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 88 of 170 · 20 per page

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  “Take me with you,” she whispered, and her bearer did not ask her where or when, just carried her away in a rush of black and silent wind. Oh, how she had missed being transported this way, effortlessly, in the grip of something far more powerful than herself, so powerful that is was pointless to worry about the destination or what would happen once they arrived there. The venom that had prevented her blood from clotting and closing the wound sang now in her veins, making her see colors behind her closed eyelids, making her warm inside and simultaneously relaxed and alert. No other drug could ever duplicate this ecstasy, this calm. She should know, she had had long enough to search for a substitute. Her thighs trembled, needing to be separated, and the arms around her tightened, hurt her and reassured her. Her arms full, but under no strain, Kerry felt amazed, disgusted with herself, hopeful, but terribly afraid. She had a low tolerance for ambiguity. It slowed her down too much, made her angry. She had not succumbed to temptation, and that was a dangerous weakness. She had not kept her secret, which must mean she had been careless. If one woman could ferret it out, someone else could. Furthermore, she had not slain her discoverer. This was surely stupidity. The code had been violated beyond repair. It was time for another change, another sleep, another decade, another name. But this blood—whose? Her name was … Iduna—Iduna’s blood had been very good. She had never had it offered this way, seductively, with persistence and determination, or felt it being given up with joy. But should the pleasure of feeding be mutual? It made her uneasy, no matter how many times she had imagined it and craved it. Now, of course, she wanted it again, and how she resented that! Would there be more nourishment, more pleasure from this source? Or would the woman wake up sweating with the fear of death and the devil, sick of what she had done, and repudiate it and try to make her terror public? What did it mean, to be offered blood by a mortal who claimed to know what she was doing? Could anyone who was not like herself really know what it meant? Had any of her kind ever felt this way, asked themselves these questions? Perhaps it would be better to allow her own veins to be opened, briefly become prey, and turn this taking heifer in a hated peer. That image brought too much shame, hostility, and desire (yes, desire) to be tolerated for long. What had she done?

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "I had a letter from Father this morning," she said. "He wants to know if I am aware he has accepted Sir Alexander Cooper's invitation for me for July and August, to the Villa Esmeralda in Venice." "July _and_ August?" said Clifford. "Oh, I wouldn't stay all that time. Are you sure you wouldn't come?" "I won't travel abroad," said Clifford promptly. She took her flowers to the window. "Do you mind if I go?" she said. "You know it was promised, for this summer." "For how long would you go?" "Perhaps three weeks." There was silence for a time. "Well," said Clifford slowly, and a little gloomily. "I suppose I could stand it for three weeks: if I were absolutely sure you'd want to come back." "I should want to come back," she said, with quiet simplicity, heavy with conviction. She was thinking of the other man. Clifford felt her conviction, and somehow he believed her, he believed it was for him. He felt immensely relieved, joyful at once. "In that case," he said, "I think it would be all right, don't you?" "I think so," she said. "You'd enjoy the change?" She looked up at him with strange blue eyes. "I should like to see Venice again," she said, "and to bathe from one of the shingle islands across the lagoon. But you know I loathe the Lido! And I don't fancy I shall like Sir Alexander Cooper and Lady Cooper. But if Hilda is there, and we have a gondola of our own: yes, it will be rather lovely. I _do_ wish you'd come." She said it sincerely. She would so love to make him happy, in these ways. "Ah, but think of me, though, at the Gare du Nord: at Calais quay!" "But why not? I see other men carried in litter-chairs, who have been wounded in the war. Besides, we'd motor all the way." "We should need to take two men." "Oh no! We'd manage with Field. There would always be another man there." But Clifford shook his head. "Not this year, dear! Not this year! Next year probably I'll try." She went away gloomily. Next year! What would next year bring? She herself did not really want to go to Venice: not now, now there was the other man. But she was going as a sort of discipline: and also because, if she had a child, Clifford could think she had a lover in Venice. It was already May, and in June they were supposed to start. Always these arrangements! Always one's life arranged for one! Wheels that worked one and drove one, and over which one had no real control! It was May, but cold and wet again. A cold wet May, good for corn and hay! Much the corn and hay matter nowadays! Connie had to go into Uthwaite, which was their little town, where the Chatterleys were still _the_ Chatterleys. She went alone, Field driving her.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Stephen bent down and began to soothe her. Then from out of that still and unearthly night, there crept upon Stephen an unearthly longing. A longing that was not any more of the body but rather of the weary and homesick spirit that endured the chains of that body. And when she must drive past the gates of Morton, the longing within her seemed beyond all bearing, for she wanted to lift the sleeping woman in her arms and carry her in through those gates; and carry her in through the heavy white door; and carry her up the wide, shallow staircase, and lay her down on her own bed, still sleeping, but safe in the good care of Morton. Angela suddenly opened her eyes: ‘Where am I?’ she muttered, stupid with sleep. Then after a moment her eyes filled with tears, and there she sat all huddled up, crying. Stephen said gently: ‘It’s all right, don’t cry.’ But Angela went on crying. CHAPTER 26 1 L ike a river that has gradually risen to flood, until it sweeps everything before it, so now events rose and gathered in strength towards their inevitable conclusion. At the end of May Ralph must go to his mother, who was said to be dying at her house in Brighton. With all his faults he had been a good son, and the redness of his eyes was indeed from real tears as he kissed his wife good-bye at the station, on his way to his dying mother. The next morning he wired that his mother was dead, but that he could not get home for a couple of weeks. As it happened, he gave the actual day and hour of his return, so that Angela knew it. The relief of his unexpectedly long absence went to Stephen’s head; she grew much more exacting, suggesting all sorts of intimate plans. Supposing they went for a few days to London? Supposing they motored to Symond’s Yat and stayed at the little hotel by the river? They might even push on to Abergavenny and from there motor up and explore the Black Mountains—why not? It was glorious weather. ‘Angela, please come away with me, darling—just for a few days—we’ve never done it, and I’ve longed to so often. You can’t refuse, there’s nothing on earth to prevent your coming.’ But Angela would not make up her mind, she seemed suddenly anxious about her husband: ‘Poor devil, he was awfully fond of his mother. I oughtn’t to go, it would look so heartless with the old woman dead and Ralph so unhappy—’ Stephen said bitterly; ‘What about me? Do you think I’m never unhappy?’ So the time slipped by in heartaches and quarrels, for Stephen’s taut nerves were like spurs to her temper, and she stormed or reproached in her dire disappointment: ‘You pretend that you love me and yet you won’t come—and I’ve waited so long—oh, my God, how I’ve waited! But you’re utterly cruel.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And she would not dare to proffer her love, which would burden her heart to breaking. She must now pay many calls with her mother, must attend all the formal social functions—this for the sake of appearances, lest the neighbours should guess the breach between them. She must keep up the fiction that she found in a city the stimulus necessary to her work, she who was filled with a hungry longing for the green of the hills, for the air of wide spaces, for the mornings and the noontides and the evenings of Morton. All these things she must do for the sake of her father, aye, and for the sake of Morton. On her first visit home Anna had said very quietly one day: ‘There’s something, Stephen, that I think I ought to tell you perhaps, though it’s painful to me to reopen the subject. There has been no scandal—that man held his tongue—you’ll be glad to know this because of your father. And Stephen—the Crossbys have sold The Grange and gone to America, I believe—’ she had stopped abruptly, not looking at Stephen, who had nodded, unable to answer. So now there were quite different folk at The Grange, folk very much more to the taste of the county—Admiral Carson and his apple-cheeked wife who, childless herself, adored Mothers’ Meetings. Stephen must sometimes go to The Grange with Anna, who liked the Carsons. Very grave and aloof had Stephen become; too reserved, too self-assured, thought her neighbours. They supposed that success had gone to her head, for no one was now allowed to divine the terrible shyness that made social intercourse such a miserable torment. Life had already taught Stephen one thing, and that was that never must human beings be allowed to suspect that a creature fears them. The fear of the one is a spur to the many, for the primitive hunting instinct dies hard—it is better to face a hostile world than to turn one’s back for a moment . But at least she was spared meeting Roger Antrim, and for this she was most profoundly thankful. Roger had gone with his regiment to Malta, so that they two did not see each other. Violet was married and living in London in the: ‘perfect duck of a house in Belgravia.’ From time to time she would blow in on Stephen, but not often, because she was very much married with one baby already and another on the way. She was somewhat subdued and much less maternal that she had been when first she met Alec. If Anna was proud of her daughter’s achievement she said nothing beyond the very few words that must of necessity be spoken: ‘I’m so glad your book has succeeded, Stephen.’ ‘Thank you, mother—’ Then as always these two fell silent. Those long and eloquent silences of theirs were now of almost daily occurrence when they found themselves together.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  I’m not complete. . . .’ She paused unable to find the words she wanted, then blundered on again blindly: ‘There’s a great chunk of life that I’ve never known, and I want to know it, I ought to know it if I’m to become a really fine writer. There’s the greatest thing perhaps in the world, and I’ve missed it—that’s what’s so awful, Puddle, to know that it exists everywhere, all round me, to be constantly near it yet always held back—to feel that the poorest people in the streets, the most ignorant people, know more than I do. And I dare to take up my pen and write, knowing less than these poor men and women in the street! Why haven’t I got a right to it, Puddle? Can’t you understand that I’m strong and young, so that sometimes this thing that I’m missing torments me, so that I can’t concentrate on my work any more? Puddle, help me—you were young yourself once.’ ‘Yes, Stephen—a long time ago I was young. . . .’ ‘But can’t you remember back for my sake?’ And now her voice sounded almost angry in her distress: ‘It’s unfair, it’s unjust. Why should I live in this great isolation of spirit and body—why should I, why? Why have I been afflicted with a body that must never be indulged, that must always be repressed until it grows stronger much than my spirit because of this unnatural repression? What have I done to be so cursed? And now it’s attacking my holy of holies, my work—I shall never be a great writer because of my maimed and insufferable body—’ She fell silent, suddenly shy and ashamed, too much ashamed to go on speaking. And there sat Puddle as pale as death and as speechless, having no comfort to offer—no comfort, that is, that she dared to offer—while all her fine theories about making good for the sake of those others; being noble, courageous, patient, honourable, physically pure, enduring because it was right to endure, the terrible birthright of the invert—all Puddle’s fine theories lay strewn around her like the ruins of some false and flimsy temple, and she saw at that moment but one thing clearly—true genius in chains, in the chains of the flesh, a fine spirit subject to physical bondage. And as once before she had argued with God on behalf of this sorely afflicted creature, so now she inwardly cried yet again to the Maker whose will had created Stephen: ‘Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about; yet Thou dost destroy me.’ Then into her heart crept a bitterness very hard to endure: ‘Yet Thou dost destroy me—’ Stephen looked up and saw her face: ‘Never mind,’ she said sharply, ‘it’s all right, Puddle—forget it!’ But Puddle’s eyes filled with tears, and seeing this, Stephen went to her desk.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "Oh, I don't know. I'd come back from Venice. And then we'd prepare everything." "How prepare?" "Oh, I'd tell Clifford. I'd have to tell him." "Would you!" He remained silent. She put her arms fast round his neck. "Don't make it difficult for me," she pleaded. "Make what difficult?" "For me to go to Venice and arrange things." A little smile, half a grin, flickered on his face. "I don't make it difficult," he said. "I only want to find out just what you are after. But you don't really know yourself. You want to take time: get away and look at it. I don't blame you. I think you're wise. You may prefer to stay mistress of Wragby. I don't blame you. I've no Wragbys to offer. In fact, you know what you'll get out of me. No, no, I think you're right! I really do! And I'm not keen on coming to live on you, being kept by you. There's that too." She felt, somehow, as if he were giving her tit for tat. "But you want me, don't you?" she asked. "Do you want me?" "You know I do. _That's_ evident." "Quite! And _when_ do you want me?" "You know we can arrange it all when I come back. Now I'm out of breath with you. I must get calm and clear." "Quite! Get calm and clear!" She was a little offended. "But you trust me, don't you?" she said. "Oh, absolutely!" She heard the mockery in his tone. "Tell me, then," she said flatly; "do you think it would be better if I _don't_ go to Venice?" "I'm sure it's better if you _do_ go to Venice," he replied in the cool, slightly mocking voice. "You know it's next Thursday?" she said. "Yes!" She now began to muse. At last she said: "And we _shall_ know better where we are when I come back, shan't we?" "Oh, surely!" The curious gulf of silence between them! "I've been to the lawyer about my divorce," he said, a little constrainedly. She gave a slight shudder. "Have you!" she said. "And what did he say?" "He said I ought to have done it before; that may be a difficulty. But since I was in the army, he thinks it will go through all right. If only it doesn't bring _her_ down on my head!" "Will she have to know?" "Yes! she is served with a notice: so is the man she lives with, the co-respondent." "Isn't it hateful, all the performances! I suppose I'd have to go through it with Clifford." There was a silence. "And of course," he said, "I have to live an exemplary life for the next six or eight months. So if you go to Venice, there's temptation removed for a week or two, at least."

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  The letter had been redirected from Morton; she recognized Puddle’s scholastic handwriting. And the other writing — large, rather untidy, but with strong black down-strokes and firmly crossed T’s — she stared at it thoughtfully, puckering her brows. Surely that writing, too, was familiar? Then she noticed a Paris postmark in the corner — that was strange. She tore open the envelope. Martin wrote very simply: ‘ Stephen, my dear. After all these years I am sending you a letter, just in case you have not com- pletely forgotten the existence of a man called Martin Hallam. ‘Tve been in Paris for the past two months. I had to come across to have my eye seen to; I stopped a bullet with my head here in France — it affected the optic nerve rather badly. But the point is: if I Ay over to England as I’m thinking of doing, may I come and see you? I’m a very poor hand at expressing myself — can’t do it at all when I put pen to paper — in addition to which Pm feeling nervous because you’ve become such a wonderful writer. But I do want to try and make you understand how des- perately I’ve regretted our friendship — that perfect early friend- ship of ours seems to me now a thing well worth regretting. Believe me or not, I’ve thought of it for years; and the fault was all mine for not understanding. I was just an ignorant cub in those days. Well, anyhow, please will you see me, Stephen? I’m a THE WELL OF LONELINESS 473 lonely sort of fellow, so if you’re kind-hearted you'll invite me to motor down to Morton, supposing you’re there; and then if you like me, we'll take up our friendship just where it left off. We’ll pretend that we’re very young again, walking over the hills and jawing about life. Lord, what splendid companions we were in those early days — like a couple of brothers! ‘Do you think it’s queer that I’m writing all this? It does seem queer, yet I’d have written it before if I’d ever come over to stay in England; but except when I rushed across to join up, I’ve pretty well stuck to British Columbia. I don’t even know exactly where you are, for I’ve not met a soul who knows you for ages. I heard of your father’s death of course, and was terribly sorry — beyond that I’ve heard nothing; still, I fancy I’m quite safe in sending this to Morton.