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 In Search of Paul: How Jesus's Apostle Opposed Rome's Empire with God's Kingdom (2005)

  Therefore when we could bear it no longer, we decided to be left alone in Athens; and we sent Timothy, our brother and co-worker for God in proclaiming the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you for the sake of your faith, so that no one would be shaken by these persecutions. Indeed, you yourselves know that this is what we are destined for. In fact, when we were with you, we told you beforehand that we were to suffer persecution; so it turned out, as you know…. But Timothy has just now come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love. He has told us also that you always remember us kindly and long to see us—just as we long to see you. For this reason, brothers and sisters, during all our distress and persecution we have been encouraged about you through your faith. (1 Thess. 3:1–4, 6–7). That is a good example of Paul operating as the center of a network of co-workers. Timothy is “brother and co-worker for God,” not just for Paul, and he is sent to “strengthen and encourage you for the sake of your faith” and not just to see and report back. Their fidelity continued and Paul extols their continual faith even under persecution as now a model for both provinces: You became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. (1 Thess. 1:6–8) Earlier worry about their perseverance gave way to later enthusiasm for their strength. Recall, by the way, that Paul’s program concentrated especially on Roman provincial capitals as bases from which he and his co-workers could operate most widely, travel most swiftly, and influence the surroundings most effectively. Philippi and then Thessalonica. Athens and then Corinth. Persecution by Whom? We return once more to that basic problem of the Lukan Paul versus the Pauline Paul discussed in Chapter 1. As we saw there, Paul explained his Damascus flight as an escape from Nabatean civil power, but Luke detailed it as an escape from Jewish religious power. Our method is to accept Luke when he agrees with Paul, to omit Luke when he disagrees with Paul, to bracket Luke when he adds independent data that is theologically and tendentiously Lukan, but to accept such data cautiously and carefully when no such biases or prejudices are evident. And we have here a classic case where Luke’s Acts is both profoundly right and profoundly wrong at the same time. This is his account of Paul at Thessalonica:

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

  Oecolampadius: We, too, build on the Word of God, not on the fathers; but we appeal to them to show that we teach no novelties.874 Luther, pointing again his finger to the words on the table: This is our text: you have not yet driven us from it. We care for no other proof. Oecolampadius: If this is the case, we had better close the discussion. The chancellor exhorted them to come to an understanding. Luther: There is only one way to that. Let our adversaries believe as we do. The Swiss: We cannot. Luther: Well, then, I abandon you to God’s judgment, and pray that he will enlighten you. Oecolampadius: We will do the same. You need it as much as we. At this point both parties mellowed down. Luther begged pardon for his harsh words, as he was a man of flesh and blood. Zwingli begged Luther, with tearful eyes, to forgive him his harsh words, and assured him that there were no men in the world whose friendship he more desired than that of the Wittenbergers.875 Jacob Sturm and Bucer spoke in behalf of Strassburg, and vindicated their orthodoxy, which had been impeached. Luther’s reply was cold, and displeased the audience. He declared to the Strassburgers, as well as the Swiss, "Your spirit is different from ours."876 The Conference was ended. A contagious disease, called the English sweat (sudor Anglicus), which attacked its victims with fever, sweat, thirst, intense

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  It feels like he is propelling himself into me and I am too focused on not clumsily toppling over to really feel much excitement myself. It’s not unpleasant exactly, but it is decidedly athletic and more physical than erotic. Soon he wraps his arm around my waist from behind and flips me onto my back again, taking one of my legs high in the air and placing it on his shoulder and continuing his energetic penetration. A physical sensation builds in me quite suddenly and when I come a moment later, the tightening of my muscles is so intense that when they release, it feels like every single muscle in my body goes slack and I jolt upright, squeezing my legs tightly together to stop myself from peeing on his bed. I am appalled and too scared to see if I really did pee or if I just felt like I was going to, but he doesn’t seem to take notice. What just happened? I wonder with alarm. I felt absolutely nothing and then this? Did I not just pee in his bathroom ten minutes ago? On top of having to worry about sagging boobs and spider veins on my legs, am I now going to have to add incontinence to my list of middle-aged indignities? After subtly verifying that there is in fact not a wet spot on the sheets beneath me, I lie back and within seconds, he is inside me again, vigorously pumping. I feel like a contortionist, with my legs high in the air while he presses my thighs back even further toward my head. Suddenly, I feel so tired, physically spent. I don’t want to lie dormant like a rag doll, but I cannot match his vigor and size. I have, for better or for worse, been outmatched. When he closes his eyes, gasps and then collapses on top of me, I feel nothing so much as relief. He rolls off me, pulling off the used condom and disposing of it in the bathroom. When he returns, he lies next to me on the bed so that we are now both on our backs, staring up at the ceiling. “You’re quite flexible,” he says, smiling and glancing at me. “Clearly doing yoga or a lot of stretching.” “Nah, just having a lot of sex,” I say with a coy smile. “Ha, OK then. Speaking of a lot of sex, I haven’t told you about the sex party yet,” he says. “Oh yes, I’ve been waiting for a full report. Please start at the very beginning, when you walked in the door with your blue cashmere sweater. Was everyone else already naked?” “Not at all, in fact it kind of felt like a support group. We sat in a circle and went around the room saying what we wanted to get out of the night,” he says. “And when they said what they wanted, was it like a sharing circle?

