Humiliation

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 Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  When narcissists are confronted by people who disparage the legitimacy of their extravagant claims, they tend to react badly. They may plunge into depression—or become infuriated. As Gardner explained to the court, when narcissists are belittled or denigrated “they feel horrible. . . . They have this sense they’re either grandiose, perfect, and beautiful people, or absolutely worthless. So if you challenge their grandiosity—these are the words in the diagnostic manual—‘They respond with humiliation or rage.’ Their reaction to criticism is intense. And I think that is a characteristic that’s very clearly demonstrated by Mr. Lafferty.” Gardner described Ron as “a man whose grandiose self had been severely challenged by divorce and by rejection by his community. He was excommunicated. And in those moments of sitting quietly and thinking, he came up with a set of ideas that gave him a sense of release and relief. They’re logical. They may not be based in fact, but it has a logical quality, because it serves his purposes in a very logical way.” A skeptical Mike Esplin demanded, “It’s logical for him?” “For him,” Dr. Gardner asserted. “Any psychiatrist looking at that would say this is a set of defenses he’s using so he doesn’t feel the pain of his loss so much. So he’s created some ideas that are soothing to him. Many people looking at religion would say religion is a set of ideas created by people as a way to soothe them, because we live in a very uncertain and oftentimes tragic world.” Many people would also argue that virtually everyone who has introduced a new framework of religious beliefs to the world—from Jesus to Muhammad to Joseph Smith to Ron Lafferty—fits the diagnosis for narcissistic personality disorder. In the view of psychiatrists and psychologists, any individual who proclaims to be a prophet or guru—who claims to communicate with God—is, almost by default, mentally or emotionally unbalanced to some degree. * As William James wrote in The Varieties of Religious Experience, There can be no doubt that as a matter of fact a religious life, exclusively pursued, does tend to make the person exceptional and eccentric. I speak not now of your ordinary religious believer, who follows the conventional observances of his country, whether it be Buddhist, Christian, or Mohammedan. His religion had been made for him by others, communicated to him by tradition, determined to fixed

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Maso on the other hand suffered not Ribi to speak, but bawled his loudest, whereupon the other but shouted the more. The judge stood up and leaned towards them, so he might the better apprehend what they had to say, wherefore Matteuzzo, watching his opportunity, thrust his hand between the crack of the boards and laying hold of Messer Niccola's galligaskins by the breech, tugged at them amain. The breeches came down incontinent, for that the judge was lean and lank of the crupper; whereupon, feeling this and knowing not what it might be, he would have sat down again and pulled his skirts forward to cover himself; but Maso on the one side and Ribi on the other still held him fast and cried out, 'My lord, you do ill not to do me justice and to seek to avoid hearing me and get you gone otherwhere; there be no writs granted in this city for such small matters as this.' So saying, they held him fast by the clothes on such wise that all who were in the court perceived that his breeches had been pulled down. However, Matteuzzo, after he had held them awhile, let them go and coming forth from under the platform, made off out of the court and went his way without being seen; whereupon quoth Ribi, himseeming he had done enough, 'I vow to God I will appeal to the syndicate!' Whilst Maso, on his part, let go the mantle and said, 'Nay, I will e'en come hither again and again until such time as I find you not hindered as you seem to be this morning.' So saying, they both made off as quickliest they might, each on his own side, whilst my lord judge pulled up his breeches in every one's presence, as if he were arisen from sleep; then, perceiving how the case stood, he enquired whither they were gone who were at difference anent the boothose and the saddle-bags; but they were not to be found, whereupon he began to swear by Cock's bowels that need must he know and learn if it were the wont at Florence to pull down the judges' breeches, whenas they sat on the judicial bench. The Provost, on his part, hearing of this, made a great stir; but, his friends having shown him that this had only been done to give him notice that the Florentines right well understood how, whereas he should have brought judges, he had brought them sorry patches, to have them better cheap, he thought it best to hold his peace, and so the thing went no farther for the nonce." THE SIXTH STORY [Day the Eighth]

