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 56 of 170 · 20 per page

• From Best Erotic Romance

  He’d capture one of her taut nipples—puckered and dark from the cold swim—between his lips. God yes. Her back would arch; she’d be arching her hips from the moment he started suckling and grazing with his teeth. She’d get so wet, so hot and slick, but he’d linger there, entranced by how hard her nipples would get, how ripe and juicy (he would murmur against her flesh, as if he were drunk, drunk on the lust of her). A teasing tongue in her navel, flicking out the water there, and then he’d move farther down. A quick nip on her hip bone, a nuzzle against her inner thigh. Her fingers would take the place of his mouth—seeing her pleasure herself always drove him a little mad—and then he’d find the true source of moisture, like Galahad succeeding in his quest for the Grail. He’d taste her, with a low groan that sent more shivers through her, before parting her folds and taking mercy on her. Strokes of his tongue against her clit, so knowing and true. He knew just how to touch her, urging her higher and higher, keeping her on edge until… Overhead the stars would wheel and blur as she surrendered to the sensations. She whirled through space on the spasms of her climax, tethered to the earth only by Ethan’s hands and mouth and touch on her. Lying on the sofa (where, yes, they’d also made love—there wasn’t a spot in the cabin where they hadn’t succumbed to heady, freeing passion), Bella slid her hand under her skirt and found her slick lips, her engorged clit. Riding on the memories, she brought herself to orgasm. Moisture stained her fingers even as tears stained her face. She hadn’t known, the last time they’d made love here, that it would be the last time. And now the cabin was for sale. Memories for sale: cheap. Bella hadn’t meant to fall asleep on the sofa, clutching a pillow and dampening another with her tears. But then, she probably hadn’t meant half of what she’d said (or even more than that) in the crimson heat of anger in their last days together. The bitter, nasty arguments in which they’d both used the intimate knowledge they had of each other to wound and cut. The vicious arguments, which had preceded the period of bone-chilling silence, which had preceded the taut, death-knell conversation ending their marriage. “I suppose we’d be better off apart.” “I suppose we would.” Bella couldn’t remember who’d said which sentence. It no longer mattered, anyway. She woke when she heard a noise. Disoriented, she blinked in the almost-darkness of twilight, unsure where she was, what she heard. The pillow clutched against her chest was damp. She fumbled for a lamp and clicked it on to remember the cabin, the memories. The door opened, and adrenalin surged. She stood, abruptly, to face the danger. Her heart twisted, betraying her. Ethan.

• From Best Erotic Romance

  The kiss was tentative, which was so unlike him that she almost drew back. But the taste of him, which she’d almost forgotten until now and had never stopped missing, was almost too much to bear, and she couldn’t pull away. It was that, she guessed, that emboldened him. When she responded, his touch grew more sure. He drew her in and she went willingly, the feel of his tongue against hers triggering the warm glow of arousal that she knew would soon smolder, ignite, and finally consume her. So familiar, and yet so foreign. Each step along the unlit path brought back hints of remembrance, like sweet déjà vu. She traced his biceps, ran her hands down his back, feeling the muscles flex. He bit gently on her lower lip, and she gasped, the thrill streaking down between her legs. She was already wet, wetter even than when she’d masturbated earlier. His touch had always done that to her. How had she gone so long without this? He grazed his teeth along the line of her throat as she plucked at his shirt buttons. She didn’t get all of them, but she couldn’t wait any longer, splaying her hands across his smooth chest, lightly tracing her nails over his nipples until he groaned. He took one of her hands and guided it down to his crotch, pressing her palm against the bulge there, showing her just how excited she made him. Her clit shivered in response. Fleetingly, she wondered where this was leading. Oh, to sex, obviously, but wasn’t sex with your ex supposed to be anathema? Tacky, even? (Not that he was her ex just yet, but as good as.) She ignored that thought, pushed away all thoughts. They didn’t matter. What mattered was his hands and lips and tongue on her, and her hands and teeth on him, and the need they shared. He tugged her shirt free and pulled it over her head, and by the time he’d tossed it away she had already made good headway toward removing her bra, popping the front hook and shrugging out of it. His eyes were dark in the candle flame, but she could imagine the hunger in them before he dipped his head to suckle. So good. She arched her back in response as he teased her, drawing each bud between his lips, flicking with his tongue, biting just enough to make her squirm and beg. Beg him not to stop. Beg him for more. She dipped a hand between her legs, under her panties, and soaked her fingers, then spread the moisture on her nipples for him to savor. “So sweet,” he murmured. “Bella…I have to taste you for real.” They didn’t even bother removing her long, loose skirt. She hiked it up while he slid the now-useless panties over her hips, down her thighs. The scrape of the lace against her skin was almost more than she could bear.

