Shame

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 Going Clear (2013)

  “I actually compare it a little bit like Mother Teresa.” She added, “It’s a fun activity to set men free.” According to Mike Rinder, Nadine Davis became intensely involved in Tom Cruise’s entourage. “ Somehow dealing with Katie Holmes, she did something wrong,” Rinder says. “She became a non-person.” He says that Tommy was forced to divorce her.3 Soon after Cruise’s troubles in 2005, Tommy Davis was sent to Clearwater to participate in the Estates Project Force. Normally, the EPF functions as a kind of boot camp for new Sea Org members. Donna Shannon was a veterinarian who had risen to OT VII before signing her billion-year contract. She was surprised to find that about half the people undergoing training were veteran Sea Org members who were being disciplined, including Davis. He seemed like a nice guy, so she was puzzled that he was subjected to the worst hazing. “ He complained about being out scrubbing the Dumpster with a toothbrush till late at night,” she recalled, “then he’d be up at six to do our laundry.” Sometimes Davis would be paraded in front of the other Sea Org members as his Ethics Officer shouted, “This guy is not a big shot! He’s lying to you!” Only later did Shannon learn that Davis was Anne Archer’s son. (As it happens, Archer was also at the Clearwater base, taking advanced courses. A teenage Sea Org member— Daniel Montalvo, the same one who guarded Cruise during his auditing sessions—was assigned to keep her in the dark and make sure that she never encountered her son.) Shannon and Davis worked together, maintaining the grounds. “I was supposedly supervising him,” Shannon said. “I was told to make him work really hard.” That didn’t seem to be a problem for Davis. At one point, Shannon said, he borrowed about a hundred dollars from her because he didn’t have money for food. One day, Shannon and Davis were taking the bus to a work project. Shannon asked why he was in the EPF. “I got busted,” Davis told her. “I fucked up on Tom Cruise’s lines”—meaning that he had botched a project Cruise was involved in. “So what are your plans now?” she asked. “I just want to do my stuff and get back on post,” Davis replied. Shannon said that suddenly “it was like a veil went over his eyes, and he goes, ‘I already said too much.’ ” Several months later, Davis paid her back the money.4 [image file=Image00027.jpg] Tommy Davis When Davis finished the EPF, he replaced Rinder as chief spokesperson for the church, because Rinder was confined to the Hole. One of his first assignments was to deal with John Sweeney, an aggressive reporter for the BBC, who was doing a story on Scientology and had been working with Rinder until then. Davis made the mistake of admitting to Sweeney that he reported to Miscavige every day, spoiling the illusion of the leader as being unavailable and above the fray.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  A few soft words, a promise they wouldn’t hitch again, and that had been it. Not that it mattered because by the following summer Caitlin had her license. This time was different. This time there was more at stake. Lamb and Abby looked at one another again. Then Abby said, “This has nothing to do with the scholarship. Nobody’s going to take anything away from you.” Vix wanted to cry with relief. How easy it would have been to go back with Abby. It wasn’t until later that Vix remembered Abby saying, I’d like to think if I had a daughter she’d be a lot like you . Yes, but … if they had to take sides, no matter how much they cared for her , Caitlin would always come first. She would always be the daughter. And Vix would always be the daughter’s friend. When she came out of the Homeport, confused and exhausted after her first night on the job, Bru was waiting. “We have to talk,” he told her. They walked out to the end of the dock, where they sat swatting mosquitoes. “Whatever happened last night, I can live with it,” Bru said. Was it just last night? “I know it didn’t mean anything,” he continued. She looked at him, puzzled. “What didn’t mean anything?” “You and Von.” “Me and Von? There is no me and Von. Is there a you and Caitlin?” “Caitlin?” he said, as if he had no idea what she was talking about. He turned her hand over, studied it the way he had that first day on the beach, then covered it with both of his. “I think we should just forget about last night,” he said. Then his voice went all soft. “You’re my girl, Victoria. I knew it from day one. You’ll always be my girl.” And just like that she melted. Just like that they were back together. They saw each other every night, and Vix had no curfew, no one asking Does he do this? Does he do that? When are you going to … ? This time she was the aggressor. She practically begged him. Please , she whispered. Please … Bru . What guy could resist? He rolled on a condom right there in the dunes where they’d spread out a blanket and left half their clothes. TrishaTHIS WAS GETTING HEAVY , with Lamb calling two, sometimes three times a day, asking, Can you handle it? Handle it? What does he think she’s doing? Then Abby gets on the phone. Please, Trisha … try to convince her to come back . Come on, guys! It’s just been a week. Give the kid a break. Don’t suffocate her. She tells them she’ll do her best. But hey, if Vix and Caitlin have some kind of problem, Lamb should be trying to help the two of them work it out. He’s the parent, after all.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  At the back of the hall two door-men had been summoned and were squinting into the gloom. Half a dozen hands waved and pointed to where the man leaned over the footlights, his whiskers fluttering in the heat. He, now, had started banging on the stage with the heel of his hand. I suppressed an urge to dance up to him and stamp upon his wrist (for, apart from anything else, I thought he was quite capable of seizing my ankle and dragging me into the stalls.) Instead, I took my cue from Kitty. She had hold of my arm, and had pressed it, but her brow was smooth and untroubled. At any moment, I thought, she would slow the song, launch into the man, or call for the door-men to come and remove him. But they, at last, had spotted him, and had begun their advance. He, all unknowing, ranted drunkenly on. ‘Call that a song?’ he shouted. ‘Call that a song? I want my shilling back! You hear me? I want my bleeding shilling back!’ ‘You want your bleeding arse kicked, is what you want!’ answered someone from the pit. Then someone else, a woman, yelled, ‘Stop your row, can’t you? We can’t hear the girls for all your racket.’ The man gave a sneer; then he hawked, and spat. ‘Girls?’ he cried. ‘Girls? You call them girls? Why, they’re nothing but a couple of - a couple of toms!’ He put the whole force of his voice into it - the word that Kitty had once whispered to me, flinching and shuddering as she said it! It sounded louder at that moment than the blast of a cornet - seemed to bounce from one wall of the hall to another, like a bullet from a sharp-shooter’s act gone wrong. Toms! At the sound of it, the audience gave a great collective flinch. There was a sudden hush; the shouts became mumbles, the shrieks all tailed away. Through the shaft of limelight I saw their faces - a thousand faces, self-conscious and appalled. Even so, the awkwardness might have lasted no longer than a moment; they might have forgotten it at once, and grown noisy and gay again - but for what happened, simultaneous with their silencing, upon the stage. For Kitty had stiffened; and then she had stumbled. We had been dancing with our arms linked. Now her mouth flew open. Now it shut. Now it trembled. Her voice - her lovely, shining, soaring voice - faltered and died. I had never known it happen before. I had seen her sail, quite at her ease, through seas of indifference, squalls of heckling. Now, upon that single, dreadful, drunken cry, she had foundered.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  We rose; I looked again at the table, at the pile of reels and garments. There was a waistcoat, a set of handkerchiefs, some gentlemen’s linen — I found myself drifting towards it all, with fingers that itched to pick the garments up and stroke them. I caught the woman’s eye, and nodded at the table-top. I said, ‘What is it you do exactly, Mrs Fryer? Some of these look very fine.’ ‘I’m an embroid’rer, miss,’ she answered. ‘I does the fancy letters.’ She lifted a shirt, and showed me its pocket: there was a flowery monogram upon it, sewn very neatly in ivory silk. ‘It looks a bit queer, don’t it,’ she went on sadly, ‘seeing all these scraps of handsomeness in this poor room...’ ‘It does,’ I said - but I could hardly get the words out. The pretty monogram had reminded me suddenly of Felicity Place, and all the lovely suits that I had worn there. I saw again those tailored jackets and waistcoats and shirts, those tiny, extravagant N.K.s that I had thought so thrilling. I had not known then that they were sewn in rooms like this, by women as sad as Mrs Fryer; but if I had, would I have cared? I knew that I would not, and felt now horribly uncomfortable and ashamed. Florence had stepped to the door, and stood there, waiting for me; Mrs Fryer had bent to pick up her youngest child, who had begun to cry. I reached into the pocket of my coat. There was a shilling there, and a penny, left over from a marketing trip: I took them out and placed them on the table amongst the fancy shirts and hankies, slyly as a thief. Mrs Fryer, however, saw, and shook her head. ‘Oh, now, miss...’ she said. ‘For the baby.’ I felt more self-conscious and ill than ever. ‘Just for the little one. Please.’ The woman ducked her head, and murmured her thanks; and I did not look at her, or Florence, until we were both of us out on the street again, and the dismal room was far behind. ‘That was kind of you,’ said Florence at last. It wasn’t kind at all; I felt as if I had slapped the woman, not given her a gift. But I didn’t know how to tell any of this to Florence. ‘You shouldn’t have done it, of course,’ she was saying. ‘Now she will think the Guild is made of women who are better than her, not women just like herself, trying to help themselves.’ ‘You’re not much like her,’ I said - a little stung, despite myself, by her remark. ‘You think you are, but you’re not, not really.’ She sniffed. ‘You’re right, I suppose.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  My hair - which had lost its military sharpness after a week or two, anyway - I let grow; I even began to curl it at the ends. My pinching boots became less stiff, the more I walked in them; but I traded them in, at a second-hand clothes stall, for a pair of shoes with bows on. I did the same with my bonnet and my rusty frock - exchanged them, for a hat with a wired flower and a dress with ribbon at the neck. ‘Now, there’s a pretty frock!’ said Ralph to me, when I put it on for the first time; but Ralph would have told me I looked handsome wrapped in a piece of brown paper, if he thought it would make me smile. The truth was, I had looked awful ever since leaving St John’s Wood; and now, in a flowery frock, I only looked extraordinarily awful. The clothes I had bought, they were the kind I’d used to wear in Whitstable and with Kitty; and I seemed to remember that I had been known then as a handsome enough girl. But it was as if wearing gentlemen’s suits had magically unfitted me for girlishness, for ever - as if my jaw had grown firmer, my brows heavier, my hips slimmer and my hands extra large, to match the clothes Diana had put me in. The bruise at my eye faded quickly enough, but the brawl with Dickie’s book had left me with a scar at my cheek - I have it there still; and this, combined with the new firmness at my shoulders and thighs, got from carrying buckets and whitening steps, gave me something of the air of a rough. When I washed in the mornings in a bowl in the kitchen, and caught sight of myself, from a certain angle, reflected in the darkened window, I looked like a youth in the back-room of some boys’ club, rinsing himself down after a boxing match. How Diana would have admired me! At Quilter Street, however, as I have said, there was no one to gasp. By the time Ralph and Florence came down for their breakfasts, I would have my frock upon me and my hair in a curl; and then, more often than not, Florence would only gulp at her tea and say she had no time to eat, she was calling at the Guild on her way to work. Ralph would help himself to the red herrings left on her plate -‘My word, Cyril, but don’t these look good!’ - and she would leave, without a glance at me, wrapping a muffler about her throat like a woman of ninety.