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  After a while, he reached for his shirt and put it on, dressed himself swiftly in silence, looked at her once as she still lay naked and faintly golden like a Gloire de Dijon rose on the bed, and was gone. She heard him downstairs opening the door. And still she lay musing, musing. It was very hard to go: to go out of his arms. He called from the foot of the stairs: "Half-past seven!" She sighed, and got out of bed. The bare little room! Nothing in it at all but the small chest of drawers and the smallish bed. But the board floor was scrubbed clean. And in the corner by the window gable was a shelf with some books, and some from a circulating library. She looked. There were books about bolshevist Russia, books of travel, a volume about the atom and the electron, another about the composition of the earth's core, and the causes of earthquakes: then a few novels: then three books on India. So! He was a reader after all. The sun fell on her naked limbs through the gable window. Outside she saw the dog Flossie roaming round. The hazel-brake was misted with green, and dark-green dog's-mercury under. It was a clear clean morning, with birds flying and triumphantly singing. If only she could stay! If only there weren't the other ghastly world of smoke and iron! If only _he_ would make her a world. She came downstairs, down the steep, narrow wooden stairs. Still she would be content with this little house, if only it were in a world of its own. He was washed and fresh, and the fire was burning. "Will you eat anything?" he said. "No! Only lend me a comb." She followed him into the scullery, and combed her hair before the handbreadth of mirror by the back door. Then she was ready to go. She stood in the little front garden, looking at the dewy flowers, the grey bed of pinks in bud already. "I would like to have all the rest of the world disappear," she said, "and live with you here." "It won't disappear," he said. They went almost in silence through the lovely dewy wood. But they were together in a world of their own. It was bitter to her to go on to Wragby. "I want soon to come and live with you altogether," she said as she left him. He smiled unanswering. She got home quietly and unremarked, and went up to her room. CHAPTER XV

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  This is just about the only public space where we are welcome. A few of the flakier badgirls don’t like Simba because she’s barred them from the dungeon for being too stoned to hit what they aim at, and if you ask me it’s because they don’t like bein’ bossed around by a black woman, but the other thing she does is keep tourists and bluenoses out of the dungeons, and as long as she does that I don’t care about your rule that no rough stuff goes on any place else in the Calyx of Isis. It can’t be news to you that that isn’t a very popular rule with some of us. “But I figure your job is getting women laid, so even if you don’t particularly care for S/M you understand that it isn’t easy to find somebody compatible. Just cause your black hanky is on the left and hers is on the right don’t mean you are going to live happily ever after. I’ve had a lot of fun and a very hot relationship or two but none that lasted, and I’m kinda sick of that. Maybe romance and S/M don’t mix, but I want a woman of my own who will stick by my side, somebody who really needs and likes what I do. “Well, I met a lady who has potential, that’s Roxanne. She works at the Mitchell Brothers theater, dancing. And she is pretty special, I think. But it’s real hard for me to let myself go unless I know that the other person belongs to me. And that she will go the distance with me, she won’t whip-tease me and then chicken out. I know when most people say they want somebody to belong to them they mean they want to keep them all to themselves, but for me the real test of property is, can you give it away? And if you loan it out, can you get it back? So I guess I need to test her, but I also want to surprise her and give her something that is a fantasy for a lot of bottoms. “I want a gang, a pack, a bunch of tough and experienced top women. I’ll leave the exact number up to you, but I don’t want just a threesome in warm leatherette. I would rather it not be women Roxanne already knows. And no novices, they would just get in the way. Once you get that group together I want to give them Roxanne, and if she makes me proud I want her to belong to me, wear my rings. If she still wants me. She might decide it’s too much, or maybe she’ll tumble for one of the other tops. I have to know where she’s at before I fall any more in love with her.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  After a while, he reached for his shirt and put it on, dressed himself swiftly in silence, looked at her once as she still lay naked and faintly golden like a Gloire de Dijon rose on the bed, and was gone. She heard him downstairs opening the door. And still she lay musing, musing. It was very hard to go: to go out of his arms. He called from the foot of the stairs: "Half-past seven!" She sighed, and got out of bed. The bare little room! Nothing in it at all but the small chest of drawers and the smallish bed. But the board floor was scrubbed clean. And in the corner by the window gable was a shelf with some books, and some from a circulating library. She looked. There were books about bolshevist Russia, books of travel, a volume about the atom and the electron, another about the composition of the earth's core, and the causes of earthquakes: then a few novels: then three books on India. So! He was a reader after all. The sun fell on her naked limbs through the gable window. Outside she saw the dog Flossie roaming round. The hazel-brake was misted with green, and dark-green dog's-mercury under. It was a clear clean morning, with birds flying and triumphantly