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  Third, Fourth, and Fifth Avenues were nicer— for the township. These were the established families, the old money. Then from Sixth Avenue on down it got really shitty, more shacks and shanties. There were some schools, a few soccer fields. There were a couple of hostels, giant projects built by the government for housing migrant workers. You never wanted to go there. That’s where the serious gangsters were. You only went there if you needed to buy an AK-47. After Twentieth Avenue you hit the Jukskei River, and on the far side of that, across the Roosevelt Street Bridge, was East Bank, the newest, nicest part of the hood. East Bank was where the government had gone in, cleared out the squatters and their shacks, and started to build actual homes. It was still low-income housing, but decent two-bedroom houses with tiny yards. The families who lived there had a bit of money and usually sent their kids out of the hood to better schools, like Sandringham. Bongani’s parents lived in East Bank, at the corner of Roosevelt and Springbok Crescent, and after walking from the minibus rank through the hood, we wound up there, hanging around outside his house on the low brick wall down the middle of Springbok Crescent, doing nothing, shooting the shit. I didn’t know it then, but I was about to spend the next three years of my life hanging out at that very spot. — I graduated from high school when I was seventeen, and by that point life at home had become toxic because of my stepfather. I didn’t want to be there anymore, and my mom agreed that I should move out. She helped me move to a cheap, roach-infested flat in a building down the road. My plan, insofar as I had one, was to go to university to be a computer programmer, but we couldn’t afford the tuition. I needed to make money. The only way I knew how to make money was selling pirated CDs, and one of the best places to sell CDs was in the hood, because that’s where the minibus rank was. Minibus drivers were always looking for new songs because having good music was something they used to attract customers. Another nice thing about the hood was that it’s super cheap. You can get by on next to nothing. There’s a meal you can get in the hood called a kota. It’s a quarter loaf of bread. You scrape out the bread, then you fill it with fried potatoes, a slice of baloney, and some pickled mango relish called achar. That costs a couple of rand. The more money you have, the more upgrades you can buy. If you have a bit more money you can throw in a hot dog.

• From Best Erotic Romance

  I set my volume to vibrate and tucked my phone in my clutch. Then I took a deep breath, set the rose on the bed, and headed off to the elevator. As soon as the lobby doors opened, I saw him. Eric was standing opposite the elevator, leaning nonchalantly against the wall exactly where I’d expected him to be. It was the vantage point that let him, quietly and unobtrusively, see everyone and everything going on in the entire room and outside the huge glass doors. Either old habits died hard, or he was still in the same line of work. He’d seen me, too. He smiled as he straightened and started toward me. He was still slender, his muscles still moving with the same quiet strength beneath his dark linen suit. His hairline had receded a bit, the style well cut, but not military short anymore. A light blue shirt set off the color of his eyes and crows’ feet crinkled at the corners of his eyes. And oh, he was smiling. I’d so missed his smile. I met him halfway, my hands out to take his. But when his arms slid around me, somehow it was right. I slipped into his embrace like I’d never left, and we stood there in the middle of the lobby, tears streaming down my face as we clung to each other. “Oh, baby, I’ve missed you. It’s so good to see you again.” His voice wavered, and I smiled into the warmth of his chest. “I’ve missed you, too.” My laugh was shaky. “It’s a good thing I’m not wearing mascara, or I’d have ruined your shirt.” He inhaled as my mouth opened—I could almost hear the words between us. Then the shirt would have to come off. But neither one of us spoke. Instead he led me to a quiet corner where I could dry my eyes and blow my nose. I tried to excuse myself to go to the ladies room, to splash cold water on my face, but Eric shook his head, trailing the side of his knuckle down my cheek. “You’re beautiful just the way you are. I don’t want to waste another minute without you.” He nodded toward the door. “My car’s outside. Let’s go to dinner.” He held out his hand. His eyes held mine, and they didn’t look away. In that moment, I knew I’d made up my mind. I squared my shoulders, put my hand in his, and we left. The restaurant was only a few blocks away, still on the waterfront. The sun was setting. Lights twinkled on the boats moving slowly past the restaurant’s huge bay windows. “On the recommendation of a friend,” Eric ordered swordfish and delicate pasta, the perfectly steamed house vegetables, and a light white wine. We each had a single glass, and spumoni for dessert.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  13:33–3533. Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I say to you. 34. A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. 35. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. AUGUSTINE. After He had said, And shall straightway glorify Him, that they might not think that God was going to glorify Him in such a way, as that He would no longer have any converse with them on earth, He says, Little children, yet a little while I am with you: as if He said, I shall indeed straightway be glorified by My resurrection, but I shall not straightway ascend to heaven. For we read in the Acts of the Apostles, that He was with them forty days after His resurrection. These forty days are what He means by, A little while I am with you. ORIGEN. (t. xxxii. 19.) Little children, He says; for their souls were yet in infancy. But these little children, after His death, were made brethren; as before they were little children, they were servants. AUGUSTINE. (Tr. lxiv. 1) It may be understood too thus: I am as yet in this frail flesh, even as ye are, until I die and rise again. He was with them after His resurrection, by bodily presence, not by participation of human frailty. These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, (Luke 24:44) He says to His disciples after His resurrection; meaning, while I was in mortal flesh, as ye are. He was in the same flesh then with them, but not subject to the same mortality. But there is another Divine Presence unknown to mortal senses, of which He saith, Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. (Mat. 28:20) This is not the presence meant by, A little while I am with you; for it is not a little while to the end of the world: or even if it is a little while, because that in the eye of God, a thousand years are as one day, yet what follows shews that it is not what our Lord is here alluding to; for He adds, Whither I go ye cannot follow Me now. At the end of the world they were to follow Him, whither He went; as He saith below; Father, I will that they be with Me, where I am. (c. 17:24)

