Joy

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 Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  It cannot be too strongly urged in the face of mystical attempts, however learned, that there is not a landmark, not a length, not a point of the compass in real space which is not some one of our feelings, either experienced directly as a presentation or ideally suggested by another feeling which has come to serve as its sign. In degrading some sensations to the rank of signs and exalting others to that of realities signified, we smooth out the wrinkles of our first chaotic impressions and make a continuous order of what was a rather incoherent multiplicity. But the content of the order remains identical with that of the multiplicity— sensational both, through and through. HOW THE BLIND PERCEIVE SPACE. The blind man's construction of real space differs from that of the seeing man most obviously in the larger part which synthesis plays in it, and the relative subordination of analysis. The seeing baby's eyes take in the whole room at once, and discriminative attention must arise in him before single objects are visually discerned. The blind child, on the contrary, must form his mental image of the room by the addition, piece to piece, of parts which he learns to know successively. With our eyes we may apprehend instantly, in an enormous bird's-eye view, a landscape which the blind man is condemned to build up bit by bit after weeks perhaps of exploration. We are exactly in his predicament, however, for spaces which exceed our visual range. We think the ocean as a whole by multiplying mentally the impression we get at any moment when at sea. The distance between New York and San Francisco is computed in days' journeys; that from earth to sun is so many times the earth's diameter, etc.; and of longer distances still we may be said to have no adequate mental image whatever, but only numerical verbal symbols. But the symbol will often give us the emotional effect of the perception. Such expressions as the abysmal vault of heaven, the endless expanse of ocean, etc., summarize many computations to the imagination, and give the sense of an enormous horizon. So it seems with the blind. They multiply mentally the amount of a distinctly felt freedom to move, anti gain the immediate sense of a vaster freedom still. Thus it is that blind men are never without the consciousness of their horizon. They all enjoy travelling, especially with a companion. On the prairies the feel the great openness; in valleys they feel closed in; and one has told me that he thought few seeing people could enjoy the view from a mountain-top more than he. A blind person on entering a house or room immediately receives, from the reverberations of his voice and steps, an impression of its dimensions, and to a certain extent of its arrangement. The tympanic sense noticed on p.

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

  Penitential devotions followed easily upon the gory butchery of the sword. Headed by Godfrey, clad in a suit of white lined, the Crusaders proceeded to the church of the Holy Sepulchre and offered up prayers and thanksgivings. William of Tyre relates that Adhemar and others, who had fallen by the way, were seen showing the path to the holy places. The devotions over, the work of massacre was renewed. Neither the tears of women, nor the cries of children, nor the protests of Tancred, who for the honor of chivalry was concerned to save three hundred, to whom he had promised protection—none of these availed to soften the ferocity of the conquerors. As if to enhance the spectacle of pitiless barbarity, Saracen prisoners were forced to clear the streets of the dead bodies and blood to save the city from pestilence. "They wept and transported the dead bodies out of Jerusalem," is the heartless statement of Robert the Monk.375 Such was the piety of the Crusaders. The religion of the Middle Ages combined self-denying asceticism with heartless cruelty to infidels, Jews, and heretics. "They cut down with the sword," said William of Tyre, "every one whom they found in Jerusalem, and spared no one. The victors were covered with blood from head to foot." In the next breath, speaking of the devotion of the Crusaders, the archbishop adds, "It was a most affecting sight which filled the heart with holy joy to see the people tread the holy places in the fervor of an excellent devotion." The Crusaders had won the tomb of the Saviour and gazed upon a fragment of the true cross, which some of the inhabitants were fortunate enough to have kept concealed during the siege. Before returning to Europe, Peter the Hermit received the homage of the Christian inhabitants of Jerusalem, who remembered his visit as a pilgrim and his services in their behalf. This was the closing scene of his connection with the Crusades.376 Returning to Europe, he founded the monastery at Huy, in the diocese Liège, and died, 1115. A statue was dedicated to his memory at Amiens, June 29, 1854. He is represented in the garb of a monk, a rosary at his waist, a cross in his right hand, preaching the First Crusade. Urban II. died two weeks after the fall of Jerusalem and before the tidings of the event had time to reach his ears. No more favorable moment could have been chosen for the Crusade. The Seljukian power, which was at its height in the eleventh century, was broken up into rival dynasties and factions by the death of Molik Shah, 1092. The Crusaders entered as a wedge before the new era of Moslem conquest and union opened. Note on the Relation of Peter the Hermit to the First Crusade.

