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

  Okay, so Gordy was a human lie detector machine, too. “All right, I lied,” I said. “What is a tautology?” Gordy sighed again. I HATED THAT SIGH! I WANTED TO PUNCH THAT SIGH IN THE FACE! “A tautology is a repetition of the same sense in different words,” he said. “Oh,” I said. What the hell was he talking about? “It’s a redundancy.” “Oh, you mean, redundant, like saying the same thing over and over but in different ways?” “Yes.” “Oh, so if I said something like, ‘Gordy is a dick without ears and an ear without a dick,’ then that would be a tautology.” Gordy smiled. “That’s not exactly a tautology, but it is funny. You have a singular wit.” I laughed. Gordy laughed, too. But then he realized that I wasn’t laughing WITH him. I was laughing AT him. “What’s so funny?” he asked. “I can’t believe you said ‘singular wit.’ That’s sounds like fricking British or something.” “Well, I am a bit of an Anglophile.” “An Anglophile? What’s an Angophile?” “It’s someone who loves Mother England.” God, this kid was an eighty-year-old literature professor trapped in the body of a fifteen-year-old farm boy. “Listen, Gordy,” I said. “I know you’re a genius and all. But you are one weird dude.” “I’m quite aware of my differences. I wouldn’t classify them as weird.” “Don’t get me wrong. I think weird is great. I mean, if you look at all the great people in history—Einstein, Michelangelo, Emily Dickinson—then you’re looking at a bunch of weird people.” “I’m going to be late for class,” Gordy said. “You’re going to be late for class. Perhaps you should, as they say, cut to the chase.” I looked at Gordy. He was a big kid, actually, strong from bucking bales and driving trucks. He was probably the strongest geek in the world. “I want to be your friend,” I said. “Excuse me?” he asked. “I want us to be friends,” I said. Gordy stepped back. “I assure you,” he said. “I am not a homosexual.” “Oh, no,” I said. “I don’t want to be friends that way. I just meant regular friends. I mean, you and I, we have a lot in common.” Gordy studied me now. I was an Indian kid from the reservation. I was lonely and sad and isolated and terrified. Just like Gordy. And so we did become friends. Not the best of friends. Not like Rowdy and me. We didn’t share secrets. Or dreams. No, we studied together. Gordy taught me how to study. Best of all, he taught me how to read. “Listen,” he said one afternoon in the library. “You have to read a book three times before you know it. The first time you read it for the story. The plot. The movement from scene to scene that gives the book its momentum, its rhythm. It’s like riding a raft down a river. You’re just paying attention to the currents. Do you understand that?”

• From The Girls (2016)

  Connie was more uncertain, her face a flickering bulb, coming to full-watt attention when May rattled her bag like a warning bell. The liquid had barely grazed me. It could have been worse, a real soaking instead of this meager attempt, but somehow I longed for the soaking. I wanted the event to be as big and ruthless as the way my humiliation felt. “Have a fun summer,” May trilled, linking arms with Connie. And then they were walking away, their bags jostling and their sandals loud on the sidewalk. Connie turned to glance back at me, but I saw May tug her, hard. The bleed of surf music carried across the road from an open car window—I thought I saw Peter’s friend Henry at the wheel, but maybe that was my imagination. Projecting a larger net of conspiracy onto my childish humiliation, as if that were an improvement. —I kept a lunatic calm on my face, afraid someone might be watching me, alert for signs of weakness. Though I’m sure it was obvious—a tightness in my features, a wounded insistence that I was fine, everything was fine, that it was just a misunderstanding, girlish high jinks between friends. Ha ha ha, like the laugh track on Bewitched that drained the look of horror on Darrin’s marzipan face of any meaning. It had only been two days without Suzanne, but already I had slipped back so easily into the dull stream of adolescent life—Connie and May’s idiot dramas. My mother’s cold hands, sudden on my neck, like she was trying to startle me into loving her. This awful carnival and my awful town. My anger at Suzanne was hard to access, an old sweater packed away and barely remembered. I could think of Russell slapping Helen and it surfaced as a little glitch at the back of certain thoughts, a memory of wariness. But there were always ways I made sense of things. I was back at the ranch the next day. —I found Suzanne on her mattress, bent intently over a book. She never read, and it was odd to see her stilled in concentration. The cover was half-torn and had a futuristic pentagram on it, some blocky white type. “What’s that about?” I asked from the doorway. Suzanne looked up, startled. “Time,” she said. “Space.” The sight of her brought flashes of the night with Mitch, but they were unfocused, like a secondhand reflection. Suzanne didn’t say anything about my absence. About Mitch. All she did was sigh and toss the book down. She lay back on the bed, studying her nails. Pinching the skin of her upper arm. “Flabby,” she declared, waiting for me to protest. As she knew I would. —I had a hard time sleeping that night, shifting on the mattress. I was returned to her. So alert to every cue in her face that I made myself sick, watching her, but happy, too.

