Relief

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 A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  Mr. Cork, not completely sober, kept counting the pieces of luggage. He pretended he hadn’t noticed the outbreak. His wife took on an injured silence as though in heavy mourning. She barely said good-bye to us. But once she had gone through the door and was on the steps to the garage, I saw her flash a crooked little smile at her son. He rushed into her open arms and they nuzzled and stroked each other. At last they were gone. My father and stepmother were lighthearted with relief, as was I. My stepmother, ever fastidious, had found them almost savagely dirty and cited lots of evidence, beginning with pint bottles under the bed and ending with the used ear swabs smoldering in the bathroom ashtray. My father said they were all “screwballs” and their boys more fit for a reformatory than a house. And that Cork fellow talked too much about Commies, and drank too much and knew too little and seemed unstable; Dad thought Cork would not do well in business—nor did he, as it turned out. I said the sons struck me as “babyish.” My stepmother apologized to Katy for the rude guests and reported back to us that they had not left Katy a tip; my father recompensed her for the extra bother she’d been put to. Then we all rushed into solitude, my stepmother and I to our books and Dad to his puttering. My father now seemed to like me better. I might not be the son he thought he wanted, but I was what he deserved—someone patient, appreciative, as addicted to books as he was to work, as isolated by my loneliness as he was by his misanthropy, someone he could speak to only in the best if least direct way through the recorded concert that filled the house deep into the night, even until dawn. I was moved back into my room. We ate very late and gave ourselves to the sonorous, spacious night. My father did desk work. We were three dreamers, each musing happily in a different cubicle. The sound of the calculating machine, jumping on its metal wheels. The aroma of burning pine logs. The remarkable fairness and good humor with which the piano and clarinet took turns singing the melody. At last, the sweet smell of the pipe. My father was in the basement, which had been restored to his dog. Through the air filter I could hear him: “What is it, Old Boy? Tell me. You can tell me.” Then, unexpectedly, he invited me to join them for their walk. It was strangely chilly, the first reminder of autumn, and my father had put on a ridiculous blue cap with a bill and earflaps and a baggy tan car coat that zipped up the front. Wherever we stopped we were enveloped in a cloak of sweet smoke, like the disguised king and his favorite who’ve slipped out of the palace to visit the peasants’ fair.

• From Hot Daddies: Gay Erotic Fiction (2011)

  A feeling of such safety came over me that I relaxed utterly. I felt like I had been holding my breath since the night my parents threw me away, and my terrors expelled in one puff. “Yes, Bottom, I’ll take care of you. I may be a demanding father, but I promise to protect you and keep you well—providing that you give yourself to me unreservedly.” His lubricated finger touched my asshole. I felt hot all over. Pop Tingle loved me, and he would take care of me. “I’m yours,” I breathed, and his finger twisted my asshole and slipped pleasantly into me. “Good choice, Bottom,” Mr. Jack said. Standing before my eyes while Pop Tingle finger-fucked my ass, Mr. Jack dropped his shirt on floor. He showed me the pride tattoo on his bicep. Then he pulled off his shoes and tight trousers, so I could see his golden thong underwear and the fuck-me tramp stamp on his lower back. Pop Tingle pulled his finger out of my ass and positioned himself between my spread calves. I could feel his thick cock pressing against my buttcrack. “Push your ass back, Bottom, and draw a deep breath. That’s it. Let it out. Another deep breath and push hard with your asshole. Push like you’re trying to push something out.” A rush of panic swept over me. Pop Tingle slapped my ass. “No, don’t tighten your sphincter. You’re not getting off this couch until you have my cum in your ass.” At that news, my facial expression must have been comical, because Mr. Jack chortled as he placed a towel on a chair, pulled down his thong, and sat to beat his meat while he watched me. “You’re Pop Tingle’s new fuck toy, Bottom,” Mr. Jack said. He spit into his hand and started jerking off. Mr. Jack had drawn my attention for a second, long enough for Pop Tingle to place the head of his cock against my asshole. I felt a tremendous pressure in my ass. “You’re a bottom,” Pop Tingle breathed in my ear. “Bottoms take it up the ass. Deep breaths. Push. Good. Now you’re taking it.” Pop Tingle pushed deep into me, pulled back, and thrust deeper. My mind was in a whirl. I was doing the very thing I’d vowed I would never do. What’s more, I was starting to like it. Warm, pleasant feelings swept through me. My cock had been soft, but it hardened as Pop Tingle fucked me and whispered strange suggestions into my ear. He told me that I was a gay boy, a queer, a faggot, a sodomite. None of those words sounded bad when he said them. When Pop Tingle told me that I was a fag, it rang of reassurance rather than censure. Mr. Jack was spanking his monkey feverishly while he sat witness to my anal initiation. He stroked his shaft and toyed with his dickhead.