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 Henry and June (1986)

  When I have been most natural, most womanly, rising from bed to get him a cigarette, to serve him champagne, to comb my hair, to dress, he still says, “I do not feel natural with you yet.” He lives rather quietly, almost coldly at moments. He is absent from the present. Afterwards, when he is writing, he warms up, begins to dramatize and to burn. Our bouts: he in his language, I in mine. I never use his words. I think my registering is more unconscious, more instinctive. It does not appear on the surface, and yet, I don’t know, for he was aware of it, of the weight of my eyes. The slipperiness of my mind against his relentless dissection. My belief in wonder against his heavy, realistic notes. The joy, when he does seize upon wonder: “Your eyes seem to be expecting miracles.” Will he perform them? Does he make such notes as: “Anaïs: green comb with black hair on it. Indelible rouge. Barbaric necklace. Breakable. Fragile.” That second afternoon, he waited for me in the café and I waited for him in his room, through a misunderstanding. The garçon was cleaning his room. He asked me to wait in the other room across the hall, a very small drab one. I sat on a plain, homely chair. The garçon came with another chair covered in red plush velvet. “It will be better for you,” he said. I was touched. It seemed to me that Henry was offering me velvet-covered chairs. I was happy as I waited. Then I got a little tired and went to sit in Henry’s room. I opened a folder entitled “Notes from Dijon.” The first page was a copy of a letter to me which I had not yet received. Then he came in, and when I said, “I do not believe in our love,” he silenced me. I felt humble that day, before his strength. Flesh as strong or stronger than the mind. His victory. He held me with a kind of fear. “You seem so breakable. I am afraid I’ll kill you.” And I did feel small in his bed, naked, with my barbaric jewelry tinkling. But he felt the strength of the core of me, which burns at his touch. Think of that, Henry, when you hold my too-fragile body in your arms, a body you scarcely feel because you are so used to billowing flesh, but you feel the movements of its joy like the undulations of a symphony, not the static clay heaviness, but the dancing of it in your arms. You will not break me. You are molding me like a sculptor. The faun is to be made woman. “Henry, I swear to you, I find joy in telling you the truth.

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

  AUGUSTINE. (ubi sup.) But the Apostle says, Them that sin ‘rebuke before all, that others may fear to do the like. (1 Tim 5:20.) Sometimes therefore your brother is to be spoken to between thee and him alone, sometimes to be rebuked before all. What you must do first, attend and learn; If thy brother, says He, sin against thee, tell him of his fault between thee and him alone. Why? Because he has sinned against you? What is it that he has sinned against you? You know that he has sinned, and therefore since his sin was in private, let your rebuke be in private too. For if you alone know of his trespass, and proceed to rebuke him before all, you do not correct but betray him. Your brother has sinned against you; if you alone know thereof, then he has sinned against you only; but if he did you a wrong in the presence of many, then he has sinned against those also who were witnesses of his fault. Those faults then are to be rebuked before all, that are committed before all; those which are done in private, are to be rebuked in private. Discern times, and the Scriptures are consistent. But why do you correct your neighbour? Because his trespass has hurt yourself? Far be it from thee. If you do it from self-love, you do nought; if you do it from love of him, you do most rightly. Lastly, in what you shall say to him, keep in view for whose sake it is that you ought to do it, for your own or for his, for it follows, If he hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother; do it therefore for his sake, that you may gain him. And do you confess that by your sin against man you were lost; for if you were not lost, how has he gained you? Let none then make light of it when he sins against his brother. CHRYSOSTOM. In this it is made plain that enmities are a loss to both sides; for he said not, he has gained himself, but, you have gained him; which shews that both of you had suffered loss by your disagreement.

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

  GREGORY OF NYSSA. (de Hom. Opif. c. 8.) the soul is divided into three faculties; one merely of growth and vegetation, such as is found in plants; another which relates to the senses, which is preserved in the nature of irrational animals; but the perfect faculty of the soul is that of reason, which is seen in human nature. By saying then the heart, He signified the bodily substance, that is, the vegetative; by the soul the middle, or the sensitive; but by saying the mind, the higher nature, that is, the intellectual or reflective faculty. THEOPHYLACT. We must hereby understand that it becomes us to submit every power of the soul to the divine love, and that resolutely, not slackly. Hence it is added, And with all thy strength. MAXIMUS. To this end then the law commanded a threefold love to God, that it might pluck us away from the threefold fashion of the world, as touching possessions, glory, and pleasure, wherein also Christ was tempted. BASIL. (Reg. fus. ad int. 2.) But if any one ask how the love of God is to be obtained, we are sure that the love of God cannot be taught. For neither did we learn to rejoice in the presence of light, or to embrace life, or to love our parents and children; much less were we taught the love of God, but a certain seminal principle was implanted in us, which has within itself the cause, that man clings to God; which principle the teaching of the divine commands is wont to cultivate diligently, to foster watchfully, and to carry on to the perfection of divine grace. For naturally we love good; we love also what is our own, and akin to us; we likewise of our own accord pour forth all our affections on our benefactors. If then God is good, but all things desire that good, which is wrought voluntarily, He is by nature inherent in us, and although from His goodness we are far from knowing Him, yet from the very fact that we proceeded forth from Him, we are bound to love Him with exceeding love, as in truth akin to us; He is likewise also a greater benefactor than all whom by nature we love here. (ad int 3.). And again. The love of God then is the first and chief command, but the second, as filling up the first and filled up by it, bids us to love our neighbour. Hence it follows, And thy neighbour as thyself. But we have an instinct given us by God to perform this command, as who does not know that man is a kind and social animal? For nothing belongs so much to our nature as to communicate with one another, and mutually to need and love our relations. Of those things then of which in the first place He gave us the seed, He afterwards requires the fruits.

