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.

Page 19 of 170 · 20 per page

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  In fact you should mix the two aspects, for too much pain or pleasure will not prove seductive. You are not repeating the first se- duction, for the target has already surrendered. You are simply supplying little jolts, little wake-up calls that show two things: you have not stopped trying, and they cannot take you for granted. The little jolt will stir up the old poison, stoke the embers, bring you temporarily back to the beginning, when your involvement had a most pleasant freshness and tension. Remember: comfort and security are the death of seduction. A shared journey with a little bit of hardship will do more to create a deep bond than will expensive gifts and luxuries. The young are right to not care about comfort in matters of love, and when you return to that sentiment, a youthful spark will reignite. 5. In 1652, the famous French courtesan Ninon de l'Enclos met and fell in love with the Marquis de Villarceaux. Ninon was a libertine; philosophy and pleasure were more important to her than love. But the marquis in- spired new sensations: he was so bold, so impetuous, that for once in her life she let herself lose a little control. The marquis was possessive, a trait she normally abhorred. But in him it seemed natural, almost charming: he simply could not help himself. And so Ninon accepted his conditions: there were to be no other men in her life. For her part she told him that she would accept no money or gifts from him. This was to be about love, noth- ing else. She rented a house opposite his in Paris, and they saw each other daily. One afternoon the marquis suddenly burst in and accused her of having another lover. His suspicions were unfounded, his accusations absurd, and she told him so. This did not satisfy him, and he stormed out. The next day Ninon received news that he had fallen quite ill. She was deeply con- cerned. As a desperate recourse, a sign of her love and submission, she de- cided to cut off her beautiful long hair, for which she was famous, and send it to him. The gesture worked, the marquis recovered, and they resumed their affair still more passionately. Friends and former lovers complained of her sudden transformation into the devoted woman, but she did not care— she was happy. Now Ninon suggested that they go away together. The marquis, a mar- ried man, could not take her to his château, but a friend offered his own in the country as a refuge for the lovers. Weeks became months, and their lit- tle stay turned into a prolonged honeymoon.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  Last week, after Katrina showed him the pregnancy test, he went home and lay in bed like a morose sea lion, moving only to scan through, yet again, Katrina’s only social media account—Instagram. After gazing at Katrina’s face for an hour, he pulled up Reese’s account, as was his habit when lonely or distressed, a habit he’d never quite been able to break. If he went far enough down in her feed, there were pictures of her from when they lived together—all the pictures with him were erased of course, but in many others, he knew that he was standing just off frame. Looking at a shot of her wearing bunny ears from an Easter morning in their apartment, he tried to predict her scoffing reply were he to tell her that he was a father. In that exercise, he was surprised to brush, for the first time in hours, against a feeling like hope. It had only ever been through her, with her, that he could imagine parenthood. Why not again? Reese—the trans woman from whom he’d learned about womanhood —would see his fatherhood and dismiss it. To her, he would always be a woman. By borrowing her vantage, he could almost see himself as a parent: Perhaps one way to tolerate being a father would be to have her constant presence assuring him that he was actually not one. This possibility dovetailed with what he wanted anyway: to be family with Reese once more, in some way. So why not in parenthood? Was it such a wild proposal to contemplate? Were Reese to help raise the child too, everyone would get what they wanted. Katrina would have a commitment to family from her lover, Reese would get a baby, and he, well, he’d get to live up to what they both hoped he could be by being what he already was: a woman but not, a father but not. “What? You want me to consider being a mother to this baby?” Reese does not have her palms facing up. “That doesn’t even make sense.” “Yes it does. Listen to me.” But Ames has not fully convinced himself that his plan makes sense either, that he isn’t speaking out of a deluded panic. That the game pieces for Katrina and Reese that he has been pushing around his mental chessboard bear only dubious relation to the movements possible by the actual Katrina and Reese.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  Stanley had a wife, because of course he did. But the wife hospitalized herself for depression at about the time that Reese was willingly trapped in concubinage at the Ritz. This hospitalization—or specifically, her subsequent inpatient treatment for it—precipitated a series of conversations between the wife and Stanley about life goals, followed by a sudden separation. In lieu of a long divorce settlement, he promised his ex-wife a sum sufficient to buy a house in Portland, where her sister lived. Within a few weeks the wife had embarked along the Oregon Trail. Stanley told Reese he’d be pushing harder on riskier investments to make up for that unforeseen financial expense. Accordingly, he also told Reese that she should move into his apartment with him, as he didn’t want to pay her rent any more— something he’d been doing since their third week together. As a child in Madison, Wisconsin, Reese had badly wanted a best friend, someone who was yours and you were his. Her early childhood was one of serial BFF-monogamy until sometime in mid- puberty, when the other boys around were made to know—in the form of shunning—that being paired as a best friend with someone so feminine pointed toward a clear and uncool faggotry. Later Reese re-narrativized the childhood urge. She hadn’t wanted a charming, reliable boy for a best friend; she had wanted a charming, reliable boy for a sexual, romantic, and life companion, and simply framed that as “friend,” the only word available to her. She’d found charming plenty of times, but reliable hadn’t come her way. So she found a certain comfort in Stanley’s possessiveness, his assumption that she was his to install in an apartment as one installs a new sink. His controlling behavior confirmed how badly he wanted her. Anyone who needed her so close, who assumed the right to know where she was at all times, whom she saw, what she wore, was someone who wasn’t going away, someone who could be counted upon, not just despite her trans-ness, but for it. This time she felt she’d found reliable, if not charming.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  “Your own estrogen levels seem to have run low,” Reese says, but without much venom, like she’s too tired for niceties, rather than really trying to hurt him. “Tm told my crow’s feet are dashing.” Reese sighs. “I don’t want to talk about how you look, Amy. I’m not going to do that.” “Of course. That’s fair.” He ignores the “Amy” part. The name doesn’t offend him, it’s just a name no one says anymore. “I just wanted you to know you look great.” Reese shrugs, then licks the edge of the ice cream sandwich he had brought her. Her disinterest surprises him. He had figured on the compliment mattering to her. “Hey, he says, affecting a light tone, “’'m putting myself out there, admitting how great you look.” She gives him a look like he’s just stepped off a spaceship. “Oh,” she says finally, “I get it. You were giving me that compliment as a guy. You're used to women acknowledging compliments like you’re a 29 guy. It’s true. His compliments tend to have, at a minimum, the effect of being noticed. She performs a gruesome parody of batting her lashes and clutching her heart. “My stars! Lil ol’ me?” “All right, Reese.” “You're lucky I even agreed to come here. You're not getting a boy-crazy teenager on top of it.” “T can see that.” They had first met at a picnic here. A trans lady picnic. He still had his apartment near the north side of Prospect Park. The one they had lived in together. Over time his memories with Reese in the park had been replaced by new ones. The places where he jogged, where he read by the pond, or watched birds—hoping for one of the red- tailed hawks that nested there, often settling for an escaped songbird, or, if hard-pressed, a swan. But seeing Reese reframes everything, conjures up the past. He can’t quite figure out if she suggested meeting him here as a tactical move. Something to throw off his confidence. He can feel the lack of their prior intimacy—though whether or not that absent closeness is forever gone or like a child playing hide-and-go-seek, he’s not quite sure. The rusty hinge of a grackle sounds from the trees overhead. He’s about to apologize, to say that he made a mistake and go home, when she offers him the ice cream sandwich. For the first time all afternoon, she lowers her guard, with something like a smile. “Look,” she says. “I played along a little. I waited with those other women and let you buy me ice cream like we were just another hetero couple out on our hetero Sunday date with the boringly hetero idea to go to the park. Now have some ice cream, I don’t want to eat all of it.” He takes a bite, and she pulls it back. “One thing I'll tell you, though,” she says. “You move differently than before.” “Move differently?”