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Lionel thought of his knee. “That seems,” Lionel started to say, “I don’t know, Sophie. That seems. Bad.” Charles put on his hat and pulled the door open. “You don’t have to,” Lionel said. “Jesus Christ. Nobody’s going to make you suck their dick. I can drive you,” Charles said. He nudged Lionel toward the door, and Sophie called after them. “Lionel, your manners,” she said. • • • He was right about the air being comforting. There was so much cold black air that he could scarcely imagine a time when it wasn’t this way, when winter wasn’t this deep. He inhaled. Charles was stomping out ahead of him. “I’m sorry,” Lionel said. “You really don’t have to drive me.” Charles stopped and turned. He wet his lips, though they dried immediately in the cold. “I don’t get you,” he said. “I don’t get you.” “What’s to get?” Charles stared at him in open amazement, and Lionel felt a little rush of pride. “Right,” he said. Back to stomping in the cold. He could be so childish. Lionel jogged a little bit to catch up to him. He playfully bumped their shoulders together. “Come on,” Lionel said. “Come on,” Charles mocked, but he was thawing. They were tracing the route back to campus, which meant that Lionel could see the mountain of warm air over the trees. It hadn’t moved despite having earlier given the impression of moving toward them. Or perhaps this was a second mountain, a second wave of warm air pushed up out of the silos in the distance. “Why do you keep looking over there?” Charles asked. “What’s over there?” “Oh, I like the way the warm air looks,” Lionel said. “Like a mountain.” “What mountain?” Charles asked. The mountains of Tennessee. Math camp, yes, the sound of rain striking the tin of the outhouses. The perfect, succulent light of late summer in the cabins, riddled with dust motes. Running between the trees. Rain, so much rain. Their papers covered in scrawl, their handwriting silly, messy. The trim beards of the counselors. Their warm hands steering Lionel, age five, a scraped knee on the gravel path, down to the canoes, where they were forbidden to go. Ben Tovelson, nineteen, bearish, kind, green, winking eyes, showing Lionel how to write his name in the dust with piss. The damp wet of his mouth on Lionel, down there. No. Another way. Another memory. The vacations he had taken with his parents. The damp, chuffing sounds of their arguments trailing into throaty moans when they thought he was asleep. The soft rustle of the nylon sleeping bag. The cold enamel of the cups. The crack of the branches in the fire.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  I see you and Charlie made up, though.” She propped her chin on her hand. Charlie. “Yeah,” Lionel said. “We’re old buddies now.” Sophie’s face shifted subtly under the porch light, like a figure from myth or a trailer for an ominous horror movie. Charles leaned forward on the stool and braced his arms on the banister. In the yard, the others had begun to spin in slow circles with their heads back and their arms out in Christ pose. “He’s good at enjoying himself,” Sophie said. “I’m afraid I’m out of my depth. Or maybe I’m too drunk to have this conversation.” “I just mean—he isn’t always considerate of other people.” She was amused as she said it, and Lionel relaxed. They squeezed together against the side of the house. Lionel felt he could breathe again. Sophie offered him her cup, and when Lionel hesitated, she clarified, “Water.” “In that case,” Lionel said. The lukewarm water tasted vaguely like beer—someone had done a pretty halfhearted job of rinsing the cup out before refilling it or had simply refilled it without rinsing it at all. But he was aware, the moment he took the first sip, that he was powerfully, endlessly thirsty. He couldn’t stop drinking. The water passed through his mouth and down the back of his throat, where it dissolved into nothing. He kept drinking to satisfy his dry tongue, and before he knew it, he had drunk all of Sophie’s water. She looked at him in a way that was either impressed or annoyed. “Sorry.” “The hour of thirst is upon us.” Lionel offered to replenish the cup, but she shrugged and said it was fine. She’d brought a lightweight blanket out on the porch and draped it over their legs. “I’m sorry if I was being bitchy before,” she said. “In the kitchen.” “You weren’t.” “I was, but thank you. I just hate when people lie about how they feel.” “You must be bitchy all the time, then.” “I consider myself an honest person.” “It must be nice to have a robust sense of yourself.” Lionel could feel through the house siding the pressure of Sophie’s head turning toward him. He could tell, too, from the subtle realigning of her shoulder against his arm. “Now, that was a bitchy thing to say.” “It’s been a long few weeks,” he said. A kind of heat passed between them. Some kind of animal recognition. Sophie’s eyes were blue. She had bleached hair, but it was luminous and healthy- looking. Her mouth was full and soft, and she had a small scar on her chin. It was an unfamiliar sensation—or, no, it was familiar, but not one he was accustomed to feeling toward women.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  To be sure there had been earlier unashamed gay novels published in the 1970s (I’d even written one), but surprisingly few of them had been consecrated to childhood and adolescence, even though “coming out” was the quintessential rite of passage in gay life and the one story every lesbian and gay man had perfected and had frequently recited, often as pillow talk. Since homosexuals are never brought up to be gay and discover their sexual identity and declare it (at least to themselves) at a precise moment in their lives, the first time has become a sacrosanct topic in gay life. There’s always the moment (usually just after sex) when a new partner asks, “So, when did you first figure out you were gay?” In America the coming-out story can be harrowing. Since the 1950s when I first started listening to variations on this theme until now, a half century later, I’ve heard so many stories of parental brutality, corporeal punishment, schoolyard bullying, threats of excommunication and damnation from priests and preachers, prolonged programs of re-conditioning and corrective therapy from psychologists—so many tales of self-imposed chastity, of alcoholism, failed heterosexual marriages, mental illness, self-hatred. Some of the stories are also very sexy. There have been stories of horny neighbor boys, of pajama parties, of college roommates, of drunken avowals and passionate clenches. And there have been stories of love and fellowship, of genuine caring and intimacy. And the one thing that almost all these stories share is a strong and spontaneous feeling of release: ah, this is what I was destined to do. The term “coming out” covers several quite different stages in an individual’s evolution. It can mean admitting to oneself that one is attracted to members of the same sex. It can mean the first homosexual contact and adventure. Or it can mean telling someone else—a sibling, a friend, a parent. Finally, it can mean a full and public commitment to living openly as a gay person.