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 Little Women (1868)

  "It is not for me, I must not hope it now," he said to himself, with a sigh that was almost a groan. Then, as if reproaching himself for the longing that he could not repress, he went and kissed the two tousled heads upon the pillow, took down his seldom-used meerschaum, and opened his Plato. He did his best and did it manfully, but I don't think he found that a pair of rampant boys, a pipe, or even the divine Plato, were very satisfactory substitutes for wife and child at home. Early as it was, he was at the station next morning to see Jo off, and thanks to him, she began her solitary journey with the pleasant memory of a familiar face smiling its farewell, a bunch of violets to keep her company, and best of all, the happy thought, "Well, the winter's gone, and I've written no books, earned no fortune, but I've made a friend worth having and I'll try to keep him all my life."

• From Another Country (1962)

  They laughed differently from other people, so it had seemed to him, and moved with more beauty and violence, and they smelled like good things in the oven. But had he ever loved Rufus? Or had it simply been rage and nostalgia and guilt? and shame? Was it the body of Rufus to which he had clung, or the bodies of dark men, seen briefly, somewhere, in a garden or a clearing, long ago, sweat running down their chocolate chests and shoulders, their voices ringing out, the white of their jock-straps beautiful against their skin, one with his head tilted back before a dipper—and the water splashing, sparkling, singing down!—one with his arm raised, laying an axe to the base of a tree? Certainly he had never succeeded in making Rufus believe he loved him. Perhaps Rufus had looked into his eyes and seen those dark men Eric saw, and hated him for it. He lay very still, feeling Yves’ unmoving, trusting weight, feeling the sun. “Yves—–?” “Oui, mon chou?” “Let’s go inside. I think, maybe, I’d like to take a shower and have a drink. I’m beginning to feel sticky.” “Ah, les américains avec leur drinks! I will surely become an alcoholic in New York.” But he raised his head and kissed Eric swiftly on the tip of his nose and stood up. He stood between Eric and the sun; his hair very bright, his face in shadow. He looked down at Eric and grinned. “Alors tu es toujours prêt, toi, d’après ce que je vois.” Eric laughed. “Et toi, salaud?” “Mais moi, je suis français, mon cher, je suis pas puritain, fort heureusement. T’aura du te rendre compte d’ailleurs.” He pulled Eric to his feet and slapped him on the buttocks with the red bikini. “ Viens . Take your shower. I think we have almost nothing left to drink, I will bicycle down to the village. What shall I get?” “Some whiskey?” “Naturally, since that is the most expensive. Are we eating in or out?” They started into the house, with their arms around each other. “Try to get Madame Belet to come and cook something for us.” “What do you want to eat?” “I don’t care. Whatever you want.” The house was long and low, built of stone, and very cool and dark after the heat and brightness of the kitchen. The kitten had followed them in and now murmured insistently at their feet. “Perhaps I will feed her before I go. It will only take a minute.” “She can’t be hungry yet, she eats all the time,” said Eric. But Yves had already begun preparing the kitten’s food. They had entered through the kitchen and Eric walked through it and through the dining salon, into their bedroom, and threw himself down on the bed. The bedroom also had an entrance on the garden.

• From Little Women (1868)

  paper, he came across something which changed his purpose. Tumbling about in one part of the desk among bills, passports, and business documents of various kinds were several of Jo's letters, and in another compartment were three notes from Amy, carefully tied up with one of her blue ribbons and sweetly suggestive of the little dead roses put away inside. With a half-repentant, half-amused expression, Laurie gathered up all Jo's letters, smoothed, folded, and put them neatly into a small drawer of the desk, stood a minute turning the ring thoughtfully on his finger, then slowly drew it off, laid it with the letters, locked the drawer, and went out to hear High Mass at Saint Stefan's, feeling as if there had been a funeral, and though not overwhelmed with affliction, this seemed a more proper way to spend the rest of the day than in writing letters to charming young ladies. The letter went very soon, however, and was promptly answered, for Amy was homesick, and confessed it in the most delightfully confiding manner. The correspondence flourished famously, and letters flew to and fro with unfailing regularity all through the early spring. Laurie sold his busts, made allumettes of his opera, and went back to Paris, hoping somebody would arrive before long. He wanted desperately to go to Nice, but would not till he was asked, and Amy would not ask him, for just then she was having little experiences of her own, which made her rather wish to avoid the quizzical eyes of 'our boy'. Fred Vaughn had returned, and put the question to which she had once decided to answer, "Yes, thank you," but now she said, "No, thank you," kindly but steadily, for when the time came, her courage failed her, and she found that something more than money and position was needed to satisfy the new longing that filled her heart so full of tender hopes and fears. The words, "Fred is a good fellow, but not at all the man I fancied you would ever like," and Laurie's face when he uttered them, kept returning to her as pertinaciously as her own did when she said in look, if not in words, "I shall marry for money." It troubled her to remember that now, she wished she could take it back, it sounded so unwomanly. She didn't want Laurie to think her a heartless, worldly creature. She didn't care to be a queen of society now half so much as she did to be a lovable woman. She was so glad he didn't hate her for the dreadful things she said, but took them so beautifully and was kinder than ever. His letters were such a comfort, for the home letters were very irregular and not half so satisfactory as his when they did come. It was not only a pleasure, but a duty to answer them, for the poor fellow was forlorn, and needed petting, since Jo persisted in being