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

  I got lucky because my dad’s best friend Eugene just happened to be heading to Spokane. Eugene was a good guy, and like an uncle to me, but he was drunk all the time. Not stinky drunk, just drunk enough to be drunk. He was a funny and kind drunk, always wanting to laugh and hug you and sing songs and dance. Funny how the saddest guys can be happy drunks. “Hey, Junior,” he said. “Hop on my pony, man.” So I hopped onto the back of Eugene’s bike, and off we went, barely in control. I just closed my eyes and held on. And pretty soon, Eugene got me to school. We pulled up in front and a lot of my classmates just stared. I mean, Eugene had braids down to his butt, for one, and neither of us wore helmets, for the other. I suppose we looked dangerous . “Man,” he said. “There’s a lot of white people here.” “Yeah.” “You doing all right with them?” “I don’t know. I guess.” “It’s pretty cool, you doing this,” he said. “You think?” “Yeah, man, I could never do it. I’m a wuss.” Wow, I felt proud. “Thanks for the ride,” I said. “You bet,” Eugene said. He laughed and buzzed away. I walked up to the school and tried to ignore the stares of my classmates. And then I saw Roger walk out the front door. Man, I was going to have to fight. Shit, my whole life is a fight. “Hey,” Roger said. “Hey,” I said. “Who was that on the bike?” he asked. “Oh, that was my dad’s best friend.” “That was a cool bike,” he said. “Vintage.” “Yeah, he just got it.” “You ride with him a lot?” “Yes,” I said. I lied. “Cool,” Roger said. “Yeah, cool,” I said. “All right, then,” he said. “I’ll see you around.” And then he walked away. Wow, he didn’t kick my ass. He was actually nice. He paid me some respect. He paid respect to Eugene and his bike. Maybe Grandma was right. Maybe I had challenged the alpha dog and was now being rewarded for it. I love my grandmother. She’s the smartest person on the planet. Feeling almost like a human being, I walked into the school and saw Penelope the Beautiful. “Hey, Penelope,” I said, hoping that she knew I was now accepted by the dog pack. She didn’t even respond to me. Maybe she hadn’t heard me. “Hey, Penelope,” I said again. She looked at me and sniffed. SHE SNIFFED! LIKE I SMELLED BAD OR SOMETHING! “Do I know you?” she said. There were only about one hundred students in the whole school, right? So of course, she knew me. She was just being a bitch. “I’m Junior,” I said. “I mean, I’m Arnold.” “Oh, that’s right,” she said. “You’re the boy who can’t figure out his own name.” Her friends giggled. I was so ashamed.

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

  She was not shamming, she was really sick. We sent for the doctor, and all night long I cared for her. Toward daylight she grew calmer, and we became reconciled under the influence of that feeling which we called ‘love.’ The next morning, when, after the reconciliation, I confessed to her that I was jealous of Troukhatchevsky, she was not at all embarrassed, and began to laugh in the most natural way, so strange did the possibility of being led astray by such a man appear to her. “‘With such a man can an honest woman entertain any feeling beyond the pleasure of enjoying music with him? But if you like, I am ready to never see him again, even on Sunday, although everybody has been invited. Write him that I am indisposed, and that will end the matter. Only one thing annoys me,—that any one could have thought him dangerous. I am too proud not to detest such thoughts.’ “And she did not lie. She believed what she said. She hoped by her words to provoke in herself a contempt for him, and thereby to defend herself. But she did not succeed. Everything was directed against her, especially that abominable music. So ended the quarrel, and on Sunday our guests came, and Troukhatchevsky and my wife again played together.” CHAPTER XXI. “When we moved to Moscow, this gentleman—his name was Troukhatchevsky—came to my house. It was in the morning. I received him. In former times we had been very familiar. He tried, by various advances, to re-establish the familiarity, but I was determined to keep him at a distance, and soon he gave it up. He displeased me extremely. At the first glance I saw that he was a filthy débauché . I was jealous of him, even before he had seen my wife. But, strange thing! some occult fatal power kept me from repulsing him and sending him away, and, on the contrary, induced me to suffer this approach. What could have been simpler than to talk with him a few minutes, and then dismiss him coldly without introducing him to my wife? But no, as if on purpose, I turned the conversation upon his skill as a violinist, and he answered that, contrary to what I had heard, he now played the violin more than formerly. He remembered that I used to play. I answered that I had abandoned music, but that my wife played very well. “Singular thing! Why, in the important events of our life, in those in which a man’s fate is decided,—as mine was decided in that moment,—why in these events is there neither a past nor a future? My relations with Troukhatchevsky the first day, at the first hour, were such as they might still have been after all that has happened.

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

  This ingenuous defense merely excited laughter; I was assured I'd not been alone, that they were certain I had accomplices to whom, as I fled, I had transferred the stolen funds. Then the malicious Dubois, who knew of the brand which to my misfortune Rodin had burned upon my flesh long ago, in one instant Dubois put all sympathy to rout. "Monsieur," said she to the officer, "so many mistakes are committed every day in affairs of this sort that you will forgive me for the idea that occurs to me: if this girl is guilty of the atrocity she is accused of it is surely not her first; the character required to execute crimes of this variety is not attained in a night: and so I beg you to examine this girl, Monsieur... were you to find, by chance, something upon her wretched body... but if nothing denounces her, allow me to defend and protect her." The officer agreed to the verification... it was about to be carried out... "One moment, Monsieur," said I, "stay; this search is to no purpose; Madame knows full well I bear the frightful mark; she also knows very well what misfortune caused it to be put on me: this subterfuge of hers is the crowning horror which will, together with all the rest, be revealed at Themis' own temple. Lead me away, Messieurs: here are my hands, load them with chains; only Crime blushes to carry them, stricken Virtue is made to groan thereby, but is not terrified." "Truth to tell," quoth Dubois, "I'd never have dreamt my idea would have such success; but as this creature repays my kindness by insidious inculpations, I am willing to return with her if you deem it necessary." "There's no need whatsoever to do so, Madame la Baronne," rejoined the officer, "this girl is our quarry: her avowals, the mark branded on her body, it all condemns her; we need no one else, and we beg your pardon a thousand times over for having caused you this protracted inconvenience." I was handcuffed immediately, flung upon the crupper of one of the constables' mounts, and Dubois went off, not before she had completed her insults by giving a few crowns to my guards, which generously bestowed silver was to aid me during my melancholy sojourn while awaiting trial. O Virtue! I cried when I perceived myself brought to this dreadful humiliation; couldst thou suffer a more penetrating outrage? Were it possible that Crime might dare affront thee and vanquish thee with so much insolence and impunity!