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  “Yeah, you were always graceful, but you used to be so careful to swing your hips. You were a languid boy, who learned to move like a woman, who then learned to move like a boy again, but without wiping your hard drive each time. You’ve got all these glitches in the way you move. I was watching you in the ice cream line—you slither.” “Wow, Reese, just wow.” “No! It’s charismatic. Remember how Johnny Depp pretended to be a drunk Keith Richards pretending to be a fey pirate? You can’t help but be a little drawn in, like: What’s going on with that one?” She smiles at him and takes a lick of ice cream, mock innocent. “I forget what it’s like being around trans women,” he admits. “That for once, I’m not the only one constantly analyzing the gender dynamics of every situation to play my role.” “Welcome back,” she says, seeming considerably cheered. “You must have also forgotten that I taught you everything you know.” “Please. The student surpassed the master long ago.” “Girl, you wish.” It’s like coming home, that quick “girl.” Something warmer and sweeter than the spring sun heating his neck and the ice cream lingering on his tongue. It’s scary-seductive, emphasis on scary. Start looking for that kind of comfort and he’s bound to make a fool of himself. The temptation to beg for inclusion pulled at him every time he spotted a trans woman on the street, on the train. A stab of need for recognition by her. Most apostates must feel similar, whether Amish, Muslim, ex-gay, whatever. Back when he lived as a trans woman, hardly anyone spoke about detransition. It was treated as the purview of conversion therapists and tabloid headlines: He Was a Man, Then a Woman, Then Back to a Man! The topic of detransition was boring—the reasons for it were never complex: Life as a trans woman was difficult and so people gave up. Even worse, to discuss the possibility of detransition gave hope to the lunacy of bigots who wished that trans women would simply detransition (i.e., cease to exist in any kind of visible, and hence meaningful, way). He went two years as a woman before he met a truly detransitioned person. Amy was at a queer dance party with Reese and six other trans women. Defensively, they'd claimed a small corner of the room—a section then promptly quarantined for disinterest by the gays and trans mascs and cis women. So once again, the conversation among the trans women was the same as it always was at queer dance parties: figuring out new ways to complain how “We look fucking hot. Why is everyone ignoring us?” It was a topic that, as the drinks lowered inhibitions and standards, gave way to pairing off and hooking up with each other. Except at that particular dance, halfway through the monologues about being ignored, Amy couldn’t help but notice that they actually weren’t being ignored.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  While Jon pays, Ames grabs a bat, shares a terse nod with the old- timer behind the counter, then Velcros closed a batting glove tight to his left hand and takes a few practice swings. The old ritual comes to him without thought. Ames’s shoulders hum with loose energy as the bat goes round and he waits for a cage to open. He finds a perverse comfort in the way his body reacts, a bodily experience below thought. Maybe Jon really does know something of somatic therapy, in his own way. Back when Amy and Reese lived together, on certain spring and summer evenings, Amy would walk down to the Parade Ground at Prospect Park, where the high school boys, mostly Dominicans, played baseball. She came for the thwack that occurred when a ball thrown hard and straight struck the leather pocket of a glove. She longed for that sound. She longed for her own high school past that snapped forward out of time’s stream at the necromantic power of baseball’s thwacks and plonks. She’d sit on a bench, far enough away that the boys—or their dads—wouldn’t make eyes at her, and she’d listen as the sounds of the game raised the ghosts of muscle memory. She could feel the batter’s step forward, readying the pendulum of body weight to swing to the timing of the pitcher’s windup. At every heard thwack the muscles in her arm came alive, remembering how her glove jerked back at the impact, how they sprang to snap a throw from third to first. All that smooth power her body had once had, ready to obey her every thought. She had missed it. She missed how obviously impressive it had been. The way women noted that impressiveness with their eyes and other boys chose her as their friend. The ease with which it all had been given to her. Back before all this gender shit, her body was like a good dog. Maybe it wasn’t fully her, but her dog did everything she wanted: she moved so fast, pulled himself up trees, sprinted through forests and across fields, giddy and waggy. She was lucky to have gotten a dog like that. She didn’t deserve such a good dog. She’d thought she’d have that dog forever—when they were both old, he would lay at her feet like a canvas duffel, loyal and obliging and charming to the last. Now, as Jon sends the ball into the chute, Ames’s bat flashes round, and after a few minutes, it is indistinguishable from practice at college: the two of them silent, the chunck as Jon feeds the ball into the machine, the tsing as it hits the aluminum bat, so that their conversation becomes a wordless call-and-response—chunck-tsing, chunck-tsing, chunck-tsing, and on and on—until Jon breaks the meditation with a “my turn.”

