Love

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Pisces (2018)

  We looked in each other’s eyes as we moved. I felt that we were creating something together. The sounds I was making became primal and real. But then I felt him in me just a little less, then almost not at all. Somehow he had gotten soft. He pulled out and jerked it a little. He looked ashamed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Sometimes I just get nervous the first time with a new person. It’s the pressure. But you feel so good and are really gorgeous. I want to give you so much pleasure. I want to make you feel so much.” He pulled out of me and wriggled down my body. His desire to get me off made up for him having lost his hard-on. I let myself go completely, like when we were on the rocks. I focused only on the feeling and not on anything else. This time when I came I did not come for the gods or the stars, but only for him. I called out his name as I came into his mouth. I came for so long I felt suspended in time or air or space, as though the divisions between seconds had been obliterated. Afterward, as my pussy settled, he kept his face down there, his cheek resting on my inner right thigh. I could feel us attaching and knew that any chance of breaking apart from him emotionally was not possible. I was his now. 37.I read somewhere that it takes women one and a half fucks to get attached—that it happens in the middle of the second fuck. Now I knew this was true of pussy eating too. Theo lay with his head in my lap and I gently tickled his face. Then I heard Dominic barking from the other room. “Do you want to meet the dog?” “I don’t,” he said. “Also, I should probably be getting back soon.” “What do you have to get back for? What if you just stay here with me a little longer,” I said, tousling his hair. “How about you come into the ocean and stay with me forever?” he said, smiling. “I would get too cold,” I said. “But I’m coming to see you as much as I can. I want to come see you all the time. When can I see you again?” Now it wasn’t enough just to be with him. I felt that he was already gone even though he was right there. I could see past his body to his absence, feel him slipping away, as though he flashed back and forth between here and gone like a strobe. I was already worried for that moment when he would be gone. What would it take for him to be enough? Even if I were to cook him up and eat him, fry his deliciousness with butter and a bib, swallow him up and digest him inside me, it still wouldn’t be enough. “Soon,” he said.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  When I got back to the house I didn’t wash or bandage the cut. I wanted him to see what happened—to know that I hurt myself and needed to be taken care of. Even though he was entering my world, it wasn’t all easy for me. I was making sacrifices and taking risks too. He wasn’t the only one for whom this was difficult. I’ve always felt that injuries are a bit romantic, in the sense that you’re forced to be vulnerable and have someone else take care of you. I wanted to stay vulnerable. I wondered if he would suck the blood out of the wound like a vampire, the same way he wanted to lick my menstrual blood. Of course, he wasn’t a vampire, he was some other kind of mythic creature, but it didn’t matter. Even if he had legs, no tail, and was a real vampire, I wouldn’t care. I would put my knee to his mouth and say, “Drink, please. I hope you enjoy it.” I wanted him to help heal and soothe me, even if it meant consuming me away. I realized I was tired. I couldn’t be more tired. Dominic was already whimpering. I guess he could smell Theo on me. “It’s time to take a nap now,” I said, and got the tranquilizers from the cupboard. I didn’t know how I would explain to my sister where all of the tranquilizers had gone. Maybe she wouldn’t notice or maybe she would think that I had taken them. Perhaps I could score some more tranquilizers to give to him, or go to the vet and get more. Maybe a different vet so that no one would know what was happening. I gave him the tranquilizers in a pill pocket and put his head on my lap. “Nothing is beautiful and everything is nothing,” I said to him. “Everything is nothing and everything is beautiful.” I had no idea what I was talking about but I felt hypnotized with joy and potentiality. When his sighs deepened, I closed the pantry door and tiptoed away. Walking back across the beach with the wagon, I was limping. This is how we get injured for love, I thought. This is how love can hurt us. I felt great and noble, like a woman coming to claim her man in battle, or perhaps a man who was coming to rescue his woman. I had to be the rescuer, because he was more handicapped than I was. His legs were in worse shape than mine. At least mine could move on earth. Why was I even comparing the two of us? Was this a competition, a competition for pain? Besides, when he was licking me he was entirely my rescuer. He was strong in his softness. We could take turns.