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  But one night I soared. My brain, which ordinarily had too much resonance in it so that every thought boomed and echoed muzzily without definition, tonight had acquired an acoustical sharpness; I could actually hear my thoughts as they rose and fell. And it seemed I hovered energetically over myself, ready to play my mind as a nervous but competent pianist might do, fingers flexing hungrily above the keys. But the real difference was one of attitude: I’d decided to take the very futility I so often felt, the vacant hum, the sense of subsisting outside whatever was vibrant and to equate precisely this secular emptiness with the sacred void, to make of my shame a jewel, to call my poverty wealth. If most of the time I saw myself as my sister’s despicable little brother, the nerd who smelled bad and walked and talked funny, tonight I stumbled on the happy idea of, yes, redefining this same insufficiency as a proof of salvation: the famous emptiness of the Buddha. Of course I admitted that Nirvana was rest and what I knew was torment, that Gautama wanted nothing and I everything, that I was crawling with desire—but couldn’t this very excruciation reverse itself and suddenly become peace? Once I accepted my extravagant mendicancy I stumbled upon the sober, intelligent little boy I had once been. This was the kid with the sweet smile and an interest in all sorts of things, the boy with brushed hair and cloudless eyes, the child so whole he could forget himself: the birthday boy. Tonight as I sat cross-legged on my cot I could see shining out from within me that boy who’d been entranced by the marionette show: his smaller, sweeter body burned through this neglected exile I’d become. Or was I simply at fifteen learning to love myself at four as now so many years later I like the fifteen-year-old (even desire him), self-approval never accompanying but always trailing experience, retrospection three parts sentimental and one part erotic? Perhaps this composite self, older cherishing younger, provided me with some companionship. At least tonight my attention wasn’t out wandering the corridors. A warmth welled up out of the solar plexus, which, true to its name, I pictured as plaited sunlight, sensitive bands reaching out into the most remote points of my body, even the cold tip of my nose and freezing toes. Like a heated square of pavement in an otherwise snowy sidewalk, the child burned through the adolescent and, luminous within the child, glowed this shifting cat’s cradle of sensation, whether spiritual or physical I’m unable to say.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  Along with his cowboy clothes he had taken up a gentle Western manner. No longer did he inveigh against Jews in high finance, he no longer denounced our idiot teachers, parents, classmates, the entirely barbaric hemisphere we were unfortunate enough to have been born on. The Juliette Greco record had been banished in favor of one by the black folk singer Odetta. Howie himself had taken up the guitar and he favored the old songs of the IWW period. His change in height had led to a change of wardrobe that had in turn inspired a change in his politics. No longer did he pore over hagiographies of the Führer; now he was reading Emma Goldman’s Living My Life. And this change was as temperamental as ideological, for suddenly he seemed sensitive to the labor of the many gardeners and cooks and janitors at Eton who were always in the background of everyone’s snapshots and who maintained the miles and miles of grounds. We’d stroll past a frosted-over greenhouse on a cold November afternoon and through the cloudy glass we’d see the Scottish gardeners hovering and stretching and reaching as they bedded down bulbs for the winter or repotted plants or misted giant tropical ferns, and Howie would start grumbling about the unfairness of things: “Why should they have to work so hard to make things beautiful for us?” I felt like pointing out that a gardener’s life was pleasantly varied by the seasons and offered chances for self-expression and in any event was a skilled craft, but Howie’s sympathy for what he called “the poor” came as such a welcome relief to last year’s fascism that I scarcely wanted to discourage it. Any sign of suffering moved Howie, even to the point of tears. He was also treating me with kindness and for the first time was willing to listen to me when I talked about my shrink or my homosexuality or my infatuation with the Scotts, although he was dubious about most of my enthusiasms. He thought psychoanalysis was a terrible waste of money and breath. As for homosexuality, he didn’t know what to think about it. Last year he had told me with a saurian little smile that the Führer had liquidated Ernst Röhm for his “inversion.” But now all of Howie’s views were becoming mammalian. I saw that the anger and hauteur of the past, which I’d accepted without interpreting, had been merely a counterpart to his isolation and the terrible shame he’d felt about the way he looked. If he couldn’t participate in the festivities of friendship and romance, then he’d burn the tents and poison the wells.