• From Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection (2013)

  Like positivity resonance, they build your foundation for health and well-being. Indeed, studies show that self-directed, self-compassionate love is far more vital to your health and happiness than is oft-touted high self-esteem. Where to Start? Although people don’t differ in their worthiness of their own love, they differ a great deal in their ability to offer it. For many people—and you may be one of them—offering warmth and tenderness to yourself feels more than a little bit awkward. For whatever reasons, you simply may be unaccustomed to fully accepting and caring for yourself as you are. This may be a particular hang-up for those of us born and raised in cultures that foster deflating self-criticism, puffed-up self-aggrandizement, or both. Initial research bears this out. Kristin Neff, a developmental scientist at the University of Texas at Austin who has pioneered scientific assessment of a form of self-love that she calls self-compassion, has found this to be the case. Her research shows that people in cultures—like the United States—that are heavy on both self-deprecation and high self-esteem show lower levels of self-love and by consequence experience higher rates of depression and dissatisfaction with life. By contrast, people in cultures—like Thailand—where Buddhism infuses more self-acceptance into daily life show higher levels of self-love and by consequence seem to suffer less depression and dissatisfaction. Indeed, lore among those who teach LKM is that barriers to self-love are particularly high among Western students. Sharon Salzberg, cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society, in Barre, Massachusetts, is perhaps the leading Western teacher of LKM. It’s no overstatement to say that she is the person most responsible for first bringing the practice of LKM from the East to the West, having first encountered this ancient practice in India in the 1970s and then practicing it intensively in Burma in the 1980s. I’m lucky to be able to draw on Sharon’s deep expertise while I craft my experiments on LKM’s effects, as she serves as a consultant on my research grants. Sharon tells me that Western students frequently encounter difficulties or resistance when encouraged to direct loving-kindness toward themselves. Some even fall asleep at this stage. Others quit altogether, judging themselves to be incapable of it. Making matters worse, in traditional LKM formats, the self is an early, or even the first, focus. Before moving on to offering loving-kindness to others, the traditional sequence is to first offer loving-kindness to oneself. For many, this becomes a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. Noting this, Sharon offers a story about the first time she met His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. It was back in 1979 on his first trip to the West. As part of his visit, he came to her center in Barre and gave a talk to the group of students who’d been sitting a meditation retreat there.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  It was four, or thereabouts, before we slumbered; and perhaps eleven when I woke. I remembered stumbling to the commode some time in the early morning, and recalled the brief renewal of passion which had followed my return to her arms; but my sleep since then had been a heavy, dreamless one, and when next I knew the bed I was alone in it: she had donned her dressing-gown and stood at the half-opened window, smoking, and gazing thoughtfully at the view beyond. I stirred, and she turned and smiled. ‘You sleep like a child,’ she said. ‘I have been up this half-hour, making a fearful row, and still you’ve slumbered on.’ ‘I was so very weary.’ I yawned - then I recalled all that had wearied me. A slight awkwardness seemed to fall between us. The room last night had been as unreal as a stage-set: a place of lamplight and shadows, and colours and scents of impossible brilliance, in which we had been given a licence to be not ourselves, or more than ourselves, as actors are. Now, in the late morning light that flowed between the partly-drawn drapes, I saw that there was nothing fantastic about the chamber at all; I saw that it was really elegant, and rather austere. I felt, all at once, quite horribly out of place. How does a tart take leave of her customer? I did not know; I had never had to do it. The lady was still gazing at me. She said, ‘I have waited for you to wake, before ringing for breakfast.’ There was a bell-pull set into the wall beside the fireplace: I had not seen that the night before, either. ‘I hope you are hungry?’ I was, I realised, very hungry indeed; but also slightly nauseous. My mouth, moreover, tasted abominable: I hoped she wouldn’t try to kiss me again. She didn’t, but kept her distance. Soon, piqued by her new, queer, self-conscious air, I began to think that she might, at least, come and put her lips to my hand. There was a low, respectful knock on the outer door of the adjoining room. At her call the door was opened; I heard footsteps, and the rattle of china. To my amazement the rattle grew louder, the footsteps approached: the servant - who I thought would deposit her burden in the room next door, and discreetly take her leave - appeared in the doorway of ours.

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

  Almost the last act of his reign was the nomination of the worthy Felix III. (IV.) to the papal chair, after a protracted struggle of contending parties. With the appointment he issued the order that hereafter, as heretofore, the pope should be elected by clergy and people, but should be confirmed by the temporal prince before assuming his office; and with this understanding the clergy and the city gave their consent to the nomination. Yet, in spite of this arrangement, in the election of Boniface II. (530–532) and John II. (532–535) the same disgraceful quarrelling and briberies occurred;—a sort of chronic disease in the history of the papacy. Soon after the death of Theodoric (526) the Gothic empire fell to pieces through internal distraction and imperial weakness. Italy was conquered by Belisarius (535), and, with Africa, again incorporated with the East Roman empire, which renewed under Justinian its ancient splendor, and enjoyed a transient after-summer. And yet this powerful, orthodox emperor was a slave to the intriguing, heretical Theodora, whom he had raised from the theatre to the throne; and Belisarius likewise, his victorious general, was completely under the power of his wife Antonina. With the conquest of Italy the popes fell into a perilous and unworthy dependence on the emperor at Constantinople, who reverenced, indeed, the Roman chair, but not less that of Constantinople, and in reality sought to use both as tools of his own state-church despotism. Agapetus (535–536) offered fearless resistance to the arbitrary course of Justinian, and successfully protested against the elevation of the Eutychian Anthimus to the patriarchal see of Constantinople. But, by the intrigues of the Monophysite empress, his successor, Pope Silverius (a son of Hormisdas, 536–538), was deposed on the charge of treasonable correspondence with the Goths, and banished to the island of Pandataria, whither the worst heathen emperors used to send the victims of their tyranny, and where in 540 he died—whether a natural or a violent death, we do not know.

