Fear

Passages

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

Page 357 of 529 · 20 per page

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  “Oh, submissives, definitely. Of course, you do get some overlap. A sadist has to be a bit of a master, a master has to be a bit of a sadist, or he gets no trade.” They both laughed. The master held up his empty can. “You ready for another round?” he asked. The spoiler nodded, even though he had not finished the beer in his hand. He didn’t want to say no to anything. It would change the mood, set a bad precedent. “Laundry room is off of the dungeon,” Roger said, lumbering over to a door at the end of the room. “Got a fridge back there. Be back in a second.” As soon as he returned, the spoiler turned the conversation from speculation and theory to something that had actually happened. Evaluating the scene would give him a cue to Roger’s emotional status. “I don’t feel too good about the way the scene ended,” he lied. “Maybe that kid really wanted to be a slave. If he just wanted to be dominated, I should’ve pushed his limits.” The master waved a dismissive hand. “You were damned good to that kid, better than he deserved. Nothing wrong with what you gave him. He got exactly what he asked for, with bells on.” “Maybe. I haven’t had this whip for very long. I have a lot to learn about how to use it.” “Didn’t look that way to me.” “Well, somebody like you ought to know. But I wonder if I was hitting him too hard. Do you think you could help me figure it out? I really like this quirt a lot. Makes my arm feel so good. I want to use it again, but I’m afraid the same thing will happen.” The specter of that brutal length of braid never biting flesh again made the master blanch. “Of course. Of course. But what exactly do you need to know? You don’t have much choice about the amount of force it takes to crack it,” he said. “Once you flick your wrist the speed is standard.” He was leaning on the pillar. The spoiler put his untasted beer down against the wall and came up to him, carrying the quirt coiled in his right hand. He touched his arm deferentially and said, “You could tell me how you think it feels.”