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  With the 1650s we get a change: war and suffering are replaced by exhaustion and doubt, and the European mind seems to sicken of the unattainable objective, and focus on more mundane ends. There is a huge, long-delayed and grateful relaxation of the spirit, a dousing of angry embers. Anthony Wood, writing his diary from an Oxford coign of vantage, gives a sardonic picture of the university moving back, in the years 1660–1, from republican commonwealth to parliamentary monarchy, from the dominance of Calvinism to Anglican conformity. A century before, the fires had burned fiercely outside St John’s College. Now the atmosphere is low-key, a mere heightening of the customary struggle for places, fellowships and influence, the raucous exchange of abuse and insult, low japes and ribaldry. The age of the martyrs had ended, for a second time. Wood relates what happened when the triumphant Anglicans brought back vestments to the cathedral services. ‘On the night of 21 January 1661, some varlets of Christ Church’ took all the new surplices issued to the choristers, and threw them ‘in a common privy house belonging to Peckwater Quadrangle, and there with long sticks [did] thrust them downe into the excrements. The next day, being discovered, they were taken up and washed; but so enraged were the deane and canons, that they publickly protested, if they knew the person or persons that had committed that act, they not onlie would lose their places and be expelled the Universitie but also have their eares cut off in the market place. The Presbyterians were wonderfully pleased at this action, laughed heartily among themselves, and some in my hearing have protested that if they knew the person that did this heroick act they would convey to him an encouraging gratuity.’ Of course the instinct to insist on doctrinal purity, and indeed to persecute, was by no means dead. The official English 1662 Prayer Book offered few concessions to Puritan scruples; the Act of Uniformity emphasized the importance of the monarchical bishop; and the ‘Clarendon Code’ made life difficult for anyone who refused to accept the statutory brand of Christianity. Difficult; but not impossible. Anglicanism had, in effect, abandoned the effort to include all, and had accepted the notion of a dissenting body in its midst. The search for unity had ended in failure, and a plural society came into being. The drift from fanaticism was slow, but it was steady and ultimately irresistible. A grudging but increasing respect began to be paid to private opinion in religious matters. It was no longer contended, even in theory, that the prince determined all. The Peace of Westphalia, 1648, really marked the end of cuius regio, eius religio. When, in the 1680s, James II tried to steer England back to his Catholic faith, he was obliged to depart and was replaced by a parliamentary sovereign. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 plunged the Anglican Church into total ideological confusion, from which pure utilitarianism was the only possible egress.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I wasn’t sure how or when that was going to happen. But maybe it would if I continued to stay alive. “Forgive me,” I said. When I got back into the house, Steve was in the kitchen eating cereal again. He eyed me skeptically over his reading glasses. In front of him was the newspaper, with a headline that read FIRES IN THE VALLEY. “I made a mistake,” I said. He blinked and kept chewing. “I’m not going to leave yet after all.” “Is that so?” he asked. “Yes,” I said. He was silent. He rose and put his bowl in the sink. “Try not to bleed on anything,” he said, and shuffled up the stairs. It dawned on me that I hadn’t gotten my period in a while, not since Theo and I had bloodied the sofa. That was at least five weeks ago. Maybe I was hitting menopause? Did women hit menopause at thirty-eight? — I didn’t bother opening my suitcase, brushing my teeth, or washing my face. I stripped down to my underpants, braless, and climbed onto the sofa, snuggling up under the blanket. It was strange to be there without Dominic or Theo. Why could they never coexist in the same space, Theo with his fantasy love and Dominic with his pure love? Theo was so afraid of Dominic, how his pure love might hurt him or even eliminate him. I was afraid too, which was why I had chosen to hide him away. I had hoped that fantasy would triumph. Now I was left with neither. But I had my sister. In a way it was kind of nice to be alone. The euphoria was gone and the silence was gone—those were Theo’s. In his place, some of the nothingness had clearly returned. But I felt different about it, like it was laughing with me or maybe I with it. It was my own nothingness to have and to hold. In my mind I called it a fucker and turned off the light.