• From Little Women (1868)

  which holds the reader fast till the end comes, and he finds himself alone in the workaday world again. By-and-by Jo roamed away upstairs, for it was rainy, and she could not walk. A restless spirit possessed her, and the old feeling came again, not bitter as it once was, but a sorrowfully patient wonder why one sister should have all she asked, the other nothing. It was not true, she knew that and tried to put it away, but the natural craving for affection was strong, and Amy's happiness woke the hungry longing for someone to 'love with heart and soul, and cling to while God let them be together'. Up in the garret, where Jo's unquiet wanderings ended stood four little wooden chests in a row, each marked with its owners name, and each filled with relics of the childhood and girlhood ended now for all. Jo glanced into them, and when she came to her own, leaned her chin on the edge, and stared absently at the chaotic collection, till a bundle of old exercise books caught her eye. She drew them out, turned them over, and relived that pleasant winter at kind Mrs. Kirke's. She had smiled at first, then she looked thoughtful, next sad, and when she came to a little message written in the Professor's hand, her lips began to tremble, the books slid out of her lap, and she sat looking at the friendly words, as they took a new meaning, and touched a tender spot in her heart. "Wait for me, my friend. I may be a little late, but I shall surely come." "Oh, if he only would! So kind, so good, so patient with me always, my dear old Fritz. I didn't value him half enough when I had him, but now how I should love to see him, for everyone seems going away from me, and I'm all alone." And holding the little paper fast, as if it were a promise yet to be fulfilled, Jo laid her head down on a comfortable rag bag, and cried, as if in opposition to the rain pattering on the roof. Was it all self-pity, loneliness, or low spirits? Or was it the waking up of a sentiment which had bided its time as patiently as its inspirer? Who shall say? CHAPTER FORTY-THREE SURPRISES Jo was alone in the twilight, lying on the old sofa, looking at the fire, and thinking. It was her favorite way of spending the hour of dusk. No one disturbed her, and she used to lie there on Beth's little red pillow, planning stories,

• From Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  The worst part was, he said he felt the same way— and he was not nearly as reticent about talking about his feelings as I was. Every six months or so, when we could no longer stand the physical and emotional tension between us, we’d sit down to one of our regular coffee or dinner dates and talk about how much we loved one another and how frustrated we were that we couldn’t be together. I told him I felt like I had a secret under my hat all the time. When I was among our friends and peers at the meditation circle I felt as though I was hiding something essential about myself because I couldn’t share how I felt about Michael with anyone but him. One night, at a Spanish restaurant on Robson Street, after an hour or more of sharing our feelings about each another and after several glasses of wine, we actually debated out loud about having an affair. Seconds after the question was tabled, though, we rejected it. Ever the good girl, I could not fathom doing something so forbidden and, most especially, could not imagine lying to Jessica and everyone else I knew. Michael said that although he felt more like a parent to Jessica than a husband, he could not bring himself to lie to or betray her. Besides our own moral qualms about having an affair, our belief system, the one we had learned from Limori, told us that acting on our connection and attraction to one another was not a matter of choice. Michael could not simply choose to leave his marriage. He had not chosen to enter it – that decision had been made for him – but his devotion to his spiritual path and to Limori were such that he would stay married to Jessica as long as God wanted him to. With those barriers always front-of-mind, then, we remained just friends, albeit very close and special friends, and he remained in his marriage, because it was what God wanted. What we didn’t know was that Limori was about to grant our wishes for togetherness in the most diabolical and cruel way possible, a circumstance that would eventually result in my leaving the group and serve to tighten Limori’s stranglehold on Michael more than ever. 7Musical BedsThose who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. —Voltaire A guru’s followers are everything to her. Without them she is nothing, simply another attention-loving fruitcake with charisma and circular logic. The guru’s followers provide material wealth in the form of tithed wages and other monetary gifts (necessary for someone like Limori who was living an increasingly luxurious and extravagant lifestyle). Cult members also provide free labour to the guru, and are willing to perform the most menial, backbreaking tasks in the name of service to the cause. And perhaps most importantly, a guru’s disciples provide her with the power and control she so desperately needs.

