Jealousy

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)

  Debbie remembers being confronted afterward by Michelle, “her face black with rage and pain, spitting out her venomous jealousy: ‘You are a harlot and a whore, and because you tempted Michael to have sex with you while you are pregnant, he is an adulterer, and my chance to be exalted is gone! I’m going to tell Winston, and you’re going to be in big trouble.’” Michelle did, and Debbie was. In 1986 Uncle Roy died, and Rulon Jeffs became the UEP’s new prophet. In the climate of upheaval that followed, there was turmoil in both Bountiful and Colorado City. Because Michael worked outside of the community, among Gentiles, he fell out of favor and was secretly voted out of the priesthood. He was crushed when he learned of his rejection, and the disappointment triggered a latent instability in his personality. Michael became emotionally withdrawn and angry. He sexually molested one of Debbie’s sons, as well as another boy outside of the family. On October 27, 1986, Debbie’s daughter Sharon was lying in bed with a high fever. Michael went into her bedroom, Debbie says, “and began wiping her face with a cold cloth. Then he took the nightgown off her thirteen-year-old body and washed first her back, then her breasts. When she asked him to stop he acted like he didn’t hear her and kept doing it. He washed her over and over, and then put the nightgown back on her and put her between his legs on the carpet and continued to massage her breasts and scalp.” After blurting out to her mother what Michael had done, Sharon cried uncontrollably for weeks. She told Debbie that she was “terrified she would have to marry Michael, because some of her friends in Colorado City had had to marry their stepfathers after being molested by them.” In December 1987, Winston ordered Sharon—who was his half sister—to move out of Debbie’s house and move in with him. When Debbie learned of this, she says, “I went wild. I’d seen him take so many women’s children away from them, and I wasn’t going to let him take Sharon. I went straight down to Winston’s house and confronted him. He was in bed. I stormed into his bedroom and started screaming that there was no way he was going to get Sharon.” Debbie vividly remembers the reaction this provoked in Winston, who was unaccustomed to having a woman disobey him. “He issued a clear, unmistakable threat,” she says. “This cold look came into Winston’s eyes and he told me, ‘You might want to be careful. . . . I’ve got at least six boys who will rearrange your face if I just give them the word.’” Debbie stood her ground. “Sharon will come here and live with you,” she vowed, “only over my dead body.” And then she walked out and went home.

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  Genesis reflects a form of popular, family religion that flourished before the Deuteronomic reform. One cannot, however, take these stories as a reliable or full account of Israelite religion in any period. They are stories about a past, which was always idealized to some extent, and may have been edited to some degree besides. They are of some value to the historian of religion, but that value is limited by the lack of explicit historical data. Genesis as Religious Narrative Regardless of their historical value, the tales of the patriarchs remain powerful as stories. In large part this is because, like all good folklore, they touch on perennial issues, such as jealousy between a woman and her rival (Sarah and Hagar) or rivalry between brothers (Jacob and Esau). Many of the stories are entertaining—Abraham’s ability to outwit the pharaoh or the gentle story of Isaac and Rebekah in Genesis 24. Others are tales of terror, in the phrase of Phyllis Trible—the command to Abraham to sacrifice his only son, or Lot’s willingness to sacrifice his daughters to the men of Sodom (Genesis 19). When the stories are read as Scripture, they become more problematic because of a common but ill-founded assumption that all Scripture should be edifying. The stories of Genesis are often challenging and stimulating, but they seldom if ever propose simple models to be imitated.

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  consolidated, however, she is cursed with childlessness, ostensibly for disapproving of David dancing before the ark. The story may be intended to defend David from allegations that he used Michal and dumped her when he no longer needed her, but it is difficult not to read between the lines and suspect that he was motivated by political expediency. The stories of interaction between David and Saul in 1 Samuel 19–24 provide the closest analogies to the genre of apology, or justification of the actions of a king who might be accused of usurping the throne. Saul repeatedly tries to kill David for no reason other than jealousy. Saul’s own family, Jonathan and Michal, side with David in the conflict. Saul commits an outrage by slaughtering the priests of Nob (a shrine north of Jerusalem, near Gibeah) for befriending and defending David. Nonetheless, when David has Saul at his mercy, he refrains, declaring, “I will not raise my hand against the L ORD ’s anointed” (24:10). Even Saul acknowledges that “you are more righteous than I” (24:17). Finally, Saul acknowledges that David will succeed to the kingship and asks only that David not kill his descendants and “wipe out my name from my father’s house.” It was not unusual in the ancient world (nor indeed at much later times) for a new king to wipe out anyone who might pose a challenge to his throne. Yet we find that Saul pursues David again in chapter 26, and David again refrains from killing Saul when he has an opportunity.