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  She dreamed of a conversation with Lily. They were sitting at the kitchen table with cups of tea before them. She said, “After I had Daniel, the doctors told me that I shouldn’t have any more children. They said it would be unsafe. I was lying there in the hospital when they came in and announced, ‘While we’ve got you here, we’re going to tie your tubes.’ And I said, ‘Oh, no, you’re not.’ I wouldn’t let them do it, and the next year I had Charles.” She smiled foolishly at Lily. The dream-Lily smiled back. “Charles is a beautiful boy,” she said. “I think he may be a genius in a way people don’t yet understand.” “Don’t ever tell Daniel or Jarold I said this, but Charles is my favorite child. He’s precious and special. Whenever I think of someone trying to harm him—any of my children really, but especially him—I picture myself turning into a mother tiger and lashing out. I would do anything to protect him.” “Why would you think of anyone trying to harm him?” asked Lily. “Just out of the blue?” She woke up feeling guilty and frightened and angry at Lily. She dimly tried to sort it out. Why should she feel any of these things? The doctors hadn’t tried to tie her tubes. There had been no conversation with Lily. She went back to sleep. When Daniel was sixteen, he had another girlfriend. She was another small girl, with dark hair and light-brown glasses. She wrote poetry and talked a lot about feminism. Virginia still had a snapshot of them on their way to the junior prom. The girl looked embarrassed and distressed in her gown and corsage. Daniel was indifferently handsome. — Charles became a delicate, pretty adolescent. His eyes were large and green and long-lashed, his neck slender. He slouched like an arrogant little cat. Girls got crushes on him, they called and asked to speak to him in scared, high-pitched voices. He was rude to them and hung up. The only girl he liked was a homely, jittery kid who wore a leather jacket and bleached her hair. But that ended when the girl was sent to some kind of institution. — Camille got married a month after she graduated. She and Kevin flew to New Jersey for the wedding. They posed for snapshots in the den. They were radiant against the jumbled background of random shoes and scattered newspapers. Everybody walked around the house talking and laughing and eating hunks of white cake. Kevin’s father shook hands with Jarold. Kevin’s mother helped in the kitchen. Camille and Kevin went to Spain for their honeymoon. Then they moved to New York and got jobs. Camille wrote letters on heavy gray stationery with “Dr. and Mrs. Kevin Spaulding” printed across the top. — Magdalen was married the following spring. She married a Southern lawyer whom she had waited on in the health-food restaurant.

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  He had watched Daisy for almost a year before making a pass at her. He had been living with Diane for eight years and was reluctant to change anything that stable. Besides, he loved Diane. They’d had such a good eight years that by now it was almost a system. He had met Diane at Bennington. He’d been impressed by her reputation in the art department, by the quality of the LSD she sold and by her rudeness. She was a tall, handsome thirty-three-year-old woman with taut, knit-together shoulders, and was so tense that her muscles were held scrunched together all the time. As a result, she was very muscular, even though she didn’t do anything but lie around the loft and take drugs. He supported her by working in the bookstore as an accountant and by selling drugs. She helped out with the government checks she received as a certified mentally ill person. They got high on Dexedrine for three and a half days out of the week. They’d been doing it religiously the whole time they’d been together. On Thursday morning, Joey’s first working day, they would start. Joey would work at the store all day, and then come home and work on projects. He would take apart his computer and spread it all over the floor in small gray lumps. He would squat and play with the piles for hours before he’d put it back together. He’d do other things too. He once took a series of blue-and-white photos of the cow skeleton they had in the living room. He’d make tapes of noises that he thought sounded nice together. He’d program the computer. Sometimes he would just take his wind-up toys out of the toy chest and run them around while he listened to records. In the past, Diane would work on her big blobby paintings. By Sunday the loft floor would be scattered with wax papers covered with splotches of acrylic paint, sprayed with water and running together in dull purple streams. She used to work on a painting for months and then destroy it. Now she didn’t paint at all. Instead she used her staying-up time to watch TV, walk the dogs or work out biorhythm charts on the computer.

