Longing

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 Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I studied her more closely. As I had seen on that first night, she was not what you might term a beauty. She was thick at the waist and almost stout, and her face was broad, her chin a firm one. Her teeth were even, but not perfectly white; her eyes were hazel, but the lashes not long; her hands, however, seemed graceful. Her hair was the kind of hair we had all been thankful, as girls, that we did not have - for though she had bound it into a bun at her neck, the curls kept springing from it and twisting about her face. With the lamp behind it, too, it had seemed auburn; but it would really be more truthful to say that it was brown.I believe I liked it better that she was not more handsome. And though there was something wonderfully intriguing about her tranquillity at my strange behaviour - as if women donned gents’ trousers all the time; as if they made love to girls on balconies so often that she was used to it, and thought it merely naughty - I did not think I saw that trick in her, that furtive something, that I had recognised in other girls. Certainly nobody, gazing at her, would ever think to sneer and call out Tom! Again, though, I was glad of it. I had quit the business of hearts and kisses; I was in quite another trade altogether, these days!And yet would it hurt me after all this time to have a - friend ?I said, ‘Look here, will you come to the park with me? I was just on my way there when I saw you.’She smiled, but shook her head: ‘I’m working, I couldn’t.’‘It’s too hot for working.’‘The work must still be done, you know. I have a visit to make at Old Street - a lady Miss Derby knows might have some rooms for us. I should be there now, really.’ And she frowned down at a little watch that hung from a ribbon at her breast like a medal.‘Can’t you send to Miss Derby and make her go? It seems awfully hard on you. I bet she’s sitting in the office with her feet upon her desk, playing a tune on the mandolin; and here are you out in the sun doing all the tramping about. You need a bit of ice-cream, at the least; there’s an Italian lady in Kensington Gardens who sells the best ices in London, and she lets me have them at half-price...’She smiled again. ‘I cannot. Else, what would happen to all our poor families?’I didn’t care a button about the families; but I did care, suddenly at the thought that I might lose her. I said, ‘Well, then I shall have to see you when you come again to Green Street. When will that be?’‘Ah well, you see,’ she said, ‘it won’t.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  There never was a pair o’ mashers like ’em...’‘Mashers!’ said Florence.‘Why yes,’ continued Jenny. Then: ‘Why, just a minute - I believe there is the very thing to show it, here...’ She pushed her way through the crowd of gaping women to the bar, and here I saw her catch the barmaid’s eye, then gesture towards the wall behind the rows of upturned bottles. There was a faded piece of baize there, with a hundred old notes and picture-postcards fastened to it; I saw Mrs Swindles reach into the layers of curling paper for a second, then draw out something small and bent. This she handed to Jenny; in a moment it had been placed before me, and I found myself gazing at a photograph: Kitty and I, faint but unmistakable, in Oxford bags and boaters. I had my hand upon her shoulder, and a cigarette, unlit, between the fingers.I looked and looked at the picture. I remembered very clearly the weight and scent of that suit, the feel of Kitty’s shoulder beneath my hand. Even so, it was like gazing into someone else’s past, and it made me shiver.The postcard was seized from me, then, first by Florence - who bent her head to it and studied it almost as intently as I had - then by Ruth and Nora, and Annie and Miss Raymond, and finally by Jenny, who passed it on to her friends.‘Fancy us still having that pinned up,’ she said. ‘I remember the gal what put it there: she was rather keen on you - indeed, you was always something of a favourite, at the Boy. She got it from a lady in the Burlington Arcade. Did you know there was a lady there, selling pictures such as yours, to interested gals?’ I shook my head - in wonder, to think of all the times that I had trolled up and down the Burlington Arcade for interested gents, and never noticed that particular lady.‘What a treat, Miss King,’ cried someone else then, ‘to find you here...’ There was a general murmuring as the implications of this comment were digested; ‘I cannot say I never wondered,’ I heard someone say. Then Jenny leaned near to me again, and cocked her head.‘What about Miss Butler, if you don’t mind my asking? I heard she was a bit of a tom, herself.’‘That’s right,’ said another girl, ‘I heard that too.’I hesitated. Then: ‘You heard wrong,’ I said. ‘She wasn’t.’‘Not just a bit... ?’‘Not at all.’Jenny shrugged. ‘Well, that’s too bad.’I looked at my lap, suddenly upset; worse, however, was to follow, for at that moment one of the gay girls thrust her way between Ruth and Nora to call, ‘Oh, Miss King, won’t you give us a song?’ Her cry was taken up by a dozen throats - ‘Oh yes, Miss King, do!’ - and, as in a terrible dream, a broken-down old piano was suddenly produced, it seemed, from nowhere, and wheeled over the gritty floorboards.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I would gaze about me at the dim and dreary place in which my gentleman and I leaned panting, and wish the cobbles were a stage, the bricks a curtain, the scuttling rats a set of blazing footlights. I would long for just one eye - just one! - to be fixed upon our couplings: a bold and knowing eye that saw how well I played my part, how gulled and humbled was my foolish, trustful partner.But that - considering the circumstances - seemed quite impossible. All continued smoothly for, perhaps, six months or so: my colourless life at Mrs Best’s went on, and so did my trips to the West End, and my renting. My little stash of money dwindled, and finally disappeared; and now, since renting was all I knew and cared for, I began to live entirely from what I earned upon the streets.I still had had no word of Kitty — not a word! I concluded at last that she must have gone abroad, to try her luck with Walter — to America, perhaps, where we had planned to go. My months upon the music-hall stage seemed very distant to me now, and quite unreal. Once or twice on my trips around the city I saw someone I knew, from the old days - a fellow with whom we’d shared a bill at the Paragon, a wardrobe-mistress from the Bedford, Camden Town. One night I leaned against a pillar in Great Windmill Street and watched as Dolly Arnold - who had played Cinderella to Kitty’s Prince, at the Britannia - made her exit from the door of the Pavilion and was helped into a carriage. She looked at me, and blinked - then looked away again. Perhaps she thought she knew my face; perhaps she thought I was a boy that she had worked with; perhaps she only thought I was a miserable ningle, haunting the shadows in search of a gent. Anyway, she did not see Nan King in me, I know it; and if I had an urge to cross to her and reveal myself and ask for news of Kitty, it lasted for only a moment; and in that moment the driver shook his horses into life, and the carriage rumbled off.No, my only contact with the theatre now was as a renter. I discovered that the music halls of Leicester Square - the very same halls which Kitty and I had gazed at, all hopefully, two years before — were rather famous in the renter world as posing-grounds and pick-up spots.