• From Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017)

  55I am full of longing and I am full of envy and so much of my envy is terrible. I watch a Nightline special—an exposé on the horrors of eating disorders. I am morbidly fascinated by such programs and their human subjects. There is something about the gaunt faces and sharply angled bodies of anorexic girls that at once attracts and repulses me. I wonder what holds their bodies together. I envy the way their flesh is stretched taut against their brittle bones. I envy the way their clothes hang listlessly from their bodies, as if they aren’t even being worn but, rather, floating—a veritable vestment halo rewarding their thinness. The reporter speaks with disdain about the rigorous exercise regimens these girls put themselves through, the starvation, the obsession with their bodies. And still, I am envious because these girls have willpower. They have the commitment to do what it takes to have the bodies they want. I ignore their thinning hair, rotting teeth, internal organs dissolving into mushy nothing. I prefer, instead, to obsess over their bodies the way others obsess over mine. I tell myself that soon, I am going to be that girl who eats a saltine cracker and says she’s full. I will be that girl who spends hours at the gym, draped in oversized clothing. I will be the girl carefully purging unnecessary calories from her body with a well-placed finger down the throat. I will be the girl everyone loves to hate to love as my teeth yellow and my hair falls out but my body finally begins to become more acceptable, until my body withers and then disappears, stops taking up space. Somehow, I never become that girl. And then I hate myself for wanting something so terrible and I rage at the world that hates me for my body and how it is so markedly visible and the same world that forces too many girls and women to try their best to disappear. My rage is often silent because no one wants to hear fat-girl stories of taking up too much space and still finding nowhere to fit. People prefer the stories of the too-skinny girls who starve themselves and exercise too much and are gray and gaunt and disappearing in plain sight. 56I often feel ravenous even if I am not hungry. On bad days, and I have many bad days, I eat a lot. I tell myself I don’t do this. I tell myself that I’m not sitting around eating candy or Cheetos all day. That’s true. I don’t keep junk food at home. I don’t make a habit of eating junk food. But then I become fixated on a certain food and then I eat it and eat it and eat it for days on end, sometimes weeks, until I am sick of it. It is a compulsion, I suppose.

• From Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017)

  55I am full of longing and I am full of envy and so much of my envy is terrible. I watch a Nightline special—an exposé on the horrors of eating disorders. I am morbidly fascinated by such programs and their human subjects. There is something about the gaunt faces and sharply angled bodies of anorexic girls that at once attracts and repulses me. I wonder what holds their bodies together. I envy the way their flesh is stretched taut against their brittle bones. I envy the way their clothes hang listlessly from their bodies, as if they aren’t even being worn but, rather, floating—a veritable vestment halo rewarding their thinness. The reporter speaks with disdain about the rigorous exercise regimens these girls put themselves through, the starvation, the obsession with their bodies. And still, I am envious because these girls have willpower. They have the commitment to do what it takes to have the bodies they want. I ignore their thinning hair, rotting teeth, internal organs dissolving into mushy nothing. I prefer, instead, to obsess over their bodies the way others obsess over mine. I tell myself that soon, I am going to be that girl who eats a saltine cracker and says she’s full. I will be that girl who spends hours at the gym, draped in oversized clothing. I will be the girl carefully purging unnecessary calories from her body with a well-placed finger down the throat. I will be the girl everyone loves to hate to love as my teeth yellow and my hair falls out but my body finally begins to become more acceptable, until my body withers and then disappears, stops taking up space. Somehow, I never become that girl. And then I hate myself for wanting something so terrible and I rage at the world that hates me for my body and how it is so markedly visible and the same world that forces too many girls and women to try their best to disappear. My rage is often silent because no one wants to hear fat-girl stories of taking up too much space and still finding nowhere to fit. People prefer the stories of the too-skinny girls who starve themselves and exercise too much and are gray and gaunt and disappearing in plain sight. 56I often feel ravenous even if I am not hungry. On bad days, and I have many bad days, I eat a lot. I tell myself I don’t do this. I tell myself that I’m not sitting around eating candy or Cheetos all day. That’s true. I don’t keep junk food at home. I don’t make a habit of eating junk food. But then I become fixated on a certain food and then I eat it and eat it and eat it for days on end, sometimes weeks, until I am sick of it. It is a compulsion, I suppose.

• From Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017)

  48I have many athletic friends, and because I am active on social media, I often see them posting pictures of their physical accomplishments. They wear their shorts and Under Armour shirts, molded to their incredibly fit bodies; their hair, damp with sweat, is plastered to their faces. They hold race numbers triumphantly in the air. They proudly display medals from finishing 5Ks and 10Ks and half marathons and whole marathons and sometimes races that are even more absurd, like Tough Mudders and triathlons and ultramarathons. They use apps that post athletic progress to Facebook and Twitter: “I ran 6.24 miles.” “I biked 24.5 miles.” Or they personally post a little update: “Just climbed a mountain and enjoyed a picnic from the summit.” The pictures accompanying these updates reveal people glowing with health and vigor. They are, rightly, proud of what they have done with their bodies, but when I am at my pettiest, which is often, it feels like gloating. Or, if I am being honest, they are bragging about something I might never know, that kind of personal satisfaction with and sense of accomplishment provided by my body. I get angry as I see these updates because these people are doing things I cannot. They are doing things I hope, so very much want, to someday be able to do in theory, even if I won’t actually do them given that I am not at all interested in sports or the outdoors. I am not angry. I am jealous. I am seething with jealousy. I want to be part of the active world. I want it so very badly. There are so many things I hunger for. 49I am self-conscious beyond measure. I am intensely and constantly preoccupied with my body in the world because I know what people think and what they see when they look at me. I know that I am breaking the unspoken rules of what a woman should look like.

