Pride

Passages

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

Page 69 of 174 · 20 per page

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  The Della Pressa knew already how to govern, and Galigaio in his mansion already had the hilt and pummel gilt. 21 Great already were the Vair column, 22 Sacchetti, Giuochi, Fifanti, and Barucci; and Galli, and they who blush red for the bushel. 23 The stock whence the Calfucci sprang was great already, 24 and already drawn to curule office were Sizii and Arrigucci. Oh, how great have I seen those now undone by their pride! And the balls of gold adorned Florence in all her mighty feats. 25 So did their fathers who, whene’er your church is vacant, stand guzzling in consistory. 26 The outrageous tribe that playeth dragon after whoso fleeth, and to whoso showeth tooth—or purse—is quiet as a lamb, 27 was coming up already, but from humble folk, so that it pleased not Ubertin Donato when his father-in-law made him their relative. 28 Already Caponsacco had come down from Fiesole into the market-place; and good citizens already were Giuda and Infangato. I will tell a thing incredible but true: the little circuit was entered by a gate named after them of Pera. 29 Each one who beareth aught of the fair arms of the great baron whose name and worth the festival of Thomas keepeth living, from him derived knighthood and privilege; 30 though he who fringeth it around hath joined him now unto the people. 31 Already there were Gaulterotti and Importuni; and still were Borgo a more quiet spot, if from new neighbours they were still afasting. 32 The house from which your wailing sprang, because of the just anger which hath slain you and placed a term upon your joyous life, 33 was honoured, it and its associates. 34 Oh Buondelmonte, how ill didst thou flee its nuptials at the prompting of another! Joyous had many been who now are sad, had God committed thee unto the Ema the first time that thou camest to the city. But to that mutilated stone which guardeth the bridge ’twas meet that Florence should give a victim in her last time of peace. 35 With these folk, and with others with them, did I see Florence in such full repose, she had not cause for wailing; with these folk I saw her people so glorious and so just, ne’er was the lily on the shaft reversed, 36 nor yet by faction dyed vermilion.” 37 1. Dante deals with the subject of nobility in the De Monorchia, ii, and in Conv. iv. 2. The legend ran that when Caesar united in himself all the high offices of state, he was addressed as a plurality of individuals, “ye”; but as a matter of fact in Dante’s time the Romans adhered to the old-fashioned thou. “Nay, they would not address either Pope or Emperor save as thou” (Benvenuto). 3.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  But everything I observed was at the edge of consciousness, for I thought of myself as a sturdy cutter slicing through waves of cold air, as a tough, almost square vessel set on a straight course. Usually I’d sense I was permeable, insubstantial, at most a bank of moving air, a cold front, and only in conversation did I condense into a downpour of being. But now I was dense and potent. There were no eddies of empty time to swirl me off course, no horse latitudes of nothingness to becalm me. The headmaster found my information too upsetting to accept readily and I observed his dithering with scorn. I was summoning him to battle, but he kept fussing over how he should wear his uniform. “Well, of course Mr. Beattie is not a full or even regular member of the Eton faculty,” he said, as though that made any difference one way or another. He was performing all the tiresome operations of cleaning, fueling and lighting a pipe. “I suppose we’ll have to report him to the Federal—would it be the Treasury Department? Is the Bureau of Narcotics a subdivision of the Treasury?” “I don’t know,” I said, by now just a boy again. After the headmaster had covered every subsidiary issue, as though he were constitutionally drawn to the incidental, I brought him back to what was essential at least to me. “You must promise you won’t talk to Mr. Beattie until after I’ve gone home for Christmas vacation,” I said solemnly. “And then you must make sure he’s out of here by the time I get back. I don’t want to have to see him. That might be dangerous for me.” I thought the headmaster owed me at the very least this protection in return for my having saved the school. “Nonsense,” he said, peeved, “I can’t promise a thing.” He looked longingly at the closed door as though he hoped someone would open it and end this eternal interview. “And are you quite sure you haven’t become an addict yourself?” he asked. “Shall I have the Narcotics people bring you some of their interesting literature on addiction? I’m sure they have some splendid brochures, they should, our tax dollars, you know …” And he went on mumbling to himself until I was able to slip out. No one was worthy of me. I had twenty minutes to kill before my rendezvous with Beattie, an interval I resented, so habituated had I already become to the tight scheduling of the great man, the man of the world.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  White-people hair was smooth and slippery. He didn’t know how it would react to the trimmers. His own hair was woolly, fibrous. It came away in clumps, little balls of light brown fluff. It was easy to shear him. “Okay,” he said, turning on the clippers. “Let’s do this, I guess.” “That does not inspire confidence,” Charles said. “I’ll have to take it all off. I can’t do anything else.” There was a pause. He could feel Charles turning that thought over in his head. He thought he could suggest that Charles take care of the front and instruct him on how to do the back or the sides. He bit the tip of his tongue. “That’s okay,” Charles said. “Do it.” “All right,” Lionel said, and drew the trimmers back through the first, delicate layer of Charles’s hair. He enjoyed running his fingers though it again and again as he buzzed it all away. It seemed like such a shame to do it to hair this good, this beautiful. It hadn’t even started to thin the way his own had. Charles had the kind of face that was suitable for any kind of hair, but the curls suited him most, brought out the boyishness in him. Without them, he would be too severe, too intimidating, too much like a man. But it was too late, all gone. Charles caught whatever hair he could and piled it in a little mound on his lap. Lionel slid his fingers against the fuzzy scalp that was slowly emerging from beneath the hair. He occasionally scraped too close, and Charles hissed at him, which made Lionel hard. The reprimand reminded him of how they’d fucked. It was done in about twenty minutes, and Lionel was proud of how even it all was. “You look good,” he said, appraising him. “You look really good.” “Let me see,” Charles said, and went to the bathroom. He stayed in there a long time. Lionel could hear the water running. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, rocking his feet back and forth, testing the strength of his ligaments. He was chewing the edge of his lip raw. He could see falling snow through the window over the bed. It fell through the blue light of the street lamp, drifting sideways in the wind. It was accumulating on the sidewalk and the windowsill. He let the window up, and cold air blew in on him, clear and perfect. “I like it,” Charles said from the bathroom. “You did a great job. I feel tingly all over, raw.” He came from the hallway, rubbing water into his hair. He had been rinsing away the loose bits.