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  lightning illuminated the sky over the park. I loved dramatic weather. It was the excitement that made one day different from another. The women in the zoo entrance booth were enjoying a lazy day. They waved me in without paying, The condor’s head was tilted back into the wind, and her wings were spread wider than my height. I opened my own arms and turned my face toward the sky and laughed. The snowy owl’s neck puffed up as I came near, and he huffed as though he was out of breath. I hurried past. Raindrops dripped from the beak of the red- tailed hawk whose left wing had been sheared by a shotgun blast. She looked miserable. The male eagle was balanced on a branch—his feathers slicked back by rain and wind. He moved with the wind on extended wings as though in flight. His eyes focused on the distance. There was no border between his frustration and his madness. For just a moment he dropped his gaze and held me in the intensity of his golden stare. He looked up again, wildness flashing in his eyes as he flew through his past on widespread wings. After the storm let up, I rode my motorcycle through the rain-soaked streets longing for so much I Stone Butch Blues 227 couldn’t name. Sometimes mundane tasks stuffed that feeling back down—I decided to go food shopping. The supermarket was packed with women. The conveyor belt at the checkout line wasn’t working, so I pushed the food forward as the woman at the cash register rang it up. “That'll be $22.80,” she said. I held out a twenty and a ten; she reached for the bills. We caught each othet’s eyes. I whispered her name out loud: “Edna.” Funny how, even years later, I still thought of her as Butch Jan’s ex-lover and myself as a baby butch in her eyes. She searched my eyes. Her face softened. “Jess.” The woman behind me in line sighed heavily. “Honey, can we speed this up?” The last time P’d seen Edna I had told her I was too young to be the kind of lover Pd wanted to be for her. Now life was giving me another chance. I helped her bag my groceries. Neither of us spoke. I pressed my lips together to keep from asking, “Are you with someone?” I thought of a neutral question. “Can we talk?” The woman behind me banged a box of laundry detergent on the conveyor belt and asked Edna, “Honey, do you go on break soon?” Edna looked at her blankly and nodded. “Then could you please continue your reunion then?” 228 Leslie Feinberg We both laughed. Edna blushed. “TI get off at 3:30.” It was only 2:00. I paced the pavement near my Harley, rode figure eights around the parking lot, looked in store windows, stopped for coffee—it was still only 3:00.

• From Best Erotic Romance

  He’d known through Janelle that I was still single, but he said he was surprised that even my occasional dating had never gotten particularly serious. “The kids were around.” My face heated as I typed. “I didn’t want to set a bad example by staying out all night with someone they knew I didn’t care that much about.” I could almost hear Eric’s low chuckle, see his eyebrows rise as he looked knowingly at his computer screen. “Are the kids there now?” He knew they weren’t. As always, he kept things light and friendly. But the occasional humorous innuendo in his status updates and the respectful but blunt comments in his private posts made it clear he was as aware as I was that the heat simmering between us was gradually flaring hotter. Embers, I thought, amazed at my own silly romanticism. Embers fanned by every word whispering between us. I was being courted over the Internet and was shocked to discover I enjoyed it. A few months later, though, when I found out I was unexpectedly being sent to San Diego on business, I knew I had to make some hard decisions—ones I wasn’t sure I was ready to make. San Diego was reality, not the Internet. The bastard sent me roses. Roses, dammit! A dozen long-stemmed, deep red roses so fragrant their perfume filled my living room. The card’s message was simple, elegant black letters on crisp white card stock. “Wear red for me. Eric” “No fair,” I whispered, tears streaming down my face. I had no idea how he knew about the trip. No doubt, I thought angrily, it was somehow related to whatever job he now had that kept his profile picture a cartoon. But by then, I knew in my heart it didn’t matter anymore. I booked my flight and made reservations at one of the tower hotels down by the marina. Then I went shopping for a dress, and shoes, and lingerie that would keep me feeling sexy even if I never let him see it. I told myself that was more reality than I had to deal with yet. It was my choice. But I still got my hair cut and bought new perfume and, God help me, some condoms. And when it was time to pack, I tucked one of those damn roses in my suitcase and headed for the airport. “Is he there yet?” Melissa texted as I checked my lipstick one last time. “I’m heading to the lobby now.” I paused and added, “Turning my phone to vibrate, Miss Nosey. I want PRIVACY this evening.” “Pouting, but happy for you. Go for it, Mom. I love you!” “Love you, too. Good night.” I set my volume to vibrate and tucked my phone in my clutch.

• From Best Erotic Romance

  She developed inside sources, like the one who helped her get courtside seats to a Miami Heat playoff game for an important guest. She was good at her job, and she enjoyed it. And she loved it every time Thomas Wolburn, on his periodic visits, joined her for a drink in the hotel bar after hours. It had become a ritual, even after she’d been promoted to Guest Services manager. She closed the restaurant at 1 A.M. and stayed there with him, behind the bar, pouring drinks for both of them. The first time had been an accident. Joanna had been filling in for one of the desk clerks when Tom came in at closing time, looking tired. After that, the post-midnight liaisons had become a delightful ritual between them. Those quiet conversations over good bourbon had fueled Joanna’s infatuation and her lust. She began to regard Tom’s visits like paid vacations to Hollywood. He was certainly her favorite guest and, as strange as it seemed, her best friend. He liked Josh Ritter’s music, and he smoked cigars on very special occasions. He hated having his birthday the week before Christmas and on one overindulgent night, halfway into a bottle of Russell’s Reserve, he told her about the accident that scarred him and almost killed his sister, how he’d been driving and arguing with her about which radio station to listen to. That night, cotton-soft and warmly flush, she took his hand, thrilled at his skin against hers. She wanted to invite herself up to his room. She wanted to fuck him very, very much, but she choked on the words, her mind dizzy with possibilities, risk analysis, the probability of complete humiliation. She didn’t have any condoms with her. Would he? No, no. No condoms, no go. Tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow, she’d bring a jumbo pack of Trojans and they’d fuck the night away. Yes, yes. She’d just wait, and tomorrow she’d offer him some exclusive hotel services. Yes. No. The next night, as Joanna lingered at the concierge desk, ostensibly checking guest requests, she watched Tom leave with a tall, svelte woman who could have been Miss Brazil 2010—long black hair, eyelashes to die for, dark eyes and full lips that must have graced at least one fashion magazine. If there hadn’t been boxes under her desk, Joanna would have crawled under it. The Trojans rescinded to the very back of her bottom desk drawer, under padded half-sized envelopes and behind a dog-eared copy of Delta of Venus . When next Tom visited, she joined him for a drink, but she didn’t even think about trying to seduce him. No, better to tackle him only in her fantasies, to tear his clothes off, suck his cock until he begged her to fuck him, then she would mercilessly ride him until she was good and ready to come. Maybe she’d let him come then.

