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 Filthy Animals (2021)

  His neck bulged under his fingers. His skin was flushed and warm to the touch. He thought briefly that he was having an allergic reaction, that weird sense of driving panic and dry throat. His heart hammered along, and his eyes watered. Even the wool of his sweater itched and burned against his arms. He made another attempt at coughing loose whatever was in his throat. He beat on his chest to break up the tension, but there was no give. “People do kill themselves,” Lionel wheezed. “They do.” “Easy, buddy,” Charles said nervously. He slapped Lionel between the shoulders. The jolt of it made Lionel’s plate slide from his lap to the floor with a loud thunk. The wilted kale, coated in dressing, and the greasy avocado made a sad little pile. The conversation, that wall of party noise, dropped away, and it was just the curious silence of the voyeur and the watched. Their attention felt like metal prods inserted into his joints. “I need,” Lionel rasped, but then he stood up on his gummy legs. He went around the back of the chaise, and the host reached for him. The others called out: Is he all right? If I had to sit next to Charlie— Charles, what did you do? First door on the right! • • • Last fall, Lionel tried to kill himself. His attempt had not been subtle, so his father had flown in from his suburb of Houston and his mother had driven from her suburb of Detroit. They converged on him in Madison, furious and terrified as they reprimanded him for yet again being so careless with himself. He was held in UW Hospital for a few days. Held, because he could not leave of his own volition. What Lionel remembered with great clarity was the pain in his lower back: a hot ache just over his sacrum that throbbed all night. The doctor frowned at his EKG. The nurses spent a lot of time monitoring his respiration rate and his blood pressure. They told him to calm down and to think positive thoughts. They asked him about what he did, what he studied, said that he was young, that he was healthy, that he was okay, safe. He didn’t have to be so afraid. But his pulse stayed high, and eventually they had to give him a sedative, and he dropped into a blank void of sleep. When his parents showed up, he was bloodshot and cold. His father guffawed and said, You look homeless . The doctor flinched at that, but Lionel knew he was only trying to make a joke. To be easy. His father was an engineer who worked in oil.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Her hand was on his wrist, and then it slid down until her palm cupped his. Her hands were cold, lightly callused, but strong. She flexed her fingers through his and looked at him directly. Lionel wanted to pull his hand away, but he did not. “People are hard,” he said. “Spoken like a true introvert.” “If I were a real introvert, I would have stayed home. Which would have been the wiser choice.” “I think you really believe that,” she said in open awe. “You must really be afraid of yourself.” Lionel shivered. He did pull his hand away from Sophie. But it was just as well, because Charles had jerked the blanket from their legs and whirled it around his shoulders like a shawl. “Some of us are freezing our nuts off out here,” Charles said to them. “I tried to get you to sit with us,” Sophie said. “I didn’t want to,” Charles pouted. Sophie made a condescending sound in the back of her throat, moaning in exaggerated sympathy. Charles stuck his bottom lip out. “Sure you didn’t,” Sophie said, no longer mocking him. Charles stopped pouting, too, and there was a taut silence between them. “I’d leave it alone if I were you,” he said. “Get real.” “Sophie,” Charles barked. His eyes flashed, and his shoulders opened slightly. Out in the yard, the people had begun to leap and clap and shout. The host stood up, leaned out over the banister, and hollered. The snow was falling fully then. And everyone was howling. Charles put his head back and belted out a forceful, vibrating call. Lionel watched the muscles in his neck bulge. His skin reddened. He was the last to stop. Lionel felt soaked through with his sound. He could still hear it when they all went back inside, out of the cold. • • • LIONEL SAID GOOD-BYE to everyone in the front hall. The host embraced him for a long time, slid his hands up Lionel’s shirt, and said, “I want you to stay.” “Next time,” Lionel whispered back. He gave Sophie a short squeeze. They exchanged numbers and promised to text or call for lunch in the next few days. Charles gripped his hand very hard and pulled him in close. “See you around, Lionel,” he said. “Good-bye, Charlie,” Lionel whispered into Charles’s ear, surprising them both. Pleasantly buzzed, Lionel decided to walk home. The last bus was long gone, anyway, and the distance wasn’t terrible. He’d had only a couple of puffs on the joint and the one glass of wine. He floated on a warm cloud. Lionel lived on Hancock, so he cut a path through Orton Park. The playground looked a little sad and eerie. The swings moved in the wind. The gazebo had white-blue lights going, but snow had piled up to the benches. The neighborhoods and their mismatched houses. Queen Anne and modernist and Dutch colonial, all mixed together, side by side.

