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.

Page 114 of 529 · 20 per page

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

  The light garment covering him is soon deployed; Zephire kneels between his thighs and sucks him; Narcisse, his feet planted on his master's armchair, presents the same object to him to suckle he is himself having drained by Zephire. Gernande gets his hands upon the boy's loins, squeezes them, presses them to him, but quits them long enough to cast his inflamed eyes toward me. My blood is escaping in floods and is falling into two white basins situated underneath my arms. I soon feel myself growing faint. "Monsieur, Monsieur," I cry, "have pity on me, I am about to collapse." I sway, totter, am held up by the straps, am unable to fall; but my arms having shifted, and my head slumping upon my shoulder, my face is now washed with blood. The Count is drunk with joy... however, I see nothing like the end of his operation approaching, I swoon before he reaches his goal; he was perhaps only able to attain it upon seeing me in this state, perhaps his supreme ecstasy depended upon this morbid picture.... At any rate, when I returned to my senses I found myself in an excellent bed, with two old women standing near me; as soon as they saw me open my eyes, they brought me a cup of bouillon and, at three-hour intervals, rich broths; this continued for two days, at the end of which Monsieur de Gernande sent to have me get up and come for a conversation in the same salon where I had been received upon my arrival. I was led to him; I was still a little weak and giddy, but otherwise well; I arrived. "Therese," said the Count, bidding me be seated, "I shall not very often repeat such exercises with you, your person is useful for other purposes; but it was of the highest importance I acquaint you with my tastes and the manner in which you will expire in this house should you betray me one of these days, should you be unlucky enough to let yourself be suborned by the woman in whose society you are going to be placed. "That woman belongs to me, Therese, she is my wife and that title is doubtless the most baleful she could have, since it obliges her to lend herself to the bizarre passion whereof you have been a recent victim; do not suppose it is vengeance that prompts me to treat her thus, scorn, or any sentiment of hostility or hatred; it is merely a question of passion. Nothing equals the pleasure I experience upon shedding her blood...

