demanded that she confess her own “homosexual tendencies.” The women in the room repeatedly slapped her and poured water over her head. A sign was hung around her neck, saying LESBO. Rathbun was seen as being COB’s chief enforcer. During meetings in the Hole or elsewhere on the base, he would stand to one side and glare at his colleagues while he says Miscavige berated and abused them. Although he was physically intimidating, Rathbun was suffering from a number of physical ailments, including a bad back, gallstones, calcium deposits in his neck, and painful varicose veins, which he believed came from having to stand at attention for hours on end. He, too, was prone to bursts of sudden violence. “Once on a phone call I saw him get so mad that he put his fist right through a computer screen,” his former wife recalled. Miscavige would send him down to observe what was going on in the Hole and come back with reports. In January 2004, when Rinder was accused of withholding a confession from the group, Rathbun took him outside and beat him up. Rathbun says Miscavige wasn’t satisfied. He called Rathbun into his massive office in the Religious Technology Center, a cold and imposing room with steel walls and eighteen-foot ceilings, and accused him of letting Rinder “get away with murder.” Then, according to Rathbun, out of nowhere, Miscavige grabbed him by the throat and slammed his head against the steel wall. 5 Rathbun blacked out for a moment. He wasn’t hurt, but the terms had changed. A few days later, Rathbun found himself in the Hole, along with the entire International Management team and other executives. Miscavige said they were going to stay there until they got the Org Board done. Scientologists are trained to believe that whatever happens to them is somehow their fault, so much of the discussion in the Hole centered on what they had done to deserve this fate. The possibility that the leader of the church might be irrational or even insane was so taboo that no one could even think it, much less voice it aloud. Most of the people in the Hole had a strong allegiance to the group—Scientology and the Sea Org—and they didn’t want to let their comrades down. Many had been in the Sea Org their entire adult lives and portions of their childhood. Mike Rinder joined the Sea Org when he was eighteen. Amy Scobee was sixteen. Tom De Vocht was thirteen. They had already surrendered the possibility of ordinary family life.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  He named several of his disaffected followers, including Gregory Hemingway, son of the famous novelist. “When, when, when will we have a round-up?” he implored. Meantime, Sara came to Wichita to pursue the divorce and to get Alexis back. Ron blithely suggested that they should take a trip together. “He told me that I was under the influence of this communist cell” run by her husband, Sara recalled. “And that they were dictating to me what to do, and that I was in a state of complete madness. I told him, ‘Yep, I think you’re right. The only thing I can do is to work through it and do whatever they say.’ ” Ron replied that the Communists had hypnotized her. Sara played along, but insisted she would have to go through the divorce; only then would she be able to break free of their power. Sara Northrup Hubbard in April 1951, when she was suing Hubbard for the return of their baby daughter, Alexis “You know, I’m a public figure and you’re nobody,” Ron said, “so if you have to go through the divorce, I’ll accuse you of desertion so it won’t look so bad on my public record.” As long as she was going to get Alexis back as part of the bargain, Sara agreed. On the day of the divorce, Ron was convinced that the spell the Communists had cast over Sara would be broken, and she would come back to him. When they walked out of the courtroom, Sara told him that she had to get their daughter. Ron took her to the place where Alexis was being held. Sara said that the last thing she had to do was go to the airport. She already had a ticket. Then the enchantment would dissolve and she would be free. On the day of her scheduled departure, Ron drove Sara and Alexis to the airport. “We got halfway there and he said he wasn’t going to do it,” Sara recalled. “You’re going to get on that plane and go away, aren’t you?” Ron said. “Well, I have to follow their dictates,” Sara replied. “I’ll just go to the airplane.” Ron parked the car. He told her that he couldn’t stand the idea that she would be under the influence of psychiatrists, and that he might never see either of them again. “I’m not going to let you go,” he said. “I got out of the car, it was on the edge of the airfield,” Sara remembered. “I left all Alexi’s clothes in the car, I left my suitcase, one of her shoes fell off and I had my purse. I just ran across the airfield, across the runways, to the airport and got on the plane. And it was the nineteenth of June and it was the happiest day of my life.”