• From Best Erotic Romance

  But there was something about the cockpit of the long-nosed, bright red 1948 MG-TC. Still, the noise that ground up from the engine of the twenty-year-old car as she descended the Sierras told her it was not eager to make the round trip. It groaned as it hit the tarmac of a truck stop near Reno. She reluctantly turned the engine off. She tried to turn the engine over, and it made an evil noise. Yes, it was done. Sarah gathered her midnight-blue polka-dot dress at the knees and slipped through the tiny right-hand door. She opened the engine compartment, and the black smoke slithered out like a cobra, dancing. She made a pistol shape with her left hand and turned it to the engine, covered her own eyes like a blindfold. “Good-bye, old girl.” She made a gun sound. The sound of “Taps” being played. A broad-chested man with a bit of a belly saluted while rendering a convincing bugle sound. Sarah clasped her hand to her heart until he finished the soulful rendition with a smooth vibrato. “Tell me you know something about cars?” “Cars you bet. These things, no.” “You don’t like my baby?” “Oh, she looks real nice.” The man looked inside the engine compartment, then sniffed. “You were right to put it out of its misery.” “That’s me, a real humanitarian.” “Not every little lady thinks so practical.” He had the face of an eagle with a hooked nose. Bright, mischievous eyes glowed in the mercury vapor parking lot lights. “Can I buy you breakfast?” “I can buy my own.” “Fair enough.” He walked away. “Is the food good here?” She took quick steps to cover the distance his sturdy long stride placed between them. “Ain’t heard the old saying ’bout where truckers eat?” He waved at the long line of trucks. “Guess I have.” Sarah caught up. “I can pay, but it doesn’t mean I want to eat alone.” Funny thing was, she was never bothered by eating alone. He held the door open for her. She waved for him to go, and he shrugged then walked in first. “I’m Sarah.” She extended her right hand as they sat on opposite bright red benches of the booth. “Dave.” He took her hand delicately. The edges of his calluses felt like strips of sandpaper around a leather-smooth palm. His hand swallowed hers; she felt compelled to squeeze hard. “Nice grip, little lady.” He shook his thick paw. “So, you always drive so early?” His reaction made her smile. “Felt like getting an early start.” A broad, blond mustache covered his upper lip, slightly unkempt, and his cheeks were full. His hair was short, and he had a deep cleft in his broad chin. A waitress in her mid-thirties approached. She was kind of pretty in thick black-cat glasses. She had an Olive Oyl body that she carried with strange grace. “Well, as I live and breathe. How ya been, Dave darlin’?”

• From Best Erotic Romance

  I knew dinner was delicious. But my attention was riveted to the mesmerizing voice of the man whose absence, I was quickly realizing, had been a hole in my life for almost twenty years. Each laugh, each stroke of his finger over the back of my hand or along my palm, was like a salve seeping in to fill the voids inside me with color and sound and even the damn aromas of the appetizer samples he held out to me on the end of his fork. God, I’d missed him. We spent hours and two pots of coffee filling in the three-dimensional details that online communication could never quite complete. No matter what the subject, my thoughts always came back to the compelling blue eyes of the man beside me. I was coming to realize that every post, every status update and private message, had been a form of foreplay between us. Now every touch, every smile and whisper, was taking our intimacy one step closer. My pussy tingled, and my nipples were hard enough I expected Eric couldn’t help noticing. More than once, his hand slipped beneath the table. I envisioned the firm, thick erection I’d occasionally seen tenting the front of his jeans all those years ago, now pressing up into the expensive dark linen of his beautiful blue suit. I got even hotter, and more nervous, imaging his cock filling for me. “God, even these mints are good!” I laughed to distract myself when he popped one of the creamy pink squares into my mouth. He wiggled his eyebrows at me. “Janelle will be pleased to know you like her favorite ‘fancy restaurant.’” I tipped my head, running my finger along the side of the hand cupping my face. “She knew you were bringing me here,” I said quietly. His eyes never left mine. “Yes. I told her I wanted to take you someplace special—someplace neither of us had ever been.” Eric had always been direct. No hedging. No bullshit. I nodded and kissed the place I’d just touched. “Thank you.” The waiter came by with more coffee, but Eric just kept looking at me. “Would you like to dance off some of this caffeine?” There was a wealth of meaning in his eyes, not subtle, but not pushing either. Inquiry, arousal, and patience. Infinite patience that was, perhaps, getting ready to change to something else. I took a deep breath, then I shook my head and let go of his hand. “No. I want to go back to the hotel. With you.”