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  Reese waited, sensing there was more. So he let her have as much of the truth as he could bear. “But the days I don’t love you...I have to work hard to make those days happen. The days I do require nothing of me. You were the most important person in my life for so long, and then...then everything went wrong and we just disappeared to each other. When I think about raising this child with you, well, it feels like a kind of redemption. Romantically, fuck, who knows if we would ever be right for each other again? It all fell apart so badly that I hesitate to even hope for that. But if we weren’t meant to be lovers, it doesn’t mean that we weren’t meant to be family. Every single time I remember the state of things between us, I want to cry. I thought it would fade, but it hasn’t; it’s just changed. If we don’t try again, it’s like our time together...Not only did it end, it was like it never was.” “You're the one who disappeared, Amy. Look at yourself.” He rushes on, over her comment, afraid to lose the moment. “But that’s why I’m trying to see this as an opportunity. Right? What if we could make those years together into something new? All of our past could be the groundwork for something lasting.” Reese puffs up her cheeks and blows out a little pfft. She shakes her head, almost in wonder, and then an abrupt grin cracks her face. “You know what, Amy? I think the best way to get back at you is to say yes to this offer, and then watch you struggle to figure it all out from a front-row seat. So fuck you, my love. Yes, I will consider it.” “Consider it.” “Yes, go ask this other woman, Katrina, to split her unborn child with a transsexual. I fully expect that she will murder you for the suggestion, for which I will take a portion of the credit without having to risk jail. If you are still alive in a week, we'll take it from there.” Ames grips his own hands tightly. “So you accept?” “T already said yes.” Her voice betrays too much sincerity, and she worries that Ames can hear the naked hope that has already entangled her. He says nothing more, so she smacks him on the thigh, laughs a short nervous laugh, and then puts her face in her palm and mumbles, mostly to herself, “Actually this might be the most trans way of getting me pregnant.” CHAPTER Two Eight years before conception

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  The Sex and the City Problem wasn’t just Reese’s problem, it was a problem for all women. But unlike millions of cis women before Reese, no generation of trans women had ever solved it. The problem could be described thusly: When a woman begins to notice herself aging, the prospect of making some meaning out of her life grows more and more urgent. A need to save herself, or be saved, as the joys of beauty and youth repeat themselves to lesser and lesser effect. But in finding meaning, Reese would argue—despite the changes wrought by feminism—women still found themselves with only four major options to save themselves, options represented by the story arcs of the four female characters of Sex and the City. Find a partner, and be a Charlotte. Have a career, and be a Samantha. Have a baby, and be a Miranda. Or finally, express oneself in art or writing, and be a Carrie. Every generation of women reinvented this formula over and over, Reese believed, blending it and twisting it, but never quite escaping it. Yet, for every generation of trans women prior to Reese’s, the Sex and the City Problem was an aspirational problem. Only the rarest, most stealth, most successful of trans women ever had the chance to even confront it. The rest were barred from all four options at the outset. No jobs, no lovers, no babies, and while a trans woman might have been a muse, no one wanted art in which she spoke for herself. And so, trans women defaulted into a kind of No Futurism, and while certain other queers might celebrate the irony, joy, and graves into which queers often rush, that rush into No Future looked a lot more glamorous when the beautiful corpse left behind was a wild and willful choice rather than a statistical probability. When Reese lived with Amy, she aspired to the Sex and the City Problem herself. It felt radical for her, as a trans woman, to luxuriate in the contemplation of how bourgeois to become. It felt like a success not to have that choice made for her. Then Amy detransitioned and it all fell apart. Now futurelessness had crept back into view. Now Reese made other women’s prizes her own bliss, and made babies out of viruses. “All right,” she says, after they'd been driving for about ten minutes. “All right, what?” “All right. Let’s see if you can get me pregnant.” “Really?” “Yeah.” Her cowboy starts to say something, but she cuts him off. “Only, if we’re going to do this, you’ve got to start treating me better. You ve got to treat me like the mother of your child.” He reaches over to pinch her side. “Mother of my child? C’mon. You don’t want that. If I put a tadpole in the well, then you’re gonna want to be the knocked-up sixteen-year-old from the bad side of town. You want everyone knowing it’s cause youre an easy slut.”