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  Even so, they could not have arrived at a more opportune moment. Not only was the Seljuk Empire disintegrating, but the sultan had recently died, and the emirs were fighting one another for the succession. Had the Turks preserved a united front, the Crusade could not have succeeded. The Crusaders knew nothing about local politics, and their understanding was derived almost entirely from their religious views and prejudices. Onlookers described the Crusading armies as a monastery on the march. At every crisis there were processions, prayers, and a special liturgy. Even though they were famished, they fasted before an engagement and listened as attentively to sermons as to battle instructions. Starving men had visions of Jesus, the saints, and deceased Crusaders who were now glorious martyrs in Heaven. They saw angels fighting alongside them, and at one of the lowest moments of the siege of Antioch, they discovered a holy relic—the lance that had pierced Christ’s side—which so elated the despairing men that they surged out of the city and put the besieging Turks to flight. When they finally succeeded in conquering Jerusalem on July 15, 1099, they could only conclude that God had been with them. “Who could not marvel at the way we, a small people among such kingdoms of our enemies, were able not just to resist them but survive?” wrote the chaplain, Fulcher of Chartres.57 War has been aptly described as “a psychosis caused by an inability to see relationships.”58 The First Crusade was especially psychotic. From all accounts, the Crusaders seemed half-crazed. For three years they had had no normal dealings with the world around them, and prolonged terror and malnutrition made them susceptible to abnormal states of mind. They were fighting an enemy that was not only culturally but ethnically different—a factor that, as we have found in our own day, tends to nullify normal inhibitions—and when they fell on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, they slaughtered some thirty thousand people in three days.59 “They killed all the Saracens and Turks they found,” the author of the Deeds of the Franks reported approvingly. “They killed everyone, male or female.”60 The streets ran with blood. Jews were rounded up into their synagogue and put to the sword, and ten thousand Muslims who had sought sanctuary in the Haram al-Sharif were brutally massacred. “Piles of heads, hands and feet were to be seen,” wrote the Provençal chronicler Raymond of Aguilers: “Men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins. Indeed, it was a just and splendid judgment of God that this place should be filled with the blood of unbelievers.”61 There were so many dead that the Crusaders were unable to dispose of the bodies. When Fulcher of Chartres came to celebrate Christmas in Jerusalem five months later, he was appalled by the stench from the rotting corpses that still lay unburied in the fields and ditches around the city.62

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  It’s heavy. Foreign. Inside is a box of lighters, a key, and a small silver knife. I want to question the contents of the box. Stare at them, touch them—but I need to move fast. I use the knife to cut a strip of material from the bottom of a shirt, then I loop it and tie it into a knot with my teeth and good hand. Slipping my wrist into my makeshift sling, I flinch. I pocket the knife and fumble for one of the lighters. My hand hovers above the box. Eight pink Zippos. If I didn’t already have chills, I’d get them now. I blow it off. I can’t blow it off. I can and I have to, because I’m freezing. My hand is shaking as I reach for the lighter. It’s a coincidence. I laugh. Can anything tied to a kidnapping be coincidence? I’ll think later. Right now I need to get warm. My fingers are numb. It takes six tries before I can get the wheel on the Zippo to spin. It leaves indentations on my thumb The wood is hard to catch. Damp. Had he put it here recently? I look for something to feed the flames, but there is nothing I can burn that I might not need later. I am already thinking survival, and it scares me. Kindling. What can I use for kindling? My eyes search the space until I see a white box in the corner of the armoire with a red medical cross on the top. A first-aid kit. I run to it and flip the lid. Bandages, aspirin, needles— God . I finally find single use packages of alcohol prep wipes. I grab a handful and run back to the fireplace. I rip the first one open and hold the lighter to its tip. It catches and flares. I tuck the burning pad against the log and rip open another package, repeating the process. I pray to whoever is in charge of fire and blow gently. The wood catches. I pull the thick comforter off the bed and wrap myself in it, crouching in front of the meager flames. It is not enough. I am so cold I want to dive into the fire and let it burn this cold off of me. I stay like that, a lump on the floor, until I stop shaking. Then I move. There is a trapdoor under the rug with a heavy, metal handle. It is locked. I yank on it for five minutes with my good hand until my shoulder burns and I want heave up my guts again. I stare at it for a moment before I run to get the key from the silver box. What kind of sick game is this? And why do I take so long to realize the thing about the key? I don’t know what to do.