• From Escape (2007)

  I vowed never to surrender to either Merril or Barbara. I quietly began to figure out a survival strategy. I filed my tax return without telling Merril. I’d never done that before. I started to do a few extra things on the side to make money. I began selling NuSkin cosmetics. Merril knew about my venture but had no idea of my success. There were months when I sold $5,000 worth of cosmetics in a community where makeup was strictly forbidden. A banner month could net me $1,000. There was so much competition in the community among wives that when a man took one wife on a trip, the others would come and blow a few hundred bucks on cosmetics to stay competitive. I could even accept credit card payments by calling the number in to NuSkin. No one in the family suspected how much money I was making. It was one of the most empowering experiences I’d ever had. I was able to do it because I was married to Merril. Merril paraded me around town as his young trophy wife. Men would give their wives permission to buy cosmetics from me. Doing my own taxes and hiding money was the first time I’d ever gone against the teachings of the prophet. I didn’t care. I felt no guilt, no shame. This was the beginning, the fragile, tentative beginning, of mentally breaking free from the control of my “religion.” I still basically believed in the FLDS but thought Merril was corrupting and distorting its values for his own selfish and narcissistic ends. While I began putting energy into staying ahead of Merril and Barbara’s dirty little games, the rest of the family was intent on pampering Merril’s ego. Every year around Merril’s birthday on December 27 the family would perform a play or put on a program in his honor. His daughters usually took charge and orchestrated everything. For Merril’s birthday in 1994 one of his daughters did a new version of The Sound of Music. In those pre–Warren Jeffs years, we still watched movies and listened to the radio. Some families had TVs and their children watched videos. We were all familiar with The Sound of Music. Our extravaganza was going to be staged, in honor of Merril, at the community center, which could hold a thousand people. Margaret’s version of the musical was based on several polygamous families. She wrote parts for every child in Merril’s family, and by then there were more than forty. Margaret called it The Resound of Music.

• From Escape (2007)

  Some of Brian’s friends chided him about dating a little Mormon schoolteacher with eight kids. He told them I was the most amazing woman he had ever met, and he introduced me with pride when we went to parties. It felt surreal—happily so—to be dating a man who was a corporate executive. But most of all, I welcomed being included, for the first time in my life, in a world where ideas, culture, and education were respected. Once the UEP trust was in the hands of the state of Utah, an advisory board was created to suggest how its assets could be best utilized to benefit those still in the community and requesting help. Thirty people applied for the board and six were chosen. I was one of them. This was more than an honor for me, it was a vindication. After years of trying to protect myself from the evils of the FLDS, I was now aligned with those who were going to fight to undo the damage it had done to children and families. Even though Warren Jeffs was in hiding, his power was gradually being shut down. Arthur turned eighteen on December 20, 2005. Merril ordered him to leave everything he had and return to the FLDS. Arthur refused and told his father the religion had turned into something weird. Merril denied that it had, but Arthur held his ground. His life was going in another direction now. Merril was outraged. No son of his had ever stood up to him before. Arthur graduated from West Jordan High School on June 6, 2006. It was one of the proudest days of my life. Arthur had been on the honor roll for three years. During his senior year he was taking a full load of classes, including the ones he needed to make up for the year he had missed. He was also taking flying lessons and working part-time for my brother. At an awards dinner before commencement, Arthur was the recipient of a special award and a $500 scholarship given to a student who has overcome adversity. The principal didn’t list everything that Arthur had endured, but what he highlighted was enough to make the audience applaud. Two days later he received another $500 scholarship to the college of his choice from the Chamber of Commerce. When graduation day came and Arthur walked across the stage to receive his diploma, I leaped to my feet the moment his name was called, and clapped and cheered for my son. My heart was exploding with happiness. End Game

• From Escape (2007)