• From Escape (2007)

  When Jeremy came back from a weekend away I told him what was happening and asked him to keep a log of Jason’s behavior for a few hours. I told him to write down every time he banged on the window or knocked on the door. When the phone rang and it was Jason, I nodded to Jeremy and he wrote it down. Within three hours, Jeremy logged thirty interruptions. The next time Merril came to Caliente, Jeremy told Merril that Jason was out of control and that the situation was unsafe. He showed Merril the log he’d made of Jason’s actions. Merril scanned the report. When he looked up he said, “Well, you have to realize that Jason has burned his brains out on drugs and is a little bit daffy.” I could not believe what I was hearing. I hadn’t thought Merril still had the capacity to shock me, but I was wrong. Not only did he know of Jason’s criminal past, he knew that he was dangerous because he’d fried his brain on drugs. Jason had been on the premises for about six weeks when his foul-looking friend showed up. Even though it was cold he was wearing only ripped brown shorts, a chain around his neck, and earrings in his nose and earlobes. The stench that emanated from him filled the lobby. He asked for Jason and then sized me up with a frightening glint in his eye. The two of them went off. The next time I saw Jason he stank with that same nauseating odor. I told Merril I couldn’t stay at the motel with Jason and a man who acted like his drug dealer. Merril ridiculed me. “Carolyn, I finally get a man who can get a little bit done and you’re insisting I get rid of him!” Word was out around town that Jason was living at the motel. He had a reputation as a lowlife and we heard that people were starting to stay away. No one felt he was safe to be around, least of all James. James lived in a trailer on the property. The previous managers had hired him for security. Now in his seventies, James claimed he had been a member of the Mafia in his younger days and had stories about killing people and burying them in the desert. James did twenty years in prison because of a plea bargain. He kept rattlesnakes as pets and stuck to himself. I liked James and I liked the fact that if I hit a button on the front desk he’d be in the lobby in minutes. James knew how to handle a gun. No one wanted to mess with him.

• From Escape (2007)

  Jeremy could see how sick I was and insisted I stop cleaning rooms. I stayed in the office and did computer work. For several days, Jeremy talked about having an eerie feeling as he cleaned. Finally he spotted Jason’s red car. A few days after that, Jason walked into the lobby and wanted to talk to me. Jeremy told him to leave and called the police, who did not get there for forty-five minutes. Jason was gone by then, but the police tracked him down and gave him a warning. A few weekends later my cousin Lee Ann was with me and the power went out at 9 P.M. That meant the phones were cut off, too, and I couldn’t call James for help. I locked the doors and grabbed my can of Mace. Lee Ann and I went to find James. I had that same eerie feeling Jeremy had talked about; it felt like Jason was watching and waiting, but I didn’t know where. James and Jimmy walked us back to the house. He checked the breaker boxes and found nothing wrong with any systems in the motel. He quickly restored power to the main house. But he said he was alarmed because usually when a breaker trips from a power overload it only flips partway. This breaker had been flipped all the way off, which said to James that it had been flipped deliberately. Jimmy put a key lock on the breaker box before leaving us. James promised us that they’d patrol around the house again that night with their flashlights and guns. Several days later James caught Jason on the property. He put a loaded gun to his head and told him he was going to blow his brains out. Jason dropped to his knees and pleaded and whimpered for mercy. James told him to get the hell off the property and that if he ever caught him again he’d enjoy the pleasure of killing him. I found this out two weeks later when I was visiting James in his trailer. James said he felt confident that he’d scared Jason away. “He knows from the police that I have killed a lot of men and I have nothing against killing him if I need to.” James had a beer in one hand and a cigarette in another. He offered me a beer, but I told him I didn’t drink when I was pregnant. “With a husband like that, you should,” he said. I couldn’t stop staring at the rattlesnakes in cages over his bed. Then James went on. “You know, sweetheart, that Jason is a small problem for you in comparison to that bastard you’re married to. You are nothing to that man but a piece of meat. You need to do whatever it takes to get yourself away from him.” He stopped, turned off the TV, and sat back in his chair.

• From Escape (2007)