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

  In Iran, Reza Khan courted the Westernized upper and middle classes but took no interest in the peasant masses, who therefore relied more than ever on the ulema. Two nations were developing in the country, one modernized, the other excluded from the benefits of modernity and cruelly deprived of the religious traditions that gave their life meaning. Determined to base the state’s identity on ancient Persian culture rather than on Islam, Reza summarily outlawed the ashura mourning rituals for Husain, forbade Iranians to make the hajj, and drastically curtailed the scope of the Shariah courts. When Ayatollah Modarris objected, he was imprisoned and executed. 45 In 1928 Reza issued the Laws on the Uniformity of Dress, and with their bayonets his soldiers tore off the women’s veils and ripped them to pieces in the street. 46 On Ashura 1929, the police surrounded the prestigious Fayziyah Madrassa in Qum, and when the students spilled out after their classes, they were stripped of their traditional clothes and forced into Western garb. In 1935 the police were ordered to open fire on a crowd who had staged a peaceful demonstration against the dress laws in the holy shrine of the Eighth Imam in Mashhad and killed hundreds of unarmed Iranians. 47 In the West, the secular nation-state had been set up to curb the violence of religion; for many thousands of people in the Middle East, secular nationalism seemed a bloodthirsty, destructive force that deprived them of the spiritual support that had been their mainstay. The Middle East had thus been brutally initiated into the new system of oppression and violence that had come into being during the colonial period. These former provinces of the mighty Ottoman Empire had been aggressively reduced by the colonialists almost overnight to a dependent bloc, their laws replaced by foreign codes, their age-old rituals abolished, and their clergy executed, impoverished, and publicly humiliated. Surrounded by modern buildings, institutions, and Western-style street layouts, people no longer felt at home in their own countries. The effect of their transformation has been compared to watching a beloved friend become slowly disfigured before one’s eyes by mortal sickness. Egypt, always a leader in the Arab world, had had a particularly difficult transition to modernity, with a much longer period of direct Western rule than many other Middle Eastern countries. This persistent foreign presence and the lack of spiritual and moral leadership had created a dangerous malaise in the country and a corrosive sense of humiliation, which neither the British nor the new Egyptian government seemed willing to address. Some reformers belonging to the traditional Egyptian elite tried to counter this growing alienation. Muhammad Abdu (1849–1905), sheikh of Al-Azhar, suggested that modern legal and constitutional arrangements should be linked to traditional Islamic norms that would make them comprehensible.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The same reward was promised to those who took the cross against the Cathari and Waldenses, as to those who went across the seas to fight the intruder upon the Holy Sepulchre. In a general epistle to the faithful, Innocent wrote: — "O most mighty soldiers of Christ, most brave warriors; Ye oppose the agents of anti-Christ, and ye fight against the servants of the old serpent. Perchance up to this time ye have fought for transitory glory, now fight for the glory which is everlasting. Ye have fought for the body, fight now for the soul. Ye have fought for the world, now do ye fight for God. For we have not exhorted you to the service of God for a worldly prize, but for the heavenly kingdom, which for this reason we promise to you with all confidence."1101 Awed by the sound of the coming storm, Raymund offered his submission and promised to crush out heresy. The humiliating spectacle of Raymund’s penance was then enacted in the convent church of St. Gilles. In the vestibule, naked to the waist, he professed compliance with all the papal conditions. Sixteen of the count’s vassals took oath to see the hard vow was kept and pledged themselves to renew the oath every year, upon pain of being classed with heretics. Then holding the ends of a stole, wrapped around the penitent’s neck like a halter, the papal legate led Raymund before the altar, the count being flagellated as he proceeded.1102 Raymund’s submission, however, did not check the muster of troops which were gathering in large numbers at Lyons.1103 In the ranks were seen the archbishops of Rheims, Sens, and Rouen; the bishops of Autun, Clermont, Nevers, Baseur, Lisieux, and Chartres; with many abbots and other clergy. At their side were the duke of Burgundy, the counts of Nevers, St. Pol, Auxerre, Geneva, and Poitiers, and other princes. The soldier, chosen to be the leader, was Simon de Montfort. Simon had been one of the prominent leaders of the Fourth Crusade, and was a zealous supporter of the papacy. He neglected not to hear mass every day, even after the most bloody massacres in the campaigns in Southern France. His contemporaries hailed him as another Judas Maccabaeus and even compared him to Charlemagne.1104 In spite of the remonstrance of Raymund, who had joined the army, the papal legate, Arnold of Citeaux, refused to check its march. Béziers was stormed and horrible scenes followed. The wild soldiery heeded well the legate’s command, "Fell all to the ground. The Lord knows His own."1105 Neither age nor sex was spared. Church walls interposed no protection and seven thousand were put to death in St. Magdalen’s church alone. Nearly twenty thousand were put to the sword. According to the reports of the papal legates, Milo and Arnold, the "divine vengeance raged wonderfully against the city.1106 ...Ours spared neither sex nor condition.