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  That night, like most of our affair, felt like a surreal, hardcore fairy tale. After the restaurant, back at the hotel, I gave her a farewell bouquet of lilacs. The clock was literally ticking over our heads. We didn’t talk much. We lay on the bed, hand in hand, surfing TV channels. She nuzzled against my chest and I stroked her hair. She said she was going to miss only one thing about New York. “The poetry workshop?” I asked. “Not bloody likely,” she said. “Maybe just one meanie of a poet.” She told me she couldn’t believe that tawdry encounter in the john was all her punishment for having had “this little illicit madness”. I asked her if she was ready for one last chance to save her soul. She said in 29 hours she’d be on a plane to Orlando. “If I’m not ready now, when will I be?” I went to the fridge and brought out a bottle of Prosecco and a small white cake I'd bought at the fancy Polish bakery. She asked me what this was. “Your just desserts,” I said. She sat up and beamed. We sat Indian-style on the bed, feeling like kids at a kinky pajama party. I drew a fork out and she asked me where mine was. I informed her that she was eating all this whole cake. “Solo.” Honeymoon with Shannon 49 “And bea blimp on Monday? Float down the aisle like a bridezilla>” she asked. “I don’t think so. Not after tonight’s créme brilée.” I convinced her that as punishments go, a sugary sweet is hardly cruel and unusual and fed her a forkful, watching the icing drip and then plop on to her black skirt, smudging the corners of her lips. Cake crumbs soon dotted the coverlet around us. After the second slice she hugged her tummy and said, “No mas, boy.” I cut a third slice and held a forkful near her lips. “Did you give a blowjob in a men’s room or was I dreaming that?” I asked, and when she cracked a smile I slipped the cake into her mouth. As I fed her — and overfed her — I felt paternal, fatherly, sadistic. My cock was hard again. She chewed and giggled and nodded. “I’m going to retch,” she said. She chewed, mumbling obscenities and giving me the finger as she ate. “Disgusting.” I removed the cake from the box and kicked the box off the bed, placing the remaining cake near our pillows. I helped her strip down to her bra and stockings.

• From Cultish (2021)

  But no matter what we go through, there is knowledge to be gained.” Like Jim Jones, Ti and Do vehemently denounced mainstream Christianity and the United States government, calling both “totally corrupt.” They also shared Jones’s claim of being the only ones who could solve the epic calamity that was modern life on Earth. But that’s about where their similarities end. By the Heaven’s Gate era, the stick-it-to-the-man ’70s were long gone; instead, Applewhite’s rhetoric was heavily influenced by the 1990s’ UFO mania. It was a decade defined by shows like The X-Files and Fox’s alien autopsy hoax. People were just starting to grasp digital technology, but before widespread internet and smartphones, not everybody had access to it, so it carried a certain mystery and, for followers of Heaven’s Gate, new answers to life’s oldest questions. Applewhite was obsessed with the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation , particularly the show’s hive mind of alien antagonists called the Borg. The Borg had a favorite saying: “Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.” “Do loved that,” Frank Lyford recalled. “He espoused that hive mentality.” To match his credo, Applewhite concocted a whole Heaven’s Gate vocabulary of niche, sci-fi-esque terms. There was a severe regimentation of daily life in the mansion, and the lingo helped keep things in order. The kitchen was the “nutra-lab,” the laundry room was the “fiber-lab,” and meals were called “laboratory experiments.” The group as a whole was “the classroom,” followers were “students,” and teachers like Ti and Do were known as “Older Members” and “clinicians.” If followers were off doing something in normal society, that was “out of craft.” If they were in the house they shared, that was “in craft.” “The special talk put them in a rhetorical place where they could imagine themselves in the specific world where they wanted to be,” analyzed Heaven’s Gate scholar Benjamin E. Zeller, a religion professor at Lake Forest College. By marinating in this specific, thematic vernacular every day for years, followers began to picture life on that spacecraft, drifting toward the Kingdom of God. “It was doing real religious work,” said Zeller. “It wasn’t just gobbledygook.” On the day of their suicide, the Away Team was not only at peace with their imminent graduation, they were giddy about it. You can see it yoursel f in the “Exit Statements,” a series of goodbye interviews Applewhite’s disciples filmed in the hours preceding the suicide and published on their website. (I found the clips edited together on YouTube.) In these tapes, Heaven’s Gate members all sport the same centimeter-long crew cuts, billowy tunics, and placid expressions, backdropped by an idyllic outdoor setting. Birds chirp perversely offscreen. For the camera, followers reflect on their experiences in Heaven’s Gate and justify why they’re ready to enter the next level, seeming not fearful or confused, but genuinely, gleefully committed to their plan. “I just want to . . .

• From Cultish (2021)