  “Merril and Warren already had their chance to work things through with me, and they both refused,” I said. “If Merril was interested in working with me, he would have done it three years ago.” “But Carolyn, he didn’t realize you were so serious then,” Dad said. “He doesn’t want his children living outside the community, and he wants you back. He’s willing to let you have your own house.” “Dad, Merril has never kept one promise he’s made to me. Why should he change now?” My father told me I didn’t need an attorney. He and Merril could find one for me if I was determined to continue in the courts. I could not believe what I was hearing. “Dad, do you think I’m that dumb? I’ll be keeping my attorney,” I said. “I am not going to live with Merril’s abuse any longer. I have a clear claim on my children and I’m going to fight for custody.” I had never stood up to my father before. It felt good. My father was still a true believer and did not feel I had the right to leave and take my children with me. He was helping Merril on principle: in my father’s eyes, Merril owned me the way he owned his car. Dad felt Merril was wrong to abuse me, and he’d never doubted me when I told him what was happening. But he felt now that Merril understood how serious I was, he might be less abusive to me if I came back. For my father, my salvation was at stake. If I broke the covenants that I’d made with God, I would relinquish all claims to any kind of salvation. So Dad was thinking of the big picture, and within that context, he genuinely believed he was acting in my best interest to encourage me to return. When Merril’s pressure on my father couldn’t get me to roll over, he turned to my son Arthur. He kept badgering Arthur to make me talk to him. I had been gone for only a week, but Linda told me the things Merril had already started to say about me in church. Merril accused me of being the worst kind of apostate and said I had turned traitor to the work of God by going to the authorities. He said I planned on destroying his children, and he even accused me of betraying my grandmother, who had stood faithful during the raid on Short Creek in 1953. During that raid, it was said that if one woman turned against the work of God, then every woman could lose her children and the men would be imprisoned. Merril put me in that category of being the one woman who would destroy the work of God in the last days and turn traitor to the prophet.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  I can swear that not even one volt of desire passed through me. I did my job; I simulated excitement. But I was scandalized when Mr. Beattie asked me to lick the bright red head, to roll my tongue around the head of his penis. I’d forgotten that this act was not as purely symbolic for him as it was for me. I remembered that he considered all this to be pleasure, as Herod thought Salome’s dance was fun until he heard what she wanted as a reward. At last it was over. Mr. Beattie told me to go on up to the dining hall for supper. He’d follow me in a few moments. He didn’t think we should be seen together, just in case. Sometimes I think I seduced and betrayed Mr. Beattie because neither one action nor the other alone but the complete cycle allowed me to have sex with a man and then to disown him and it; this sequence was the ideal formulation of my impossible desire to love a man but not to be a homosexual. Sometimes I think I liked bringing pleasure to a heterosexual man (for after all I’d dreamed of being my father’s lover) at the same time I was able to punish him for not loving me. My German teacher and Mr. Pouchet had not loved me. Tommy had not loved me. My dad had not loved me. Beattie was a friend of sorts, or at least an accomplice, but he was also a stand-in for all other adults, those swaggering, lazy, cruel masters of ours (how refreshing it was that at Eton the teachers were actually called masters). I who had so little power—whose triumphs had all been the minor victories of children and women, that is, merely verbal victories of irony and attitude—I had at last drunk deep from the adult fountain of sex. I wiped my mouth with the back of an adult hand, smiled and walked up to the dining hall humming a little tune.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  Father Burke had stopped tapping his fingers. His smile had faded and his eyes had gone cloudy. He’d let his face become old and weary, as though to say I had done this to him. Suddenly his eyes were homing in on me, a flicker of his tongue stung his lips back into life and he said, “But shouldn’t we set aside this philosophy”—generous dollop of irony to suggest that if he was interested in my soul he was bored by my mind, for my soul might be eternal but my mind was all too obviously adolescent—“and move on to something a little more urgent.” He pressed his fingertips to his brow and hid behind his hands. “Haven’t you something you want to tell me about?” he asked out of this manual tent, his voice hollow. But he was trying to intimidate the wrong person. I was, after all, a Buddhist. I’d never believed, or only in fleeting reverie, in a warm, concerned, touchy Christian God, who seemed all too obviously a conflation of what people wanted and feared. As a character, Burke intrigued me more than his deity. I appreciated the sense of drama he wanted to inject into my existence and I was flattered he thought I, or at least some essential if rather abstract principle within me, was worth saving. But I also felt surging within me a fierce need to be independent. Of course I responded to the appeal of divine hydraulics, this system of souls damned or crowned or destroyed or held in suspense, these pulleys and platforms sinking and lifting on the great stage, and I recognized that my view of things seemed by contrast impoverished, lacking in degree and incident. But the charming intricacy of a myth is not sufficient to compel belief. I found no good reason to assume that the ultimate nature of reality happens to resemble the backstage of an opera house. On a more emotional level I had an aversion to anything authoritarian. I might long for the capacious, sheltering embrace of a father but I detested paternalism. I was quite hostile to it, in fact. “Well, yes,” I said, “I am seeing a psychiatrist because I have conflicts over certain homosexual tendencies I’m feeling.” At these words Father Burke’s face lurched up out of his hands. Not the nervous little confession he had expected. He recovered his poise and decided to laugh boisterously, the laugh of Catholic centuries. “Conflicts?” he whooped, in tears of laughter by now. Then, sobering for a second, the priest added in a low, casual voice, “But you see, my son, homosexuality isn’t just a conflict that needs to be resolved”—his voice picked up these words as though they were nasty bits of refuse—“homosexuality is also a sin.” I think he had no notion how little an effect the word sin had on me. He might just as well have said, “Homosexuality is bad juju.”