• From Hot Daddies: Gay Erotic Fiction (2011)

  I’m on the road now. We’ve said our good-byes. God knows when we’ll meet again or what’ll happen next. Maybe Bob will get tired of me coming home all beat up, ask me to move out. I suspect he’s already sick of how little sex we have, and I am too. Maybe Dad will find a full-time boy, fall in love, move away. Maybe Dad and I will end up together. Who the hell knows? If being tied up and tortured has taught me anything, it’s to live in my body as much as I can, focus on the present, not dwell on what I can’t change or control. Today the maple leaves are orange and red, the coves are white with mist, and the wet fields streaming by either side the road are steaming in the sun. I roll down the truck-window to feel autumn air on my face. I turn on the radio—that hot Zac Brown’s singing “Free.” Today, that’s how I feel, thanks to Dad, thanks to the bruises on my back and butt. I’m young and clean and light and free. I’m that dew-glitter on the pasture grass, on the verge of evaporating, ready to rise into the sun. FATHER AND SON TAG TEAM (THAT SUMMER! THAT CAMP! THAT COUSIN!) Jack Fritscher I woke up in this story suckling his big dick. When you’re eighteen and still in your wonder years, like I was that summer of 2001, you do strange things in your sleep, like kick off all the sheets and dream buck naked with your prick up hard as the flashlight you hide to read porn at night under the blankets. Older counselors like Taggart, who was nineteen-plus (as in plus ten inches), love to pull tricks on younger guys. You know, when you’re out playing counselor at some Camp Gitchygoomee and it’s the last week of the season, after all the campers have packed up their sweaty jockstraps and nylon Speedos and headed back home. I missed some of them: the best of the cool young dudes all tanned and buffed and trained for their football, wrestling and swimming teams back home. The camp was deserted. Quiet. More beautiful than ever. We had maybe a week’s more work to do. Almost alone. Me and Tag. I kept sucking, my eyes tightly closed, pretending I was asleep. I felt Tag’s big blond thighs straddling my chest. Maybe I was dreaming. All summer long, I’d lusted after him. He was a diver, six-two,185, lean-muscled and handsome. A dreamboat. When he practiced his approaches on the diving board, his long defined toes striding the length to the tip where he bounced up and down on the edge, my eyes never left his crotch, the tight wet, big bulge of his red trunks, the famous nylon Speedos I once stole and sniffed and shoved into my mouth to suck out the taste of his big cock.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  When morning was come, and that I was well reposed by the softness of the bed, I rose up lustily. In the mean season I heard them which watched about the chamber all night reason with themselves in this sort: “ Verily,” quoth one, “I think the ass be still raving.” “So think not," quoth another, * For the outrageous poison of madness hath killed him." But being thus in divers opinions, they determined to put them to the test and looked through a crevice, and espied me standing still, sober and quiet, in the middle of the chamber; and then they opened the doors and came towards me to prove whether I were gentle or no. Amongst whom there was one, which in my opinion was sent from heaven to save my life, that put forward a proof to see whether I were sane: and he willed the others to set a basin of fair water before me, and thereby they should know whether I were mad or no, for if I did drink without fear, as I accustomed to do, it was a sign that I was whole and free of all disease, where contrary if I did fly and abhor the sight and taste of the water, it was an evident proof of my continued madness; which thing he said that he had read in ancient and credible books. Whereupon they agreed thereto and took a basin of clear water from a spring hard by and presented it before me, hesitating and delaying still; but I, as soon as I perceived the wholesome water of my salvation, ran incontinently and, thrusting my head into the basin, drank all that water, that was truly water of salvation to me, as though I had been greatly athirst. Then did I suffer them to stroke me with their hands, and to bow my ears, and to take me by the halter and aught 405 LUCIUS APULEIUS clitantium placide patiebar, quoad contra vesanam eorum praesumptionem modestiam meam liquido cunctis approbarem. Ad istum modum vitato duplici periculo, die sequenti rursum divinis exuviis onustus cum crotalis et cymbalis cireumforaneum mendica- bulum producor ad viam. Nee paucis casulis atque castellis oberratis devertimus ad quempiam pagum urbis opulentae quondam, ut memorabant incolae, inter semiruta vestigia conditum, et hospitio proxumi stabuli recepti cognoscimus lepidam de adulterio cuiusdam pauperis fabulam, quam vos etiam cogno- scatis volo. 5 Is gracili pauperie laborans fabriles operas prae- bendo parvis illis mercedibus vitam tenebat. Erat ei tamen uxorcula etiam, satis quidem tenuis et ipsa, verum tamen postrema lascivia famigerabilis. Sed die quadam dum matutino ille ad opus susceptum proficiscitur, statim latenter irrepit eius hospitium temerarius adulter: ac dum Veneris colluctationibus securius operantur, maritus ignarus rerum ac nihil etiam tum tale suspicans improvisus hospitium repetit. Iamque clausis et obseratis foribus uxoris laudata continentia ianuam pulsat, sibilo etiam praesentiam suam denuntiante : tune mulier callida et ad huius- 1 Vesana praesumptio has a double meaning which it is

