Fear

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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

  A little girl of thirteen is the boy's successor, and she is followed by another youth who is in turn abandoned for a girl; Rodin whips nine: five boys, four girls; the last is a lad of fourteen, endowed with a delicious countenance: Rodin wishes to amuse himself, the pupil resists; out of his mind with lust, he beats him, and the villain, losing all control of himself, hurls his flame's scummy jets upon his young charge's injured parts, he wets him from waist to heels; enraged at not having had strength enough to hold himself in check until the end, our corrector releases the child very testily, and after warning him against such tricks in the future, he sends him back to the class: such are the words I heard, those the scenes which I witnessed. "Dear Heaven!" I said to Rosalie when this appalling drama came to its end, "how is one able to surrender oneself to such excesses? How can one find pleasure in the torments one inflicts ?" "Ah," replied Rosalie, "you do not know everything. Listen," she said, leading me back into her room, "what you have seen has perhaps enabled you to understand that when my father discovers some aptitudes in his young pupils, he carries his horrors much further, he abuses the girls in the same manner he deals with the boys." Rosalie spoke of that criminal manner of conjugation whereof I myself had believed I might be the victim with the brigands' captain into whose hands I had fallen after my escape from the Conciergerie, and by which I had been soiled by the merchant from Lyon.

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

  "But my aunt is the creature I am going to destroy.... Oh, Therese, in a philosopher's view how frivolous are these consanguinary ties! Forgive me, but I do not even wish to discuss them, so futile are they. These contemptible chains, fruit of our laws and our political institutions Ä can they mean anything to Nature? "Desert your prejudices, Therese, leave them behind, and serve me; your fortune is made." "Oh Monsieur !" I replied, terrified by the Comte de Bressac, "your mind invents this theory of an impassive, indifferent Nature; deign rather to heed your heart, and you will hear it condemn all libertinage's false reasonings. Is not that heart, to whose tribunal I recommend you, the sanctuary where this Nature you outrage wishes to be heard and respected? If she engraves upon it the extreme horror of the crime you meditate, will you grant me it is a damnable one? Passions, I know, are blinding you at the present moment, but once they subside, how will you not be torn by remorse? The greater your sensitivity, the more cruelly shall it sting you.... Oh Monsieur! preserve, respect this tender, invaluable friend's life; sacrifice it not; you would perish of despair! Every day... at every instant you would be visited by the image of this cherished aunt, she whom your unthinking rage would have hurled into her tomb; you would hear her plaintive voice still pronouncing those sweet names that were your childhood's joy; she would be present during your waking hours and appear to torture you in your dreams; she would open with her bloodstained fingers the wounds wherewith you would have mutilated her; thereafter not one happy moment would shine for you while you dwelt upon this earth; you would become a stranger to pleasures; your every idea would be of trouble; a celestial arm, whose might you do not appreciate, would avenge the days you would have obliterated, by envenoming your own, and without having tasted happiness from your felonies, you would be slain by mortal sorrow for having dared accomplish them."

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

  Walking up and down her room with long strides, she began to talk so rapidly, that I was frightened. “You are to find out who the man in the Cascine was, immediately— “Oh, what a man! Did you see him? What do you think of him? Tell me.” “The man is beautiful,” I replied dully. “He is so beautiful,” she paused, supporting herself on the arm of a chair, “that he has taken my breath away.” “I can understand the impression he has made on you,” I replied, my imagination carrying me away in a mad whirl. “I am quite lost in admiration myself, and I can imagine—” “You may imagine,” she laughed aloud, “that this man is my lover, and that he will apply the lash to you, and that you will enjoy being punished by him. “But now go, go.” * * * * * Before evening fell, I had the desired information. Wanda was still fully dressed when I returned. She reclined on the ottoman, her face buried in her hands, her hair in a wild tangle, like the red mane of a lioness. “What is his name?” she asked, uncanny calm. “Alexis Papadopolis.” “A Greek, then,” I nodded. “He is very young?” “Scarcely older than you. They say he was educated in Paris, and that he is an atheist. He fought against the Turks in Candia, and is said to have distinguished himself there no less by his race-hatred and cruelty, than by his bravery.” “All in all, then, a man,” she cried with sparkling eyes. “At present he is living in Florence,” I continued, “he is said to be tremendously rich—” “I didn’t ask you about that,” she interrupted quickly and sharply. “The man is dangerous. Aren’t you afraid of him? I am afraid of him. Has he a wife?” “No.” “A mistress?” “No.” “What theaters does he attend?” “To-night he will be at the Nicolini Theater, where Virginia Marini and Salvini are acting; they are the greatest living artists in Italy, perhaps in Europe. “See that you get a box—and be quick about it!” she commanded. “But, mistress—” “Do you want a taste of the whip?” * * * * * “You can wait down in the lobby,” she said when I had placed the opera-glasses and the programme on the edge of her box and adjusted the footstool. I am standing there and had to lean against the wall for support so as not to fall down with envy and rage— no, rage isn’t the right word; it was a mortal fear.