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

  "Yes, I will do anything; spare him." "Let him live," said Coeur-de-fer, "but he has got to join us, that last clause is crucial, I can do nothing if he refuses to comply with it, my comrades would be against me." Surprised, the merchant, understanding nothing of this. consanguinity I was establishing, but observing his life saved if he were to consent to the proposal, saw no cause for a moment's hesitation. He was provided with meat and drink, as the men did not wish to leave the place until daybreak. "Therese," Coeur-de-fer said to me, "I remind you of your promise, but, since I am weary tonight, rest quietly beside Dubois, I will summon you toward dawn and if you are not prompt to come, taking this knave's life will be my revenge for your deceit." "Sleep, Monsieur, sleep well," I replied, "and believe that she whom you have filled with gratitude has no desire but to repay it." However, such was far from my design, for if ever I believed deception permitted, it was certainly upon this occasion. Our rascals, greatly overconfident, kept at their drinking and fell into slumber, leaving me entirely at liberty beside Dubois who, drunk like the others, soon closed her eyes too. Then seizing my opportunity as soon as the bandits surrounding us were overcome with sleep: "Monsieur," I said to the young Lyonnais, "the most atrocious catastrophe has thrown me against my will into the midst of these thieves, I detest both them and the fatal instant that brought me into their company. In truth, I have not the honor to be related to you; I employed the trick to save you and to escape, if you approve it, with you, from out of these scoundrels' clutches; the moment's propitious," I added, "let us be off; I notice your pocketbook, take it back, forget the money, it is in their pockets; we could not recover it without danger: come, Monsieur, let us quit this place. You see what I am doing for you, I put myself into your keeping; take pity on me; above all, be not more cruel than these men; deign to respect my honor, I entrust it to you, it is my unique treasure, they have not ravished it away from me." CHAPTER III " T HEN you had never loved before you made Teleny's acquaintance?" "Never; that is the reason why—for some time—I did not quite understand what I felt. Thinking it over, however, I afterwards came to the conclusion that I had felt the first faint stimulus of love already long before, but as it had always been with my own sex, I was unconscious that this was love." "Was it for some boy of your age?" "No, always for grown up men, for strong muscular specimens of manhood.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  Soon after that, they received a call from the Federal Office of Public Health in Switzerland demanding to know what they were up to. The two women were invited to explain themselves to the director himself. Kit and Marjorie were both in their early twenties. They dressed in dowdy clothes and put powder in their hair to make themselves appear older. When they arrived at the office, they were shown to a conference room with about ten other people, including the director, a stenographer, and several lawyers. Marjorie’s hands were trembling as Kit brazenly presented their case for taking over the WFMH. She claimed that the organization had long been misrepresenting itself; for instance, was the director aware that the WFMH never even bothered to incorporate in Switzerland? He was not. Nor was he a fan of some of the policies that the women said that WFMH championed, such as euthanasia. By the end of the meeting, the director seemed persuaded. “I like how you Americans work!” he said enthusiastically. The women emerged from the meeting elated, but the response to their telex to Hubbard surprised them. He ordered them back to the ship, “for your protection.” As soon as they returned to Cagliari, Hubbard cast off lines and set a course through the Strait of Gibraltar for open water. He even changed the names of his ships, in order to erase the connections with Scientology. The Enchanter became the Diana, the Avon River became the Athena, and the flagship Royal Scotman turned into the Apollo. All were registered with Panamanian credentials as belonging to the Operation and Transport Corporation. The Apollo was now billed as “the pride of the Panamanian fleet,” “a floating school of philosophy,” and “the sanest space on the planet.” Hubbard was convinced that the Swiss authorities had laid a trap: they would arrest Kit and Marjorie and force them to testify and expose his whole scheme. For months, he was afraid to touch land. The ship drifted aimlessly in the Atlantic; the crew was forced to live on its stores, and soon they were down to half-rations. Near Madeira, they were caught up in a fierce tropical storm, which threatened to swamp the Apollo. Immense waves swept over the funnel and shattered the two-inch-thick windows of the dining room. Water gushed into the engine room, where the seasick officer on watch tied a bucket around his neck. Terrified Messengers hauled themselves along the rails of the wildly pitching deck trying to deliver communications to the bridge; at times the nose of the ship was pointed directly down into the sea.