• From Bestiary (2020)

  I tell her it doesn’t work that way, but Jie’s been taking anatomy lessons at the high school ten miles away, meaning she knows how to diagram a body, meaning she’s drawn me a penis with veins and everything, shown me a hole or two it could go in. She pulls down her pants so I can see. I ask her to show me where all my holes lead to, and she says if I dig into the dark between my legs, I’ll find a baby waiting to be plucked like a turnip. (Don’t worry, I didn’t scavenge for you. You were conceived the carnivore way.) Ma shaves soft wood from our birch tree and skunk-sprays the strips with perfume to make incense, burning it in bunches. The smoke keeps mosquitos from marrying all our blood. We pray to god and Guanyin, in that order. Pray for Ba’s gold to fall as rain or grow a hundred limbs and shudder out of the soil like metallic shrubbery. We consider other strategies: If we borrow a bulldozer, we can flip the whole yard like a penny. But we need our money for that, and our money is buried like a body. _ By the creek, Jie teaches me to read out of the Bible. We sit under a grove of trees belled with apples. The branches applaud in the wind and drop what they hold, concussing us with fist-hard fruit. Last week, rain rutted a hole in our roof and everything flooded, so we’re drying the Bible on a tree branch, its pages flapping like moths. I can pronounce only easy words, no proper names, no verbs. Jie says fluency is forgetting. Says I’ve got to un-name my mouth and crack my tongue like a whip. When I pronounce the word tongue with two syllables, Jie pushes me facedown into the mud. When I get up from the riverbank, I swallow the mud of my tongue. Jie says she once saw two girl ghosts kissing in the creek. I mishear her and think she means they were cleaning the creek. Why? I say. Jie says, Because a god made them want but didn’t give them a word for it. I think Ma is made that way too, unable to name her need. Jie and I climb the trees and pretend to be monkeys, swinging to steal the neighbor’s apricots like we’re Sun Wukong thieving a peach of immortality from the garden of gods. He was punished for this, but we can’t remember what the punishment was, so we swallow our apricots whole and without mercy. We shit the pits out, and they rattle the pipes of our toilet when we flush. Ma can’t stand us dirty when we come in from the yard, but she’s the kind who calls the sky a stain, who tries to bleach a bruise.

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  I am about to repeat a Psalm that I know. Before I begin, my expectation is extended over the whole; but when I have begun, how much soever of it I shall separate off into the past, is extended along my memory; thus the life of this action of mine is divided between my memory as to what I have repeated, and expectation as to what I am about to repeat; but “consideration” is present with me, that through it what was future, may be conveyed over, so as to become past. Which the more it is done again and again, so much the more the expectation being shortened, is the memory enlarged: till the whole expectation be at length exhausted, when that whole action being ended, shall have passed into memory. And this which takes place in the whole Psalm, the same takes place in each several portion of it, and each several syllable; the same holds in that longer action, whereof this Psalm may be part; the same holds in the whole life of man, whereof all the actions of man are parts; the same holds through the whole age of the sons of men, whereof all the lives of men are parts. But because Thy loving-kindness is better than all lives, behold, my life is but a distraction, and Thy right hand upheld me, in my Lord the Son of man, the Mediator betwixt Thee, The One, and us many, many also through our manifold distractions amid many things, that by Him I may apprehend in Whom I have been apprehended, and may be re-collected from my old conversation, to follow The One, forgetting what is behind, and not distended but extended, not to things which shall be and shall pass away, but to those things which are before, not distractedly but intently, I follow on for the prize of my heavenly calling, where I may hear the voice of Thy praise, and contemplate Thy delights, neither to come, nor to pass away. But now are my years spent in mourning. And Thou, O Lord, art my comfort, my Father everlasting, but I have been severed amid times, whose order I know not; and my thoughts, even the inmost bowels of my soul, are rent and mangled with tumultuous varieties, until I flow together into Thee, purified and molten by the fire of Thy love.