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  The next afternoon she went to the wood again. She followed the broad riding that swerved round and up through the larches to a spring called John's Well. It was cold on this hillside, and not a flower in the darkness of larches. But the icy little spring softly pressed upwards from its tiny well-bed of pure, reddish-white pebbles. How icy and clear it was! brilliant! The new keeper had no doubt put in fresh pebbles. She heard the faint tinkle of water, as the tiny overflow trickled over and down hill. Even above the hissing boom of the larchwood, that spread its bristling, leafless, wolfish darkness on the downslope, she heard the tinkle as of tiny water-bells. This place was a little sinister, cold, damp. Yet the well must have been a drinking-place for hundreds of years. Now no more. Its tiny cleared space was lush and cold and dismal. She rose and went slowly towards home. As she went she heard a faint tapping away on the right, and stood still to listen. Was it hammering, or a woodpecker? It was surely hammering. She walked on, listening. And then she noticed a narrow track between young fir trees, a track that seemed to lead nowhere. But she felt it had been used. She turned down it adventurously, between the thick young firs, which gave way soon to the old oak-wood. She followed the track, and the hammering grew nearer, in the silence of the windy wood, for trees make a silence even in their noise of wind. She saw a secret little clearing, and a secret little hut made of rustic poles. And she had never been here before! She realised it was the quiet place where the growing pheasants were reared; the keeper in his shirtsleeves was kneeling, hammering. The dog trotted forward with a short, sharp bark, and the keeper lifted his face suddenly and saw her. He had a startled look in his eyes. He straightened himself and saluted, watching her in silence, as she came forward with weakening limbs. He resented the intrusion, he cherished his solitude as his only and last freedom in life. "I wondered what the hammering was," she said, feeling weak and breathless, and a little afraid of him, as he looked so straight at her. "Ah'm gettin' th' coops ready for th' young bods," he said, in broad vernacular. She did not know what to say, and she felt weak. "I should like to sit down a bit," she said. "Come and sit 'ere i' th' 'ut," he said, going in front of her to the hut, pushing aside some timber and stuff, and drawing out a rustic chair, made of hazel sticks. "Am Ah t' light yer a little fire?" he asked, with the curious naiveté of the dialect. "Oh, don't bother," she replied.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  in the London Matriculation stood me in good stead. And all this reading was not without its value later on in South Africa, where Roman Dutch is the common law. The reading of Justinian, therefore, helped me a great deal in understanding the South African law. It took me nine months of fairly hard labour to read through the Common Law of England. For Broom’s Common Law, a big but interesting volume, took up a good deal of time. Snell’s Equity was full of interest, but a bit hard to understand. White and Tudor’s LeadingCases, from which certain cases were prescribed, was full of interest and instruction. I read also with interest Williams’ and Edwards’ Real Property, and Goodeve’s Personal Property. Williams’ book read like a novel. The one book I remember to have read on my return to India, with the same unflagging interest, was Mayne’s Hindu Law. But it is out of place to talk here of Indian law-books. I passed my examinations, was called to the bar on the 10th of June 1891, and enrolled in the High Court on the 11th. On the 12th sailed for home. But notwithstanding my study there was no end to my helplessness and fear. I did not feel myself qualified to practise law. But a separate chapter is needed to describe this helplessness of mine. 27.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  “Wouldn’t you like to know how I figured it out?” The question was a caress. She made herself wait for the curt, reluctant nod before she continued. “To begin with, there is your name. It means ‘son of the dark one’.” She paused for that to sink in, then said politely, “You have not asked, but my name is Iduna. In ancient Norse mythology, Iduna guarded the golden apples of immortality.” ‘But in our case, my love, the apples are the brightest, truest red imaginable,’ she thought, but did not say. Kerry twitched. But Iduna felt like being a little ruthless. It was rude, forcing someone to make their own introduction. “You have trouble remembering your age and birthday. You’ve told some people you’re twenty-two and other people you’re thirty-five. There are certain historic periods you are very fond of, and when you speak about them, you occasionally lapse into the first person and the present tense. You speak several languages; however, none of them (with the exception of your American English) is contemporary. I am enough of a linguist to recognize nineteenth-century French when I hear it, and your German is full of colloquialisms from the 1930s. You say you were born here, but there is no birth certificate on file for you in any of the five boroughs of New York City.” In the process of investigating Kerry, Iduna had figured out how to dummy up this basic I.D. for herself. ‘You need some help,’ she thought. ‘It’s dangerous to fall behind the times.’ “You are photophobic. You don’t even like the brightly lit area of the bar where all the other S&M dominants stand and model. You wait for your prey in shadows. You have an unusual strength, you are preternaturally quick, and you have an ability to see in the dark and hear things no one else can hear. Your sense of smell is also very keen. I’ve traced some of your employment, and much of it is at places where you can handle blood or blood products. All of these jobs have been abruptly terminated for mysterious reasons, and you have not had one for quite some time. You not have sex, ever, with anyone that I’ve been able to locate and, given your reputation, I would imagine that someone who had come close enough to even lie about it would have claimed they had made love to you by now.” Kerry shuddered delicately. “Sex with a victim,” she said with great distaste, “is out of the question.”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Pietro, seeing this, hurriedly caught up his gear and springing on his hackney, addressed himself, as best he might, to flee by the way he had seen his mistress take; but finding her not and seeing neither road nor footpath in the wood neither perceiving any horse's hoof marks, he was the woefullest man alive; and as soon as himseemed he was safe and out of reach of those who had taken him, as well as of the others by whom they had been assailed, he began to drive hither and thither about the wood, weeping and calling; but none answered him and he dared not turn back and knew not where he might come, an he went forward, more by token that he was in fear of the wild beasts that use to harbour in the woods, at once for himself and for his mistress, whom he looked momently to see strangled of some bear or some wolf. On this wise, then, did the unlucky Pietro range all day about the wood, crying and calling, whiles going backward, when as he thought to go forward, until, what with shouting and weeping and fear and long fasting, he was so spent that he could no more and seeing the night come and knowing not what other course to take, he dismounted from his hackney and tied the latter to a great oak, into which he climbed, so he might not be devoured of the wild beasts in the night. A little after the moon rose and the night being very clear and bright, he abode there on wake, sighing and weeping and cursing his ill luck, for that he durst not go to sleep, lest he should fall, albeit, had he had more commodity thereof, grief and the concern in which he was for his mistress would not have suffered him to sleep.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Thereupon they all dispersed about the little house and some went into the courtyard, where, laying down their lances and targets, it chanced that one of them, knowing not what else to do, cast his lance into the hay and came very near to slay the hidden girl and she to discover herself, for that the lance passed so close to her left breast that the steel tore a part of her dress, wherefore she was like to utter a great cry, fearing to be wounded; but, remembering where she was, she abode still, all fear-stricken. Presently, the rogues, having dressed the kids and other meat they had with them and eaten and drunken, went off, some hither and some thither, about their affairs, and carried with them the girl's hackney. When they had gone some distance, the good man asked his wife, 'What befell of our young woman, who came thither yestereve? I have seen nothing of her since we arose.' The good wife replied that she knew not and went looking for her, whereupon the girl, hearing that the rogues were gone, came forth of the hay, to the no small contentment of her host, who, rejoiced to see that she had not fallen into their hands, said to her, it now growing day, 'Now that the day cometh, we will, an it please thee, accompany thee to a castle five miles hence, where thou wilt be in safety; but needs must thou go afoot, for yonder ill folk, that now departed hence, have carried off thy rouncey.' The girl concerned herself little about the nag, but besought them for God's sake to bring her to the castle in question, whereupon they set out and came thither about half tierce. Now this castle belonged to one of the Orsini family, by name Lionello di Campodifiore, and there by chance was his wife, a very pious and good lady, who, seeing the girl, knew her forthright and received her with joy and would fain know orderly how she came thither. Agnolella told her all and the lady, who knew Pietro on like wise, as being a friend of her husband's, was grieved for the ill chance that had betided and hearing where he had been taken, doubted not but he was dead; wherefore she said to Agnolella, 'Since thou knowest not what is come of Pietro, thou shalt abide here till such time as I shall have a commodity to send thee safe to Rome.'