  She took inspiration from yoga’s dharma talk and began each class with a story about a personal struggle from her life. “So if we were talking about strength that month, I’d tell a story about a time I had to be strong, like through my miscarriage,” she explained to me in an interview. “Then the incantations would say, ‘I can do hard things. I am better than before. I am born to drive. I’m glad I’m alive!’” She spits a sequence of rhyming mantras like spoken word poetry. At first, Moreno’s students rolled their eyes at the idea of “incantations.” The tough-as-nails Manhattanites weren’t interested in a talk therapy session; they wanted their asses kicked. Wasn’t getting shouted at about their muffin tops the only way to achieve that? Natalia was one of those world-weary New York trainees—that is, until a few weeks in, when she found herself earnestly shouting “My body is my temple. I am the keeper of my health. I am love in action. All is well” at every intenSati class she could make time for. By then, she was a convert. SoulCycle, too, concocts specific movement-language pairings to metaphorically catapult riders toward their dreams. Every SoulCycle “journey” follows a similar course, its climax falling on a strenuous “hills” odyssey narrated by a hair-raising sermon. Riders turn up their bikes’ resistance and climb with all their might to the symbolic finish line as their instructor douses them in verbal inspiration. SoulCycle instructors are trained to wait for these moments, when students are so physically beat that they’ll be more receptive to kernels of spirituality, to deliver their best lines. One SoulCycle star known far and wide for her “hills” monologues was Los Angeles-based Angela Manuel-Davis, Beyoncé and Oprah’s Spin instructor of choice. A proud evan gelical Christian, Manuel-Davis wielded explicitly religious verbiage on the bike—talk of genesis, angels, and miracles. “‘Enthusiasm’ comes from the Greek word enthous , which means ‘in God,’” she’d preach, thrusting her arms toward the heavens. “Divine inspiration. Divine inspiration. I want you to be enthusiastic and excited . . . about this opportunity to close the gap between where you are in your life and where you were called, created, and intended to be. . . . Every single one of you was created in purpose , on purpose, for a purpose.” With a deep understanding of religious speech’s performative power, Manuel-Davis told audiences, “Life and death is in the power of the tongue. You have the ability to unlock somebody’s greatness by your words . . . not only to the people in your life, but to yourself. You are who you say you are.” These are some hard-core evangelical buzzwords, but Manuel-Davis attested she wasn’t using them to create insiders and outsiders, or to make others conform to her ideology. “I give people room to make it about what they need,” she told Harvard Divinity School.

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

  The bliss of heaven, said Thomas Aquinas, consists in the immediate vision of God.1831 It is a state from which there will be no lapse. The beatified know what is occurring on earth, hear the prayers that ascend to them, and by their merits intercede for their brethren here. St. Bernard, in his homilies on the Canticles,1832 and Anselm1833 give us lofty descriptions of the blessedness of the heavenly estate. And the satisfaction and glory of the soul in heaven has never been quite so well portrayed as in the poem of Bernard of Cluny:— O sweet and blessed country, the home of God’s elect, O sweet and blessed country, that eager hearts expect; Jesus in mercy bring us to that sweet land of rest, To be with God the Father and Spirit ever blest. It remained for Dante to give to the chilling scholastic doctrines of purgatory and the lower regions a terrible reality in poetical form and imagery and also to describe the beatific vision of paradise.

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  It was almost as if she had ripped it out of me, and I was still reeling now that it was over. I felt so totally sated that I wondered how long it would take before I could show her my way of making love as well. And she had totally confirmed her conquest with a long, powerful orgasm of her own that still covered my features. Its power was still alive in both of us. Yes, I still wanted to take her from behind, but I knew it would have to wait a while. After all, the evening was young. I felt perfectly happy with everything that had happened between us and bore no trace of resentment. Her skills were simply too undeniable to allow any anger, and her everyday reality was beyond all doubting. We had enjoyed a kind of contest together, and the results were clear. I had come in with my Tadesk Go First 467 game plan, she had come in with hers, and there could not be the slightest doubt that her game plan had totally demolished mine. I couldn’t believe what we had just done together. But the evidence was all too palpably present, after our kiss her whole set of lips was still settled over my mouth and chin. Gradually we separated and began to fondle each other more calmly. I kissed her gently all around her body, and we tasted each other’s juices a second time. In between these moist exchanges we gazed at each other in joy and disbelief, amazed at how much we had experienced together. We started to giggle uncontrollably and would break one embrace only to begin another. This degenerated into a mock wrestling match, which, ever the gentleman, I let her end by pinning me down on the bed. “Okay, we’ve done it my way,” she volunteered. “You just go ahead — take me any way you want.” It almost sounded like a dare, as if she challenged me to equal her in her passion and inventiveness. We wrestled around for a long time before we looked at the clock and found it was already two in the morning. She mentioned something about having to be up early the next morning. “Look, I don’t feel sleepy,” I said. “T don’t either,” she replied, “but we’ve got to get some rest.” During this time all of her bossiness had disappeared. She was so totally sated that she felt no need for it. And she treated me as though I were some kind of furry animal she truly loved for helping her to be so happy. We wrestled and fooled around for most of another hour, with neither of us feeling aroused enough for another round of sex. After all, we had both mightily exerted ourselves. But we weren’t ready for sleep either — we were much too excited for that. And I still harbored my own desire, though my body gave me no sign this was possible.