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  He checks it after I turn the key, to make sure no one can get in. I always wait for the rattle before I move to the bed. I sleep with a butcher knife in my hand. Dangerous, but not as dangerous as your kidnapper coming into the prison he made for you and… Every morning I wake up and feel fear, though I am never sure when it’s morning or night or midday. The sun shines continuously. I am always afraid that when I climb down the ladder Isaac won’t be there. He always is—ruffled and gaunt standing by the coffee machine. There is always fresh coffee in the pot when I come down. I can smell it as I descend the stairs. I always know Isaac is fine, and alive, and still there from the smell of the coffee. One morning when I climb down the ladder I don’t smell it. I run for the stairs almost breaking my neck as I jump down in twos. When I get to the kitchen I find him asleep at the table, his head resting on his arms. I make the coffee that day. My hands are steady, but my heart won’t stop racing. One day (evening?), Isaac climbs up the ladder and lowers himself next to where I am sitting, cross-legged in front of the fire. I have been thinking about suicide. Not my own, just suicide. There are so many ways. I don’t know why people are so uncreative when they kill themselves. We usually don’t leave the front door unguarded, but I can tell he wants to talk. I unfold my legs and stretch them toward the fire, wiggling my toes. We are running out of firewood, and Isaac says he’s not sure how big the generator is, but we could be running out of fuel in that too. “What are you thinking?” I ask, watching his face. “The carousel room, Senna. I think it means something.” “I don’t want to talk about the carousel room. It freaks me out.” His head snaps sharply toward me. “We’re gonna talk about it. Unless you’d like to stay locked up here forever.” I shake my head, twist my skunk streak around my finger. “It’s a coincidence. It doesn’t mean anything.” He pulls his lips back from his teeth and his head rocks from side to side. “Daphne is pregnant.” It’s that silent moment when you hear the rushing of water in your eyes. My eyes jerk to his face. “Eight weeks the last time I saw her.” He licks his lips and turns to look at me. “We did three rounds of in vitro to get pregnant, had two miscarriages.” He rubs his forehead. “Daphne is pregnant and I need to talk about the carousel room.” I nod dumbly. I feel something. I push it away. Bury it.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I can see my breath steaming into the air. I focus on that, watch it expand and dissipate. My eyes take a long time to re-focus. I’m not sure how long I stand there, except my feet start to ache. I look down at my toes. I can barely feel them. I have to move. Do something. Get out. On the wall in front of me there is a window. I amble forward and rip aside the flimsy curtain. The first thing I notice is that I’m on the second floor. The second thing I notice—oh God! My brain sends a chill down the rest of my body—a warning. You are done, Senna, it says. Over. Dead. Someone took you. My mouth is slow to respond, but when it does, I hear my intake of breath fill the dead silence around me. I didn’t believe people actually gasped in real life until the moment I hear myself do it. This moment—this gasping, heart-stopping moment, when all that fills my eyes is snow. So much snow. All the snow in the world, piled right below me. I hear my body crack against the wood, then I fall into darkness. When I wake up, I am on the floor lying in a pool of my vomit. I moan and a sharp pain shoots through my wrist when I try to push myself up. I cry out and shove my hand over my mouth. If someone is here I don’t want them to hear me. Good one, Senna, I think. You should have thought of that before you started fainting all over the room and making a racket. I grip my wrist with my free hand and slide up the wall for support. It is then that I notice what I am wearing. Not my clothes. A white linen pajama set—expensive. Thin. No wonder I’m so damn cold. Oh God. I shut my eyes. Who undressed me? Who brought me here? My hands are stiff as I reach across my body to examine myself. I touch my chest, pull my pants down. No bleeding, no soreness, except I am wearing white cotton panties that someone put on me. Someone had me naked. Someone touched my body. Closing my eyes at the thought, I start to shiver. Uncontrollably. No, please, no. “Oh, God,” I hear myself say. I have to breathe—deep and steady. You’re freezing, Senna. And you’re in shock. Get it together. Think.