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

  But I believe I ought not to leave the Transvaal, so far as it is possible, even if you permit me to return home. Instead of carrying on my work from Natal, as before, I must now do so from here. I must no longer think of returning to India within a year, but must get enrolled in the Transvaal Supreme Court. I have confidence enough to deal with this new department. If we do not do this, the community will be hounded out of the country, besides being thoroughly robbed out of the country, besides being thoroughly robbed. Every day it will have fresh insults heaped upon it. The facts that Mr. Chamberlain refused to see me and that the official insulted me, are nothing before the humiliation of the whole community. It will become impossible to put up with the veritable dog’s life that we shall be expected to lead.’ So I set the ball rolling, discussed things with Indians in Pretoria and Johannesburg and ultimately decided to set up office in Johannesburg. It was indeed doubtful whether I would be enrolled in the Transvaal Supreme Court. But the Law Society did not oppose my application, and the Court allowed it. It was difficult for an Indian to secure rooms for office in a suitable locality. But I had come in fairly close contact with Mr. Ritch, who was then one of the merchants there. Through the good offices of a house agent known to him, I succeeded in securing suitable rooms for my office in the legal quarters of the city, and I started on my professional work. 83QUICKENED SPIRIT OF SACRIFICEBefore I narrate the struggle for the Indian settlers rights in the Transvaal and their dealing with the Asiatic Department, I must turn to some other aspects of my life.Up to now there had been in me a mixed desire. The spirit of self- sacrifice was tempered by the desire to lay by something for the future. About the time I took up chambers in Bombay, an American insurance agent had come there a man with a pleasing countenance and a sweet tongue. As though we were old friends he discussed my future welfare. ‘All men of your status in America have their lives insured. Should you not also insure yourself against the future? Life is uncertain. We in America regard it as a religious obligation to get insured. Can I not tempt you to take out a small policy?’ Up to this time I had given the cold shoulder to all the agents I had met in South Africa and India, for I had though that life assurance implied fear and want of faith in God. But now I succumbed to the temptation of the American agent. As he proceeded with his argument, I had before my mind’s eye a picture of my wife and children. ‘Man, you have sold almost all the ornaments of your wife,’ I said to myself.

• From Post Office (1971)

  I limped through the town and they stared at me, knowing about Joyce, her sex drive, and also that her father and grandfather had more money, land, lakes, hunting preserves than all of them. They pitied and hated me at the same time. A midget was sent to get me out of bed one morning and he drove me all over, pointing out this and that, Mr. so and so, Joyce’s father owns that, and Mr. so and so, Joyce’s grandfather owns that ... We drove all morning. Somebody was trying to scare me. I was bored. I sat in the back seat and the midget thought I was an operator, that I had worked my way into millions. He didn’t know it was an accident, and that I was an ex-mail carrier with seventy-five cents in my pocket. The midget, poor fellow, had a nervous disease and drove very fast, and every so often he’d shake all over and lose control of the car. It went from one side of the road to the other and once scraped along a fence for 100 yards before the midget got control of himself. “HEY! EASY THERE, BUSTER!” I yelled at him from the back seat. That was it. They were trying to knock me off. It was obvious. The midget was married to a very beautiful girl. When she was in her teens she got a coke bottle trapped in her pussy and had to go to a doctor to get it out, and, like in all small towns, the word got around about the coke bottle, the poor girl was shunned, and the midget was the only taker. He’d ended up with the best piece of ass in town. I lit up a cigar Joyce had given me and I told the midget, “That’ll be all, buster. Now see that I get back. And drive slowly. I don’t want to blow this game now.” I played the operator to please him. “Yes, sir, Mr. Chinaski. Yes, sir!” He admired me. He thought I was a son of a bitch. When I got in, Joyce asked, “Well, did you see everything?” “I saw enough,” I said. Meaning, that they were trying to knock me off. I didn’t know if Joyce was in on it or not. Then she started peeling my clothes off and pushing me toward the bed. “Now wait a minute, baby! We’ve already gone twice and it’s not even 2 p.m. yet!” She just giggled and kept on pushing.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  Among those who got burned in the scam was Blackmore’s new mother-in- law, Lavina Stubbs LeBaron—Gwendolyn’s mom. “Heaven sakes alive,” Lavina recalls, “I lost a lot of money in Kenyon’s stupid money program. I sold my house and everything else, and gave all the money to him. Every cent of it disappeared.” Astonishingly, she doesn’t blame Kenyon Blackmore for leaving her penniless. According to Lavina, he “meant well. He was trying to benefit all of us, but then the investments just turned bad or something. I wasn’t mad at Ken, not for that. Not until he took my daughter and all my grandkids to Central America and did all those horrible things to them.” Kenyon’s partner in crime, Bernard Brady, was arrested, tried, and eventually sent to federal prison for six years. But when Blackmore learned of the indictments, he opted to go into hiding instead of surrendering to the police. He ran straight to Mexico, where Gwendolyn and Lavina were waiting to shelter him in Colonia LeBaron. At this point Annie Blackmore, Kenyon’s first wife, still knew nothing of Gwendolyn, the second wife. “God had commanded Ken not to tell me about her,” Annie says bitterly. “The only reason I found out he had married her is because I went down to Mexico to try and talk him into coming back to Utah.” It proved to be an exceedingly humiliating experience for Annie. Not only did she discover that Kenyon had a new wife who was the same age as their oldest daughter, but this young woman had just given birth to a baby daughter of her own with Kenyon. Delivered in Colonia LeBaron exactly three days before Dan Lafferty cut the throats of Brenda and Erica Lafferty, the little girl had been named Evangeline. After failing to persuade Kenyon to return to Utah with her, Annie went home alone, in utter shock. But she couldn’t let herself give up on him. “I was committed to the marriage,” she says. “I didn’t want to be a quitter.” So in January 1985 she went back to Mexico and again asked Kenyon to come home. And this time he agreed. As soon as he crossed the border into El Paso, Texas, however, Kenyon was surrounded by FBI agents and placed in handcuffs. A brother-in-law—one of the investors who had been swindled by Kenyon—had tipped them off. Seeing no alternative, following his arrest Kenyon entered into a plea bargain with the government and was incarcerated in a federal lockup in Tallahassee, Florida.