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  So think I (quoth another) for the outragious poyson of madness hath killed him, but being thus in divers opinions of a poore Ass, they looked through a crevis, and espied me standing still, sober and quiet in the middle of the chamber; then they opened the doores, and came towards me, to prove whether I were gentle or no. Amongst whom there was one, which in my opinion, was sent from Heaven to save my life, that willed the other to set a bason of faire water before me, and thereby they would know whether I were mad or no, for if I did drinke without feare as I accustomed to do, it was a signe that I was whole, and in mine Assie wits, where contrary if I did flie and abhorre the tast of the water, it was evident proofe of my madness, which thing he said that he had read in ancient and credible books, whereupon they tooke a bason of cleere water, and presented it before me: but I as soone as I perceived the wholesome water of my life, ran incontinently, thrusting my head into the bason, drank as though I had beene greatly athirst; then they stroked me with their hands, and bowed mine eares, and tooke me by the halter, to prove my patience, but I taking each thing in good part, disproved their mad presumption, by my meeke and gentle behaviour: when I was thus delivered from this double danger, the next day I was laded againe with the goddesse Siria, and other trumpery, and was brought into the way with Trumpets and Cymbals to beg in the villages which we passed by according to our custome. And after that we had gone through a few towns and Castles, we fortuned to come to a certaine village, which was builded (as the inhabitants there affirme) upon the foundation of a famous ancient Citie. And after that we had turned into the next Inne, we heard of a prettie jest committed in the towne there, which I would that you should know likewise.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  Whereupon (I know not whether it was by my fall, or by the great cry of the Hostler) Socrates as waking out of sleepe, did rise up first and sayd, It is not without cause that strangers do speake evill of all such Hostlers, for this Catife in his comming in, and with his crying out, I thinke under a colour to steale away something, hath waked me out of a sound sleepe. Then I rose up joyfull with a merry countenance, saying, Behold good Hostler, my friend, my companion and my brother, whom thou didst falsly affirme to be slaine by mee this might. And therewithall I embraced my friend Socrates and kissed him: but hee smelling the stinke of the pisse wherewith those Hagges had embrued me, thrust me away and sayd, Clense thy selfe from this filthy odour, and then he began gently to enquire, how that noysome sent hapned unto mee. But I finely feigning and colouring the matter for the time, did breake off his talk, and tooke him by the hand and sayd, Why tarry we? Why lose wee the pleasure of this faire morning? Let us goe, and so I tooke up my packet, and payed the charges of the house and departed: and we had not gone a mile out of the Towne but it was broad day, and then I diligently looked upon Socrates throat, to see if I could espy the place where Meroe thrust in her sword: but when I could not perceive any such thing, I thought with my selfe, What a mad man am I, that being overcome with wine yester night, have dreamed such terrible things? Behold I see Socrates is sound, safe and in health. Where is his wound? Where is the Sponge? Where is his great and new cut? And then I spake to him and said, Verily it is not without occasion, that Physitians of experience do affirme, That such as fill their gorges abundantly with meat and drinke, shall dreame of dire and horrible sights: for I my selfe, not tempering my appetite yester night from the pots of wine, did seeme to see this night strange and cruel visions, that even yet I think my self sprinkled and wet with human blood: whereunto Socrates laughing made answer and said, Nay, thou art not wet with the blood of men, but art embrued with stinking pisse; and verily I dreamed that my throat was cut, and that I felt the paine of the wound, and that my heart was pulled out of my belly, and the remembrance thereof makes me now to feare, for my knees do so tremble that I can scarce goe any further, and therefore I would faine eat somewhat to strengthen and revive my spirits.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  and who he was, came to the doors where we were, and in a loud voice exhorted our host that it were better to deliver up my master than to incur pain of death; for most certainly he was hiding us. Howbeit, these threatenings could not enforce him to confess that he was within his doors, and he was nothing afraid, but by reason of his faithful promise, and for the safeguard of his friend, he said that he knew naught of us, nor saw he the gardener a great while. The soldiers said contrary, swearing by the deity or the Emperor that he lay there, and nowhere else. Whereby, to know the. verity of the matter, the magistrates commanded their serjeants and ministers to search every corner of the house; but there they could find nobody, neither gardener nor ass. Then was there a great contention between the soldiers and our host, for they said we were within the house, “calling often upon Caesar in their oaths; and he' said no, and swore much and: often by all the gods to the same intent, But I, that was an ass very curious and restless in my nature, when I heard so great a noise craned my neck and put my head out of a little window to learn what the stir and tumult did signify. It fortuned that one of the soldiers, spying about, perceived my shadow, where- upon he began to cry, saying that he had certainly seen me: then they were all glad and a great shouting arose, and they brought a ladder and. came up into the chamber and pulled me down like a prisoner ; and when they had found me, they doubted nothing of the gardener, but seeking about more narrowly, at length they found him couched in a chest. And sothey brought out the poor gardener to the justices, who was committed immediately to prison, in order that he might suffer the pain of j 469 LUCIUS APULEIUS capite pensurum in publicum deducunt carcerem, summoque risu meum prospectum cavillari non de- sinunt. Unde etaim de prospectu et umbra asini natum est frequens proverbium. SL nuper. ke Sew Bel QISOWUOE 1 Apuleius has here combined two Greek proverbs of con- siderably greater antiquity than his story, é£ üvov mapaxtWews and jmép bvou cxiás. The first is variously explained. There is a tale that a donkey broke some vessels in a potter's shop by going to look out of the window; the potter sued its master for damages, and when asked by the magistrate the subject of his complaint, answered “ of the peeping of an 470 THE GOLDEN ASS, BOOK IX death; but they could never forbear laughing and jesting how I looked out from my window: from which, and from my shadow, is risen the common proverb of the peeping and shadow of an ass.!