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  On the other hand, I delighted in imagining situations in which I myself was dying in battle or being murdered. And yet I had an abnormally strong fear of death. One day I would bully a maid to tears, and the next morning I would see her serving breakfast with a cheerfully smiling face, as though nothing had happened. Then I would read all manner of evil meanings into her smiles. I could not believe them to be other than the diabolical smiles that come from being fully confident of victory. I was sure she was plotting to poison me out of revenge. Waves of fear billowed up in my breast. I was positive the poison had been put in my bowl of broth, and I would not have touched it for all the world. I ended many such meals by jumping up from the table and staring hard at the maid, as though to say "So there!" It seemed to me that the woman was so dismayed at this thwarting of her plans for poisoning me that she could not rise, but was only staring from across the table at the broth, now become completely cold, with some dust floating on its surface, and telling herself I'd left too much for the poison to be effective. Out of concern for my frail health and also to keep me from learning bad things, my grandmother had forbidden me to play with the neighborhood boys, and my only playmates, excepting maids and nurses, were three girls whom my grandmother had selected from the girls of the neighborhood. The slightest noise affected my grandmother's neuralgia—the violent opening or closing of a door, a toy bugle, wrestling, or any conspicuous sound or vibration whatsoever—and our playing had to be quieter than is usual even among girls. Rather than this I preferred by far to be by myself reading a book, playing with my building blocks, indulging in my willful fancies, or drawing pictures. When my sister and brother were born, they were not given over into my grandmother's hands as I had been, and my father saw to it that they were reared with a freedom befitting children. And yet I did not greatly envy them their liberty and rowdiness. But things were different when I went visiting at the homes of my cousins. Then even I was called upon to be a boy, a male. An incident which should be related occurred in the early spring of my seventh year, shortly before I entered primary school, during a visit to the home of a certain cousin whom I shall call Sugiko. Upon our arrival there—my grandmother had accompanied me—my great-aunt had praised me to the skies —"How he's grown! How big he's become!"—and my grandmother had been so taken in by this flattery that she had granted a special dispensation regarding the meals I took there.

• From Between the World and Me (2015)

  Before I could discover, before I could escape, I had to survive, and this could only mean a clash with the streets, by which I mean not just physical blocks, nor simply the people packed into them, but the array of lethal puzzles and strange perils that seem to rise up from the asphalt itself. The streets transform every ordinary day into a series of trick questions, and every incorrect answer risks a beat-down, a shooting, or a pregnancy. No one survives unscathed. And yet the heat that springs from the constant danger, from a lifestyle of near-death experience, is thrilling. This is what the rappers mean when they pronounce themselves addicted to “the streets” or in love with “the game.” I imagine they feel something akin to parachutists, rock climbers, BASE jumpers, and others who choose to live on the edge. Of course we chose nothing. And I have never believed the brothers who claim to “run,” much less “own,” the city. We did not design the streets. We do not fund them. We do not preserve them. But I was there, nevertheless, charged like all the others with the protection of my body. The crews, the young men who’d transmuted their fear into rage, were the greatest danger. The crews walked the blocks of their neighborhood, loud and rude, because it was only through their loud rudeness that they might feel any sense of security and power. They would break your jaw, stomp your face, and shoot you down to feel that power, to revel in the might of their own bodies. And their wild reveling, their astonishing acts made their names ring out. Reps were made, atrocities recounted. And so in my Baltimore it was known that when Cherry Hill rolled through you rolled the other way, that North and Pulaski was not an intersection but a hurricane, leaving only splinters and shards in its wake. In that fashion, the security of these neighborhoods flowed downward and became the security of the bodies living there. You steered clear of Jo-Jo, for instance, because he was cousin to Keon, the don of Murphy Homes. In other cities, indeed in other Baltimores, the neighborhoods had other handles and the boys went by other names, but their mission did not change: prove the inviolability of their block, of their bodies, through their power to crack knees, ribs, and arms. This practice was so common that today you can approach any black person raised in the cities of that era and they can tell you which crew ran which hood in their city, and they can tell you the names of all the captains and all their cousins and offer an anthology of all their exploits.