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

  Chrysostom, in his celebrated treatise on the priesthood,450 written probably, before his ordination (somewhere between the years 375 and 381), or while he was deacon (between 381 and 386), portrayed the theoretical and practical qualifications, the exalted duties, responsibilities, and honors of this office, with youthful enthusiasm, in the best spirit of his age. He requires of the priest, that he be in every respect better than the monk, though, standing in the world, he have greater dangers and difficulties to contend with.451 He sets up as the highest object of the preacher, the great principle stated by, Paul, that in all his discourses he should seek to please God alone, not men. "He must not indeed despise the approving demonstrations of men; but as little must he court them, nor trouble himself when his hearers withhold them. True and imperturbable comfort in his labors he finds only in the consciousness of having his discourse framed and wrought out to the approval of God."452 Nevertheless the book as a whole is unsatisfactory. A comparison of it with the "Reformed Pastor" of Baxter, which is far deeper and richer in all that pertains to subjective experimental Christianity and the proper care of souls, would result emphatically in favor of the English Protestant church of the seventeenth century.453 We must here particularly notice a point which reflects great discredit on the moral sense of many of the fathers, and shows that they had not wholly freed themselves from the chains of heathen ethics. The occasion of this work of Chrysostom was a ruse, by which he had evaded election to the bishopric, and thrust it upon his friend Basil.454 To justify this conduct, he endeavors at large, in the fifth chapter of the first book, to prove that artifice might be lawful and useful; that is, when used as a means to a good end. "Manifold is the potency of deception, only it must not be employed with knavish intent. And this should be hardly called deception, but rather a sort of accommodation (oijkonomiva), wisdom, art, or sagacity, by which one can find many ways of escape in an exigency, and amend the errors of the soul." He appeals to biblical examples, like Jonathan and the daughter of Saul, who by deceiving their father rescued their friend and husband; and, unwarrantably, even to Paul, who became to the Jews a Jew, to the Gentiles a Gentile, and circumcised Timothy, though in the Epistle to the Galatians he pronounced circumcision useless. Chrysostom, however, had evidently learned this, loose and pernicious principle respecting the obligation of truthfulness, not from the Holy Scriptures, but from the Grecian sophists.455 Besides, he by no means stood alone in the church in this matter, but had his predecessors in the Alexandrian fathers,456 and his followers in Cassian, Jerome, and other eminent Catholic divines.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Me corro, la ola me recorre y grito en silencio, respirando con dificultad, pero sin hacer ningún sonido. Dios. Colapso contra la pared, casi derrumbándome mientras me estremezco, el orgasmo baja por mis piernas debilitando mis rodillas. Cierro mis ojos con fuerza y tiemblo hasta que se desvanece, dejándome mareada. Cuando la regadera deja de girar y mi respiración ha vuelto a la normalidad, abro mis ojos, y un flujo de emociones me recorre. Oh, Dios mío. Quiero llorar. ¿Qué demonios está mal conmigo? ¿Por qué haría eso? ¿Y con su padre? Yo... Estoy confundida, estresada y buscando consuelo en un tipo porque ha sido amable conmigo unas cuantas veces. Jesús. No importa lo que suceda con Cole y yo, Pike Lawson está fuera de los límites. No olvido eso. Hay cientos de hombres ahí afuera justo como él. No es especial. No puede ser él. Jamás. Me enderezo, respirando profundamente. Aunque al bajar la mirada, veo que la esponja en mi mano no es la rosa. Es la plateada de Pike. —Mierda. Todavía le queda algo de espuma por su ducha de esta mañana. Y la usé para llegar al orgasmo. Genial. Gimo interiormente. Saliendo de la ducha, la entierro debajo del papel higiénico en el bote de basura y hago una nota mental de conseguirle una nueva la próxima vez que salga. Y también creo que un jabón de ducha diferente.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I, of course, should have sung all the louder, swept her across the stage, jollied the audience along; but I, of course, was only her shadow. Her sudden silence stopped my throat, and stunned me into immobility, too. I looked from her to the orchestra pit. There, the conductor had seen our confusion. The music had slowed and faded for a second - but now picked up, more briskly than before. But the melody affected neither Kitty nor the audience. At the side of the stalls, the door-men had reached the drunken man at last, and had hold of his collar. The crowd looked not at him, however, but at us. They looked at us, and saw - what? Two girls in suits, their hair close-clipped, their arms entwined. Toms! For all the efforts of the orchestra, the man’s cry still seemed to echo about the hall. Far off in the gallery someone called something that I could not catch, and there was an awkward answering laugh. If the shout cast a spell over the theatre, the laughter broke it. Kitty shifted, then seemed to see for the first time that our arms were joined. She gave a cry, and drew away from me as if in horror. Then she put her hand to her eyes and stepped, with her head bowed, into the wing. For a second I stood, dazed and confounded; then I hurried after her. The orchestra rattled on. There were shouts from the hall, at last, and cries of ‘Shame!’ The curtain, I think, was rung hurriedly down. Back stage, everything was in a state of the greatest confusion. Kitty had run to Walter: he had his arm about her shoulders and looked grave. Flora stood by with a shoe unlaced and ready, shocked and uncertain but desperately curious. A knot of stage-hands and fly-men looked on, whispering amongst themselves. I stepped up to Kitty and reached for her arm; she flinched as if I had raised my hand to strike her, and instantly I fell back. As I did so the manager appeared, more flustered than ever. ‘I should like to know, Miss Butler, Miss King, what the blazes you mean by -’ ‘I should like to know,’ interrupted Walter harshly, ‘what the blazes you mean by sending my artistes on before that rabble you call your audience. I should like to know why a drunken fool is allowed to interfere with Miss Butler’s performance for ten minutes, while your men gather their scattered wits together, and make up their minds to remove him.’ The manager stamped his foot: ‘How dare you, sir!’ ‘How dare you, sir -!’ The debate went on. I didn’t listen to it, only looked at Kitty. Her eyes were dry, but she was white-faced and stiff.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Giro la cabeza, viendo a Mick Chan, el propietario de The Hook, de pie en la otra esquina de la barra. Mick es de mediana edad, un ex luchador de lucha libre quien se casó con una stripper y decidió que quería pasar el resto de su vida en un bar, así que él y su esposa abrieron este lugar y vivieron felices desde entonces. Me sonríe, su camiseta negra está tensada sobre su pecho aún musculoso. —El dinero que podríamos hacer juntos —menciona, guiñándome un ojo. Regreso mi mirada a la habitación, conteniendo la risa. El tipo realmente debería poner un puesto en la feria de empleo de la secundaria, así puede tomar a las mujeres en cuanto lleguen a la edad legal de dieciocho años, en lugar de seguir acosándome. —Tu hermana dice que no tienes la cabeza para esto, y se supone que te deje en paz, pero Jordan… —No vine aquí para eso —interrumpo—. Vine a hablar con ella. Terminé analizando la habitación y estoy a punto de irme a la parte trasera, pero de repente se mueve hacia mí, con tono calmado pero severo. —También ves a estos clientes en Grounders, ¿cierto? —Mira la multitud y luego hacia mí—. Son los mismos tipos a los que sirves allí, ¿no es así? Vuelvo a poner la mirada en las mesas y las cabinas, reconociendo a algunos. Es una ciudad pequeña. ¿Y qué? —¿Por qué crees que van ahí? —cuestiona, estrechando su mirada en mí—. Aquí tengo un chef y un menú mucho mejor. Camareros entrenados. Baños limpios. ¿Por qué no pasar todo su tiempo en los bares aquí? —Porque Grounders es más barato. —Porque Grounders también vende sexo —contesta—. Estos chicos van a Grounders para verte a ti, a Shel, Ashley, Ellie… No por la cerveza barata y las cáscaras de cacahuete en el suelo. Después de todo, ¿por qué crees que allí no hay hombres trabajando? Shel te contrató por tu apariencia. No digo nada, sino que vuelvo a centrarme en el escenario donde veo a mi hermana salir detrás del telón. Mick me observa, y casi puedo sentir su aliento en mi nuca, aunque está a dos metros. —No te engañes —me dice—. Todavía te están mirando como un trozo de carne, incluso con toda la ropa puesta. —Y luego levanta la mirada hacia el escenario, hacia mi hermana girando en la barra—. Ella simplemente gana mucho más dinero. Al día siguiente mi hermana no me pregunta por qué dormí en su sofá. Nos lleva a su hijo y a mí a desayunar, y luego vamos a Farmer’s Market4 por algún producto. Hablamos sobre la feria del condado que se aproxima, qué hay de nuevo en los cines y qué tipo de fiesta quiere tener Killian para su cumpleaños en septiembre. A mi hermana le gusta hacerme pasar un mal rato, pero también es buena al ver cuando estoy herida. Sabe cuándo retroceder.