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  They’d survived the stormy seas of Frekki and Mike Monsky, at least for today. “Are we going to tell Nana about this?” Miri asked. “When the time is right,” Rusty said. “What do you think she’ll say?” Henry answered. “I think she’ll say it’s a good thing for a girl to know her father so she can make up her own mind about him.” Mike MonskyHe wasn’t sure he should have let his sister talk him into this. She was a bossy big sister when he was a kid and she was still a bossy big sister, a bossy wife, too, he was betting. He was sure the good doctor who’d married her didn’t know what he was in for. And now, J. J. Strasser wasn’t thrilled about complicating his life with Frekki’s long-lost brother or some recently found niece. That was pretty clear. But Frekki had some nutty idea this daughter of his had to be rescued, from what he didn’t know. He’d made the right decision staying on the West Coast after the war, marrying Adela. So he’d told a little white lie to the rabbi this morning about how she’d converted and how they were raising their boys in the Jewish faith. As if his in-laws would have gone for that. It was bad enough when their only daughter was marrying a Jew. And the Jew was going to be working in the family business. But okay, according to his father-in-law he was a good-looking guy. You couldn’t tell he was a Jew from just looking, and his own son had been Mike’s shipmate in the Pacific. That counted for something, didn’t it? That he’d even made it into the navy, which didn’t favor Jews, was, in itself, a statement. This was no pasty-faced faggot who’d tried to get out of serving his country. As long as he, Rufus Collingwood, didn’t have to meet Mike’s family—and thank god he’d already changed his name to Monk. Mr. Collingwood had said this to Mike, face-to-face, man-to-man. No problem there. Mike had told Frekki he and Adela had eloped, when the truth was they’d had two hundred to a sit-down dinner with dancing at the country club. Where he, Michael Monk, was now a member. Mike and Frekki had grown up in the Weequahic section of Newark. In high school he was Mr. Popularity. The girls loved him. As a student, just so-so. Still, he’d gone to Rutgers, played basketball, joined Phi Ep, where he’d met Rusty at a party in February of his junior year. He fell for her before they’d exchanged two words. Hell, who wouldn’t have fallen for her? She looked like a movie star, maybe Rita Hayworth with green eyes. Had he ever met a girl with green eyes? He didn’t think so. She was tall and lanky. But he was cocky, came on too strong, scared her off. She was just a senior in high school while he was a BMOC.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  Miri had had Sunday dinners at The Tavern with Natalie and her family more times than she could count. She knew what they would order before they even sat down. Corinne, Natalie and Fern would start with consommé and they’d slice dill pickles into it. Slicing dill pickles into chicken soup struck Miri as disgusting but Natalie swore it was delicious. Every time Natalie said, Have a taste, Miri would say, No thanks. Miri supposed dill pickles in chicken soup was another tradition Corinne had brought with her from Birmingham, Alabama, like the Jewish Santa. Probably Tewky Purvis sliced dill pickles into his consommé, too. When Irene had asked Rusty about the New Year’s Eve party, Rusty told her Tewky was the best dancer she’d ever danced with. “A lovely man.” Irene brightened. “And…you’re going to see him again?” “He lives in Birmingham, Alabama. His family owns a bank there.” “A bank!” Irene sang. “So what’s a few miles between friends?” “Unfortunately, he’s a confirmed bachelor.” Irene paused. “He told you so?” “He did.” “Did you ever hear that meeting the right girl can change all that?” “I’ve heard it but I don’t believe it.” A confirmed bachelor? So Natalie was right. He was never getting married. Well, that was a relief. At 4 p.m. the line to get a table at The Tavern was already long, extending down Elizabeth Avenue all the way past the Krich-Radisco building, where Fern would tilt her head back to see her reflection in the mirrored overhead. Families laughed and talked while waiting as if the wait were part of the whole experience, even in winter. Rumor had it the only person who never had to wait was Longy Zwillman. No one complained about that, either, at least not to the owner, Sam Teiger. They all wanted to stay on Sam Teiger’s good side. Not that Miri had ever laid eyes on Longy, but she listened when his name came up. Miri introduced Leah to the Osners. “We’re celebrating our engagement today,” Leah said, holding up her hand as if she couldn’t believe it was her hand, with polished fingernails, a white orchid wrist corsage and, to top it all off, the ring. Corinne called the ring a truly elegant heirloom piece. Leah looked pleased. “Yes,” she said. “It is, isn’t it? Thank you so much.” “It was my grandmother’s,” Miri told Natalie. Natalie said, “My mother wears my grandmother’s ring, too. But she had the diamond reset to look more modern.” Miri would never change Irene’s ring. She hoped Leah wouldn’t, either. After forty-five minutes of waiting outside in the cold, they made it to the heated vestibule of the restaurant, where they shed their winter coats. Ben Sapphire helped Irene out of her Persian lamb, worn only on special occasions. Miri had always liked the way it smelled from the cold. When she was little she once napped on it at a family party.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  But the Physitian perceiving that he was rayled at and his words denyed, did never cease to confirme his sayings, and to disprove the varlet, till such time as the Officers by the commandment of the Judges, bound his hands and brought out the seale, wherewith he had sealed the purse which augmented suspition which was conceived of him first. Howbeit, neither the feare of the wheele or any other torment according to the use of the Grecians, which were ready prepared, no, nor yet the fire could enforce him to confesse the matter, so obstinate and grounded was he in his mischievous mind. But the Physitian perceiving that the menaces of these torments did nothing prevaile, gan say: I cannot suffer or abide that this young man who is innocent, should against all law and conscience, be punished and condemned to die, and the other which is culpable, should escape so easily, and after mocke and flowte at your judgement: for I will give you an evident proofe and argument of this present crime. You shall understand, that when this caytiffe demanded of me a present and strong poyson, considering that it was not my part to give occasion of any others death, but rather to cure and save sicke persons by meane of medicines: and on the other side, fearing least if I should deny his request, I might minister a further cause of his mischiefe, either that he would buy poyson of some other, or else returne and worke his wicked intent, with a sword or some dangerous weapon, I gave him no poyson, but a doling drinke of Mandragora, which is of such force, that it will cause any man to sleepe as though he were dead. Neither is it any marvaile if this most desperate man, who is certainly assured to be put to death, ordained by an ancient custome, can suffer and abide these facill and easie torments, but if it be so that the child hath received the drinke as I tempered it with mine owne hands, he is yet alive and doth but sleepe, and after his sleepe he shall returne to life againe, but if he be dead indeed, then may you further enquire of the causes of his death. The opinion of this ancient Physitian was found good, and every man had a desire to goe to the Sepulchre where the child was layd; there was none of the Justices, none of any reputation of the towne, nor any of the common people, but went to see this strange sight.