• From Little Women (1868)

  The words, "Fred is a good fellow, but not at all the man I fancied you would ever like," and Laurie's face when he uttered them, kept returning to her as pertinaciously as her own did when she said in look, if not in words, "I shall marry for money." It troubled her to remember that now, she wished she could take it back, it sounded so unwomanly. She didn't want Laurie to think her a heartless, worldly creature. She didn't care to be a queen of society now half so much as she did to be a lovable woman. She was so glad he didn't hate her for the dreadful things she said, but took them so beautifully and was kinder than ever. His letters were such a comfort, for the home letters were very irregular and not half so satisfactory as his when they did come. It was not only a pleasure, but a duty to answer them, for the poor fellow was forlorn, and needed petting, since Jo persisted in being stonyhearted. She ought to have made an effort and tried to love him. It couldn't be very hard, many people would be proud and glad to have such a dear boy care for them. But Jo never would act like other girls, so there was nothing to do but be very kind and treat him like a brother. If all brothers were treated as well as Laurie was at this period, they would be a much happier race of beings than they are. Amy never lectured now. She asked his opinion on all subjects, she was interested in everything he did, made charming little presents for him, and sent him two letters a week, full of lively gossip, sisterly confidences, and captivating sketches of the lovely scenes about her. As few brothers are complimented by having their letters carried about in their sister's pockets, read and reread diligently, cried over when short, kissed when long, and treasured carefully, we will not hint that Amy did any of these fond and foolish things. But she certainly did grow a little pale and pensive that spring, lost much of her relish for society, and went out sketching alone a good deal. She never had much to show when she came home, but was studying nature, I dare say, while she sat for hours, with her hands folded, on the terrace at Valrosa, or absently sketched any fancy that occurred to her, a stalwart knight carved on a tomb, a young man asleep in the grass, with his hat over his eyes, or a curly haired girl in gorgeous array, promenading down a ballroom on the arm of a tall gentleman, both faces being left a blur according to the last fashion in art, which was safe but not altogether satisfactory.

• From Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  Limori had left in her wake what was essentially a pack of dysfunctional wild dogs. As is so often the case with human beings, the abused become the abusers. I, who loathed and feared the way Limori treated me and others, turned around and treated myself and my compatriots the same way. Not to say that I became the master manipulator that Limori was, but when the circle was in session, over and over again, with monotonous repetition, I repeated what I’d been taught. “You’re in your ego.” “Get out of your head.” “Your energy is making me sick.” What anyone felt was never important. And nothing anyone ever did, including myself, was good enough. We met, week after week, the months rolling by into years, and covered the same ground over and over again. One result of co-facilitating the circle with Michael was that our relationship deepened. We had been best friends, but now we were spiritual colleagues as well. Since spirituality was the most important thing in both our lives, this professional partnership meant to me that we were a team. This strengthening of our relationship and of our emotional and spiritual bond was a bit of a mixed blessing. On the one hand, I loved being partners with Michael in the circle; I loved that we had a shared purpose and that I held an increasingly meaningful place in his life, and he in mine. It meant that we shared focus on Wednesday and Thursday nights, rather than simply being participants and observers in the group, as we had been before. And it created a need for us to spend time together outside the group, occasionally discussing the energy of some of our peers and what needed to be done about them. But on the other hand, as a result of this I was more tortured about my feelings for Michael than ever. His marriage with Jessica continued, and as one of Limori’s disciples I respected its importance in the universal scheme of things. As the months and years passed, my feelings for Michael changed only in that they grew deeper and more intense. I hated myself for feeling that way, but try as I might there was nothing I could do to stop how I felt. Every moment spent with him socially was a joy and an agony. I lived for the times when we went out to a movie or dinner on our own, yet I flagellated myself about enjoying these occasions so much and, after each one, vowed not to need or want them ever again. But like a junkie who swears she will not fix again, I couldn’t stay away, despite my logical, best intentions. No matter how often I saw him, the sizzle of recognition that I felt when our eyes met was there. My body developed a magnetic field around itself whenever he was in the room and it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep my hands to myself.

• From Little Women (1868)

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE LAZY LAURENCE Laurie went to Nice intending to stay a week, and remained a month. He was tired of wandering about alone, and Amy's familiar presence seemed to give a homelike charm to the foreign scenes in which she bore a part. He rather missed the 'petting' he used to receive, and enjoyed a taste of it again, for no attentions, however flattering, from strangers, were half so pleasant as the sisterly adoration of the girls at home. Amy never would pet him like the others, but she was very glad to see him now, and quite clung to him, feeling that he was the representative of the dear family for whom she longed more than she would confess. They naturally took comfort in each other's society and were much together, riding, walking, dancing, or dawdling, for at Nice no one can be very industrious during the gay season. But, while apparently amusing themselves in the most careless fashion, they were half-consciously making discoveries and forming opinions about each other. Amy rose daily in the estimation of her friend, but he sank in hers, and each felt the truth before a word was spoken. Amy tried to please, and succeeded, for she was grateful for the many pleasures he gave her, and repaid him with the little services to which womanly women know how to lend an indescribable charm. Laurie made no effort of any kind, but just let himself drift along as comfortably as possible, trying to forget, and feeling that all women owed him a kind word because one had been cold to him. It cost him no effort to be generous, and he would have given Amy all the trinkets in Nice if she would have taken them, but at the same time he felt that he could not change the opinion she was forming of him, and he rather dreaded the keen blue eyes that seemed to watch him with such half-sorrowful, half-scornful surprise. "All the rest have gone to Monaco for the day. I preferred to stay at home and write letters. They are done now, and I am going to Valrosa to sketch, will you come?" said Amy, as she joined Laurie one lovely day when he lounged in as usual, about noon. "Well, yes, but isn't it rather warm for such a long walk?" he answered slowly, for the shaded salon looked inviting after the glare without. "I'm going to have the little carriage, and Baptiste can drive, so you'll have nothing to do but hold your umbrella, and keep your gloves nice," returned Amy, with a sarcastic glance at the immaculate kids, which were a weak point with