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  It was vulgar, but there was a bravado to it that Susan began to sentimentalize against her will. (In fact, she did discover later that Leisha was very fragile, and that she was usually reacting to a nasty scene that some boy or other had already made public before she ever opened her mouth, that her hysterical tattling was thus a form of self-defense.) This burgeoning interest in her finally found expression when Leisha got pregnant—for the third time, said Alex. She was in bed with the flu and morning sickness when Alex and Susan went to visit her. She was sitting up in her dishevelled bed in an old blue velveteen robe, surrounded by fashion magazines and sodas, her brown eyes lively and alert. She looked at Susan with discomforting but flattering intensity. Susan sat on the bed. “I heard you were sick. I thought I’d come to see how you were doing.” They talked about leather gloves, high heels and their favorite writers. It was the first time that Susan had ever really heard Leisha’s voice—the quick, low-pitched voice affected by a certain type of teenage sex star in the fifties and picked up again by bouffant-haired singers in the seventies, only in Leisha it had an intelligent edge that was not ironic but somehow plain and comforting, as if, honey, she’d been there and back, and she knew how important it was just to sit and have a drink and a good talk—which now seemed like a ridiculous affectation in a twenty-one-year-old college student. Susan realized that almost anything you talked about with this girl would seem important. And it appeared that Leisha was having a similar reaction to her. It was, as Leisha said later, the time they fell in love. After Leisha had her third abortion, they began spending time together. They met ritualistically for brunch at the Dialtone Café on Sundays so they could discuss whatever had happened the night before, or rant about whatever they’d been obsessed with the previous week. “The thing that drives me nuts about it is that Elena—well, she’s just a twat. She really is.” Leisha was talking about a party they’d been to, during which a recent ex of hers had disappeared into the bedroom with a South American. “He thinks she’s so exotic because she’s twenty-six and she’s been married and she’s from South America, but I’ve seen her and she’s nothing special. She’s just passive and quiet and looks totally ordinary. He probably thinks she’s got a lot going for her because she’s a law student and I’m not directed yet. But I know I’m as interesting as she is and when I figure out what I want to do…I don’t know.” She picked up her fork, put it down, pulled at the back of her hair and wrapped her arms around her shoulders in the straightjacket position that she assumed when she was upset.

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

  CHRYSOSTOM. Our Lord having said, Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that I will do; that they might not think simply asking would be enough, He adds, If ye love Me, keep My commandments. And then I will do what ye ask, seems to be His meaning. Or the disciples having heard Him say, I go to the Father, and being troubled at the thought of it, He says, To love Me, is not to be troubled, but to keep My commandments: this is love, to obey and believe in Him who is loved. And as they had been expressing a strong desire for His bodily presence, He assures them that His absence will be supplied to them in another way: And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Comforter. AUGUSTINE. (Tract. lxxiv. 4) Wherein He shews too that He Himself is the Comforter. Paraclete means advocate, and is applied to Christ: We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. (1 John 2:1) ALCUIN. Paraclete, i. e. Comforter. They had then one Comforter, who comforted and elevated them by the sweetness of His miracles, and His preaching. DIDYMUS. (Didym. De Spiritu Sancto.) But the Holy Ghost was another Comforter: differing not in nature, but in operation. For whereas our Saviour in His office of Mediator, and of Messenger1, and as High Priest, made supplication for our sins; the Holy Ghost is a Comforter in another sense, i. e. as consoling our griefs. But do not infer from the different operations of the Son and the Spirit, a difference of nature. For in other places we find the Holy Spirit performing the office of intercessor2 with the Father, as, The Spirit Himself intercedeth for us. (Rom. 8:26) And the Saviour, on the other hand, pours consolation into those hearts that need it: as in Maccabees, He strengthened those of the people that were brought low. (1 Macc. 14:15) CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxxiv. 2) He says, I will ask the Father, to make them believe Him: which they could not have done, had He simply said, I will send. AUGUSTINE. (contra Serm. Arrian. c. xix.) Yet to shew that His works are inseparable from His Father’s, He says below, When I shall go, I will send Him unto you. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxxiv) But what had He more than the Apostles, if He could only ask the Father to give others the Spirit? The Apostles did this often even without praying. ALCUIN. I will ask—He says, as being the inferior in respect of His humanity—My Father, with Whom I am equal and consubstantial in respect of My Divine nature.

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

  AUGUSTINE. (iv. de Trin. c. ix) He does not say, That I and they maybe one, though He might have said so in the sense, that He was the head of the Church, and the Church His body; not one thing, but one person: the head and the body being one Christ. But shewing something else, viz. that His divinity is consubstantial with the Father, He prays that His people may in like manner be one; but one in Christ, not only by the same nature, in which mortal man is made equal to the Angels, but also by the same will, agreeing most entirely in the same mind, and melted into one Spirit by the fire of love. This is the meaning of, That they may be one as We are: viz. that as the Father and the Son are one not only by equality of substance, but also in will, so they, between whom and God the Son is Mediator, may be one not only by the union of nature, but by the union of love. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxxxi) Again He speaks as man: While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Thy name; i. e. by Thy help. He speaks in condescension to the minds of His disciples, who thought they were more safe in His presence. AUGUSTINE. (Tr. cvii. 6) The Son as man kept His disciples in the Father’s name, being placed among them in human form: the Father again kept them in the Son’s name, in that He heard those who asked in the Son’s name. But we must not take this carnally, as if the Father and Son kept us in turns, for the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost guard us at the same time: but Scripture does not raise us, except it stoop to us. Let us understand then that when our Lord says this, He is distinguishing the persons, not dividing the nature, so that when the Son was keeping His disciples by His bodily presence, the Father was waiting to succeed Him on His departure; but both kept them by spiritual power, and when the Son withdrew His bodily presence, He still held with the Father the spiritual keeping. For when the Son as man received them into His keeping, He did not take them from the Father’s keeping, and when the Father gave them into the Son’s keeping, it was to the Son as man, who at the same time was God. Those that Thou gavest Me I have kept, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition; i. e. the betrayer of Christ, predestined to perdition; that the Scripture might be fulfilled, especially the prophecy in Psalm 108.