singing. If only she could stay! If only there weren't the other ghastly world of smoke and iron! If only _he_ would make her a world. She came downstairs, down the steep, narrow wooden stairs. Still she would be content with this little house, if only it were in a world of its own. He was washed and fresh, and the fire was burning. "Will you eat anything?" he said. "No! Only lend me a comb." She followed him into the scullery, and combed her hair before the handbreadth of mirror by the back door. Then she was ready to go. She stood in the little front garden, looking at the dewy flowers, the grey bed of pinks in bud already. "I would like to have all the rest of the world disappear," she said, "and live with you here." "It won't disappear," he said. They went almost in silence through the lovely dewy wood. But they were together in a world of their own. It was bitter to her to go on to Wragby. "I want soon to come and live with you altogether," she said as she left him. He smiled unanswering. She got home quietly and unremarked, and went up to her room. CHAPTER XV

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  She turned and looked at him. "We came off together that time," he said. She did not answer. "It's good when it's like that. Most folks lives their lives through and they never know it," he said, speaking rather dreamily. She looked into his brooding face. "Do they?" she said. "Are you glad?" He looked back into her eyes. "Glad," he said. "Ay, but never mind." He did not want her to talk. And he bent over her and kissed her, and she felt, so he must kiss her for ever. At last she sat up. "Don't people often come off together?" she asked with naive curiosity. "A good many of them never. You can see by the raw look of them." He spoke unwittingly, regretting he had begun. "Have you come off like that with other women?" He looked at her amused. "I don't know," he said, "I don't know." And she knew he would never tell her anything he didn't want to tell her. She watched his face, and the passion for him moved in her bowels. She resisted it as far as she could, for it was the loss of herself to herself. He put on his waistcoat and his coat, and pushed a way through to the path again. The last level rays of the sun touched the wood. "I won't come with you," he said; "better not." She looked at him wistfully before she turned. His dog was waiting so anxiously for him to go, and he seemed to have nothing whatever to say. Nothing left. Connie went slowly home, realising the depth of the other thing in her. Another self was alive in her, burning molten and soft in her womb and bowels, and with this self she adored him. She adored him till her knees were weak as she walked. In her womb and bowels she was flowing and alive now and vulnerable, and helpless in adoration of him as the most naive woman.--It feels like a child, she said to herself; it feels like a child in me.--And so it did, as if her womb, that had always been shut, had opened and filled with new life, almost a burden, yet lovely. "If I had a child!" she thought to herself; "if I had him inside me as a child!"--and her limbs turned molten at the thought, and she realised the immense difference between having a child to oneself, and having a child to a man whom one's bowels yearned towards. The former seemed in a sense ordinary: but to have a child to a man whom one adored in one's bowels and one's womb, it made her feel she was very different from her old self, and as if she was sinking deep, deep to the centre of all womanhood and the sleep of creation.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  Somewhere, in one of his closets, there was even a suitcase containing a makeup kit, a pair of false eyelashes and another pair of equally false tits, a red Spandex minidress, crotchless fishnet hose, a blonde wig, and seven-inch patent leather spike heels. There was nothing, nothing he would not try to learn or concoct or arrange if it would snare a topman, master, sadist, or dominant for a few precious hours. It never occurred to him to wonder what impact he had on the lives of the men he ministered to. He assumed that they continued on exactly as they were before they met him. Why shouldn’t they? Their reputations were not besmirched or tarnished—he never told anyone about his adventures since he knew no one else would understand them. He was available if they wanted him again, so there was no need for them to submit to someone who was less discreet or kind. Why would they feel reduced or humiliated? If he had thought about it, he would have assumed they felt flattered, since he himself felt only gratitude and admiration for them. He was obsessed, and that is not the best frame of mind for tracking one’s impact on the world. He paid no attention at all to his backwash. In other words, he wasn’t watching his ass. The fact that he did not gossip did not mean that others held their tongues. When Curt arrived at the leather bar spouting tales of his adventure, there were those who where unkind enough to ask why the two lucky topmen had not come with him, and speculate about what had gone on while they were alone together. When the spoiler stood in the middle of the grove and plunged his gloved arm up to the elbow in distended ass-lips and Crisco, he was so pleased by the idyllic setting that it did not occur to him that other people were sexing in the woods during the run. Some of them heard the groans and curses of the man he was fucking until the sling made the oak tree creak and sway. Two of those who were interrupted by this racket went to see what all the fuss was about, and what they saw made a story that traveled fast and far. The spoiler was not always kind in the pursuit of his obsession. He often did the emotional equivalent of picking people up and moving them out of his way as if he were passing the ketchup to a stranger in a diner. The erstwhile tops and persistent bottoms he brushed aside were not pleased to be treated like so much flotsam, and some of them had a taste for revenge.