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  But everything I observed was at the edge of consciousness, for I thought of myself as a sturdy cutter slicing through waves of cold air, as a tough, almost square vessel set on a straight course. Usually I’d sense I was permeable, insubstantial, at most a bank of moving air, a cold front, and only in conversation did I condense into a downpour of being. But now I was dense and potent. There were no eddies of empty time to swirl me off course, no horse latitudes of nothingness to becalm me. The headmaster found my information too upsetting to accept readily and I observed his dithering with scorn. I was summoning him to battle, but he kept fussing over how he should wear his uniform. “Well, of course Mr. Beattie is not a full or even regular member of the Eton faculty,” he said, as though that made any difference one way or another. He was performing all the tiresome operations of cleaning, fueling and lighting a pipe. “I suppose we’ll have to report him to the Federal—would it be the Treasury Department? Is the Bureau of Narcotics a subdivision of the Treasury?” “I don’t know,” I said, by now just a boy again. After the headmaster had covered every subsidiary issue, as though he were constitutionally drawn to the incidental, I brought him back to what was essential at least to me. “You must promise you won’t talk to Mr. Beattie until after I’ve gone home for Christmas vacation,” I said solemnly. “And then you must make sure he’s out of here by the time I get back. I don’t want to have to see him. That might be dangerous for me.” I thought the headmaster owed me at the very least this protection in return for my having saved the school. “Nonsense,” he said, peeved, “I can’t promise a thing.” He looked longingly at the closed door as though he hoped someone would open it and end this eternal interview. “And are you quite sure you haven’t become an addict yourself?” he asked. “Shall I have the Narcotics people bring you some of their interesting literature on addiction? I’m sure they have some splendid brochures, they should, our tax dollars, you know …” And he went on mumbling to himself until I was able to slip out. No one was worthy of me. I had twenty minutes to kill before my rendezvous with Beattie, an interval I resented, so habituated had I already become to the tight scheduling of the great man, the man of the world.

• From Memoirs of Hadrian (1951)

  Our great mistake is to try to exact from each person virtues which he does not possess, and to neglect the cultivation of those which he has. I might apply here to the search for these partial virtues what I was saying earlier, in sensuous terms, about the search for beauty. I have known men infinitely nobler and more perfect than myself, like your father Antoninus, and have come across many a hero, and even a few sages. In most men I have found little consistency in adhering to the good, but no steadier adherence to evil; their mistrust and indifference, usually more or less hostile, gave way almost too soon, almost in shame, changing too readily into gratitude and respect, which in turn were equally short-lived; even their selfishness could be bent to useful ends. I am always surprised that so few have hated me; I have had only one or two bitter enemies, for whom I was, as is always the case, in part responsible. Some few have loved me: they have given me far more than I had the right to demand, or to hope for: their deaths, and sometimes their lives. And the god whom they bear within them is often revealed when they die. There is but one thing in which I feel superior to most men: I am freer, and at the same time more compliant, than they dare to be. Nearly all of them fail to recognize their due liberty, and likewise their true servitude. They curse their fetters, but seem sometimes to find them matter for pride. Yet they pass their days in vain license, and do not know how to fashion for themselves the lightest yoke. For my part I have sought liberty more than power, and power only because it can lead to freedom. What interested me was not a philosophy of the free man (all who try that have proved tiresome), but a technique: I hoped to discover the hinge where our will meets and moves with destiny, and where discipline strengthens, instead of restraining, our nature. Understand clearly that here is no question of harsh Stoic will, which you value too high, nor of some mere abstract choice or refusal, which grossly affronts the conditions of our universe, this solid whole, compounded as it is of objects and bodies. No, I have dreamed of a more secret acquiescence, or of a more supple response. Life was to me a horse to whose motion one yields, but only after having trained the animal to the utmost.

• From Hot Daddies: Gay Erotic Fiction (2011)

  I didn’t get an erection, but I was opening up, physically and emotionally, in a new way. I had never identified as dominant before and never felt like a top, but as I flogged Scott I found myself telling him to take it for me, to take the pain I was giving him and give it back to me. Daddy caught my eye and gave me an encouraging smile, obviously reminded of all the times he had told me the same things. Talking to Scott that way showed me what I had been missing. I was a boy, yes, and a good one, but there was also a Daddy in me, a man who wanted to hurt but also comfort, who wanted to bring a boy to tears and then lick them away. I felt strong, powerful, yet also honored that this beautiful, brilliant man was giving this gift to me, was letting me take control of him and trusting me to give back that power. Alas, my stint as a top was coming to a close. A novice bottom, Scott seemed to have a hard time relaxing, and his breath was coming in short, sharp gasps that were edging into sobs. I slowed and then stopped and went up to him, putting my hands gently on his back, feeling the warmth and grinning despite myself at the beautiful swollen flesh that I had created. “You okay, baby?” I whispered. He nodded slowly. Scott was never one to skimp on words so I knew he must have gone deep inside himself, into that place where bottoms go when we’re taken into a submissive state of mind. Daddy moved away and beckoned me to come around to the front of the cross. When I did I saw tear tracks down my younger boyfriend’s cheeks and a soft smile on his face. I leaned in and kissed him gently. He looked at me trustingly as I took his hands out of the restraints, and when I was done he spontaneously went down on his knees and kissed my feet. Daddy started massaging my shoulders and I leaned back into his hands. “Now, boy,” he rumbled in my ear, “what would you like to learn next?” POP TINGLE David Holly My parents were evangelical Christians, so when I wrote a paper questioning the authenticity of the Bible for my high school English class, all hell broke loose. I never expected my father to see my paper, but he sneaked it from my laptop, read it and blew his stack. He stormed around for ten minutes, belted me twice and cast me out of the house with only the clothes I was wearing. Behind him stood my mother, praying for my eternal damnation.