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

  In her hair, which is done into a single flaming knot, a white water-lily blossoms; from it the leaves of reeds interwoven with a few loose strands fall down toward her neck. There no longer is any trace of agitation or trembling feverishness in her being. She is calm, so calm, that I feel my blood congealing and my heart growing cold under her glance. Slowly, with a weary, indolent majesty, she ascends the marble staircase, lets her precious wrap slide off, and listlessly enters the hall, where the smoke of a hundred candles has formed a silvery mist. For a few moments my eyes follow her in a daze, then I pick up her furs, which without my being aware, had slipped from my hands. They are still warm from her shoulders. I kiss the spot, and my eyes fill with tears. * * * * * He has arrived. In his black velvet coat extravagantly trimmed with sable, he is a beautiful, haughty despot who plays with the lives and souls of men. He stands in the ante-room, looking around proudly, and his eyes rest on me for an uncomfortably long time. Under his icy glance I am again seized by a mortal fear. I have a presentiment that this man can enchain her, captivate her, subjugate her, and I feel inferior in contrast with his savage masculinity; I am filled with envy, with jealousy. I feel that I am a queer weakly creature of brains, merely! And what is most humiliating, I want to hate him, but I can’t. Why is that among all the host of servants he has chosen me. With an inimitably aristocratic nod of the head he calls me over to him, and I—I obey his call—against my own will. “Take my furs,” he quickly commands. My entire body trembles with resentment, but I obey, abjectly like a slave. * * * * * All night long I waited in the ante-room, raving as in a fever. Strange images hovered past my inner eye. I saw their meeting—their long exchange of looks. I saw her float through the hall in his arms, drunken, lying with half-closed lids against his breast. I saw him in the holy of holies of love, lying on the ottoman, not as slave, but as master, and she at his feet. On my knees I served them, the tea-tray faltering in my hands, and I saw him reach for the whip. But now the servants are talking about him. He is a man who is like a woman; he knows that he is beautiful, and he acts accordingly. He changes his clothes four or five times a day, like a vain courtesan.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I tried to pretend I wasn’t watching him as he walked to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. When he came out, the top two buttons of his shirt were undone and his sleeves were rolled to his elbows. He never brought a change of clothes. He slept in what he wore and left early in the morning, presumably to go home and shower. I didn’t know where he lived, how old he was, or where he went to medical school. All the things you found out by asking questions. I did know that he drove a hybrid. He wore aftershave that smelled like chai tea spilled on old leather. Three times a week he grocery shopped. Always paper bags; most of Washington is composed of people trying to save the planet, one Coke can at a time. I always chose plastic just to be defiant. Now I had mounds of paper grocery bags stacked on my pantry floor, all neatly folded. He’d started wheeling the green recycling can to the curb on Thursdays. I was officially and unwillingly part of the green people cult. On Sundays he’d steal my neighbor’s paper. It’s the only thing I really liked about him. Isaac opened the fridge and stared inside, one hand rubbing the back of his neck. “There’s nothing here,” he said. “Let’s go out for dinner.” Not what I was expecting. I immediately felt like I couldn’t breathe. I backed up until my heels were pressing against the stairs. I hadn’t left the house in twenty-two days. I was afraid. Afraid that nothing would be the same, afraid that everything would be the same. Afraid of this man who I didn’t know, and who was speaking to me with so much familiarity. Let’s go out to dinner. Like we did this all the time. He didn’t know anything. Not about me, at least. “Don’t run,” he said, coming to stand in the spot where the kitchen met the living room. “You haven’t left the house in three weeks. It’s just dinner.” “Get out,” I said, pointing to the door. He didn’t move. “I won’t let anything happen to you, Senna.” The silence that followed was so loud that I could hear my faucet dripping, my heart beating, the scratchy feet of fear as it crawled out of my pores. Thirty seconds, two minutes, one minute, five. I don’t know how long we stood there in a silent standoff. He hadn’t really said my name since the night he found me outside. We’d been two strangers. Now that he’d said it, it made everything feel real. This is really happening, I thought. All of it.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I swallow and listen. A hum. Oh God. We couldn’t hear that from behind the three inch plated windows. We are caged in like animals. There has to be a way around. An electrical wire we can cut… something. I look at the snow. It covers the trees beyond the fence and falls in a graceful white skirt down a steep ravine that drops off to the left of the house. There are no roads, no houses and no breaks in the cover of white. It never ends. Isaac starts walking back toward the house. “Where are you going?” He ignores me, his head down. The effort it takes to walk through the snow makes it look like he’s climbing stairs. I watch as he circles around the back of the house, not knowing what to do. I linger for a few more minutes before following him, grateful for the path his struggle has cut for me. I find him facing what looks like a shed. Since there are no windows facing this way, it’s the first time I am seeing what’s back there. There is a smaller structure to the right of it. The generator, I realize. When I look at Isaac’s face I see that it’s neither the shed nor the generator he’s looking at. I follow his eyes past the structures and feel my breath seize. I stop shivering, I stop everything. I reach for his hand and we plow together through the snow, our breath returns, laboring from the effort. We stop when we reach the edge of the cliff. Laid out in front of us is a view so sharp and dangerously beautiful I am afraid to blink. The house backs right up to a cliff. One that our captor—our zookeeper—didn’t give us windows to see. It seems like he’s trying to tell us something. Something I don’t want to hear. You are trapped, maybe. Or, You’re not seeing everything. I’m in control. “Let’s go back inside,” Isaac says. His voice is wiped clean of emotion. It’s his doctor’s voice; factual. His hope just fell down that cliff, I think. He heads back without me. I stay to look—look at the spread of mountains. Look at the dangerous drop-off that could turn a falling body into a sack of skin and liquid organs. When I turn around, Isaac is carrying armfuls of wood from the shack and into the house. It’s not a house, I tell myself. It’s a cabin in the middle of nowhere. What happens when we run out of food? Fuel for the generator? I walk back toward the shed and peer inside. There are piles and piles of chopped wood. An axe rests against the wall closest to where I stand to the back of the shed are several large metal containers. I am about to go investigate them when Isaac comes back for more wood. “What are those?” I ask. “Diesel,” he says, without looking up. “For the generator?”