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I pace around the trapdoor in my bare feet, smacking the key against my thigh. It is an abnormally large key, old fashioned and bronze. The keyhole in the trapdoor looks large enough to fit it. I get another chill and this time I know it’s not just the cold. I stop my pacing to examine the key more closely. It takes up my entire hand, fingertips to wrist. There is a question mark in the center of the handle, the metal curling around the character in an ornate design. I drop the key. It clanks heavily against the floor not far from where I threw up. I back up until my shoulder blades are pressed against the wall. “What. Is. This?” There is no one to answer, of course, unless they’re waiting just below that trap door to tell me exactly what this is. I shiver and my fingers automatically close around the knife in my pocket. The blade is sharp. I feel really good about that. I have a penchant for sharp knives and I sure as hell know how to carve skin. If I have a key, they have a key. I can wait here for them to come up, or I can go down. I prefer the second option; it feels like it affords me a little more power. I walk quickly, sidestepping the vomit and snatch up the key. Before I can think about what I am doing, I crouch over the trapdoor and plunge it into the keyhole. Metal against metal and then … click. I use my good hand to heave it open. It’s damn heavy. I’m careful not to make noise when I set it down. I peer into the darkness. There is a ladder. At the bottom of the ladder are a round rug and a hallway. I cannot see past a few feet. I am going to have to go down. I place the knife between my teeth and count the rungs as I climb. One … two … three … four … five … six. My feet hit the rug. The floor is cold. The cold shoots up my legs. Why hadn’t I thought to look for shoes? I hold my knife at arm’s length, ready to stab anyone who jumps out at me. I’ll go for the eye socket, and if I can’t reach that—the balls. Just one sharp jab, and when they’re bent over, I’ll run. Now that there is a plan, I take a look around. There is a skylight above me, laser-thin rays of sunlight pierce through it and hit the wood floor. I step through them, my eyes darting around for a hidden attacker. I am at the end of a corridor: wood floors, wood walls, wood ceiling.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  When I look more closely I see that it is bolted to the floor. There are no chairs. I go back to the kitchen, open every cabinet and drawer, my desperation increasing with every second I risk being discovered. There is nothing large enough or heavy enough to break a window. With a sinking feeling, I realize I’m going to have to go back upstairs. This could be a trap. There could be someone hiding behind one of the doors. But, why give me a key to the room I was locked in if they wanted me trapped? Were they playing games? My whole body is shaking as I climb back up the stairs. I haven’t cried in years, but I feel as close to tears as I’ve ever come. One foot in front of the other, Senna, and if someone jumps out at you, you use your knife and cut them in half. I am between the doors. I choose the one to my left, put my hand on the knob and turn. I can hear myself breathing: ragged, cold, terrified breaths. It opens. “Oh my God.” I slap my hand over my mouth and clutch my weapon tighter. I don’t lower my knife, I keep it up and ready. I step onto the carpet, my toes curling around the shag like they need to hold onto something. A canopy bed sits against the far wall, facing me. It looks like a child’s bed in design but it is larger than an adult king. Two of its posters are life-sized carousel horses, their poles disappearing into the wooden beams of the ceiling. There is a fireplace to my left, a window seat to my right. I am having trouble breathing. First the lighters, then the key, then … this. I can’t get out of there fast enough. I close the door behind me. One more door. This one feels more frightening than the last. Is it just my intuition or is this the last place my kidnapper could be hiding? I stand facing it for the longest time, my breath curling into the air, and the frozen fingers of my good hand clutching my little knife. I reach for the knob with my injured hand and flinch when pain shoots up my arm. I push it open and wait. The room is dark, but so far no one has jumped out at me. I take a step forward, feel for a light switch. Then I hear it; a man’s moan—deep and guttural. I back out of the room, pointing my knife at the sound. I want to run, climb back up the ladder and lock myself in the round room. I don’t. If I do not go looking for what brought me here, it will come looking for me. I will not be a victim. Not again. My heart is beating erratically. The moaning suddenly stops as if he’s realized I’m there.