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

  The only discordant tone is the warning against "the dogs of the concision" (katatomhv, 3:2), as he sarcastically calls the champions of circumcision (peritomhv), who everywhere sowed tares in his wheat fields, and at that very time tried to check his usefulness in Rome by substituting the righteousness of the law for the righteousness of faith. But he guards the readers with equal earnestness against the opposite extreme of antinomian license (3:2–21). In opposition to the spirit of personal and social rivalry and contention which manifested itself among the Philippians, Paul reminds them of the self-denying example of Christ, who was the highest of all, and yet became the lowliest of all by divesting himself of his divine majesty and humbling himself, even to the death on the cross, and who, in reward for his obedience, was exalted above every name (2:1–11). This is the most important doctrinal passage of the letter, and contains (together with 2 Cor. 8:9) the fruitful germ of the speculations on the nature and extent of the kenosis, which figures so prominently in the history of christology.1182 It is a striking example of the apparently accidental occasion of some of the deepest utterances of the apostle. "With passages full of elegant negligence (Phil. 1:29), like Plato’s dialogues and Cicero’s letters, it has passages of wonderful eloquence, and proceeds from outward relations and special circumstances to wide-reaching thoughts and grand conceptions."1183 The objections against the genuineness raised by a few hyper-critical are not worthy of a serious refutation.1184 The Later History. The subsequent history of the church at Philippi is rather disappointing, like that of the other apostolic churches in the East. It appears again in the letters of Ignatius, who passed through the place on his way to his martyrdom in Rome, and was kindly entertained and escorted by the brethren, and in the Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians, who expressed his joy that "the sturdy root of their faith, famous from the earliest days, still survives and bears fruit unto our Lord Jesus Christ," and alludes to the labors of "the blessed and glorious Paul" among them. Tertullian appeals to the Philippian church as still maintaining the apostle’s doctrine and reading his Epistle publicly. The name of its bishop is mentioned here and there in the records of councils, but that is all. During the middle ages the city was turned into a wretched village, and the bishopric into a mere shadow. At present there is not even a village on the site, but only a caravansary, a mile or more from the ruins, which consist of a theatre, broken marble columns, two lofty gateways, and a portion of the city wall.1185 "Of the church which stood foremost among all the apostolic communities in faith and love, it may literally be said that not one stone stands upon another. Its whole career is a signal monument of the inscrutable counsels of God.

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

  Born into the world with the brightest promise, the church of Philippi has lived without a history and perished without a memorial."1186 But in Paul’s Epistle that noble little band of Christians still lives and blesses the church in distant countries. Theme: Theological: The self-humiliation (kevnwsi") of Christ for our salvation (Phil. 2:5–11). Practical: Christian cheerfulness. Leading Thoughts: He who began a good work in you will perfect it (1:6). If only Christ is preached, I rejoice (1:13). To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain (1:21). Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who emptied himself, etc. (2:5 sqq.). God worketh in you both to will and to work (2:13). Rejoice in the Lord alway; again I will say, Rejoice (3:1; 4:1). I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ (3:8). I

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

  ruled with the spirit of loyalty, virtue, and piety. Finally, the Gospel reforms the international relations by breaking down the partition walls of prejudice and hatred among the different nations and races. It unites in brotherly fellowship and harmony around the same communion table even the Jews and the Gentiles, once so bitterly separate and hostile. The spirit of Christianity, truly catholic or universal, rises above all national distinctions. Like the congregation at Jerusalem, the whole apostolic church was of "one heart and of one soul."637 It had its occasional troubles, indeed, temporary collisions between a Peter and a Paul, between Jewish and Gentile Christians; but instead of wondering at these, we must admire the constant victory of the spirit of harmony and love over the remaining forces of the old nature and of a former state of things. The poor Gentile Christians of Paul’s churches in Greece sent their charities to the poor Jewish Christians in Palestine, and thus proved their gratitude for the gospel and its fellowship, which they had received from that mother church.638 The Christians all felt themselves to be "brethren," were constantly impressed with their common origin and their common destiny, and considered it their sacred duty to "keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace."639 While the Jews, in their spiritual pride and "odium generis humani" abhorred all Gentiles; while the Greeks despised all barbarians as only half men; and while the Romans, with all their might and policy, could bring their conquered nations only into a mechanical conglomeration, a giant body without a soul; Christianity, by purely moral means) founded a universal spiritual empire and a communion of saints, which stands unshaken to this day, and will spread till it embraces all the nations of the earth as its living members, and reconciles all to God. § 50. Spiritual Condition of the Congregations.—The Seven Churches in Asia. We must not suppose that the high standard of holiness set up in doctrine and example by the evangelists and apostles was fully realized in their congregations. The dream of the spotless purity and perfection of the apostolic church finds no support in the apostolic writings, except as an ideal which is constantly held up before our vision to stimulate our energies. If the inspired apostles themselves disclaimed perfection, much less can we expect it from their converts, who had just come from the errors and corruptions of Jewish and heathen society, and could not be transformed at once without a miracle in violation of the ordinary laws of moral growth. We find, in fact, that every Epistle meets some particular difficulty and danger. No letter of Paul can be understood without the admission of the actual imperfection of his congregations. He found it necessary to warn them even against the vulgar sins of the flesh as well as against the refined sins of the spirit. He cheerfully and thankfully commended their virtues, and as frankly and fearlessly condemned their errors and vices.

• From A Way of Being (1980)