• From The Ice Storm (1994)

  This ended the conversation. Her mother restrained Wendy in a choke hold. The room turned sideways, and suddenly Wendy was screaming, crying, and being dragged along the front hall. The details she could make out in the midst of this grim procession were strangely satisfying: the Oriental rug in the front hall bunched up under her heels; the morning sun reflected on the brass frame of a mirror in the front hall; her mother’s face, distorted in the frame. Water was dripping somewhere. Her mother’s strength was all out of proportion with her tiny, retiring body. In the bathroom—by the entrance to the basement—her mother held Wendy’s mouth shut, clamped her palm there, and ran the tap with one hand. She immersed a handy little soap ball under the tap, until it had a good head of lather, and then she forced her daughter’s mouth open—Wendy was begging for her not to do it, but these cries were wordless, strangled—and forced the wet, soapy ball into her mouth. Elena held Wendy’s mouth shut again. Wendy might have, ought to have, struck her mother back. She felt in her rage that she ought to have struck her mother, knocked out her straight, white, capped teeth, watched the blood flow across them (those faintly lipsticked teeth, even now faintly lipsticked), stepped over her mother’s body stretched out on the floor—but she didn’t. In an isolated chamber in her heart she complied with this torture. Maybe she had a feeling about what was coming next. She accepted it, accepted her humiliation, and the burning taste in her mouth and throat. Her limbs were weak. At last, her mother released her and she gagged and spit the little, blue soap on the crocheted rug on the floor. She wept. —Let’s have some breakfast, her mother said. Her voice was chilly and strange. Wendy collapsed into a heap on the floor. —Get up now, her mother said. Get up off the floor. But Wendy wouldn’t move. —Pick that up and get up off the floor. She lay there. This time when her mother moved Wendy’s body, when she lifted that frail doll’s body from the bathroom floor, Wendy knew she was barely capable. Her mother’s superhuman strength, the force field of care that surrounded her, these had all failed. Wendy would win in the end, just because she would live longer. This was how family was a bluff, a series of futile power grabs. Love was water torture, and sex was the physical abuse part of love, so sex was the torturous part of torture. Except that family was the worst torture of all.

• From The Ice Storm (1994)

  For the ass-spanking was a regular thing there. These occasions were grandly stylized, full of careful and loving ritual. Wendy’s first spanking was the great organizing event of her early memory, though the crime that precipitated it was long forgotten. Her father carried her into her parents’ bedroom. Her mother stood by, wordlessly. She refused to take down her pants. Her father humiliated her with language until she did so—called her a slut and a hooker and a princess. It wasn’t difficult to degrade her with language—she was four. She took down her pants of her own free will. He then set her across his lap, and her mother presented the hairbrush—in the lore of the family, the bristle side was occasionally used—and, after pausing to contemplate the blank innocence of her hindquarters, her father drove the blunt side of the brush down upon her ass. What was her mother doing? Her nails? Wendy recognized these diverse attentions on her ass, and they had become in some way indistinguishable, one from the other. They had become the Gestalt of her body. Which came first—the good-natured nursing of her mother, or the stern, but thoughtful, beatings of her father—was now unclear. It was all wound up together. What she ate, how she dressed, whether she ventured into the crass world of facial makeup, these seemed unimportant compared to how she attended to that site of medicinal and patriarchal attentions. She was mom and dad’s little piece of ass. So the trip down into the Williamses’ living room had one purpose only. She could hear Sandy crying upstairs now and she could hear Mr. Williams’s escalating monologue. These words had a mumbled, cabalistic sound. Hindu sutras. T.M. Elena Hood gripped her daughter’s wrist tightly. The stark and pristine order of the Williamses’ house surrounded them. In the living room, Elena commanded her to take down her pants. Wendy would have suffered this abuse—it seemed inevitable, almost natural—even though she was fourteen years old, because she had other things on her mind, because it had been a long twenty-four hours. But then she remembered that Mike’s soiled garter belt was still tucked down there, tucked into her ski pants, and this was the one secret she wasn’t going to part with. She refused. —I said take down your pants, please, Elena Hood said. —I’m too old. What are you going to do, Mom, spank me at the prom? Come find me in college so you can spank me? —There’s not going to be a negotiation here. —Why, Mom, what are you going to do, fuck me?