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  All this I have come to regard as a sort of overture to that first real meeting face to face, when such understanding as we had enjoyed until then — a gaiety and friendship founded in tastes which were common to the three of us — disintegrated into something which was not love — how could it have been? — but into a sort of mental possession in which the bonds of a ravenous sexuality played the least part. How did we let it come about — matched as we were so well in experience, weathered and seasoned by the disappointments of love in other places? In autumn the female bays turn to uneasy phosphorus and after the long chafing days of dust one feels the first palpitations of the autumn, like the wings of a butterfly fluttering to unwrap themselves. Mareotis turns lemon-mauve and its muddy flanks are starred by sheets of radiant anemones, growing through the quickened plaster-mud of the shore. One day while Nessim was away in Cairo I called at the house to borrow some books and to my surprise found Justine alone in the studio, darning an old pullover. She had taken the night train back to Alexandria, leaving Nessim to attend some business conference. We had tea together and then, on a sudden impulse took our bathing things and drove out through the rusty slag-heaps of Mex towards the sand-beaches off Bourg El Arab, glittering in the mauve-lemon light of the fast-fading afternoon. Here the open sea boomed upon the carpets of fresh sand the colour of oxidized mercury; its deep melodious percussion was the background to such conversation as we had. We walked ankle deep in the spurge of those shallow dimpled pools, choked here and there with sponges torn up by the roots and flung ashore. We passed no one on the road I remember save a gaunt Bedouin youth carrying on his head a wire crate full of wild birds caught with lime-twigs. Dazed quail.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  This was sensible advice. After all, I wasn’t a believer, so why let my career be hamstrung by this religious stuff? The book on the Crusades had been a disaster and the dismal sales figures would not endear me to a future publisher. Better to make it clear that I had turned over a new leaf and abjured my unprofitable past. Yet despite the lack of encouragement, I refused to relinquish the project. Why? It was not as though I were passionately in love with the subject. I had rarely read a book about God that was not, at least in part, abstract and dull. Why should my own be any different? I had no training in philosophy or metaphysics, and might write something hopelessly naïve. And why go on producing religious books in Britain, where only about 6 percent of the population attended a service on a regular basis? It seemed a doomed and even a self-destructive project. Many found the very idea hilarious. “Hi, Karen—how’s God?” they would ask, as though inquiring about a mutual acquaintance. Others raised their eyebrows in mild disapproval. “Do you think you can find anything new to say? Do we really need yet another book about God?” After the fiasco of the Crusades, my confidence was at such low ebb that these objections really struck home. I could already hear the ridicule and scorn of the reviewers. The general assumption was that nobody in the late twentieth century should take God seriously—least of all me. After all, this wretched God had lured me into a convent; his mythical perfection had made me chronically dissatisfied with myself; and his apparent indifference toward me had left me feeling spurned and hopeless. Who needed him? I had often declared that I had finished with God, and was much the better for it. Yet still, despite all the evidence I had so painfully amassed to the contrary, at some inchoate, unconscious level, I felt that God and I had unfinished business—even though I didn’t believe that he existed.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  Charlotte could never go to visit him or even call him, because she was not permitted to know his address or telephone number. Meanwhile, Mike roamed the countryside in his van, eschewing the trap of security and a regular job. It seemed imperative to his masculinity that he retain the initiative in his dealings with Charlotte. I had scarcely heard of feminism, but I found it quite outrageous that brave, talented Charlotte should live as a virtual prisoner because this useless drifter needed to be “free.” She was reluctant to leave her room in case Mike deigned to drop by while she was out, so she could never come and visit me at the Harts’ and we could never meet in a pub or some more cheerful venue. Whenever Charlotte jumped up at the sound of the communal phone or because a car door slammed in the street below, I vowed that if I ever fell in love, I would never allow myself to be so enslaved. But Charlotte was not so far gone that she could not see that her situation was absurd. Something had to be done, and we had a project. Her uncle had just visited Paris for the first time and had been completely intoxicated by the experience. He had sent Charlotte a check for fifty pounds and told her to take herself there for a weekend. Charlotte wanted me to go with her. There was no reason why I should not go. I was living at the Harts’ rent-free and so was much better off than most graduate students. And yet every time we mentioned Paris I felt a strong internal veto, and I could see that Charlotte felt the same. It was partly due to a fear of spending a significant amount of money after all those years of holy poverty. But it was more than that. Paris represented life, sensuality, freedom, and fun. And that somehow made it impossible. I had no business in such a place, because I belonged to the shadows. In our very different ways, Charlotte and I both dwelt on the periphery. We were stuck there for the present. But that was just for now. One day, we told each other firmly, we would really do it. We would buy our tickets and make our reservations. But not yet. Not just yet. Jacob sat at my desk, his head clasped in his hands, rocking backward and forward. It was Wednesday night, Nanny’s night off, and so he was spending the evening with me. He always came to my room willingly enough, but it was hard work to keep him occupied until his bedtime. We would play cards or dominoes sometimes, but Jacob soon lost interest, and frankly I did not enjoy these games much either. We would listen to the radio or play word games, but I still had not found my special thing to do with him. Yet tonight was different.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  But now my inner journey had become a sensational story in the popular press. Any subtlety that the book might have had had been lost in the Express ’s abridgement, especially when the newspaper text was punctuated with such subheadings as WHIP, TEARS, ANGUISH, and BLOOD. When I had written the last pages of Through the Narrow Gate, I had realized that those years had probably been the most significant of my life; they had changed me forever. I might have lost my faith, I could no longer believe in God or the doctrines of the church, but I still longed for the sense of heightened intensity and transcendence that the convent had promised to give me. Was I still a nun, living in the world and yearning for a deity that did not exist? I was uncomfortably aware that I should reflect further on this strange ambiguity, but there was no chance of that during the publicity campaign. I had some sensitive interviews at the BBC, but the cheaper newspapers and journals had turned me into something called “a survivor.” These interviewers took it for granted that the convent had been a ghastly aberration and that I was now completely at home in secular life. Look, the Express pictures said, here she is in her own flat, taking a casserole out of the oven! There she is chatting like any other girl on the telephone, wearing dungarees, having a glass of wine in the pub! Woman’s Realm even photographed me leaping over a puddle in Highbury Fields, presumably jumping for joy at my release. I did not know how to counter this, because there was an element of truth in the survival myth. It was true that I was no longer a Roman Catholic; it was true that the convent experience had been damaging in many ways; and true that I had no intention of going back. It was true that I wasn’t even a Christian any longer, and that the mere thought of going to church made me feel physically sick. Interviewers constantly congratulated me on my triumph over adversity, and for getting rid of an imbecilic religious worldview. And each time I admitted that I had indeed severed all links with convents and churches, my dissociation from the spiritual became more of a reality, in the way that elusive matters do when you put them into words. Yet I was uneasily aware that this was not the whole truth. I was not that joyous girl, leaping in the air, happy and at ease with the world, wholly integrated with secular life. And I could no longer maintain, as I had on the day of Jacob’s baptism, that I no longer had any hunger for what I used to call God. By writing Through the Narrow Gate, I had recalled and thus reawakened some of that longing for the sacred that had carried me into the religious life.