• From Manhunt (2022)

  This is a girl’s face, she told herself, not daring to look into the mirror that ran along the tasteful, subdued bedroom’s north wall. This body is a woman’s body. It always has been. This is just a job. It’s just a way to keep from being drawn and quartered by the Knights of J. K. Rowling. She pressed a hand to her naked breast and drew in a deep breath. In the smudged and spotted mirror on the wall, her scars looked like someone had drawn them on. Just crude scrawls of costume makeup. She let her breath out slowly. It doesn’t mean I’m fake. Sunday dinner was pork chops cooked in butter with late sprouts and little red potatoes, because Fran liked to show off. Beth chewed without enthusiasm while Fran and Robbie chattered, playing footsie underneath the coffee table and bumping her knees every few minutes. Beth was sick of the taste of pork. She was sick of “family dinner” and of her own lies about working in the bunker’s kitchens. She wished Indi weren’t such a freak about eating in front of people so she could have someone to talk to, except Indi was so cold and snappish lately. Mostly she was either in her lab or sleeping. Her living room, still forested with unpacked boxes, didn’t feel like their space. Why do we eat here when she can’t even eat with us? She speared a browned and glistening sprout and crunched it. Bitter. Savory. A hint of precious salt. She wished suddenly for Dani, who she knew she didn’t love. For her chapped lips and faint stubble. For a girlness she could taste and touch in safety through skin other than her own. She swallowed. Fran was looking at her strangely. “Why are you crying?” He dug his fingers hard into Fran’s ass, taking her as deep into his throat as he could stand. She had her tongue inside him. He could hardly catch a breath against the heat and pressure building in his cunt. He rolled his hips against her, feeling the bite of her cheekbones and chin, the probing jut of her nose, the caress of her soft lips. Over the curve of her backside he watched her spine shift, slow and sinuous, beneath her freckled skin. Shoulder blades angled inward and the sweaty mop of her hair on the sheets. She reached for his hand and he gave it to her and held tight as her cum flooded his mouth and her body undulated, moving like a serpent’s.