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

  It’s a school on the reservation border filled with the poorest Indians and poorer-than-poorest white kids. Yes, there is a place in the world where the white people are even poorer than you ever thought possible. “I want to go to Reardan,” I said. Reardan is the rich, white farm town that sits in the wheat fields exactly twenty-two miles away from the rez. And it’s a hick town, I suppose, filled with farmers and rednecks and racist cops who stop every Indian that drives through. During one week when I was little, Dad got stopped three times for DWI: Driving While Indian. But Reardan has one of the best small schools in the state, with a computer room and huge chemistry lab and a drama club and two basketball gyms. The kids in Reardan are the smartest and most athletic kids anywhere. They are the best. “I want to go to Reardan,” I said again. I couldn’t believe I was saying it. For me, it seemed as real as saying, “I want to fly to the moon.” “Are you sure?” my parents asked. “Yes,” I said. “When do you want to go?” my parents asked. “Right now,” I said. “Tomorrow.” “Are you sure?” my parents asked. “You could maybe wait until the semester break. Or until next year. Get a fresh start.” “No, if I don’t go now, I never will. I have to do it now.” “Okay,” they said. Yep, it was that easy with my parents. It was almost like they’d been waiting for me to ask them if I could go to Reardan, like they were psychics or something. I mean, they’ve always known that I’m weird and ambitious, so maybe they expect me to do the weirdest things possible. And going to Reardan is truly a strange idea. But it isn’t weird that my parents so quickly agreed with my plans. They want a better life for my sister and me. My sister is running away to get lost, but I am running away because I want to find something. And my parents love me so much that they want to help me. Yeah, Dad is a drunk and Mom is an ex-drunk, but they don’t want their kids to be drunks. “It’s going to be hard to get you to Reardan,” Dad said. “We can’t afford to move there. And there ain’t no school bus going to come out here.” “You’ll be the first one to ever leave the rez this way,” Mom said. “The Indians around here are going to be angry with you.” Shoot, I figure that my fellow tribal members are going to torture me.

• From Manhunt (2022)

  Beth lowered the bow back to resting and rolled her shoulders, wincing at the hot ache of torn muscles. She took the wrench and sagged onto the second step of the carpeted staircase. “It’s not going to hold,” Fran repeated. “There’s an attic,” said Beth, tightening the bow’s upper bolt. “I saw it when we came up the driveway. Go find the door.” She dropped the wrench as Fran scampered up the stairs. She forced herself not to dive after it, not to drop the bow and risk torquing one of the cams. She took a breath and bent down to retrieve it. The metal felt good against her sweating palm; cool and solid, reassuring in its weight. It felt like she must feel to Fran when they fucked. Big, heavy, and threatening. She tightened the lower bolt, then returned to the upper. Arrhythmic impacts shook the door. A framed picture, made illegible by mold, fell from one of the entertainment center’s cubbyholes and broke with a bright tinkle on the floor. Muted thumps and braying from the far side of the house. The front door splintering. Claws scrabbling in the gap where the uppermost hinge had pulled loose. Fran’s footsteps flew up the stairs. The mice had vanished. Beth rose, letting the socket wrench slip from her fingers, and drew an arrow from the quiver at her hip. The door fell inward with a thunderous crash, men boiling in through the gap, clawing and biting to fight their way past one another. Beth loosed and broke for the stairs without seeing which of them she’d hit. She could hear him screaming. Glass shattered somewhere. Your nerve is going. The stairway was solid, the hardwood cracked and splintering but not yet spongy with dry rot. She took the steps two at a time. Something crashed against the wall on the landing below. Grunting. Hissing. Pictures of a long-dead family blurred by grime and dust. Smiling. Disney World. Graduation—cap and gown the color of blood. At the top of the stairs Fran leaping wildly for a pull-chain hanging from the water-spotted ceiling, her face a mask of desperate misery. Beth barreled past her at a run. She jumped and caught the ring at the end of the chain, yanking it down with her in a shower of dust, dead flies, and mouse turds. The ladder unfolded with a scream of rusted hinges. Her boots hit the floor and she staggered, banging her shoulder hard against the mold-spotted wall. “Go!” she yelled at Fran. A crash echoed up the stairwell from the landing below. Phlegmy teakettle hissing. Fran went up the ladder quickly, shaking loose a fresh shower of dust and mold.