• From Between the World and Me (2015)

  Now at night, I held you and a great fear, wide as all our American generations, took me. Now I personally understood my father and the old mantra—“Either I can beat him or the police.” I understood it all—the cable wires, the extension cords, the ritual switch. Black people love their children with a kind of obsession. You are all we have, and you come to us endangered. I think we would like to kill you ourselves before seeing you killed by the streets that America made. That is a philosophy of the disembodied, of a people who control nothing, who can protect nothing, who are made to fear not just the criminals among them but the police who lord over them with all the moral authority of a protection racket. It was only after you that I understood this love, that I understood the grip of my mother’s hand. She knew that the galaxy itself could kill me, that all of me could be shattered and all of her legacy spilled upon the curb like bum wine. And no one would be brought to account for this destruction, because my death would not be the fault of any human but the fault of some unfortunate but immutable fact of “race,” imposed upon an innocent country by the inscrutable judgment of invisible gods. The earthquake cannot be subpoenaed. The typhoon will not bend under indictment. They sent the killer of Prince Jones back to his work, because he was not a killer at all. He was a force of nature, the helpless agent of our world’s physical laws.

• From Between the World and Me (2015)

  Once, the Dream’s parameters were caged by technology and by the limits of horsepower and wind. But the Dreamers have improved themselves, and the damming of seas for voltage, the extraction of coal, the transmuting of oil into food, have enabled an expansion in plunder with no known precedent. And this revolution has freed the Dreamers to plunder not just the bodies of humans but the body of the Earth itself. The Earth is not our creation. It has no respect for us. It has no use for us. And its vengeance is not the fire in the cities but the fire in the sky. Something more fierce than Marcus Garvey is riding on the whirlwind. Something more awful than all our African ancestors is rising with the seas. The two phenomena are known to each other. It was the cotton that passed through our chained hands that inaugurated this age. It is the flight from us that sent them sprawling into the subdivided woods. And the methods of transport through these new subdivisions, across the sprawl, is the automobile, the noose around the neck of the earth, and ultimately, the Dreamers themselves. I drove away from the house of Mable Jones thinking of all of this. I drove away, as always, thinking of you. I do not believe that we can stop them, Samori, because they must ultimately stop themselves. And still I urge you to struggle. Struggle for the memory of your ancestors. Struggle for wisdom. Struggle for the warmth of The Mecca. Struggle for your grandmother and grandfather, for your name. But do not struggle for the Dreamers. Hope for them. Pray for them, if you are so moved. But do not pin your struggle on their conversion. The Dreamers will have to learn to struggle themselves, to understand that the field for their Dream, the stage where they have painted themselves white, is the deathbed of us all. The Dream is the same habit that endangers the planet, the same habit that sees our bodies stowed away in prisons and ghettos. I saw these ghettos driving back from Dr. Jones’s home. They were the same ghettos I had seen in Chicago all those years ago, the same ghettos where my mother was raised, where my father was raised. Through the windshield I saw the mark of these ghettos—the abundance of beauty shops, churches, liquor stores, and crumbling housing—and I felt the old fear. Through the windshield I saw the rain coming down in sheets. For David and Kenyatta, who believed BY TA-NEHISI COATES The Water Dancer We Were Eight Years in Power Between the World and Me The Beautiful Struggle ABOUT THE AUTHOR TA-NEHISI COATES is the author of The Beautiful Struggle, We Were Eight Years in Power, and Between the World and Me, which won the National Book Award in 2015. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. He lives in New York City with his wife and son. For news and alerts from Ta-Nehisi Coates, visit ta-nehisicoates.com To inquire about booking Ta-Nehisi Coates for a speaking engagement, please contact the Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau at speakers@penguinrandomhouse.com. [image "Ad for The Water Dancer" file=image_rsrcR2.jpg] [image "Penguin Random House publisher logo" file=image_rsrcR3.jpg] What’s next on your reading list?Discover your next great read! Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author. Sign up now. _140192424_