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  Where shall I meet you? At your hotel at 7:00? Ana From: Christian Grey Subject: Stubborn Young Women Date: May 24 2011 18:43 To: Anastasia Steele Dear Miss Steele, I refer to my email dated May 24, 2011, sent at 1:27, and the definition contained therein. Do you ever think you’ll be able to do what you’re told? Christian Grey CEO, Grey Enterprises Holdings, Inc. From: Anastasia Steele Subject: Intractable Men Date: May 24 2011 18:49 To: Christian Grey Mr. Grey, I would like to drive. Please. Ana From: Christian Grey Subject: Exasperated Men Date: May 24 2011 18:52 To: Anastasia Steele Fine. My hotel at 7:00. I’ll meet you in the Marble Bar. Christian Grey CEO, Grey Enterprises Holdings, Inc. He’s even grumpy by email. Doesn’t he understand that I may need to make a quick getaway? Not that my Beetle is quick…but still, I need a means of escape. From: Anastasia Steele Subject: Not So Intractable Men Date: May 24 2011 18:55 To: Christian Grey Thank you. Ana x From: Christian Grey Subject: Exasperating Women Date: May 24 2011 18:59 To: Anastasia Steele You’re welcome. Christian Grey CEO, Grey Enterprises Holdings, Inc. I call Ray, who is just about to watch the Sounders play some soccer team from Salt Lake City, so our conversation is mercifully brief. He’s driving down Thursday for graduation. He wants to take me out afterward for a meal. My heart swells talking to Ray, and a huge lump forms in my throat. He has been my constant through all Mom’s romantic ups and downs. We have a special bond that I treasure. Even though he’s my stepdad, he’s always treated me as his own, and I can’t wait to see him. It’s been too long. His quiet fortitude is what I need now, what I miss. Maybe I can channel my inner Ray for my meeting tomorrow. Kate and I concentrate on packing, sharing a bottle of cheap red wine as we do. When I finally go to bed, having almost finished packing my room, I feel calmer. The physical activity of boxing up everything has been a welcome distraction, and I’m tired. I want a good night’s rest. I snuggle into my bed and am soon asleep. Paul is back from Princeton before he sets off for New York to start an internship with a financing company. He follows me around the store all day asking me for a date. It’s annoying. “Paul, for the hundredth time, I have a date this evening.” “No you don’t. You’re just saying that to avoid me. You’re always avoiding me.” Yes…you’d think you’d take the hint. “Paul, I never thought it was a good idea to date the boss’s brother.” “You’re finishing here on Friday. You’re not working tomorrow.” “And I’ll be in Seattle as of Saturday and you’ll be in New York soon. We couldn’t get much farther apart if we tried. Besides, I do have a date this evening.” “With José?” “No.”

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  This outrage, so fresh and yet unsurprising, punctures Reese anew. And yet, she can’t quite enrage herself, because for once, other people beyond trans women—a pair of older black women who likely have concerns of their own—have cared enough to protect a dead queer trans girl’s dignity. “You could tell something was wrong with her a month or two ago,” Thalia goes on, and Reese understands that she means Tammi. “When we went to wait at the Callen-Lorde purgatory together, she had completely stopped shaving. She wouldn’t have been caught dead with a shadow like that a year ago—oh fuck, I’m sorry, very horrible expression for this moment. Thank Jesus Miss Twitter wasn’t here for that too.” Reese’s phone rings, and instinctively, she fumbles it in an attempt to silence the tones. A New York number. She gives Thalia another hug and finds an alcove down the block to call back the number because she’s been fielding a lot of calls from vague acquaintances looking for logistics about the funeral. A woman picks up. “Reese! Thank you for calling me back! Is there any chance you're free tonight?” A pause. “It’s Katrina, by the way.” “Katrina!” The name, the pregnancy, her whole connection with Katrina, the yearning for a baby, seems like it should exist in a dimension that doesn’t overlap with this funeral. Like running into one’s teacher at the grocery store, it takes Reese a moment to close the dimensional gap and reorient herself. “I’m, uh, at a funeral right 29 now. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I'll call back.” “No, wait. What’s happening?” “Well, I was hoping I could talk to you. I might have...How do I say this? I might have betrayed Ames.” At this, the parabolic dish of Reese’s focus swivels to aim squarely at Katrina. “Wow. That sounds very dramatic. Very romantic.” “No, not that kind of betrayal.” “That’s a shame.” Katrina makes a noise of protest, then understands she’s been teased and laughs graciously. “Look,” Reese says, “I’m actually really happy you called. The timing is a bit weird because of where I am. But we’ve got so much to talk about. I do want to get together.” Reese holds her breath, waiting to see if she will get away with that “we,” the “we” that couples use when they both own and take responsibility for a pregnancy. We’re having a baby, say both men and women, often together, as if their roles were interchangeable and required equal commitment. Reese recognizes her own “we” is a little creepy, but fuck if it doesn’t feel good to say. “Oh, that is so nice to hear,” Katrina says, sounding genuinely moved. “I can’t interrupt a funeral, though.”