• From Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation (2016)

  Lecture 3—Abraham, Sarah, and the Promise 19 ‹ Abraham lets God know that he has now made out his will and has identified a household slave as his beneficiary. Given the situation, that’s only realistic. God, however, does not listen to reason. Instead, he counters by raising the expectation, telling Abraham that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars of heaven. ‹ On the one hand, Abraham’s experience calls for realism about being childless. On the other hand, there’s the promise of countless descendants. Being childless calls for resignation; receiving the promise calls for hope. Which will it be? This is the point where Abraham again believes. And the narrative says that God considered his faith to be “righteousness”—the right form of relating to God. ‹ In chapter 16, more time has passed, and Sarah has become impatient about their lack of children. She determines to use a surrogate mother, a slave girl in the house named Hagar. Abraham goes along with the scheme, and Hagar soon gets pregnant. ‹ Conflict breaks out when Hagar seems to gloat that she has been able to conceive, while Sarah has not. Sarah brings up the issue with Abraham, but he simply shrugs and tells Sarah to do whatever she wants with the servant girl. Sarah mistreats her and humiliates her, until Hagar runs away into the desert, pregnant and alone. ● God seeks out Hagar in the desert, and when he hears her story, he makes her a promise. He says that Hagar, too, despite all that has occurred, will be blessed. The child she is carrying will be a reminder of God’s concern for the runaway. The child will be called Ishmael, a name that means “God listens.” Through Ishmael, Hagar will be blessed with many descendants. ● We have seen that Abraham exhibits both trust and indifference; he’s both admirable and flawed. Sarah is complex, as well. Earlier, she was put at risk because of Abraham’s scheme in Egypt. Now, she puts Hagar at risk through her own schemes and jealousy. It’s within this context of flawed human action that God plays the positive role. It’s God’s compassion toward the runaway that carries the narrative forward. Divine action opens up a more promising future. Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation20 People often expect Abraham and Sarah to be models of virtue in every situation, but in the episode with Hagar, Sarah seems harsh and Abraham is unfeeling.

• From Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation (2016)

  Lecture 4—Jacob, Joseph, and Reconciliation 29 down as Esau approaches. And here is where the struggle culminates in a kind of blessing, as Esau embraces Jacob in reconciliation. ‹Jacob links the two scenes of struggle by telling Esau that “seeing your face is like seeing the face of God.” By referring to the face of God, Jacob recalls what he said before, when his nighttime grappling with God issued into blessing. Seeing the face of God is not an abstract idea for Jacob. It is experienced in the moment of reconciliation with his brother. And in both scenes, that recognition comes through struggle. Joseph and His Brothers ‹In the third part of the story, we turn to Jacob’s children, especially Joseph. The narrative is told in Genesis 37–50, and again, it asks how one discerns the purpose of God in the face of persistent human conflict. ‹As the story begins, we find Jacob playing favorites among his children. It is the same pattern that sparked conflict earlier. Jacob has given his a favorite son, Joseph, a special coat, engendering resentment among his brothers. Joseph makes the problem worse by telling his brothers about dreams he’s had, in which he seems to have been put in a position of privilege. ‹The brothers get their chance for revenge when they take their flocks to a pasture some distance from home. They sell Joseph into slavery to some merchants who will take him to Egypt. Joseph’s brothers disguise what they have done by covering his special coat with goat’s blood and showing it to Jacob, who concludes that his son has been killed by a wild animal. ‹In Egypt, Joseph is purchased by a servant of the pharaoh and, before long, becomes an overseer. The Egyptian’s wife becomes attracted to the young slave and tries to draw him into her bedroom. Joseph refuses her advances, but she persists, grabbing the cloak he is wearing. Joseph panics and slips away, leaving his cloak in her hand. ‹The woman then shows Joseph’s cloak to her husband and accuses him of making advances on her. The Egyptian is outraged and has Joseph locked up in

• From Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation (2016)