• From The Fermata (1994)

  Feeling Joyce’s mattress pad made me want to kiss her. I not only wanted to kiss her, which I could do easily using time trickery—I wanted her to know I was kissing her and to want me to be kissing her, which was a great deal harder to bring about. I turned on one of her kitchen taps; a trickle of water came out (water pressure is never good in the Fold), and I drank a little from one of her kitchen glasses. Just before I left her apartment and walked back to work, I placed, under an antique glass bottle on the sill of her sunporch-bedroom, entirely out of sight, without knowing exactly why I was doing it, a folded fortune-cookie fortune that I had found in a bowl of forgotten things on top of her refrigerator. It said, “Smile when you are ready.” Then I walked back to work. When I had put on my headphones and reassumed the lost, somewhat spiritual expression of the concentrating transcriber, I snapped everything back to life. But I had entirely misjudged my capacity to handle the sound of Joyce’s abruptly resumed business voice in my ears so soon after I had gotten such a huge and illicit idea of her apartment. The fact that she had no notion of what I had just done, that she did not know the full extent of my knowledge of her mattress pad, pained me much more than I expected—not because my unlawful entry was wrong, exactly, but because I felt that my fuller sense of her life was going to make it more difficult for me to ask her out, rather than easier. The more I learned about her, the more I liked her, with a friendly, almost marital sort of well-wishing affection; but also the harder it was to imagine my having dinner with her and pretending that I knew nothing except what she was willing to tell me. Her pubic hair, her braid, I could handle just fine: they were graphic sights and textures whose memories wouldn’t get in the way of any later, more preliminary flirtation, but still-lifes like the maple syrup and the Dover book on the kitchen table made me imagine spending my life with her, and how could I possibly spend my life with her if I had to keep the secret of my Fold-proficiencies and activities from her? This sort of doubt was not entirely unfamiliar, but in the past I had simply concluded (most recently after Rhody broke up with me over this very issue) that I was never going to get married, and I was content with that conclusion.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  She said, ‘There’s a piece of bacon still warm in the kitchen, which you may as well have for your breakfast. Then - oh! then you really must go.’‘I promise I will!’She nodded, and pulled at the door. There came a blast of icy air from the street outside that made me shiver. Florence shivered, too. The wind blew the brim of her hat away from her brow, and she narrowed her hazel eyes against it, and tightened her jaw.I said, ‘Miss Banner! I - might I come back, sometime, on a visit? I should like - I should like to see your brother, and thank him...’ I should like to see her, was what I meant. I had come to make a friend of her. But I didn’t know how to say it.She put a hand to her collar, and blinked into the wind. ‘You must do as you like,’ she said. Then she pulled the door shut, leaving the parlour chill behind her, and I saw her shadow on the lace at the window as she walked away.After she had gone my leaden limbs seemed all at once, and quite miraculously, to lighten. I rose, and braved again the chilly privy; then I found the slice of bacon that had been put aside for me, and took a piece of bread and a bunch of cress, and ate my breakfast standing at the kitchen window, gazing sightlessly at the unfamiliar view beyond it.After that I rubbed my hands, and glanced about me, and began to wonder what to do.The kitchen, at least, was warm, for someone - Ralph, presumably - had lit a small fire in the range, early on, and the coals were only half consumed. It did seem a shame to waste their lovely heat - and it could not hurt, I told myself, to boil up some water for a bit of a wash. I opened a cupboard door, looking for a pan to set upon the hob, and came across a flat-iron; and seeing this I thought: They wouldn’t mind, surely, if I warmed that, too, and gave my battered frock a little press...While I waited for these things to heat I wandered back into the parlour, to separate the armchairs that had made my bed, and set the blankets in a tidy pile. This done, I did what I had been at first too bewildered, and then too sleepy, to do the night before: I stood and had a proper look around.The room, as I have said, was a very small one - far smaller, certainly, than my old bedroom at Felicity Place - and there were no gas-jets in it, only oil-lamps and candlesticks. The furniture and decorations were, I thought, a rather curious mixture.