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

  "After many stifled cries, that seemed more like the twittering of some wounded bird, after much tugging and tearing on my side, scratching and biting on her's, my hand finally reached her naked knees; then it slipped up to the thighs. She was not stout, but as firm and as muscular as an acrobat. My hand reached the parting of the two legs; finally, I felt the slight down that covers Venus's Mount. "It was useless to try and thrust my forefinger between the lips. I rubbed her a little. She screamed for mercy. The lips parted slightly. I tried to get my finger in. "'You are hurting me; you are scratching me,' she cried. "Finally her legs relaxed, her dress was up, and she burst into tears—tears of fear, shame, and vexation! "My finger then stopped; and as I withdrew it I felt that it was also wet with tears—tears which were by no means briny ones. "'Come, don't be frightened!' said I, taking her head between my hands, and kissing her repeatedly. 'I was only joking. I do not mean to harm you. There, you can get up! You can go, if you like. I surely will not detain you against your free will.' "And thereupon I thrust my hand within her breasts, and began to pinch the tiny nipple, in size no bigger than a luscious wild strawberry, of which she seemed to have all the fragrance. She shook with excitement and delight as I did so. "'No,' said she, without attempting to get up, 'I am in your power. You can do with me what you like. I can't help myself any longer. Only remember, if you ruin me I shall kill myself.' "There was such an earnestness in her eyes as she said this that I shivered, and let her go. Could I ever forgive myself, if I were the cause of her committing self-murder? "And still the poor girl looked at me with such loving, longing eyes, that it was plain she was unable to bear the scathing fire that consumed her. Was it not my duty, then, to make her feel that soothing ecstacy of bliss she evidently longed to taste? "'I swear to you,' said I, 'that I shall do you no harm; so do not be afraid, only keep quiet.'

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

  She began with fettering my feet and then she tied my hands behind my back, pinioning my arms like those of a prisoner. “So,” she said, with gay eagerness. “Can you still move?” “No.” “Fine—” She then tied a noose in a stout rope, threw it over my head, and let it slip down as far as the hips. She drew it tight, and bound me to a pillar. A curious tremor seized me at that moment. “I have a feeling as if I were about to be executed,” I said with a low voice. “Well, you shall have a thorough punishment to-day,” exclaimed Wanda. “But put on your fur-jacket, please,” I said. “I shall gladly give you that pleasure,” she replied. She got her kazabaika, and put it on. Then she stood in front of me with her arms folded across her chest, and looked at me out of half-closed eyes. “Do you remember the story of the ox of Dionysius?” she asked. “I remember it only vaguely, what about it?” “A courtier invented a new implement of torture for the Tyrant of Syracuse. It was an iron ox in which those condemned to death were to be shut, and then pushed into a mighty furnace. “As soon as the iron ox began to get hot, and the condemned person began to cry out in his torment, his wails sounded like the bellowing of an ox. “Dionysius nodded graciously to the inventor, and to put his invention to an immediate test had him shut up in the iron ox. “It is a very instructive story. “It was you who innoculated me with selfishness, pride, and cruelty, and you shall be their first victim. I now literally enjoy having a human being that thinks and feels and desires like myself in my power; I love to abuse a man who is stronger in intelligence and body than I, especially a man who loves me. “Do you still love me?” “Even to madness,” I exclaimed. “So much the better,” she replied, “and so much the more will you enjoy what I am about to do with you now.” “What is the matter with you?” I asked. “I don’t understand you, there is a gleam of real cruelty in your eyes to-day, and you are strangely beautiful—completely Venus in Furs.” Without replying Wanda placed her arms around my neck and kissed me. I was again seized by my fanatical passion. “Where is the whip?” I asked. Wanda laughed, and withdrew a couple of steps. “You really insist upon being punished?” she exclaimed, proudly tossing back her head. “Yes.” Suddenly Wanda’s face was completely transformed. It was as if disfigured by rage; for a moment she seemed even ugly to me. “Very well, then you whip him!” she called loudly. At the same instant the beautiful Greek stuck his head of black curls through the curtains of her four-poster bed. At first I was speechless, petrified.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I have no choice but to go out there and follow him. Isaac is unconscious, his body overheating. I leave my pitcher on the counter, pocket an inhaler and then I take the knife. The little one he left me on the first day I woke up in this Hell. It was a gift. I want to thank him for it. I slip it into my pocket and step outside, veering right. Five steps into the swells of snow and my leg is aching. I am shivering and my nose is running. I glance back at the kitchen window, afraid Isaac will wake up and call for me. What if his heart stops while I’m gone? I push away these thoughts and focus on my pain. Pain will carry me through; pain will help me focus. All I can see is his back; the silhouette of him against the white, white snow. A black coat hugging narrow shoulders and hanging down to the backs of his knees. He’s facing the cliff as I walk toward him. If he’s close enough maybe I can push him off and watch him crack on the bottom. I search for the direction he came from: a car, another person, a break in the fence where he could have slipped through. Nothing. My legs want to stop when I’m a few feet away. This is a heavy thing—meeting your captor. I am afraid. I am afraid the fuse in my bone will snap apart as I struggle to push through the last few yards of snow. I take my last step and I am beside him. I don’t look. My own hood is pulled up around my face so that I can’t see left or right unless I turn my head. It’s snowing into the hole in front of us. The flakes are heavy and dense. They fall quickly. The knife is out of my pocket, the blade pointed toward the body to my left. “Why?” I ask. Snow fills my eyes and mouth and nose until I feel like I’m going to choke on it. There is no answer so I turn to face my captor, ready to stick the blade in his throat. Her throat. I drop the blade and stumble backwards. I almost fall except she reaches out and catches me. I scream and thrash out of her hands. “Don’t touch me!” My leg. Oh God—my leg. It hurts. “Don’t touch me,” I say again. Calmer this time. I start to cry. I feel like a little kid, so uncertain, so lost. I want to sit down and process this. “Doctor,” I say. “What is this?” Saphira Elgin turns back to the cliff. It looks like a big bowl filling up with flour. “You don’t remember?” She sounds disappointed. I sound like I can’t breathe.