  Merril came frequently to St. George. He was thrilled to have finally gotten one of his wives pregnant again. He drove up to Jubilee House several times a week and took me out for a steak dinner and was planning to stay with me overnight, but once when Barbara called, in tears, he turned around and drove back. I was so frightened being alone when I was sick that it was a relief to have Merril there. He came just as I was beginning my thirty-first week. I awoke during the night in labor. I could feel the contractions beginning to come. I stayed still, thinking that maybe I could will them to stop. But two hours later, I was hemorrhaging massive amounts of blood. Blood pooled around me. Merril called the ER and told them to send an ambulance. One of the EMTs was a woman. When she saw the amount of blood around me she started shouting orders. “I have to get a line into her while I still can!” In minutes she had two IVs in each of my arms. She didn’t start them on a drip, she just opened them up. I sensed how frantic she was beneath her professional calm. She called the hospital and said she was taking me directly to the OR. I was so dizzy that I felt like I was going to pass out. It was hard to breathe. The last thing I remember was a doctor in the ER trying to keep an oxygen mask over my face. Each time the mask was put over my face I panicked and tried to push it off. I did not wake up again until I was in the recovery room. I asked a nurse if my baby was okay. She said he had stabilized. I was relieved. I’d had two previous C-sections, but never before had I been in such penetrating pain. I asked the nurse for more medication. She told me she’d given me as much as she could and that I shouldn’t be in pain. But I was. I was in too much pain for everything to be all right. Merril came in and was extremely happy because our baby was tiny and cute. I told Merril something was wrong. I was in too much pain. He wasn’t concerned. When he left the room I lost consciousness. The nurse tried to take my blood pressure and couldn’t find one. I came to and remember my bed being pushed down the hall and people running on both sides of it. An ICU doctor running beside me was trying to put a central line in my neck and had the line placed before the brakes were locked on the bed. I still had two IVs in each arm. The door flew open to the ICU and the room was flooded with people. A bag of blood was being connected to the central line.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  Boots approached me. I heard them before I saw them. They stopped, every tan scar on the orange hide in focus beyond the page I held that was running with streaks of print. “Curiosity killed the damn pussy, you know,” a man said. I looked up at a face sprouting brunet sideburns that swerved inward like cheese knives toward his mouth and stopped just below his ginger mustaches. The eyes, small and black, had been moistened genially by the beers he’d drunk and the pleasure he was taking in his own joke. “Mighty curious, ain’t you?” he asked. “Ain’t you!” he insisted, making a great show of the leisurely, avuncular way he settled close beside me, sighing, and wrapped a bare arm—a pale, cool, sweaty, late-night August arm—around my thin shoulders. “Shit,” he hissed. Then he slowly drew a breath like ornamental cigarette smoke up his nose, and chuckled again. “I’d say you got Sabbath eyes, son.” “I do?” I squeaked in a pinched soprano. “I don’t know what you mean,” I added, only to demonstrate my newly acquired baritone, as penetrating as an oboe; the effect on the man seemed the right one: sociable. “Yessir, Sabbath eyes,” he said with a downshift into a rural languor and rhetorical fanciness I associated with my storytelling paternal grandfather in Texas. “I say Sabbath ’cause you done worked all week and now you’s resting them eyeballs on what you done made—or might could make. The good things of the earth.” Suddenly he grew stern. “Why you here, boy? I seed you here cocking your hade and spying up like a biddy hen. Why you watching, boy? What you watching? Tell me, what you watching?” He had frightened me, which he could see—it made him laugh. I smiled to show him I knew how foolish I was being. “I’m just here to—” “Read?” he demanded, taking my book away and shutting it. “Shi-i-i …” he hissed again, steam running out before the t. “You here to meet someone, boy?” He’d disengaged himself and turned to stare at me. Although his eyes were serious, militantly serious, the creasing of the wrinkles beside them suggested imminent comedy. “No,” I said, quite audibly. He handed the book back to me. “I’m here because I want to run away from my father’s house,” I said. “I thought I might find someone to go with me.” “Whar you planning to run to?” “New York.” There was something so cold and firm and well-spoken about me—the clipped tones of a businessman defeating the farmer’s hoaxing yarn—that the man dropped his chin into his palm and thought. “What’s today?” he asked at last. “Saturday.” “I myself taking the Greyhound to New Yawk Tuesday mawning,” he said. “Wanna go?” “Sure.”

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  At Marta’s house, Lenny walked her to the door, though she told him it wasn’t necessary. She pulled out her key and put it in the lock, and she felt his stomach against her back, and he pushed against her. The world was dim under his shadow. His hand was on her arm, its coarse heat. She stiffened, like some stupid, frightened animal. She turned to him and looked up, and he was coming in for a kiss. She turned her head and his lips landed on her cheek, and she knotted her hand into a fist. “Thanks for the evening,” she said. “I enjoyed myself.” Lenny looked faintly stunned by what she had said. She opened the door and went into the dark of her apartment, and for a moment, just before the door closed completely, she was afraid he would stop it with his hand. She was afraid he’d push his way inside. She was afraid of him. “Yeah, see you around,” he said. And she heard his footsteps go down the walkway, thudding. The next day, Lenny was at her cubicle again. He asked her to come back to his place for a couple of beers, knock a few back. He lived not too far from her, he said, it turned out. He was close enough that she could walk back if she felt like it. It wasn’t far at all. Or, hey, if she got too drunk, she could stay over. Marta said that it wasn’t a good day, maybe. Lenny just put his thick arm on the top of her cubicle, stood there with his legs crossed and a look of sad, aspirational confidence. “Didn’t we have a good time last night? Didn’t we? Let’s do it again. Come over.” She said she’d think about it. But Lenny kept coming back, and so she went over there. Just for a few minutes. She went over there, and she brought a six-pack and she sat on his couch, which was so worn out that it almost swallowed her up the moment she sat on it. They watched a taped recording of the Daytona. They talked about the plant, about the boys. And Marta felt like she was in college again. She had not realized how few friends she had until that very moment. Or maybe she had realized it, in small bits here or there, but, sitting on Lenny’s couch, talking to him about things they both knew about, about the common matter that made up their lives, she was suddenly aware of how lonely she’d felt after college. Lenny caught her looking at him in that moment. She could see his face change. It opened. His eyes widened. He stopped talking. His smile turned shy. He leaned in and kissed her, and she bolted up from the couch. “No, Lenny. No. We can’t,” she said.

• From Hot Daddies: Gay Erotic Fiction (2011)