• From Story of the Eye (1928)

  It was dark out, and from time to time I lifted her dress and took hold of her cunt, but it didn’t make me come—quite the opposite. She sat down and I stretched out at her feet. I soon felt that I could not keep back my sobs, and I really cried for a long time on the sand. “What’s wrong?” asked Simone. And she gave me a playful kick. Her foot struck the gun in my pocket and a fearful bang made us shriek at the same time. I wasn’t wounded but I was up on my feet as though in a different world. Simone stood before me, frighteningly pale. That evening we didn’t even think of masturbating each other, but we remained in an endless embrace, mouth to mouth, something we had never done before. This is how I lived for several days: Simone and I would come home late at night and sleep in her room, where I would stay locked in until the following night. Simone would bring me food, her mother, having no authority over her (the day of the scandal, she had gone for a walk the instant she heard the shrieks), accepted the situation without even trying to fathom the mystery. As for the servants, money had for some time been ensuring their devotion to Simone. In fact, it was they who told us of the circumstances of Marcelle’s confinement and even the name of the sanatorium. From the very first day, all we worried about was Marcelle: her madness, the loneliness of her body, the possibilities of getting to her, helping her to escape, perhaps. One day, when I tried to rape Simone in her bed, she brusquely slipped away: “You’re totally insane, little man,” she cried, “I’m not interested—here, in a bed like this, like a housewife and mother! I’ll only do it with Marcelle!” “What are you talking about?” I asked, disappointed, but basically agreeing with her. She came back affectionately and said in a gentle, dreamy voice: “Listen, she won’t be able to help pissing when she sees us … doing it.” I felt a hot, enchanting liquid run down my legs, and when she was done, I got up and in turn watered her body, which she complaisantly turned to the unchaste and faintly murmuring spurt on her skin. After thus flooding her cunt, I smeared come all over her face. Full of muck, she climaxed in a liberating frenzy. She deeply inhaled our pungent and happy odour: “You smell like Marcelle,” she buoyantly confided after a hefty climax, her nose under my wet arse. Obviously Simone and I were sometimes taken with a violent desire to fuck. But we no longer thought it could be done without Marcelle, whose piercing cries kept grating on our ears, for they were linked to our most violent desires. Thus it was that our sexual dream kept changing into a nightmare.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  For a long time, Amy would remember the day at the Glamour Boutique as erotically charged. But she would remember very little about the sex that she and Patrick had, only that it was not erotic. Eventually, that was how she would come to understand what sex with men was for her. The erotic part lay in the dressing up, the foreplay, the mental switch into a feminine role. And yes, dressing up with men almost always culminated in sex, but a distant faraway sex —one that Amy felt like she hadn’t participated in. The sex itself was necessary to break the spell. The orgasm released the tension that had been building and brought you back to yourself. After sex, the spell could dissipate, and she saw herself as she truly was: a boy, lying dazed on his back in a stranger’s bed with a dress hiked up to the waist, a string of his own pre-cum on his thigh, and a stranger lifting himself off the bed to sheepishly pull off a reservoir-filled condom. While Patrick washed himself in the bathroom, Amy got her bearings. Took stock of the action figures lined up along the wall. The shemale porn DVD playing on the TV, which Patrick had stared at insistently and vacantly while he fucked Amy, the way Amy had scrunched shut her eyes and gone far away, taking with her only the sensation of being penetrated, of being filled by cock, of being passive for a lover. It was not Patrick’s cock she had taken with her. Or, maybe, in one dimension it was. But in the place Amy had gone, it was Jen from the shop inside of her. The encounter, both real and not, expanded inside Amy’s mind, a sequence that moved from that looped memory of Jen fitting Amy for a bra, then to Jen’s imagined body, and then, Jen was fucking her, fucking her as a woman; and Amy could feel it, couldn’t she? The thrusting inside of her, the hands on her hips and shoulders—feel that? That was Jen fucking her. Yes, it was and would be as long as she clung tight to this faraway place, and in this place she could enjoy herself for once, she could feel everything as it should be.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  “Okay,” said Amy. She pushed herself up and tucked her legs under her to look around the room. A girl’s room, more feminine than Delia’s punk aesthetic might have indicated. Lavender accent wall that Delia said she had painted herself. Nail polish lined up along the windowsill under diaphanous sea-green curtains wafting inward on a breeze. Amy loved getting girls to paint her nails. It happened less and less, though—in middle school, girls loved to paint the boys’ nails. By high school, they mostly didn’t give a fuck what boys did with their nails. Clothes were piled up beside the bed, with a pleasantly faint odor of Delia, a scent that Amy previously hadn’t known was the odor of Delia, until she smelled the clothes, and then it clicked. Next to the bed was a copy of Prozac Nation. Amy reached for it. She had never read the book, but she had gathered that this was a book you were supposed to make fun of. A lot of Amy’s cultural touchstones in high school were like that: things to which she was ignorant or indifferent, but about which she opined her received wisdom. She didn’t make fun of the book, though. On the bed, Delia looked so frail and so beautiful beneath the sheets— she wanted Delia to hold her, or she wanted to hold Delia. She did not feel sexual. Once, on the bus home, Delia told Amy that she’d lost so much fat from her bulimia that her body grew a layer of soft down to stay warm and compensate for the lack of fat insulation. She didn’t know how to help, but she liked how Delia had gotten in the habit of confiding in her. Delia had asked her if she could keep secrets, and for once, true to her word, Amy repeated nothing that Delia had told her. But looking over Delia’s body, half-illuminated by sunlight, with blocks of color from a small stained-glass charm suction-cupped to the window, Delia’s skin just looked soft and bare. Over the winter, when no one could see and it was acceptable to wear windbreaker pants to practice, Amy had shaved her legs and gotten terrible razor burn that turned into acne as seemingly each hair on the backs of her thighs inflamed itself into a pimple. It was bad enough that it hurt to sit down. How did girls like Delia avoid that? “It’s good,” said Delia, of the book. “I’m angry about the same things as her.” “Should I read it?” Delia scoffed. “I don’t think it’d be your thing.”