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I never even noticed. “Soda,” he said, when he saw me looking. “My vice.” “I’m not hungry,” I said pushing the bowl away. He pushed it back and tapped his forefinger on the counter. “You haven’t eaten in three days.” “Why do you care?” It came out harsher than I intended. Everything I said did. I watched his face for a lie, but he just shrugged. “It’s who I am.” I ate his soup. Then he made himself comfortable on my couch and went to sleep. In his clothes. I stood on the stairs and watched him for a long time, his socked feet sticking out of the bottom of the blanket he was using. Eventually I crawled into my bed. I reached out before I closed my eyes, and touched the book on the nightstand. Just the cover. He came every night. Sometimes as early as three o’ clock in the afternoon, sometimes as late as nine. It was alarming how quickly a person could acquiesce to something—something like a stranger in your house, sleeping and scooping grounds into your Mr. Coffee. When he started buying groceries and cooking meals it felt permanent. Like I suddenly had a roommate or a family member I never signed up for. But on the nights he came late I found myself anxious, pacing the hallways in three pairs of socks, unable to stay in one room for more than a few seconds before I moved to the next. The worst part was, when he arrived, I immediately retreated to my bedroom to hide. None of the relief I felt at seeing the lights of his car reflected through my windows was allowed to show. It was cold, but it was survival. I wanted to ask him why he was late. Was it surgery? Did they make it? But I didn’t dare. Every morning I woke up to find another of his business cards on the counter. I stopped throwing them away after a few days and let them pile up near the fruit bowl. The fruit bowl that was always filled with fruit, because he bought it and put it there: red and green apples, yellow pears, the occasional fuzzy kiwi. We didn’t speak much. It was a silent relationship, which I was fine with. He fed me and I said thank you, then he went to sleep on my couch. I started to wonder how well I’d be sleeping if he wasn’t guarding the door. If I’d sleep at all. The couch was short—too short for his six-foot frame; it was the smaller of the two that I owned. One day while he was at the hospital I took a break from staring at the fire to push the longer couch in front of the door.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  He stares at the ground, his brows drawn together. “I was at the hospital, just leaving my shift. The sun had just come up. I remember stopping to look at it. Then nothing.” “This doesn’t make sense. Why would someone bring the two of us here?” I think about the lighters and the key and the carousel room, and then I push it from my brain. A coincidence. But I want to laugh even as I think it. “I don’t know,” Isaac says. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say that. I think about all the times in my life I’ve counted on him for answers—demanded answers—and he always has them. But that was then… He runs his hand over the stubble on his jaw, and I notice the deep purple bruises on his wrists where his bindings dug into his skin. How long had he been tied up like that? How long had I been unconscious? “We need to get warm,” Isaac says. “I made a fire … in the room up the ladder.” We search for the thermostat. I notice how white his knuckles are around the handle of the knife. We find it in the carousel room, behind the door. He turns on the heat. “If there is power, we must be close to something,” I say hopefully. He shakes his head. “Not necessarily. It could be a generator. This might not last.” I nod, but I don’t believe him. We climb up to the round room to sit by the fire and wait for the house to heat. He makes me go first. Once I am up, he glances over his shoulder one last time and then quickly climbs up to join me. We close the trapdoor and lock it. We try to scoot the armoire over it, but that’s bolted too. The fire I built is puttering out. There are three extra logs. I reach for one and place it on the flames while Isaac takes a look around. “Where do you think we are?” I ask when he comes to sit on the floor next to me. He sets the knife down between us. This makes me feel better. I don’t trust anything yet. If he’s not hiding his weapons from me, that’s a good thing. “This much snow? Who knows? We could be anywhere.” We are nowhere, I think. “How did you get out of your bindings?” “What?” I don’t understand what he’s saying, then I realize that he thinks I was tied up too. “I didn’t have any,” I say. He turns his head to look at me. We are so close the vapors of our breath are mingling mid-air. He has dark stubble on his face. I want to rub my palm across it just so I can feel something sharp and real.