  There is no sound like a belt being ripped from its loops. It hits my back, on top of the marks from the quirt, breaking them open on the first blow. Fire races through me as he fucks me while his belt slams into my back. I am sobbing full out now, but I can’t shut up. “No, Daddy! Please, no. Please stop. Daddy, please! I’ll be good. I promise.” “You will be quiet for me, boy. Until you figure out how to be quiet and take my dick, I will keep beating you bloody.” Daddy’s dick slams into my hole. I can’t breathe, it’s so big. My eyes bulge, but my teeth clamp shut as he beats me. My screams are muffled by my closed mouth. He’s tearing me open. I am shuddering. My entire body shakes as he pounds his belt into my back. Finally I find my quiet, and the beating stops. His dick is still invasive, but I take it for Daddy. He knows it is going to scare me each time. Daddy likes that. He leans into me, ramming me, and growls in my ear. “I can smell your fear, boy. You belong to me. Let Daddy devour your fear. Feed off your tears, your fear and your blood. That’s my boy. Your job is to bend over quietly and take Daddy’s dick. Just be Daddy’s good quiet little hole. Let Daddy in.” I start drifting, and his words drop into me like rain. “Just focus on Daddy raping your ass. That’s my good boy. Take Daddy’s dick. Daddy’s dick is the only one that matters, boy. Just stay quiet and take Daddy into your hole. That’s my good, good boy. You are being so good for me, boy. I’m going to let you cum. You hear me? Daddy’s going to fuck you, and lick the blood off your back, and when he’s ready you’re going to hold your breath until Daddy cums. You hold it for as long as you can without breathing, boy, and when you are ready to burst, you cum for Daddy. That’s my good boy.” Daddy leans down and starts licking the blood off my back as he fucks me. He is growling, and his dick just keeps ramming into me. As I am focused on staying good and quiet for him and feeling his tongue soaking up my blood, something shifts in me. I let go. I stop fighting him. I can just focus on doing my job for him without struggling inside anymore. Right now my job is to take him into me, to be a good quiet hole for Daddy’s cock. And there’s grace in that. I have a place. I belong to Daddy. I have a job. I know how to please him. All I have to do is let go and do my job, and everything will follow from that.

• From Escape (2007)

  Merrilee’s birthday party opened my eyes to something I’d been trained not to do: have fun with my children. Every time I did something enjoyable with my children in Merril’s family, I was criticized for it or told it had created a problem. This went on for seventeen years, whether I took my children to the park, baked cookies, or played games with them outside. I was conditioned to believe that if I did anything fun with them, I’d be made to pay and pay and pay. As the years went by, I ceased doing the things that would cause trouble. But I was free now. I made myself do things with my children so I would learn how to break out of the cycle of fear that had been cemented around my soul. Someone gave us some McDonald’s dollars, and that, as simple as it sounds, was a challenge for me. I knew I could do it—no one was going to punish me for this—but I was still afraid. I had to keep telling myself, “Carolyn, it’s okay, it’s okay, you can do this.” We did it. We went to McDonald’s. But when I got home I was a nervous wreck. My reaction shook me up. I put my kids to bed and stood in a hot shower to calm down. My body, my reflexes, and my instincts were all programmed for fear. I could not undo overnight the damage that had been done to my psyche over many years. The only way over was through—I knew that—but it was still debilitating and stressful. All I could do was face the fear and keep going. But fear was still all around me. My family had to pay a price for my freedom. My sister Linda almost paid with her life. Someone in the community must have known I went to her house the night before I escaped and assumed she was in some way complicit. Some weeks after my escape, she took her family hiking in a remote location in her truck. On her way there she lost her steering. This was surprising because she was driving slowly and the road was clear. Fortunately, she was able to maneuver her truck off the road without any of her five children being hurt. When the mechanic came he told her someone had tampered with the steering wheel. I had to face off against Merril again in court in June. But his attorney was prepared this time and managed to deftly turn the tide against me with the help of the lawyer I thought was going to protect me. The issue was custody. Merril’s attorney presented him as the good and steady all-American guy on Father Knows Best. Yes, he had a lot of children, but he cared about them all.

• From Escape (2007)