• From Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex (1994)

  The editor of Leg Show magazine says: “I’d say the most common interest is in a small, well formed, high arched, straight toed, soft, unblemished female foot with a certain amount of odor.” Fetishism is infinite; by definition, there are no bounds, no places the experience of fetishism cannot (will not) go. The fetish can be anything, can mean anything. Fetishes are almost always harmless, not only in content but by nature. But they can cause tremendous anguish if they aren’t the shared fetishes of culture, like the female breast. Now that’s a fetish for you. One need only read a column of personal ads to know sex comes in a lot of shapes and sizes. In my little provincial city weekly I’ve found ads searching for people with amputations, for slaves of both genders and all sizes, for fellow lovers of lingerie, for a “white girl with overlapping toes,” for an albino. Sometimes I laugh, and then catch myself laughing. I never want to laugh at the desires of another; I’m sure a lot of people take what I consider trifling or silly to be terribly important, and vice versa. I’m told by women who do phone sex for a living that it’s very common for men to fantasize about being anally penetrated during intercourse, an urge they can’t confess to their lovers but have to tell someone. When you have an urge this strong, you will be restless until it’s filled. It bothered James Joyce that Nora left her clean laundry about so that others could see her underwear. “O, I wish that you kept all those things secret, secret, secret. I wish you had a great store of all kinds of underclothes, in all delicate shades, stored away in a great perfumed press … Are you offended because I said I loved to look at the brown stain that comes behind on your girlish white drawers?” What about encratism, the deliberate abstinence from sex for a period of time in order to build up sexual energy so strong it magnetically attracts others? What about celibacy? A rare practice, if I’ve ever heard of one, and often practiced not out of any spiritual goal but from a neurotically narrowed sexual identity. If all sexual desires were acceptable, would there be closet celibates, getting a thrill out of their deprivation? (Are there now?) The existence of what I might call the less commonly expressed sexual appetites is a double proof. That the intense sexual flavor of an act may not even include genitalia proves the textured complexity of our sexuality. At the same time, it proves what any thinking person knows: The acts of sex are about a lot more than the acts.

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  And I wondered that I now loved Thee, and no phantasm for Thee. And yet did I not press on to enjoy my God; but was borne up to Thee by Thy beauty, and soon borne down from Thee by mine own weight, sinking with sorrow into these inferior things. This weight was carnal custom. Yet dwelt there with me a remembrance of Thee; nor did I any way doubt that there was One to whom I might cleave, but that I was not yet such as to cleave to Thee: for that the body which is corrupted presseth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon many things. And most certain I was, that Thy invisible works from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even Thy eternal power and Godhead. For examining whence it was that I admired the beauty of bodies celestial or terrestrial; and what aided me in judging soundly on things mutable, and pronouncing, “This ought to be thus, this not”; examining, I say, whence it was that I so judged, seeing I did so judge, I had found the unchangeable and true Eternity of Truth above my changeable mind. And thus by degrees I passed from bodies to the soul, which through the bodily senses perceives; and thence to its inward faculty, to which the bodily senses represent things external, whitherto reach the faculties of beasts; and thence again to the reasoning faculty, to which what is received from the senses of the body is referred to be judged. Which finding itself also to be in me a thing variable, raised itself up to its own understanding, and drew away my thoughts from the power of habit, withdrawing itself from those troops of contradictory phantasms; that so it might find what that light was whereby it was bedewed, when, without all doubting, it cried out, “That the unchangeable was to be preferred to the changeable”; whence also it knew That Unchangeable, which, unless it had in some way known, it had had no sure ground to prefer it to the changeable. And thus with the flash of one trembling glance it arrived at THAT WHICH IS. And then I saw Thy invisible things understood by the things which are made. But I could not fix my gaze thereon; and my infirmity being struck back, I was thrown again on my wonted habits, carrying along with me only a loving memory thereof, and a longing for what I had, as it were, perceived the odour of, but was not yet able to feed on.