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  In the pause that followed, hiding I wasn’t sure what, I stood in front of the kitchen glass, watching street-level laborers dig. Jackhammers drilled into asphalt. Taxicabs jostled past the ruins, and then they pulled free. I knew that, at some point, I’d left Phoebe with the impression I was hostile to Christians. But what I hadn’t explained was that, if I went on a jog, I still heard Leviticus like a song to beat out the rhythm of each stride. If I walked out to a bare street, I panicked—afraid again, until I relearned not to be, that the God in whom I’d stopped believing had lifted His faithful up to His side, leaving the rest of us, who’d declined His pledge, to die. Toward the end, when I felt faith slip from me like the last remnants of a loved, radiant dream, I looked around during church services at all the believing fools, and I grieved with envying them. I used to think I valued truth more than I did the Lord, but I wasn’t so heroic. If I could have stayed, I would. It’s as though, when I tried to learn His lines by heart, I turned literal. I inked the Word in flesh; I tattooed atrial muscles. It stained the cells, His print indelible. I wasn’t hostile, Phoebe. It was longing, and I should have made that plain. Instead, I asked if she’d known all along he’d be in Noxhurst. What are you implying? Tell me if that’s why you gave up attending classes, I said. If you did this on purpose. She asked if I heard how I sounded. When had she lied to me? Well, all right, I thought, as the kettle pinged. I pulled down a tea bag. Oh, I’d noticed occasional mild deceptions, the milk lies of love, but I hadn’t known Phoebe to be dishonest, not like this. But I’d lied so long, I’d found how natural it could be. I let the tea soak. I took a second pill, then I called Phoebe, giving in. 17.JOHN LEALEach time he saw Phoebe, he asked if she could talk to him about the mother who’d died. You’re in pain because someone you love has stopped existing, he said. But the love itself is still with you. It’s the more abiding gift. She’s stayed in this world as she could, through absence. If you can find delight in this lack as you did with presence, you’ll gain what you think is lost. But it’s hard, he said. Phoebe, it’ll take time. He’d lost his mother, too: he’d lived with the resulting isolation. He’d had to learn how it felt to watch others avert their eyes, trying to believe all was well. Is it, though, he asked, until, halting, tearful, she started telling him.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  But when he had done his slow, cautious beating of his bounds--it was nearly a five-mile walk--he was tired. He went to the top of the knoll and looked out. There was no sound save the noise, the faint shuffling noise from Stacks Gate colliery, that never ceased working: and there were hardly any lights, save the brilliant electric rows at the works. The world lay darkly and fumily sleeping. It was half-past two. But even in its sleep it was an uneasy, cruel world, stirring with the noise of a train or some great lorry on the road, and flashing with some rosy lightning-flash from the furnaces. It was a world of iron and coal, the cruelty of iron and the smoke of coal, and the endless, endless greed that drove it all. Only greed, greed stirring in its sleep. It was cold, and he was coughing. A fine cold draught blew over the knoll. He thought of the woman. Now he would have given all he had or ever might have to hold her warm in his arms, both of them wrapped in one blanket, and sleep. All hopes of eternity and all gain from the past he would have given to have her there, to be wrapped warm with him in one blanket, and sleep, only sleep. It seemed the sleep with the woman in his arms was the only necessity. He went to the hut, and wrapped himself in the blanket and lay on the floor to sleep. But he could not, he was cold. And besides, he felt cruelly his own unfinished nature. He felt his own unfinished condition of aloneness cruelly. He wanted her, to touch her, to hold her fast against him in one moment of completeness and sleep. He got up again and went out, towards the park gates this time: then slowly along the path towards the house. It was nearly four o'clock, still clear and cold, but no sign of dawn. He was so used to the dark, he could see well. Slowly, slowly the great house drew him, as a magnet. He wanted to be near her. It was not desire, not that. It was the cruel sense of unfinished aloneness, that needed a silent woman folded in his arms. Perhaps he could find her. Perhaps he could even call her out to him: or find some way in to her. For the need was imperious. He slowly, silently climbed the incline to the hall. Then he came round the great trees at the top of the knoll, on to the drive, which made a grand sweep round a lozenge of grass in front of the entrance. He could already see the two magnificent beeches which stood in this big level lozenge in front of the house, detaching themselves darkly in the dark air.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  SPIRIT OF SERVICE My profession progressed satisfactorily, but that was far from satisfying me. The Question of further simplifying my life and of doing some concrete act of service to my fellowmen had been constantly agitating me, when a leper came to my door. I had not the heart to dismiss him with a meal. So I offered him shelter, dressed his wounds, and began to look after him. But I could not go on like that indefinately. I could not afford, I lacked the will to keep him always with me. So I sent him to the Government Hospital for indentured labourers. But I was still ill at ease. I longed for some humanitarian work of a permanent nature. Dr. Booth was the head of the St. Aidan’s Mission. He was a kind- hearted man and treated his patients free. Thanks to a Parsi Rustomji’s charities, it was possible to open a small charitable hospital under Dr. Booth’s charge. I felt strongly inclined to serve as a nurse in this hospital. The work of dispensing medicines took from one to two hours daily, and I made up my mind to find time from my office-work, so as to be able to fill the place of a compounder in the dispensary attached to the hospital. Most of my professional work was chamber work, conveyancing and arbitration. I of course used to have a few cases in the magistrate’s court, but most of them were of a non- controversial character, and Mr.Khan, who had followed me to South Africa and was then living with me, undertook to take them if I was absent. So I found time to serve in the small hospital. This work brought me some peace. It consisted in ascertaining the patient’s complaints, laying the facts before the doctor and dispensing the prescriptions. It brought me in close touch with suffering Indians, most of them indentured Tamil, Telegu or North Indian men. The experience stood me in good stead, when during the Boer War I offered my services for nursing the sick and wounded soldiers.