• From The Liars' Club: A Memoir (1995)

  Lecia just said to pipe down, that we’d be at Auntie’s house in twenty minutes and everything would be okay then. But at Auntie’s house, everything wasn’t okay. We’d escaped the storm, all right. Hurricane Carla couldn’t reach us. Still, stepping down from that car, which was hissing and clicking from having been driven so hard, I didn’t feel any relief. Somehow Aunt Iris’s dirt yard under the tall pines wound up looking as dark to me as Leechfield had. I felt no grace. I had no urge to kiss the ground like some cartoon sailor delivered from shipwreck. The spotted bird dogs that circled my feet got only the most distracted pats before they whined their way back to the porch. Auntie (pronounced Ain’tee) walked right to me through that pack of dogs, flapping her apron at them and saying to me how was the ride down, sugar? Then I heard my voice saying fine, which lie was beginning to come naturally to me. I was fine. The ride was fine. We were fine. My fear was too great for me to say more; it was so great, in fact, that I couldn’t let myself collapse sobbing into Auntie’s soft and calico-draped bosom. The only need I could state was the obvious one for a bath. The dogs had even shied away from me. They crouched low to the earth and sidestepped back to the porch, circling each other and whining. They had long spotted muzzles, and their yellowed eyes kept watching. I cannot, however, describe Auntie’s face from that day, or the welcoming faces of my cousins and uncle, who came out to greet us. I must have kept my gaze dog-level. Then even the dogs begin to get dimmer in memory, as if a heavy gauze is being wrapped around my eyes, and all I could see were the faint outlines of those beasts—sniffing and suspicious. I was turning the volume down. I was hardening up inside for another tough-bucking ride. Grandma was put to bed in Auntie’s back bedroom, and I got a bath. These things certainly registered as improvements over our sitting around in Leechfield, cut off from Daddy and waiting for a tidal wave to smash the house. But Mother’s spooky silence held, and my father’s father—himself seemingly older than Jesus—almost immediately took Grandma’s place as an emblem of death. My grandpa Karr was well up in his eighties and nowhere near dying. Still, everybody had been predicting his imminent death since I could remember. This and the suggestion of his Indian heritage gave him the kind of authority that I now think old people ought to have. But back then, I resented it. He didn’t have to do any chores. He wouldn’t even bother turning up his hearing aid half the time when you talked to him. He barely even said hello.

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

  One year, these scientists came with a mini-submarine and tried to find the bottom, but the lake was so silty and muddy that they couldn’t see. And the nearby uranium mine made their radar/sonar machines go nuts, so they couldn’t see that way, either, so they never made it to the bottom. The lake is round. Perfectly round. So the scientists said it was probably an ancient and dormant volcano crater. Yeah, a volcano on the rez! The lake was so deep because the volcano crater and tunnels and lava chutes and all that plumbing went all the way down to the center of the earth. That lake was, like, forever deep. There were all sorts of myths and legends surrounding the lake. I mean, we’re Indians, and we like to make up shit about lakes, you know? Some people said the lake is named Turtle because it’s round and green like a turtle’s shell. Some people said it’s named Turtle because it used to be filled with regular turtles. Some people said it’s named Turtle because it used to be home to this giant snapping turtle that ate Indians. A Jurassic turtle. A Steven Spielberg turtle. A King Kong versus the Giant Reservation Turtle turtle. I didn’t exactly believe in the giant turtle myth. I was too old and smart for that. But I’m still an Indian, and we like to be scared. I don’t know what it is about us. But we love ghosts. We love monsters. But I was really scared of this other story about Turtle Lake. My dad told me the story. When he was a kid he watched a horse drown in Turtle Lake and disappear. “Some of the others say it was a giant turtle that grabbed the horse,” Dad said. “But they’re lying. They were just being silly. That horse was just stupid. It was so stupid we named it Stupid Horse.” Well, Stupid Horse sank into the endless depths of Turtle Lake and everybody figured that was the end of that story. But a few weeks later, Stupid Horse’s body washed up on the shores of Benjamin Lake, ten miles away from Turtle Lake. “Everybody just figured some joker had found the body and moved it,” Dad said. “To scare people.” People laughed at the practical joke. Then a bunch of guys threw the dead horse into the back of a truck, drove it to the dump, and burned it. Simple story, right? No, it doesn’t end there. “Well, a few weeks after they burned the body, a bunch of kids were swimming in Turtle Lake when it caught fire.” YES, THE WHOLE LAKE CAUGHT ON FIRE! The kids were swimming close to the dock. Because the lake was so deep, most kids swam close to shore. And the fire started out in the middle of the lake, so the kids were able to safely climb out of the water before it all went up like a big bowl of gasoline.