  Then he got serious again. “Carolyn, you took the children of one of the most powerful men in the FLDS. They will hunt you down for that and plow over anyone who gets in their way. There’s no way the FLDS is going to let you escape with Merril Jessop’s children. This is one fight I don’t think you can win.” A New Life Begins The next morning Dan Fisher came over to Jolene’s and told me the emergency order of protection was in place. Now if Merril grabbed the children he’d be in a lot of trouble. Dan said if I felt I needed still more protection, I could move into the battered women’s shelter in West Jordan. But he added that he and Leenie would be delighted to have us return to their residence. This was a no-brainer for me. My children had been too traumatized by our escape to go into the shelter system. I felt we would be safe enough at Dan’s. He sat down and had coffee with me. We were sitting around Jolene’s table with her husband, Neil Jessop, who was a relative of Merril’s—although not close to him. Dan was telling me about the crimes he was hearing about in the FLDS and said I was right to get my children out. “I never knew what this country’s Founding Fathers fought for until I left,” he said quietly. “Even so, it took me a few years to grasp what it really meant and how deeply it mattered. “You have a real fight ahead of you,” he went on. “It might mean testifying against Merril and Warren. Neither of these men is going to let you take your children without a fight.” I knew what Dan Fisher was saying was true. But it terrified me. I was willing to fight for my freedom, but I had not realized that might mean testifying against Warren in court. My fear was that I knew so much about him he would never let me be free. I had witnessed him marrying an underage girl—my stepdaughter Millie, who was seventeen when she married Warren. I remember Millie going through the motions during her wedding in a robotic way. I knew this wasn’t what she wanted because the day Merril told her she had to marry Warren, she broke out in hysterical sobs. I was just coming into the house and went into Merril’s office to see what was wrong. Millie threw herself into my arms, crying and crying. Merril kept telling her to be brave. It was one of the most helpless moments of my life. At that point, Utah had not passed a law that banned underage women from polygamist marriages. Millie went on to become one of Warren’s favorite wives. What I later learned was that Warren mistakenly thought Millie was my oldest daughter. This lit a fire in me to do everything I could to protect Betty so she would be spared a similar fate.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  Boots approached me. I heard them before I saw them. They stopped, every tan scar on the orange hide in focus beyond the page I held that was running with streaks of print. “Curiosity killed the damn pussy, you know,” a man said. I looked up at a face sprouting brunet sideburns that swerved inward like cheese knives toward his mouth and stopped just below his ginger mustaches. The eyes, small and black, had been moistened genially by the beers he’d drunk and the pleasure he was taking in his own joke. “Mighty curious, ain’t you?” he asked. “Ain’t you!” he insisted, making a great show of the leisurely, avuncular way he settled close beside me, sighing, and wrapped a bare arm—a pale, cool, sweaty, late-night August arm—around my thin shoulders. “Shit,” he hissed. Then he slowly drew a breath like ornamental cigarette smoke up his nose, and chuckled again. “I’d say you got Sabbath eyes, son.” “I do?” I squeaked in a pinched soprano. “I don’t know what you mean,” I added, only to demonstrate my newly acquired baritone, as penetrating as an oboe; the effect on the man seemed the right one: sociable. “Yessir, Sabbath eyes,” he said with a downshift into a rural languor and rhetorical fanciness I associated with my storytelling paternal grandfather in Texas. “I say Sabbath ’cause you done worked all week and now you’s resting them eyeballs on what you done made—or might could make. The good things of the earth.” Suddenly he grew stern. “Why you here, boy? I seed you here cocking your hade and spying up like a biddy hen. Why you watching, boy? What you watching? Tell me, what you watching?” He had frightened me, which he could see—it made him laugh. I smiled to show him I knew how foolish I was being. “I’m just here to—” “Read?” he demanded, taking my book away and shutting it. “Shi-i-i …” he hissed again, steam running out before the t. “You here to meet someone, boy?” He’d disengaged himself and turned to stare at me. Although his eyes were serious, militantly serious, the creasing of the wrinkles beside them suggested imminent comedy. “No,” I said, quite audibly. He handed the book back to me. “I’m here because I want to run away from my father’s house,” I said. “I thought I might find someone to go with me.” “Whar you planning to run to?” “New York.” There was something so cold and firm and well-spoken about me—the clipped tones of a businessman defeating the farmer’s hoaxing yarn—that the man dropped his chin into his palm and thought. “What’s today?” he asked at last. “Saturday.” “I myself taking the Greyhound to New Yawk Tuesday mawning,” he said. “Wanna go?” “Sure.”

• From Escape (2007)

  A few days later when Dan Fisher returned from a business trip he asked to meet with me. There was a problem. Merril was in hiding and the police had not been able to serve him with the order of protection. In truth, he said, I didn’t have much protection until Merril was actually served. The police wanted me to lure him into a trap. In the three weeks since my escape I had tried to face every fear head-on. This felt like the ultimate challenge. I didn’t think I could do it. The thought of seeing Merril again made me shut down. Dan said that since Merril was still hounding Arthur about seeing me, we had an easy way to make this happen. He urged me to set this in motion. I trusted Dan and finally agreed. We talked it through. The key was that I could only meet Merril in a public place. There would be undercover cops there, so I’d have some protection. But that didn’t make me feel safe. I had lived under Merril’s tyranny for seventeen years and had seen how hard he had come down on wives who disobeyed him. I had embarrassed him in the eyes of the entire community. Now everyone knew he did not have his family under control. Trained to be terrified of him for seventeen years, I found it excruciating to stand up to him, let alone trap him. But I knew Merril was a coward at heart. What I feared most was what he would try to do to me after our confrontation—not what he might do or say during it. Other women had fled the FLDS, but I was unaware of any who had made it out with all their children, nor did I know any who were ever granted full custody in court. No one had ever fled from a man as powerful within the FLDS as Merril Jessop. In taking on Merril, I knew I was taking on the cult. Most women who fled would willingly leave all their children behind, or just take the smaller ones and leave the older ones at home with the understanding that if they were allowed to take half their children, they wouldn’t fight for the rest. I did know of one woman who got all of her children out, but when the FLDS came after her, she sent all of them back and relinquished custody. Another woman escaped with all of her children and won temporary custody. But then she died suddenly from a brain aneurysm in the grocery store and all of her children were sent back. We were told her death was sent from God as punishment. I had made it further than any woman I’d ever known. If meeting with Merril was the next price I had to pay for our freedom, so be it.

• From Escape (2007)