• From Little Women (1868)

  stonyhearted. She ought to have made an effort and tried to love him. It couldn't be very hard, many people would be proud and glad to have such a dear boy care for them. But Jo never would act like other girls, so there was nothing to do but be very kind and treat him like a brother. If all brothers were treated as well as Laurie was at this period, they would be a much happier race of beings than they are. Amy never lectured now. She asked his opinion on all subjects, she was interested in everything he did, made charming little presents for him, and sent him two letters a week, full of lively gossip, sisterly confidences, and captivating sketches of the lovely scenes about her. As few brothers are complimented by having their letters carried about in their sister's pockets, read and reread diligently, cried over when short, kissed when long, and treasured carefully, we will not hint that Amy did any of these fond and foolish things. But she certainly did grow a little pale and pensive that spring, lost much of her relish for society, and went out sketching alone a good deal. She never had much to show when she came home, but was studying nature, I dare say, while she sat for hours, with her hands folded, on the terrace at Valrosa, or absently sketched any fancy that occurred to her, a stalwart knight carved on a tomb, a young man asleep in the grass, with his hat over his eyes, or a curly haired girl in gorgeous array, promenading down a ballroom on the arm of a tall gentleman, both faces being left a blur according to the last fashion in art, which was safe but not altogether satisfactory. Her aunt thought that she regretted her answer to Fred, and finding denials useless and explanations impossible, Amy left her to think what she liked, taking care that Laurie should know that Fred had gone to Egypt. That was all, but he understood it, and looked relieved, as he said to himself, with a venerable air... "I was sure she would think better of it. Poor old fellow! I've been through it all, and I can sympathize." With that he heaved a great sigh, and then, as if he had discharged his duty to the past, put his feet up on the sofa and enjoyed Amy's letter luxuriously. While these changes were going on abroad, trouble had come at home. But the letter telling that Beth was failing never reached Amy, and when the next found her at Vevay, for the heat had driven them from Nice in May, and they had travelled slowly to Switzerland, by way of Genoa and the Italian lakes. She bore it very well, and quietly submitted to the family decree that she should not shorten her visit, for since it was too late to say goodbye to Beth, she had better

• From Little Women (1868)

  He doesn't like to hear me play." "Why not?" "I'll tell you some day. John is going home with you, as I can't." "No need of that. I am not a young lady, and it's only a step. Take care of yourself, won't you?" "Yes, but you will come again, I hope?" "If you promise to come and see us after you are well." "I will." "Good night, Laurie!" "Good night, Jo, good night!" When all the afternoon's adventures had been told, the family felt inclined to go visiting in a body, for each found something very attractive in the big house on the other side of the hedge. Mrs. March wanted to talk of her father with the old man who had not forgotten him, Meg longed to walk in the conservatory, Beth sighed for the grand piano, and Amy was eager to see the fine pictures and statues. "Mother, why didn't Mr. Laurence like to have Laurie play?" asked Jo, who was of an inquiring disposition. "I am not sure, but I think it was because his son, Laurie's father, married an Italian lady, a musician, which displeased the old man, who is very proud. The lady was good and lovely and accomplished, but he did not like her, and never saw his son after he married. They both died when Laurie was a little child, and then his grandfather took him home. I fancy the boy, who was born in Italy, is not very strong, and the old man is afraid of losing him, which makes him so careful. Laurie comes naturally by his love of music, for he is like his mother, and I dare say his grandfather fears that he may want to be a musician. At any rate, his skill reminds him of the woman he did not like, and so he 'glowered' as Jo said." "Dear me, how romantic!" exclaimed Meg. "How silly!" said Jo. "Let him be a musician if he wants to, and not plague his life out sending him to college, when he hates to go." "That's why he has such handsome black eyes and pretty manners, I suppose. Italians are always nice," said Meg, who was a little sentimental. "What do you know about his eyes and his manners? You never spoke to him, hardly," cried Jo, who was not sentimental. "I saw him at the party, and what you tell shows that he knows how to behave. That was a nice little speech about the medicine Mother sent him." "He meant the blanc mange, I suppose." "How stupid you are, child! He meant you, of course." "Did he?" And Jo opened her eyes as if it had never occurred to her before. "I never saw such a girl! You don't know a compliment when you get it," said Meg, with the air of a young lady who knew all about the matter.

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

  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. Jacob was clearly upset, and I couldn’t reach him. His dressing gown had come undone and his legs, in their striped pajamas, wound tightly around my chair. “What is it, Jacob?” I asked as persuasively as I could. “Look at me and tell me what’s wrong, or I can’t help you.” He turned his face away, as he always did when asked a direct question. It was one of the clear signs of his autism. He simply could not bear any attempt, however well intentioned, to penetrate his inner life. Chin pressed down hard on his chest, he muttered quietly to himself in the third person: “Karen wanted to know what was wrong, but Jacob absolutely refused to answer. The question was impossible.”