• From Hot Daddies: Gay Erotic Fiction (2011)

  “Just what did I give her?” “You were so proud of her when you handed back her paper. She had the only A in the class. When I saw that look on your face, I knew what I was missing from my life. I’ve never had anyone proud of me.” What could I say? I was overcome with emotion. I tried to find words, but I was speechless. “You don’t have to say anything,” the young man murmured. “No,” I finally said, “I must. I still don’t remember you, but I’m very proud of you. You knew what needed to be done, and you did it even if it wasn’t the easiest road to take. That’s what makes you a man.” I placed my hand on top of his and gave it a slight squeeze. “A real man.” He looked at my hand, disbelieving, and turned to me with wide eyes. I chuckled. “Seriously, you were the only reason I decided I had to do better. And seeing you tonight, I feel like a million bucks already.” “And then some.” He laughed. “Oh, you’re funny. I forgot that about you.” I smiled. He gripped my hand and kissed it. “I’ve wanted to do this from the first time I saw you.” I lifted his chin and didn’t blink when I looked into his brown eyes. “Let’s fuck.” Fifteen minutes later he was inside my foyer. His hands were all over me, but I gently set him back against the wall, next to the radiator. “Let me show you how proud I am of you.” I knelt before him and fished out his cock, erect and uncut, its folds a work of art. I swallowed him whole without effort. He gasped loudly as my tongue flickered under the shaft right next to where his balls began. My fingers caressed the sensitive space between his thighs and balls. His cock leaked precum down my gullet. “Daddy—sorry, I didn’t mean to say that, sir.” I slowly took his cock out of his mouth and looked up at him. “My boy, you can call me anything. Call me Dad if you want. I don’t care. I want to show you just how proud I am of you.” I went back to his sweet sheath of skin and flesh. God, it had been so long since I tasted such thick foreskin! “Dad, Dad, oh, papi!” I reached around his ass and pulled him toward me. The fabric of his slacks felt incredible. There’s something to be said for a high-quality weave. He instinctively understood what I wanted. He gripped the back of my head and thrust in and out of my mouth. His cock wasn’t too long; in fact, it was just the right size. I could breathe through my nose and not take my mouth off his cock. “Papi, I’m fucking your mouth, it feels so good…Uh-unh!” He tried to pull out. “Dad, I’m gonna blow…”

• From Hot Daddies: Gay Erotic Fiction (2011)

  Daddy turns me around and begins to kick me. My ass and thighs are on fire. I breathe in pain, exhale fear, and push my boots into the ground. It’s my job to stand still and take it. I narrow my focus, concentrating on linking the soles of my boots to the floor with every blow. I can do this. I want him to be proud of me. As his boots connect with my thighs, I focus on riding the energy through my boots into the ground. I will please him. He pulls out his police slap and begins to pound it into my thighs like a sledgehammer, the lead shot ramming into me. It pounds me hard, and my dick begins to throb. He’s hitting that spot where it starts to translate to sex. I am not a masochist, and there are very few intense sensations that feel like anything but pain. It is pure sex. My lips part, and I start groaning. It is all I can do not to bend over and beg him to fuck me now. I take each blow into my cock, feeling it swell until it seems like it’s going to burst. “You like that, don’t you, boy? You like getting your ass pounded like a good little faggot. You wish my dick was in your ass right now, don’t you, boy? This isn’t about you. This is about getting me off, so don’t expect I’m going to pay any attention to that hardening cock of yours, boy. The only dick you should be concerned with is this one.” He rams his dick against my ass, pushing my face into the wall, his hand on the back of my neck, holding it still. “This dick is the one you should be focused on, boy.” He pulls back and picks up his favorite cat. It slams into my back, and I am utterly still: no breath; no movement. He begins to lay into me. The rhythm is hypnotic; fire dances along my skin as the cat drives into me. The cowhide is thin and braided, and the knotted tips feel like they are slicing me open. Waves of reddish-orange pain wash over my vision. My feet are planted. I will not move. I am helpless against the pain, lightning so strong it almost knocks me over. I am so small in the face of it. Nothing I can do will stop it. I stand still and take it, and it transforms me. I am taking it for Daddy. I register a shift and know he has taken up his quirt. It is dedicated to me. It has drawn my blood and it will tonight. I gladly give myself to Daddy, tears, cum, fear, blood and all. The first wound opens and I hear his growl as he continues to slice me with two thin strips of leather.