  Loretta, who’d been the first of Merril’s daughters to marry Rulon, returned to Merril’s house. She had refused to marry Warren Jeffs and was sent home until she was ready to repent. The rest of the family—with one exception—condemned Loretta for her disobedience just as surely as they condemned Merrilyn for her adultery. Oddly enough, it was Ruth who took Loretta’s side and told me that she felt Loretta was a victim. This was strange—many of Ruth’s daughters had been married off to Warren, and she’d always been a true believer. I felt disgusted by the cruel way Loretta was condemned but knew to keep my mouth shut. Audrey and I still talked almost every day. She’d come over on the pretext of checking on Harrison. Both Audrey and her husband were concerned about the vitriol and extremism coming from Warren Jeffs. I avoided going to church, but Audrey went regularly and filled me in on what Warren was preaching. He kept mentioning the “Center Place” and how he would be sending people to Zion. But the catch was that there could be several Zions. Anywhere the prophet sent us was considered Zion. I told Audrey that I thought Warren was planning to separate us in remote areas like concentration camps. He needed to be in absolute control and couldn’t risk letting us live freely in the community. Once we were split up we’d never be able to escape because we’d undoubtedly be separated from our children. I knew I had to get out fast. But I couldn’t run the risk of fleeing when Merril was at home. I had to wait until he was out of town and all my children were home. Arthur worked on construction jobs and was often out of town. I needed a window of opportunity, and the second I got that window, I’d jump. My mother beat me to it. She’d become so infuriated with Warren Jeffs that she told my father she was leaving with her two youngest children. She was upset not only with Jeffs but also with the community of believers who were blindly supporting him. Mother felt they were completely ungodly. I was not surprised that she decided to leave. I knew that for several years she’d hoped life would change, but she only saw it deteriorate. Mother had become my defender. She’d been shocked when Warren condemned me after I reported Merril’s abuse. She’d told my father that if he didn’t get me out of my marriage, she’d leave him. I think my mother finally realized how betrayed she’d been by her religion. She knew my father didn’t love her. She’d buried one daughter and felt like she’d lost two others who fled the FLDS. She saw me lost to a life of abuse and degradation. How could any religion that created so much harm be of God? It was an obvious question that few asked.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  “No,” I said. “On second thoughts, I shall have it all done by Dr. Molnar. His price is higher, but he is of course a much better dentist than you.” I do not know if any of my readers will ever have a chance to say that. It is a delicious dream feeling. Clare’s uncle remained sitting on the desk, still looking dreamy, but his foot had stopped push-rocking the cradle of rosy anticipation. On the other hand, his nurse, a skeleton-thin, faded girl, with the tragic eyes of unsuccessful blondes, rushed after me so as to be able to slam the door in my wake. Push the magazine into the butt. Press home until you hear or feel the magazine catch engage. Delightfully snug. Capacity: eight cartridges. Full Blued. Aching to be discharged. 34A gas station attendant in Parkington explained to me very clearly how to get to Grimm Road. Wishing to be sure Quilty would be at home, I attempted to ring him up but learned that his private telephone had recently been disconnected. Did that mean he was gone? I started to drive to Grimm Road, twelve miles north of the town. By that time night had eliminated most of the landscape and as I followed the narrow winding highway, a series of short posts, ghostly white, with reflectors, borrowed my own lights to indicate this or that curve. I could make out a dark valley on one side of the road and wooded slopes on the other, and in front of me, like derelict snowflakes, moths drifted out of the blackness into my probing aura. At the twelfth mile, as foretold, a curiously hooded bridge sheathed me for a moment and, beyond it, a white-washed rock loomed on the right, and a few car lengths further, on the same side, I turned off the highway up gravelly Grimm Road. For a couple of minutes all was dank, dark, dense forest. Then, Pavor Manor, a wooden house with a turret, arose in a circular clearing. Its windows glowed yellow and red; its drive was cluttered with half a dozen cars. I stopped in the shelter of the trees and abolished my lights to ponder the next move quietly. He would be surrounded by his henchmen and whores. I could not help seeing the inside of that festive and ramshackle castle in terms of “Troubled Teens,” a story in one of her magazines, vague “orgies,” a sinister adult with penele cigar, drugs, bodyguards. At least, he was there. I would return in the torpid morning.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  Mrs. Hays, the brisk, brickly rouged, blue-eyed widow who ran the motor court, asked me if I were Swiss perchance, because her sister had married a Swiss ski instructor. I was, whereas my daughter happened to be half Irish. I registered, Hays gave me the key and a twinkling smile, and, still twinkling, showed me where to park the car; Lo crawled out and shivered a little: the luminous evening air was decidedly crisp. Upon entering the cabin, she sat down on a chair at a card table, buried her face in the crook of her arm and said she felt awful. Shamming, I thought, shamming, no doubt, to evade my caresses; I was passionately parched; but she began to whimper in an unusually dreary way when I attempted to fondle her. Lolita ill. Lolita dying. Her skin was scalding hot! I took her temperature, orally, then looked up a scribbled formula I fortunately had in a jotter and after laboriously reducing the, meaningless to me, degrees Fahrenheit to the intimate centrigrade of my childhood, found she had 40.4, which at least made sense. Hysterical little nymphs might, I knew, run up all kinds of temperature—even exceeding a fatal count. And I would have given her a sip of hot spiced wine, and two aspirins, and kissed the fever away, if, upon an examination of her lovely uvula, one of the gems of her body, I had not seen that it was a burning red. I undressed her. Her breath was bittersweet. Her brown rose tasted of blood. She was shaking from head to toe. She complained of a painful stiffness in the upper vertebrae—and I thought of poliomyelitis as any American parent would. Giving up all hope of intercourse, I wrapped her up in a laprobe and carried her into the car. Kind Mrs. Hays in the meantime had alerted the local doctor. “You are lucky it happened here,” she said; for not only was Blue the best man in the district, but the Elphinstone hospital was as modern as modern could be, despite its limited capacity. With a heterosexual Erlkönig in pursuit, thither I drove, half-blinded by a royal sunset on the lowland side and guided by a little old woman, a portable witch, perhaps his daughter, whom Mrs. Hays had lent me, and whom I was never to see again. Dr. Blue, whose learning, no doubt, was infinitely inferior to his reputation, assured me it was a virus infection, and when I alluded to her comparatively recent flu, curtly said this was another bug, he had forty such cases on his hands; all of which sounded like the “ague” of the ancients.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Grigori bared his teeth as he twisted the burning cigarette into his arm. Alek didn’t even scream. He couldn’t muster a sound loud enough. They were not as bad now as they were then. There had been minor skirmishes as Alek grew stronger and better able to defend himself, and their relationship had resolved into a steady, tense stalemate. Perhaps it was always this way with brothers, a truce brokered only after an equilibrium of physical strength had been met, as if the potential for mutual destruction were the only thing that kept them from tearing each other limb from limb. Love was not between them. He could call them, one or both. He knew what they would say. There would be a long silence at first, a curious pause, and then, You’re such a little baby, it’s a cough, that’s it, all you do is complain, such a whiny baby, grow up, stop being such a little faggot, stop being such a girl, little sister crying about a cough. They did not trust him to know anything, even about his own body. They would want to speak to Dr. Ngost and then to the specialist to whom he had been referred. Only then would they believe him. The bus didn’t actually go through downtown, not to where Alek lived. He got out on the other side of the square and walked down Mifflin, toward the lake. He lived in an old apartment building, right at the head of frat row, with a guy named Mike who was from near Eau Claire. He had decamped earlier that week for fall break on his family farm, and Alek had been pleased to have the apartment to himself. Since he’d developed the cough, Mike, who was nice in a passive-aggressive midwestern sort of way, had politely inquired as to whether Alek had seen a doctor. And, if not, would he consider doing it soon? And then he’d said, My grandma suggests a ginger tea. She sent some ginger. He’d even left a pack of cough drops on the kitchen counter with a note for Alek, saying Help yourself! But as the weeks went on, and the cough did not abate, Mike had grown irritable and silent. He didn’t leave his bedroom. He didn’t eat at the kitchen island anymore. He stopped offering to split the groceries with Alek, and when it came time to pay their renter’s insurance, Alek had to slide his portion under Mike’s door in an envelope. The apartment was drafty, but they’d already shoved stray socks and old shirts into every corner they could find.