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  With a light touch she turned my face to hers. Then her hands settled on my chest like a bird’s wings at rest. Our faces were very close. It felt to me as though my whole life was held in the balance of that moment. If Edna had turned away from me, I don’t know where I would have gone or how I would have found the strength to go on. But she didn’t. She brought her lips near mine, allowed me to celebrate the moment before it began, and then gave me her mouth. All I had to offer was in that kiss. Edna’s hands cupped the back of my head and pulled me toward her. The kiss lasted until I stopped fearing it would end and enjoyed it as a journey we'd just begun. Our lips didn’t part until the wind splattered cold rain down on us from the branches above. She pulled away from me and began to walk. I caught up to her and took her hand. Our hands fit so comfortably that I sloughed off the first layer of my loneliness. Stone Butch Blues 229 “Are you hungry?” I asked her. She stopped and turned toward me again. “I have to get home soon.” My disappointment showed. “Tm sorry,” she said. “Can I see you?” All my hopes rested on her reply. She hesitated and nodded. “Next Friday night.” Friday! Today was Saturday and Id had trouble just killing an hour and a half until she’d gotten out of work. Edna tugged on a branch overhead. A shower of raindrops fell on us. As I drove her home, her hands rested on my shoulders, the side of her face pressed against my back. “This is it,’ she pointed. I slowed and parked. “You sure you want to see me Friday?” I needed reassurance. Edna stroked my cheeks. I couldn’t really feel the touch of her fingertips on my skin—my stubble was too rough. For the first time since Pd grown a beard I wished it would vanish. Edna nibbled at my mouth, pulled away when I moved forward, then drew me back hungrily. “Pm so happy to see you, Jess.” She sounded like she meant it. My feelings rose in my throat. I swallowed and nodded. “Meet me here, at 9:00 on Friday?” she asked. I nodded again and watched her walk up the sidewalk to her porch. She looked back and waved. 230 = Leslie Feinberg Even after her front door closed and the lights came on behind her curtains I didn’t leave. A light rain fell on me. The wind carried autumn and the scent of fallen leaves. When the waiter walked away from our table Edna leaned forward. “What’s it like, passing?” I could tell she’d wanted to ask me that all evening,

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  character, as well as to mistakes they have made; they have a playful, sometimes impish edge to them, as if they have retained more of the child within; they can play their role in life with a little bit of distance (see the last section of chapter 3). At times they can be charmingly spontaneous. What such people signal to us is a greater authenticity. If most of us have lost a lot of our natural traits in becoming socialized adults, the authentic types have somehow managed to keep them alive and active. We can contrast them easily with the opposite type: people who are touchy, who are hypersensitive to any perceived slight, and who give the impression of being somewhat uncomfortable with themselves and having something to hide. We humans are masters at smelling the difference. We can almost feel it with people in their nonverbal behavior—the relaxed or tense body language, the flowing or halting tone of voice; the way the eyes gaze and let you in; the genuine smile or lack of it. One thing is for certain: we are completely drawn to the authentic types and unconsciously repulsed by their opposite. The reason for this is simple: we all secretly mourn for the child part of our character we have lost—the wildness, the spontaneity, the intensity of experience, the open mind. Our overall energy is diminished by the loss. Those who emit that air of authenticity signal to us another possibility—that of being an adult who has managed to integrate the child and the adult, the dark and the light, the unconscious and the conscious mind. We yearn to be around them. Perhaps some of their energy will rub off on us. If Richard Nixon in many ways epitomizes the inauthentic type, we find many examples of the opposite to inspire us—in politics, men like Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln; in the arts, people like Charlie Chaplin and Josephine Baker; in science, someone like Albert Einstein; in social life in general, someone like Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. And these types indicate for us the path to follow, which largely centers on self-awareness. Conscious of our Shadow, we can control, channel, and integrate it. Aware of what we have lost, we can reconnect to that part of ourselves that has sunk into the Shadow. The following are four clear and practical steps for achieving this. See the Shadow. This is the most difficult step in the process. The Shadow is something we deny and repress. It is so much easier to dig up and moralize about the dark qualities of others. It is almost unnatural for us to look inward at this side of ourselves. But remember that you are only half a human if you keep this buried. Be intrepid in this process. The best way to begin is to look for indirect signs, as indicated in the sections above. For instance, take note of any particular one-