• From The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (1967)

  here is similar to that of the historian’s study of religion. To be sure, it can be maintained that historical and theological assertions take place in discrepant, mutually immune frames of reference. But if the theologian asserts something that can be shown to have never taken place historically or to have taken place in quite a different way from what he asserts, and if this assertion is essential to his position, then he can no longer be reassured that he has nothing to fear from the historian’s work. The historical study of the Bible offers plentiful examples of this. Sociology thus raises questions for the theologian to the extent that the latter’s positions hinge on certain socio- historical presuppositions. For better or for worse, such presuppositions are particularly characteristic of theological thought in the Judaeo-Christian orbit, for reasons that are well known and have to do with the radically historical orientation of the Biblical tradition. The Christian theologian is, therefore, ill-advised if he simply views sociology as an ancillary discipline that will help him (or, more likely, help the practical churchman) to understand certain “external” problems of the social environment in which his church is located. To be sure, there are types of sociology (such as the quasi-sociological research approach that has become so popular in recent years in church organizations) that are quite “harmless” in this sense and can readily be appropriated for pragmatic ecclesiastical purposes. The worst that the churchman may expect from the sociologist doing religious market research for him is the unwelcome news that fewer people go to church than he thinks should go. But he will still be wise if he is careful about letting sociological analysis go too far. He may be getting more than he bargained for. Specifically, he may be getting a wider sociological perspective that may lead him on to see his over-all activity in 208

• From The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (1967)

  the sadistic role to satisfaction. The sadistic fellowman may refuse or forget to be properly all-powerful, or may simply be incapable of pulling off the act. Even if he succeeds in being something of a credible master for a while, he remains vulnerable, limited, mortal—in fact, remains human. The sadistic god is not handicapped by these empirical imperfections. He remains invulnerable, infinite, immortal by definition. The surrender to him is ipso facto protected from the contingencies and uncertainties of merely social masochism—for ever. It will be clear from the above that masochism, whether religious or not in its intended object, is pretheoretical in character and thus prior to the emergence of any specific theodicies. The masochistic attitude, however, continues as an important motif in a number of attempts at theodicies, and in some of these it is directly expressed in the theoretical constructions themselves. It is thus well to keep in mind that the masochistic attitude is one of the persistent factors of irrationality in the problem of theodicy, no matter what degree of rationality may be attained in various efforts to solve the problem theoretically. Put graphically, in contemplating the spectacle of theologians working out, sometimes with astounding dispassion, the formulas designed to explain the suffering of men, we must not forget at least the possible presence, behind the calm mask of the theoretician, of the worshiper voluptuously groveling in the dust before the god who punishes and destroys in sovereign majesty. Theodicy directly affects the individual in his concrete life in society. A plausible theodicy (which, of course, requires an appropriate plausibility structure) permits the individual to integrate the anomic experiences of his biography into the socially established nomos and its subjective correlate in his own consciousness. These experiences, however painful they 71

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

  Like any Roman emperor, his first instinct was to crush dissent militarily, but he settled instead for the confiscation of Donatist property. Tragically, however, when the imperial troops marched into a Donatist basilica to carry out the edict, the unarmed congregation resisted, and a massacre followed. At once the Donatists loudly complained that the Christian emperor was persecuting his fellow Christians and that despite Constantine’s conversion, nothing had changed since the days of Diocletian.17 Constantine was forced to revoke the edict, left the Donatists in peace, and instructed orthodox bishops to turn the other cheek.18 He would have been uneasily aware that the Donatists had gotten away with it. Henceforth he and his successors would be wary of any theological or ecclesiastical discourse that threatened the Pax Christiana on which the security of the empire, they believed, now depended.19 Constantine was reluctant to promote his Christianity in the sparsely Christianized West, but his arrival in the East marked his political conversion to the faith. There could as yet be no question of making Christianity the official religion of the empire, and pagans still held public office, but Constantine closed down some pagan temples and expressed his disapproval of sacrificial worship.20 Christianity’s universal claims seemed ideally suited to Constantine’s ambition to achieve world rule, and he believed that its ethos of peace and reconciliation were in perfect alignment with the Pax Romana. But to Constantine’s horror, the eastern churches, far from being united in brotherly love, were bitterly divided by an obscure—and to Constantine, incomprehensible—theological dispute. In 318 Arius, presbyter of Alexandria, had put forward the idea that Jesus, the Word of God, had not been divine by nature. Quoting an impressive array of biblical texts, he contended that God had simply conferred divinity upon the man Jesus as a reward for his perfect obedience and humility. At this point there was no orthodox position about the nature of Christ, and many of the bishops felt quite at home with Arius’s theology. Like their pagan neighbors, they did not experience the divine as an impossibly distant reality; in the Greco-Roman world, it was taken for granted that men and women regularly became fully fledged gods.21 Eusebius, the leading Christian intellectual of his day, taught his congregations that God had revealed himself in human form before, first to Abraham, who had entertained three strangers at Mamre and discovered that Yahweh was participating in the conversation; later Moses and Joshua had similar theophanies.22 For Eusebius, God’s Word, or Logos—the divine element in a human being23—had simply returned to earth once more, this time in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.24