  Lecture 3—Abraham, Sarah, and the Promise 19 ‹Abraham lets God know that he has now made out his will and has identified a household slave as his beneficiary. Given the situation, that’s only realistic. God, however, does not listen to reason. Instead, he counters by raising the expectation, telling Abraham that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars of heaven. ‹On the one hand, Abraham’s experience calls for realism about being childless. On the other hand, there’s the promise of countless descendants. Being childless calls for resignation; receiving the promise calls for hope. Which will it be? This is the point where Abraham again believes. And the narrative says that God considered his faith to be “righteousness”—the right form of relating to God. ‹In chapter 16, more time has passed, and Sarah has become impatient about their lack of children. She determines to use a surrogate mother, a slave girl in the house named Hagar. Abraham goes along with the scheme, and Hagar soon gets pregnant. ‹Conflict breaks out when Hagar seems to gloat that she has been able to conceive, while Sarah has not. Sarah brings up the issue with Abraham, but he simply shrugs and tells Sarah to do whatever she wants with the servant girl. Sarah mistreats her and humiliates her, until Hagar runs away into the desert, pregnant and alone. ●God seeks out Hagar in the desert, and when he hears her story, he makes her a promise. He says that Hagar, too, despite all that has occurred, will be blessed. The child she is carrying will be a reminder of God’s concern for the runaway. The child will be called Ishmael, a name that means “God listens.” Through Ishmael, Hagar will be blessed with many descendants. ●We have seen that Abraham exhibits both trust and indifference; he’s both admirable and flawed. Sarah is complex, as well. Earlier, she was put at risk because of Abraham’s scheme in Egypt. Now, she puts Hagar at risk through her own schemes and jealousy. It’s within this context of flawed human action that God plays the positive role. It’s God’s compassion toward the runaway that carries the narrative forward. Divine action opens up a more promising future. Reading Biblical Literature: Genesis to Revelation 20 People often expect Abraham and Sarah to be models of virtue in every situation, but in the episode with Hagar, Sarah seems harsh and Abraham is unfeeling

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  “Oh God!” Mama took Mrs. Parsons by the shoulders and pulled her into a quick embrace. “I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t let nobody else do that either. You can see Reese anytime you want. You know how much she loves you.” The two of them swayed slightly, Mrs. Parsons stiffly as if she was still unsure of her welcome and Mama as if she could barely hold in all the other things she wanted to say. Grandma Parsons’s brother kept his face turned away, smoking out the window of his truck. I kept close to Mama and watched the muscles in his neck jump as the two women sniffed and cleared their throats. “Well.” Mrs. Parsons licked her lips. “Maybe I’ll just come in a minute, have a little water before we start back.” “You could stay for dinner.” Mama’s face was flushed red and getting darker as I watched. “Well, no, we couldn’t do that.” Mrs. Parsons glanced over at her brother’s shoulder, but he didn’t turn to look at her. “We do have to get back. I’ll just stay a minute or two.” It wasn’t until she was sitting on Mama’s Sears sofa, with Reese drawn up between her legs and the envelope with the money “from the insurance” passed over to Mama, that Grandma Parsons relaxed a little. She got her brush out so she could pull the tangles out of Reese’s white-blond hair and keep her hands busy. “Your hair was red as fire when you were born,” she told Reese. “Now it’s as white as your daddy’s was.” Reese liked being told she looked like her daddy, and she kept his picture hidden in her underwear drawer where Daddy Glen wouldn’t see it and get his feelings hurt. Now and then, I’d go get it out myself, look into that grinning boy’s face that had nothing to do with me, and get all hot and tight with jealousy. Lyle had been as pretty as a girl and so white-blond he could have been a model in magazines. Reese had hair as fine as Lyle’s and a smile that came easy and fast, but she had too the Boatwrights’ narrow face and long skinny neck. Still, I envied the way she could look from that picture to Mama’s face to Grandma Parsons’s bent shoulders and guess how she might still change before she grew up. She had another family, another side of herself to think about, something more than Mama and me and the Boatwrights. Reese could choose something different for herself and be someone else altogether. “Oh, Reese’ll likely go dark.” Mama spoke hesitantly, as if she didn’t want to argue but didn’t want to chance any misunderstanding. “Might even go red again.”

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  Mama’s face was flushed red and getting darker as I watched. “Well, no, we couldn’t do that.” Mrs. Parsons glanced over at her brother’s shoulder, but he didn’t turn to look at her. “We do have to get back. I’ll just stay a minute or two.” It wasn’t until she was sitting on Mama’s Sears sofa, with Reese drawn up between her legs and the envelope with the money “from the insurance” passed over to Mama, that Grandma Parsons relaxed a little. She got her brush out so she could pull the tangles out of Reese’s white-blond hair and keep her hands busy. “Your hair was red as fire when you were born,” she told Reese. “Now it’s as white as your daddy’s was.” Reese liked being told she looked like her daddy, and she kept his picture hidden in her underwear drawer where Daddy Glen wouldn’t see it and get his feelings hurt. Now and then, I’d go get it out myself, look into that grinning boy’s face that had nothing to do with me, and get all hot and tight with jealousy. Lyle had been as pretty as a girl and so white-blond he could have been a model in magazines. Reese had hair as fine as Lyle’s and a smile that came easy and fast, but she had too the Boatwrights’ narrow face and long skinny neck. Still, I envied the way she could look from that picture to Mama’s face to Grandma Parsons’s bent shoulders and guess how she might still change before she grew up. She had another family, another side of herself to think about, something more than Mama and me and the Boatwrights. Reese could choose something different for herself and be someone else altogether. “Oh, Reese’ll likely go dark.” Mama spoke hesitantly, as if she didn’t want to argue but didn’t want to chance any misunderstanding. “Might even go red again.” “She might, but she might not. Among our people hair stays blond sometimes.” Mrs. Parsons tried to smile at Mama, but her face didn’t soften until she looked down at Reese. I was sitting on the arm of the sofa next to Mama, where I could look out the window to see the waiting truck and the empty road all the way up to the next intersection. I kept listening for the sound of the Pontiac, hoping not to hear it. Daddy Glen might come home while Mrs. Parsons was still here, and I knew Mama was worried about that, her hands pulling again at her belt loops nervously. Mrs. Parsons looked over at Mama’s hands and then spoke carefully. “That money’s all there’s gonna be, I’m afraid. My property an’t worth much, and truth is I signed it over to Matthew just after my boys died.