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

  Oh, plenty of people were happy to give me spare change. And more than a few of them gave me candy and spare change. And my dad was home and sober, and he gave me a dollar. He was almost always home and sober and generous on Halloween. A few folks, especially the grandmothers, thought I was a brave little dude for going to a white school. But there were a lot more people who just called me names and slammed the door in my face. And I didn’t even consider what other kids might do to me. About ten o’clock, as I was walking home, three guys jumped me. I couldn’t tell who they were. They all wore Frankenstein masks. And they shoved me to the ground and kicked me a few times. And spit on me. I could handle the kicks. But the spit made me feel like an insect. Like a slug. Like a slug burning to death from salty spit. They didn’t beat me up too bad. I could tell they didn’t want to put me in the hospital or anything. Mostly they just wanted to remind me that I was a traitor. And they wanted to steal my candy and the money. It wasn’t much. Maybe ten bucks in coins and dollar bills. But that money, and the idea of giving it to poor people, had made me feel pretty good about myself. I was a poor kid raising money for other poor people. It made me feel almost honorable. But I just felt stupid and naïve after those guys took off. I lay there in the dirt and remembered how Rowdy and I used to trick-or-treat together. We’d always wear the same costume. And I knew that if I’d been with him, I never would have gotten assaulted. And then I wondered if Rowdy was one of the guys who just beat me up. Damn, that would be awful. But I couldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t believe it. No matter how much he hated me, Rowdy would never hurt me that way. Never. At least, I hope he’d never hurt me. The next morning, at school, I walked up to Penelope and showed her my empty hands. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Sorry for what?” she asked. “I raised money last night, but then some guys attacked me and stole it.” “Oh, my God, are you okay?” “Yeah, they just kicked me a few times.” “Oh, my God, where did they kick you?” I lifted up my shirt and showed her the bruises on my belly and ribs and back. “That’s terrible. Did you see a doctor?” “Oh, they’re not so bad,” I said. “That one looks like it really hurts,” she said and touched a fingertip to the huge purple bruise on my back. I almost fainted. Her touch felt so good. “I’m sorry they did that to you,” she said. “I’ll still put your name on the money when I send it.”

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

  Of course, we weren’t a couple at all, but I still found the need to comment on our common taste. “Hey,” I said. “We have the same costume.” I thought she was just going to sniff at me again, but she almost smiled. “You have a good costume,” Penelope said. “You look really homeless.” “Thank you,” I said. “You look really cute.” “I’m not trying to be cute,” she said. “I’m wearing this to protest the treatment of homeless people in this country. I’m going to ask for only spare change tonight, instead of candy, and I’m going to give it all to the homeless.” I didn’t understand how wearing a Halloween costume could become a political statement, but I admired her commitment. I wanted her to admire my commitment, too. So I lied. “Well,” I said. “I’m wearing this to protest the treatment of homeless Native Americans in this country.” “Oh,” she said. “I guess that’s pretty cool.” “Yeah, that spare change thing is a good idea. I think I might do that, too.” Of course, after school, I’d be trick-or-treating on the rez, so I wouldn’t collect as much spare change as Penelope would in Reardan. “Hey,” I said. “Why don’t we pool our money tomorrow and send it together? We’d be able to give twice as much.” Penelope stared at me. She studied me. I think she was trying to figure out if I was serious. “Are you for real?” she asked. “Yes,” I said. “Well, okay,” she said. “It’s a deal.” “Cool, cool, cool,” I said. So, later that night, I went out trick-or-treating on the rez. It was a pretty stupid idea, I guess. I was probably too old to be trick-or-treating, even if I was asking for spare change for the homeless. Oh, plenty of people were happy to give me spare change. And more than a few of them gave me candy and spare change. And my dad was home and sober, and he gave me a dollar. He was almost always home and sober and generous on Halloween. A few folks, especially the grandmothers, thought I was a brave little dude for going to a white school. But there were a lot more people who just called me names and slammed the door in my face. And I didn’t even consider what other kids might do to me. About ten o’clock, as I was walking home, three guys jumped me. I couldn’t tell who they were. They all wore Frankenstein masks. And they shoved me to the ground and kicked me a few times. And spit on me. I could handle the kicks. But the spit made me feel like an insect. Like a slug. Like a slug burning to death from salty spit. They didn’t beat me up too bad.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Napoleon, hurled into sudden power by the whirlwind of revolution on the wings of his military genius, aimed at the double glory of a second Caesar and a second Charlemagne, and constructed, by arbitrary force, a huge military empire on the basis of France, with the pope as an obedient paid servant at Paris, but it collapsed on the battle fields of Leipzig and Waterloo, without the hope of a resurrection. "I have not succeeded Louis Quatorze," he said, "but Charlemagne." He dismissed his wife and married a daughter of the last German and first Austrian emperor; he assumed the Lombard crown at Milan; he made his ill-fated son "King of Rome" in imitation of the German "King of the Romans." He revoked "the donations which my predecessors, the French emperors have made," and appropriated them to France. "Your holiness," he wrote to Pius VII., who had once addressed him as his "very dear Son in Christ," "is sovereign of Rome, but I am the emperor thereof." "You are right," he wrote to Cardinal Fesch, his uncle, "that I am Charlemagne, and I ought to be treated as the emperor of the papal court. I shall inform the pope of my intentions in a few words, and if he declines to acquiesce, I shall reduce him to the same condition in which he was before Charlemagne."262 It is reported that he proposed to the pope to reside in Paris with a large salary, and rule the conscience of Europe under the military, supremacy of the emperor, that the pope listened first to his persuasion with the single remark: "Comedian," and then to his threats with the reply: "Tragedian," and turned him his back. The papacy utilized the empire of the uncle and the nephew, as well as it could, and survived them. But the first Napoleon swept away the effete institutions of feudalism, and by his ruthless and scornful treatment of conquered nationalities provoked a powerful revival of these very nationalities which overthrew and buried his own artificial empire. The deepest humiliation of the German nation, and especially of Prussia, was the beginning of its uprising in the war of liberation. The German Confederation. The Congress of Vienna erected a temporary substitute for the old empire in the German "Bund" at Frankfort. It was no federal state, but a loose confederacy of 38 sovereign states, or princes rather, without any popular representation; it was a rope of sand, a sham unity, under the leadership of Austria; and Austria shrewdly and selfishly used the petty rivalries and jealousies of the smaller principalities as a means to check the progress of Prussia and to suppress all liberal movements. The New German Empire.