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

  Tigers that dwell in the wildest jungles would quail before such ignominies... these first pangs of suffering were succeeded by some few minutes of exhaustion; my eyes, brimming over with tears, turned mechanically towards the sky; my heart did spring to the feet of the Master who dwelleth there... that pure glittering vault... that imposing stillness of the night... that terror which numbed my senses... that image of Nature in peace, nigh unto my whelmed, distraught soul... all distilled a somber horror into me, whence there was soon born the need to pray. I cast myself down, kneeling before that potent God denied by the impious, hope of the poor and the downtrodden. "Holy Majesty, Saintly One," I cried out in tears, "Thou Who in this dreadful moment deign to flood my soul with a celestial joy, Who doubtless hath prevented me from attempting my life; O my Protector and my Guide, I aspire to Thy bounties, I implore Thy clemency, behold my miseries and my torments, my resignation, and hear Thou my entreaties: Powerful God I Thou knowst it, I am innocent and weak, I am betrayed and mistreated; I have wished to do well in imitation of Thee, and Thy will hath punished it in me: may Thy will be done, O my God I all its sacred effects are cherished by me, I respect them and cease to complain of them; but if however I am to find naught but stings and nettles terrestrially, is it to offend Thee, O my Sovereign Master, to supplicate Thy puissance to take me into Thy bosom, in order untroubled to adore Thee, to worship Thee far away from these perverse men who, alas I have made me meet with evils only, and whose bloodied and perfidious hands at their pleasure drown my sorrowful days in a torrent of tears and in an abyss of agonies." Prayer is the misfortunate's sweetest comfort; strength reenters him once he has fulfilled this duty. My courage renewed, I raised myself up, I gathered together the rags the villain had left me, and I hid myself in a thicket so as to pass the night in less danger. The security I believed I enjoyed, the satisfaction I had just tasted by communing with my God, all combined to help me rest a few hours, and the sun was already risen high when I opened my eyes. For the wretched, the instant of awakening is hideous: the imagination, refreshed by sleep's sweet ministrations, very rapidly and lugubriously fills with the evils these moments of deceiving repose have smoothed into oblivion. Very well, I said as I examined myself, it is then true that there are human creatures Nature reduces to the level of wild beasts!