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

  GREGORY. (Mor. iii. 8.) For the subtle enemy when he sees himself driven out of the hearts of the good, seeks out those who most love them, and speaking by the mouth of those who are dearest, endeavours while the heart is penetrated by love, that the sword of conviction may pierce to the inmost bulwarks of virtue. 10:37–3937. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. 39. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. JEROME. Because of what He had said, I am not come to send peace but a sword, &c. that none might suppose that family affection was banished from His religion, He now adds, He that loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. So in the Song of Songs we read, Order love in me. (c. 2:4.) For this order is needed in every affection; after God love thy father, thy mother, and thy children; but if a necessity should occur that the love of parents and children comes into competition with the love of God, and where both cannot be preserved, remember that hatred of our kindred becomes then love to God. He forbids not to love parent or child, but adds emphatically, more than me. HILARY. For they who have esteemed domestic affection of relations higher than God, are unworthy to inherit good things to come. CHRYSOSTOM. Yet when Paul bids us obey our parents in all things, we are not to marvel; for we are only to obey in such things as are not hurtful to our piety to God. It is holy to render them every other honour, but when they demand more than is due, we ought not to yield. This is likewise agreeable to the Old Testament; in it the Lord commands that all who worshipped idols, should not only be held in abhorrence, but should be stoned. And in Deuteronomy it is said, He who saith to his father and his mother, I know you not; and to his brethren, Ye are strangers; he hath kept thy saying. (Deut. 33:9.) GLOSS. (non occ.) It seems to happen in many cases that the parents love the children more than the children love the parents; therefore having taught that His love is to be preferred to the love of parents, as in an ascending scale, He next teaches that it is to be preferred to the love of children, saying, And whoso loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. RABANUS. He is unworthy of the divine communion who prefers the carnal affection of kindred to the spiritual love of God.

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  But this talk began to have an unexpected effect. As they disparaged and analyzed Leisha, a strange affection for her began to manifest itself. They started to say things like, “Well, she’s an asshole, but you have to admit she has a good heart.” When Susan saw her on the street, she regarded her as a character in a movie, a mysterious figure who might or might not reveal herself. Her reputed excesses and romantic fiascoes began to appeal to Susan. Her overblown gestures seemed like the gaudy plumage of something too refined and frail to appear unadorned. Besides, morbid, serious Susan, who would brood with a bespectacled roommate for hours over tea and toast when a romance collapsed, could not help but feel a kind of admiration for this person who ran around town chattering about the most embarrassing and painful situations as though she were discussing a musical comedy. It was vulgar, but there was a bravado to it that Susan began to sentimentalize against her will. (In fact, she did discover later that Leisha was very fragile, and that she was usually reacting to a nasty scene that some boy or other had already made public before she ever opened her mouth, that her hysterical tattling was thus a form of self-defense.) This burgeoning interest in her finally found expression when Leisha got pregnant—for the third time, said Alex. She was in bed with the flu and morning sickness when Alex and Susan went to visit her. She was sitting up in her dishevelled bed in an old blue velveteen robe, surrounded by fashion magazines and sodas, her brown eyes lively and alert. She looked at Susan with discomforting but flattering intensity. Susan sat on the bed. “I heard you were sick. I thought I’d come to see how you were doing.” They talked about leather gloves, high heels and their favorite writers. It was the first time that Susan had ever really heard Leisha’s voice—the quick, low-pitched voice affected by a certain type of teenage sex star in the fifties and picked up again by bouffant-haired singers in the seventies, only in Leisha it had an intelligent edge that was not ironic but somehow plain and comforting, as if, honey, she’d been there and back, and she knew how important it was just to sit and have a drink and a good talk—which now seemed like a ridiculous affectation in a twenty-one-year-old college student. Susan realized that almost anything you talked about with this girl would seem important. And it appeared that Leisha was having a similar reaction to her. It was, as Leisha said later, the time they fell in love. After Leisha had her third abortion, they began spending time together. They met ritualistically for brunch at the Dialtone Café on Sundays so they could discuss whatever had happened the night before, or rant about whatever they’d been obsessed with the previous week.