  In the past few years, I have found myself opening up to much greater intimacy in relationships. I see this development as definitely the result of workshop experiences. I am more ready to touch and be touched, physically. I do more hugging and kissing of both men and women. I am more aware of the sensuous side of my life. I also realize how much I desire close psychological contact with others. I recognize how much I need to care deeply for another and to receive that kind of caring in return. I can say openly what I have always recognized dimly: that my deep involvement in psychotherapy was a cautious way of meeting this need for intimacy without risking too much of my person. Now I am more willing to be close in other relationships and to risk giving more of myself. I feel as though a whole new depth of capacity for intimacy has been discovered in me. This capacity has brought me much hurt, but an even greater share of joy. How have these changes affected my behavior? I have developed deeper and more intimate relationships with men; I have been able to share without holding back, trusting the security of the friendship. Only during my college days— never before or after—did I have a group of really trusted, intimate men friends. So this is a new, tentative, adventurous development which seems very rewarding. I also have much more intimate communication with women. There are now a number of women with whom I have platonic but psychologically intimate relationships which have tremendous meaning for me. With these close friends, men and women, I can share any aspect of my self— the painful, joyful, frightening, crazy, insecure, egotistical, self-deprecating feelings I have. I can share fantasies and dreams. Similarly, my friends share deeply with me. These experiences I find very enriching. In my marriage of so many years, and in these friendships, I am continuing to learn more in the realm of intimacy. I am becoming more sharply aware of the times when I experience pain, anger, frustration, and rejection, as well as the closeness born of shared meanings or the satisfaction of being understood and accepted. I have learned how hard it is to confront with negative feelings a person about whom I care deeply. I have learned how expectations in a relationship turn very easily into demands made on the relationship. In my experience, I have found that one of the hardest things for me is to care for a person for whatever he or she is, at that time, in the relationship. It is so much

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  “Right there,” she gasped. He thrust into her, faster now, pulling her hair taut until she felt like a bowstring humming with tension. She reached the breaking point as he curved over her, whispering in her ear, “Come for me, babe.” She couldn’t help it, she let out a loud, lingering moan as her orgasm washed over her. She opened her eyes, meeting his eyes in the mirror so he could see what he had done to her. He watched her as he continued to fuck her through her orgasm, sweat glistening at his fine-boned temple. “Yes, oh god,” she gasped, feeling as if she were being turned inside out. “Terrence!” ‘Terrence made a sound low in his throat and went still against her. Her pussy rippled along the length of his engorged cock and, with one hard thrust that elicited another soft moan from her, he was coming, too. Eyes closed, he pumped into her a few times before going still again. He leaned over her back, his damp forehead against her cheek when she turned her head. “Oh my. That was nice,” was all she could manage to say. She felt, rather than heard, his rumble of laughter. “That’s one way to describe it,” he said, nipping her earlobe. “You really are wicked.” 1am,” she whispered. “Yes, Still feeling the lingering tremors of her orgasm, she became acutely aware of their risky position. Reluctantly, she shifted beneath him. His cock slid out of her and she felt empty. Wetness streaked down her inner thighs and she met his gaze in the mirror, smiling contritely. “T need to clean up,” she said. ““Think you can sneak out while I make myself presentable?” Terrence’s laugh was pure masculine satisfaction. “You are perfectly presentable. You just look as if you’ve been well fucked.” She shifted her gaze to her own face and realized he was right. Her hair was mussed and her cheeks were flushed. Her dark red lipstick _ was smeared and she was fairly certain she’d left some behind on Terrence’s cock. Her eyes sparkled in a way that suggested she had a very delicious secret — which she did. She shook her head. “Well, I'll do the best I can.” 178 Kristina Wright aire Terrence straightened his clothes and tucked his still-damp cock back into his trousers. “I don’t think it’ll be a late night for me. ’m wiped.” “Oh, poor baby,” she said. “Every woman in the club will be disappointed to see you go.” Terrence gave her a tired, teasing grin. “I only care about the woman who just came on my cock.” She didn’t really believe that, of course, but it was sweet of him to say so. Terrence was still young and wild and unlikely to settle for one woman when he could have three, but he had good manners. “That was lovely, darling.”

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  “Mmm, nice,” she whispered. “You’re ready for me.” She nodded again. “Oh, yes.” He shifted his arm from under her and moved to kneel between her spread thighs. Lifting her legs over his broad shoulders, she expected him to push his cock into her. He surprised her by cupping her ass in his large hands and raising her up until her pussy was beneath his mouth. Back arched, she stared down between her legs and watched as he licked her swollen clit. She whimpered at the zing of pleasure that accompanied that one swift stroke. Squirming for more, she was rewarded by his tongue parting the lips of her pussy and swirling around her opening the way his fingers had earlier. She pushed her hips toward his mouth, grasping at his shaggy mop of tousled golden curls, aching to feel his tongue inside her. He pulled back, teasing her. “You do seem to want me.” Yesls He lowered his mouth between her thighs, the day-old growth of his beard scratching her sensitive thighs. ““You smell like heaven. ‘Taste like it, too.” Perfect Timing 181 “Lick me!” Finally, he gave her what she wanted and slid his tongue inside her. She whimpered low in her throat as he lapped at her with the flat of his tongue, drawing her own wetness up over her sensitive clit. She clutched at him, pulling his head into her and rubbing against his mouth shamelessly. Her orgasm was quick and explosive, catching her by surprise. She held his head between her thighs, riding out the long, rolling waves of her climax as he devoured her with his mouth. ‘Then, just when she thought she couldn’t take anymore, he lowered her down to the bed and guided his thick cock into her. With tremors of her orgasm still rippling along the walls of her pussy, he felt huge inside her. She wrapped her legs around his strong back, arching up to meet his slow, deep thrusts. He reached under her to hold her ass, anchoring her to him as he rocked into her. She nibbled his neck, licking the salty moisture from his skin as her whole body quivered against him. His thigh muscles trembled as he came, still moving so slowly inside her, as her pussy squeezed the length of his shaft. His orgasm seemed to last as long as hers, every short thrust followed by a deep groan. She held him to her, hands soothing the bunched muscles of his back and down to his clenched ass. Finally, he relaxed against her, his solid weight both sensual and comforting. “Think we did it?” he murmured, tucking his head against her neck. She stroked his hair, a private smile curving her lips. She was suddenly sleepy again. “Maybe. But the doctor said the more times I make love around ovulation, the more likely I am to get pregnant.” “Give me an hour and I'll see what I can do to increase our chances.”