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  Formerly I had become very weary of the luxurious and artificial life of our capital; but at that moment, in this distant country, I felt a temptation which disturbed all the peace of my spirit. My soul was quite thrown into confusion, and my heart began, to beat violently with desire. When the High Priest left the temple after his prayer, I watched the page from behind a screen, and my love grew with each minute. I asked my friend who this beautiful page was, and he told me that he was the second son of a noble family, whose parents had entrusted him to the High Priest because he wished to become a priest and to renounce the pleasures of this world. My love became so violent that it seemed to me that my soul was breaking into a thousand pieces; and it was, indeed, torn. I lost my calm, and in vain gravely reproached myself. I could not forget this beautiful young man. At last in despair, without caring what my friend thought, I wrote the page a love-letter, pleading the cause of my despairing soul. I hoped to gain a little peace if he should only know of my love, without going nearly so far as to return it. This is what I wrote:' DEAR AND ROYAL LORD, I saw you yesterday evening when you were crossing the garden in the High Priest's train, and was moved by your beauty. You are so lovely that the most famous beauties of China, such as Taitjio and Token, the fairest young men there, or Hi or the Empress Yo cannot excel you. I am a priest, but, alas! I have also the passions of a man, and I confess that I love you with all my being. Lord, I am a humble and insignificant priest, passing through this Province: you are of a noble family. To aspire to your love is, for me, as impossible and unfeasible as to climb up a ladder to heaven. I admit that it is impudent of me even to love you; but I write to you because I hope to win some satisfaction and contentment by simply letting you know that I do so. I am like a fly in a spider's web, I am helpless. I bring you my heart in these clumsy words. 'Since I saw you my heart has not ceased to beat violently. When I am alone, flaming tears run down my cheeks. I am in actual agony; and my words in this letter are all confused. Your face and your whole person are so refined and elegant. I have heard it said that you arc the most splendid flower of the Western Provinces; but to me you seem the most precious jewel in the universe. For indeed your beauty exceeds all the flowers of the world.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  But since they could not meet openly, because of the Lord, they waited for a suitable opportunity. It was the custom to give the palace a thorough cleaning on the thirteenth of December, and for the courtiers to change their old clothes for new and spotless garments. On that day, following a plan conceived by Korin's servant, Sohatjiro was introduced into the palace in a big bamboo basket, in which Korin had already sent some new soft robes to his mother. They succeeded in carrying Sohatjiro into the room adjoining the Lord's bedroom. Korin pretended that he had pains in the stomach, and kept the screen doors well oiled so as to be able to open them easily in the night. The first time Korin went out of the room, the Lord complained of the noise he made; but, as the night advanced, the latter fell into a deep sleep and started to snore very loudly. Then Korin, thinking that the moment had come when he might join his love, crept into the next room. The two lovers embraced and swore a faithful and changeless love until their deaths. They spoke very quietly, in a whisper, of their amorous pleasures; but by ill luck it happened that the Lord was wakened by their voices. He shouted: 'There is someone in the next room, and he shall not escape.'He grasped a spear, which was renting against his pillow, and rushed upon Sohatjiro as he turned to run away. But Korin seized him by the sleeve and said: 'It is not worthy of you, Lord, to agitate yourself in this way. Be caI beg you. There was no one here but I. I was only uttering certain complaints because of my pain. Forgive me, Lord, for having disturbed your sleep.' At that moment Sohatjiro Started to climb over the wall by the help of a large branch, and the Lord saw him. He Sternly questioned Korin; but the other denied everything. Then, since he had great love for Korin, the Lord thought that this was perhaps another evil badger haunting the garden, and he calmed himself. But one of the sentinels, Shinroku Kanai, came and said to the Lord: 'I saw the track of a man in this room, and himself with my own eyes in the garden. His hair was disordered and his actions were Strange. It must be Korin's secret lover. I advise the Lord to watch Korin.'But Korin answered bravely: 'My dear one has given me his life. He is my faithful lover. Even if I must die, I will not tell his name. I have already said this many times to my Lord.'He was calm and serene. Two days later Korin was led into the guard-room of the palace, and the Lord said to him: 'I myself will execute you, Korin, as a warning to my courtiers not to deceive me. Prepare to die.'And he took a halberd in his hands.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  One day, as he was walking in the quarter of the samurai, he saw the dog which had visited him sleeping in front of the door of a house. A passer-by told him that this was the house of Shibei Okasaki, one of the Lord's chief officers. Then Inosuke remembered that Shibei had at one time vowed an ardent love for him. Inosuke had not forgotten him, even when he was loved by his Lord, and he thought: 'I must never forget what he did for me during my long disgrace. I could not repay, even by giving my life for him. Should anything happen to him, I swear upon my honour as a samurai that I shall help him with my death.' That evening Inosuke sent for Shibei, and, when the latter arrived, thanked him with tears. After his mother had retired to her room, Inosuke and Shibei had a very pleasant and cordial conversation. Inosuke asked how the dog had known the house and the hole to come in by, and Shibei answered: 'When you were in this Province with your master, I could not restrain my love for you, and used to walk before your house nearly every night. But I dared not see you, because you were our Lord's favourite. I only Stood outside and tried to satisfy my burning love by the sight of you or the sound of your voice. My dog followed me every night, and thus he learned to know your house, and I was able to send him to help you.' Inosuke blushed with pleasure at Shibei's devotion, and confessed: 'It grieves me much that I was unable to return your love at that