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

  Yeah, a volcano on the rez! The lake was so deep because the volcano crater and tunnels and lava chutes and all that plumbing went all the way down to the center of the earth. That lake was, like, forever deep. There were all sorts of myths and legends surrounding the lake. I mean, we’re Indians, and we like to make up shit about lakes, you know? Some people said the lake is named Turtle because it’s round and green like a turtle’s shell. Some people said it’s named Turtle because it used to be filled with regular turtles. Some people said it’s named Turtle because it used to be home to this giant snapping turtle that ate Indians. A Jurassic turtle. A Steven Spielberg turtle. A King Kong versus the Giant Reservation Turtle turtle. I didn’t exactly believe in the giant turtle myth. I was too old and smart for that. But I’m still an Indian, and we like to be scared. I don’t know what it is about us. But we love ghosts. We love monsters. But I was really scared of this other story about Turtle Lake. My dad told me the story. When he was a kid he watched a horse drown in Turtle Lake and disappear. “Some of the others say it was a giant turtle that grabbed the horse,” Dad said. “But they’re lying. They were just being silly. That horse was just stupid. It was so stupid we named it Stupid Horse.” Well, Stupid Horse sank into the endless depths of Turtle Lake and everybody figured that was the end of that story. But a few weeks later, Stupid Horse’s body washed up on the shores of Benjamin Lake, ten miles away from Turtle Lake. “Everybody just figured some joker had found the body and moved it,” Dad said. “To scare people.” People laughed at the practical joke. Then a bunch of guys threw the dead horse into the back of a truck, drove it to the dump, and burned it. Simple story, right? No, it doesn’t end there. “Well, a few weeks after they burned the body, a bunch of kids were swimming in Turtle Lake when it caught fire.” YES, THE WHOLE LAKE CAUGHT ON FIRE! The kids were swimming close to the dock. Because the lake was so deep, most kids swam close to shore. And the fire started out in the middle of the lake, so the kids were able to safely climb out of the water before it all went up like a big bowl of gasoline. “It burned for a few hours,” Dad said. “Burned hot and fast. And then it went out. Just like that. People stayed away for a few days then went to take a look at the damage, you know?

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

  A deep shudder fell upon me and I fled, and later in a dream, it seemed to me, as if the goddess stood beside my bed, threatening me with up- raised arm. “I was sent to school early and soon reached the gymnasium. I passionately grasped at everything which promised to make the world of antiquity accessible to me. Soon I was more familiar with the gods of Greece than with the religion of Jesus. I was with Paris when he gave the fateful apple to Venus, I saw Troy burn, and followed Ulysses on his wanderings. The prototypes of all that is beautiful sank deep into my soul, and consequently at the time when other boys are coarse and obscene, I displayed an insurmountable aversion to everything base, vulgar, unbeautiful. “To me, the maturing youth, love for women seemed something especially base and unbeautiful, for it showed itself to me first in all its commonness. I avoided all contact with the fair sex; in short, I was supersensual to madness. “When I was about fourteen my mother had a charming chamber-maid, young, attractive, with a figure just budding into womanhood. I was sitting one day studying my Tacitus and growing enthusiastic over the virtues of the ancient Teutons, while she was sweeping my room. Suddenly she stopped, bent down over me, in the meantime holding fast to the broom, and a pair of fresh, full, adorable lips touched mine. The kiss of the enamoured little cat ran through me like a shudder, but I raised up my Germania, like a shield against the temptress, and indignantly left the room.” Wanda broke out in loud laughter. “It would, indeed, be hard to find another man like you, but continue.” “There is another unforgetable incident belonging to that period,” I continued my story. “Countess Sobol, a distant aunt of mine, was visiting my parents. She was a beautiful majestic woman with an attractive smile. I, however, hated her, for she was regarded by the family as a sort of Messalina. My behavior toward her was as rude, malicious, and awkward as possible. “One day my parents drove to the capital of the district. My aunt determined to take advantage of their absence, and to exercise judgment over me. She entered unexpectedly in her fur-lined kazabaika, 2 followed by the cook, kitchen-maid, and the cat of a chamber-maid whom I had scorned. Without asking any questions, they seized me and bound me hand and foot, in spite of my violent resistance.