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  “Oh, lots of care they take,” Aunt Alma hooted. “The Yarboros been drowning girls and newborns for surely two hundred years.” Butch didn’t have to tell me about that one. The Yarboro boys were talked about worse than my uncles, and everybody knew they were all crazy. When I started school, one of the Yarboro cousins, a skinny rat-faced girl from the Methodist district, had called me a nigger after I pushed her away from the chair I’d taken for mine. She’d sworn I was as dark and wild as any child “born on the wrong side of the porch,” which I took to be another way of calling me a bastard, so I poked her in the eye. It had gotten me in trouble but persuaded her to stay away from me. I didn’t worry too much about what people thought of my temper. A reputation for quick rages wasn’t necessarily a disadvantage. It could do you some good. Daddy Glen’s reputation for a hot temper made people very careful how they talked to him. [image file=image_rsrc2PS.jpg] Reese’s daddy’s people lived back up in the hills above Greenville. Her grandmother had a farm off the Ashley Highway, but we rarely went there to visit. Mrs. Parsons didn’t seem to like Mama, though she was always pulling out some present for Reese and never failed to give me a nod of welcome. I was jealous of Reese for having Mrs. Parsons as a grandmother, since Mrs. Parsons looked like one in a way my granny never did. She looked like a granny you’d read about or see in a movie. I loved her thick gray-and-white braids, pinned together at the back of her neck, loved the stinky old cow that lived in a shed behind her four-room shotgun house, and the sweet red tomatoes and pulpy green peas she grew over near her creek. Mrs. Parsons wore blue gingham aprons and faded black dresses with long sleeves she would roll back to her elbows. My granny wore sleeveless print dresses that showed the sides of her loose white breasts and hitched up on her hips. She kept her thin gray hair curled tight in a permanent wave, tying it back with string when it went limp in the heat. She wore dark red lipstick that invariably smeared down onto her knobby chin, and she was always spitting snuff and cursing. Mrs. Parsons would talk sadly about her lost boys and her distant daughter while shelling peas into a galvanized bucket. My granny would get so mad she’d start throwing furniture out the screen door. She was always moving out of Aunt Ruth’s or Aunt Alma’s house to go stay with one of her sisters, and threatening to burn down whichever place she had left behind. I loved Granny, but I imagined Mrs. Parsons might be a better choice for a grandmother, and sometimes when we went to visit I’d pretend she was mine.

• From Bastard Out of Carolina (1992)

  “Oh, Ruth,” he groaned and gave it up. He hugged her back, picking her up in his arms. “Don’t cry on me. We’ll both be sick if you get to crying all over me.” He stumbled across the porch and went down on one knee to put her back in her rocker. “It an’t fair. I an’t never been able to argue with a woman when she starts crying.” I hung on to the porch railing, watching the two of them hug each other tight. I couldn’t imagine hugging Reese like that, telling her how I really felt, crying with her. It made me jealous, made me wish I was part of that embrace, that generation, as quick to yell and curse as to cry and make up. Daddy Glen said I was a cold-hearted bitch, and maybe I was. Maybe I was. [image file=image_rsrc2PS.jpg] The morning Mama drove up in Beau’s truck, I was on the porch with four little earthenware pots and Aunt Ruth’s big bucket of wandering Jew. She’d had the idea the day before that she’d like to hang those pots just under the eaves of the porch, and swore that I could leave half the plant in the bucket and break up the rest of the red-and-blue-green tangle into the little pots. “What you think, sister?” Aunt Ruth called to Mama. “An’t they gonna look fine up there under the eaves? Stuffs so sturdy it might even grow up over the roof.” “Might,” Mama agreed, coming up to give me a fast hug. “Grows quick enough anyway.” “People say it’s a weed but I’ve always liked it, specially since it don’t take any effort to keep it going.” Aunt Ruth patted the seat of the cane-back chair beside her rocker. “Come sit with me. An’t seen you in weeks.” She leaned forward to look directly into Mama’s face as she sat down. “You look different, almost rested. What you been doing, napping a lot?” Mama laughed and shook her head. “Just sleeping better since it cooled off a little.” She pointed at the pile of wet moss and clay I was mixing with black dirt. “Everything looks fresher now that the heat’s broke. I’d swear, Bone, you’ve grown a full inch this month.” I just grinned and went on gently separating the tightly meshed roots of the old plant. Aunt Ruth had said some of it would die back but if I could avoid bruising the fine hairs on the roots, most of it would live. So I had to go slow as I unraveled the long, pale shoots. “Oh, Bone’s gonna be a tall thing.” Aunt Ruth took a sip of tea and shook the glass. “You want something to drink, Anney? Bone made me up a fresh pitcher this morning, got lots of sugar and lemon in it.”