time; but my Lord loved me. Now I am free to love you; but I am no longer the pretty page I was when you cared for me so deeply. I am now a faded flower. But why regret the past? I have become a samurai, and am no longer a page; but I have the same heart for you. Love me, if you can feel the same ardency as before. I shall be happy to be loved by you.' And Inosuke put on his old page's dress with long sleeves, although it was not suitable for a grown man, for he wished to recall past days. They spent the night together in his room, and in their love murmurings Inosuke said to Shibei: I am only twenty-one years old, 'although he was really twenty-two. A samurai ought never to dissemble, but Inosuke must be excused for his lie, since he was truly in love with his former admirer and could not tell the truth about his age. Even a brave and valiant samurai grows weak when he loves; for love is the greatest power of all and governs this world. Songs of the Geishas

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  I beg you to let me come in; I have a private matter to discuss with you.' Senzayemon led him to his room, and then Tamanosuke said to him: 'I am truly grateful for your devotion during my long illness. Forgive me for saying it frankly, but if you love me, humble as I am, I have come to be loved by you this evening, Senzayemon.' Senzayemon blushed with pleasure: 'My heart cannot express itself in words. I pray you to go and see it. It is in the shrine of the god Hatjiman, who is the god of war and of soldiers. I consecrated it there, my lover.' Tamanosuke went to the shrine, and asked the priest what was there. The priest said: 'Senzayemon gave me a box which contained his daily prayer for his friend's recovery.' Tamanosuke, with leave, opened the box and found in it a dagger of Sadamune and a fervent prayer for his recovery in a letter addressed to the god. In this manner he discovered that he owed his recovery to Senzayemon's prayer. Then he and Senzayemon became faithful lovers. Little by little this Story spread, and came to the ears of the Lord, who sentenced the two lovers to be confined in their own houses. They were both ready to die for their love, and did not at all fear death. They calmly awaited their severe punishment, and succeeded in finding a secret means of corresponding with each other. A year passed in this way. Then, on the ninth of March, they sent a petition to the Lord, in which they begged to be allowed an honourable death by Hara-kiri. They awaited their condemnation from moment to moment. But one day a messenger came from the Lord to Tamanosuke and ordered him to become a samurai instead of the page that he had been. Senzayemon was also pardoned. They were very grateful to this Lord, and decided to forgo their meetings until Tamanosuke should have reached the age of twenty-five. They no longer even spoke to each other when they met in the Street. They but continued to serve their Lord faithfully.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  For me, you are as princely a beauty as the Empress Seishi, or the celebrated poetess Komachi, or the young Yukihira* or the new-born Nari-hira. I cannot forget you even in my sleep; and when I awake I am excruciated. I have prayed the god Fuyisaki to have pity on my unhappy love. I wish to drown myself in the river Kikutji, to put an end to my pain. I am ready to sacrifice my life for one evening's love with you. One evening of love with you is more precious than a thousand years of life. I shall gladly do all that you command me. I would rather have half an hour's life than drag out mere miserable existence for a hundred years. From morning to evening, by day and by night, your face does not leave me, and I endure a thousand deaths for love of you. I am wretched. I am cursed by a cruel Karma.' But, my dear friend, I am blessed rather than cursed. He has read my letter and sent me such a kind answer. Oh, how tender and sympathetic he is! I am happy and contented; I am the happiest man under the sun. I cannot speak enough of his kindness, for he is truly good. That is all that I can say now. Presently, as soon as he finds an opportunity, he is coming to spend a whole evening with me. All that troubles me is that the day is not yet fixed. I know that this waiting for the day is an agony which all lovers have to endure; and I comfort myself by telling myself so. I wish I could show you this noble young man. His name is Aineme Okayima. When he comes to see me, we shall drink wine together and have a pleasant conversation by ourselves. I should like the night to last for ever, and that the dawn should never come to put an end to our meeting. This is all that I can tell you at present: there is nothing further. I hope to be calmer and more balanced after seeing him. Till then, farewell, dear comrade, From your far-distant friend.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Stephen hesitated. Quite suddenly Angela was looking very ill, and her hands were like ice. ‘Swear you’ll telephone to me if you can’t get to sleep, then I’ll come back at once.’ ‘Yes, but don’t do that, will you, unless I ring up—I should hear you, of course, and that would wake me and start my head throbbing.’ Then as though impelled, in spite of herself, by the girl’s strange attraction, she lifted her face: ‘Kiss me . . . oh, God . . . Stephen!’ ‘I love you so much—so much—’ whispered Stephen. 2 It was past ten o’clock when she got back to Morton: ‘Has Angela Crossby rung up?’ she inquired of Puddle, who appeared to have been waiting in the hall. ‘No, she hasn’t!’ snapped Puddle, who was getting to the stage when she hated the mere name of Angela Crossby. Then she added: ‘You look like nothing on earth; in your place I’d go to bed at once, Stephen.’ ‘You go to bed, Puddle, if you’re tired—where’s Mother? ‘In her bath. For heaven’s sake do come to bed! I can’t bear to see you looking as you do these days.’ ‘I’m all right.’ ‘No, you’re not, you’re all wrong. Go and look at your face.’ ‘I don’t very much want to, it doesn’t attract me,’ smiled Stephen. So Puddle went angrily up to her room, leaving Stephen to sit with a book in the hall near the telephone bell, in case Angela should ring. And there, like the faithful creature she was, she must sit on all through the night, patiently waiting. But when the first tinges of dawn greyed the window and the panes of the semi-circular fanlight, she left her chair stiffly, to pace up and down, filled with a longing to be near this woman, if only to stand and keep watch in her garden—Snatching up a coat she went out to her car. 3 She left the motor at the gates of The Grange, and walked up the drive, taking care to tread softly. The air had an indefinable smell of dew and of very newly born morning. The tall, ornate Tudor chimneys of the house stood out gauntly against a brightening sky, and as Stephen crept into the small herb garden, one tentative bird had already begun singing—but his voice was still rather husky from sleep. She stood there and shivered in her heavy coat; the long night of vigil had devitalized her.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  He then returned to his Province and called together all his relatives, to ask them who had been the charitable person who had sent the dog to comfort him and his mother when they were in despair. But it was none of them; and Inosuke continued to search for his benefactor. One day, as he was walking in the quarter of the samurai, he saw the dog which had visited him sleeping in front of the door of a house. A passer-by told him that this was the house of Shibei Okasaki, one of the Lord's chief officers. Then Inosuke remembered that Shibei had at one time vowed an ardent love for him. Inosuke had not forgotten him, even when he was loved by his Lord, and he thought: 'I must never forget what he did for me during my long disgrace. I could not repay, even by giving my life for him. Should anything happen to him, I swear upon my honour as a samurai that I shall help him with my death.' That evening Inosuke sent for Shibei, and, when the latter arrived, thanked him with tears. After his mother had retired to her room, Inosuke and Shibei had a very pleasant and cordial conversation. Inosuke asked how the dog had known the house and the hole to come in by, and Shibei answered: 'When you were in this Province with your master, I could not restrain my love for you, and used to walk before your house nearly every night. But I dared not see you, because you were our Lord's favourite. I only Stood outside and tried to satisfy my burning love by the sight of you or the sound of your voice. My dog followed me every night, and thus he learned to know your house, and I was able to send him to help you.' Inosuke blushed with pleasure at Shibei's devotion, and confessed: 'It grieves me much that I was unable to return your love at that time; but my Lord loved me. Now I am free to love you; but I am no longer the pretty page I was when you cared for me so deeply. I am now a faded flower. But why regret the past? I have become a samurai, and am no longer a page; but I have the same heart for you. Love me, if you can feel the same ardency as before. I shall be happy to be loved by you.' And Inosuke put on his old page's dress with long sleeves, although it was not suitable for a grown man, for he wished to recall past days. They spent the night together in his room, and in their love murmurings Inosuke said to Shibei:

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  But another samurai loved Mondo. He was jealous of the two friends' love, and contrived all sorts of devices to calumniate them, and tried to separate them by the agency of treacherous persons. But one dark night the two lovers met and killed these persons. Then they fled in a boat and hid themselves for a long time, and finally came to Yedo. There they lived as Guards, concealing their true condition. Mondo was now sixty-three years old, and Hayemon sixty-six; and through all these years their hearts had not changed. They had never taken any interest in a woman. They had been genuine pederasts. Hayemon continued to consider Mondo as his young lover. He arranged his thin hair with his own hands in the Style of a page's hair, using much perfumed oil. Mondo's brow was like that of a woman, and he took great care of his person; he polished his nails with aromatic wood, and shaved himself carefully. There is no doubt that these two old men continued their amorous encounters up to an advanced age. Male love is essentially different from the ordinary love of a man and a woman; and that is why a Prince, even when he has married a beautiful Princess, cannot forget his pages. Woman is a creature of absolutely no importance; but sincere pederastic love is true love. Both of these men detested woman as a vile garden worm. They never associated with their neighbours, and when a near-by husband and wife quarrelled and Started breaking the crockery and the doors, these two old men did not try to reconcile them: on the contrary, they encouraged the husband, crying: 'Be brave, O man, and Strong! Kill her, beat her to death! Drive her from your house, and take a handsome man instead of her! 'They used to shake their fists at the woman, and thought the man feeble and lacking in courage. In the spring Mount Uyeno is thronged with visitors who come to see the cherry trees loaded with blossom, and at such time people drink excellent wines, and many get drunk. As the folk passed Hayemon's house, he used to distinguish the women's voices from the men's. When he heard men's voices, he ran out in the hope of seeing some beautiful youth: but when he heard women's voices, he shut his door and remained perfectly indifferent.