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

  While Julien enjoyed Cardoville and La Rose Saint-Florent, the two libertines inclined over me and one after the other inserted their languishing instruments into my mouth; while I pumped one, I was obliged to go to the rescue of the other and pollute it with my hands, then I had to anoint the member itself and the adjacent parts with an alcoholic liquid I had been given; but I was not to limit myself to sucking, I had to revolve my tongue about the heads and I was required to nibble them with my teeth while my lips squeezed tightly about them. However, our two patients were being vigorously thumped and jolted; Julien and La Rose shifted in order to increase the sensations produced by entrances and exits. When at length two or three homages had flowed into those impure temples I began to perceive a degree of firmness; although the elder of the two, Cardoville's was the first to manifest solidity; he swung his hand and with all the strength at his command slapped one of my titties: that was my reward. Saint-Florent was not far behind him; he repaid my efforts by nearly tearing one of my ears from my head. They backed away, reviewed the situation, and then warned me to prepare to receive the treatment I richly deserved. An analysis of these libertines' appalling language allowed to me to conclude that vexations were about to descend like a hailstorm upon me. To have besought mercy in the state to which they had just reduced me would have been to have further aroused them: and so they placed me, completely naked as I was, in the center of the circle they formed by all four drawing up chairs. I was obliged to parade from one to the next and to receive the penance each in his turn chose to order me to do; I had no more compassion from the youths than from the older men, but 'twas above all Cardoville who distinguished himself by refined teasings which Saint-Florent, cruel as he was, was unable to duplicate without an effort. A brief respite succeeded these vicious orgies, I was given a few instants to catch my breath; I had been beaten black and blue, but what surprised me was that they doctored and healed the damage done me in less time than it had taken to inflict it, whereof not the slightest trace remained. The lubricities were resumed. There were moments when all those bodies seemed to form but one and when SaintFlorent, lover and mistress, received copious quantities of what the impotent Cardoville doled out with sparing economy: the next instant, no longer active but lending himself in every manner, both his mouth and hindquarters served as altars to frightful homages. Cardoville cannot resist such a profusion of libertine scenes.

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

  I noticed that her brows were slightly contracted, and there was an expression of hardness and dominance about her lips which delighted me. All of a sudden she broke out laughing. “So—you are really in love—with me?” “Yes, and I suffer more from it than you can imagine?” “You suffer?” she laughed again. I was revolted, mortified, annihilated, but all this was quite useless. “Why?” she continued, “I like you, with all my heart.” She gave me her hand, and looked at me in the friendliest fashion. “And will you be my wife?” Wanda looked at me—how did she look at me? I think first of all with surprise, and then with a tinge of irony. “What has given you so much courage, all at once?” “Courage?” “Yes courage, to ask anyone to be your wife, and me in particular?” She lifted up the slipper. “Was it through a sudden friendship with this? But joking aside. Do you really wish to marry me?” “Yes.” “Well, Severin, that is a serious matter. I believe, you love me, and I care for you too, and what is more important each of us finds the other interesting. There is no danger that we would soon get bored, but, you know, I am a fickle person, and just for that reason I take marriage seriously. If I assume obligations, I want to be able to meet them. But I am afraid—no—it would hurt you.” “Please be perfectly frank with me,” I replied. “Well then honestly, I don’t believe I could love a man longer than—” She inclined her head gracefully to one side and mused. “A year.” “What do you imagine—a month perhaps.” “Not even me?” “Oh you—perhaps two.” “Two months!” I exclaimed. “Two months is very long.” “You go beyond antiquity, madame.” “You see, you cannot stand the truth.” Wanda walked across the room and leaned back against the fireplace, watching me and resting one of her arms on the mantelpiece. “What shall I do with you?” she began anew. “Whatever you wish,” I replied with resignation, “whatever will give you pleasure.” “How illogical!” she cried, “first you want to make me your wife, and then you offer yourself to me as something to toy with.” “Wanda—I love you.” “Now we are back to the place where we started. You love me, and want to make me your wife, but I don’t want to enter into a new marriage, because I doubt the permanence of both my and your feelings.” “But if I am willing to take the risk with you?”