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  The evening was wonderfully clear and long-lingering, even in the small town. It would be half-light all night. With a face like a mask, from resentment, Hilda started her car again, and the two sped back on their traces, taking the other road, through Bolsover. Connie wore her goggles and disguising cap, and she sat in silence. Because of Hilda's opposition, she was fiercely on the side of the man, she would stand by him through thick and thin. They had their headlights on, by the time they passed Crosshill, and the small lit-up train that chuffed past in the cutting made it seem like real night. Hilda had calculated the turn into the lane at the bridge-end. She slowed up rather suddenly and swerved off the road, the lights glaring white into the grassy, overgrown lane. Connie looked out. She saw a shadowy figure, and she opened the door. "Here we are!" she said softly. But Hilda had switched off the lights, and was absorbed backing, making the turn. "Nothing on the bridge?" she asked shortly. "You're all right," said the man's voice. She backed on to the bridge, reversed, let the car run forwards a few yards along the road, then backed into the lane, under a wych-elm tree, crushing the grass and bracken. Then all the lights went out. Connie stepped down. The man stood under the trees. "Did you wait long?" Connie asked. "Not so very," he replied. They both waited for Hilda to get out. But Hilda shut the door of the car and sat tight. "This is my sister Hilda. Won't you come and speak to her? Hilda! This is Mr. Mellors." The keeper lifted his hat, but went no nearer. "Do walk down to the cottage with us, Hilda," Connie pleaded. "It's not far." "What about the car?" "People do leave them on the lanes. You have the key." Hilda was silent, deliberating. Then she looked backwards down the lane. "Can I back round that bush?" she said. "Oh, yes!" said the keeper. She backed slowly round the curve, out of sight of the road, locked the car, and got down. It was night, but luminous dark. The hedges rose high and wild, by the unused lane, and very dark seeming. There was a fresh sweet scent on the air. The keeper went ahead, then came Connie, then Hilda, and in silence. He lit up the difficult places with a flashlight torch, and they went on again, while an owl softly hooted over the oaks, and Flossie padded silently around. Nobody could speak. There was nothing to say. At length Connie saw the yellow light of the house, and her heart beat fast. She was a little frightened. They trailed on, still in Indian file.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  Moreover, I was a coward. I used to be haunted by the fear of thieves, ghosts, and serpents. I did not dare to stir out of doors at night. Darkness was a terror to me. It was almost impossible for me to sleep in the dark, as I would imagine ghosts coming from one direction, thieves from another and serpents from a third. I could not therefore bear to sleep without a light in the room. How could I disclose my fears to my wife, no child, but already at the threshold of youth, sleeping by my side? I knew that she had more courage than I, and I felt ashamed of myself. She knew no fear of serpents and ghosts. She could go out anywhere in the dark. My friend knew all these weaknesses of mine. He would tell me that he could hold in his hand live serpents, could defy thieves and did not believe in ghosts. And all this was, of course, the result of eating meat. A doggerel of the Gujarati poet Narmad was in vogue amongst us schoolboys, as follows: Behold the mighty Englishman He rules the Indian small, Because being a meat-eater He is five cubits tall. All this had its due effect on me. I was beaten. It began to grow on me that meat- eating was good, that it would make me strong and daring, and that, if the whole county took to meat-eating, the English could be overcome. A day was thereupon fixed for beginning the experiment. It had to be conducted in secret. The Gandhis were Vaishnavas. My parents were particularly staunch Vaishnavas. They would regularly visit the Haveli. The family had even its own temples. Jainism was strong in Gujarat, and its influence was felt everywhere and on all occasions. The opposition to and abhorrence of meat- eating that existed in Gujarat among the Jains and Vaishnavas were to be seen nowhere else in India or outside in such strength. These were the traditions in which I was born and bred. And I was extremely devoted to my parents. I knew that the moment they came to know of my having eaten meat, they would be shocked to death. Moreover, my love of truth made me extra cautious. I cannot say that I did not know then that I should have to deceive my parents if I began eating meat. But my mind was bent on the ‘reform’. It was not a question of pleasing the palate. I did not know that it had a particularly good relish. I wished to be strong and daring and wanted my countrymen also to be such, so that we might defeat the English and make India free. The word ‘Swaraj’ I had not yet heard. But I knew what freedom meant. The frenzy of the ‘reform’ blinded me. And having ensured secrecy, I persuaded myself that mere hiding the deed from parents was no departure from truth.

• From Between the World and Me (2015)