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  “Yes,” he had said. “Like deep inside your asshole.” I’d laughed. But this was romantic. It felt like a loss of virginity in some way, and completely opposite what had happened in the hotel bathroom with Garrett. For one thing I was lying on my back, not doggy-style. Also, Theo licked my asshole a lot first. I was scared, of course, that it wouldn’t taste very good: as much as I washed before I saw him. I was afraid but he softly licked and sucked it, making me come with his finger gently rubbing my clit. I kept coming on his fingers, when he also put one in my asshole and kissed me from my belly to my neck to my face. Then he kissed my mouth and forehead. His cock was so hard it pushed all the way out of his foreskin, already glistening, straining for me. I grabbed him and it was warm and pulsing. “Are you ready?” he asked, and I nodded. He nudged my cheeks apart and opened my asshole slowly. First he put the tip of his dick inside me while continuing to rub my clit gently with the hand he hadn’t used to stroke my cheeks and crack. Maybe he knew about urinary tract infections? Could mermaids get them too? I loved his dick moving slowly in and out of my ass, a new intimacy. I never imagined that anal sex could be loving. I never thought of it as an intimate act, one of trust, only a pornographic and brutal one. So I cried a lot, but not because it hurt. 45.I didn’t mention Dominic to Theo again. It was taking more and more pills per day to keep the dog relaxed and asleep, and I went to three different vets to get more prescriptions. In an odd way I had become a drug addict of sorts, like Claire after all—going from doctor to doctor to get the pills. Only I wasn’t getting high on the medication itself, but on the time and intimacy with Theo that it afforded me. “We travel a lot,” I heard myself say to the veterinarian. “I’m going to be touring through Europe and I can’t bear to leave him home with a sitter. He’s my child, basically. So I’ll need some for the plane ride and each of the train rides from city to city.” “How many cities?” she asked. “Ten?” I said. She raised an eyebrow. I had heard of addicts going from doctor to doctor to get pills as their tolerance for the drugs deepened. Anything involving addiction always escalated, never the other way around. I felt this to be true within myself, and that when and if I returned to Phoenix I would need a thousand lovers to ever take the place of how good it felt to be with Theo.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I was trying to ask her in a roundabout way if it was worth it. We felt the same nothingness, of that I was sure. But I wanted to see if she knew if we were going to be okay or not. Or, at least, if I was. I was asking life advice, couched in the language of suicide, from a friend in a mental hospital. This was the direction my life had taken. “So are you glad about everything? Like, everything that led you up to this point where you feel okay, maybe even good about being alive? Are you glad for that trajectory of your life?” “Yeah,” she said. “I feel strangely good about everything. Sure, no regrets. I regret nothing.” “I regret everything,” I said. “Lucy.” “I’m still fooling around with that swimmer,” I said. “More than fooling around, like, I’m completely, totally in love with him. But the thing is that he’s totally in love with me. I mean, it’s the most passionate, real, most spiritual experience I’ve ever had with someone. And yet, I’m not even totally sure if the whole thing even exists.” “What do you mean?” “Well, we don’t function well in the real world.” “The real world is rubbish.” “But we’re mostly relegated to a rock. We’re tied to a rock.” “Sounds like most marriages. At least ones with children.” “I just—I’m afraid it might kill me. I can’t tell if it’s a sickness or the best thing that ever happened to me.” “That’s brilliant!” “Tell me, was it definitely men who landed you in here?” She paused. “Yes, I suppose it was the men,” she said. “But really it was me.” 41.That afternoon I got my period. When I saw the blood, I wept. I wondered if that was why I had been feeling so anxious and afraid. I had cramps that felt like I was being stabbed in the uterus. Usually I enjoyed getting my period, the release of it—I always had. It made me feel connected to some primal goddess energy. But today I just felt heartsick. I had only five more weeks left with Theo and now the next week would be spent bloody, unsexed. What would we do together? I supposed we could just talk. I could put his cock in my mouth. He was waiting for me when I got to the rocks. He put his arms on the rock and his shiny body came shooting out of the water. He looked like he wanted to stand to greet me, to come running over. I imagined him standing, how or if that could ever happen. I would have to prop something up for him, almost like a frame or a podium. I wondered how much weight his tail could withstand. “Guess what?” “What?” he asked, kissing my cheek. “I have my period,” I said, dejected. “I know,” he said. “What do you mean you know?” I laughed.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  42.Dominic was sprawled flat on the floor of the pantry like a pancake and didn’t stir. I wanted to take Theo upstairs to the bed, but didn’t know how. So I moved the wagon over to the sofa and let him haul himself up again. “I want all of your blood,” he said. I wasn’t sure if he meant from my pussy or from the wound, but I sat on top of him on the sofa and kissed his mouth. He flipped me over, kissed me down my body, then gently kissed around my scraped knee. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “It’s okay,” I said. He went up and down my leg until he was licking the crevice between my pussy and my thigh, then peeling my underpants off and licking my pussy. He flicked his tongue on my pussy, in the front, on my clit. Then he put his finger inside of me. It felt like two fingers were there because of my tampon. “Can I take this out?” he asked. I nodded and he pulled out my tampon and put it on the glass coffee table. The colors were both red and brown with a clump of purple blood on the side. I felt embarrassed. But he just kissed me and slipped two fingers in my pussy. Then he kissed down my belly back to my clit. Looking into his eyes, I thought, I will never forget this. He licked my blood off his fingers. He loves me, I thought. He completely and totally loves me. Soon there was blood on his face. I closed my eyes and rode his face. I came very quickly, for me. He had my blood dried and smeared across his cheek. I put my fingers in my pussy and smeared blood under his eyes like No Glare. It was funny to be dressing him up in my blood. Here he was, a man with a tail, and I was making him look even more bizarre. I was used to the tail by now. To me he was just a man or a boy or a boy-man, and I wanted to paint him with so many of my fluids: sweat, spit, blood. I wanted to brand or mark him. I imagined that in the ocean, blood would never stay in the entrance of a pussy. When I took baths with my period, or went swimming, my blood always stopped. We learned this in junior high school at swim practice: that your blood stops in water. Perhaps it just slowly dissolves, or maybe it stays up in the uterus. Maybe it trickles out so faintly that time slows down and that’s why you never see any trail of pink in the bathwater.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  What could it matter when the first stone was laid, or who laid it? The villa was always well let—he would yawn, roll a cigarette in his fingers, lick the paper with the thick, red tip of his tongue, and finally go to sleep in the sunshine to dream only of satisfactory commissions. The Villa del Ciprés was a low stone house that had once been tinted a lemon yellow. Its shutters were greener than those on the hill, for every ten years or so they were painted. All its principal windows looked over the sea that lay at the foot of the little headland. There were large, dim rooms with rough mosaic floors and walls that were covered by ancient frescoes. Some of these frescoes were primitive but holy, others were primitive but distinctly less holy; however, they were all so badly defaced, that the tenants were spared what might otherwise have been rather a shock at the contrast. The furniture, although very good of its kind, was sombre, and moreover it was terribly scanty, for its owner was far too busy in Seville to attend to his villa in Orotava. But one glory the old house did certainly possess; its garden, a veritable Eden of a garden, obsessed by a kind of primitive urge towards all manner of procreation. It was hot with sunshine and the flowing of sap, so that even its shade held a warmth in its greenness, while the virile growth of its flowers and its trees gave off a strangely disturbing fragrance. These trees had long been a haven for birds, from the crested hoopoes to the wild canaries who kept up a chorus of song in the branches. 2 Stephen and Mary arrived at the Villa del Ciprés, not very long after Christmas. They had spent their Christmas Day aboard ship, and on landing had stayed for a week at Santa Cruz before taking the long, rough drive to Orotava. And as though the fates were being propitious, or unpropitious perhaps—who shall say?—the garden was looking its loveliest, almost melodramatic it looked in the sunset. Mary gazed round her wide-eyed with pleasure; but after a while her eyes must turn, as they always did now, to rest upon Stephen; while Stephen’s uncertain and melancholy eyes must look back with great love in their depths for Mary. Together they made the tour of the villa, and when this was over Stephen laughed a little; ‘Not much of anything, is there, Mary?’ ‘No, but quite enough.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  As a child she was susceptible to religious impressions, and frequented the Dominican church near her father’s home. The miracles of her earlier childhood were reported by her confessor and biographer, Raymund of Capua. At twelve her parents arranged for her a marriage, but to avoid it Catherine cut off her beautiful hair. She joined the tertiary order of the Dominicans, the women adherents being called the mantellate from their black mantles. Raymund declares "that nature had not given her a face over-fair," and her personal appearance was marred by the marks of the smallpox. And yet she had a winning expression, a fund of good spirits, and sang and laughed heartily. Once devoted to a religious life, she practised great austerities, flagellating herself three times a day,—once for herself, once for the living and once for the dead. She wore a hair undergarment and an iron chain. During one Lenten season she lived on the bread taken in communion. These asceticisms were performed in a chamber in her father’s house. She was never an inmate of a convent. Such extreme asceticisms as she practised upon herself she disparaged at a later period. At an early age Catherine became the subject of visions and revelations. On one of these occasions and after hours of dire temptation, when she was tempted to live like other girls, the Saviour appeared to her stretched on the cross and said: "My own daughter, Catherine, seest thou how much I have suffered for thee? Let it not be hard for thee to suffer for me." Thrilled with the address, she asked: "Where wert thou, Lord, when I was tempted with such impurity?" and He replied, "In thy heart." In 1367, according to her own statement, the Saviour betrothed himself to her, putting a ring on her finger. The ring was ever afterwards visible to herself though unseen by others. Five years before her death, she received the stigmata directly from Christ. Their impression gave sharp pain, and Catherine insisted that, though they likewise were invisible to others, they were real to her. In obedience to a revelation, Catherine renounced the retired life she had been living, and at the age of twenty began to appear in public and perform the active offices of charity. This was in 1367. She visited the poor and sick, and soon became known as the ministering angel of the whole city. During the plague of 1374, she was indefatigable by day and night, healed those of whom the physicians despaired, and she even raised the dead. The lepers outside the city walls she did not neglect.