• From Best Erotic Romance

  “Yes, dammit!” He looked at me, both of us sobering at the same time. “I’m sorry if that bothers you. God, I hope it doesn’t! I’ve been in love with you for so long. I feel like some gawky-assed teenager tripping over his words.” He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as he realized what he’d said. “Shit. I hadn’t meant to say that yet. The L-word, I mean. But it’s true, dammit, and I won’t take it back. I love you. I want to marry you. And I’m making a total fucking mess of this conversation!” He slammed his hand against the wheel. “Fuck!” We were pulling into the hotel. Eric turned toward the parking structure. I put my hand on his arm and said, “Valet. Now.” He whipped the wheel to the left and into the circle in front of the main entrance. I released my seat belt, braced my hand on his thigh, and leaned over him until my lips were just above his. “I love you, too. Yes, I’ll marry you. I’m out of my fucking mind, but it’s true, and I’m scared to death. Take me upstairs and make love to me until I’m not afraid anymore.” I fell back in the seat, shaking like a leaf. If I looked anything like he did, the valet was getting one hell of an education in what “deer in the headlights” looked like. “Fair enough,” he choked. And tripped trying to get out of the car without taking his seatbelt off. I don’t remember getting to the elevator. I was in his arms when the door closed, our tongues tangling coffee and mint-laced kisses as he ground his erection into my belly. “Security cameras,” he gasped as he came up for air. I wrapped my leg around him, the wet silk of my dress rubbing against my pussy. “Don’t care.” Then we were kissing again. The bell dinged and he broke free, panting as the elevator door opened. He pulled me down the empty hall, pressing me against the wall as he slid the keycard through the slot. Suddenly his hand was beneath the back of his jacket, the butt of a gun showing at his waist. “Wait here.” He ducked quickly inside, scanning the room, checking the bathroom and under the bed before he pulled me in behind him. Then he shoved the door closed and threw all the locks. “What the hell is your job!” I demanded. I was shocked to realize I didn’t really care. I just wanted to know. “FBI, fifteen years,” he growled, tearing his jacket off, throwing it onto the nightstand. He stripped off the weapon harness, checked the safety, and tossed it down on his jacket. “Are you okay with that?” “It’s better than blowing up crap in the desert,” I sighed. “I’ll still worry. Are you okay with that?”

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  Susan could actually remember her response: “I’m so sick and tired of hearing the words ‘directed’ and ‘career,’ I could scream.” “But you do want a career, don’t you?” “No. I want to work at Dunkin’ Donuts when I get out of school. I want to get fat. Or be addicted to heroin. I want to be a disaster.” “Why? Oh, you’re joking. But I know what you mean. I’m sick of these closed-minded career people too. It’s just that I’m getting tired of feeling like a stupid…well, a stupid cunt. I want to do something with my talent. I know I’ve got talent.” Susan ate her toast and stared at her, loving her, almost gloating over her. She loved her tiny fingers, her hot face, her bright nervous energy, her pathetic assertion that she had talent. That she talked like the worst stereotype of the girliest girl imaginable only enhanced her appeal. Susan could not explain this perverse love to herself, but there it was. Perhaps it was so strong because she had almost no other female friends in college; most of her emotional energy had been spent on men—she’d had fewer affairs than Leisha but spent twice the time brooding over them. Maybe the extremities and obviousness of a cartoon girl were all that she could handle in another woman. It was probably for this reason that Leisha chose to be a cartoon girl, she thought sadly. The curious thing was, Leisha had loved Susan too, at least initially, as another kind of caricature. Susan had been surprised to hear that for months she’d been a source of jealousy and speculation, that Leisha had been deeply puzzled by this solemn, self-contained and (to Leisha) weirdly silent girl. Besides, Susan had quite a reputation in Ann Arbor herself, thanks to their mutual boyfriend. “She’s nothing like she looks,” he’d say to anyone who’d listen. “She’s kinky as hell.” Then he’d generously explain how and in what ways, somehow managing to leave his kinkiness out. “You remind me of black stiletto heels,” Leisha had said. “I used to picture you all in black, in stretch pants and spike-heeled shoes.” “Oh, brother,” said Susan. But she was flattered. — The apartment Susan was staying in belonged to an old friend named Bobby, who was in Europe for the month and hadn’t bothered to arrange a sublet for so short a time. It was located in the Village only a few blocks from the apartment she had lived in for most of her time in Manhattan. It was much larger than her old apartment, and brighter. Her apartment in Chicago was even larger than Bobby’s. It had high ceilings and large windows; it was fashionably decorated with soft colors and spare-limbed furnishings. It was kept clean by a weekly maid.