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

  In this way I was stared at, handled, kissed for thirty minutes and more; during this examination not one lubricious episode was neglected, and I thought it safe to conjecture, upon the basis of those preliminaries, that each had roughly the same Idiosyncrasies. "Well, now," Saint-Florent said to his friend, "did I not tell you she had a splendid ass!" "Yes, by God! her behind is sublime," said the jurist who thereupon kissed it; "I've seen damned few buttocks molded like these: why! look ye! solid and fresh at the same time!... how d'ye suppose that fits with such a tempestuous career ?" "Why, it's simply that she's never given herself of her own accord; I told you there's nothing as whimsical as this girl's exploits! She's never been had but by rape" Ä and then he drives his five fingers simultaneously into the peristyle of Love's temple Ä "but she's been had... unfortunately, for it's much too capacious for me: accustomed to virgins, I could never put up with this." Then, swinging me around, he repeated the same ceremony with my behind wherein he found the same flaws. "Ah well, you know our secret," said Cardoville. "And I'll employ it too," replied Saint-Florent; "and you who have no need of the same resource, you, who are content with a factitious activity which, although painful for the woman, nevertheless brings enjoyment of her to perfection, you, I hope, will not have her till I'm done."

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

  Therefore I assured Saint-Florent's lackey that upon the morrow at eleven o'clock I would take the privilege of going to salute his master; that I congratulated him upon his good fortune, and added that luck had treated me in nothing approaching the same manner. I returned to my room, but I was so preoccupied with what this man might wish to say to me that I slept not a wink all night; the next day I arrived at the indicated address: a superb mansion, a throng of domestics, that insolent canaille's contemptuous glances at the poverty it scorned, everything afflicts me and I am about ready to retreat when up comes the same liveryman who had spoken to me the previous evening, and, reassuring me, he conducts me into a sumptuous drawing room where, although it is nine years since I have set eyes on him, I perfectly recognize my butcher who has now reached the age of forty-five. He does not rise upon my entrance, but gives the order we be left alone, and gestures me to come and seat myself near the vast armchair where he is enthroned. "I wanted to see you again, my child," says he with a humiliating tone of superiority, "not that I thought I had much wronged you, not that a troublesome recollection bids me make restitutions from which I believe my position exempts me; but I remember that, however brief was our acquaintance, you exhibited some parts during it: wit and character are needed for what I have to propose to you and if you accept, the need I will then have of you will insure your discovery of the resources which are necessary to you, and upon which it should be in vain you were to count without signifying your agreement." I wished to reply with some reproaches for the levity of this beginning, but Saint-Florent imposed silence upon me. " 'Tis water under the bridge," says he, "a purely emotional episode, and my principles support the belief I have, that no brake should be applied to passion; when the appetites speak, they must be heard: that's my law. When I was captured by the thieves with whom you were, did you see me burst into tears? Swallow the bitter pill and act with diligence if one is weak, enjoy all one's rights if powerful: that's my doctrine.

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

  However, it was all for naught, submitting to him, I ceased to inflame him; in vain he passed successively from tenderness to rigor... from groveling to tyranny... from an air of decency to the profligate's excesses, in vain, I say, there was nothing for it, we were both exhausted, and happily he was unable to recover what he needed to deliver more dangerous assaults. He gave it up, made me promise to come the next day, and to be sure of me he refused absolutely to give me anything above the sum I owed Desroches. Greatly humiliated by the adventure and firmly resolved, whatever might happen to me, not to expose myself a third time, I returned to where I was lodging. I announced my intentions to Desroches, paid her, and heaped maledictions upon the criminal capable of so cruelly exploiting my misery. But my imprecations, far from drawing the wrath of God down upon him, only added to his good fortune; and a week later I learned this signal libertine had just obtained a general trusteeship from the Government, which would augment his revenues by more than five hundred thousand pounds per annum. I was absorbed in the reflections such unexpected inconsistencies of fate inevitably give rise to, when a momentary ray of hope seemed to shine in my eyes. Desroches came to tell me one day that she had finally located a house into which I could be received with pleasure provided my comportment remained of the best. "Great Heaven, Madame," I cried, transported, throwing myself into her arms, "that condition is the one I would stipulate myself Ä you may imagine how happy I am to accept it." The man I was to serve was a famous Parisian usurer who had become rich, not only by lending money upon collateral, but even by stealing from the public every time he thought he could do so in safety. He lived in the rue Quincampoix, had a third-story flat, and shared it with a creature of fifty years he called his wife and who was at least as wicked as he. "Therese," this miser said to me (such was the name I had taken in order to hide my own), "Therese, the primary virtue in this house is probity; if ever you make off with the tenth part of a penny, I'll have you hanged, my child, d'ye see. The modest ease my wife and I enjoy is the fruit of our immense labors, and of our perfect sobriety.... Do you eat much, little one?" "A few ounces of bread each day, Monsieur," I replied, "water, and a little soup when I am lucky enough to get it." "Soup! Bleeding Christ!