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  I’m not sure when I began to suspect the act had turned real, that I was staying in Jejah as much to help myself as Phoebe. If I was going to put this time into the group, I thought, I might as well give it a chance. It felt like the last attempt. Often, I thought of an afternoon I’d spent evangelizing in San Francisco. In the evening, before driving home to Carmenita, I met with my cohort of Jubilee students to hold closing prayers on Fisherman’s Wharf. Docked boats shone in fading light. We raised linked hands, calling out in tongues. People with no experience of God tend to think that leaving the faith would be a liberation, a flight from guilt, rules, but what I couldn’t forget was the joy I’d known, loving Him. Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing—the old, lost hope revived. I was tantalized with what John Leal said was possible: I wished him to be right. – She’d always been more Julian’s friend than Phoebe’s, and it was Julian who called with the news. There wasn’t a final note, no sign of intent. No one could tell if she’d slipped on the Midwest ice, if it was an accident, but Liesl had fallen from a third-story attic windowsill of the St. Paul house. It wasn’t a long fall. She should have survived; instead, she cracked her head open on a fence post. Within hours of arriving at the hospital, she’d died. Edwards students flew to St. Paul for the funeral, Phoebe included. I said I’d go along. Don’t, she said. She spent the night in a hotel, with Julian. He then decided he’d stay an extra night in St. Paul, so I picked Phoebe up from the airport. She looked exhausted, ponytail unwashed. I have a fresh pot of lentil chili, I said. I’ve ordered laziji, too. It should be here in minutes. She tried to smile. I don’t have much of an appetite, she said. Maybe in the morning. I asked what I could do. I’ll be fine, she said. She went to bed. It’s not that I believed Phoebe, but I did think that, if she wanted to be alone, I shouldn’t intrude. She and Liesl, I’ll repeat, hadn’t been at all close. But during the next Jejah meeting, I glanced up to see Phoebe talking quietly to John Leal, crying. She pushed a hand to her open mouth, almost covering it. He took hold of Phoebe’s chin: he tilted it until she was forced to look at him. –

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  exercise. The improvement I attributed largely to the pure air of the temperate zone. Whether it was due to past experience or to any other reason, I do not know, but the kind of distance I noticed between the English and Indian passengers on the boat was something I had not observed even on my voyage from South Africa. I did talk to a few Englishmen, but the talk was mostly formal. There were hardly any cordial conversations such as had certainly taken place on the South African boats. The reason for this was, I think, to be found in the conscious or unconscious feeling at the back of the Englishman’s mind that he belonged to the ruling race, and the feeling at the back of the Indian’s mind that he belonged to the subject race. I was eager to reach home and get free from this atmosphere. On arriving at Aden we already began to feel somewhat at home. We knew the Adenwallas very well, having met Mr. Kekobad Kavasji Dinshaw in Durban and come in close contact with him and his wife. A few days more and we reached Bombay. It was such a joy to get back to the homeland after an exile of ten years. Gokhale had inspired a reception for me in Bombay, where he had come in spite of his delicate health. I had approached India in the ardent hope of merging myself in him, and thereby feeling free. But fate had willed it otherwise. 123.

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  My phone died, she said. I didn’t notice it until a minute ago. Hope rose, then fell. While she hung her coat and pashmina, I took a long, sustaining swig of tonic-splashed gin. The plaid skirt twitched on Phoebe’s thighs, brass buttons gleaming. The phone had tolled through its full five rings before it prompted me to leave a message, which meant it had been on. If it hadn’t, the phone would have shunted me to Phoebe’s voicemail with just one ring. No, each time I called, the phone had vibrated. She’d pulled it out, seen Will, and put it back in the bag. I was able to see what she’d done, in such detail that I knew it had to be true. When I could, I asked how she’d gotten home. I drove, she said. I, well, John Leal did. I was too tired. I’ll make tea. Do you want anything? Getting up, I went to the sink. I’ll do it, she said, but she hesitated, then sat. I filled the kettle. From the cupboard, I took down the aged puerh I’d bought in Beijing’s tea bazaar, a labyrinth I’d spent hours roving, intent on finding what she’d like best. It’s the king of teas, the merchant had explained, pouring me a sample cup. Unable to decide, I’d tried so much tea I’d had to piss outside, behind the building. I broke off a piece. I crumbled it into the mesh basket. Puerh leaves unfurled, like relaxing fists. You should have something, she said. I don’t want tea. I’ll bet you haven’t eaten. I hadn’t, I realized. In a panic, I’d failed to eat since morning. She could tell, by looking at me, if I needed to eat. I took Phoebe the cup. She leaned into my side. With an arm swathed in cashmere, the soft fibers prickling, she pulled me close. My breathing slowed. Once, not long ago, she’d pointed to a picture on Julian’s wall, a child with his arms flung out. Posed like a kite, she’d said. A kite, I repeated, the word unrolling a tableau of blanched sand. Heat. Light. Surfboards gliding, iridescent; swimmers beaded with sea foam. Harlequin kites spooled high, lolloping toward the sun. In that childhood photo, I couldn’t avoid noticing a crucifixion pose, while she saw—a kite. I’d loved Phoebe’s pagan mind, unpolluted with His blood. Phoebe, forgive me, I should have said, help me, but then she shifted to drink the puerh. Let go, I moved to sit at the table, a tall vase of white phlox dividing us. She inhaled steam. Wire hangers, I said. What?