• From Hot Daddies: Gay Erotic Fiction (2011)

  I did take a minute to admire the view. Eric has a gorgeous ass, full and cream-colored and naturally as smooth as a baby’s behind. But I was determined not to let my interest in his assets distract me. Eric was depending on me to give him the discipline he needed. I was determined to paint his pretty little butt with that switch until he’d learned his lesson. He suddenly lifted his head up and looked back over his shoulder at me, licking his lips as he stammered out, “Uh, Steve? How m-many are you going to give me?” I wasn’t going to play that game. “As many as you need,” I said firmly, stepping into position in back of him. “That’ll sure as hell be long after Mr. Pulaski gets tired of hearing you howling.” With that, I drew back my arm and swung. The branch hissed through the air, landing against that creamy skin with the distinctive swish crack! of a really good switch. I felt the vibration travel up my arm at the contact. Eric gasped. A second later, a red line appeared on that pale skin and the secondary burn settled in. He let out a startled, “Yeowch!” and straightened up fast, grabbing his butt with both hands. He turned around and looked at me with huge, scared eyes. “Shit, Steve, that really hurt!” I nodded my agreement. “You’re damn right it did. And it’s going to hurt a whole lot more before I’m done. Get back into position, unless you need me to tie you down.” Eric stood there for the longest time, just looking at me. Then he took a deep shaky breath and said, “No, sir. You don’t need to tie me. I’ll h-hold still.” With that, he took another deep breath, tucked up his privates again, and bent back over the chair. I was really proud of that boy. This time, he knew what was coming, and he was still man enough to take his punishment. When Eric was back in position, I said, “Are you ready?” “Yes, sir,” he whispered shakily. I drew back my arm, and I commenced to whipping that boy’s ass with that switch. Swish crack! “Ow! Ow! OW!” I waited between strokes, letting the first sharp burn then the blaze of the after sting sear into his butt, so that he felt the full effect of each one. “Oh, please, Steve, please no more!” he cried out after the fourth stroke , twisting against the chair as he stiffened up onto his toes, but he didn’t try to get up again. “Damn, that hurts!” “I haven’t even started yet,” I snapped, “and it’s supposed to hurt!” Swish crack!!! He yowled again. I could hear the tears starting in his voice. But I was determined to make enough of an impression on him that I wouldn’t have to whip him like that ever again.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  “You both get high and …” I closed the lid over the keys and rested my hands on the curved, reflecting wood. “Suppose he was the kind of guy who wanted to fool around. Who wanted to party.” I used the word the black whore had used. “I’m with you. You’re amazing. Here we are in goddamn suburbia and I’ve got some fuckin’ teenage hipster on my hands. Go on.” “Well, suppose he gets high and wants to blow you, nothing more, you don’t have to do a thing, just dig the music, would you let him?” Mr. Beattie was brushing his right hand back and forth over his crew cut. He seemed to be concentrating on this job, getting the feel of those soft quills against his palm. He wasn’t looking at me. “That’s a pretty funny question. Why do you ask? Is your question academic or what?” “I’m asking,” I said, “because I’d like to party with you.” He nodded quickly. “Got it. Groovy.” He looked at the clock. “I could make it real good for us both. Come back at five-fifteen, five-thirty and it’ll be dark and the fuckin’ animals next door”—head jerk to indicate the athletics building—“will have cleared out by then. We’ll be all alone down here and I’ll put on some nice classical music and we’ll blow some weed, I’ve got nice stuff, and we’ll see, just see what happens. Okay?” I who was always conscious of the formlessness of real life now saw it imitate art, though the meaning of this action, which was surely turning out to be tragic, escaped me. I had my appointment with the headmaster at four. At five-thirty, after I’d betrayed Mr. Beattie, I’d return to have sex with him. The next day he’d be fired. He’d learn of my denunciation and he wouldn’t be able to say anything against me. He wouldn’t be able to discredit me by saying I was a practicing homosexual since we would have practiced homosexuality together. He’d be powerless. I would have gotten what I wanted, gotten away with it and gotten rid of him: the trapdoor beside the bed. At last I could seduce and betray an adult. This heterosexual hipster would be my momentary Verlaine. I smiled at him, nodded encouragingly, even grabbed my own crotch in friendly imitation of his trademark gesture. Once I was outside I looked up at the gray and white clouds boiling and flowing over the tower beside the chapel, a brick reminiscence of the silo it had replaced (the whole estate had once been a farm). I hurried under a stone arch carved with the motto “A Life Without Beauty Is Only Half Lived.” A shiny black head of a woman was poised in a niche above the arch. Though the sculptor had undoubtedly hoped she would appear ageless, in fact her hairdo was all too patently a style of the 1920s, giveaway finger waves.