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  Thou hast told me also with a strong voice, in my inner ear, that neither is that creature coeternal unto Thyself, whose happiness Thou only art, and which with a most persevering purity, drawing its nourishment from Thee, doth in no place and at no time put forth its natural mutability; and, Thyself being ever present with it, unto Whom with its whole affection it keeps itself, having neither future to expect, nor conveying into the past what it remembereth, is neither altered by any change, nor distracted into any times. O blessed creature, if such there be, for cleaving unto Thy Blessedness; blest in Thee, its eternal Inhabitant and its Enlightener! Nor do I find by what name I may the rather call the heaven of heavens which is the Lord’s, than Thine house, which contemplateth Thy delights without any defection of going forth to another; one pure mind, most harmoniously one, by that settled estate of peace of holy spirits, the citizens of Thy city in heavenly places; far above those heavenly places that we see. By this may the soul, whose pilgrimage is made long and far away, by this may she understand, if she now thirsts for Thee, if her tears be now become her bread, while they daily say unto her, Where is Thy God? if she now seeks of Thee one thing, and desireth it, that she may dwell in Thy house all the days of her life (and what is her life, but Thou? and what Thy days, but Thy eternity, as Thy years which fail not, because Thou art ever the same?); by this then may the soul that is able, understand how far Thou art, above all times, eternal; seeing Thy house which at no time went into a far country, although it be not coeternal with Thee, yet by continually and unfailingly cleaving unto Thee, suffers no changeableness of times. This is in Thy sight clear unto me, and let it be more and more cleared unto me, I beseech Thee, and in the manifestation thereof, let me with sobriety abide under Thy wings. There is, behold, I know not what formlessness in those changes of these last and lowest creatures; and who shall tell me (unless such a one as through the emptiness of his own heart, wonders and tosses himself up and down amid his own fancies?), who but such a one would tell me, that if all figure be so wasted and consumed away, that there should only remain that formlessness, through which the thing was changed and turned from one figure to another, that that could exhibit the vicissitudes of times? For plainly it could not, because, without the variety of motions, there are no times: and no variety, where there is no figure.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  The fact is -’ The fact was, I hadn’t thought what I would tell him. I hesitated; but it was impossible to lie to him: ‘Bill, I’m living as a boy just now.’‘As a boy?’ He said it loudly; then put a hand before his mouth. Even so, one or two of the grumbling gents in the queue turned their heads. I edged a little further away from them. I said again: ‘I’m living as a boy, with a lady who takes care of me ...’ And at that, at last, he looked a little more knowing, and nodded.Behind him, the Italian dropped a gentleman’s hat, and the gentleman tutted. Bill said, ‘Can you wait?’ and stepped to help his friend by taking another couple of cloaks. Then he moved towards me again. The Italian looked sour.I glanced over to Diana and Maria. The lobby had emptied a bit; they stood waiting for me. Maria had placed Satin on the floor and he was scratching at her skirt. Diana turned to catch my eye. I looked at Bill.‘How are you, then?’ I asked him.He looked rueful, and lifted his hand: there was a wedding-ring on it. He said, ‘Well, I am married now, for a start!’‘Married! Oh, Bill, I am happy for you! Who’s the girl? It’s not Flora? Not Flora, our old dresser?’ He nodded, and said it was.‘It is on account of Flora,’ he added, ‘that I am working here. She has a job on round the corner, a month at the Old Mo. She is still, you know’ - he looked suddenly rather awkward — ’s he is still, you know, dressing Kitty ...’I stared at him. There came more mutters from the queue of gents, and more sour looks from the Italian, and he stepped back again to help with the cloaks and hats and tickets. I lifted a hand to my head, and put my fingers through my hair, and tried to understand what he had told me. He was married to Flora, and Flora was still with Kitty; and Kitty had a spot at the Middlesex Music Hall. And that was about three streets away from where I stood now.And Kitty, of course, was married to Walter.Are they happy? I wanted to call to Bill then. Does she talk of me, ever? Does she think of me? Does she miss me? But when he returned - looking even more flustered and damp about the brow - I said only, ‘How’s - how’s the act, Bill?’‘The act?’ He sniffed. ‘Not so good, I don’t think. Not so good as the old days ...’We gazed at one another. I looked harder at his face, and saw that he had gained a bit of weight beneath his chin, and that the flesh about his eyes was rather darker than I knew it. Then the Italian called, ‘Bill, will you come?’