• From The Decameron (1353)

  As soon as the latter came back, Gulfardo, having spied out a time when he was in company with his wife, betook himself to him, together with his comrade aforesaid, and said to him, in the lady's presence, 'Guasparruolo, I had no occasion for the monies, to wit, the two hundred gold florins, thou lentest me the other day, for that I could not compass the business for which I borrowed them. Accordingly, I brought them presently back to thy lady here and gave them to her; wherefore look thou cancel my account.' Guasparruolo, turning to his wife, asked her if she had the monies, and she, seeing the witness present, knew not how to deny, but said, 'Ay, I had them and had not yet remembered me to tell thee.' Whereupon quoth Guasparruolo, 'Gulfardo, I am satisfied; get you gone and God go with you: I will settle your account aright.' Gulfardo gone, the lady, finding herself cozened, gave her husband the dishonourable price of her baseness; and on this wise the crafty lover enjoyed his sordid mistress without cost." THE SECOND STORY [Day the Eighth] THE PARISH PRIEST OF VARLUNGO LIETH WITH MISTRESS BELCOLORE AND LEAVETH HER A CLOAK OF HIS IN PLEDGE; THEN, BORROWING A MORTAR OF HER, HE SENDETH IT BACK TO HER, DEMANDING IN RETURN THE CLOAK LEFT BY WAY OF TOKEN, WHICH THE GOOD WOMAN GRUDGINGLY GIVETH HIM BACK Men and ladies alike commended that which Gulfardo had done to the sordid Milanese lady, and the queen, turning to Pamfilo, smilingly charged him follow on; whereupon quoth he, "Fair ladies, it occurreth to me to tell you a little story against those who continually offend against us, without being open to retaliation on our part, to wit, the clergy, who have proclaimed a crusade against our wives and who, whenas they avail to get one of the latter under them, conceive themselves to have gained forgiveness of fault and pardon of penalty no otherwise than as they had brought the Soldan bound from Alexandria to Avignon.[365] Whereof the wretched laymen cannot return them the like, albeit they wreak their ire upon the priests' mothers and sisters, doxies and daughters, assailing them with no less ardour than the former do their wives. Wherefore I purpose to recount to you a village love-affair, more laughable for its conclusion than long in words, wherefrom you may yet gather, by way of fruit, that priests are not always to be believed in everything. [Footnote 365: Where the papal court then was. See p. 257, note.]

• From Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women (Erotic Fiction) (2006)