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  “Prick?” Jeannie offered. “Cock! And as soon as I began coming, T winnie, I started yelling, all kinds of stuff, like his name and then ‘God’ and then ‘Fucking Jesus Christ!’ I didn’t know what I was saying, not really, but it didn’t matter, it just felt good, like some of the pressure was coming out of my mouth while the rest of it was being released through my cunt. I dug my nails into his shoulders. He came then, too, but he just groaned, no words or anything. We cuddled. It was good there was a towel on the bed because I’d scratched him so hard with my nails he was bleeding.” “Wow.” “He didn’t complain. I think he liked it. We said some sweet things to each other and then we did it again. It was way better than masturbation or dry-humping or anything. You’ve gotta do it.” “Yeah,” muttered Jeannie. “I do. But with who?” Patty shrugged. “Why not with Jason? He’s really good.” 188 Madeline Moore Jeannie shrieked. “Aren’t you in love with him?” It was Patty’s turn to shriek. “Of course not. I’m in love with Pat. Or maybe Gene.” “Me too,” said Jeannie. The girls doubled over with laughter, and then, at the sound of grumpy footsteps approaching, they dove under their covers, one in her nightie and the other naked, and feigned sleep when their dad stuck his head in their door and, unfooled by their angelic faces, grumbled, “Go to sleep.” This was the first time Jeannie and Patty shared a man, but it wasn’t to be the last. Patty usually went first, weeding out the duds, and Jeannie always went last, dumping the boys with no tears and an ear deaf to their protests, but since they pretended only one of them was ever with any one boy, neither acquired the bad reputation they both deserved. The next summer, arriving at the Twin Convention was a big event for the girls. They came without their parents for the first time, and they fully intended to fuck Pat and Gene, as soon as they decided who would be fucking whom. It was Jeannie who insisted they not share the twin blonds of their affection. They discussed it for most of the drive. “These are our husbands-to-be,” Jeannie admonished her sister and, when Patty protested that as such they ought to sample both boys each before making up their minds, Jeannie put her foot down. “Absolutely not,” she said. “I will always be faithful to my husband.” ‘They both loved Gene and Pat and were sure the twin boys loved them, too, and equally. But choices needed to be made, and soon, as the car was fast approaching Twin City. Jeannie made the final decision. “It’s best you go with Gene and I go with Pat,” she said. Patty was surprised. She’d been sure her sister would go for the quiet one, but Jeannie’s reasoning was sound.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  Mongo had a V-shaped grin that wrinkled the skin over his wide nostrils like soft black leather. Suddenly his hands were a flock of birds taking off. A trumpeter and tenor sax joined in and people started to fill the floor, hips swinging, shoulders pumping to the Afro-Cuban beat. Hugo and Anaïs rose and danced flirtatiously, apart and together. Later I learned that they had both studied flamenco dancing. That night what I saw was a couple joyfully seducing each other, sharing a secret in their movements. My feet moved under the table, and I could feel a smile on my face. Caresse, who was seated between me and Jean-Jacques, nudged us both. “See that mixed couple?” I saw a blond woman I hadn’t noticed before clasped to the chest of a black man. “That’s how Canada Lee and I were together. Sweet as hot fudge on vanilla ice cream.” My giggle caught in my throat when she hissed, “Anaïs had an affair with Canada, too. She doesn’t know that I know.” Jean-Jacques lifted a groomed eyebrow. I didn’t believe Caresse. I assumed she was jealous of Anaïs because Anaïs had Hugo who adored her, while Caresse’s husband Harry, I’d gathered, had killed himself. Caresse donned a glamorous smile when Millie, Anaïs, and Hugo returned to the table out of breath. Saying goodbye, Millie left for home, and Hugo, after pulling out Anaïs’s chair, excused himself for the toilette. Dropping her smile, Caresse leaned toward Anaïs. “While Hugo’s gone, there’s something I have to say to you.” I was afraid she was going accuse Anaïs of being with Canada Lee, but instead Caresse said, “You know that you and Hugo are always welcome at Rocca Sinibalda, but please do not bring the other one.” Anaïs paled. I wondered what Caresse meant. “I understand,” Anaïs said to Caresse and abruptly turned to me and Jean-Jacques. “Rocca Sinibalda is a castle outside Rome that Caresse purchased as a home for Women of the World Against War.” “Is that where I should write to join?” I asked Caresse. She ignored me and continued speaking to Anaïs. “Hugo isn’t passive like you think. When you’re in Los Angeles he pesters me with questions.” Anaïs came to Los Angeles, where I lived? I wanted to ask when, but Caresse kept on, “I love Hugo and can’t bear to see him hurt. You’d better watch out or somebody like me who appreciates him will grab him while you’re dallying on the other coast.” Anaïs cried, “You think I don’t appreciate Hugo? You think I don’t love him?” “You should mind your own business!” I heard the words shoot out of my mouth at Caresse.