• From The Girls (2016)

  held me in place. I kept standing on the stairs that led to the sand, smelling the sea-softened wood. Did I know what was coming? I watched Suzanne shed her dress, shrugging it off with drunken difficulty, and then he was on her. His head lowering to lick at her bare breast. Both of them unsteady in the water. I watched for longer than seemed right. I was buzzy and adrift by the time I turned my back and wandered into the house. — I turned the music down. Shut the refrigerator door, which Suzanne had left open. The picked-over carcass of the chicken. Kona chicken, as Mitch had insisted: the sight made me a little nauseous. The too-pink flesh emanating a chill. I would always be like this, I thought, the person who closed the refrigerator. The person who watched from the steps like a spook while Suzanne let Mitch do whatever he wanted. Jealousy started to oscillate in my gut. The strange gnaw when I imagined his fingers inside her, how she’d taste of salt water. Confusion, too—how quickly things had changed and I was the one on the outside again. The chemical pleasure in my head had already faded, so all I recognized anymore was the lack of it. I wasn’t tired, but I didn’t want to sit on the couch, waiting for them to come inside. I found an unlocked bedroom that looked like a guest room: no clothes in the closet, a bed with slightly mussed sheets. They smelled like someone else, and there was a single gold earring on the nightstand. I thought of my own home, the weight and feel of my own blankets—then a sudden desire to sleep at Connie’s house. Curled up against her back in our familiar, ritual arrangement, her sheets printed with chubby cartoon rainbows. I lay in the bed, listening for the sound of Suzanne and Mitch in the other room. Like I was Suzanne’s thick-necked boyfriend, the same ratchet of righteous anger. It wasn’t aimed at her, not exactly—I hated Mitch with a fierceness that kept me wide-awake. I wanted him to know how she’d been laughing at him earlier, to know the exact degree of pity I had for him. How impotent my anger was, a surge with no place to land, and how familiar that was: my feelings strangled inside me, like little half-formed children, bitter and bristling.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  “Hmm,” Shandee said. “I don’t know about this. I found him, not you.” She felt finger-snappings of jealousy. Rianne’s lips parted. “Oh my gosh, his fingers know what to do,” she said, flushing. The hand was gently rolling her nipple like a tender round pea. And then it surrounded her whole breast and shook it once. After that it turned and began crawling over her belly toward her pajama pants. “Are you just going to let that happen?” Shandee said, riveted. “Um, yes,” she said. “Could you dim the light?” Shandee turned off the overhead light and watched the arm undo the knot of Rianne’s pajama bottoms. It disappeared. Rianne went “Shooooo.” Shandee turned away. “He’s found it,” Rianne said, “and, boy, he’s got the touch of a master.” Then her voice changed and she said, “Oh my god, two fingers. Haw. Haw.” Shandee glanced at her. Rianne’s knees had fallen apart and her eyes were slitted closed. “He seems to want to make me come, oh god, oh shit.” Then: “Ham, ham, oo, oo, oo, oo, oo, oo, ham, ham, HAW!” She lay still and held up the arm. He made an O with his fingers, which glittered with her sex juices. “You want me to go with you?” Rianne said. “Okay, I’ll go. Bye, Shandee, I’m going!” With that, her face and body began to blur, and she swooshed into a long thin shape that went through the finger-O of Dave’s hand. She was gone. The hand lay on the bed. It began crawling toward Shandee. It reached her thigh. Shandee handed it a pen and folded back the yellow pad to give it a fresh page. “Where did my roommate go off to?” she asked. “The House of Holes,” the arm wrote. “Would you like to come, too?” “Maybe,” said Shandee. “How?” “If you let me touch you,” he wrote. “Touch where?” said Shandee. “Where it aches.” “It aches in my head,” she said. “Never enough sleep.” “Let me help,” the arm scrawled. She held it, and the hand surged through her hair, and when she steered it around to the back of her neck it massaged the stiffness away. His fingers were mobile and trembly now. She gave him back the pen. “Isn’t there another place that aches?” he wrote. “Yes,” she said, “there is.” He wrote: “TWAT?” “Mhm,” Shandee said. “But I really don’t think I can let you do that until I know you better. You need to be more than an arm to me.” “Take me to class tomorrow,” he wrote. The next morning she fed him some fish paste and drained his waste and wrapped the cloth around his life-support addendum and put him in her bag. In the middle of her nineteenth-century novel class she felt his fingers very gently brushing her calf. She reached down and held his hand and loved how it felt.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  ‘I’m into you, darling.’ ‘Yeah, but …’ ‘You know it’s illegal, our affair. Officially, I can’t touch you for another three years.’ ‘Christ,’ he said, as if that altered everything, and paced around the room. ‘No, I think kids can be quite something. After fourteen or so. I mean I wouldn’t touch them when they were really small …’ ‘No—but a little chap who’s already got a big donger on him gets a hard-on all the time, doesn’t know what to do with this thing that’s taking over his life—that’s quite something, as you say.’ Phil grinned and blushed. One of the reasons he loved me was that I put these things into words, legitimised them just as I was most risqué. He was encouraged by this franc-parler to explore the new possibilities of talk, sometimes in so reckless a way that I thought he must be making things up. The men at the Corry came in for particular attention. ‘I really dig that Pete/Alan/Nigel/Guy’, he would quietly celebrate as we dressed after a shower, or emerged onto the evening streets again. The wonderfully handsome, virile and heterosexual Maurice seemed to excite him in particular. ‘What a pity he’s straight, man,’ Phil would say, with charming and earnest shakings of the head. It was a touching advertisement for free speech. But at the same time it caused me a twist of jealousy. If he was getting into this kind of mood about Alan, Nigel and the rest, who knows what might not happen when I wasn’t there to receive his confidences but Pete or Guy in person was, with queeny smile, easy tumescence and buttock-appraising eye? In the pool one evening I’d introduced him to James, who had clearly fallen parasitically for him at once; but I saw no danger there. There were more reckless propositioners, like the laid-back Ecuadorian Carlos with his foot-long Negroni sausage of a dick; his (successful) opener to me had been: ‘Boy, you got the nicest dick I ever see’—a gambit only really useful to those who are pretty well set up themselves. And a few days ago, as we were all drying, I had heard him, forgetful or careless of this, say to Phil: ‘Hey, you got a really hot ass, boy,’ and watched Phil redden and ignore him—and say nothing of it to me. I probably needn’t have worried. We were having such a good time ourselves. Most of the days I spent at the hotel, where I got to know Pino and Benito and Celso and the others. Late evenings and nights were passed in sleep and sex in that transitory little attic room with its picture of Ludlow from the air. Phil would sleep until eleven or so each morning, but the fabulous weather went on and for the heat of the day until we hit the Corry at six, we were up on the roof in the sun.