  The boy with the small eyes reached into his ski jacket and pulled out a gun. I recall it in the slowest motion, as though in a dream. There the boy stood, with the gun brandished, which he slowly untucked, tucked, then untucked once more, and in his small eyes I saw a surging rage that could, in an instant, erase my body. That was 1986. That year I felt myself to be drowning in the news reports of murder. I was aware that these murders very often did not land upon the intended targets but fell upon great-aunts, PTA mothers, overtime uncles, and joyful children—fell upon them random and relentless, like great sheets of rain. I knew this in theory but could not understand it as fact until the boy with the small eyes stood across from me holding my entire body in his small hands. The boy did not shoot. His friends pulled him back. He did not need to shoot. He had affirmed my place in the order of things. He had let it be known how easily I could be selected. I took the subway home that day, processing the episode all alone. I did not tell my parents. I did not tell my teachers, and if I told my friends I would have done so with all the excitement needed to obscure the fear that came over me in that moment.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  She wanted desperately not to think, not to fight. She was frantic to succeed. “Damn!” Kay swore softly. “Just when I was about to get my thumb in.” Roxanne began to realize that her own sense of what her body was doing … down there … was not reliable. “Tell me what to do,” she begged Kay. “I want to help you.” “Don’t worry, I’m keepin’ track of you. You don’t have to do anything, just let me do you . Listen to EZ. Let her play with your head, and I’ll take care of your hiney. Gonna take ourselves a long ride together, pretty girl. It takes a while to get where we’re goin’, but I’ve never gotten lost yet.” EZ’s face loomed over her. The gloved hands—leather so thin and soft it clung to her skin—were a vise around her head. She tried to turn her face and kiss the leather. EZ restrained her, laughing. “Ready to fly again?” she said. Roxanne could tell she was excited, painfully, by the way she laughed and the tight grip on her hair. This burst of gaiety frightened her. “Come on! Shove a popper up her nose!” Kay insisted. EZ’s gaze mesmerized Roxanne. The mad little-boy eyes were compelling, sinister in their power, ringed with kohl. “Come with me,” EZ said, and put the silver bullet between their lips. She closed her gloved hand over Roxanne’s nose. This sultry invitation was almost more than Roxanne could bear. Her body ached, then melted under the drug. EZ breathed the amyl into her lungs, held her down and pumped more of it into her when she wanted to refuse. It was rape and communion. Her lips became incredibly soft and tender. Her mouth melted into EZ’s harder, more demanding one. She felt as if EZ were inhaling and exhaling her soul. The awful drug invaded her through the mouth while something that grew relentlessly larger and larger pounded at her ass. The pressure was a sensation she experienced in her cunt and belly as well as her behind. Kay’s hand was in up to the last set of knuckles, and Roxanne felt as if that hand were right up against her cervix and bladder. “I’ve got to pee,” she whispered to EZ. No sympathy came from that gleeful face. “Good,” EZ said. “That’s very good. It means you’re on the brink of losing every ounce of self-control. Go ahead. Piss. Piss right now.” Roxanne bit her lip and shook her head. Was Alex watching? Alex was the only person she had ever done watersports with. After being formally introduced to them by Anne-Marie, of course. Well, there had been that wild and crazy bartender in Atlanta … but they were so drunk, it wasn’t like it was on purpose! “Daddy wouldn’t like it,” she whispered.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  and think of going back to the third standard, feeling that the packing of two years’ studies into a single year was too ambitious. But this would discredit not only me, but also the teacher; because, counting on my industry, he had recommended my promotion. So the fear of the double discredit kept me at my post. When however, with much effort I reached the thirteenth proposition of Euclid, the utter simplicity of the subject was suddenly revealed to me. A subject which only required a pure and simple use of one’s reasoning powers could not be difficult. Ever since that time geometry has been both easy and interesting for me. Samskrit, however, proved a harder task. In geometry there was nothing to memorize, whereas in Samskrit, I thought, everything had to be learnt by heart. This subject also was commenced from the fourth standard. As soon as I entered the sixth I became disheartened. The teacher was a hard taskmaster, anxious, as I thought, to force the boys. There was a sort of rivalry going on between the Samskrit and the Persian teachers. The Persian teacher was lenient. The boys used to talk among themselves that Persian was very easy and the Persian teacher very good and considerate to the students. The ‘easiness’ tempted me and one day I sat in the Persian class. The Samskrit teacher was grieved. He called me to his side and said: ‘How can you forget that you are the son of a Vaishnava father? Won’t you learn the language of your own religion? If you have any difficulty, why not come to me? I want to teach you students Samskrit to the best of my ability. As you proceed further, you will find in it things of absorbing interest. You should not lose heart. Come and sit again in the Samskrit class.’ This kindness put me to shame. I could not disregard my teacher’s affection. Today I cannot but think with gratitude of Krishnashankar Pandya. For if I had not acquired the little Samskrit that I had learnt then, I should have found it