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  In the mean season he was delivered to the hands of the executioner. But there arose a sage and ancient Physitian, a man of a good conscience and credit throughout all the City, that stopped the mouth of the pot wherein the stones were cast, saying: I am right glad ye reverend judges, that I am a man of name and estimation amongst you, whereby I am accompted such a one as will not suffer any person to be put to death by false and untrue accusations, considering there hath bin no homicide or murther committed by this yong man in this case, neither you (being sworn to judge uprightly) to be misinformed and abused by invented lyes and tales. For I cannot but declare and open my conscience, least I should be found to beare small honour and faith to the Gods, wherefore I pray you give eare, and I will shew you the whole truth of the matter. You shall understand that this servant which hath merited to be hanged, came one of these dayes to speake with me, promising to give me a hundred crownes, if I would give him present poyson, which would cause a man to dye suddenly, saying, that he would have it for one that was sicke of an incurable disease, to the end he might be delivered from all torment, but I smelling his crafty and subtill fetch, and fearing least he would worke some mischiefe withall, gave him a drinke; but to the intent I might cleare my selfe from all danger that might happen, I would not presently take the money which he offered. But least any of the crownes should lacke weight or be found counterfeit, I willed him to scale the purse wherein they were put, with his manuell signe, whereby the next day we might goe together to the Goldsmith to try them, which he did; wherefore understanding that he was brought present before you this day, I hastily commanded one of my servants to fetch the purse which he had sealed, and here I bring it unto you to see whether he will deny his owne signe or no: and you may easily conject that his words are untrue, which he alleadged against the young man, touching the buying of the poyson, considering hee bought the poyson himselfe. When the Physitian had spoken these words you might perceive how the trayterous knave changed his colour, how hee sweat for feare, how he trembled in every part of his body: and how he set one leg upon another, scratching Ibis head and grinding his teeth, whereby there was no person but would judge him culpable. In the end, when he was somewhat returned to his former subtility, he began to deny all that was said, and stoutly affirmed, that the Physitian did lye.

• From The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us (2023)

  And interestingly, one aspect of Deenie —by far the book’s most controversial plotline—they barely touched at all. Chapter Nine Masturbation “I rubbed and rubbed until I got that good feeling.” Like many adolescents, Deenie has a secret. Or maybe “secret” isn’t the right word. Deenie has a private ritual, something she does when she can’t sleep. She doesn’t know why, but it makes her feel better. Touching her “special place” helps stave off her worries. Or, as she puts it, “I have this special place and when I rub it I get a very nice feeling.” Let’s be clear—until Deenie , girls didn’t masturbate in children’s literature. Inventive, now classic characters like Pippi Longstocking and Ramona Quimby were zany and unpredictable, but they certainly never told us where their hands wandered when they were alone. Even now, the mention of self-pleasure in a young adult book is enough to get it yanked from school libraries. Sherman Alexie’s terrific, award-winning 2007 novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian brings up masturbation within the first thirty pages: “If there were a Professional Masturbators League, I’d get drafted number one and make millions of dollars,” the fourteen-year-old narrator Arnold Spirit Jr. jokes. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian has been banned over and over again, across the country, for years. And that’s male masturbation; examples of adolescent female masturbation in books for teenagers are still fewer and far between. Melissa Febos writes about discovering self-pleasure as a pre-teen in 2021’s Girlhood —an essay collection for adults—and even now, her words feel radical. “The first time I slid on my back to the bottom of the tub, propped my heels on the wall aside the faucet and let that hot water pummel me, I understood that to crack my own hull was a glory,” she remembers. “Alone I was both ship and sea, and I felt no shame, only the cascade of pleasure.” Over the course of Blume’s novel, there are three separate instances where Deenie refers to touching herself. In case there’s any question about what Blume means, she makes it crystal clear in a scene in the middle of the book, when Deenie attends a sex ed class at school. The gym teacher, responding to an anonymous question that Deenie wrote down and dropped in a box on her desk, tells the kids—and the readers—outright. “Does anyone know the word for stimulating our genitals?” the teacher, named Mrs. Rappoport, asks the class. When a student timidly offers up the answer “masturbation,” Mrs. Rappoport is enthusiastic, encouraging the group to all say it aloud in unison. “Now that you’ve said it,” she goes on, “let me try to explain. First of all, it’s normal and harmless to masturbate.” Deenie is relieved. After that, she’s happy to touch her special place as a way to de-stress.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  When they had air raid practice at night, when the sirens went off and they lowered their blackout curtains, Rusty would lie next to her in bed and tell her stories about Uncle Henry when he was a little boy. She’d always end by promising Miri the war could never come to Elizabeth and no enemy could harm them or any of America. Miri believed her until recently. The day Henry came back from the war was the happiest day of Miri’s life. —WHEN HENRY ORDERED broiled lobster, Alma surprised everyone by saying she’d have one, too. “My friend has a cottage in Maine and when I visited we bought lobsters right off the dock.” “I’ve never been to Maine,” Rusty said. “I highly recommend it,” Alma told her. Miri watched, fascinated, at the way Alma dissected her lobster, meticulously removing every bit of meat before eating a bite, dipping each piece into butter, uttering small sounds of satisfaction as she did. She was the last to finish her meal. As the waiter was clearing their plates, Miri saw a tall man come up to Dr. O. Dr. O jumped up from the table. The men shook hands warmly, the taller one squeezing Dr. O’s shoulder. Then Dr. O guided the tall man over to their table. “I’d like to introduce you to Henry Ammerman,” he said. “He’s been covering the crash for the Daily Post. He’s about to become famous.” “You should write for the Newark News, ” the tall man said. “You want an interview, I can set one up.” Then he put out his hand and introduced himself. “Abner Zwillman. Abe, to friends. Very pleased to meet you.” His suit and tie and polished shoes looked expensive. His dark hair was threaded with silver and slicked back. In his hand he held an unlit cigar. He looked around the table. “And who is this ravishing young lady?” Miri thought he was talking about her because of the young lady business—but then she realized he was focused on Rusty. “Rusty Ammerman,” Dr. O said, making introductions. “Henry’s lovely sister.” Abner/Abe took Rusty’s hand and kissed it. “Enchanté,” he said, making Rusty blush. “You know who that was?” Henry said to Rusty, when Abner/Abe was gone. “That was Longy Zwillman.” “Oh, my gosh,” Rusty said, blushing an even deeper shade of pink. “That was Longy? Longy kissed my hand?” “Yeah,” Henry said, “but that wasn’t all he was thinking of kissing.” “Henry, stop!” Rusty pretended to swat him with her pocketbook. Aunt Alma looked shocked. But not so shocked that she wouldn’t have liked a handsome man to be enchanté over her, too. Then the waiter arrived with a dessert tray. “Banana cream pie, coconut cream pie and The Tavern’s signature cheesecake, to die for.” They all protested. They were too full. But not for just a taste. Ben Sapphire poured the last bit of Champagne into his glass, stood up and made one last toast.