• From Sense and Sensibility (1811)

  Their presence was a restraint both on her and on Lucy. It checked the idleness of one, and the business of the other. Lady Middleton was ashamed of doing nothing before them, and the flattery which Lucy was proud to think of and administer at other times, she feared they would despise her for offering. Miss Steele was the least discomposed of the three, by their presence; and it was in their power to reconcile her to it entirely. Would either of them only have given her a full and minute account of the whole affair between Marianne and Mr. Willoughby, she would have thought herself amply rewarded for the sacrifice of the best place by the fire after dinner, which their arrival occasioned. But this conciliation was not granted; for though she often threw out expressions of pity for her sister to Elinor, and more than once dropt a reflection on the inconstancy of beaux before Marianne, no effect was produced, but a look of indifference from the former, or of disgust in the latter. An effort even yet lighter might have made her their friend. Would they only have laughed at her about the Doctor! But so little were they, any more than the others, inclined to oblige her, that if Sir John dined from home, she might spend a whole day without hearing any other raillery on the subject, than what she was kind enough to bestow on herself. All these jealousies and discontents, however, were so totally unsuspected by Mrs. Jennings, that she thought it a delightful thing for the girls to be together; and generally congratulated her young friends every night, on having escaped the company of a stupid old woman so long. She joined them sometimes at Sir John’s, sometimes at her own house; but wherever it was, she always came in excellent spirits, full of delight and importance, attributing Charlotte’s well doing to her own care, and ready to give so exact, so minute a detail of her situation, as only Miss Steele had curiosity enough to desire. One thing _did_ disturb her; and of that she made her daily complaint. Mr. Palmer maintained the common, but unfatherly opinion among his sex, of all infants being alike; and though she could plainly perceive, at different times, the most striking resemblance between this baby and every one of his relations on both sides, there was no convincing his father of it; no persuading him to believe that it was not exactly like every other baby of the same age; nor could he even be brought to acknowledge the simple proposition of its being the finest child in the world.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  A father’s commitment to his offspring is profoundly influenced by what his second or third wife says and does. Here’s how it works: The man enters a second marriage with a strong desire to make it work. The last thing he wants is a second divorce, and so he is most likely to bow to the new woman’s wants. In most instances I have seen, when push comes to shove he will side with his new mate over his own child. In this sense, stepmothers do have the power of fairy tales, which they can use for good or evil. The battle is the fight for the man. It can be kept under wraps and played out with good manners, as in Lisa’s family, or it can rage in high C and end in more tragedy. It’s also a battle over money, and this can become bitter indeed, with children mostly as losers. The fairy tale continues with the rivalry between the stepmother and the ghost or actual presence of the first wife (whose influence can also be benevolent or evil). Who controls the roost—the new deal mom or the real mom? Whose convenience in setting schedules is more important? How important is the private school or the summer camp? Do we pay for the child’s orthodontia or for our Paris vacation? Should the stepmom’s salary be used at all for the support of children from the previous marriage? Should it be used for special but nonessential needs that enhance a child’s life like the piano teacher or the school ski trips? Should it be used to help send the child to college? Is the child’s visit an invasion that crosses the boundary of the stepmother’s family or a pleasure? These questions and choices are never easy, but the attitudes of both women will influence and sometimes determine how the story plays out. Finally, the plot thickens if the stepmother brings children from a previous marriage into the household. Endless triangles are formed as stepsiblings take up friendships or rivalries or, as sometimes happens with adolescents, become lovers themselves. All children watch each parent to see who is treated more or less favorably, who gets what at Christmas or Chanukah, who inherits grandma’s locket or grandpa’s binoculars. Although the addition of stepsiblings produces more fighting in some families, other children benefit greatly from having the protection of loving, older stepsiblings. Again, the fairy tale can have a happy or tragic ending depending on how the characters play their roles.