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  In about eight days the sale was executed. There was no building on the land and no tree. But its situation on the bank f the river and its solitude were great advantages. We decided to start by living under canvas, and having a tin shed for a kitchen, till permanent houses were built. The Ashram had been slowly growing. We were now over forty souls, men, women and children, having our meals at a common kitchen. The whole conception about the removal was mine, the execution was as usual left to Maganlal. Our difficulties, before we had permanent living accommodation, were great. The rains were impending, and provisions had to be got from the city four miles away. The ground, which had been a waste, was infested with snakes, and it was no small risk to live with little children under such conditions. The general rule was not to kill the snakes, though I confess none of us had shed the fear of these reptiles, nor have we even now. The rule of not killing venomous reptiles had been practised for the most part at Phoenix, Tolstoy Farm and Sabarmati. At each of these places we had to settle on waste lands. We have had, however, no loss of life occasioned by snakebite. I see, with the eye of faith, in this circumstance the hand of the God of Mercy. Let no one cavil at this, saying that God can never be partial, and that He has no time to meddle with the humdrum affairs of men. I have no other language to express the fact of the matter, to describe this uniform experience of mine. Human language can but imperfectly describe God’s ways. I am sensible of the fact that they are indescribable and inscrutable. But if mortal man will dare to describe them, he has no better medium than his own inarticulate speech. Even if it be a superstition to believe that complete immunity from harm for twenty- five years in spite of a fairly regular practice of non- killing is not a fortuitous accident but a grace of God, I should still hug that superstition. During the strike of the mill-hands in Ahmedabad the foundation of the Ashram weaving shed was being laid. For the principal activity of the Ashram was then weaving. Spinning had not so far been possible for us. 148.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  Mike slid behind the wheel of the car and Joe got in beside him. The highway cop hustled her into the back seat, shut and locked the door, then came around and slid in beside her. He did not put out his cigar. The car’s engine made a low, growling noise, and they began to glide up the hill. “Which precinct?” Mike asked over his shoulder. Joe kept his eyes fixed on the rear-view mirror, which gave him a good view of the back seat. “Let’s drive around,” the cop next to her suggested from behind a cloud of cigar smoke. “There’s plenty more room back here. We might find some other female pervert that needs to be rounded up. The ladies can sit in each other’s laps, put on a little show for us.” The two men in front began to talk aimlessly about small things. She tried to sit forward, but every now and then the car would go over a bump, and she would fall back painfully on her manacled hands. Oddly enough, the handcuffs didn’t seem to get any tighter. Had Mike set the stops? That would be out of character for a dyke-hating cop. Her mood swung between panic, anger, frustration, and laughter, and her jeans seemed awfully tight in the crotch. This was a fetishistic nightmare. Could she survive it? How many faggots would give their eye teeth to be where she was right now? As if you’re above all that, she sneered at herself. Admit it, you’ve ogled the cops all your life. The uniforms, the guns, the muscles, the power to force others to obey. Now you’re closer to more cops than you ever thought possible. You’re scared, but you’re also turned on. Or you’d like to be turned on, but you’re sure they won’t let you enjoy this. This isn’t sexy for them. A plume of pungent smoke interrupted her. She made a face, and he laughed at her. “You don’t like that, do you?” he said lazily. “No,” she said recklessly, staring into his eyes (or where his eyes should be, behind those huge insect mirrors). He put his hand on his crotch, fondled it and squeezed it. “You don’t like this, either, do you?” “No!” Liar, her self-conscience jeered. You love getting fucked. You fantasize about cock and talk dirty about it all the time. But I’m a lesbian, her public persona objected. This doesn’t have anything to do with that, the wiser voice replied. You better listen to me, girl, or you’ll never get out of this alive. Where do you think they’re taking you anyway? Nobody knows where you are. Nobody can help you. They can do anything to you they damned well please. You better consider whether they’d have more fun fucking you or killing you. Because you can be damn sure they’re already wondering. His hand rested over his cock, applying light pressure. She could see a long bulge down his inner thigh.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  The world was so complicated and weird and gruesome! The common people were so many, and really, so terrible. So she thought as she was going home, and saw the colliers trailing from the pits, grey-black, distorted, one shoulder higher than the other, slurring their heavy ironshod boots. Underground grey faces, whites of eyes rolling, necks cringing from the pit roof, shoulders out of shape. Men! Men! Alas, in some ways patient and good men. In other ways, non-existent. Something that men _should_ have was bred and killed out of them. Yet they were men. They begot children. One might bear a child to them. Terrible, terrible thought! They were good and kindly. But they were only half, only the grey half of a human being. As yet, they were "good." But even that was the goodness of their halfness. Supposing the dead in them ever rose up! But no, it was too terrible to think of. Connie was absolutely afraid of the industrial masses. They seemed so _weird_ to her. A life with utterly no beauty in it, no intuition, always "in the pit." Children from such men! Oh God, oh God! Yet Mellors had come from such a father. Not quite. Forty years had made a difference, an appalling difference in manhood. The iron and the coal had eaten deep into the bodies and souls of the men. Incarnate ugliness, and yet alive! What would become of them all? Perhaps with the passing of the coal they would disappear again, off the face of the earth. They had appeared out of nowhere in their thousands, when the coal had called for them. Perhaps they were only weird fauna of the coalseams. Creatures of another reality, they were elementals, serving the elements of coal, as the metal workers were elementals, serving the element of iron. Men not men, but animas of coal and iron and clay. Fauna of the elements, carbon, iron, silicon: elementals. They had perhaps some of the weird inhuman beauty of minerals, the lustre of coal, the weight and blueness and resistance of iron, the transparency of glass. Elemental creatures, weird and distorted, of the mineral world! They belonged to the coal, the iron, the clay, as fish belong to the sea and worms to dead wood. The anima of mineral disintegration! Connie was glad to be home, to bury her head in the sand. She was glad even to babble to Clifford. For her fear of the mining and iron Midlands affected her with a queer feeling that went all over her, like influenza. "Of course I had to have tea in Miss Bentley's shop," she said. "Really! Winter would have given you tea." "Oh yes, but I daren't disappoint Miss Bentley." Miss Bentley was a sallow old maid with a rather large nose and romantic disposition, who served tea with a careful intensity worthy of a sacrament. "Did she ask after me?" said Clifford.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "Why should they know?" she said. "Folks always does," he said fatally. Her lip quivered a little. "Well I can't help it," she faltered. "Nay," he said. "You can help it by not comin'--if yer want to," he added, in a lower tone. "But I don't want to," she murmured. He looked away into the wood, and was silent. "But what when folks find out?" he asked at last. "Think about it! Think how lowered you'll feel, one of your husband's servants." She looked up at his averted face. "Is it," she stammered, "is it that you don't want me?" "Think!" he said. "Think what if folks finds out--Sir Clifford an' a'--an' everybody talkin'--" "Well, I can go away." "Where to?" "Anywhere! I've got money of my own. My mother left me twenty thousand pounds in trust, and I know Clifford can't touch it. I can go away." "But 'appen you don't want to go away." "Yes, yes! I don't care what happens to me." "Ay, you think that! But you'll care! You'll have to care, everybody has. You've got to remember your Ladyship is carrying on with a gamekeeper. It's not as if I was a gentleman. Yes, you'd care. You'd care." "I shouldn't. What do I care about my ladyship! I hate it really. I feel people are jeering every time they say it. And they are, they are! Even you jeer when you say it." "Me!" For the first time he looked straight at her, and into her eyes. "I don't jeer at you," he said. As he looked into her eyes she saw his own eyes go dark, quite dark, the pupil dilating. "Don't you care about a' the risk?" he asked in a husky voice. "You should care. Don't care when it's too late!" There was a curious warning pleading in his voice. "But I've nothing to lose," she said fretfully. "If you knew what it is, you'd think I'd be glad to lose it. But are you afraid for yourself?" "Ay!" he said briefly. "I am. I'm afraid. I'm afraid. I'm afraid o' things." "What things?" she asked. He gave a curious backward jerk of his head, indicating the outer world. "Things! Everybody! The lot of 'em." Then he bent down and suddenly kissed her unhappy face. "Nay, I don't care," he said. "Let's have it, an' damn the rest. But if you was to feel sorry you'd ever done it!" "Don't put me off," she pleaded. He put his fingers to her cheek and kissed her again suddenly. "Let me come in then," he said softly. "An' take off your mackintosh." He hung up his gun, slipped out of his wet leather jacket, and reached for the blankets. "I brought another blanket," he said, "so we can put one over us if we like." "I can't stay long," she said. "Dinner is half-past seven." He looked at her swiftly, then at his watch. "All right," he said.