  Bluebeard carefully unfastened his wife’s hands and feet and, lifting her into his arms, carried her over to the table with the shackles. He placed her gently on the table, adjusting her body so that she was positioned on her hands and knees, with her legs spread wide apart. Her wrists and ankles were quickly and adeptly fastened to the table. Then Bluebeard gently forced her head down onto the table and placed a clasp of sorts around her neck to hold it in place. She was deeply humiliated and agitated to be bound thus, for in this position her most private parts were especially laid open and visible. With horror she realized that her husband had walked to that end of the table and stood before her at that very moment, examining her. She felt his warm breath on her flesh as he approached nearer, and then something soft and wet touched her exposed area. It took her a moment to realize that it was his tongue, and she moaned with a mixture of pleasure and apprehension. With precision and determination he continued relentlessly, until she was unable to fight off the feelings of arousal that were coming over her. She struggled under the constraints in an effort to enhance her own pleasure. But just before she reached a point of release, her husband stopped, leaving her anxious and fretful. He repeated this process several times, and each time he would test her submissiveness, asking, “Who will you obey from this day forward?” And to each inquiry, what else could she do, besides willingly acknowledge his power and vow to obey him? Bluebeard continued teasing his wife in this manner for what seemed to her like an eternity, but suddenly he stopped abruptly and walked to the other end of the table so that he stood directly in front of her. Slowly he unfastened her neck and lifted her head. His pants had been opened, and his arousal stood within inches of her lips. She hesitated only a moment before she understood what he meant for her to do. Then she took him willingly, eagerly even, for she felt a voracious hunger to please him in any way he would allow. He watched her carefully as she delighted in the pleasure she was giving him. Urgently she struggled to take him as his thrusts became harder and faster, but when he was about to release himself she drew back, just as he had done with her. At that moment their eyes met, and she saw the silent demand in his. Hypnotized by his powerful gaze, she arched her neck in a submissive gesture, voluntarily taking him, and actually savoring him. When he was finished, Bluebeard once again placed his wife’s head gently upon the table and fastened her neck as before. Then he walked out of the room. His wife waited in absolute agony for his return.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "We will see if Duncan will consent to figure as co-respondent: then we must get Clifford to divorce Connie: and you must go on with your divorce, and you must both keep apart till you are free." "Sounds like a lunatic asylum." "Possibly! And the world would look on you as lunatics: or worse." "What is worse?" "Criminals, I suppose." "Hope I can plunge in the dagger a few more times yet," he said grinning. Then he was silent, and angry. "Well!" he said at last. "I agree to anything. The world is a raving idiot, and no man can kill it: though I'll do my best. But you're right. We must rescue ourselves as best we can." He looked in humiliation, anger, weariness and misery at Connie. "Ma lass!" he said. "The world's goin' to put salt on thy tail." "Not if we don't let it," she said. She minded this conniving against the world less than he did. Duncan, when approached, also insisted on seeing the delinquent gamekeeper, so there was a dinner, this time in his flat: the four of them. Duncan was a rather short, broad, dark-skinned, taciturn Hamlet of a fellow with straight black hair and a weird Celtic conceit of himself. His art was all tubes and valves and spirals and strange colours, ultra modern, yet with a certain power, even a certain purity of form and tone: only Mellors thought it cruel and repellent. He did not venture to say so, for Duncan was almost insane on the point of his art; it was a personal cult, a personal religion with him. They were looking at the pictures in the studio, and Duncan kept his smallish brown eyes on the other man. He wanted to hear what the gamekeeper would say. He knew already Connie's and Hilda's opinions. "It is like a pure bit of murder," said Mellors at last; a speech Duncan by no means expected from a gamekeeper. "And who is murdered?" asked Hilda, rather coldly and sneeringly. "Me! It murders all the bowels of compassion in a man." A wave of pure hate came out of the artist. He heard the note of dislike in the other man's voice, and the note of contempt. And he himself loathed the mention of bowels of compassion. Sickly sentiment! Mellors stood rather tall and thin, worn-looking, gazing with flickering detachment that was something like the dancing of a moth on the wing, at the pictures. "Perhaps stupidity is murdered; sentimental stupidity," sneered the artist. "Do you think so? I think all these tubes and corrugated vibrations are stupid enough for anything, and pretty sentimental. They show a lot of self-pity and an awful lot of nervous self-opinion, seems to me." In another wave of hate, the artist's face looked yellow. But with a sort of silent hauteur he turned the pictures to the wall. "I think we may go to the dining-room," he said. And they trailed off, dismally. After coffee, Duncan said:

• From Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women (Erotic Fiction) (2006)

  Tears threatened to gush forth again, but Mouse blinked them back as best she could, determined to maintain an appearance, at least, of internal composure. But with every movement she felt more debased and was quickly giving way to despair. “Left here, if you please,” Cat instructed cheerfully. She abruptly stopped. “But that leads outdoors into the public,” she protested in horror. By some miracle they had avoided seeing anyone in their travels so far, but she knew that the likelihood of seeing other cats and mice would increase tremendously if they left their current shelter. Surely this fiend who was to be her master for the evening would not be so depraved as to force her to accompany him out there! “I know where it leads,” he was saying. “I have a desire for some fresh air, and you shall accompany me.” “But there are cats out there!” She would not—could not—possibly go out there, where everyone would see her in this position and henceforward think of her as a slave. What was she to do? He saw the look of wild desperation on her face, but he could not let up now—not when he had come so far with her. He was determined to have her submit to him fully, and he knew that the only way to accomplish that was to win completely. He was amazed that she had lasted this long. But he knew she could hold out no longer. She would rather do anything than to serve him publicly on her hands and knees. And he certainly had no intention of allowing the other cats to see her so demeaned. With an air of impatience he gently nudged her forward with his leg. “Onward, slave!” he demanded. She didn’t budge. Tears were running down her face. He fought the urge to stop the game and take her in his arms. But there would be plenty of time for that later, and he forced himself to give her another nudge. “Let’s go, wench.” But his voice was losing its authority. He was astounded by her stubbornness. Take the challenge, he mentally implored her; you will still lose, but at least you’ll do so with a little more dignity. “I’ll take the challenge,” she choked between sobs. He let out a sigh. “Stand up, then,” he said, feigning indifference. “Unless you’ve grown to like it down there.”