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I cry out because of what I think is coming. But nothing comes. It’s then that I acknowledge that there is no humming. The fence used to hum. My vocal chords are frozen, my tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth. I unstick my tongue and try to lick my lips. But my mouth is so dry there is nothing to wet them with. I let go of the chain link and look over my shoulder at the house. I left the front door open, it’s swung wide, the one dark spot beneath the veils of snow. I don’t want to go back. The smart thing would be to go get more layers. More socks. I threw on one of Isaac’s sweatshirts before I left, over the one I was already wearing. But the air cuts through both like they’re made of tissue. I head back for the house, my leg aching. I throw on more clothes, stuff food in my pockets. Before I leave I climb the stairs to the carousel room. Kneeling in front of the chest, I search for the single puzzle piece that escaped the fire. It’s there, in the corner, overlaid with dust. I place it in my pocket, and then I walk through my prison for the last time. The fence. I lace my fingers through the wire and pull up. In Saphira’s exit with Isaac, she might have overlooked turning the fence back on. If she comes back I don’t want to be here. I’d sooner die free, cold and in the woods than locked up behind an electrical fence, turning into a human ice cube in that house. Isaac’s boots are big. I can’t fit the toes into the octagons that make up the pattern of the fence. I slip twice and my chin bumps down the metal like something out of a Looney-Tunes cartoon. I feel blood running down my neck. I don’t even bother to wipe it up. I am desperate … manic. I want out. I claw at the fence. My gloves snag on twisted pieces of steel. When I rip them away the metal catches the skin on my palm, ripping into the tender flesh. I keep going. There is barbed wire along the top of the fence, running in loops as far as I can see. I don’t even feel the spikes when I grab onto one and swing my leg over the side. I manage to get both feet balanced precariously on the far side of the fence. The barbed wire wavers against my weight. I sway … then I fall. I feel my mother in that fall. Maybe it’s because I’m so near to the Reaper. I wonder if my mother is dead, and if I will see her when I die. I think all of this as I make the three-second spill to the ground. One. Two. Three.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  “What? What is it?” I rush forward to see what he’s seeing. The refrigerator is large, industrial-sized. Every shelf is stocked without an inch of space to spare. The freezer is the same: meat, vegetables, ice cream, cans of frozen juice. My head spins as I take it all in. There is enough food for months. I grab a large can of tomatoes and throw it at the window as hard as I can. I throw it with my left hand, but fear propels it forward at an impressive speed. It hits the window with a muted thud, and drops to the counter, rolling backward toward the floor. We stare at it, dented on one side, for several minutes before Isaac bends to pick it up. He tries, pulling his arm back like a pitcher and letting it shoot from his fingertips. This time the thud is louder, but the result the same. I run back to the front door, throwing myself at the handle. I scream, slamming my fists against the wood, ignoring the searing pain in my injured hand. I need to feel pain, I want to. I pound and kick for a solid minute before I feel Isaac’s hands on my arms. He pulls me away. “Senna! Senna!” He shakes me. I stare up at him, my breath coming quickly. He must see something in my eyes, because he wraps me in a hug. I shiver against his warmth until he pulls away from me. “Let me see your wrist,” he says gently. I hold it out to him, flinching as he pokes at it gently with his cold fingertips. He nods in approval at my makeshift sling. “It’s a sprain,” he says. “Did you have it before you woke up?” I shake my head. “I fell … upstairs.” “Where did you wake up?” I tell him about the room at the top of the ladder, how I found the key. “I think I was drugged.” He nods. “Yes, we both were. Let’s go take a look at this room. Also, if there is power, there should be heat. We need to find the thermostat.” We make our way back up the stairs. I look at his face. His dark eyes look bleary like he’s coming down from a high—except he doesn’t take drugs. Not even for a headache. I know a lot about this man. That’s what’s shocking me the most. Why am I here? Why am I here with him? His head swivels to look at me. It’s as if he’s really seeing me for the first time. I can see the up and down movement of his chest as he struggles for breath. This was me, fifteen minutes ago. His eyes search my face, before he says, “What do you remember?” I shake my head. “I had dinner in Seattle. I left around ten. I stopped for gas on my way home. That’s it. You?”