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  a very wide range of emotions and were open to experience. But in our youth we had to shape a social self, one that was cohesive and would allow us to fit into a group. To do so we had to trim and tighten up our freer-flowing spirit. And much of this tightening revolved around gender roles. We had to repress masculine or feminine aspects of ourselves, in order to feel and present a more consistent self. In our late teens and into our twenties, we continually adjust this identity in order to fit in—it is still a work in progress, and we derive some pleasure in forging this identity. We feel our lives can go in many directions, and the many possibilities enchant us. But as the years go by, the gender role we play gets more and more fixed, and we begin to sense that we have lost something essential, that we are almost strangers to who we were in our youth. Our creative energies have dried up. Naturally we look outward for the source of this crisis, but it comes from within. We have become imbalanced, too rigidly identified with our role and the mask we present to others. Our original nature incorporated more of the qualities that we absorbed from the mother or father, and of the traits of the opposite sex that are biologically a part of us. At a certain point, we inwardly rebel at the loss of what is so essentially a part of us. In primitive cultures around the world, the wisest man or woman in the tribe was the shaman, the healer who could communicate with the spirit world. The male shaman had an inner woman or wife whom he listened to closely and who guided him. The female shaman had the inner husband. The shamans’ power came from the depth of their communication with this inner figure, which was experienced as a real woman or man from within. The shaman figure reflects a profound psychological truth that our most primitive ancestors had access to. In fact, in the myths of many ancient cultures—Persian, Hebrew, Greek, Egyptian—original humans were believed to be both male and female; this made them so powerful that the gods feared them and split them in half. Understand: The return to your original nature contains elemental power. By relating more to the natural feminine or masculine parts within you, you will unleash energy that has been repressed; your mind will recover its natural fluidity; you will understand and relate better to those of the opposite sex; and by ridding yourself of the defensiveness you have in relation to your gender role, you will feel secure in who you are. This return requires that you play with styles of thinking and acting that are more masculine or feminine, depending on your imbalance. But before describing such a process, we must first come to terms with a deeply ingrained human prejudice about the masculine and the feminine.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  interest. We are marked by the continual desire to possess what we do not have—the object projected by our fantasies. Learn to create some mystery around you, to use strategic absence to make people desire your return, to want to possess you. Dangle in front of others what they are missing most in life, what they are forbidden to have, and they will go crazy with desire. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Overcome this weakness in yourself by embracing your circumstances, your fate. The Object of Desire In 1895 eleven-year-old Gabrielle Chanel sat by her mother’s bedside for several days and watched her slowly die from tuberculosis at the age of thirty-three. Gabrielle’s life had been hard, but now it could only get worse. She and her siblings had grown up in poverty, shuttled from one relative’s house to another. Their father was an itinerant peddler of goods who hated any kind of ties or responsibility and was rarely at home. Their mother, who often accompanied her husband on the road, was the only comforting force in their lives. As Gabrielle had feared, a few days after the mother’s death her father showed up and deposited Gabrielle and her two sisters at a convent in central France. He promised to return for them quite soon, but they would never see him again. The nuns at the convent, housed in a former medieval monastery, took in all sorts of girls to care for, mostly orphans. They enforced strict discipline. Within the somber walls of the monastery, which was sparsely decorated, the girls were to live a life of austerity and spiritual practice. They each had only two dresses they could wear, both alike and formless. Luxuries were forbidden. The only music was church music. The food was exceptionally plain. In her first few months there, Gabrielle tried to accommodate herself to this new world, but she felt impossibly restless. One day, she discovered a series of romance novels that somehow had been smuggled into the convent, and soon they became her only salvation. They were written by Pierre Decourcelle, and almost all of them involved a Cinderella-like story—a young girl growing up in poverty, shunned and despised, suddenly finds herself whisked into a world of wealth through some clever plot twist. Gabrielle could completely identify with the protagonists, and she particularly loved the endless descriptions of the dresses that the heroines would wear. The world of palaces and châteaux seemed so very far away from her, but in those moments in which she drifted through novel after novel she could feel herself participating in the plot, and it gave her an overwhelming desire to make it come to life, even though it was forbidden for her to want such things and seemingly impossible to ever have them. At the age of eighteen she left the convent for a boarding school, also run by nuns. There she was trained for a career as a

• From Best Erotic Romance

  Dave’s brow lowered. “What’s that?” “Jimi Hendrix, ‘Voodoo Child.’” “The sound?” “Huh?” Dave interpreted the guitar’s opening notes deftly. Sarah grinned. “It’s a wah.” “A what?” “A wah. You push it up and down and it makes a sound. You know, like ‘wah, wah.’” “Wah wah.” “Yeah. You like it?” “Not particularly.” Sarah turned the dial, but Dave gripped her hand and turned it back. His thick fingers were like kindling, strangely delicate. “Leave it.” “But you don’t like it.” “Never know till you see something through.” He eased her hand from the radio like lifting a rose. After a couple lousy local commercials over the silence in the cab, the song “Bluebird” played. Dave nodded. “Now I kind of fancy this one.” “I saw Buffalo Springfield in San Francisco. Good show!” “Is that where you’re coming from?” “Yeah. Protesting.” “Anything in particular?” “Huh?” “Protesting. Anything in particular?” A wry smile. He tapped the steering wheel with his meaty thumbs to the beat of the song. Sarah covered her grin. “What do you think?” “Well, there are so many things. Could be burning bras. I hear some gals do that, right?” Dave’s cheeks went a bit pink. Sarah liked the color. She squeezed her polka-dot dress between her full breasts. “With boobs like mine, a bra isn’t a statement, it’s a necessity.” Dave’s blush deepened. He laughed. “Okay, whatcha protesting?” “The war in Vietnam.” Silence except for the song. “I suppose you disagree.” “I don’t ponder on it much.” “You should.” The radio signal began to flutter. Sarah turned the knob. “Not much out here.” Dave waved across the still-darkened Nevada desert. “Yeah, I hate it. It’s always the same. So boring.” “No, no, you just gotta know what to look for. You can’t insist that every road curve and give you big green pastures and majestic mountains. This desert’s beautiful. And these long straight roads, well they’re steady, predictable, always going someplace, always been someplace. It’s a long, beautiful comfort. And give the desert a long drink, and there’s nothing like her.” “I can’t get you to say a word about the war, but talk about the desert and you go on for a week.” “It’s something I like, little…” One brow lifted. “Sarah.” “You don’t feel strongly about our men dying for nothing?” Her voice raised. He held up his hand. “Now, don’t you get your dress in a bundle.” “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” “I didn’t mean nothing bad. Look, I think about getting my shipment to the next destination. Keepin’ good tires on my rig and the tanks full, staying one up on the state cops. There are smarter people’n me out there to think on that big stuff.” “It’s everyone’s concern when people are dying for no reason, Dave.” “Well, then, I’ll work on that.”