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Thomas very clearly states the consequences of Christ’s atonement. The first is that thereby man comes to know how great the love of God is, and is provoked to love God in return.1801 By the cross Christ set an example of humility, righteousness, and other virtues. He also taught men the necessity of keeping free from sin, overcoming the devil, and conquering death by dying to sin and the world. God might have pardoned man without the satisfaction of the cross, for all things are possible with Him. This was in opposition to Anselm’s position that God could have redeemed man in no other way than by the cross. Bonaventura went further in opposition to Anselm and distinctly asserted that God could have liberated and saved the race otherwise than He did. He might have saved it by the way of pity—per viam misericordiae —in distinction from the way of justice. And in choosing this way he would have done no injury to the claims of justice.1802 His chapter on this subject he closes with the words, "It would be dangerous for me to put a limit on God’s power to redeem, for He is able to do above what we are able to think." No distinction was made by the mediaeval theologians between the doctrine of justification and the doctrine of sanctification, such as is made by Protestant theologians. Justification was treated as a part of the process of making the sinner righteous, and not as a judicial sentence by which he was declared to be righteous. Sanctification was so thoroughly involved in the sacramental system that we must look for its treatment in the chapters on the seven sacraments, the instrumentalities of sanctification; or under the head of the Christian virtues, faith, hope, and love, as in Bonaventura’s treatment.1803 Thomas Aquinas discusses it under the head of the atonement and in special chapters entitled "the division of grace,"1804 by which he means the distinction between prevenient, or preparatory, and cooperant grace,—gratia gratis data, or the grace which is given freely, and the gratis gratum faciens, or the grace which makes righteous. Justification, says Thomas, is an infusion of grace.1805 Four things are required for the justification of the sinner: the infusion of grace, the movement of the freewill to God in faith, the act of the freewill against sin, and the remission of sins. As a person, turning his back upon one place and receding from it, reaches another place, so in justification the will made free at once hates sin and turns itself to God.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The Corinthian chapter was preceded by the Jerusalem and Antioch chapters. Leading Thoughts: Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you (1 Cor. 1:13) ? It was God’s pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching [not through foolish preaching] to save them that believe (1:21). We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto Gentiles foolishness, but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God (1:24). I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus, and him crucified (2:2). The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God (2:14). Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ (3:11). Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man destroy the temple of God, him shall God destroy (3:16, 17). Let a man so account of ourselves as of ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God (4:1). The kingdom of God is not in word, but in power (4:20). Purge out the old leaven (5:7). All things are lawful for me; but not all things are expedient (6:12). Know ye not that your bodies are members of Christ (6:15) ? Flee fornication (6:18). Glorify God in your body (6:20). Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing; but the keeping of the commandments of God (7:19). Let each man abide in that calling wherein he was called (7:20). Ye were bought with a price; become not bondservants of men (7:23). Take heed lest this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to the weak (8:9). If meat [or wine] maketh my brother to stumble, I will eat no flesh [and drink no wine] for evermore, that I make not my brother to stumble (8:13). They who proclaim the gospel shall live of the gospel (9:14). Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel (9:16). I am become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some (9 22). Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall (10:12). All things are lawful, but all things are not expedient. Let no man seek his own, but each his neighbor’s good (10:23). Whosoever shall eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord ... He that eateth and drinketh eateth and drinketh judgment unto himself if he discern (discriminate) not the body (11:27–29). There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit (12:4). Now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love (13:13). Follow after love (14:1). Let all things be done unto edifying (14:26). By the grace of God I am what I am (15:9). If Christ hath not been raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins (15:17).