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

  [image file=image_rsrcDZA.jpg] The Middle East had thus been brutally initiated into the new system of oppression and violence that had come into being during the colonial period. These former provinces of the mighty Ottoman Empire had been aggressively reduced by the colonialists almost overnight to a dependent bloc, their laws replaced by foreign codes, their age-old rituals abolished, and their clergy executed, impoverished, and publicly humiliated. Surrounded by modern buildings, institutions, and Western-style street layouts, people no longer felt at home in their own countries. The effect of their transformation has been compared to watching a beloved friend become slowly disfigured before one’s eyes by mortal sickness. Egypt, always a leader in the Arab world, had had a particularly difficult transition to modernity, with a much longer period of direct Western rule than many other Middle Eastern countries. This persistent foreign presence and the lack of spiritual and moral leadership had created a dangerous malaise in the country and a corrosive sense of humiliation, which neither the British nor the new Egyptian government seemed willing to address. Some reformers belonging to the traditional Egyptian elite tried to counter this growing alienation. Muhammad Abdu (1849–1905), sheikh of Al-Azhar, suggested that modern legal and constitutional arrangements should be linked to traditional Islamic norms that would make them comprehensible. As it was, the people were so bewildered by the secular legal system that Egypt was effectively becoming a country without law.48 Lord Cromer, however, who regarded the social system of Islam as “politically and socially moribund,” would have none of it.49 In the same vein, Rashid Rida (1865–1935), Abdu’s biographer, wanted to establish a college where students would be introduced to modern jurisprudence, sociology, and science at the same time as they studied Islamic law, so that it might be possible one day to modernize the Shariah without diluting it and to formulate laws based on authentic Muslim tradition instead of a foreign ideology.50 But these reformers failed to inspire disciples who could carry their ideas forward. Far more successful was Hassan al-Banna (1906–49), founder of the Muslim Brotherhood and one of the more positive “free lances” who would step into the spiritual leadership vacuum created by the modernizers.51 A schoolteacher who had studied modern science, Banna knew that modernization was essential but believed that because Egyptians were deeply religious, it could succeed only if accompanied by a spiritual reformation. Their own cultural traditions would serve them better than alien ideologies that they could never make fully their own. Banna and his friends had been shocked and saddened by the political and social confusion in Egypt and by the stark contrast between the luxurious homes of the British and the hovels of the Egyptian workers in the Canal Zone. One night in March 1928, six of his students begged Banna to take action, eloquently articulating the inchoate distress experienced by so many:

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

  What? Do you still love me, or do you already hate and despise me? Here is the whip—” She handed it to the Greek who quickly stepped closer. “Don’t you dare!” I exclaimed, trembling with indignation, “I won’t permit it—” “Oh, because I don’t wear furs,” the Greek replied with an ironical smile, and he took his short sable from the bed. “You are adorable,” exclaimed Wanda, kissing him, and helping him into his furs. “May I really whip him?” he asked. “Do with him what you please,” replied Wanda. “Beast!” I exclaimed, utterly revolted. The Greek fixed his cold tigerish look upon me and tried out the whip. His muscles swelled when he drew back his arms, and made the whip hiss through the air. I was bound like Marsyas while Apollo was getting ready to flay me. My look wandered about the room and remained fixed on the ceiling, where Samson, lying at Delilah’s feet, was about to have his eyes put out by the Philistines. The picture at that moment seemed to me like a symbol, an eternal parable of passion and lust, of the love of man for woman. “Each one of us in the end is a Samson,” I thought, “and ultimately for better or worse is betrayed by the woman he loves, whether he wears an ordinary coat or sables.” “Now watch me break him in,” said the Greek. He showed his teeth, and his face acquired the blood-thirsty expression, which startled me the first time I saw him. And he began to apply the lash—so mercilessly, with such frightful force that I quivered under each blow, and began to tremble all over with pain. Tears rolled down over my cheeks. In the meantime Wanda lay on the ottoman in her fur-jacket, supporting herself on her arm; she looked on with cruel curiosity, and was convulsed with laughter. The sensation of being whipped by a successful rival before the eyes of an adored woman cannot be described. I almost went mad with shame and despair. What was most humiliating was that at first I felt a certain wild, supersensual stimulation under Apollo’s whip and the cruel laughter of my Venus, no matter how horrible my position was. But Apollo whipped on and on, blow after blow, until I forgot all about poetry, and finally gritted my teeth in impotent rage, and cursed my wild dreams, woman, and love. All of a sudden I saw with horrible clarity whither blind passion and lust have led man, ever since Holofernes and Agamemnon—into a blind alley, into the net of woman’s treachery, into misery, slavery, and death. It was as though I were awakening from a dream.