• From Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex (1994)

  I have at various times in my life felt seduced as much by the idea of heterosexual relations as by the experience of them. I want to surrender to heterosexuality’s potential, to all the gasping satisfaction in my mother’s romances, the large and small thrills of counterpoint. I gaze at classical European paintings, with their fine, pale women’s faces, their soft, longing bodies, the angular, upright men; I imagine their constraints and their unspoken desire, the stays of whalebone and social restraint. And the images shiver with erotic charge, with the intense and immense separation between the genders, the stir of intimacy a single touch from the other can bring. Sometimes it doesn’t matter that I know those gasping satisfactions are more fiction than reality, and that few male-female relationships really bridge the separation. Sometimes I am attracted to a man because of his sense of humor or intellect or charm; now and then, to my surprise, I am attracted to a man because he is so male. Then I watch women with men and men with women—I see myself interacting with a man, and all the little skips and the failed hopes, and I think: What’s the point? Men—and I mean all men here, I mean men—sometimes seem so different from me that any shade of eroticism disappears. They are shaped differently, their textures and aromas are different, their voices and thought patterns and vocabulary, all the colors, sounds, smells, and tastes are different, their very heads are different. I recognize nothing. Opposites don’t always attract. Opposite also means alien, without common ground. This sensation is not attraction and it isn’t aversion, either, but disconnectedness, as though “men” and “women” were two species that could never breed, could not conceive of breeding. They are bears, and I’m a tiger; men want one world, I want another. I have at various times in my life been seduced by homosexuality, by the very idea of it, to the same degree and with a similar sexual charge. I want its possibilities, its infinite variations on a theme. Women I recognize; they are the familiar, the known, different patterns cut from one fabric. One and one combined into more than two, additive rather than diminutive. The fantasy of homosexuality isn’t about being completed; it’s about being increased. And this is as much fiction as reality, too.

• From Another Country (1962)

  He felt that she had decided, long ago, precisely where the limits were, how much she could afford to give, and he had not been able to make her give a penny more. She made love to him as though it were a technique of pacification, a means to some other end. However she might wish to delight him, she seemed principally to wish to exhaust him; and to remain, above all, herself on the banks of pleasure the while she labored mightly to drown him in the tide. His pleasure was enough for her, she seemed to say, his pleasure was hers. But he wanted her pleasure to be his, for them to drown in the tide together. He had slept, but badly, aware of Ida’s body next to his, and aware of a failure more subtle than any he had known before. And his mind was troubled with questions which he had not before permitted to enter but whose hour, now, had struck. He wondered who had been with her before him; how many, how often, how long; what he, or they before him, had meant to her; and he wondered if her lover, or lovers, had been white or black. What difference does it make? he asked himself. What difference does any of it make? One or more, white or black—she would tell him one of these days. They would learn everything about each other, they had time, she would tell him. Would she? Or would she merely accept his secrets as she accepted his body, happy to be the vehicle of his relief? While offering in return (for she knew the rules) revelations intended to pacify and also intended to frustrate him; to frustrate, that is, any attempt on his part to strike deeper into that incredible country in which, like the princess of fairy tales, sealed in a high tower and guarded by beasts, bewitched and exiled, she paced her secret round of secret days. It was early in the morning, around seven, and there was no sound anywhere. The girl beside him stirred silently in her sleep and threw one hand up, as though she had been frightened. The scarlet eye on her little finger flashed. Her heavy hair was wild and tangled and the face she wore in sleep was not the face she wore when awake. She had taken off all her make-up, so that she had scarcely any eyebrows, and her unpainted lips were softer now, and defenseless.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Some of the men were buying drinks for some of the women—who wandered incessantly from the juke box to the bar —and they faced each other over smiles which were pitched, with an eerie precision, between longing and contempt. Black-and-white couples were together here—closer together now than they would be later, when they got home. These several histories were camouflaged in the jargon which, wave upon wave, rolled through the bar; were locked in a silence like the silence of glaciers. Only the juke box spoke, grinding out each evening, all evening long, syncopated, synthetic laments for love. Rufus’ eyes had trouble adjusting to the yellow light, the smoke, the movement. The place seemed terribly strange to him, as though he remembered it from a dream. He recognized faces, gestures, voices—from this same dream; and, as in a dream, no one looked his way, no one seemed to remember him. Just next to him, at a table, sat a girl he had balled once or twice, whose name was Belle. She was talking to her boy friend, Lorenzo. She brushed her long black hair out of her eyes and looked directly at him for a moment, but she did not seem to recognize him. A voice spoke at his ear: “Hey! Rufus! When did they let you out, man?” He turned to face a grinning chocolate face, topped by processed hair casually falling forward. He could not remember the name which went with the face. He could not remember what his connection with the face had been. He said, “Yeah, I’m straight, how you been making it?” “Oh, I’m scuffling, man, got to keep scuffling, you know”—eyes seeming to press forward like two malevolent insects, hair flying, lips and forehead wet. The voice dropped to a whisper. “I was kind of strung out there for awhile, but I’m straight now. I heard you got busted, man.” “Busted? No, I’ve just been making the uptown scene.” “Yeah? Well, crazy.” He jerked his head around to the door in response to a summons Rufus had not heard. “I got to split, my boy’s waiting for me. See you around, man.” Cold air swept into the bar for a moment, then steam and smoke settled again over everything. Then, while they stood there, not yet having been able to order anything to drink and undecided as to whether or not they would stay, Cass appeared out of the gloom and noise. She was very elegant, in black, her golden hair pulled carefully back and up. She held a drink and a cigarette in one hand and looked at once like the rather weary matron she actually was and the mischievous girl she once had been. “What are you doing here?” asked Vivaldo. “And all dressed up, too. What’s happening?” “I’m tired of my husband.