• From The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us (2023)

  Even in the anything-goes Big Apple, she saw that teenage girls were being taught about sex—“ ‘Say No,’ put a brake on his sexuality, don’t encourage”—in a way that stopped them from developing a healthy sense of agency and entitlement in their inevitable sexual encounters. “This was about, ‘you’re a victim, bad things will happen,’ ” Fine said. There was “no analysis of hetero male sexuality… they didn’t have to say ‘boys will be boys’ although that was in the air.” While male sexuality was being “normalized,” female sexuality was being erased. Fine, who published her findings in the Harvard Educational Review in 1988, argued that “the missing discourse of desire” contributed to the school’s high rates of teen pregnancy, which ultimately caused young mothers to drop out. She says that cutting a girl off from her own natural desire for pleasure can potentially mute her voice—and her ability to articulate her sexual needs—in harmful, enduring ways. “I just think people can’t say no if they can’t say yes,” Fine said. “Being able to assert a clear sense of desire, yearning, hope, aspiration, enables one to then articulate conditions under which [something is okay]—or a clear no.” This remains true for so many girls and women, who grow up in a world where “unacknowledged social ambivalence about female sexuality”—per Fine—has contributed to decades-long mixed messages about whether women should be hyper-sexed male fantasies, passive sex objects, or utterly sexless. But Deenie blazed an alternative trail. “I still go into classrooms where I’ll say the word ‘masturbation’ and kids will say, ‘I thought that’s something only boys do,’ ” said Rachel Lotus, an independent sex educator based in Brooklyn. “And I’m talking about kids who are on the precipice of puberty, who have maybe heard the word or heard the phrase ‘jerking off’ but they still believe that that is limited to people with penises only. So it’s a huge priority for me to name it, to normalize it, to talk about it being everybody’s right. Whether you do or you don’t is up to you, but it’s something that everybody can do and enjoy.” Lotus, who was forty-two at the time we spoke, recalled reading Deenie as a kid and feeling an enormous weight off her shoulders. “[The book] completely changed my understanding of everything and was a huge relief. I mean, huge. ‘Oh! There’s a word for this, other people do it?’ This isn’t weird or scary or shameful, it doesn’t need to be stigmatized.” She believes sex educators like her owe Judy an enormous debt. “I don’t think you’ll talk to any sex educator who doesn’t think that Judy Blume is the most badass, radical, incredibly brave author… Deenie is still, however many years later, still so radical for having that scene.” Chapter Ten Virginity “Nice girls didn’t go all the way.” Randy Blume was almost exactly the same age as Judy’s pre-teen characters; she was twelve when Deenie was published.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  At last they were gone. My father and stepmother were lighthearted with relief, as was I. My stepmother, ever fastidious, had found them almost savagely dirty and cited lots of evidence, beginning with pint bottles under the bed and ending with the used ear swabs smoldering in the bathroom ashtray. My father said they were all “screwballs” and their boys more fit for a reformatory than a house. And that Cork fellow talked too much about Commies, and drank too much and knew too little and seemed unstable; Dad thought Cork would not do well in business—nor did he, as it turned out. I said the sons struck me as “babyish.” My stepmother apologized to Katy for the rude guests and reported back to us that they had not left Katy a tip; my father recompensed her for the extra bother she’d been put to. Then we all rushed into solitude, my stepmother and I to our books and Dad to his puttering. My father now seemed to like me better. I might not be the son he thought he wanted, but I was what he deserved—someone patient, appreciative, as addicted to books as he was to work, as isolated by my loneliness as he was by his misanthropy, someone he could speak to only in the best if least direct way through the recorded concert that filled the house deep into the night, even until dawn. I was moved back into my room. We ate very late and gave ourselves to the sonorous, spacious night. My father did desk work. We were three dreamers, each musing happily in a different cubicle. The sound of the calculating machine, jumping on its metal wheels. The aroma of burning pine logs. The remarkable fairness and good humor with which the piano and clarinet took turns singing the melody. At last, the sweet smell of the pipe. My father was in the basement, which had been restored to his dog. Through the air filter I could hear him: “What is it, Old Boy? Tell me. You can tell me.”