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

  Furthermore, it seemed to me the evil I was going to do him would be immediately offset by the extreme care I would take to save his life: I was going to be mistress of that life, but whatever might be his intentions with respect to me, it would certainly only be in order to restore it to him. We take our stations; Roland is stimulated by a few of his usual caresses; he climbs upon the stool, I put the halter round his neck; he tells me he wants me to curse him during the process, I am to reproach him with all his life's horrors, I do so; his dart soon rises to menace Heaven, he himself gives me the sign to remove the stool, I obey; would you believe it, Madame? nothing more true than what Roland had conjectured: nothing but symptoms of pleasure ornament his countenance and at practically the same instant rapid jets of semen spring nigh to the vault. When 'tis all shot out without any assistance whatsoever from me, I rush to cut him down, he falls, unconscious, but thanks to my ministrations he quickly recovers his senses. "Oh Therese !" he exclaims upon opening his eyes, "oh, those sensations are not to be described; they transcend all one can possibly say: let them now do what they wish with me, I stand unflinching before Themis' sword! "You're going to find me guilty yet another time, Therese," Roland went on, tying my hands behind my back, "no thanks for you, but, dear girl, what can one expect? a man doesn't correct himself at my age.... Beloved creature, you have just saved my life and never have I so powerfully conspired against yours; you lamented Suzanne's fate; ah well, I'll arrange for you to meet again; I'm going to plunge you alive into the dungeon where she expired." I will not describe my state of mind, Madame, you fancy what it was; in vain did I weep, groan, I was not heeded. Roland opened the fatal dungeon, he hangs out a lamp so that I can still better discern the multitude of corpses wherewith it is filled; next, he passes a cord under my arms which, as you know, are bound behind my back, and by means of this cord he lowers me thirty feet: I am twenty more from the bottom of the pit: in this position I suffer hideously, it is as if my arms are being torn from their sockets.

• From Manhunt (2022)

  It was hard to talk above a whisper. “Fran, I need you to help me restring the bow. Now. We need to do it now.” Fran stared up at her, uncomprehending. The screaming grew louder. Closer. Beth stood the bow upright, forcing herself to breathe. You don’t have time to freak out. You have to restring this fucking thing. You have to restring it before the men are here. “The socket wrench.” Fran’s mouth hung open. “What?” “This is not the fucking time to make a point about how femme you are,” Beth snarled, squatting in front of the staircase with the bow standing on end between her thighs. “Get me the socket wrench from the duffel’s front pocket, then get the spare string and wax it. Now.” Fran bent over, shoulders hunched, and fished through the duffel for what felt like half an hour before passing Beth the wrench. Beth loosened the bow’s limb bolts one at a time, first the lower, then the upper. She tried not to think about what would happen if the arms snapped straight. Three hundred foot-pounds of force per inch, give or take. It would be like getting slapped by a grizzly bear; she’d be lucky if it only broke her collarbone, or an arm. Maybe it’ll kill me, she thought, fitting the wrench’s head to the upper bolt again. Her palms were sweaty; she paused to wipe them on her shirt one by one. Then I’d have nothing to worry about. The floor began to shake. The windows rattled. The screams were getting closer. Beth loosened the lower bolt by a second turn. Fran, sitting on the stairs, had found the polyethylene replacement string. She had one end pinned under her shoe and she was rubbing a hunk of wax along its length, her breath coming in short, panicky gasps. Her cheeks were flushed, her brow glistening with sweat. Time seemed to pass in spastic flashes. Maybe they’ll go straight for the gunshot, Beth thought, knowing they wouldn’t. They’d smell girl-funk and come right through the walls. She rose into a crouch, turned the bow parallel with the floor, and set her boot against the chewed and fraying string. “That’s good enough,” she said to Fran, holding out her free hand as she slowly drew the bow to half extension, praying that the old string wouldn’t snap. “I need you to hook it.” A low, rumbling grunt came from outside the north windows.

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

  “Okay, guys,” Coach said. “We know what these guys can do. They’re averaging eighty points a game. They want to run and run and run. And when they’re done running and gunning, they’re going to run and gun some more.” Man, that wasn’t much of a pep talk. It sounded like Coach was sure we were going to lose. “And I have to be honest, guys,” Coach said. “We can’t beat these guys with our talent. We just aren’t good enough. But I think we have bigger hearts. And I think we have a secret weapon.” I wondered if Coach had maybe hired some Mafia dude to take out Rowdy. “We have Arnold Spirit,” Coach said. “Me?” I asked. “Yes, you,” Coach said. “You’re starting tonight.” “Really?” “Really. And you’re going to guard Rowdy. The whole game. He’s your man. You have to stop him. If you stop him, we win this game. It’s the only way we’re going to win this game.” Wow. I was absolutely stunned. Coach wanted me to guard Rowdy. Now, okay, I was a great shooter, but I wasn’t a great defensive player. Not at all. There’s no way I could stop Rowdy. I mean, if I had a baseball bat and bulldozer, maybe I could stop him. But without real weapons—without a pistol, a man-eating lion, and a vial of bubonic plague—I had zero chance of competing directly with Rowdy. If I guarded him, he was going to score seventy points. “Coach,” I said. “I’m really honored by this. But I don’t think I can do it.” He walked over to me, kneeled, and pushed his forehead against mine. Our eyes were, like, an inch apart. I could smell the cigarettes and chocolate on his breath. “You can do it,” Coach said. Oh, man, that sounded just like Eugene. He always shouted that during any game I ever played. It could be, like, a three-legged sack race, and Gene would be all drunk and happy in the stands and he’d be shouting out, “Junior, you can do it!” Yeah, that Eugene, he was a positive dude even as an alcoholic who ended up getting shot in the face and killed. Jeez, what a sucky life. I was about to play the biggest basketball game of my life and all I could think about was my dad’s dead best friend. So many ghosts. “You can do it,” Coach said again. He didn’t shout it. He whispered it. Like a prayer. And he kept whispering again. Until the prayer turned into a song. And then, for some magical reason, I believed in him. Coach had become, like, the priest of basketball, and I was his follower. And I was going to follow him onto the court and shut down my best friend. I hoped so. “I can do it,” I said to Coach, to my teammates, to the world. “You can do it,” Coach said. “I can do it.” “You can do it.”