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  “Yeah, but that was before you started on your birth control.” She first called her PrEP “birth control” at a Chinese place in Sunset Park where he felt safe that none of his wife’s friends would possibly run into him. It popped into her head as a joke, but he looked at her and said, “Fuck, I just got so hard.” He signaled for the check, told her that she wouldn’t get to see a movie that night, and drove her right home to put her facedown on her floral bedspread. In the morning, she sexted him one of the sexiest, but most ostensibly non-sexual, sexts of her life—a short video of her cramming a couple of her big blue Truvada pills into one of those distinctive pastel birth control day-of-the-month clamshell cases. From then on, her “birth control pills” were part of their sex life. There was another reason, beyond the stigma, taboo, and eroticization, that their particular brand of bugchasing had bite for Reese: She really did want to be a mom. She wanted it worse than anything. She had spent her whole adulthood with the queers, ingesting their radical relationships and polyamory and gender roles, but somehow, she still never displaced from the pinnacle of womanhood those nice white Wisconsin moms who had populated her childhood. She never lost that secret fervor to grow up into one of them. In motherhood she could imagine herself apart from her loneliness and neediness, because as a mother, she believed, you were never truly alone. No matter that her own and her trans friends’ actual experiences of unconditional parental love always turned out to be awfully conditional. Perhaps equally important, as a mother, she saw herself finally granted the womanhood that she suspected the goddesses of her childhood took as their natural due. She’d set herself up for it, once. She’d been in a lesbian relationship with a trans woman named Amy —a woman with a good job in tech, and who became so suburban- presentable that when she spoke, you imagined her words in Martha Stewart’s signature typeface. With Amy, Reese had gotten as close to domesticity as she figured possible for a trans girl—the trust and boredom and stability that now had the faded aspect of a dream recalled right after you wake. They even had an apartment by Prospect Park—the kind of bright, airy space that evinced enough good taste and stalwart respectability that the idea of showing adoption agencies where they lived had been one of the lesser obstacles to motherhood. But now, three years later, as Reese’s odometer clicked up into her midthirties, she began to think about what she called the Sex and the City Problem.

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  I have not let myself dwell on Christian Grey for the past week. Okay…so his gray eyes are still haunting my dreams, and I know it will take an eternity to expunge the feel of his arms around me and his wonderful fragrance from my brain, but why has he sent me this? He told me that I wasn’t for him. “I’ve found one Tess first edition for sale in New York for $14,000. But yours look in much better condition. They must have cost more.” Kate is consulting her good friend Google. “This quote—Tess says it to her mother after Alec d’Urberville has had his wicked way with her.” “I know,” muses Kate. “What is he trying to say?” “I don’t know, and I don’t care. I can’t accept these from him. I’ll send them back with an equally baffling quote from some obscure part of the book.” “The bit where Angel Clare says fuck off?” Kate asks with a completely straight face. “Yes, that bit.” I giggle. I love Kate; she’s loyal and supportive. I repack the books and leave them on the dining table. Kate hands me a glass of champagne and grins. “To the end of exams and our new life in Seattle.” “To the end of exams, our new life in Seattle, and excellent results.” We clink glasses and drink. The bar is loud and hectic, full of soon-to-be graduates out to get trashed. José joins us. He won’t graduate for another year, but he’s in the mood to party and gets us into the spirit of our newfound freedom by buying a pitcher of margaritas for us all. As I down my fifth glass, I know this is not a good idea on top of the champagne. “So what now, Ana?” José shouts at me over the noise. “Kate and I are moving to Seattle. Kate’s parents have bought a condo there for her.” “Dios mío, how the other half lives. But you’ll be back for my show?” “Of course, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” I smile, and he puts his arm around my waist and pulls me close. “It means a lot to me that you’ll be there, Ana,” he whispers in my ear. “Another margarita?” “José Luis Rodriguez, are you trying to get me drunk? Because I think it’s working.” I giggle. “I think I’d better have a beer. I’ll go get us a pitcher.” “More drink, Ana!” Kate bellows. Kate has the constitution of an ox. She’s got her arm draped over Levi, one of our fellow English students and her usual photographer on the student newspaper. He’s given up taking photos of the drunkenness that surrounds him. He only has eyes for Kate. She’s all tiny camisole, tight jeans, and high heels, hair piled high with tendrils hanging down around her face, her usual stunning self. Me, I’m more of a Converse and T-shirt kind of girl, but I’m wearing my most flattering jeans.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  ancient family of the to avoid a scene, she agreed to meet him, just once, in the park. He pre-Tenorios, the conquerors of pared for the meeting carefully: seducing her again would be a delicate op-Seville. After the king, my eration. But when he saw her coming toward him, in her beautiful clothes, father is the most powerful and considered man at his emotions, and his lust, got the better of him. She could only belong to court. . . . By chance I him, never to another man, he told her. Cristeta took offense at this; obvi-happened on this road and ously her present circumstances prevented even one more meeting. Still, saw you. Love sometimes beneath her coolness he could sense strong emotions. He begged to see her behaves in a manner that surprises even himself. . . . again, but she left without promising anything. He sent her more letters, • Arminta: I don't know if meanwhile wracking his brains trying to piece it all together: Who was this what you're saying is truth Señor Martínez? Why would he marry a showgirl? How could Cristeta be or lying rhetoric. I am married to Batricio, wrested away from him? everybody knows it. How Finally Cristeta agreed to meet Don Juan one more time, in the theater, can the marriage be where he dared not risk a scandal. They took a box, where they could talk. annulled, even if he abandons me? • Don Juan: She reassured him the child was not his. She said he only wanted her now When the marriage is not because she belonged to another, because he could not have her. No, he consummated, whether by said, he had changed; he would do anything to get her back. Disconcert-malice or deceit, it can be annulled. . . . • Arminta: ingly, at moments her eyes seemed to be flirting with him. But then she You are right. But, God seemed to be about to cry, and rested her head on his shoulder—only to help me, won't you desert get up immediately, as if realizing this was a mistake. This was their last me the moment you have meeting, she said, and quickly fled. Don Juan was beside himself. She was separated me from my husband? . . . • Don playing with him; she was a coquette. He had only been claiming to have Juan: Arminta, light of my changed, but perhaps it was true: no woman had ever treated him this way eyes, tomorrow your before. He would never have allowed it. beautiful feet will slip into polished silver slippers with For the next few nights Don Juan slept poorly. All he could think about buttons of the purest gold. was Cristeta. He had nightmares about killing her husband, about growing And your alabaster throat old and being alone. It was all too much. He had to leave town. He sent will be imprisoned in