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

  It is a pleasant relief from these trials and puttings-to-death to find the University of Oxford in 1406 bearing good testimony to the memory of its maligned yet distinguished dead, placing on record its high sense of his purity of life, power in preaching and diligence in studies. But fragrant as his memory was held in Oxford, at least secretly, parliament was fixed in its purpose to support the ecclesiastical authorities in stamping out his doctrine. In 1414, it ordered the civil officer to take the initiative in ferreting out heresy, and magistrates, from the Lord chancellor down, were called upon to use their power in extirpating "all manner of heresies, errors and lollardies." This oath continued to be administered for two centuries, until Sir Edward Coke, Lord High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire, refused to take it, with the name Lollard included, insisting that the principles of Lollardy had been adopted by the Church of England.637 Archbishop Chichele seemed as much bent as his predecessor, Arundel, on clearing the realm of all stain of heresy. In 1416 he enjoined his suffragans to inquire diligently twice a year for persons under suspicion and, where they did not turn them over to the secular court, to commit them to perpetual or temporary imprisonment, as the nature of the case might require. It was about the same time that an Englishman, at the trial of Huss in Constance, after a parallel had been drawn between Wyclif’s views and those of the Bohemian, said, "By my soul, if I were in your place I would abjure, for in England all the masters, one after another, albeit very good men, when suspected of Wicliffism, abjured at the command of the archbishop."638 Heresy also penetrated into Scotland, James Resby, one of Wyclif’s poor priests, being burnt at Perth, 1407, and another at Glasgow, 1422. In 1488, a Bohemian student at St. Andrews, Paul Craw, suffered the same penalty for heresy.639 The Scotch parliament of 1425 enjoined bishops to make search for heretics and Lollards, and in 1416 every master of arts at St. Andrews was obliged to take an oath to defend the Church against them.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  She would think: ‘I must have been terribly mistaken,’ and would feel a great peace surge over her spirit. He might say, as they slowly jogged home to Morton: ‘Did you notice my youngster here take that stiff timber? Not bad for a five-year-old, he’ll do nicely.’ And perhaps he might add: ‘Put a three on that five, and then tell your old sire that he’s not so bad either! I’m fifty-three, Stephen, I’ll be going in the wind if I don’t knock off smoking quite soon, and that’s certain!’ Then Stephen would know that her father felt young, very young, and was wanting her to flatter him a little. But this mood would not last; it had often quite changed by the time that the two of them reached the stables. She would notice with a sudden pain in her heart that he stooped when he walked, not much yet, but a little. And she loved his broad back, she had always loved it—a kind, reassuring protective back. Then the thought would come that perhaps its great kindness had caused it to stoop as though bearing a burden; and the thought would come:’ He is bearing a burden, not his own, it’s some one else’s—but whose?’ CHAPTER 101C hristmas came and with it the girl’s eighteenth birthday, but the shadows that clung round her home did not lessen; nor could Stephen, groping about in those shadows, find a way to win through to the light. Every one tried to be cheerful and happy, as even sad people will do at Christmas, while the gardeners brought in huge bundles of holly with which to festoon the portraits of Gordons—rich, red-berried holly that came from the hills, and that year after year would be sent down to Morton. The courageous-eyed Gordons looked out from their wreaths unsmiling, as though they were thinking of Stephen. In the hall stood the Christmas-tree of her childhood, for Sir Philip loved the old German custom which would seem to insist that even the aged be as children and play with God on His birthday. At the top of the tree swung the little wax Christ-child in His spangled nightgown with gold and blue ribbons; and the little wax Christ-child bent downwards and sideways because, although small, He was rather heavy—or, as Stephen had thought when she too had been small, because He was trying to look for His presents.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  2There were times when their friendship seemed well-nigh perfect, the perfect thing that they would have it to be, and on such a day of complete understanding, Stephen suddenly spoke to Martin about Morton. They two were alone together in her study, and she said: ‘There’s something I want to tell you—you must often have wondered why I left my home.’ He nodded: ‘I’ve never quite liked to ask, because I know how you loved the place, how you love it still . . .’ ‘Yes, I love it,’ she answered. Then she let every barrier go down before him, blissfully conscious of what she was doing. Not since Puddle had left her had she been able to talk without restraint of her exile. And once launched she had not the least wish to stop, but must tell him all, omitting no detail save one that honour forbade her to give—she withheld the name of Angela Crossby. ‘It’s so terribly hard on Mary,’ she finished; ‘think of it, Mary’s never seen Morton; she’s not even met Puddle in all these years! Of course Puddle can’t very well come here to stay—how can she and then go back to Morton? And yet I want her to live with my mother . . . But the whole thing seems so outrageous for Mary.’ She went on to talk to him of her father: ‘If my father had lived, I know he’d have helped me. He loved me so much, and he understood—I found out that my father knew all about me, only—’ She hesitated, and then: ‘Perhaps he loved me too much to tell me.’ Martin said nothing for quite a long time, and when he did speak it was very gravely: ‘Mary—how much does she know of all this?’ ‘As little as I could possibly tell her. She knows that I can’t get on with my mother, and that my mother won’t ask her to Morton; but she doesn’t know that I had to leave home because of a woman, that I was turned out—I’ve wanted to spare her all I could.’ ‘Do you think you were right?’ ‘Yes, a thousand times.’ ‘Well, only you can judge of that, Stephen.’ He looked down at the carpet, then he asked abruptly: ‘Does she know about you and me, about . . .’ Stephen shook her head: ‘No, she’s no idea. She thinks you were just my very good friend as you are to-day. I don’t want her to know.’ ‘For my sake?’ he demanded. And she answered slowly: ‘Well, yes, I suppose so . . . for your sake, Martin.’ Then an unexpected, and to her very moving thing happened; his eyes filled with pitiful tears: ‘Lord,’ he muttered, ‘why need this have come upon you—this incomprehensible dispensation? It’s enough to make one deny God’s existence!’

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

  The imperialist party had elected an anti-pope, Gregory VIII., who was consecrated at Rome in the presence of Henry V., and ruled till 1121, but was taken captive by the Normans, mounted on a camel, paraded before Calixtus amid the insults and mockeries of the Roman mob, covered with dust and filth, and consigned to a dungeon. He died in an obscure monastery, in 1125, "still persevering in his rebellion." Such was the state of society in Rome. Calixtus II., the successor of Gelasius, 1119–1124, was elected at Cluny and consecrated at Vienne. He began his rule by renewing the sentence of excommunication against Henry; and in him the emperor found his match. After holding the Synod of Rheims, which ratified the prohibition of lay investiture, he reached Rome, 1120. Both parties, emperor and pope, were weary of the long struggle of fifty years, which had, like the Thirty Years’ War five centuries later, kept Central Europe in a state of turmoil and war. At the Diet of Würzburg, 1121, the men of peace were in the majority and demanded a cessation of the conflict and the calling of a council. Calixtus found it best to comply, however reluctantly, with the resolution of the German Diet, and instructed his legates to convoke a general council of all the bishops of France and Germany at Mainz for the purpose of restoring concord between the holy see and the empire. The assembly adjourned from Mainz to Worms, the city which became afterwards so famous for the protest of Luther. An immense multitude crowded to the place to witness the restoration of peace. The sessions lasted more than a week, and closed with a solemn mass and the Te Deum by the cardinal-bishop of Ostia, who gave the kiss of peace to the emperor. The Concordat of Worms was signed, Sept. 23, 1122. It was a compromise between the contending parties. It is the first of the many concordats which the popes have since that time concluded with various sovereigns and governments, and in which they usually make some concession to the civil power. If they cannot carry out their principle, they agree to a modus vivendi. The pope gained the chief point, namely, the right of investiture by delivery of the ring and crosier (the symbols of the spiritual power) in all the churches of the empire, and also the restoration of the properties and temporalities of the blessed Peter which had passed out of the possession of the holy see during the late civil wars.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  How quickly we can put ourselves back in order, I think. In the living room, I see my plate on the small foldout table, a few thin spears of asparagus lying dejectedly next to half a ball of hardened crab cake. He offers to pack the food up for me to take home and I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing – I have never been shown the door with more urgency. When he opens the front door to the brownstone, an older woman walking by pauses to look up at us. She shouts out a cheery hello and we wave back, for a fleeting moment the very picture of domestic bliss, then he bends down to give me a quick kiss and I am off. I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket and when I look, there are several missed calls and texts from Lauren. I call her back immediately. “Oh thank God! I’ve been panicking. I thought I would have heard from you by now,” she says. “OK, nervous Nellie. I’m fine, heading home,” I say. “Can I just say how stupid we are? I thought I was on the ball keeping track of you but you didn’t give me his address or phone number – not even his name – so I was trying to figure out how I was going to find you, call the police and say I’m looking for my girlfriend who is with #8 somewhere in Harlem? Next time I want an address,” she says. “Amateur hour,” I say, laughing. “You’d think we would be a little better at this by now.” And with that, I hop on the subway, heading back downtown. CHAPTER 41 G-spot For all the ways in which I’m getting a crash course in sexuality at this unexpected juncture in my life, I remain in the dark about why the G-spot is so elusive. It appears to me from women’s magazines that having your G-spot activated is like reaching the top of Mount Everest, a rare and inarguably lifelong achievement. Like the easily achieved orgasms I take for granted, I’m certain that my G-spot has gotten plenty of action, but I would be hard-pressed to describe it beyond the description I would give the intense pleasure of an orgasm.