• From Best Erotic Romance

  “Shut up.” The ring was perfect. It was unusual, almost quirky, with a massive diamond—around four carats was her educated guess—surrounded by irregular swirls of multisized rubies. “When I look at it,” he said quietly, “it reminds me of how I feel about you.” She saw that in the ring, too. The unusual design conveyed passionate chaos, and the fact that he registered that quality in the setting cemented her belief that he was the perfect man for her. Climbing over him, Robin straddled his hips and extended her hand. “Put it on me.” The feel of the cool band sliding over her knuckle was so sublime it caused goose bumps to sweep across her skin. She wanted this so badly, wanted him. Her rough-edged brewmaster with his gentle hands and insatiable hunger for her body. The man who listened to her talk about gem clarity and design theory and who patiently explained the difference between lager and ale. “Yes,” she answered him, placing her hand on his chest next to her name over his heart. Paul framed her rib cage with his hands, his thumbs stroking the lower curve of her breasts. “And what do you need from me?” “I needed this.” She gestured between them. “A commitment from you. I’ll also need a room that’s mine alone, a workshop with lots of light and space.” “Done.” “And I need you to promise not to change your style for me.” His brows rose. “I have a style?” “I love you just the way you are. Don’t cut your hair or—” He rolled abruptly, taking the top. “Say that again.” Laughing, Robin looked up into his impossibly handsome face. “Don’t cut your hair?” He snorted. “The part before that.” “Don’t change your style?” Bending his head, Paul caught her nipple between his teeth. She made a soft noise at the unexpected bite, then arched her back when his tongue soothed the slight sting. When his cheeks hollowed on a drawing pull, she moaned his name and gave him what he wanted. “I love you, Paul. You’re everything to me.” When he lifted his head, the fiercely tender look on his face was one she’d remember for the rest of her life. Or she could just make him show it to her again. She had a lifetime to work on it. FIRST NIGHT Donna George Storey It was a mistake. Sophie gazed at Justin’s sleeping face, so pale against the pillow in the dawn light. Her chest tightened. He was even more beautiful when she could stare to her heart’s content at his thick lashes, the artful slope of his nose, the luscious curve of his shoulder. Yes, he was gorgeous, but it was still a mistake. Sophie glanced over at the alarm clock, which glowed an ice-blue “6:08.” In approximately six hours she and this young man were supposed to tie the knot. But she simply couldn’t go through with it.

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

  Reply to Objection 3: For the same reason Christ suffered out of charity and out of obedience; because He fulfilled even the precepts of charity out of obedience only; and was obedient, out of love, to the Father’s command. Whether God the Father delivered up Christ to the Passion?Objection 1: It would seem that God the Father did not deliver up Christ to the Passion. For it is a wicked and cruel act to hand over an innocent man to torment and death. But, as it is written (Dt. 32:4): “God is faithful, and without any iniquity.” Therefore He did not hand over the innocent Christ to His Passion and death. Objection 2: Further, it is not likely that a man be given over to death by himself and by another also. But Christ gave Himself up for us, as it is written (Is. 53:12): “He hath delivered His soul unto death.” Consequently it does not appear that God the Father delivered Him up. Objection 3: Further, Judas is held to be guilty because he betrayed Christ to the Jews, according to Jn. 6:71: “One of you is a devil,” alluding to Judas, who was to betray Him. The Jews are likewise reviled for delivering Him up to Pilate; as we read in Jn. 18:35: “Thy own nation, and the chief priests have delivered Thee up to me.” Moreover, as is related in Jn. 19:16: Pilate “delivered Him to them to be crucified”; and according to 2 Cor. 6:14: there is no “participation of justice with injustice.” It seems, therefore, that God the Father did not deliver up Christ to His Passion. On the contrary, It is written (Rom. 8:32): “God hath not spared His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.” I answer that, As observed above [4246](A[2]), Christ suffered voluntarily out of obedience to the Father. Hence in three respects God the Father did deliver up Christ to the Passion. In the first way, because by His eternal will He preordained Christ’s Passion for the deliverance of the human race, according to the words of Isaias (53:6): “The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquities of us all”; and again (Is. 53:10): “The Lord was pleased to bruise Him in infirmity.” Secondly, inasmuch as, by the infusion of charity, He inspired Him with the will to suffer for us; hence we read in the same passage: “He was offered because it was His own will” (Is. 53:7). Thirdly, by not shielding Him from the Passion, but abandoning Him to His persecutors: thus we read (Mat. 27:46) that Christ, while hanging upon the cross, cried out: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” because, to wit, He left Him to the power of His persecutors, as Augustine says (Ep. cxl).

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  “Anyway,” Theresa continued, “Grant got Ed up against the bar, choking her. Peaches hauled off and pounded Grant on the head with her high heel. Other people got involved just because they were drunk. Ed’s face got cut up. Grant got a concussion. And now Meg is saying no Blacks will be allowed back at Abba’s for a while.” I couldn’t believe what she was saying. “Shit, Theresa, what did you do?” Theresa looked me dead in the eyes. “When Grant tried to hit Peaches over the head with a bar stool, I cracked Grant over the head with a beer bottle and knocked her out. I’m barred from Abba’s, too.” I leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. “Tt sounds like a mess.” I sat up. “Pd better call Ed and see if she’s OK,” I said. Theresa tugged my arm. “C’mere, baby. Don’t call yet.” “Why note” Theresa shrugged. “What are you going to say to Ede” “T don’t know. I want to know if she’s OK. I just think we all shouldn’t be fighting each other. We need to stick together.” Theresa nodded as though P’d confirmed something she already knew. She pulled me against her body. A wave of exhaustion rolled over me. “Be careful,” Theresa whispered. “Think first before you call Ed.” I pulled back my head and studied her face. I never could read that woman’s mind. “Let’s go somewhere,” she said. I moaned. “T’m too tired.” Theresa grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled my head back. “Too tited to neck with me behind a sand dune at Beaver Island?” I knew enough to surrender early. “OK, alright. Should we take the car?” Theresa shook her head. “Get the bike out of the garage.” “Are you crazy?” I laughed. “It’s cold!” Theresa slid her hands around my waist. “It’s April, honey. Let’s live like it’s already spring.” The moment we swung our legs over the Norton I knew it was a good decision. It felt so good to turn into the curves together. One of Theresa’s hands slid down to my thigh. I revved the engine in response. The cold wind sucked the laughter from our mouths. We rode slowly past the island marsh. Theresa pointed to a flock of wild geese headed north. The beach itself was almost deserted. A couple of mothers meandered along the boardwalk with their toddlers. We flopped down on the sand in front of the boardwalk. The sun was strong and warm. We could hear a radio playing faintly in the distance. I leaned up against a dune and spread my legs. Theresa curled up between my thighs and leaned back against me. I wrapped my arms around her and closed my eyes. The sound of lapping water and cawing gulls soothed all the tightness from my muscles. “Honey,” she said. Something in her tone made my muscles tense again. “You and I never really talk Stone Butch Blues 135