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  God, I thought, must possess a spiteful sense of humor. Chapter FourTHE REVIVAL IN HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA, ENDED AT ABOUT MIDNIGHT. IN the hours that followed, Mama, Betty Ann, Pam, Gary, and I exhausted ourselves with waiting for Brother Terrell. He made the rounds among the tent crew, giving last-minute instructions, digging in his pockets, and passing out money. He was close now, just a few feet away, standing next to the eighteen-wheeler, talking to Dockery. The smell of diesel permeated the air, and in the distance I could hear the thawp thawp of the wooden folding chairs as they were snapped shut. Closing time.Randall flitted past Pam and me and taunted in a singsong voice, “I get to ride in the big truck and you don’t. Nanny, nanny, nanny.”We pulled at our moms. “Why does Randall get to ride with Dockery and we have to pack into the car like sardines? It’s not fair.”Mama shook her head in agreement. “Some things aren’t fair. Brother Terrell’s about ready. Get in the car, now.”“You, too, Pamela Eloise,” Betty Ann echoed. Pam shot her mama a hard look. She hated her middle name.The next revival was scheduled to start a week later just outside of Atlanta. We had plenty of time, but we would drive all night anyway. Brother Terrell couldn’t sleep for hours after a service and saw no reason to wait until the next morning to get on the road.For reasons mysterious to me, Mama, Gary, and I had been elevated to first-family status during our first year on the road. We loaned our old Ford to one of the tent families and traveled with the Terrells in their old car. And then the Falcon appeared. One minute we were riding in a beat-up rattletrap with bad tires, faded paint, and a wheezing engine, and the next thing you know, we were cruising in the Falcon, intoxicated with the new-car smell and the knowledge that God placed our needs at the top of his to-do list. One of the faithful had slipped the keys to Brother Terrell at the end of a revival. That made it a miracle car.Gary and I crawled into the backseat with my mother. He curled up into a fetal position and rested his head in Mama’s lap. She pressed her forehead against the window, a gesture of exhaustion or need, maybe both. I gathered my legs onto the seat, fit them around Gary’s body, stroked and patted my mother’s leg with my feet. She cupped her fingers around my toes. I leaned my head into the corner where the car door and the seat meet. Up front in the passenger’s seat, Betty Ann folded her coat into a pillow and placed it on the console for Pam.“Put your head there, honey.”Pam snuggled into what looked like a comfortable nest, so comfortable it made my own position feel hard and cramped in comparison.

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  I laugh uncertainly. “Do you think so?” “Hasn’t he told you?” “Not in so many words.” “Have you told him?” “Not in so many words.” I shrug. “Ana! Someone has to make the first move. Otherwise, you’ll never get anywhere.” What…tell him how I feel? “I’m just afraid I’ll frighten him away.” “And how do you know he’s not feeling the same?” “Christian, afraid? I can’t imagine him being frightened of anything.” But as I say the words, I imagine him as a small child. Maybe fear was all he knew then. Sorrow grips and squeezes my heart at the thought. Kate purses her lips and narrows her eyes, rather like my subconscious—all she needs are the half-moon specs. “You two need to sit down and talk to each other.” “We haven’t been doing much talking lately.” I blush. Other stuff. Nonverbal communication and that’s okay. Well, much more than okay. She grins. “That’ll be the sexing! If that’s going well, then that’s half the battle, Ana. I’ll grab some Chinese takeout. Are you ready to go?” “I will be. We don’t have to leave for a couple of hours or so.” “No—I’ll see you in twenty.” She grabs her jacket and leaves, forgetting to close the door. I shut it behind her and head off to my bedroom, mulling over her words. Is Christian afraid of his feelings for me? Does he even have feelings for me? He seems very eager, says I’m his—but that’s just part of his I-must-own-and-have-everything-now control freak Dominant self, surely. I realize that while I’m away, I will have to run through all our conversations again and see if I can pick out telltale signs. I’ll miss you, too…more than you know… You’ve completely beguiled me… I shake my head. I don’t want to think about it now. I’m charging the BlackBerry, so I haven’t had it with me all afternoon. I approach it with caution, and I’m disappointed that there are no messages. I switch on the mean machine, and there are no messages there, either. Same email address, Ana. My subconscious rolls her eyes at me, and for the first time I understand why Christian wants to spank me when I do that. Okay. Well, I’ll write him an email. From: Anastasia Steele Subject: Interviews Date: May 30 2011 18:49 To: Christian Grey Dear Sir, My interviews went well today. Thought you might be interested. How was your day? Ana I sit and glare at the screen. Christian’s responses are usually instantaneous. I wait…and wait, and finally I hear the welcome ping from my inbox. From: Christian Grey Subject: My Day Date: May 30 2011 19:03 To: Anastasia Steele Dear Miss Steele, Everything you do interests me. You are the most fascinating woman I know. I’m glad your interviews went well. My morning was beyond all expectations. My afternoon was very dull in comparison. Christian Grey CEO, Grey Enterprises Holdings, Inc. From: Anastasia Steele Subject: Fine Morning Date: May 30 2011 19:05