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

  Oh then! I was roused out of my passive endurance, and springing from him with an activity he was not prepared for, threw myself at his feet, and begged him, in the most moving tone, not to be rude, and that he would not hurt me. “Hurt you, my dear?” says the brute, “I intend you no harm. Has not the old lady told you that I love you? that I shall do handsomely by you?” “She has indeed, sir,” said I, “but I cannot love you, indeed I cannot! pray let me alone! yes! I will love you dearly if you will let me alone and go away.” But I was talking to the wind, for whether my tears, my attitude, or the disorder of my dress proved fresh incentives, or whether he was now under the dominion of desires he could not bridle, but snorting and foaming with lust and rage, he renews his attack, seizes me, and again attempts to extend and fix me on the settee: in which he succeeded so far as to lay me along, and even to toss my petticoats over my head, and lay my thighs bare, which I obstinately kept close, nor could he, though he attempted with his knee to force them open, effect it so as to stand fair for being master of the main avenue; he was unbuttoned, both waistcoat and breeches, yet I only felt the weight of his body upon me, whilst I lay struggling with indignation, and dying with terrors; but he stopped all of a sudden, and got off, panting, blowing, cursing, and repeating “old and ugly!” for so I had very naturally called him in the heat of my defence. The brute had, it seems, as I afterwards understood, brought on, by his eagerness and struggle, the ultimate period of his hot fit of lust, which his power was too short-lived to carry him through the full execution of; of which my thighs and linen received the effusion. When it was over he bid me, with a tone of displeasure, get up: “that he would not do me the honour to think of me any more; that the old b——h might look out for another cully; that he would not be fooled so by ever a country mock modesty in England; that he supposed I had left my maidenhead with some hobnail in the country, and was come to dispose of my skim- milk in town” with a volley of the like abuse; which I listened to with more pleasure than ever fond woman did to protestations of love from her darling minion: for, incapable as I was of receiving any addition to my perfect hatred and aversion to him, I looked on this railing, as my security against his renewing his most odious caress. Yet, plain as Mrs.

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

  A cold shudder ran down my back, when my rival stepped from the bed in his riding boots, his tight-fitting white breeches, and his short velvet jacket, and I saw his athletic limbs. “You are indeed cruel,” he said, turning to Wanda. “Only inordinately fond of pleasure,” she replied with a wild sort of humor. “Pleasure alone lends value to existence; whoever enjoys does not easily part from life, whoever suffers or is needy meets death like a friend. “But whoever wants to enjoy must take life gaily in the sense of the ancient world; he dare not hesitate to enjoy at the expense of others; he must never feel pity; he must be ready to harness others to his carriage or his plough as though they were animals. He must know how to make slaves of men who feel and would enjoy as he does, and use them for his service and pleasure without remorse. It is not his affair whether they like it, or whether they go to rack and ruin. He must always remember this, that if they had him in their power, as he has them they would act in exactly the same way, and he would have to pay for their pleasure with his sweat and blood and soul. That was the world of the ancients: pleasure and cruelty, liberty and slavery went hand in hand. People who want to live like the gods of Olympus must of necessity have slaves whom they can toss into their fish-ponds, and gladiators who will do battle, the while they banquet, and they must not mind if by chance a bit of blood bespatters them.” Her words brought back my complete self-possession. “Unloosen me!” I exclaimed angrily. “Aren’t you my slave, my property?” replied Wanda. “Do you want me to show you the agreement?” “Untie me!” I threatened, “otherwise—” I tugged at the ropes. “Can he tear himself free?” she asked. “He has threatened to kill me.” “Be entirely at ease,” said the Greek, testing my fetters. “I shall call for help,” I began again. “No one will hear you,” replied Wanda, “and no one will hinder me from abusing your most sacred emotions or playing a frivolous game with you.” she continued, repeating with satanic mockery phrases from my letter to her. “Do you think I am at this moment merely cruel and merciless, or am I also about to become cheap? What? Do you still love me, or do you already hate and despise me? Here is the whip—” She handed it to the Greek who quickly stepped closer. “Don’t you dare!”

• From The Girls (2016)