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

  His iterated suckings were succeeded by an inspection of Eulalie's neck; betimes, I palpated his member and felt it throb with growing insistence. "Well," said Monseigneur, "here are two victims who shall fill my cup of joy to overflowing: Dubois, you shall be well paid, for I am well served. Let's move into my boudoir; follow us, dear woman, come," he continued as he led us away; "you'll leave tonight, but I need you for the party." Dubois resigns herself, and we pass into the debauchee's pleasure chamber, where we are stripped naked. Oh, Madame, I shall not attempt to represent the infamies of which I was at once victim and witness. This monster's pleasures were those of the executioner; his unique joy consisted in decapitating. My luckless companion... oh, no! Madame... no! do not require me to finish... I was about to share her fate; spurred on by Dubois, the villain had decided to render my torture yet more horrible when both experienced a need to revive their strength; whereupon they sat down to eat.... What a debauch! But ought I complain? for did it not save my life? Besotted with wine, exhausted by overeating, both fell dead drunk and slumbered amidst the litter that remained from their feast. No sooner do I see them collapse than I leap to the skirt and mantle Dubois had just removed in order to appear more immodest in her patron's view; I snatch up a candle and spring toward the stairway: this house, divested, or nearly so, of servants, contains nothing to frustrate my escape, I do encounter someone, I put on a terrified air and cry to him to make all haste to relieve his master who is dying, and I reach the door without meeting further obstacles. I have no acquaintance with the roads, I'd not been allowed to see the one whereby we had come, I take the first I see... 'tis the one leading to Grenoble; there is nothing denied us when fortune deigns momentarily to smile upon us; at the inn everyone was still abed, I enter secretly and fly to Valbois' room, knock, Valbois wakes and scarcely recognizes me in my disordered state; he demands to know what has befallen me, I relate the horrors whereof I was simultaneously an observer and object. "You can have Dubois arrested," I tell him, "she's not far from here, I might even be able to point out the way....

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

  I was transferred to the Conciergerie, where I saw myself upon the brink of having to pay with my life for having refused to participate in a crime; I was shortly to perish; only a new misdeed could save me: Providence willed that Crime serve at least once as an aegis unto Virtue, that crime might preserve it from the abyss which is some-day going to engulf judges together with their imbecility. I had about me a woman, probably forty years old, as celebrated for her beauty as for the variety and number of her villainies; she was called Dubois and, like the unlucky Therese, was on the eve of paying the capital penalty, but as to the exact form of it the judges were yet mightily perplexed: having rendered herself guilty of every imaginable crime, they found themselves virtually obliged to invent a new torture for her, or to expose her to one whence we ordinarily exempt our sex. This woman had become interested in me, criminally interested without doubt, since the basis of her feelings, as I learned afterward, was her extreme desire to make a proselyte of me. Only two days from the time set for our execution, Dubois came to me; it was at night. She told me not to lie down to sleep, but to stay near her side. Without attracting attention, we moved as close as we could to the prison door. "Between seven and eight," she said, "the Conciergerie will catch fire, I have seen to it; no question about it, many people will be burned; it doesn't matter, Therese," the evil creature went on, "the fate of others must always be as nothing to us when our own lives are at stake; well, we are going to escape here, of that you can be sure; four men Ä my confederates Ä will join us and I guarantee you we will be free." I have told you, Madame, that the hand of God which had just punished my innocence, employed crime to protect me; the fire began, it spread, the blaze was horrible, twenty-one persons were consumed, but we made a successful sally.