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

  Men in cars, off work for the weekend, are circling the streets for male prostitutes. 5:39 P.M. Selma. A semi-residential district just one block south of the boulevard, the area of Selma at first seems unlikely as a main area for malehustling: Old squeaky houses have been broken up into rooms populated by old ladies and gentlemen who keep birds, maybe parrots. A shocked Baptist church, white and pure, glowers at the hustlers who use its steps and pillars to display their bodies for sale, occasionally strumming guitars until the cops come by. A large parking lot sits dully behind the Catholic church—all grand steeples and mute mystery—on Sunset Boulevard. A small deserted playground is locked behind meshed wire. Car-repair garages, crumbling closed hamburger stands patched with torn cardboard, more parking lots—this, at first, is Selma. But soon after, it's male prostitutes standing singly or in groups along the street, at corners, before rooming houses providing ready access for paid contacts. Jim walks along this familiar street. “What's happenin?” A blond hustler who like himself has survived many streets, many cities, many nights asked Jim that question. “Not much—with you?” Jim answers. He pauses; the two stand eyeing the prospective clients cruising the blocks. For long, the two, Jim and this blond man, were hostilely aware of each other—a hostility conveyed by the fact that they would cross the street to avoid direct encounter. Why? Mutual recognition. Although Jim is dark, the other blond, both are husky, and each is much classier, yes, than the younger, much younger, boys and men who flash and sputter in their gaudy—beautiful—youth; who will not survive, no—the streets devouring them and replacing them with fresher bodies, each day; who will remember the times when they glimpsed other worlds, glimpses made possible only by their young bodies and only for interludes. But Jim and this blond hustler have other than that, a certain street elegance which speaks of rare street survival. Yes; and that was what formed the mute hostility, now mute bond, the unstated secrets each knew intuitively about the other's survival: You're older than you look. You love the streets even when they fight you—and you go on, with style. You're smarter than you act, and you're not so tough. And we both know—… But that remains unexchanged. “Making it, making it,” the blond hustler answers. He's wearing a tanktop which shows off broad shoulders. Jim expands his. They laugh briefly, glancing at each other and away. After many nights avoiding direct encounter, they spoke; a night when each decided not to cross the street in avoidance. In a sense they startled each other into speaking, and the blond one said, “What's happenin?” and Jim answered, “Not much—with you?” “Making it, making it.” And so it became a litany, a rote message of survival, repeated each encounter afterwards, except that they would alternate in asking the first question, assuming a mutuality.

• From Hot Daddies: Gay Erotic Fiction (2011)

  Since we get together so rarely, Dad likes to take his time when he tortures me, to savor my suffering. After half an hour my eyes are wet, my shouts have turned to whimpers and sobs, my gag’s sodden, and he’s growling like a werewolf, low in his throat, chewing one nipple and then the other, giving my flexed pecs more sharp punches, pushing a spit-wet finger up my asshole. It’s come down to agony, his teeth gnawing me raw, but I have no choice but to take it, and besides, I want to take it, I need to take it. I know Dad loves to top me because, unlike a lot of other bottoms he plays with, I can take a huge amount of abuse. I endure (albeit with a helluva lot of gagged noise) whatever he chooses to give me—flogging, tit-work, caning, cropping, whipping—for as long as he cares to continue. I’ve almost never begged him to stop; that’s my achievement, my point of pride. “My little warrior,” Dad calls me. That’s one reason, I think, that he invites me back. That, and because he knows I really care about him. The “buddy” part of “fuckbuddy” is as important for both of us as the “fuck” part. Other boys, he says, some of them just come for the rough sex. Everybody knows he’s the best Top in southwest Virginia, so he has lots of bottoms clamoring to be used. But, according to Dad, half the time he’s the one who feels used. According to Dad, most of them make him feel like a human dildo. My wrists and ankles are rope-chafed by now. Exhausted, I’ve stopped struggling; I’ve surrendered completely. I lie beneath him, thrusting my ass against his probing hand, my teeth sunk in the smelly gag, moaning softly as Dad, snarling, finger-fucks me and shreds my nips. Now he straddles my chest. He’s so turned on that he pumps his dick for only a few minutes before his load spatters my face. Grinning, he rubs his cum over my tape-gag, into my beard, across my forehead. Then he rolls off me and takes my dick in his hand. I’m done in half a minute, squirting on my belly. This might be my favorite part. Dad leaves my mouth taped, leaves me tied hand and foot; he rolls me onto my side, cuddles up against my back, and holds me. He fondles my cum-wet beard, my cum-wet belly hair. “You’re safe, boy,” he whispers. “I’ll take good care of you.”