• From Between the World and Me (2015)

  I don’t know if you remember how the film we saw at the Petersburg Battlefield ended as though the fall of the Confederacy were the onset of a tragedy, not jubilee. I doubt you remember the man on our tour dressed in the gray wool of the Confederacy, or how every visitor seemed most interested in flanking maneuvers, hardtack, smoothbore rifles, grapeshot, and ironclads, but virtually no one was interested in what all of this engineering, invention, and design had been marshaled to achieve. You were only ten years old. But even then I knew that I must trouble you, and this meant taking you into rooms where people would insult your intelligence, where thieves would try to enlist you in your own robbery and disguise their burning and looting as Christian charity. But robbery is what this is, what it always was. [image file=image_rsrcPZ.jpg] At the onset of the Civil War, our stolen bodies were worth four billion dollars, more than all of American industry, all of American railroads, workshops, and factories combined, and the prime product rendered by our stolen bodies—cotton—was America’s primary export. The richest men in America lived in the Mississippi River Valley, and they made their riches off our stolen bodies. Our bodies were held in bondage by the early presidents. Our bodies were traded from the White House by James K. Polk. Our bodies built the Capitol and the National Mall. The first shot of the Civil War was fired in South Carolina, where our bodies constituted the majority of human bodies in the state. Here is the motive for the great war. It’s not a secret. But we can do better and find the bandit confessing his crime. “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery,” declared Mississippi as it left the Union, “the greatest material interest of the world.”