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  It was spring, the season of gentle emotions, and Stephen, for the first time, became aware of spring. In a dumb, childish THE WELL OF LONELINESS I9 way she was conscious of its fragrance, and the house irked her sorely, and she longed for the meadows, and the hills that were white with thorn-trees. Her active young body was for ever on the fidget, but her mind was bathed in a kind of soft haze, and this she could never quite put into words, though she tried to tell Collins about it. It was all part of Collins, yet somehow quite different --it had nothing to do with Collins’ wide smile, nor her hands which were red, nor even her eyes which were blue, land very arresting. Yet all that was Collins, Stephen’s Collins, was also a part of these long, warm days, a part of the twilights that came in and lingered for hours after Stephen had been put to bed; a part too, could Stephen have only known it, of her own quickening childish perceptions. This spring, for the first time, she thrilled to the cuckoo, standing quite still to listen, with her head on one side; and the lure of that far-away call was destined to remain with her all her life. There were times when she wanted to get away from Collins, yet at others she longed intensely to be near her, longed to force the response that her loving craved for, but quite wisely, was very seldom granted. She would say: ‘I do love you awfully, Collins. I love you so much that it makes me want to cry.’ And Collins would answer: ‘ Don’t be silly, Miss Stephen,’ which was not satisfactory — not at all satisfactory. Then Stephen might suddenly push her, in anger: ‘ You’re a beast! How I hate you, Collins! ’ And now Stephen had taken to keeping awake every night, in order to build up pictures: pictures of herself companioned by Collins in all sorts of happy situations. Perhaps they would be walking in the garden, hand in hand, or pausing on a hill-side to listen to the cuckoo; or perhaps they would be skimming over miles of blue ocean in a queer little ship with a leg-of-mutton sail, like the one in the fairy story. Sometimes Stephen pictured them living alone in a low thatched cottage by the side of a mill stream — she had seen such a cottage not very far from Upton — and the water flowed quickly and made talking noises; 26 THE WEĽL OF LONELINESS

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  The oil made my thighs slip unexpectedly past each other, giving me a feeling of sensuous insecurity. “You like?” she asked me, using a sleazy, Tijuana pimp’s accent. I did not respond. “I like. Too bad you can’t see yourself. You’ll just have to use your imagination. In fact, that’s all you’re going to have for the next little while—your imagination. Because I’m leaving.“ I was dismayed. I twisted my head, but the blindfold prevented me from catching any glimpse of her. And my ears were not reliable. I could not tell if her voice came from behind me, to my side, or in front of me. “Think about all those nice playthings you saw hanging in my closet. And imagine how alluring you are in chains, blindfolded, with your arms above your head.” The palm of her hand barely brushed my nipples. “You have beautiful breasts anyway, but now—well…” I heard footsteps. “Try not to dwell on all the dreadful things I’m going to do to you when I get back,” she called. “If I get back,” she added thoughtfully, as she closed the door. The minute she left, I lost all track of time. I seemed to be there, alone, for hours. The music was still going, but I wasn’t familiar with how tape decks worked or with the music. Maybe the same tape had played through several times. My arms were not stretched so tight as to be uncomfortable, and the rug and electric heater kept me from getting chilled. But still, I fidgeted. Where was she? Was she taking a bath? Watching TV? I couldn’t hear anything from the rest of the house. I squirmed impatiently. What if she had decided to leave and go back to the dance? Maybe she was asleep on the couch. My frustration was invaded by an overwhelming sensory memory. I could hear her say, “Tilt your head back.” And I was overcome by the perfume of her sex, felt her rub her pussy into my face. “Remember me,” she had said. “This is me, my essence.” I no longer cared how much time had passed. I waited patiently, even blissfully, only shifting position to make myself more comfortable. Someone in bondage may look passive, but you always have to work hard to stay in it. I did not hear the doorknob turn, or her footsteps falling on the carpet. Once again, it was some imperceptible heating of my skin, an oh-so-slight stirring of the hairs on my forearms and the back of my neck, that warned me I was in her presence.