• From Best Erotic Romance

  Then I took a deep breath, set the rose on the bed, and headed off to the elevator. As soon as the lobby doors opened, I saw him. Eric was standing opposite the elevator, leaning nonchalantly against the wall exactly where I’d expected him to be. It was the vantage point that let him, quietly and unobtrusively, see everyone and everything going on in the entire room and outside the huge glass doors. Either old habits died hard, or he was still in the same line of work. He’d seen me, too. He smiled as he straightened and started toward me. He was still slender, his muscles still moving with the same quiet strength beneath his dark linen suit. His hairline had receded a bit, the style well cut, but not military short anymore. A light blue shirt set off the color of his eyes and crows’ feet crinkled at the corners of his eyes. And oh, he was smiling. I’d so missed his smile. I met him halfway, my hands out to take his. But when his arms slid around me, somehow it was right. I slipped into his embrace like I’d never left, and we stood there in the middle of the lobby, tears streaming down my face as we clung to each other. “Oh, baby, I’ve missed you. It’s so good to see you again.” His voice wavered, and I smiled into the warmth of his chest. “I’ve missed you, too.” My laugh was shaky. “It’s a good thing I’m not wearing mascara, or I’d have ruined your shirt.” He inhaled as my mouth opened—I could almost hear the words between us. Then the shirt would have to come off. But neither one of us spoke. Instead he led me to a quiet corner where I could dry my eyes and blow my nose. I tried to excuse myself to go to the ladies room, to splash cold water on my face, but Eric shook his head, trailing the side of his knuckle down my cheek. “You’re beautiful just the way you are. I don’t want to waste another minute without you.” He nodded toward the door. “My car’s outside. Let’s go to dinner.” He held out his hand. His eyes held mine, and they didn’t look away. In that moment, I knew I’d made up my mind. I squared my shoulders, put my hand in his, and we left. The restaurant was only a few blocks away, still on the waterfront. The sun was setting. Lights twinkled on the boats moving slowly past the restaurant’s huge bay windows. “On the recommendation of a friend,” Eric ordered swordfish and delicate pasta, the perfectly steamed house vegetables, and a light white wine. We each had a single glass, and spumoni for dessert. I knew dinner was delicious. But my attention was riveted to the mesmerizing voice of the man whose absence, I was quickly realizing, had been a hole in my life for almost twenty years.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  I pulled up a chair beside Al. In a way she had changed dramatically. Her hair was almost entirely white and longer than I had ever seen it. If this were the old days Id tease her about looking like Prince Valiant. Of course, if this were the old days she’d get a haircut. I sat down next to her. Al’s face reminded me of a dried riverbed, etched by the currents of waters that no longer flow. Her cheek looked so soft I had to restrain myself to keep from stroking it. It felt intrusive to be peering at her so closely, so I sat back in the chair. From another point of view Al had hardly changed a bit. Everything about her seemed familiar and comforting. I looked out the window. I wanted to see what she was seeing and give her time to feel my presence. The windows were half obscured by a brick wall with barred windows. Part of the view looked out over the parking lot. If I leaned forward I could see Jan’s motorcycle. I thought for a moment Al might have seen me pull up and knew, somehow, that it was me. Of course, this was my fantasy. Beyond the parking lot was a strip of grass and a few trees. Seagulls wheeled and turned in the distant sky. I took everything in as though I had been looking out at this view for years and had no hope of seeing any other landscapes on the horizon. That’s when I knew I was seeing exactly what Al saw. “Not much to look at, is it?” I said out loud, almost to myself. Al glanced at me for a moment. Her eyes were Stone Butch Blues 313 glazed over as though she suffered from emotional cataracts. Then she looked back at the windows. I put my feet up on the windowsill and leaned back. “Young man, please don’t do that,” a nurse admonished me. I sat up, chagrined. Al glanced at me again and looked away. For a moment I thought I saw her smile, but I was wrong. Al was locked up in a fortress. I didn’t know how to scale its walls. I remembered a fairy tale about a prince who had to climb a mountain of glass to free the woman he loved. I couldn’t remember how he accomplished it. Somewhere I read that people in comas can hear you. I knew she wasn’t in a coma, but I didn’t think it could hurt to talk to her. I almost felt as if no time had passed. If I could find the right words, we would just pick up the conversation we’d ended a quarter of a century ago. “Al,” I said softly. I looked around, but no one was paying any attention to us, except the Oracle. “Al, it’s me, Jess. Maybe you don’t recognize me, but maybe if you looked at me you would.”