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

  But the path of self-purification is hard and steep. To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion. I know that I have not in me as yet that triple purity, in spite of constant ceaseless striving for it. That is why the world’s praise fails to move me, indeed it very often stings me. To conquer the subtle passions to me to be harder far than the physical conquest of the world by the force of arms. Ever since my return to India I have had experience of the dormant passions lying hidden with in me. The knowledge of them has made me feel humiliated though not defeated. The experiences and experiments have sustained me and given me great joy. But I know that I have still before me a difficult path to traverse. I must reduce muself to zero. So long as a man does not of his own free will put himself last among his fellow creatures, there is no salvation for him. Ahimsa is the farthest limit of humility. In bidding farewell to the reader, for the time being at any rate, I ask him to join with me in prayer to the God of Truth that He may grant me the boon of Ahimsa in mind, word and deed.

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

  At that time I knew very few Europeans. I met one of them. He very kindly agreed to take on Balasundaram. I gratefully acknowledged his kindness. The magistrate convicted Balasundaram’s employer, and recorded that he had undertaken to transfer the indenture to someone else. Balasundaram’s case reached the ears of every indentured labourer, and I came to be regarded as their friend. I hailed this connection with delight. A regular stream of indentured labourers began to pour into my office, and I got the best opportunity of learning their joys and sorrows. The echoes of Balasundaram’s case were heard in far off Madras. Labourers from different parts of the province, who went to Natal on indenture, came to know of this case through their indentured brethren. There was nothing extraordinary in the case itself, but the fact that there was someone in Natal to espouse their cause and publicly work for them gave the indentured labourers a joyful surprise and inspired them with hope. I have said that Balasundaram entered my office, head- gear in hand. There was a peculiar pathos about the circumstance which also showed our humiliation. I have already narrated the incident when I was asked to take off my turban. A practice had been forced upon every indentured labourer and every Indian stranger to take off his head- gear when visiting a European, whether the head-gear were a cap, a turban or a scarf wrapped round the head. A salute even with both hands was not sufficient. Balasundaram thought that he should follow the practice even with me. This was the first case in my experience. I felt humiliated and asked him to tie up his scarf. He did so, not without a certain hesitation, but I could perceive the pleasure on his face. It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings. 48THE £ 3 TAXBalasundaram’s case brought me into touch with the indentured Indians. What impelled me, however, to make a deep study of their condition was the campaign for bringing them under special heavy taxation. In the same year, 1894, the Natal Government sought to impose an annual tax of £ 25 on the indentured Indians. The proposal astonished me. I put the matter before the Congress for discussion, and it was immediately resolved to organize the necessary opposition. At the outset I must explain briefly the genesis of the tax. About the year 1860 the Europeans in Natal, finding that there was considerable scope for sugarcane cultivation, felt themselves in need of labour. Without outside labour the cultivation of cane and the manufacture of sugar were impossible, as the Natal Zulus were not suited to this form of work. The Natal Government therefore corresponded with the Indian Government, and secured their permission to recruit Indian labour.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  For this reason, the gossip was humiliating. And for the same reason, most novels, especially popular ones, are humiliating too. The public responds now only to an appeal to its vices. Nevertheless, one got a new vision of Tevershall village from Mrs. Bolton's talk. A terrible, seething welter of ugly life it seemed: not at all the flat drabness it looked from outside. Clifford of course knew by sight most of the people mentioned, Connie knew only one or two. But it sounded really more like a Central African jungle than English village.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  Don, that bastard, noticed, and moved in closer to watch. “You almost got her,” he said. “Honey, wouldn’t it be humiliating if we got you to like dick so much you just couldn’t do without it? Just imagine, hunting for it in dark bars and dirty alleys, looking for a joystick to sit on, looking for some man with a big, hard dick to hold your legs apart and sink it in, being obsessed with cock, needing it and hating it at the same time. Coming around it. Being addicted to it. Needing it there to come around. Like you need it now, to come around, to fuck you and grind you down and make you holler and groan.” He put one foot up on the bed, then gradually insinuated the toe of his boot between her legs, nudging Mike’s fingers aside. At the feel of that smooth boot leather against her clit, she couldn’t hold back any more. She mashed her pussy down onto it, cried to be fucked, and came each time Mike’s long cock slammed past her cervix. ‘At least,’ she thought, ‘I didn’t come for this fucker behind me, I came because Don’s boot was pressing against me.’ It was small consolation. The humiliation lingered, and it lit a fire that made her orgasm dwindle into irritation. She wanted more. Joe came back with a paper cup of water and held it for her to drink while Mike turned her loose. When he went to remove the nipple clamps, Don said, “Don’t. Leave them on. You, cunt. Go squat and piss.” She trotted into the bathroom and left the door open without being told. It was hard to get it started, with her insides rearranged and all of them staring at her. Finally, a hot stream spurted out. Before she got a chance to wipe herself, Don had her in handcuffs and headed toward the cage. He was impatient to get going. That meant he was planning to have a lot of fun. Shit. “You two climb into bed and amuse yourselves,” he called over his shoulder. He opened the cage door and thrust her inside, locked it, then reached through the bars for her tits. He had some chain and padlocks in his hand. In seconds, she was chained to the bars by her tits. Her ass pressed against the bars on the opposite side of the cage. He removed one handcuff, passed it around a bar, and put it back around her wrist. She could not straighten up because of the way her tits were chained, and she could not crouch either. Her ass was held in an inviting position, and with her hands cuffed behind her back, there was nothing she could do about it. Except suffer. Which she did, grudgingly.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  The patrolman moved behind him and took him in his arms. The black-gloved hands unbuttoned his shirt and began to play with his flat nipples, barely visible in the mat of chest hair. Suddenly, she had more cock than she could handle. Mike gripped her to him, refusing to let her get away, and pumped into her throat. The harder Don worked on his tits, the harder he got and the deeper he thrust into her soft tissues. She felt like an Accu-jac, a convenient sex toy being used to help these two men get off with each other. Mike had only one hand on her head now, and she could see that the other one was behind him, busily working Don up to full erection. Now Don’s hands were on Mike’s cock, and he was jerking him off, slowly and insistently milking his rosy shaft. “I’m going to jerk him off in your mouth,” he told her coldly. “Isn’t that exciting? Pinch your own tits, Mike. I want you to fill up that scumbag with fresh spunk. You better produce a lot of cream, boy, or it’s your ass. You, cocksucker, don’t take that rubber off him until I can see the size of his load.” They continued that way—Mike pulling on his own tits, Don pumping his cock, her twirling her tongue around the head of Mike’s dick—until he came, copiously, and sagged, weak in the knees. “God, it’s hard to come standing up,” he complained. Don let go of him, grabbed the prophylactic and slid it off. “You forgot to say thank you,” he grinned. “Now git down on the floor next to her.” Mike hesitated, and his face turned red. Don shouted, “I said kneel, you punk!” Mike obeyed him with bad grace, giving her one furious glance that wiped the smile off her face. Don took Mike’s face in his big hands and forced his mouth open. “Swallow it,” Don said, squeezing the contents of the used rubber onto his tongue. He did, grimacing. She could only imagine how your own cum would taste, cold. Don’s hard-on was in her face, and she transferred her attention to it. Mike mumbled, “Thank you, sir,” with obvious lack of sincerity, and got to his own feet while Don reached down for her and helped her up.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  After they were all gone, and the two rogues left alone with Calandrino, Buffalmacco said to him, 'I still had it for certain that it was thou tookst the pig thyself and wouldst fain make us believe that it had been stolen from thee, to escape giving us one poor while to drink of the monies thou hadst for it.' Calandrino, who was not yet quit of the bitter taste of the aloes, began to swear that he had not had it, and Buffalmacco said, 'But in good earnest, comrade, what gottest thou for it? Was it six florins?' Calandrino, hearing this, began to wax desperate, and Bruno said, 'Harkye, Calandrino, there was such an one in the company that ate and drank with us, who told me that thou hast a wench over yonder, whom thou keepest for thy pleasure and to whom thou givest whatsoever thou canst scrape together, and that he held it for certain that thou hadst sent her the pig. Thou hast learned of late to play pranks of this kind; thou carriedst us off t'other day down the Mugnone, picking up black stones, and whenas thou hadst gotten us aboard ship without biscuit,[384] thou madest off and wouldst after have us believe that thou hadst found the magic stone; and now on like wise thou thinkest, by dint of oaths, to make us believe that the pig, which thou hast given away or more like sold, hath been stolen from thee. But we are used to thy tricks and know them; thou shalt not avail to play us any more of them, and to be plain with thee, since we have been at pains to make the conjuration, we mean that thou shalt give us two pairs of capons; else will we tell Mistress Tessa everything.' Calandrino, seeing that he was not believed and himseeming he had had vexation enough, without having his wife's scolding into the bargain, gave them two pairs of capons, which they carried off to Florence, after they had salted the pig, leaving Calandrino to digest the loss and the flouting as best he might." [Footnote 384: _i.e._ embarked on a bootless quest.] THE SEVENTH STORY [Day the Eighth] A SCHOLAR LOVETH A WIDOW LADY, WHO, BEING ENAMOURED OF ANOTHER, CAUSETH HIM SPEND ONE WINTER'S NIGHT IN THE SNOW AWAITING HER, AND HE AFTER CONTRIVETH, BY HIS SLEIGHT, TO HAVE HER ABIDE NAKED, ALL ONE MID-JULY DAY, ON THE SUMMIT OF A TOWER, EXPOSED TO FLIES AND GADS AND SUN