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

  As best I could, I disguised the fright this desperate eagerness inspired in me, and I renewed my resolution of the day before, well persuaded that if I were not to execute the horrible crime I had engaged to commit, the Count would soon notice I was playing a trick upon him and that, if I were to warn Madame de Bressac, whatever would be her reaction to the project's disclosure, the young Count, observing himself deceived one way or another, would promptly resort to more certain methods which, causing his aunt equally to perish, would also expose me to all her nephew's vengeance. There remained the alternative of consulting the law, but nothing in the world could have induced me to adopt it; I decided to forewarn the Marquise; of all possible measures, that seemed the best, and I elected it. "Madame," I said to her on the morrow of my last interview with the Count, "Madame, I have something of the highest importance to reveal, but however vital its interest to you, I shall not broach it unless, beforehand, you give me your word of honor to bear no resentment against your nephew for what Monsieur has had the audacity to concert.... You will act, Madame, you will take the steps prudence enjoins, but you will say not a word. Deign to give me your promise; else I am silent." Madame de Bressac, who thought it was but a question of some of her nephew's everyday extravagances, bound herself by the oath I demanded, and I disclosed everything. The unhappy woman burst into tears upon learning of the infamy.... "The monster!" she cried, "have I ever done anything that was not for his good? Had I wished to thwart his vices, or correct them, what other motive than his own happiness could have constrained me to severity! And is it not thanks to me he inherits this legacy his uncle has just left him ? Ah, Therese, Therese, prove to me that it is true, this project... put me in a way that will prevent me from doubting; I need all that may aid in extinguishing the sentiments my unthinking heart dares yet preserve for the monster...." And then I brought the package of poison into view; it were difficult to furnish better proof; yet the Marquise wished to experiment with it; we made a dog swallow a light dose, shut up the animal, and at the end of two hours it was dead after being seized by frightful convulsions.

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

  At last he reappears with one of the monks: "Mademoiselle," says he, "here is Dom Clement, steward to the house; he has come to see whether what you desire merits interrupting the superior." Clement, whose name could not conceivably have been less descriptive of his physiognomy, was a man of forty-eight years, of an enormous bulk, of a giant's stature; somber was his expression, fierce his eye; the only words he spoke were harsh, and they were expelled by a raucous voice: here was a satyric personage indeed, a tyrant's exterior; he made me tremble.... And then despite all I could do to suppress it, the remembrance of my old miseries rose to smite my troubled memory in traits of blood.... "What do you want?" the monk asked me; his air was surly, his mien grim; "is this the hour to come to a church?... Indeed, you have the air of an adventuress." "Saintly man," said I, prostrating myself, "I believed it was always the hour to present oneself at God's door; I have hastened from far off to arrive here; full of fervor and devotion, I ask to confess, if it is possible, and when what my conscience contains is known to you, you will see whether or not I am worthy to humble myself at the feet of the holy image." "But this is not the time for confession," said the monk, his manner softening; "where are you going to spend the night? We have no hospice... it would have been better to have come in the morning." I gave him the reasons which had prevented me from doing so and, without replying, Clement went to report to the superior. Several minutes later the church was opened, Don Severino himself approached me, and invited me to enter the temple with him. Dom Severino, of whom it would be best to give you an idea at once, was, as I had been told, a man of fifty-five, but endowed with handsome features, a still youthful quality, a vigorous physique, herculean limbs, and all that without harshness; a certain elegance and pliancy reigned over the whole and suggested that in his young years he must have possessed all the traits which constitute a splendid man. There were in all the world no finer eyes than his; nobility shone in his features, and the most genteel, the most courteous tone was there throughout.