• From Between Us

  How much would you understand if I did not tell you that shame served to reinforce the bond with his mother, rather than alienate her? Unless I told you the full story, you may have substituted Didi’s experience with your own notions of shame . And you might have missed how Didi’s shameful behaviors brought him closer to his ideal self as well as closer to his mom, how they may have helped his mom save face in the presence of an outsider (the researcher), in spite of his poor behavior. And how much did Ellen, a Belgian middle school teacher, understand when Ahmet, her student of Turkish descent, cast his eyes down, and was submissive and polite after she had expressed her suspicion that it was he who had left a mess in the school library? Ellen thought Ahmet’s shameful behaviors confirmed that he had been up to no good. He had to be guilty of something, or he would have responded with indignation, she thinks. Would he not have protested if she had treated him unfairly? But Ahmet’s shame-like behaviors were a way of paying respect to his teacher, rather than a form of penance, as Ellen assumed. Ahmet focused on protecting his relationship with Ellen, rather than asserting his right to be fairly treated (as perhaps a Belgian-majority kid would). Ahmet’s frame of reference was diametrically opposed to Ellen’s, leading to unfortunate inferences on her side that Ahmet was not to be trusted. Ironically, the boy’s emotions had as their sole intention to restore the relationship with the teacher, but this intention was lost in the encounter between different cultures. Coates’s, Didi’s, and Ahmet’s emotions can only be fully understood from the respective roles these emotions play in their contexts. To grasp these emotions, it is not sufficient to know only what to call them; it is necessary to understand what they do in the context that serves as their frame of reference. Even Terry Gross, for many in the U.S. the cultural emblem of empathy, almost failed to grasp what it meant to the young Ta-Nehisi Coates when his teacher shouted at him in front of the class. Her remark that shouting is “something that teachers do,” was the beginning of a suggestion that it was no big deal, and that intense feelings of anger might not be warranted. Maybe so, the adult Coates explains (“I know, you are laughing, it is funny when you have never been in the environment”), unless in your position, in your culture, that shouting takes away the very last thing that you were left with: your dignity.

• From Between Us

  In one of the most vivid examples of different socializing emotions, anthropologist Birgitt Röttger-Rössler and developmental psychologist Manfred Holodynski described the central role of malu (shame) in the socialization of Minangkabau children. The children come from a small peasant village on West Sumatra, Indonesia (the site where Levenson and Ekman tested their MINE theory). The central goal for socialization among the Minangkabau is to pay respect to parents and anyone else—whether kin or no kin—who is older. For the Minangkabau, “showing respect” is to be modest and norm-compliant, and children learn this behavior by learning malu (closest translation: “shame”). From very early on, Minangkabau parents encourage shy behavior in their toddlers, and call it malu-malu (“baby malu”). By calling attention to the behavior, parents also expose their children to the full attention of everyone present, which itself may elicit malu. When children are slightly older, public mocking begins. Five-year-old Haifa and her same-aged (male) cousin Is were publicly mocked by their classmates after having been discovered swimming naked in the local pond. The peers laughed and whispered, and then one cried out “They have no shame!” which was met with agreement and laughing. The episode ended no sooner than Haifa and Is were fully dressed. Sanctioning by caregivers and other relatives similarly does not end until the child’s norm violations have stopped. A defiant child is completely ignored until their behavior is no longer inappropriate, and the adults involved show vicarious or “shared” shame over their child’s norm violations. When the Minangkabau child is older yet, during early adolescence, they are sometimes actively humiliated. Thirteen-year-old Andi, whose teacher cut his hair in front of the whole class (see chapter 2), was an example of this. The use of progressively serious exclusion techniques ensures that Minangkabau children experience and “know” shame. Inducing shame does not only mark norm violations to be avoided; it also leads to the reserved and modest person that is valued among the Minangkabau: a person who is always aware of the social consequences that their behavior may have. Taiwanese Didi’s mom, whom I cited at the beginning of this chapter, equally used shaming to teach her little boy propriety. She drew Didi’s attention to norm violations, and had she lived in the Chicago area, might have been called “critical.” Where the U.S. mothers were weary of shaming or criticizing their children out of fear that doing so would harm their children’s brittle self-esteem, Didi’s mom was trying intentionally to produce a child prone to shame. She was convinced that shame was the “right” thing for Didi to feel. In Taiwan, shame shows that you know your place, and are ready to be deferential. It shows you are committed to preventing the potential negative consequences of norm-violation. In such a cultural context, Didi’s mom thought of shamelessness, not shame, as the more worrisome of the two.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  Sex outside of marriage was taboo, so many members married in their teens; but since 1986, children have been forbidden to Sea Org members. Former church executives say that abortions were common and forcefully encouraged. Claire Headley married Marc when she was seventeen; by the time she was twenty-one she had been pushed to have two abortions. She estimates that 60 to 80 percent of the women on Gold Base have had abortions. “It’s a constant practice,” she said. 9 Worried about pillow talk, Miscavige instituted a policy of imposed divorces in 2004; people in the Religious Technology Center, the Commodore’s Messenger Organization, and Golden Era Productions could not be married to members in other divisions. For many of those people in the Hole, everyone they knew or cared about was in the church. The cost of leaving—emotionally and spiritually, as well as financially—was forbidding. And they knew if they tried to run away, they’d likely be found and punished. Those who attempted to leave the Sea Org through the formal process of “routing out” would be presented with a freeloader tab for all the coursework and counseling they had received over the years. Claire and Marc Headley, for instance, were billed more than $150,000 when they left and told they would have to pay if they ever wanted to see their family again. Those who accept this offer can spend years paying off their debt. Those who don’t stand to lose any connection to their friends and family who remain in Scientology. Many had long since turned their back on friends and family who were not in the church, and the prospect of facing them again brought up feelings of shame. The thought of leaving loved ones still in the church was even more fraught. All of these conflicting emotions were informed by the Scientology theory that life goes on and on, and that the mission of the church is to clear the planet, so in the scheme of things the misery one might be suffering now is temporary and negligible. There is a larger goal. One is always working for “the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics,” as Scientology ethics prescribed. And so the executives of the church who had given their lives to the Sea Org directed their confusion and their anger inward, or toward their helpless colleagues. Rinder was an inevitable target. He was seen as being arrogant and above it all. Few people other than Rathbun really understood Rinder’s job; unlike the others, the two men were often off the base, dealing with lawyers, the government, and the press. No doubt there was resentment at work as well. The next time the Sea Org executives turned on Rinder, Rathbun exploded. He caught his friend in a headlock and slammed him to the ground, then sat astride him, pounding his head into the floor and shouting at him, nose to nose.