• From Escape (2007)

  Jason told me his girlfriend had kicked him out and he was desperate. He was tall and muscular and willing to work in exchange for any kind of lodging. I sent him away. He was back the next day and asked to speak to the owner. His eyes were shifty and his manner abrasive. I told him the owner was out of town. But Jason kept hanging around, driving back and forth past the motel. It seemed like he was sizing things up. I didn’t trust him. When he saw Merril’s truck outside three days later and saw Merril talking to me, he put two and two together and decided Merril must be the owner. He asked to speak with him. Jason had a real sob story. He told Merril he’d been sleeping on a bench in town but got so dehydrated that he ended up in the hospital. He was willing to do anything if Merril would give him a chance. Merril found a broken lawn mower and asked Jason to fix it. He did—and then went on to mow the lawn around the motel. Merril was pleased, hired him, and told me to give Jason a room. I protested. I told Merril I didn’t like his looks and didn’t want to be alone with him at the motel. That was a mistake—and it was the kind I usually didn’t make with Merril because it was like throwing blood in the water for sharks. Merril now had something that made me uncomfortable. He reveled in it. He told Jason to call him each day and discuss with him the jobs he was going to do. I was pregnant with my seventh child and wretchedly sick again with morning sickness. I knew Merril cared little about me, but seemingly he cared nothing about his unborn child. A local police officer showed up at the motel the day Jason was hired and asked to speak to Merril. His voice sounded urgent. He had seen Jason at the motel and told me he needed to speak to Merril about him. They talked for a few hours. When it was over, I asked Merril what it was about. Merril acted nonchalant. “Oh, he’s concerned that Jason is working here because Jason is a criminal and is bad news.” My suspicions about Jason were confirmed. He was dangerous. But it made no difference. The next morning, Merril was walking around the property with Jason discussing the various projects he wanted him to tackle. Jason began to act like a stalker. He was always looking for me. He wanted to have supper with me and my sisters. I refused and brought a plate of food outside for him. There was always a reason, in his mind, that he had to get into our house. I rebuffed him.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  In class that day, though, it was something else entirely. During a five-minute break, he’d gone out into the air to clear his lungs. All night, he’d been a beat behind, his movements dragging. In summer, this part of the country was slow to darken. He watched the trees in the distance. He took a deep breath, but the air wouldn’t move. It came into contact with something hard in his chest, and he tried again to breathe, to push the air down, to force it, but it wouldn’t go. It was like all those years ago, when he used to sit and hold his breath. He remembered the game he used to play then, the locking down of his diaphragm, the restraint of it, the slow burn working its way up and out. But now his body was refusing him, betraying him, acting of its own volition. Then the coughing came, and it was like choking on air itself, as if air were made of fine wool, as if it were fibrous, tickling his throat, exciting a gag reflex. Alek put his hand to the wall outside the low building that housed the ballet studio. He could feel his stomach muscles contracting, a shuddering heave up against a wall inside him, solid and unyielding. He couldn’t breathe for coughing, coughing until he could taste blood, but nothing splashed the gravel below his feet. His body was still hot from dance, sore, aching, and he gripped his stomach and squeezed his body with all his strength, as if he could force the cough out. He saw spinning clots of light in front of him, stars from some inverted galaxy behind his eyelids. A couple of other dancers stood nearby, drinking from clear water bottles. They looked his way at first and then away. But when he doubled over, they came to him and put their palms against his back, which was damp with sweat. They leaned down to him, and he could smell their sour scent, their breath like smoke. He strained to look at them. Who was it that was looking at him? A girl, blond: Sophie. She put her small fingers around his wrist and tried to draw him up. “Are you okay?” she asked. “Are you all right?” He couldn’t speak. She slid her palm down his forearm to his elbow and then motioned for him to sit. But he kept coughing and tried to turn away so that he wouldn’t get anything on her. Still, she pulled at him, insisting that he should sit down, and he did. He slid down into the warm gravel, felt the stones through his tights, knew that their azure dust would cling to the spandex. All over, he was on fire. The sun, hazy, distant, white on the horizon, the trees, spindly fibers whirling in the distance.