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

  But you oppose it, you ask that it stop; it would seem that, in the light of my obligations toward you, I ought to grant what you request; however, I surrender to nothing, I listen to nothing, I slash through all the knots that bind fools, I submit you to my desires, and out of the most elementary, the most monotonous enjoyment I evolve one that is really delicious; therefore submit, Therese, submit, and if ever you are reincarnated and return to the world in the guise of the mighty, exploit your privileges in the same way and you will know every one of the most lively and most piquant pleasures." These words gone out of his mouth, Roland went away and left me to ponder thoughts which, as you may well believe, presented him in no favorable aspect. I had been six months in this household, from time to time serving the villain's disgraceful debauches, when one night I beheld him enter my prison with Suzanne. "Come, Therese," said he, " 'tis already a long time, I find, since I took you down to that cavern which impressed you so deeply; both of you are going to accompany me there, but don't expect to climb back together, for I absolutely must leave one of you behind; well, we'll see which one fate designates." I get to my feet, cast alarmed glances at my companion, I see tears rolling from her eyes... and we set off. When we were locked into the underground vault, Roland examined each of us with ferocious eyes, he amused himself by reiterating our sentence and persuading us both that one of the two would certainly remain there below. "Well," said he, seating himself and having us stand directly before him, "each of you take your turn and set to work exorcising this disabled object; there's a devil in it keeps it limp, and woe unto the one of you who restores its energy." " 'Tis an injustice," quoth Suzanne; "she who arouses you most should be the one to obtain your mercy." "Not at all," Roland retorted, "once it is manifest which of you arouses me most, it is established which one's death will give me the greater pleasure... and I'm aiming at pleasure, nothing else. Moreover, by sparing her who inflames me the more rapidly, you would both proceed with such industry that you might perhaps plunge my senses into their ecstasy before the sacrifice were consummated, and that must not happen." " 'Tis to want evil for evil's sake, Monsieur," I said to Roland, "the completion of your ecstasy ought to be the only thing you desire, and if you attain it without crime, why do you want to commit one ?" "Because I only deliciously reach the critical stage in this way, and because I only came down here in order to commit one.

• From The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (1967)

  what is probably the most important marginal situation (19). Death radically challenges all socially objectivated definitions of reality—of the world, of others, and of self. Death radically puts in question the taken-for-granted, “business-as-usual” attitude in which one exists in everyday life. Here, everything in the daytime world of existence in society is massively threatened with “irreality”—that is, everything in that world becomes dubious, eventually unreal, other than one had used to think. Insofar as the knowledge of death cannot be avoided in any society, legitimations of the reality of the social world in the face of death are decisive requirements in any society. The importance of religion in such legitimations is obvious. Religion, then, maintains the socially defined reality by legitimating marginal situations in terms of an all- encompassing sacred reality. This permits the individual who goes through these situations to continue to exist in the world of his society—not “as if nothing had happened,” which is psychologically difficult in the more extreme marginal situations, but in the “knowledge” that even these events or experiences have a place within a universe that makes sense. It is thus even possible to have “a good death,” that is, to die while retaining to the end a meaningful relationship with the nomos of one’s society—subjectively meaningful to oneself and objectively meaningful in the minds of others. While the ecstasy of marginal situations is a phenomenon of individual experience, entire societies or social groups may, in times of crisis, undergo such a situation collectively. In other words, there are events affecting entire societies or social groups that provide massive threats to the reality previously taken for granted. Such situations may occur as the result of natural catastrophe, war, or social upheaval. At such times religious legitimations almost invariably come to the front. Furthermore, whenever a society must motivate its 56

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

  "Why," he continued with a curse, "he doesn't much aid you, your God, does he? and thus he allows unhappy virtue to suffer, he abandons it to villainy's hands; ah! what a bloody fine God you've got there, Therese, what a superb God he is! Come," he says, "come here, whore, your prayer should be done," and at the same time he places me upon the divan at the back of that cell; "I told you Therese, you have got to die!" He seizes my arms, binds them to my side, then he slips a black silken noose about my neck; he holds both ends of the cord and, by tightening, he can strangle and dispatch me to the other world ei quickly or slowly, depending upon his pleasure. "This torture is sweeter than you may imagine, Therese," says Roland; "you will only approach death by way of unspeakably pleasurable sensations; the pressure this noose will bring to bear upon your nervous system will set fire to the organs of voluptuousness; the effect is certain; were all the people who are condemned to this torture to know in what an intoxication of joy it makes one die, less terrified by this retribution for their crimes, they would commit them more often and with much greater self-assurance; this delicious operation, Therese, by causing, as well, the contraction of the locale in which I am going to fit myself," he added as he presented himself to a criminal avenue so worthy of such a villain, "is also going to double my pleasure."