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I guess in an effort to turn me on he inserted two more fingers into my wilting vagina, banging them in and out. My labia burned but I was surprised to find that up inside me I was wet, as though I didn’t know I was turned on. Now the wetness began to come down onto my labia and clit. But he ignored my clit and just kept banging away. “Such a hot, tight, pink pussy,” he said. I didn’t know how he knew it was pink. He hadn’t even looked at it or licked it. “Let me fuck it. Please?” he said. “No,” I said. “Okay, then will you suck me? Just suck me a little,” he asked. “I want to see those hot old lips on my cock.” That was it. “You know what I think would be hot?” I asked. “What would do it for me? I want to watch you jerk off for a little.” He stopped finger fucking me and looked me in the eye. “Really?” “Oh, yeah. It’s the biggest turn-on. I wanna watch as you lie there and give yourself pleasure. Jerk that hot dick.” I don’t know where I was getting this from. When I was in my twenties I used to like to watch my boyfriend jerk off. But not this dude. I think I was just trying to get him to come, and get out of there without having to touch his weird pink dick and mismatched brown balls. Lying on his back, he complied and began to stroke it. I was just, like, “Oh yeah, baby, that’s it.” I thought about all this subterfuge, just to get out of a situation that I had put myself in. Technically I didn’t even need to do anything to get out of the situation except leave. He kept looking at me and I just wanted him to come quickly. Right before he spurted he asked if I could lick it. I told him no, then I wouldn’t be able to watch. When he was finished I said it was a hot experience, but I had to go home and feed Dominic and give him his medication. He said that he wanted to do something to me—that it shouldn’t just be him who got off. I told him that this was wonderful, really, and had been more than enough. Out on the street I felt free, strangely elated. It wasn’t just the joy of escaping him but the fact that I had come out pursued and wanted—something new after my pursuit of Jamie all winter. I hadn’t gotten three blocks when he texted me: u r amazing i’d love to do it again I didn’t respond, but kind of squealed.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Meanwhile, by August 1365, by which time the failed coup d’état of four years before had faded in the public memory, Boccaccio had returned to favour with the Florentine government, to the extent of being dispatched on an important mission to the papal court at Avignon. The purpose of his mission was to assure Urban V of Florence’s support and goodwill in the event of the papacy’s return to Italy, which in fact took place some two years later, on 9 June 1367. The Florentines had a reputation in papal circles for combining a surfeit of fine words with a disinclination to translate them into action, and it was part of Boccaccio’s mission to dispel the Pope’s understandable mistrust by offering a binding undertaking to provide five armed galleys and 500 helmeted soldiers as an escort for his journey from Avignon to Rome. So successfully did he accomplish his mission that when Urban V did return to Rome on 16 October 1367, after a temporary stay of four months in Viterbo, it was Boccaccio himself who, in November, was sent to convey Florence’s congratulations on his safe deliverance from what historians would thenceforth refer to as the papacy’s ‘Babylonian Captivity’, the term originally used to describe the seventy years that the Jews were captives in Babylon. Urban in fact returned in September 1370 to Avignon, where shortly afterwards he died, and it was left to his successor, Gregory XI, to effect the definitive end to the ‘Babylonian Captivity’ with his transfer of the papal court to Rome in January 1377. In addition to his two official missions to Urban V, Boccaccio undertook several other journeys in the last decade or so of his life. In the winter of 1361–2 he had returned for the last time to Ravenna under the shadow of some kind of personal misfortune, the nature of which is unknown. In March 1367 he set out from Florence for Venice in the hope of a further encounter with Petrarch, but the two men never met, as Petrarch was detained by illness in Pavia. Although Boccaccio was warmly received by the poet’s daughter, Francesca, who invited him to stay in her father’s house on the Riva degli Schiavoni, he lodged in fact with a Florentine acquaintance, Francesco Allegri, returning to Tuscany towards the end of June 1367. During the following winter he supervised preparations in Florence for the defence of the city against a threatened invasion by the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles IV, which never materialized. In July 1368 he met Petrarch for what was to be the last time, in Padua, whence he paid a further visit to Venice before returning to Tuscany in the early part of November of that year. In the winter of 1370–71 Boccaccio was once again, and for the last time, in the Kingdom of Naples, where he was more warmly received and entertained than at any time since his youthful sojourn there had come to an end in 1341. Of the numerous invitations he received to make his permanent home in Naples, none can have given him greater cause for satisfaction than the one he received from Queen Joanna herself. But he refused them all, on the grounds that he had already declined Petrarch’s pressing invitation to settle in Venice. Petrarch had now retired to the restful solitude of the Euganean hills, and it was with his example in mind that Boccaccio returned to Certaldo in the spring of 1371. There he carried out his final revisions of several of his Latin works, having already completed his sixteen Latin eclogues, Buccolicum carmen, between 1367 and 1369. And at some time during the years 1370–71 he had carefully revised and re-copied the text of the Decameron itself. The resulting manuscript, tampered with by other hands over the intervening centuries, has come down to us in the so-called Hamilton autograph 90, which is lodged in the Staats-bibliothek of Berlin.