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  She hurled tennis racquets and swim fins across the room, then grabbed her desk chair and crashed it against the door of her closet. She cursed and cried as she destroyed everything in her path. Vix was in shock. She’d never seen anyone behave that way. Once, in fourth grade, she’d come home from school crying hysterically because a boy in class had called her a whore . She’d had no idea what the word meant. Neither did he but she didn’t know that at the time. Whore, whore, whore … the other boys in the class chanted, taunting her for a week. Tawny had shown no sympathy. “Save your tears for something important, Victoria. There’s no need to display your emotions in public. Do you want those boys to have power over you?” “No.” “Then remember what I’m telling you. Keep your feelings to yourself. Don’t ever show anyone your disappointment.” That was the last time she’d let Tawny see her tears. As she crouched between the twin beds, protecting her head with her hands, she thought about Tawny’s advice and felt proud for knowing how to keep her feelings to herself. Obviously no one had taught Caitlin to save her tears for something important. Finally, Caitlin threw herself on her bed. There was nothing Vix could say to comfort her. Instead, she handed Caitlin a box of tissues then sat beside her, rubbing her back. Caitlin blew her nose. “You’re the only one in this house I don’t hate. You’re the only one who cares about me.” Caitlin didn’t even hate her when Vix got her period, though Caitlin wanted desperately to be first. “I guarantee I’ll be first with everything else!” she promised. Maybe … maybe not , Vix thought. This was the first thing she’d had that Caitlin wanted and she liked the feeling. They hiked the two miles to town without telling anyone, to buy pads for Vix, then Caitlin escorted her to the secret bathroom behind Patisserie Francaise on Main Street and helped her stick the pad inside her pants. Outside, they ran into Trisha, who was delivering muffins to the gourmet food shop. “Lordy … look who’s here!” Trisha set the tray on the hood of her truck and handed each of them a peach muffin. She was wearing short shorts and an orange T-shirt. Vix thought of those gigantic breasts and warned hers not to grow that big. “So how’s the bride and groom?” Trisha asked. Caitlin made a retching sound. Trisha nodded. “You think you know somebody really well and then they go and do something so outrageous … so totally off the wall …” “He should have married you!” Caitlin said. “Oh, honey … you’re not the only one who’s thinking that.” Only when Caitlin decided to hitch home did Vix balk.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  No es que me moleste ella. ¿Qué sé yo? Es una buena clienta, y da buenas propinas, después de todo. Simplemente no puedo evitar vigilarla cuando Cole está cerca. La he visto perseguir a hombres casados, por lo que el novio de alguien ciertamente no la desalentará. Termino de verter el jugo de naranja y coloco una servilleta antes de poner la bebida encima. Toma una pajita y toma su vaso. —Gracias —canturrea y de inmediato se da vuelta, tomando un sorbo mientras camina de regreso a su mesa. La veo irse y deslizarse con otros dos hombres que he visto antes. A veces me hace pensar en mi madre. No estoy segura de por qué, no se parecen en nada. Mi madre era rubia, es rubia y April es morena. El cabello es tan oscuro que casi parece negro. Pero tendrían más o menos la misma edad. April tiene que estar llegando a los cuarenta y se viste como recuerdo que se viste mi madre. Faldas cortas, onduladas, camisetas sin mangas de seda, joyas y tacones de diez centímetros. 2 Un “ombligo borroso” es una bebida mixta hecha de aguardiente de melocotón y jugo de naranja. Como Cam. Mi hermana heredó el estilo sexy de mi madre. Me pregunto si mi madre se ha establecido con alguien o si todavía necesita esa libertad que anhelaba tanto cuando yo tenía siete años. No la extraño. Apenas la recuerdo. Pero todavía me pregunto sobre ella. Me estiro detrás de mí, agrego a la cuenta de April su bebida y tomo una toalla para terminar de secar los vasos. Pero luego la puerta de entrada se abre y una voz retumba. —Mierda, esto está muerto. Alzo la mirada y el vello en mis brazos se eriza al instante. Mi novio entra con algunos de sus amigos, pero es la voz familiar que lidera el grupo la que hace que se erice mi piel. Jay McCabe, mi exnovio, entra lentamente y se toma su tiempo, entrando a la habitación como el mariscal de campo estrella que era en la escuela secundaria y todavía esperando un maldito aplauso. Es gracioso cómo se volvió menos guapo cuanto más lo conocía. Enderezo la espalda como una barra de acero, y la conciencia hace que el calor se extienda por mi cuello. Cole entra detrás con un par de chicos, y Elena Barros los sigue, y veo su ceja arqueada y la leve mueca en su rostro mientras mira a Jay y luego a mí. No se llevan bien, pero a veces se encuentran en las mismas fiestas. Supongo que Jay se dirigió aquí con su grupo y Cole lo siguió para asegurarse que estoy bien. Jay escanea la habitación y luego sus ojos se posan sobre mí, una pequeña sonrisa curva las esquinas de su boca. Inmediatamente aparto mi mirada, se me revuelve el estómago. Trato de fingir que ya no tiene importancia, pero creo que sabe que ganó.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  —No creo que esta sea una buena idea —le digo a Cole, sacando mis cajas de leche apiladas de la parte trasera de su auto—. Me siento como una vividora. Mi novio muestra esa peculiar inclinación de sus labios donde solo ves el lado izquierdo de sus dientes. —Entonces, ¿qué vas a hacer? —Me mira, deslizando mi mesa de dibujo plegable hacia él y levantándola—. ¿Quedarte en casa de tus padres? Sus ojos azules están entrecerrados, probablemente por la falta de sueño, mientras ambos caminamos y colocamos nuestras cosas en los escalones del porche de la casa de Pike Lawson. Nuestro nuevo hogar. Los últimos días han sido una locura, y no puedo creer que ese tipo sea su padre. ¿Cuáles son las posibilidades? Ojalá nos hubiéramos conocido de un modo un poco diferente. No conduciendo a la estación de policía a las dos en punto de la mañana para sacar a su hijo, mi novio, de la cárcel. —Vamos, te lo dije —comenta Cole, volviendo al auto por más cosas—. Mi papá fue quien se ofreció a dejar que nos quedáramos aquí. Simplemente ayudamos en las tareas domésticas, y esto nos da la oportunidad de ahorrar para un nuevo lugar. Un mejor lugar. Claro. ¿Y cuántos niños se mudan a casa para hacer eso y terminan quedándose otros tres años en su lugar? Su padre tenía que saber a qué se estaba ofreciendo. Haré todo lo posible para irme lo más pronto posible, pero Cole no ahorra dinero. Conseguir un nuevo lugar, con un depósito, el cual perdimos en el apartamento anterior debido a daños menores en las alfombras, y los servicios públicos requerirán un efectivo sustancial. Una vez que tengamos un lugar, Cole puede ayudar a pagarlo, pero en realidad conseguirlo y asegurarlo dependerá de mí. Han pasado tres días desde el teatro y de conocer a Pike Lawson. Una vez que sacamos a Cole, llegué a casa y encontramos nuestro departamento completamente destrozado. Aparentemente, estaba tratando de hacerme una fiesta de cumpleaños tarde en nuestra casa, pero nuestros amigos, sus amigos, no esperaron para