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  With this newly discovered aggression, Marius transforms the complex emotion of anxiety to joy and triumphant mastery. In his imagined spearing of the bear, he makes the active response that will ensure his victory; he is no longer the vanquished child. In being able, step by step, to exchange an active, aggressive response for one of being helpless and frozen, Marius renegotiates his trauma. At this point in the renegotiation, we see the establishment of an active escape (running) response in addition to an aggressive counter-attack response. In experiencing himself climbing the telephone pole and looking around, Marius finishes the renegotiation by completing the orienting response. This act allows him to uncouple additional fear from the excitement of being fully alive. Renegotiation helps to restore those resources that were diminished in the wake of trauma. The overall strategy of renegotiation is as follows: the first step is to develop a facility with the felt sense. Once this is developed, we can surrender to the currents of our feelings, which include trembling and other spontaneous discharges of energy. We can use the felt sense to uncouple the maladaptive attachment between excitement and fear. Because excitement is charged and we want to maintain that charge as free and distinct from anxiety, we must also be able to ground it. Resilient strength is the opposite of helplessness. The tree is made strong and resilient by its grounded root system. These roots take nourishment from the ground and grow strong. Grounding also allows the tree to be resilient so that it can yield to the winds of change and not be uprooted. Springiness is the facility to ground and “unground” in a rhythmical way. This buoyancy is a dynamic form of grounding. Aggressiveness is the biological ability to be vigorous and energetic, especially when using instinct and force. In the immobility (traumatized) state, these assertive energies are inaccessible. The restoration of healthy aggression is an essential part in the recovery from trauma. Empowerment is the acceptance of personal authority. It derives from the capacity to choose the direction and execution of one’s own energies. Mastery is the possession of skillful techniques in dealing successfully with threat. Orientation is the process of ascertaining one’s position relative to both circumstance and environment. In these ways the residue of trauma is renegotiated. Because every injury exists within life and life is constantly renewing itself, within every injury is the seed of healing and renewal. At the moment our skin is cut or punctured by a foreign object, a magnificent and precise series of biochemical events is orchestrated through evolutionary wisdom. The body has been designed to renew itself through continuous self-correction. These same principles also apply to the healing of psyche, spirit, and soul. II. Symptoms of Trauma 10. The Core of the Traumatic Reaction Arousa l— What Goes Up Must Come Down When we perceive danger or sense that we are threatened, we become aroused.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  Feelings of pleasure and expansion are evidence that the organism is moving into the healing vortex. The key to letting the healing vortex support the process of transformation lies in the ability to let go of preconceived ideas about how an event “should be” remembered. In other words, you have to be able to give the felt sense free license to communicate without censoring what it has to say. Paradoxically, this doesn’t negate the liberating significance of acknowledging “what really happened.” This truth is experienced in moving fluidly between the healing and trauma vortices. There is a deep acceptance of the emotional impact of events in our lives along with a simultaneous quality of waking up from a nightmare. One awakens from this dream with a sense of wonder and gladness. The Courage to Feel If you want to know whether an event “really” happened, all I can do is wish you well and tell you what you already know. You may have taken on an impossible task. In my view, neither this book nor anything else will help you know the truth of what you are seeking. If, on the other hand, your primary goal is to heal, there is much here that can help you. If healing is what you want, your first step is to be open to the possibility that literal truth is not the most important consideration. The conviction that it really happened, the fear that it may have happened, the subtle searching for evidence that it did happen, can all get in your way as you try to hear what the felt sense wants to tell you about what it needs to heal. By committing yourself to the process of healing, you will come to learn more about the truth behind your reactions. In spite of the fragmentation that occurs in the wake of trauma, the organism does retain associations that are connected with the events that caused its debilitation. The felt sense may reveal these events to you, or it may not. Keep reminding yourself that it doesn’t matter. Because if healing is what you want, it doesn’t matter whether you know the concrete truth. Desire and Healing The process of healing begins from within. Even before the cast is set on our broken bones, our bones begin to knit themselves back together. Just as there are physical laws that affect the healing of our bodies, there are laws that affect the healing of our minds. We have seen how our intellects can override some powerful instinctual forces of our organisms.