• From Sense and Sensibility (1811)

  Their presence was a restraint both on her and on Lucy. It checked the idleness of one, and the business of the other. Lady Middleton was ashamed of doing nothing before them, and the flattery which Lucy was proud to think of and administer at other times, she feared they would despise her for offering. Miss Steele was the least discomposed of the three, by their presence; and it was in their power to reconcile her to it entirely. Would either of them only have given her a full and minute account of the whole affair between Marianne and Mr. Willoughby, she would have thought herself amply rewarded for the sacrifice of the best place by the fire after dinner, which their arrival occasioned. But this conciliation was not granted; for though she often threw out expressions of pity for her sister to Elinor, and more than once dropt a reflection on the inconstancy of beaux before Marianne, no effect was produced, but a look of indifference from the former, or of disgust in the latter. An effort even yet lighter might have made her their friend. Would they only have laughed at her about the Doctor! But so little were they, any more than the others, inclined to oblige her, that if Sir John dined from home, she might spend a whole day without hearing any other raillery on the subject, than what she was kind enough to bestow on herself. All these jealousies and discontents, however, were so totally unsuspected by Mrs. Jennings, that she thought it a delightful thing for the girls to be together; and generally congratulated her young friends every night, on having escaped the company of a stupid old woman so long. She joined them sometimes at Sir John’s, sometimes at her own house; but wherever it was, she always came in excellent spirits, full of delight and importance, attributing Charlotte’s well doing to her own care, and ready to give so exact, so minute a detail of her situation, as only Miss Steele had curiosity enough to desire. One thing did disturb her; and of that she made her daily complaint. Mr. Palmer maintained the common, but unfatherly opinion among his sex, of all infants being alike; and though she could plainly perceive, at different times, the most striking resemblance between this baby and every one of his relations on both sides, there was no convincing his father of it; no persuading him to believe that it was not exactly like every other baby of the same age; nor could he even be brought to acknowledge the simple proposition of its being the finest child in the world.

• From Sense and Sensibility (1811)

  “Civil!—Did you see nothing but only civility?—I saw a vast deal more. Such kindness as fell to the share of nobody but me!—No pride, no hauteur, and your sister just the same—all sweetness and affability!” Elinor wished to talk of something else, but Lucy still pressed her to own that she had reason for her happiness; and Elinor was obliged to go on. “Undoubtedly, if they had known your engagement,” said she, “nothing could be more flattering than their treatment of you;—but as that was not the case—” “I guessed you would say so,”—replied Lucy quickly—“but there was no reason in the world why Mrs. Ferrars should seem to like me, if she did not, and her liking me is every thing. You shan’t talk me out of my satisfaction. I am sure it will all end well, and there will be no difficulties at all, to what I used to think. Mrs. Ferrars is a charming woman, and so is your sister. They are both delightful women, indeed!—I wonder I should never hear you say how agreeable Mrs. Dashwood was!” To this Elinor had no answer to make, and did not attempt any. “Are you ill, Miss Dashwood?—you seem low—you don’t speak;—sure you an’t well.” “I never was in better health.” “I am glad of it with all my heart; but really you did not look it. I should be sorry to have you ill; you, that have been the greatest comfort to me in the world!—Heaven knows what I should have done without your friendship.” Elinor tried to make a civil answer, though doubting her own success. But it seemed to satisfy Lucy, for she directly replied, “Indeed I am perfectly convinced of your regard for me, and next to Edward’s love, it is the greatest comfort I have. Poor Edward! But now there is one good thing, we shall be able to meet, and meet pretty often, for Lady Middleton’s delighted with Mrs. Dashwood, so we shall be a good deal in Harley Street, I dare say, and Edward spends half his time with his sister—besides, Lady Middleton and Mrs. Ferrars will visit now;—and Mrs. Ferrars and your sister were both so good to say more than once, they should always be glad to see me. They are such charming women!—I am sure if ever you tell your sister what I think of her, you cannot speak too high.” But Elinor would not give her any encouragement to hope that she should tell her sister. Lucy continued.