• From The Fermata (1994)

  She would give me a look and I would have a feeling that she was on the verge of asking me if I had made the tape. (The stately pace of sound-waves in the Fold would further explain my altered timbre.) But she wouldn’t ask. Possibly she wouldn’t want to know that I was the Arno Van Dilden behind Marian the Librarian. She wouldn’t want me to be a liar and a trickster and a sneak, but a genuine, somewhat-fun-to-talk- to one-time dessert companion, which is what I would genuinely want to be for her as well. We would walk back up the slope to the motel. Our respective keys would make jingly sounds. I would be so sleepy by this time that I would hardly be able to stand. I would ask her, “Are you leaving at the crack of dawn or will you be able to have some breakfast?” She would say that she would probably just get something at a drive-through. “Well,” I would say, shaking her hand, “good luck with your bilingual research.” We would go into our rooms. I would take a shower and get in bed and fall asleep thinking about light-switches that go up and down without making a clicking sound. It would only be about eight-thirty, real time. The effort involved in trying to be likable, on top of the lack of sleep, would have completely wiped me out. Two hours later, the phone would ring. It would be Adele. “Did I wake you up?” I would say no. She would say, “The reason I’m calling is, you know what? I think you unintentionally made off with my washcloth.” I would pretend to think back. I would remember. “Right, of course. I was flustered.” Adele would say, “I believe that you had it on top of that pile of reading material.” “You’re right,” I would say. “Do you need it? I’ll bring it right over.” “Well,” she would explain, “I’m thinking of taking a bath, and a bath is just not a bath without a washcloth.” I would indicate that I agreed wholeheartedly with this statement. “The washcloth is one of the more versatile things you can bring with you to the bathtub,” I would say. I would tell her how much I liked it when I got soap in my eyes and I squeezed out the washcloth and scrubbed my eyes really hard with it, making the sting of the soap miraculously go away. Adele would tell me how as a child she had arranged her dolls at the foot of the tub and used wet washcloths as blankets, tucking them in. I would ask her whether she had raised her dolls bilingually. She would say that in fact she had developed several doll languages.

• From 50 Shades Uncovered (2015)

  But there's no denying that women love to absorb themselves in the fictional world. I see all the sex films, you know. "Hot Lust and Sweaty Thighs," "Nuns in Rubber." No, look, I mean, I didn't, I didn't, I just, I thought that that would be mean-- Well, ordinary sex gets boring, doesn't it? Especially with Frederick. He's my husband. (music playing) Narrator: The immense popularity of the series has also led to an increase in people seeking more diverse sex lives, but not always with their partner. ♪ Come on, baby ♪ Ohh... "Illicit Encounters" is, uh, a dating site not too dissimilar to most online dating sites, but with one major difference. Most of our customers are either married or attached. We've had so many members using the names, or combinations of the words "Christian" and "Grey," to the point that there are no more dots or numbers they can put into get it allowed and to be unique within the system. Gaukroger: The Christian Grey character is fantasy. That's the most important word to remember in it. - It's fantasy. - He's the fantasy. We asked our members whether they would want to dabble in some of the antics that were mentioned in the book. And 74% did, but a large majority said but not with their existing partner. So Christian Grey personifies the-the non-emotion man, the man that you can fantasize over. We all use sexual fantasy in our lives. Freud said when two people make love there are at least four people present, the two doing it and the two they're thinking about. And I say, is it only four? Narrator: Sales of sex toys and erotica accessories have more than doubled since "Fifty Shades" burst onto the scene in 2012. ♪ Pointing out your secret place ♪ ♪ How you need to make amends... ♪ Longhurst: Before the "Fifty Shades of Grey" book was out, the biggest event that boosted sales of sex toys was when the rabbit vibrator was featured in a very famous episode of "Sex and the City." Charlotte was taken to a shop called The Pleasure Chest in New York. Carrie bought her a rabbit, and you didn't see Charlotte for the rest of the episode because she became addicted to her rabbit. ♪ I'm gonna take it down... The rabbit became the single number-one must-have sex toy for women. ♪ I'm gonna take it down... We've developed a really good, close working relationship with Erika 'cause what actually happened was that she came to Coco de Mer to get inspiration for what to do in a book. There's quite a lot of technical stuff there. I mean, you know, somebody's done some research. ♪ It's no surprise... Longhurst: We were able to close the shop for Erika, show her around in detail, and I think she enjoyed that and she just, she just liked our boyish charm and winning smiles. E.L.