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, suddenly feeling stupid. I left because I thought we were incompatible, but he’s saying I could have stopped him? “Sorry for what?” he says alarmed. “Not using the safeword.” He closes his eyes, as if in relief. “We might have avoided all this suffering,” he mutters. “You look fine.” More than fine. You look like you. “Appearances can be deceptive,” he says quietly. “I’m anything but fine. I feel like the sun has set and not risen for five days, Ana. I’m in perpetual night here.” I’m winded by his admission. Oh my, like me. “You said you’d never leave, yet the going gets tough and you’re out the door.” “When did I say I’d never leave?” “In your sleep. It was the most comforting thing I’d heard in so long, Anastasia. It made me relax.” My heart constricts and I reach for my wine. “You said you loved me,” he whispers. “Is that now in the past tense?” His voice is low, laced with anxiety. “No, Christian, it’s not.” He looks so vulnerable as he exhales. “Good,” he murmurs. I’m shocked by his admission. He’s had a change of heart. When I told him I loved him before, he was horrified. The waiter is back. Briskly he places our plates in front of us and scuttles away. Holy hell. Food. “Eat,” Christian commands. Deep down I know I’m hungry, but right now, my stomach is in knots. Sitting across from the only man I have ever loved and debating our uncertain future does not promote a healthy appetite. I look dubiously at my food. “So help me God, Anastasia, if you don’t eat, I will take you across my knee here in this restaurant, and it will have nothing to do with my sexual gratification. Eat!” Keep your hair on, Grey. My subconscious stares at me over her half-moon specs. She is wholeheartedly in agreement with Fifty Shades. “Okay, I’ll eat. Stow your twitching palm, please.” He doesn’t smile but continues to glare at me. Reluctantly I lift my knife and fork and slice into my steak and pop a piece into my mouth. Oh, it’s mouthwateringly good. I am hungry, really hungry. I chew and he visibly relaxes. We eat our supper in silence. The music’s changed. A soft-voiced woman sings in the background, her words echoing my thoughts. I’ll never be the same since he came into my life. I glance at Fifty. He’s eating and watching me. Hunger, longing, anxiety combined in one hot look. “Do you know who’s singing?” I try for some normal conversation. Christian pauses and listens. “No…but she’s good, whoever she is.” “I like her, too.” Finally he smiles his private enigmatic smile. What’s he planning? “What?” I ask. He shakes his head. “Eat up,” he says mildly. I have eaten half the food on my plate. I cannot eat any more. How can I negotiate this? “I can’t manage any more. Have I eaten enough for Sir?”

• From Fifty Shades of Grey (2011)

  “You’re biting your lip. You know what that does to me,” he says darkly. “Turn around.” I turn immediately, no hesitation. He unclasps my bra, then taking both straps, he slowly pulls it down my arms, brushing my skin with his fingers and the tip of his thumbnails as he slides my bra off. His touch sends shivers down my spine, waking every nerve ending in my body. He’s standing behind me, so close that I feel the heat radiating from him, warming me, warming me all over. He pulls my hair so it’s all hanging down my back, grasps a handful at my nape, and angles my head to one side. He runs his nose down my exposed neck, inhaling all the way, then back up to my ear. The muscles in my belly clench, carnal and wanting. Jeez, he’s hardly touched me, and I want him. “You smell as divine as ever, Anastasia,” he whispers as he places a soft kiss beneath my ear. I moan. “Quiet. Don’t make a sound.” Pulling my hair behind me, to my surprise, he starts braiding it in one large braid, his fingers fast and deft. He ties it with an unseen hair tie when he’s finished and gives it a quick tug so I’m forced back against him. “I like your hair braided in here,” he says. Hmm…why? He releases my hair. “Turn around.” I do as I’m bid, my breathing shallow, fear and longing mixed together. It’s an intoxicating mix. “When I tell you to come in here, this is how you will dress. Just in your panties. Do you understand?” “Yes.” “Yes, what?” “Yes, Sir.” A trace of a smile lifts the corner of his mouth. “Good girl.” His eyes burn into mine. “When I tell you to come in here, I expect you to kneel over there.” He points to a spot beside the door. “Do it now.” I blink, processing his words, then turn and rather clumsily kneel as directed. “You can sit back on your heels.” I sit back. “Place your hands and forearms flat on your thighs. Good. Now part your knees. Wider. Wider. Perfect. Look down at the floor.” He walks over to me, and I can see his feet and shins in my field of vision. Naked feet. I should be taking notes if he wants me to remember. He reaches down and grasps my braid again, then pulls my head back so I am looking up at him. It’s only just not painful. “Will you remember this position, Anastasia?” “Yes, Sir.” “Good. Stay here, don’t move.” He leaves the room. I’m on my knees, waiting. Where’s he gone? What is he going to do to me? Time shifts. I have no idea how long he leaves me like this. A few minutes, five, ten? My breathing becomes shallower; the anticipation is devouring me from the inside out.