• From The Erotic Engine (2011)

  Ringley at first charged a pittance—$15 per year—but she soon had enough customers to cover her computer equipment and growing bandwidth costs, and to make a comfortable living. Once the site became a business, things went a little sour for Dennis. Not only was he out of the hosting role but JenniCam Inc. also demanded that he remove the archive of images he had painstakingly collected and made available to her millions of fans. Her real draw was the live action, and Dennis’s still freely available archive risked devaluing her newfound currency. His labour of love (or affection, at least) was subsumed by the very commercial demands it had created. Dennis lost a friend, but gained a place in technological history. Soon, many other businesses were plying the trade route that JenniCam had opened. “Cam girls” became a buzzword among adult-content entrepreneurs. As a product, live web shows could offer a level of realness that other media could not. Comedian George Burns famously said, “The secret of acting is sincerity. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” Porn producers big and small quickly came to a parallel conclusion about webcams. Ringley’s appeal was that she offered people an authentic experience that could come only from capturing a glimpse of real, unedited, unpackaged life. The adult world quickly learned how to package that raw, authentic experience and sell it at a premium to men who were bored with standard pre-recorded pictures and video. By the time JenniCam went dark, hundreds of other young women had gotten into the game, many as independent entrepreneurs. Often, rather than charging a membership fee, these girls used a lower-tech system of posting a “wish list” of items. Men who bought these items—ranging from books and videos to high-end electronics—could become the cam girl’s “special friend.” Cam girls turned intimacy (or the illusion thereof) into part of the pornographic product. Many sites charged anywhere from $2.99 to $6.99 per minute, and many clients spent $6,000 or more per month to interact with their chosen model. This phenomenon resulted from more than prurience. In Obscene Profits, Frederick Lane quotes one webcam entrepreneur saying, “They fall in love.” The immediacy, this hauntingly realistic emotional connection, was an aspect of webcam technology first exploited, developed and commercialized by pornographers that would later become a device used by millions who might otherwise never have viewed a salacious image. But first, the pornographic businesses would get bigger and uglier. Entrepreneurs like Jonathan Biderman set up cam-girl “portals” where customers could for a fee choose among dozens of feeds. His “Cam Whores” portal proved so popular among both male customers and women trying to get in the game that he had to open a second portal—“Cam Whore Wannabes”—for those who weren’t good looking enough to go on the main site.

• From Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex (1994)

  I catch myself talking about safe sex now and then, glibly, as though it had no psychic meaning. But for all the simplicity of latex, for all that protecting ourselves from sexually transmitted diseases is largely a matter of a few moments of forethought, there is a great price required. In the depth of sexual passion the skin of the other has the quality of treasure; the mundane secretions our bodies make are honey, manna, light. To be cut off from each other’s fluids is a terrible thing; our fluids are meant to mingle, we long for this mingling that is both so outrageous and so pure. Tongues loosen during orgasm, things get said that would never be said otherwise. The Navaho thought one couldn’t keep secrets, even the most important and magical ones, during intercourse. Certainly in a sexual relationship a moment arrives when you don’t want to stop, you don’t want to stop so much that your brain disengages and you would do anything to keep going—if you could do anything but this; all else disappears, the lover, the self, God; all other needs vanish, there are no other appetites or hungers left, everything is conquered and the land laid waste. Orgasm is psychedelic; you can’t describe it, but you-can still understand if you’ve been there before. Two people on LSD; one says, “The rug!” and the other nods vigorously—“Yeah! The rug!” They have a kind of perfect understanding—both see the rug with ecstatic eyes. But they have no understanding at all, because they see the rug with separate eyes. Of course, some of us get more intoxicated than others, some days seem more reckless. We can’t really explain how arousal feels, what an orgasm is, and the closer we get to one, the less value words have, the less we can use language at all. Reason doesn’t just leave us when we enter orgasm; orgasm is antithetical to reason—orgasm destroys reason and, conversely, a moment of reason can destroy an orgasm. A friend tells me that when he comes, he feels his penis enter his lover’s vagina on Tuesday and emerge on Wednesday, eternally, endlessly, over in a few seconds. He is submerged in the ocean of the moment. This is the most infantile state an adult can experience in an ordinary aspect of life, the moment when we are most outside the neurosis of self-consciousness, when we become only Mouth, Skin, Hunger, Cry, Smile. These are royal and holy seconds. The language of orgasm and the language of Nirvana use the same words. The fear that keeps us from intimacy with others is the same fear that keeps us from religious fever, and this fear is pacified in arousal—sexual arousal or devotional arousal. Arousal begins in the moment when desire overcomes fear, and from then on the course is happily, ecstatically, toward extinction. Naturally, this is a dangerous course; narrow roads usually are.