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

  She got her kazabaika , and put it on. Then she stood in front of me with her arms folded across her chest, and looked at me out of half-closed eyes. “Do you remember the story of the ox of Dionysius?” she asked. “I remember it only vaguely, what about it?” “A courtier invented a new implement of torture for the Tyrant of Syracuse. It was an iron ox in which those condemned to death were to be shut, and then pushed into a mighty furnace. “As soon as the iron ox began to get hot, and the condemned person began to cry out in his torment, his wails sounded like the bellowing of an ox. “Dionysius nodded graciously to the inventor, and to put his invention to an immediate test had him shut up in the iron ox. “It is a very instructive story. “It was you who innoculated me with selfishness, pride, and cruelty, and you shall be their first victim. I now literally enjoy having a human being that thinks and feels and desires like myself in my power; I love to abuse a man who is stronger in intelligence and body than I, especially a man who loves me. “Do you still love me?” “Even to madness,” I exclaimed. “So much the better,” she replied, “and so much the more will you enjoy what I am about to do with you now.” “What is the matter with you?” I asked. “I don’t understand you, there is a gleam of real cruelty in your eyes to-day, and you are strangely beautiful—completely Venus in Furs.” Without replying Wanda placed her arms around my neck and kissed me. I was again seized by my fanatical passion. “Where is the whip?” I asked. Wanda laughed, and withdrew a couple of steps. “You really insist upon being punished?” she exclaimed, proudly tossing back her head. “Yes.” Suddenly Wanda’s face was completely transformed. It was as if disfigured by rage; for a moment she seemed even ugly to me. “Very well, then you whip him!” she called loudly. At the same instant the beautiful Greek stuck his head of black curls through the curtains of her four-poster bed. At first I was speechless, petrified. There was a horribly comic element in the situation. I would have laughed aloud, had not my position been at the same time so terribly cruel and humiliating. It went beyond anything I had imagined.

• From An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness (1995)

  We were in an oceanfront restaurant in Malibu at the time, so—after a brief rundown on my manias, depressions, and suicide attempt—I fixed my eye on a distant pile of rocks out in the ocean and waited for his response. It was a long, cold wait. Finally, I saw tears running down his face, and, although I remember thinking at the time that it was an extreme response—particularly since I had tried to present my manias in as lighthearted a way as possible, and my depressions with some dispassion—I thought it was touching that he felt so strongly about what I had been through. Then Mouseheart, wiping away his tears, told me that he just couldn’t believe it. He was, he said, “deeply disappointed.” He had thought I was so wonderful, so strong: How could I have attempted suicide? What had I been thinking? It was such an act of cowardice, so selfish. I realized, to my horror, that he was serious. I was absolutely transfixed. His pain at hearing that I had manic-depressive illness was, it would seem, far worse than mine at actually having it. For a few minutes, I felt like Typhoid Mary. Then I felt betrayed, deeply embarrassed, and utterly exposed. His solicitude, of course, knew no bounds. Had I really been psychotic? If so, he asked in his soft voice, with seemingly infinite concern, did I really think, under the circumstances, that I was going to be able to handle the stresses of academic life? I pointed out to him, through clenched teeth, that I had in fact handled those particular stresses for many years, and, indeed, if truth be told, I was considerably younger than he was and had, in fact, published considerably more. I don’t really remember much of the rest of the lunch, except that it was an ordeal, and that at some point, with sarcasm that managed to pass him by, I told him that he ought not to worry, that manic-depressive illness wasn’t contagious (although he could have benefited from a bit of mania, given his rather dreary, obsessive, and humorless view of the world). He squirmed in his seat and averted his eyes. A boxed bouquet of a dozen long-stemmed red roses arrived at my clinic the next morning; an abject note of apology was tucked in at the top. It was a nice thought, I suppose, but it didn’t begin to salve the wound inflicted by what I knew had been a candid response on his part: he was normal, I was not, and—in those most killing of words—he was “deeply disappointed.”

• From Going Clear (2013)

  Rinder, De Vocht, Marc Headley—one by one, they found themselves standing alone, behind low cubicle walls, watching the surviving contestants desperately fighting to remain in the Hole rather than be sent off to God knows where. There was a clock over the door marking the hours that passed as the music played on and on then suddenly stopped and the riot began again. As people fell out of the game, COB had airline tickets for distant locations printed up for them at the base’s travel office. There were U-Haul trucks waiting outside to haul away their belongings. “ Is it real to you now?” Miscavige teased. They were told that buses would be ready to leave at six in the morning. Many were in tears. “I don’t see anybody weeping for me,” Miscavige said. The utter powerlessness of everyone else in the room was made nakedly clear to them. The game continued until 4 a.m., when a woman named Lisa Schroer grabbed the final chair. The next morning the whole event was forgotten. No one went anywhere. In several legal declarations he has made over the years, Miscavige has protested, “ I am the ecclesiastical leader of the religion , not the Church.” The distinction is important when the church is dragged into lawsuits or threatened with criminal liability; Miscavige can point to a chart that assigns organizational responsibility to other departments, whereas the sole responsibility of the Religious Technology Center, which he heads, is to protect Scientology doctrine and literature. And yet, Miscavige freely consigned those other department heads to the Hole or sent them to RPF. During the period that the organizational chart was being constantly rearranged, the only reliable posting on the base was his, that of COB RTC; everyone else was constantly being uprooted and repotted in other temporary assignments. There is really only one person in charge of the Church of Scientology. A few days after the musical chairs episode, Miscavige ordered everyone in the Hole to report to Golden Era Productions to stuff CDs into cases. At one point, he began sharply interrogating De Vocht, who was shaken and stuttered in response. According to De Vocht, Miscavige punched him in the face. He felt his head vibrate. He tried to turn away from the next blow, but Miscavige grabbed his neck and shoved him into the floor, pummeling and kicking him.10 De Vocht had served Miscavige for years and had even considered him a friend. He had dedicated his life to Scientology and had been in the Sea Org for nearly thirty years. He recalls thinking, “ Now here I am, being beat up by the top dog in front of my peers.” After the attack, Miscavige continued his speech. De Vocht was so humiliated that he couldn’t bring himself to look at his companions. Finally, he managed a glance at them. Pie faces. Rathbun was there, and at that moment he made a decision.