• From Best Erotic Romance

  Each laugh, each stroke of his finger over the back of my hand or along my palm, was like a salve seeping in to fill the voids inside me with color and sound and even the damn aromas of the appetizer samples he held out to me on the end of his fork. God, I’d missed him. We spent hours and two pots of coffee filling in the three-dimensional details that online communication could never quite complete. No matter what the subject, my thoughts always came back to the compelling blue eyes of the man beside me. I was coming to realize that every post, every status update and private message, had been a form of foreplay between us. Now every touch, every smile and whisper, was taking our intimacy one step closer. My pussy tingled, and my nipples were hard enough I expected Eric couldn’t help noticing. More than once, his hand slipped beneath the table. I envisioned the firm, thick erection I’d occasionally seen tenting the front of his jeans all those years ago, now pressing up into the expensive dark linen of his beautiful blue suit. I got even hotter, and more nervous, imaging his cock filling for me. “God, even these mints are good!” I laughed to distract myself when he popped one of the creamy pink squares into my mouth. He wiggled his eyebrows at me. “Janelle will be pleased to know you like her favorite ‘fancy restaurant.’” I tipped my head, running my finger along the side of the hand cupping my face. “She knew you were bringing me here,” I said quietly. His eyes never left mine. “Yes. I told her I wanted to take you someplace special—someplace neither of us had ever been.” Eric had always been direct. No hedging. No bullshit. I nodded and kissed the place I’d just touched. “Thank you.” The waiter came by with more coffee, but Eric just kept looking at me. “Would you like to dance off some of this caffeine?” There was a wealth of meaning in his eyes, not subtle, but not pushing either. Inquiry, arousal, and patience. Infinite patience that was, perhaps, getting ready to change to something else. I took a deep breath, then I shook my head and let go of his hand. “No. I want to go back to the hotel. With you.” His eyes never left mine as he pulled out his wallet and handed the waiter a wad of cash. Eric guided me outside, his hand resting on the small of my back as we waited for the valet to bring the car. The music wafting over from the dance floor was just loud enough to provide an excuse not to converse. I wondered if that was for the best. I was getting really nervous. My palms weren’t the only parts of my body that were damp. We’d barely left the parking lot, though, when Eric pulled over to the curb.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  My mother looked back and forth from his face to mine. I could tell she wanted to avoid the impending explosion at any cost. She smiled. “You know what I can’t figure out?” We all turned to look at her. “You know that song by Peter, Paul, and Mary? The answer, my friend, Stone Butch Blues 21 is blowing in the wind?’ 1 nodded, eager to hear her question. “T don’t understand what good blowing in the wind would do.” Both my parents collapsed in guffaws. When I was fifteen years old I got an after-school job. That changed everything, I had to convince the shrink it would be good for me before my parents would give me permission. I convinced him. I worked setting type by hand in a print shop. I had told Barbara, one of my only friends in homeroom class, that if I didn’t get a job I’d just die, and her older sister got this one for me by lying and sweating I was sixteen. Nobody at work cared if I wore jeans and T-shirts. They paid me a stack of cash at the end of each week, and my co-workers were nice to me. It wasn't that they didn’t notice I was different, they just didn’t seem to care as much as the high school kids did. After school I hurriedly changed out of my skirt and raced to work. My co-workers asked me how my day was and they told me about how it was when they 22 Leslie Feinberg were in high school. A kid could forget sometimes that adults were ever teenagers unless they reminded you. One day a printer from another floor asked Eddie, my foreman, “Who’s the butch?” Eddie just laughed, and they walked off talking. The two women who worked on either side of me glanced over to see if I was hurt. I was more confused than anything, That night, on dinner break, my friend Gloria ate her meal next to me. Out of the blue she told me about her brother—how he’s a pansy and wears women’s dresses but she loves him anyway and how she hates to see the way people treat him ’cause after all it’s not his fault he’s that way. She told me she even went with him once to a bar where he hung out with his friends and all these mannish women were coming on to her. She shuddered when she said that. I wondered why she was telling me this. “What place was that?” I asked her. “Whate” She looked sorry she had opened up the subject. “Where’s the place where those people are?” Gloria sighed. “Please,” I asked her. My voice was trembling, She looked around before she spoke. “It’s in Niagara Falls,” she dropped her voice. “Why do you want to know?” I shrugged. “What’s the name of it?” I tried to sound real casual. Gloria sighed deeply. “Tifka’s.” That’s all she said. Stone Butch Blues 23

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  will tend to project onto the other person the desirable qualities that our parent had, in the hope of reexperiencing that early paradise. Take, for instance, a young man whose mother nurtured and adored him. He may have been a sweet, loving little boy, devoted to his mother and reflecting her nurturing energy, but he repressed these traits in himself as he grew into an independent man with a masculine image to uphold. In the woman who triggers an association with his mother he will see the capacity to adore him that he secretly craves. This feeling of getting what he wants will intensify his excitement and physical attraction. She will supply him the qualities he never developed in himself. He is falling in love with his own anima, in the form of the desired woman. If the feelings toward the mother or father were mostly ambivalent (their attention inconsistent), we will often try to fix the original relationship by falling in love with someone who reminds us of our imperfect parent figure, in the hope that we can subtract their negative qualities and get what we never quite got in our earliest years. If the relationship was mostly negative, we may go in search of someone with the opposite qualities to that parent, often of a dark, shadowy nature. For instance, a girl who had a father who was too strict, distant, and critical perhaps had the secret desire to rebel but didn’t dare to. As a young woman she might be drawn to a rebellious, unconventional young man who represents the wild side she was never able to express, and is the polar opposite of her father. The rebel is her animus, now externalized in the form of the young man. In any case, whether the association is positive, negative, or ambivalent, powerful emotions are triggered, and feeling ourselves transported to the primal relationship in our childhood, we act in ways that are often contrary to the persona we present. We become hysterical, needy, obsessive, controlling. The anima and animus have their own personalities, and so when they come to life we act like person B. Because we are not really relating to women and men as they are, but rather to our projections, we will eventually feel disappointed in them, as if they are to blame for not being what we had imagined. The relationship will often tend to fall apart from the misreading and miscommunications on both sides, and not aware of the source of this, we will go through precisely the same cycle with the next person. There are infinite variations on these patterns, because everyone has very particular circumstances and mixes of the masculine and feminine. For instance, there are men who are more psychologically feminine than women and women who are more psychologically masculine than men. If they are heterosexual, the man will be drawn to masculine women who have the qualities he never developed in