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  You must remember that we are all women, and every one of us is sufficiently adult to acknowledge that women, when left to themselves, are not the most rational of creatures, and that without the supervision of some man or other their capacity for getting things done is somewhat restricted. We are fickle, quarrelsome, suspicious, cowardly, and easily frightened; and hence I greatly fear that if we have none but ourselves to guide us, our little band will break up much more swiftly, and with far less credit to ourselves, than would otherwise be the case. We would be well advised to resolve this problem before we depart.’ Then Elissa said: ‘It is certainly true that man is the head of woman, 6 and that without a man to guide us it rarely happens that any enterprise of ours is brought to a worthy conclusion. But where are we to find these men? As we all know, most of our own menfolk are dead, and those few that are still alive are fleeing in scattered little groups from that which we too are intent upon avoiding. Yet we cannot very well go away with total strangers, for if self-preservation is our aim, we must so arrange our affairs that wherever we go for our pleasure and repose, no trouble or scandal should come of it.’ Whilst the talk of the ladies was proceeding along these lines, there came into the church three young men, 7 in whom neither the horrors of the times nor the loss of friends or relatives nor concern for their own safety had dampened the flames of love, much less extinguished them completely. I have called them young, but none in fact was less than twenty-five years of age, and the first was called Panfilo, the second Filostrato, and the last Dioneo. Each of them was most agreeable and gently bred, and by way of sweetest solace amid all this turmoil they were seeking to catch a glimpse of their lady-loves, all three of whom, as it happened, were among the seven we have mentioned, whilst some of the remaining four were closely related to one or other of the three. No sooner did they espy the young ladies than they too were espied, whereupon Pampinea smiled and said: ‘See how Fortune favours us right from the beginning, in setting before us three young men of courage and intelligence, who will readily act as our guides and servants if we are not too proud to accept them for such duties.’ Then Neifile, whose face had turned all scarlet with confusion since she was the object of one of the youth’s affections, said: ‘For goodness’ sake do take care, Pampinea, of what you are saying! To my certain knowledge, nothing but good can be said of any one of them, and I consider them more than competent to fulfil the office of which we were speaking.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  When they let him down, and the judge asked him whether the accusations brought against him were true, he replied, since a straight denial would have been useless: ‘Sir, I am ready to confess the truth. But make each of my accusers say when and where I cut his purse, and I will tell you whether or not I did it.’ ‘A good idea!’ said the judge, and he ordered several of them to be summoned. One of them claimed that his purse had been stolen a week before, another said six days, another four, and some of them said they had been robbed that very day. Whereupon Martellino retorted: ‘Sir, they are all a lot of bare-faced liars, and I can prove it to you, because I only arrived in this city for the first time a couple of hours ago. I wish to God I had never set foot in it at all! As soon as I arrived, I went to have a look at the body of this Saint, where I had the ill-luck to be given a good drubbing, as you can see for yourself. Ask the customs officer at the city gates, consult his register, ask my landlord, and they will all bear out what I have

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  In the cabin, I smooth new sheets on Georgia’s bed and direct Michael with short and sharp words. We take pictures of her in her pastel tie-dyed sundress in front of her small rustic cabin and are effusive with our goodbyes, but the second she runs off, we are silent. “Bye, Laura,” he says quietly as I open my car door. I hold up my hand in what is both a wave and a stop sign and pull out. There’s no reason I can think of that I will need to see or speak to him for the next two weeks and I feel nothing but relief. I’ve had no choice but to frequently interact with him about money and schedules and kids, and every time it has felt akin to pouring salt in a wound. That I’m about to get a break from him and maybe from my own anger makes me feel lighter and freer than I have in months. CHAPTER 4 Never Come Between a Man and His Dog Back home a few hours later, Johnny texts to see where I want to meet. He says he doesn’t know my part of town well and do I want to suggest a place. I can’t picture him in the hipster boutique cocktail bars that our town is filled with, so I pick a local dive bar between his house and mine on a sleepy main street. I