  while I counted out a saucerful of pills, the pale pink capsules like subtle candy. When my last job ended and another didn’t appear, Dan offered his vacation house—the concerned gesture of an old friend—like I was doing him a favor. The skylight filled the rooms with the hazy murk of an aquarium, the woodwork bloating and swelling in the damp. As if the house were breathing. The beach wasn’t popular. Too cold, no oysters. The single road through town was lined with trailers, built up into sprawling lots— pinwheels snapping in the wind, porches cluttered with bleached buoys and life preservers, the ornaments of humble people. Sometimes I smoked a little of the furry and pungent marijuana from my old landlord, then walked to the store in town. A task I could complete, as defined as washing a dish. It was either dirty or clean, and I welcomed those binaries, the way they shored up a day. I rarely saw anyone outside. The only teenagers in town seemed to kill themselves in gruesomely rural ways—I heard about their pickups crashing at two in the morning, the sleepover in the garage camper ending with carbon monoxide poisoning, a dead quarterback. I didn’t know if this was a problem born of country living, the excess of time and boredom and recreational vehicles, or whether it was a California thing, a grain in the light urging risk and stupid cinematic stunts. I hadn’t been in the ocean at all. A waitress at the café told me this was a breeding ground for great whites. — They looked up from the bright wash of the kitchen lights like raccoons caught in the trash. The girl shrieked. The boy stood to his full, lanky height. There were only two of them. My heart was scudding hard, but they were so young—locals, I figured, breaking into vacation houses. I wasn’t going to die. “What the fuck?” The boy put down his beer bottle, the girl clinging to his side. The boy looked twenty or so, in cargo shorts. High white socks, rosy acne beneath a scrim of beard. But the girl was just a little thing. Fifteen, sixteen, her pale legs tinged with blue.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  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. I can hear him breathing. I wonder if he can hear me. The noise starts again, muffled words this time as if he’s speaking through something. Words … words that sound like HELP ME! This could be a trap. What do I do? I walk right into it. [image file=image4.jpg] No one attacks me, but my body is wound up and ready to spring. The deep cries of Eeeel, eeeeel become more persistent. I search for a light switch, which means I have to transfer my knife to my injured hand. It doesn’t matter—if someone comes at me, I’ll take every bit of pain to cut them open. I find it: a broad, flat square that I have to push down with two fingers. In the time it takes for the lights to turn on, I quickly switch the knife back to my good hand. The room is suddenly washed in a urine-yellow glow. It flickers before gripping whatever power it’s using, and starts to hum. I blink at the sudden change. My knife hand extends as I stab at air. There is nothing in front of me—no attacker—but there is a bed. In it is a man, his arms and legs bound to the four posters with bright white rags. He is blindfolded and gagged with the same white cloth. I watch in shock as his head thrashes from side to side. The muscles in his arms are pulled so taut I can see the outlines of where each one starts and ends. I start to rush forward to help him, then stop. I could still be in danger. This could be a trap. He could be the trap.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I know this because seconds before I felt arms wrapping around my upper body, crushing the breath from my lungs, I glanced at my watch and saw 6:46. I figure it took him thirty seconds to drag me backward off the trail, my legs kicking the air uselessly. Another thirty seconds to throw me down at the base of a tree and rip off my clothes. Two seconds to hit me hard across the face. A minute to turn the sum of my life into a violent stained memory. He took what he wanted and I didn’t scream. Not when he grabbed me, not when he hit me, not when he raped me. Not even after, when my life was irrevocably soiled. After, I stumbled out of the woods, my pants half pulled up and blood trickling into my eyes from a cut on my forehead. I ran looking over my shoulder, and right into another jogger who had just gotten out of his car. He caught me as I fell. I didn’t need to say anything, because he immediately pulled out his phone and called the police. He opened his passenger side door and helped me sit, then turned the heat on full blast. He had an old blanket in the trunk that he said he used for camping. He said lots of things in the ten minutes we waited for the police. He was trying to set me at ease. I didn’t really hear him, though the sound of his voice was a soothing constant. He wrapped the blanket around my shoulders and asked if I wanted water. I didn’t but I nodded. He announced that he was opening the back door to get it. He told me everything he did before he did it. I was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. Once there I was wheeled to a private room and handed a hospital gown by an orderly. A nurse came in a few minutes later. She looked harried and distracted, the hair above her ears sticking out in tufts. “We’re going to administer an SOEC kit, Ms. Richards,” she said, without looking at me. When I asked what that was, she told me it was Sexual Offense Evidence Collection.