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I didn’t tell her about Alice’s reply, either. This came a few days later - came while Kitty and I were at breakfast, and had to stay unopened in my pocket until I could make time to be alone and read it. It was, I saw at once, very neat; and knowing Alice to be no great penwoman, I guessed that this must be the last of several versions. It was also, unlike my letter, very short - so short that, to my great dismay and all unwillingly, I find that I remember it, even now, in its entirety. ‘Dear Nancy,’ it began. ‘Your letter was both a shock to me and no surprise at all, for I have been expecting to receive something very like it from you, since the day you left us. When I first read it I did not now whether to weep or throw the paper away from me in temper. In the end I burned the thing, and only hope you will have sense enough to burn this one, likewise. ‘You ask me to be happy on your behalf. Nance, you must know that I have always only ever had your happiness at my heart, more nearly even than my own. But you must know too that I can never be happy while your friendship with that woman is so wrong and queer. I can never like what you have told me. You think you are happy, but you are only misled - and that woman, your friend “so-called”, is to blame for it. ‘I only wish that you had never met her nor ever gone away, but only stayed in Whitstable where you belong, and with those who love you properly. ‘Let me just say at the last what you must I hope know. Father, Mother and Davy know nothing of this, and won’t from my lips, since I would rather die of shame than tell them. You must never speak of it to them, unless you want to finish the job you started when you first left us, and break their hearts completely and for ever. ‘Don’t burden me, I ask you, with no more shameful secrets. But look to yourself and the path that you are treading, and ask yourself if it is really Right. ‘Alice.’ She must have kept her word about not telling our parents, for their letters to me continued as before - still cautious, still rather fretful, but still kind. But now I got even less pleasure from them; only kept thinking, What would they write, if they knew? How kind would they be then?