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

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

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  “Shh, I know.” She held my face in her cupped hands. “I love you too, honey.” Ruth pulled me close against her body. We hugged as though we’d never let go. “Ooh, let me have some of that,” Tanya said. “Come in here, boy.” Ruth smiled and shook her head. “Jess is a B-girl,” she told Tanya. I hadn’t heard that word in many years. B-girl—the old code word femmes used in public to refer to butches when they were afraid of being overheard. There was so much about Ruth I still didn’t know. “Ooh, honey,” Tanya looked me up and down appreciatively. “I could swing for you, girl.” Ruth introduced me to Esperanza. “Mucho gusto,’ Esperanza whispered in a voice as complicated as Ruth’s and mine. Esperanza blushed as I kissed her hand. “We’re trimming the tree. You want to help us?” She handed me tinsel. I smiled shyly. “I never did this before.” Stone Butch Blues 291 Esperanza frowned. “You never decorated a Christmas tree before?” I shook my head. “You didn’t have Christmas when you were a child?” I shook my head again. “Too poor?” I laughed. My jaw clicked as I answered. “Too Jewish.” Ruth offered me a cookie she’d just decorated. “Tt’s still warm so it’s soft. It’s gingerbread. Try it. Just a bite.” I rediscovered taste. “We’re making cookies to take to friends who are stuck in the hospital with AIDS.” Up until that moment I had felt as though the epidemic was taking place a million miles away from me. “Can I go with?” I asked. Ruth sighed heavily. “Yes, if you want to.” Tanya offered me a mug, “This is Tanya’s killer egeonog. If this don’t give you the holiday spirit nothing will.” Ruth wiped her hands on her apron. “Take it easy with that stuff,” Tanya made a face at her. “Don’t listen to het. Just ’cause she’s a friend of Bill W’s doesn’t mean we all have to hang out with him.” “We're going out to a drag club later tonight. You want to come?” Esperanza asked. I looked at Ruth. She smiled and shrugged. 292 = Leslie Feinberg “T’ll teach you to bump and grind on the dance floor, honey,” Tanya said. I laughed. “Tl show you a thing or two on the dance floor.” “Lord have mercy,” Tanya fanned herself with her large hand. “Kill me now.” Esperanza smiled. “Pll teach you an old dance, the merengue, the dance of the enslaved.” I remembered Ruth’s present. “Ill be right back,” I said. When I lugged the heavy rectangular present into her living room Ruth sat down heavily on the couch as though she’d been hit with bad news. “It’s for you,” I smiled. “Open it, girl,” Tanya urged. Ruth chewed het lip. “You shouldn’t have.” All my love was in my smile. “Oh, hush.”

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  They left the restaurant and walked around the block. Daisy butted her head against the harsh wind; her short gray coat floated in back of her like a sail. He held her mittened hand. “I love you,” he said. “I don’t care about anything else. I want to cast my mantle of protection over you.” “Let’s sit here,” she said. She sat down on an even rise of yellow brick in front of an apartment building that was an impression of yellow brick and shadowy gray glass shielding the sad blur of a doorman. He sat very near her and held her hand. “I have to tell you some things about myself,” she said. “I don’t take admiration very well.” “I don’t care if you take it well or not. It’s there.” “But won’t it make you unhappy if I don’t return it?” “I’d be disappointed, I guess. But I’d still have the pleasure of feeling it for you. It doesn’t have to be returned.” He wanted to put his hands on either side of her head and squeeze. She looked at him intently. “I said that to someone recently,” she said. “Do you suppose it’s a trend of some kind?” The wind blew away her bangs, baring her white forehead. He kissed the sudden openness. She dropped her head against his shoulder. An old woman in a pink coat bearing a sequined flower with a disturbing burst of petals on her lapel looked at them and smiled. Her white face was heavy with wrinkles and pink makeup, and her smile seemed difficult under the weight. She sat on the short brick wall about two feet away from them. “I’m not making myself clear,” said Daisy. She lifted her head and looked at him with wide, troubled eyes. “If you’re nice to me, I’ll probably make you unhappy. I’ve done that to people.” “You couldn’t make me unhappy.” “I’m only nice to people who are mostly mean to me. Once somebody told me to stay away from so-and-so because he beat up girls. They said he broke his girlfriend’s jaw.” She paused, for emphasis, he supposed. The old lady was beginning to look depressed. “So I began flirting with him like wild. Isn’t that sick?” “What happened?” asked Joey with interest. “Nothing. He went to Bellevue before anything could. But isn’t it awful? I actually wanted this nut to hit me.” She paused again. “Aren’t you disgusted?” “Oh, I don’t know.” The old lady rose slowly, head down, and walked away with stiff, painful steps. Her coat blew open; her blue-veined legs were oddly pretty. Daisy turned to watch her. “See,” she said. “She’s disgusted even if you aren’t. We’ve ruined her day.” —