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  To her there seemed nothing strange or unholy in the love that she felt for Angela Crossby. To her it seemed an inevitable thing, as much a part of herself as her breathing; and yet it appeared transcendent of self, and she looked up and onward towards her love—for the eyes of the young are drawn to the stars, and the spirit of youth is seldom earth-bound. She loved deeply, far more deeply than many a one who could fearlessly proclaim himself a lover. Since this is a hard and sad truth for the telling; those whom nature has sacrificed to her ends—her mysterious ends that often lie hidden—are sometimes endowed with a vast will to loving, with an endless capacity for suffering also, which must go hand in hand with their love. But at first Stephen’s eyes were drawn to the stars, and she saw only gleam upon gleam of glory. Her physical passion for Angela Crossby had aroused a strange response in her spirit, so that side by side with every hot impulse that led her at times beyond her own understanding, there would come an impulse not of the body; a fine, selfless thing of great beauty and courage—she would gladly have given her body over to torment, have laid down her life if need be, for the sake of this woman whom she loved. And so blinded was she by those gleams of glory which the stars fling into the eyes of young lovers, that she saw perfection where none existed; saw a patient endurance that was purely fictitious, and conceived of a loyalty far beyond the limits of Angela’s nature. All that Angela gave seemed the gift of love; all that Angela withheld seemed withheld out of honour: ‘If only I were free,’ she was always saying, ‘but I can’t deceive Ralph, you know I can’t, Stephen—he’s ill.’ Then Stephen would feel abashed and ashamed before so much pity and honour. She would humble herself to the very dust, as one who was altogether unworthy: ‘I’m a beast, forgive me; I’m all, all wrong—I’m mad sometimes these days—yes, of course, there’s Ralph.’ But the thought of Ralph would be past all bearing, so that she must reach out for Angela’s hand. Then, as likely as not, they would draw together and start kissing, and Stephen would be utterly undone by those painful and terribly sterile kisses. ‘God!’ she would mutter, ‘I want to get away!’ At which Angela might weep: ‘Don’t leave me, Stephen! I’m so lonely—why can’t you understand that I’m only trying to be decent to Ralph?’ So Stephen would stay on for an hour, for two hours, and the next day would find her once more at The Grange, because Angela was feeling so lonely.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  Jesus constantly refers to “the father” both as distinct from himself and as bound with him in a tight bond of love and obedience. And the point to be made here for our present purposes is that in this central “incarnational” passage we find the themes of cross and kingdom once more tightly interwoven. This reinforces the warning we gave earlier, that it is possible to state the doctrine of Jesus’s “divinity” in such a way as to let it float loose from both kingdom and cross, but this is what the New Testament never does. The “God” who has become human in Jesus is the God who, as he had always promised, was returning to claim his sovereignty over the whole world (note the “other sheep” in John 10:16) and would do so by himself sharing the pain and suffering of his people, “laying down his life for the sheep.” It is all too possible to “believe in the divinity of Jesus” and to couple this with an escapist view of salvation (“Jesus is God and came to snatch us away from this world”) in a way that may preserve an outward form of “Christian orthodoxy,” but that has left out the heart of the matter. God is the creator and redeemer of the world, and Jesus’s launch of the kingdom—God’s worldwide sovereignty on earth as in heaven—is the central aim of his mission, the thing for which he lived and died and rose again. How can we even begin to understand this? Perhaps we should say that, with the hindsight the evangelists offer us, God called Israel to be the means of rescuing the world, so that he might himself alone rescue the world by becoming Israel in the person of its representative Messiah . This explains the place of David in the story. He is, in some respects at least, the man after God’s own heart, the man whose Temple-building son would be God’s own son, as God says to David through the prophet Nathan: “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.” (2 Sam. 7:12–14) This text, highlighted elsewhere in first-century Judaism as well, was very important for the early Christians as they struggled to understand the enormous thing that had just happened in their midst. There is a very tight nexus between God, David, the Temple—and the purposes of establishing the kingdom. The early Christians also saw that in the word “I will raise up” there was a hint of something else: resurrection.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Like the Protestant Reformation, the movement had its origin on German soil, but, unlike the Reformation, it did not spread beyond Germany and the Lowlands. Its chief centres were Strassburg and Cologne; its leading representatives the speculative Meister Eckart, d. 1327, John Tauler, d. 136l, Henry Suso, d. 1366, John Ruysbroeck, d. 1381, Gerrit Groote, d. 1384, and Thomas à Kempis, d. 1471. The earlier designation for these pietists was Friends of God. The Brothers of the Common Life, the companions and followers of Groote, were of the same type, but developed abiding institutions of practical Christian philanthropy. In localities the Beguines and Beghards also breathed the same devotional and philanthropic spirit. The little book called the German Theology, and the Imitation of Christ, were among the finest fruits of the movement. Gerson and Nicolas of Cusa also had a strong mystical vein, but they are not to be classed with the German mystics. With them mysticism was an incidental, not the distinguishing, quality. The mystics along the Rhine formed groups which, however, were not bound together by any formal organization. Their only bond was the fellowship of a common religious purpose. Their religious thought was not always homogeneous in its expression, but all agreed in the serious attempt to secure purity of heart and life through union of the soul with God. Mysticism is a phase of Christian life. It is a devotional habit, in contradistinction to the outward and formal practice of religious rules. It is a religious experience in contrast to a mere intellectual assent to tenets. It is the conscious effort of the soul to apprehend and possess God and Christ, and expresses itself in the words, "I live, and yet not I but Christ liveth in me." It is essentially what is now called in some quarters "personal religion." Perhaps the shortest definition of mysticism is the best. It is the love of God shed abroad in the heart.427 The element of intuition has a large place, and the avenues through which religious experience is reached are self-detachment from the world, self-purgation, prayer and contemplation. Without disparaging the sacraments or disputing the authority of the Church, the German mystics sought a better way. They laid stress upon the meaning of such passages as "he that believeth in me shall never hunger and he that cometh unto me shall never thirst, " "he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father "and "he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness." The word love figures most prominently in their writings. Among the distinctive terms in vogue among them were Abgeschiedenheit, Eckart’s word for self-detachment from the world and that which is temporal, and Kehr, Tauler’s oft-used word for conversion. They laid stress upon the new birth, and found in Christ’s incarnation a type of the realization of the divine in the soul. German mysticism had a distinct individuality of its own.