• From A Theology for the Social Gospel (1918)

  1 66 A THEOLOGY FOR THE SOCIAL GOSPEL love withtheir fellow-men, they are not far from the Kingdom of God. The great thing in the salvation of humanity is that salvation is present. Life begets life. Yet itis amatter of unspeakable difficulty for the Kingdom ofGod to make headway against the inherent weakness of human nature and the social entrenchments of the Kingdom of Evil. "The risks of temporary dis- aster which great ideals run, appear to be directlypropor- tioned to the value of the ideals. Great truths bear long sorrows." The more we do justice tothis fact, the more we shall realize that the initiation and perpetuation of the historical movement of redemption was the essen- tial thing. Jesus was the initiator. Toshow this more and more clearly isthe service the social gospel asks of doctrinal and historical theology. By this avenue of ap- proach we shall appreciate the human dimensions of Jesus. The individualistic theology was the creation of men with little historical training and historical con- sciousness, andto that extent the problems they set were the product of uneducated minds. The full greatness of the problem of Jesus strikes uswhen we see himin his connection with human history. Our ownconsciousness ofGod's love and forgiveness, our inward freedom, our social feeling, the set of our willtoward the achievement of the Kingdom of God, our fellowship with the " twoor three " inwhich we have arealizationof the higher pres- ence, we owe toour connection withthe historicalforce which Jesus initiated. Where did he himself get what he had ? At what fountain did he drink? 1 Royce, " Problem of Christianity/' I, 54. CHAPTERXV THE SOCIAL GOSPEL AND THE CONCEPTION OFGOD MY main purpose in this book hasbeentoshow that the social gospel isa vital part of the Christian conception of sin and salvation, andthat anyteaching on the sinful condition ofthe raceand on its redemption from evil which failsto do justice tothe socialfactors and pro- cessesinsinand redemption, must be incomplete, unreal, and misleading. Also, since the social gospel hence- forth is tobe an importantpart ofour Christian mes- sage, its chief convictions must beembodied in these doc- trines in some organic form. Now, the doctrines ofsin and salvationarethestart- ing-point and goal ofChristian theology. Every es- sential change or enlargement in them is boundto affect related doctrinesalso. Itwillbe the object of there- maining chapters of the book to indicate howthesocial gospel would re-actonthedoctrine of God, ofthe Holy Spirit and inspiration, ofthe sacraments, of eschatology, andofthe atonement. The conception ofGod held by asocial group is a so- cial product. Evenifit originated in the mindofa solitary thinkeror prophet, assoonasitbecomesthe property of a social group, it takeson the qualities of that group. If, for instance, a high and spiritual idea i&r

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  If therefore we conceive of the natures of the things themselves, not allegorically, but properly, then does the phrase increase and multiply, agree unto all things, that come of seed. But if we treat of the words as figuratively spoken (which I rather suppose to be the purpose of the Scripture, which doth not, surely, superfluously ascribe this benediction to the offspring of aquatic animals and man only); then do we find “multitude” to belong to creatures spiritual as well as corporeal, as in heaven and earth, and to righteous and unrighteous, as in light and darkness; and to holy authors who have been the ministers of the Law unto us, as in the firmament which is settled betwixt the waters and the waters; and to the society of people yet in the bitterness of infidelity, as in the sea; and to the zeal of holy souls, as in the dry land; and to works of mercy belonging to this present life, as in the herbs bearing seed, and in trees bearing fruit; and to spiritual gifts set forth for edification, as in the lights of heaven; and to affections formed unto temperance, as in the living soul. In all these instances we meet with multitudes, abundance, and increase; but what shall in such wise increase and multiply that one thing may be expressed many ways, and one expression understood many ways; we find not, except in signs corporeally expressed, and in things mentally conceived. By signs corporeally pronounced we understand the generations of the waters, necessarily occasioned by the depth of the flesh; by things mentally conceived, human generations, on account of the fruitfulness of reason. And for this end do we believe Thee, Lord, to have said to these kinds, Increase and multiply. For in this blessing, I conceive Thee to have granted us a power and a faculty, both to express several ways what we understand but one; and to understand several ways, what we read to be obscurely delivered but in one. Thus are the waters of the sea replenished, which are not moved but by several significations: thus with human increase is the earth also replenished, whose dryness appeareth in its longing, and reason ruleth over it.

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  ‘Money falling into the tin bowls of beggars. Fragments of every language — Armenian, Greek, Amharic, Moroccan Arabic; Jews from Asia Minor, Pontus, Georgia: mothers born in Greek settlements on the Black Sea; communities cut down like the branches of trees, lacking a parent body, dreaming of Eden. These are the poor quarters of the white city; they bear no resemblance to those lovely streets built and decorated by foreigners where the brokers sit and sip their morning papers. Even the harbour does not exist for us here. In the winter, sometimes, rarely, you can hear the thunder of a siren — but it is another country. Ah! the misery of harbours and the names they conjure when you are going nowhere. It is like a death — a death of the self uttered in every repetition of the word Alexandria, Alexandria.’ * * * * * Rue Bab-el-Mandeb, Rue Abou-el-Dardar, Minet-el-Bassal (streets slippery with discarded fluff from the cotton marts) Nouzha (the rose-garden, some remembered kisses) or bus stops with haunted names like Saba Pacha, Mazloum, Zizinia Bacos, Schutz, Gianaclis. A city becomes a world when one loves one of its inhabitants. * * * * * One of the consequences of frequenting the great house was that I began to be noticed and to receive the attention of those who considered Nessim influential and presumed that if he spent his time with me I must also, in some undiscovered fashion, be either rich or distinguished. Pombal came to my room one afternoon while I was dozing and sat on my bed: ‘Look here’ he said, ‘you are beginning to be noticed. Of course a cicisbeo is a normal enough figure in Alexandrian life, but things are going to become socially very boring for you if you go out with those two so much. Look!’ And he handed me a large and florid piece of pasteboard with a printed invitation on it for cocktails at the French Consulate. I read it uncomprehendingly. Pombal said: ‘This is very silly. My chief, the Consul-General, is impassionated by Justine. All attempts to meet her have failed so far. His spies tell him that you have an entrée into the family circle, indeed that you are … I know, I know. But he is hoping to displace you in her affections.’ He laughed heavily. Nothing sounded more preposterous to me at this time. ‘Tell the Consul-General’ I said … and uttered a forcible remark or two which caused Pombal to click his tongue reprovingly and shake his head. ‘I would love to’ he said ‘but, mon cher, there is a Pecking Order among diplomats as there is among poultry. I depend upon him for my little cross.’