• From Escape (2007)

  The trip to Salt Lake City was pure hell. Betty was literally hitting me in the car and screaming, “Uncle Warren is going to find out what you are doing. You’ll be in so much trouble! He’ll never let you get away with this!” Darrel had to lock all the car doors. My other children would have enjoyed the adventure and the ride if Betty hadn’t been so hysterical. She kept acting as though I was going to kill every one of them. “Mother, you are taking us out into this wicked world to be destroyed! Father will never allow it.” Betty was upset for a reason. Warren Jeffs had been condemning Salt Lake City as one of the most evil cities on earth because of the Winter Olympics. His real agenda was to get the FLDS members who lived in Salt Lake to move to Colorado City in order to consolidate his power. But to my daughter Betty, if we were in Salt Lake when God erased the wicked from the earth—which Jeffs was preaching could happen any day—she and all of her brothers and sisters would be wiped out instantly. My other children were scared into silence. Arthur tried unsuccessfully to calm her down. Darrel finally screamed at her to shut up. But she wouldn’t listen and she didn’t stop. It was five hours of pure hell. Harrison was also screaming because traveling made him so uncomfortable. While we were driving, Darrel got a call on his cell phone from my mother. We had a place to stay. Mother—who escaped just three days before—had contacted Dan Fisher, a prominent dentist and former FLDS member who agreed to let us stay on his property near Salt Lake City. Dan had been born into the FLDS. At one point he’d had three wives. But he quit shortly after Rulon Jeffs came to power and began living with just one wife. Dan became extremely successful after he invented one of the best tooth-whitening systems and other dental products. He still had many relatives in the FLDS and knew how bad things had become. For years, Dan has tried to help people who wanted out of the cult. His willingness to help me saved our lives. When we got into Salt Lake City we made a quick stop at my brother’s to let the children use the bathroom. Moments after we left, Arthur’s house was surrounded by trucks from the FLDS. The hunt was on. My brother’s construction shop was surrounded by Merril’s posse before we even got to the city. They’d beaten us to Salt Lake. On our way to Dan Fisher’s I noticed that my son Arthur was watching the road closely. I thought he might be planning to run the moment he had the chance. He wasn’t acting out like Betty, but I could tell from his body language that he was furious with me.

• From Escape (2007)

  I had another immediate fear to conquer: driving. I had avoided it as much as I could since the accident on Black Ridge. Compounding the problem was that I wasn’t used to driving in a big city. But I had to be able to buy groceries and drive Betty and LuAnne to their counseling sessions. LuAnne was in school but Betty and Arthur were not yet ready. (My other three school-age children were in public schools, but Dan made arrangements for their transportation there and back.) My freedom didn’t mean much if I couldn’t drive. Still, it terrified me to get into a car again. My heart raced and my mouth went dry. I couldn’t let the girls see how scared I was, so I took a deep breath and turned the key in the ignition. It would be a year until I felt comfortable driving again. The biggest challenge I faced was financial; this was not a surprise. I had no expectations of getting any money from Merril. He’d even refused to contribute to Harrison’s care before I escaped, since he believed Harrison was my punishment from God. But I had made one really smart move before I fled. In planning for my escape, I knew I had to do something about money, and the one option I had was getting Social Security benefits for my children. Harrison was getting $100 a month in SSI benefits, but that never covered his monthly costs. When Merril had retired, he applied for Social Security benefits for two of his youngest children, Harrison and Wendell—Cathleen’s son, the one Barbara beat one night at prayers. This was dishonest because he claimed that the boys’ mothers weren’t able to care for them. But scamming the government for benefits, whether food stamps or welfare, was routine in the FLDS. It was referred to as “bleeding the beast.” Merril was smart enough not to put more than two children on Social Security—he knew he’d be investigated if he claimed he was raising dozens of children by five mothers. The children had to be living with him if he was to collect the money. It was credible that he could be raising two children from separate mothers. I calculated that if Social Security knew about my other children, Harrison’s benefit would jump to at least $400 a month. So I applied. But when I did, I was turned down because Merril claimed my other seven children were not his and that we’d never been married. I had just almost died giving birth to Bryson, and I was infuriated. But in denying my claim, Social Security gave me a long list of items I could send in to substantiate his parenthood, so I at least knew what I needed to get this turned around.