• From Best Erotic Romance

  Kim considered, then pulled it off the shelf and shut the cupboard door. Unscrewing the cap, she reached across the counter for the small wooden honey drizzler and lowered it into the jar. Twirling it as she brought it back out, she watched as the barely transparent, lava-like liquid streamed back into its container. When the flow paused, Kim brought the wooden implement to her lips, opening her mouth just as the honey started to fall again. It landed on her tongue, and she moaned quietly. All the more because of its unique, extraordinary, direct-from-nature creation process, honey was one of her favorite foods. She turned back to the stove and pulled the pancakes from the griddle. Four more full moons were born, and Kim set down the bowl and pulled a plate from the cupboard. She dropped one of the pancakes on it and dipped the honey stick into the jar again. The amber substance spilled back into its own rippled pool as she twirled. During a pause, she moved the stick over the pancake and turned it downward, waiting as gravity slowly pulled the liquid onto the whole wheat disk below it. Dropping the honey dipper back in the jar, Kim picked up a fork and pulled a bite toward her mouth, feeling the heat from the pancake as it got closer. She stopped short as Terry strode abruptly into view, clad in a pair of gray sweatpants. “What are you doing?” she said, dismayed that her surprise was spoiled. Terry rubbed his eyes sleepily. “I woke up and you weren’t there. I came down to look for you.” He looked behind her to the counter. “What are you doing?” Kim glanced behind her with disappointment. “I was making you breakfast in bed.” Terry’s expression registered surprise. “Oh.” A smile formed across his face like the sunrise. “Thank you.” Kim smiled then too, sensing his appreciation of the unfulfilled gesture. She had planned to tell him when she woke him that she wanted to show him that they were still okay, that he was okay, that feeling like a failure didn’t mean he wasn’t worthy, that he couldn’t feel happy, that he didn’t deserve to be appreciated—including by himself. Most of all, to show him that she loved him no matter what. As she watched him, Kim saw that while her carefully executed plan had failed, the intention had been fulfilled. Though she wasn’t waking her husband and telling him those things, she could see them transferring to him through the sight of the pancakes bubbling to life on the stove, the warmth of the griddle-heated air, the fragrance of cinnamon and vanilla and whole wheat.

• From Best Erotic Romance

  He’d been dead when she came into his life, frozen in grief over the death of his son and the subsequent dissolution of his already-broken marriage. That first elevator ride with Robin had been like a flipped switch, jolting him out of his coma. She’d forced the air back into his lungs and the blood back through his veins. He had begun to live for the weekends he spent with her, craving her laughter and smiles, her touch and her scent. But when she’d suggested they take their relationship to the next level, he had panicked, prompting her to walk out on him with her head held high and his heart in her hands. Reminded of how damned lucky he was to have her ready and willing again, Paul pinned her slender body against the door and took her mouth in a lush, hot kiss. His lips sealed over hers, his tongue gliding along the lower curve before slipping inside. She was stiff at first, resistant, which got his guard up. When it came to physical intimacy, they’d never had any barriers between them. As he stroked his tongue along hers, Robin reached for his cock and slung one leg around his waist. She jacked him with both hands, making him so hard and thick he groaned into her mouth and slickened her fingers with pre-cum. She used him to prime herself, massaging the tiny knot of her clitoris with the head of his dick. Impatient, he brushed her hands aside and tucked his cockhead into her slit. She was so ready, he slipped through her wetness and sank an inch inside her. As her cunt fluttered around him, his chest heaved with the loss of his control. What he wanted was to nail her to the door with pounding thrusts; what she needed was to know that he was committed to making their relationship work. “Hurry,” she hissed. Before he could rein himself in, her hands gripped his ass and yanked him into her. The unexpected thrust sent him tunneling deep. His palms hit the door on either side of her head and a curse burst from his lips. “Robin, baby,” he growled. “Give me a damn minute.” But she was already coming. With her head thrown back against the door and a purely erotic moan of pleasure, her cunt tightened around his aching dick like a tender fist. When the delicate muscles began milking his length in incredible ripples, he lost it. “Ah, shit,” he gasped, feeling his balls tighten and semen rush to the tip of his cock. Gripping her ass in the palms of his hands, Paul fucked her convulsing pussy like a mad man, banging her with hammering strokes. The violent orgasm was the rawest of his life, the pleasure so pure and hot he couldn’t stop the growls that tore from his throat. Or the words. “Robin...fuck...I love you, baby. Love you...”