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  They thought it more than strange, I knew, that I should be returning to the Palace yet again; Rhoda, in particular, seemed greatly tickled by the story of my ‘mash’. ‘Don’t you mind her going, Mrs Astley?’ she asked. ‘My mother would never let me go so far alone; and I am two years older. But then, Nancy is such a steady sort of girl, I suppose.’ I had been a steady girl; it was over Alice - saucy Alice - that my parents usually worried. But at Rhoda’s words I saw Mother look me over and grow thoughtful. I had on my Sunday dress, and my new hat trimmed with lavender; and I had a lavender bow at the end of my plait of hair, and a bow of the same ribbon sewn on each of my white linen gloves. My boots were black with a wonderful shine. I had put a spot of Alice’s perfume - eau de rose - behind each ear; and I had darkened my lashes with castor oil from the kitchen.Mother said, ‘Nancy, do you really think -?’ But as she spoke the clock on the mantel gave a ting! It was a quarter-past seven, I should miss my train.I said, ‘Good-bye! Good-bye!’ - and fled, before she could delay me.I missed my train anyway, and had to wait at the station till the later one came. When I reached the Palace the show had begun: I took my seat to find the acrobats already on the stage forming their loop, their spangles gleaming, their white suits dusty at the knees. There was clapping; Tricky rose to say - what he said every night, so that half the audience smiled and said it with him - that You couldn’t get many of those to the pound! Then - as if it were part of the overture to her routine and she could not work without it - I gripped my seat and held my breath, while he raised his gavel to beat out Kitty Butler’s name.She sang that night like - I cannot say like an angel, for her songs were all of champagne suppers and strolling in the Burlington Arcade; perhaps, then, like a fallen angel - or yet again like a falling one: she sang like a falling angel might sing with the bounds of heaven fresh burst behind him, and hell still distant and unguessed. And as she did so, I sang with her - not loudly and carelessly like the rest of the crowd, but softly, almost secretly, as if she might hear me the better if I whispered rather than bawled.And perhaps, after all, she did. I had thought that, when she walked on to the stage, she had glanced my way - as much as to say, the box is filled again. Now, as she wheeled before the footlights, I thought I saw her look at me again.

• From Real Sex for Real Women (2008)

  Empty-nest relationshipsWhen children grow up and leave home, one or both parents often imagine that blissful romantic nights will follow. However, many couples find that by the time they have the house to themselves again, they feel they have nothing left in common with each other. Without the children’s lives to discuss, parents may find their only topic of conversation is the weather. The empty-nest syndrome is common and expected—after all, your life is changing for the first time in 18 years. In the wake of this, your relationship will inevitably shift and evolve. You can get it back on track, but you might have to get to know each other again. Think about building up the common ground—shared interests such as travel or golf. Now that children are no longer at the forefront of your minds, you have time to explore other interests, whether they be fitness, cooking, or gardening. While it is important to have separate hobbies to maintain your independence, having a mutual one will help create conversation and give you shared goals. Also have honest conversations about what you want from this next chapter of your life. Take some risks by stating that you would like more intimacy, and attempt to jump-start your sex life. These changes can herald the beginning of a new and beautiful time in your relationship—long weekends away, quiet nights, late mornings and breakfast in bed, and sex all over the house. And this really is a situation that you can create for yourselves, by yourselves. Get the romance backDon’t just long for those heady moments you experienced in the early days of your relationship—make yourselves a promise to reignite that excitement you shared together. Turn off the TV, feed each other strawberries and champagne, make love into the early hours of the morning—and don’t worry if you are late for work. Pursue adventure Your initial feelings of excitement when you first met your lover cannot be duplicated, but they can be imitated. When people engage in adventurous activities such as bungee jumping, riding roller-coasters, skiing, or even watching a scary movie, their brains emit dopamine and adrenaline, which are similar to the chemicals emitted during infatuation. By participating in these types of activities with your partner, you get to spend quality time together and benefit from the surges of excitement and attraction. Stay sexy The way we dress and groom ourselves is a large part of sexual attraction, yet many couples let their appearance fall by the wayside once they become comfortable with each other. Paying attention to your appearance reminds you, and your partner, how sexy you are. Even though you have been together a few years, making as much effort as you did on your first date can lead to similar emotional and sexual rewards.