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  She brushed out her hair, cut in a becoming style that never touched the collar of her suit jacket, and fastened her jaunty cap, which she had to leave on for the duration of the flight, not that she minded. She loved wearing her perfectly tailored and pressed suit, with the crisp white blouse and navy-blue heels, the leather bag swinging from her shoulder. She wouldn’t need her London Fog overcoat, with her name stitched inside, a detail that made her proud, in Miami. But she’d take the London Fog raincoat, just in case. She swore she would save these two coats, part of her uniform, forever. She pulled on her white gloves, as required. A quick look in the full-length mirror proved her uniform was smooth over her posterior. You never knew when the chief stewardess might show up to run a checklist, observing the dress and work habits of the girls, an evaluation procedure most of them dreaded. Gaby could have done without the required girdle but understood it was part of the whole package, and it served her well whenever some passenger in the aisle seat, usually a smoker ordering a drink, let his hand, accidentally on purpose, run over her backside as she was serving him. Some of the girls flirted with passengers, hoping they’d meet a rich guy to marry, but not Gaby. True, she sometimes went to dinner in Miami with one of her regular passengers, but she didn’t call that dating. He was older, still very handsome, a real gentleman. He had a place in Miami on one of the private islands, and another in New Jersey, and was starting a business in Las Vegas. He sat in first class, always in the bulkhead seat, where he had more room to stretch those long legs. She’d heard his companions call him “Longy.” But she called him “Mr. Zwillman” and he called her “doll.” Oh, sure, he was probably married, but so what? She wasn’t interested in marrying him. Or being his girlfriend. But dinner at the best restaurants in Miami Beach, ringside tables at the best nightclubs—that was something else. Vic Damone had joined them one night after his show. He’d signed her menu—To Gaby. Your a nice girl. Okay, so he’d forgotten you’re is a contraction. With his voice and looks, who cared about contractions? She didn’t believe the girls who’d tried to tell her Longy was a gangster, that he’d killed people. That was malicious gossip. He was a businessman, a very successful businessman. And so polite. Always asking about her family. She enjoyed riding in his baby blue Cadillac convertible, looking up at the stars over Miami Beach. “Has he given you jewelry yet?” Cleo, another stewardess, asked. “No, why would he give me jewelry?” Gaby said. “I’m not his girlfriend.” “Then what are you?” Gaby wasn’t sure how to respond, so she just shrugged. “Honey, you might as well get something out of it,” Cleo said.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  Theirs was the only city in New Jersey with sex-segregated public high schools, Jefferson for boys, Battin for girls. Even St. Mary’s was coed and those kids were Catholic. “I’ll set up a card table in the laundry room,” he told Phil. “We’ll play a little acey-deucey. You in?” “Why not?” Phil said. Mason didn’t say anything. “You know what they do at their parties?” Steve said. “Who?” Phil asked. “Jeez, Phil, my sister and her friends! Who do you think?” “No idea.” “They play Rotation,” Steve said. “The musical chairs of making out. That’s a prelude to sex if ever there was one.” It was one thing to make a joke of it with Phil, but if he ever found some guy messing around with his sister, he’d tear him to shreds. Not just Natalie, but Fern. The men of the family had to be vigilant. It was their job to protect the women. That’s the way it was, whether the women liked it or not. The family’s honor was at stake. No one told him this in so many words, but he understood what his mother expected of him. To be an honorable man. He was his mother’s favorite and he knew it. Natalie and Fern were more daddy’s girls. He had ten years before he had to worry about Fern. She was just in kindergarten. By then he’d be, what—twenty-seven, almost twenty-eight? He’d probably be married, maybe with his own kids. Jeez, that was a scary thought. “So what time tonight?” Phil asked Steve. “Around eight.” “I’ll be there.” Phil turned to Mason. “You want a ride home? I got the car outside.” “Yeah, sure,” Mason said. “I just have to pick up my dog. The janitor’s watching him in the basement.” Steve had a car outside, too. But they were going in different directions. MasonPhil took Mason home for supper, introduced him and his dog, Fred, to Phil’s parents. Phil swore it would be okay, said his mother liked dogs, and it was true—she took to Fred right away, scratching him behind the ears like she knew what she was doing. “Look at this little fellow. What a darling boy you are,” she said to the dog, who cocked his head at her. “I miss my dog Goldie very much,” she told Mason. At the dinner table, Fred sat at Mrs. Stein’s feet, looking up at her, hoping for scraps. There was no more talk of Goldie and Mason didn’t ask any questions. Phil’s father was some big-deal executive. He and Phil talked about football over the roast beef. They were New York Giants fans and had tickets for tomorrow’s game, the last of the season, against the New York Yanks. “Are you a fan, son?” Phil’s father asked Mason. “Yes, sir,” Mason answered. “What team?” Phil’s father asked. “Yours, sir, the New York Giants.” “Attaboy!” Phil’s father said, clinking his fork against his glass. Mason preferred baseball to football but he kept that to himself.

• From Memoirs of Hadrian (1951)

  There those great captives of rock and wave, eternally lashed by a tireless ocean, never at rest, forever consumed by dreams, continue to defy the Olympian rule with their violence, their anguish, and their burning but perpetually crucified desire. In this myth which is set on the remote edges of the world I came again upon philosophical theories which I had already adopted as my own: each of us has to choose, in the course of his brief life, between endless striving and wise resignation, between the delights of disorder and those of stability, between the Titan and the Olympian. . . . To choose between them, or to succeed, at last, in bringing them into accord. The civil reforms effected in Britain are part of my administrative work of which I have spoken elsewhere. What imports here is that I was the first emperor to settle pacifically in that island situated on the boundaries of the known world, where before me only Claudius had ventured for several days' time in his capacity as commander-in-chief. For an entire winter Londinium became, by my choice, what Antioch had been by necessity at the time of the Parthian war, the virtual center of the world. Thus each of my voyages changed the center of gravity for imperial power, placing it for some time along the Rhine, or on the banks of the Thames, and permitting me to estimate what would have been the strength and the weakness of such a capital. That stay in Britain made me envisage a hypothetical empire governed from the West, an Atlantic world. Such imaginary perspectives have no practical value; they cease, however, to be absurd as soon as the calculator extends his computations sufficiently far into the future. Barely three months before my arrival the Sixth Legion Victrix had been transferred to British territory. It replaced the unhappy Ninth Legion, cut to pieces by the Caledonians during the uprisings which made the grim aftermath, in Britain, of our Parthian expedition. Two measures were necessary to prevent the return of a like disaster. Our troops were reinforced by creation of a native auxiliary corps at Eboracum. From the top of a green knoll, I watched the first maneuvers of this newly formed British army. At the same time the erection of a wall cutting the island in two in its narrowest part served to protect the fertile, guarded areas of the south from the attacks of northern tribes. I myself inspected a substantial part of those constructions begun everywhere at the same time along an earthwork eighty miles in length; it was my chance to try out, on that carefully defined space running from coast to coast, a system of defense which could afterward be applied anywhere else.