• From The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica Volume 10 (2011)

  didn’t do me. And we both enjoyed it. That’s all that matters.” She picked up her handbag and headed for the door. Her face was flushed with joy and triumph. I followed her and sought out her eyes, and these at least she granted me. She gave me one last puckery little kiss. I will never forget what she did next. She reached down and slapped me hard on my bare ass. Just to make sure I got the message, she slapped my butt even harder again, this time with a resounding thwack. Her bossy expression was at its bossiest, but I thought I caught just the slightest glint of compassion in her eyes. Then she opened the door and walked out of my life forever. Calendar Girl Angela Caperton Desi Palladino couldn’t take her eyes off April 1958. The calendar hung on the wall of Stu Gilbert’s tiny office at the back of the garage, where Desi brought him coffee and helped keep the books. There were calendars in the garage too, most of them with drawn or painted girls, prettier than any real woman could ever be, but the calendar on the wall of Stu’s office was the only one with photographs of real girls, one for each month of the year. “Whatcha lookin’ at, Desi?” Stu bustled through the open door, wiping his hands on a greasy rag. Stu Gilbert was pushing fifty, stocky, almost bald, but he smiled like a naughty twelve-year-old. Desi’s cheeks burned. “Nothing,” she mumbled. “Checking the delivery date for the parts you ordered last week.” Stu chuckled. “She’s somethin’, ain’t she?” He sighed and brushed his fingers over April’s bare stomach. “T thought it was against the law to show ... I mean ...” Desi’s mouth turned desert dry. “T figure somebody screwed up,” Stu said. Miss April’s ash blonde hair framed a plump face with ivory skin and pouty lips. Desi wished she had hair that color and the complexion to go with it. Her own hair fell in heavy black waves where it refused to curl over shoulders of pale olive, the gift of her father’s Sicilian blood. The calendar girl’s breasts curved in gentle slopes, pink-tipped and perfect, and her torso, where Stu’s finger twitched wistfully, looked firm, with just a hint of flesh around her stomach, then flattening down to a triangle of pale curls with the shadow of a line at its center. “T have to go, Stu,” Desi said, rising to ease past him and the scent of gasoline and tobacco he carried. He laughed as she reached the door. “If it bothers you, kid,” he chuckled, “I can skip to May.” Calendar Girl 475

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  Up the long dim road where thundered The army of Italy onward By the great pale arch of the Star. It was the deep historic sense of this great people that first won me and their loving admiration of their poets and artists and guides. I can never describe the thrill it gave me to find on a small house a marble plaque recording the fact that poor de Musset had once lived there, and another on the house wherein he died. Oh, how right the French are to have a Place Malherbe, and Avenue Victor Hugo, an Avenue de la Grande Armée too, and an Avenue de L’Imperatrice as well, though it has since been changed prosaically into the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne. From the Place de la Concorde I crossed the Seine and walked down the quays to the left, and soon passed the Conciergerie and Ste Chapelle with its gorgeous painted glass-windows of a thousand, years ago and there before me on the Ile de la Cité, the twin towers of Notre Dame caught my eyes and breath and finally, early in the afternoon I turned up the Boul’ Mich and passed the Sorbonne and then somehow or other lost myself in the old rue St. Jacques that Dumas père and other romance-writers had described for me a thousand times. I little tired at length having left the Luxemburg gardens far behind with their statues which I promised myself soon to study more closely, I turned into a little wine-shop restaurant kept by a portly and pleasant lady whose name I soon learned was Marguerite. After a most excellent meal I engaged a large room on the first floor looking on the street, for forty francs a month, and if a friend came to live with me, why Marguerite promised with a large smile to put in another bed for an additional ten francs monthly and supply us besides with coffee in the morning and whatever meals we wanted at most reasonable prices: there I lived gaudy, golden days for some three heavenly weeks.

• From Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble (2014)

  He just needs some time to get the pieces in place. The Inbound conference is right around the corner, and everybody in the marketing department is going to be overwhelmed until the conference is over. Let’s just get through Inbound, he says, and then we can circle back on this. The conference takes place over the course of four days in August, at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston. Five thousand people are here to come together, get inspired, and be remarkable. They want to learn how to crush it, how to be awesome, how to make one plus one equal three. Arianna Huffington gives a keynote speech. Dharmesh talks about being lovable. Halligan rambles on about the Grateful Dead—he’s a huge fan—and then starts playing air guitar and doing a weird hippie dance, unaccompanied by music. The dance goes on for too long. It’s painful to watch. The crowd eats it up. After the conference Sasha and I take the kids on a rafting trip in Maine, in a place so remote that there’s no cell service. We will be gone until Labor Day. I figure that in September, when everyone returns from the holiday, I will sit down with Cranium and start scoping out my project. Up in Maine we have no Internet connection, thus no tablets or laptops. We play cards and board games, cook on a fire outside the cabin, and hang our wet clothes up on the rafters to dry. The kids make new friends and go swimming and fishing. For the first time in months, Sasha is free of pain; she goes five days without having a migraine, a new record. We’re all together and enjoying one another. The kids aren’t fighting. It’s bliss. For the first time since joining HubSpot, I feel happy about my work. At the Inbound conference I gave a speech about storytelling and it went over well. Though things were rocky for the first four months, it seems that now I have figured out how to navigate the company and get what I want. Maybe I’m not so bad at this corporate stuff after all! But when I return to work after Labor Day, I get no word from Cranium. Before I can set a meeting to discuss our next steps, Zack pulls me aside. Some decisions have been made, he says. We are going to redesign the blog. Grumpy Jan is getting a promotion. Zack says maybe I can be an adviser to her. “Sure,” I say. “Sounds good. I’m going to be working on the new thing anyway. But I’m glad to help her out.” “Yeah, see, that’s the thing,” he says. “You’re still going to be working on the blog. They’re giving you your own separate section. It’s part of the redesign.”