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

  But I was almost blind drunk on that blurred night on my rez. And I recited poetry! That was so goofy and arrogant! Maybe some of you were there. I remember that some Indians tried to heckle me. But Randy, ever my protector, silenced them with a mean stare. And then he, ever the listener, sat in front of me, a one-person audience. I don’t know how long I recited poetry, but I do know that Randy paid attention. And I remember that I wept that night and told Randy how afraid I was of being trapped again. I was afraid of becoming a reservation drunk. I told him I wanted to become a professional poet, a real writer, and there was no way it would ever happen. I told Randy that I was doomed to fail. But Randy stood and grabbed my shoulders. He was nearly as drunk as I was. He was young and strong, so it hurt when he grabbed me. He wasn’t my best friend anymore. We’d stopped being best friends when I left the reservation school. When I left Wellpinit. Let me be real honest here. When I left Wellpinit, I also left my best friend. And that’s like a betrayal, right? No, it isn’t like a betrayal. It is betrayal. In leaving, I betrayed my best friend. In leaving, I betrayed my tribe. But sometimes you have to do that. I have lived an amazing life. I think I have changed the whole world for the better. At least a little bit. And I know my books, my stories, have helped a lot of people. A lot of other Indians. And none of that would’ve happened if I hadn’t left Wellpinit. Great things have happened to me because I left. But it has also caused me so much pain. And I know it caused all of you pain, too. I know some of you are still mad at me for leaving. That’s okay. I understand. But you have to understand that I didn’t leave because I wanted to hurt any of you. I left because I wanted to save myself. I am happy I left the reservation. My life has been magical. But I know I gave up so much. I know I lost so much beauty when I left. But, hey, most of you don’t know this. All of it almost fell apart. I almost fell apart. I ended up drunk on the reservation that night, reciting my poetry, and I was ready to give up. I had given up. But Randy, my handsome, blue-eyed Indian, stared hard at me, and he said, “Junior, those poems are amazing. You’re going to be famous.” “No,” I said. “That’s not me.” “You’re going to travel the whole world reading your poems,” he said. “But what about you?” I asked. “I’m always going to be here,” he said. “And you’ll always be somewhere else. Somewhere bigger.” “That’s not fair,” I said. “It’s not fair to you.”

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

  And I am always the most available loser. “Come on,” Rowdy said. “I’ll protect you.” He knew that I was afraid of getting beat up. And he also knew that he’d probably have to fight for me. Rowdy has protected me since we were born. Both of us were pushed into the world on November 5, 1992, at Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane. I’m two hours older than Rowdy. I was born all broken and twisted, and he was born mad. He was always crying and screaming and kicking and punching. He bit his mother’s breast when she tried to nurse him. He kept biting her, so she gave up and fed him formula. He really hasn’t changed much since then. Well, at fourteen years old, it’s not like he runs around biting women’s breasts, but he does punch and kick and spit. He got into his first fistfight in kindergarten. He took on three first graders during a snowball fight because one of them had thrown a piece of ice. Rowdy punched them out pretty quickly. And then he punched the teacher who came to stop the fight. He didn’t hurt the teacher, not at all, but man, let me tell you, that teacher was angry. “What’s wrong with you?” he yelled. “Everything!” Rowdy yelled back. Rowdy fought everybody. He fought boys and girls. Men and women. He fought stray dogs. Hell, he fought the weather. He’d throw wild punches at rain. Honestly. “Come on, you wuss,” Rowdy said. “Let’s go to powwow. You can’t hide in your house forever. You’ll turn into some kind of troll or something.” “What if somebody picks on me?” I asked. “Then I’ll pick on them.” “What if somebody picks my nose?” I asked. “Then I’ll pick your nose, too,” Rowdy said. “You’re my hero,” I said. “Come to the powwow,” Rowdy said. “Please.” It’s a big deal when Rowdy is polite. “Okay, okay,” I said. So Rowdy and I walked the three miles to the powwow grounds. It was dark, maybe eight o’clock or so, and the drummers and singers were loud and wonderful. I was excited. But I was getting hypothermic, too. The Spokane Powwow is wicked hot during the day and freezing cold at night. “I should have worn my coat,” I said. “Toughen up,” Rowdy said. “Let’s go watch the chicken dancers,” I said. I think the chicken dancers are cool because, well, they dance like chickens.