arrive a few minutes early and choose a stool in the center of the bar, away from the few other people there. I’m in a black tank top with spaghetti straps that show off my tanned shoulders, a cut-off jean mini-skirt and flip-flops. The bartender is an older woman who says “Sure, hon” when I order a Margarita and I immediately feel like a child playing grown-up. When Johnny arrives I’m already halfway through my drink, not because he’s late but because I’m so nervous. He’s wearing jeans and a striped shirt with buttons at the top and a thick gold chain; compared to his usual work uniform, he looks dressed up. When he leans over to kiss my cheek, I catch a whiff of cologne; if I hadn’t quite been sure if this was a date, the cologne has confirmed that it indeed is. We sit for a couple of hours while he nurses a beer and I do not let myself have the second drink I want because I know that I will soon have to drive the twenty minutes back home.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Without hesitating for a moment, the monk replied: ‘Sir, I have not yet been long enough in the Order of Saint Benedict to have had a chance of acquainting myself with all its special features, and you had failed until just now to show me that monks have women to support, as well as fasts and vigils. But now that you have pointed this out, I promise that if you will forgive me just this once, I will never again commit the same error. On the contrary, I shall always follow your good example.’ The Abbot, who was no fool, quickly realized that the monk had outwitted him and, moreover, seen what he had done. Being tarred with the same brush, he was loath to inflict upon the monk a punishment of which he himself was no less deserving. So he pardoned the monk and swore him to secrecy concerning what he had seen, then they slipped the girl out unobtrusively, and we can only assume that they afterwards brought her back at regular intervals.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  Finally I glance at my watch and widen my eyes as I pretend to notice the time and he gets the hint, paying the bill as I watch obediently. As we walk down the block, he asks me what I like to drink. I list my top choices: tequila, wine, Prosecco, but he wants to know specifically if I like champagne. “Sure, I like champagne,” I say. “OK, great, let’s make a plan to drink champagne together,” he says, then gives me a kiss on the lips and we part. I squeeze my eyes shut and grimace as I walk away. I have to learn how to be quicker on these dates – that’s the point of coffee and not a meal – just a quick in and out. Why do I always feel like I have to make myself so available? Why do I make myself seem interested when I could save everyone a lot of time and trouble by politely rising after an hour, shaking hands and saying a noncommittal, “Bye then, nice to have met you.” With this newly formed commitment to forthrightness spurring me on, I shoot off a text to Karl, who has followed up his sunshine and roses text with a photo of himself standing in a field of sunflowers. “Hey Karl, it was lovely to get to know you. You’re a genuinely kind and sincere man. I get the feeling that you want more out of dating than I do right now. I’m early in this process and want to be casual with anyone I date, which seems incongruous with what you’re looking for. Thank you for letting me see that there are good men out there,” I write. He writes back immediately, “I had a feeling when I didn’t hear back from you earlier. I’m not looking for anything serious, I just like you and it’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed being with a woman. Good luck. You have my number if you change your mind.” I feel immense relief that I have gracefully extricated myself. * Next up: Jeff, a lawyer who meets me in the garden of a wine bar in my neighborhood. Over glasses of Chardonnay, we talk about our kids, their schools, our backgrounds, finally resorting to the weather when our well runs dry. He tells me a story with minutes of build-up and I keep waiting for the punchline but then realize with dismay that there isn’t one. When the waitress asks if we want another glass and he says sure, my heart sinks.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  She then told him the whole story from beginning to end, explaining how she, who was his mistress, had let him into the doctor’s house, and how she had unwittingly given him the opiate to drink, and how she had stuffed him inside the trunk thinking him to be dead. After this she told him about the conversation she had overheard between the master-carpenter and the trunk’s owner, thus showing him how Ruggieri had ended up in the house of the money-lenders. Seeing that it was an easy matter to verify her story, the judge first of all inquired of the surgeon whether what she had said about the potion was true, and discovered that it was. He then summoned the carpenter, the owner of the trunk, and the money-lenders, and after listening to a string of tall stories from the money-lenders, he found that they had stolen the trunk during the night and brought it into their house. Finally he sent for Ruggieri and asked him where he had lodged the previous evening. Ruggieri replied that he had no idea where he had lodged, but that he clearly remembered going to lodge with Doctor Mazzeo’s maid, in whose bedroom he had drunk some water because he was very thirsty; what happened to him after that he was unable to say, except that he had woken up in the money-lenders’ house to find himself inside a trunk. The judge was greatly entertained by what he had heard, and made Ruggieri and the maid and the carpenter and the money-lenders