• From Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex (1994)

  In Plato’s Symposium, Aristophanes ironically describes our original state. There were once three sexes, he says: man, woman, and the Androgyne, male and female both. All were round and doubled, each with four hands, four feet, and two faces, and they were very strong—partly because their unusual shape enabled them to practice a wide variety of sexual acts. When these people attacked the gods, Zeus decided to humble them by cutting them in two, which made them ugly and ungainly, unbalanced. Zeus also turned their genitals to the front so they could reproduce, so they could be at least momentarily satisfied, “each desiring his other half.” Some men desire women and vice versa, some men desire men and some women desire women. It doesn’t matter. In every case, says Aristophanes, this painful, eternal search is love: “so ancient is the desire of one another which is implanted in us, reuniting our original nature, making one of two, and healing the state of man.” These days, we tend to think of androgynous as a synonym for sexless. The label is usually punitive, in spite of the fact that androgynous men and women are capable of stirring strange feelings of arousal in most people. The historical image of the hermaphrodite is of vibrant, almost burning sexuality, a person who has transcendent powers. Twentieth-century Americans, oh-so-postmodern, are still busily throwing off the cloak of gender segregation pressed on us these last few hundred years, and we move toward blending slowly and suspiciously. Most cultures hate the androgyne. Real hermaphrodites have historically been treated as monsters or criminals, unnatural corruptions. Man and woman, and most important, the cultural myths of men and women, are about filling and completing each other; the androgyne is already filled up. Androgyny in contemporary western culture, writes Jamake Highwater, is “an abomination so great that for centuries it could not even be discussed by decent people.” And Highwater isn’t referring just to the physical or biological state; he means the very idea of blending gender roles. For a time the idea that gender roles could change was obscene. But this is mostly idle talk. For all I can wonder what makes me a woman, the culture at large isn’t interested in metaphysics or myth. I would be offended if I were mistaken for a man; most men would be offended if they were mistaken for women. As far as the culture at large is concerned, I’m a woman because I have a vagina. If my vagina were removed, I would remain a woman because I had had a vagina and because I don’t have anything else. This morning I made a small purchase at a neighborhood store. The clerk watched me slip the bills she’d handed me into my thick wallet and then laboriously stuff the wallet into my small handbag, where it barely fits.

• From Another Country (1962)

  She took each of them by one arm and they stood together in the darkening window, staring out at the highway and the shining water. “What a great difference there is,” she said, “between dreaming of something and dealing with it!” Neither Vivaldo nor Ingram spoke. Cass turned to Ingram and, in a voice he had never heard her use before, wistful and desirous, she asked, “Are you working on something new, Mr. Ingram? I hope you are.” And his voice seemed, oddly, to respond to hers. They might have been calling each other across that breadth of water, seeking for each other as the darkness relentlessly fell. “Yes,” he said, “I am, it’s a new novel, it’s a love story.” “A love story!” she said. Then, “And where does it take place?” “Oh, here in the city. Now.” There was a silence. Vivaldo felt her small hand, under his elbow, tighten. “I’m looking forward to reading it,” she said, “very much.” “Not more,” he said, “than I am looking forward to finishing it and having it read, especially, if I may say so, by you.” She turned her face to Ingram, and he could not see her smile but he could feel it. “Thank you,” she said. She turned to the window again and she sighed. “I suppose I must get back to my physicists.” They watched the street lamps click on. “I’m going to have a drink,” Cass said. “Will anyone join me?” “Sure,” said Vivaldo. They walked to the bar. Richard, Ellis, and Loring were sitting on the sofa. Miss Wales and Mrs. Ellis were standing at the bar. Ida was not in the room. “Excuse me,” said Vivaldo. “I think somebody’s in there!” cried Miss Wales. He walked down the hall, but did not reach the bathroom. She was sitting in the bedroom, among all the coats and hats, perfectly still. “Ida—?” Her hands were folded in her lap and she was staring at the floor. “Ida, why are you mad at me? I didn’t mean anything.” She looked up at him. Her eyes were full of tears. “Why did you have to say what you said? Everything was fine and I was so happy until you said that. You think I’m nothing but a whore. That’s the only reason you want to see me.” The tears dripped down her face. “All you white bastards are the same.” “Ida, I swear that isn’t true. I swear that isn’t true.” He dropped to one knee beside the bed and tried to take her hands in his. She turned her face away. “Honey, I’m in love with you. I got scared and I got jealous, but I swear I didn’t mean what you thought I meant, I didn’t, I couldn’t, I love you. Ida, please believe me. I love you.”