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  My annual tradition on Christmas was to wake up with the fog and jog along Lake Washington. It helped me deal. Not just with Christmas, with life. Plus, jogging was a shrink-approved activity. I didn’t see shrinks anymore, but I still jogged. It was a healthy way to produce enough endorphins to keep my demons in their respective cages. I thought there were drugs for that—but, whatever. I liked to run. On the morning of that Christmas, I didn’t feel like jogging my usual route along the lake. A person might hate Christmas, but still feel the necessity to do something significant on it. I wanted to be in the woods. There is something about trees the size of skyscrapers, their bark dressed in moss, that makes me feel hopeful. I’d always thought that if there was a god, the moss would be his fingerprints. Grabbing my iPod, I headed out the door around six a.m. It was still dark, so I took my time walking to the trail, giving the sun some time to rise. To get to the trail I had to cut through a neighborhood of cookie cutter houses called The Glen. I was resentful of The Glen. I had to drive past it to get to my house, which was at the top of the hill. I glanced in windows as I passed the houses, eyeing the Christmas lights and trees, wondering if you’d be able to hear the children from the sidewalk while they were opening presents. I stretched just outside of the woods, turning my face toward the winter drizzle. That was my routine; I’d stretch, will myself to live for another day, secure my ponytail, and let the beat of my legs begin. The trail is bumpy and precipitous. It borders the cookie cutter Glen, which I find ironic. The whole thing has been rutted by time and rain, woven with rogue tree roots and sharp flints. It took concentration just to make it through in the daylight without a sprained ankle, which was precisely the reason it had few joggers. I don’t know what I was thinking running it while it was still dark. I realized that I should have stuck to the plan of jogging around the lake. I should have stayed home. I should have done anything but jog that trail, on that morning, at that time. At 6:47 he raped me.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I am obviously in a cabin. I can make out a large, open kitchen down the stairs and to the left. To the right is a living room with thick, cream-colored carpet. Everything is eerily quiet. I creep down the stairs, my back to the wall. If I can make it to the front door, I can run. Get help. My mind goes to the endless snow I saw out the window in the round room. I push the thought away. There will be someone … a house … or a store, maybe. God, why had I not thought to take shoes? I am all action and no brains. I am going to have to run through three feet of snow with nothing on my feet. The front door is directly at the bottom of the staircase. I glance up to the top floor to make sure no one is following me, and then dive for it. It is locked. A keypad sits next to the door. It opens electronically. I am going to have to find another way out. I am shaking again. If someone attacked me now, I wouldn’t be able to hold the knife steady enough to defend myself. I could break a window. The kitchen is in front of me and to my left. I try that first. It is rectangular. Shiny, stainless steel appliances. They look brand new. God, where am I? A window runs the length of the kitchen, its continuity broken only by the fridge. In the corner there is a heavy circular table with two curved benches on either side. I walk to the drawers and pull them open until I find the one with the knives. I pluck out the largest one, testing its weight in my hand before leaving my baby knife on the counter. I think twice and slip it in my pocket instead.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I make my way down the stairs, grabbing my sweatshirt from the banister. Isaac’s rubber boots are at the front door. I slip my feet into them and plod to the kitchen to grab a pitcher for the snow. The pitcher is below the sink. I duck down to retrieve it. When I come back up, I glance out the window to assess the snowstorm. That’s when I see him. [image file=image40.jpg] The zookeeper calls me into the snowstorm. I knew he’d come eventually. You don’t put on a show like this and not expect applause. I see him outside the kitchen window; a dark shadow against the white snow. He’s facing me, but there is snow and wind and it’s swirling around in cold chaos. It’s like I’m looking at a grainy television picture. He stands there for at least a minute, until he knows I’ve seen him. Then he turns and walks toward the cliff. My hands grip the edge of the sink until my wrists ache from the pressure. I have no choice but to go out there and follow him. Isaac is unconscious, his body overheating. I leave my pitcher on the counter, pocket an inhaler and then I take the knife. The little one he left me on the first day I woke up in this Hell. It was a gift. I want to thank him for it. I slip it into my pocket and step outside, veering right. Five steps into the swells of snow and my leg is aching. I am shivering and my nose is running. I glance back at the kitchen window, afraid Isaac will wake up and call for me. What if his heart stops while I’m gone? I push away these thoughts and focus on my pain. Pain will carry me through; pain will help me focus.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  It’s my thirty-third birthday. I wake up in a cold sweat. I am hot. No, I am cold. I am freezing. The blankets tangled around my legs feel unfamiliar—too smooth. I pull at them, trying to cover myself. My fingers feel thick and piggy against the silky material. Maybe they’re swollen. I can’t tell because my brain is sluggish, and my eyes are glued shut, and now I’m getting hot again. Or maybe I’m cold. I stop fighting the blankets, letting myself drift … backwards .… backwards… When I wake up, there is light in the room. I can see it through my eyelids. It is dim—even for a rainy Seattle day. I have floor-to-ceiling windows in my bedroom; I roll in their direction and force open my eyes only to find myself facing a wall. A wall made of logs. There are none of those in my house. 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?”