repeat their stories several times over. In the end, pronouncing Ruggieri innocent, he ordered the money-lenders to pay a fine of ten gold florins, and set Ruggieri at liberty. You can all imagine what a relief this was for Ruggieri, and of course his mistress was absolutely delighted. She later celebrated his release in the company of Ruggieri himself, and along with the dear maid who had wanted to stick him with a knife, they had many a good laugh about it together. Their love continued to flourish, affording them greater and greater pleasure – which is what I should like to happen to me, except that I would not want to be stuffed inside a trunk. * * * If the earlier stories had saddened the fair ladies’ hearts, this last one of Dioneo’s caused so much merriment, especially the bit about the judge and his little nibble, that it drove away the melancholy engendered by the others.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  In his new role, he met with far more success than he had encountered in his trading activities. Within the space of about a year, he raided and seized so many Turkish ships that, quite apart from having regained what he had lost in trading, he discovered that he was considerably more than twice as wealthy as before. He thus had enough, he now realized, to avoid the risk of repeating his former mistake, and once he had persuaded himself to rest content with what he had, he made up his mind to call it a day and return home with the loot. Being wary of commercial ventures, he did not bother to invest his money, but simply steered a homeward course, at breakneck speed, in the tiny ship with which he had collected his spoils. He had come as far as the Archipelago,3 when he found himself sailing one evening directly into the teeth of a southerly gale, and his frail craft was barely able to cope with the mountainous seas. So he put into a cove on the leeward side of a small island, with the intention of waiting for more favourable winds. He had not been there long, however, when two large Genoese carracks,4 homeward-bound from Constantinople, struggled into the bay to escape the same storm from which Landolfo had taken shelter. The crews of the Genoese ships recognized Landolfo’s vessel, which they already knew from various rumours to be loaded with booty. And being by nature a rapacious, money-grubbing set of people, they blocked his way of escape and made their preparations for seizing the prize. First they put ashore a party of well-armed men with crossbows, who were strategically placed so that no one was able to leave Landolfo’s vessel without running into a barrage of arrows. Then they launched cutters, by means of which, aided by the current, they drew themselves towards Landolfo’s little ship. This they captured without losing a man, after a brief and half-hearted struggle, and they took her crew prisoner. Landolfo was left wearing nothing but a threadbare old doublet and taken aboard one of their ships, and after everything of value had been removed from his vessel, they sent it to the bottom.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I feel a load off my shoulders after I hit the send button and walk out into the cold, bright day to see if my favorite baker is at the farmers’ market so I can treat myself to the sourdough bread that I will likely eat in its entirety, slathered with salted butter, by tomorrow to celebrate my extrication from #7. By the time I hit the market, there is a text from him. “This is the first time I’ve been dumped by text,” he writes. I blanch at having been called out for something I have to agree wasn’t the best choice to begin with. “Sorry,” I write back, pulling up short next to a pile of carrots at a tented stall so that I’m not in the flow of foot traffic. “I find it easier to be clear in writing. I trip over my words when I’m nervous and I really wanted to explain.” He asks me to clarify, asking bluntly if what I’m saying is that I don’t want to see him again because I think he’s more into me than I am into him. “Well, more into the idea of me perhaps than the actual me. I just don’t think our feelings align,” I write, but he wants further clarification, asking why I would think that. “Maybe when you whispered in my ear on Saturday night that Jill thinks you and I should get married,” I respond. “What? I never would have said anything like that!” he writes back. “I promise, you said it. You’d had a lot to drink so maybe you don’t remember. But I was pretty shocked, so I am certain of what I heard. You also think you don’t snore. Just something to think about.” He seems angry in a passive-aggressive way and won’t let the subject go, so I wish him well again and abruptly end the conversation. I text Dr. B, aka Jill, right away: “Thanks so much for setting me up with Brooklyn Lawyer. He’s a good guy, but not for me. Also, just out of curiosity, did you tell him that you hoped we would get married?” “What? No! Why would I have said that? Onward,” she writes. CHAPTER 35 Thanksgiving Amidst the sadness and tension between Michael and I over how to navigate our first holiday season as a fractured family, there is one significant bright spot. Hudson has responded to one of Michael’s notes and they have arranged to meet at a nearby coffee bar before we all walk to our synagogue to watch Georgia sing Thanksgiving songs with the children’s choir. After Hudson leaves, Georgia says that her stomach hurts and she can’t go. She looks heartbreakingly small and sorrowful, so I gently tell her that we will stay home. She has been adept at going with the flow, but I can see when the mixed-up world of her family drags her to a place in which she yearns to retreat.