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  For this reason, the gossip was humiliating. And for the same reason, most novels, especially popular ones, are humiliating too. The public responds now only to an appeal to its vices. Nevertheless, one got a new vision of Tevershall village from Mrs. Bolton's talk. A terrible, seething welter of ugly life it seemed: not at all the flat drabness it looked from outside. Clifford of course knew by sight most of the people mentioned, Connie knew only one or two. But it sounded really more like a Central African jungle than English village.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  So Berenice kissed me on the forehead, gave me a bonbon, then put me on the sofa with my sewing box and a glove that needed mending. After she left the room, I fell into a reverie. I was exhausted by my tears and without meaning to, I fell sound asleep. I was awakened by Berenice calling me to dress for dinner. When she saw I had not completed the sewing, she was not angry, but said calmly that it looked as if I needed a demonstration of the terms of our agreement. “We went to dinner with Mamma and a railroad magnate who was trying to get her to star in a light musical comedy written by his oldest son. That very evening, Berenice tied me to our bed and spanked me with her own hand, on my bare bottom! I was terribly humiliated. I had never been tied up before, and certainly never been struck on my naked flesh. After she untied me, she insisted on being thanked and ordered me to kiss her all over. Instead of refusing or performing a perfunctory job, I found myself crying out passionately, fondling myself while I knelt and suckled, pleading with her to possess me completely. ‘That is just what I intend to do,’ she told me. ‘I don’t know exactly how yet, but I will learn. I will learn from you how to keep you under my dominance and make you love me, and we will never be parted, dear sister. You will always belong to me.’” Elise stopped to pour another waffle for Clarissa and refill their mugs with hot coffee. Clarissa jiggled impatiently in her chair until Elise was settled once more at the table and ready to resume her tale. “Hurry,” she urged. “I don’t want Aunt Jennifer to come and spoil the story.” Elise smiled. “I’ll try to finish. But I told you it was long. Let me see. Where was I? Oh, yes. Well, in the days that followed, I tried to please her in the smallest thing. But when the mood was on her to see me cry out and struggle, she could always detect some fault that required correction. Gradually, we began to play the game of discipline for its own sake. I fell more and more in love with Berenice, and would endure the most ingenious and barbaric tortures for the sake of her kiss and smile. Mamma was very pleased with the change in us. We no longer bothered her with our petty quarrels, and everyone could tell how fond we were of each other. “The idyll continued until I was eighteen.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  EZ had Roxanne’s face between her hands and was spitting invectives at her, alternating between threats and flattery. Roxanne was fascinated by her scowling face. It looked like a choirboy on speed, and sounded as if her mind was as spiky and messed-up as her hair. “Wiggle your ass down here,” Kay growled. Roxanne slid toward her. She dug into the grease again, came up with a good-sized handful, and plastered it into the crack of Roxanne’s butt. Chris was entwined in Michael’s arms, and they were trying to suck each other’s tongues out. Joy nudged Alex when she caught her watching them. “Your woman got us all so hot mos’ anything could happen,” she said. “It’s hard to wait my turn.” “Shit,” Alex said, and took her by the waist, “why wait when you could take a turn with me?” The throat under her mouth was smooth as glass, but soft and warm, so full of life that the very pulse within it seemed to kiss her back. Joy’s hands went around her, inside her jacket, and the nails left trails of pain even through Alex’s T-shirt. “Shall I claw it off your back?” Joy teased her, putting a finger in her ear and tickling the tiny opening. “Get me started an’ not finish, what else you suppose I should do?” “Don’t believe in starting what I don’t finish,” Alex said, twisting her hipbone into the fur bikini. “Ooh-la-la, a mighty woman of principle and purpose,” Joy said, evading her. “You bettah watch that smoke and smolder, or I lose my sense of direction, mebbe follow you into the cornfields an’ we rub ourselves ’til we catch on fire, burn the whole damn thing to the ground.” On her back, Roxanne could not keep track of the pack unless they wandered right up to the sling. Nevertheless, she felt surrounded by her captors, could sense their dark and predatory presence. She imagined them moving arrogantly, examining her with amused objectivity, sure of their power and her compliance. Occasionally they commented on the scene or uttered delighted words of encouragement to Kay and EZ. But these conversations were among themselves, intended only for each other’s ears, and Roxanne could not always catch what they were saying. Kay began to pop grease up her ass with her thumb. When she was entered, there was friction and heat. When Kay pulled out, there was a sensation of relief and cold from the gobs of grease. It was humiliating, swinging in mid-air with her limbs strapped down, getting her ass stuffed with Crisco like a turkey getting stuffed with dressing. She struggled, but she could not free her hands. It was easier (and wiser) to let the sling bear her up, and subside into passivity. Kay’s face was a mask—cold, withdrawn, unimpressed, maybe even bored. All her passion was in her hands, the fingers switching places in her ass.