Tenderness

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

  Retreat to a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed. Sit comfortably, with both of your feet flat on the floor. Straighten your spine, bringing the top of your skull skyward and your shoulder blades down and together, creating room in your rib cage for your heart and lungs to expand more readily. Take a few slow and deep breaths. Bring your awareness to the subtle rocking of your heart with each in-breath and each out-breath. Call forth your intention for this practice session. Perhaps it’s to slow your pace and soften your heart so that you can be a true friend to someone who suffers, a source of comfort and reassurance. Know that all people, everywhere, suffer adversity from time to time. Just as all people yearn to be free of suffering. In this moment, as you sit relatively free from your own suffering, you yearn to be a ready resource to others. Throughout this session, keep bringing your awareness to your heart. Witness how this practice affects your body. Know that your body sensations deserve your awareness as much as the phrases or thoughts that emerge from your mind. Gently call forth an image of someone who is currently facing ill fortune or otherwise suffering. Without getting mired in these difficulties, explore their scope. Then, lightly remind yourself of this person’s good qualities, and how much you would wish to ease his or her pain or lighten his or her load. Say the following classic phrases, or your own versions of them, slowly and from your heart. May you find safety, even in the midst of pain (or misfortune, difficulties). May you find peace, even in the midst of pain. May you find strength, even in the midst of pain. May you find ease, even in the midst of pain. Repeat these ancient wishes one by one, with each breath you take. Let each phrase infuse and soften your heart. Visualize yourself simply standing beside this person, recognizing his or her courage in the face of whatever difficulty life now delivers. As your practice deepens, experiment with new ways to soften and expand your heart’s capacity. Shift your focus to new people who are suffering, whether they’re people you know well or not. Keep in mind that your aim is not to make this or any other person’s pain or adversity magically disappear. Rather your aim is to condition your own heart to move in toward others’ suffering when you see it, to open up to it a bit more, so that you may offer comfort and strength, rather than to turn away in self-protection.

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

  Lightly let your heart and mind reflect on that source of shared pain for a moment. Next, into this moment of empathy, extend a simple wish for the person’s release from pain and suffering. Try saying one or more of the following classic phrases, silently, in your own mind and heart, directing your good wishes to this particular person: May your difficulties [misfortune, pain] fade away. May you find peace [ease, strength]. May your burdens be lifted. As with all phrase-based practices, it’s not the words you choose that matter, but rather the feelings these words evoke. Experiment: Try new phrasings until you find a phrase or two that truly moves you, or leads to a subtle shift in the physical sensations of your heart. Remember, you’re not engaging any sort of magical thinking by doing this. Shifting your stream of consciousness toward compassion is no metaphysical trick that instantly whisks away all suffering from this other person’s experience. Your aim with this informal practice is far more humble and realistic. It is simply to condition your own heart to be more open and concerned about the pains and predicaments others inevitably face. Put differently, although your focus is completely on other people in this practice, the person who is most changed by it is you. Celebration: Meeting Another’s Good Fortune with Love At times it can seem all but overwhelming to truly open to the suffering of others. Standing beside and becoming one with those who suffer takes courage, which can, over time, become depleted. But it can also be replenished, for courage is a forever renewable resource. Fortunately, opportunities to recharge your resources for compassion abound. The secret is to be ready for chances to forge yet another variant of love: celebratory love. This lets you connect with others who are experiencing good fortune. Moments of bad fortune, with attendant opportunities to suffer, seem plentiful in this world. Yet, statistically speaking, moments of good fortune, with attendant opportunities for positive emotions, outnumber them by a wide margin. One rigorous examination of people’s day-to-day lives concludes that good events outnumber bad events by margins of about 3 to 1. Put differently, for every episode of bad fortune that you encounter, odds are you also encounter three or more episodes of good fortune to balance it out. Plus, it’s the frequency, not the magnitude of good events, that predicts your overall well-being. The key, of course, is to notice and be open to the good events just as much as you take in the bad. Set aside the mental time travel of worry and rumination. Awaken to the present moment. If you do, you’ll discover that most moments in life offer at least some good fortune to be relished, whether it’s fresh air, a welcomed meal, or the opportunity for companionship. The discovery that good events in people’s lives are more plentiful than bad events can be especially comforting.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  He places me on my left side, two pillows snug under my hip, raising my ass in a fetching little upward sideways arch. I rest my left cheek on the bed, turn my head, and look up to him—it’s always up with him, never down. He grabs one of the tubes of K-Y scattered about the bed. I adore the sound as the top clicks open. Looking at me, he squeezes a gob onto two of his fingers. Looking to my ass, he spreads my cheeks so deliberately I cannot believe my luck. He rubs the gel gently, firmly onto my asshole, into my asshole, rimming the entryway, smoothing the passage. There is the most wondrous look on his face as he does this, alternately gazing in my eyes and gazing to my ass. He slips a finger inside, then two, watching my face, keeping the gaze as I feel his fingers turning inside me, connecting us internally and externally, full circle. Sliding his fingers out, he squeezes more K-Y onto his fingers and rubs it smoothly along the length of his cock, hard as a rock. It’s Time. Holding his cock, he guides it toward the crack in my ass, like a canoe aiming down a narrow ravine. I feel the smooth tip, both hard and velvety on my skin. The center of my asshole, like a magnet, gravitates toward the pressure. We meet. His key to my door, his positive to my negative, his plug to my socket. And the light goes on. Center to center, he nudges, I breathe, he pushes, I release, he pulses, I open, he pushes, he pushes, I open, he plunges in, our eyes lock, and he sends me home. Sometimes he’ll then pull back, and thrust short at the entry for a while, other times he’ll slide inward, downward, slowly, slowly until he is buried in my ass with no cock to spare, only balls outside. He’ll stay there for a moment, not moving. Then he’ll pulse farther. Sometimes he will move me into a different position—on my hands and knees; or standing up while bending over, hands plastered to the wall; or on my back, feet to the ceiling; or, a favorite, legs over my head and ass to the ceiling. Whichever position I’m in, he remains above me, always looking down upon me, watching me, loving me. And he’ll usually make these shifts without pulling his dick from my ass. Totally fantastic. But whatever the angle I can feel his cock growing inside me, stronger, harder, deeper, pressing into my anxieties, my pettiness, my pride, my vanity. Like a vacuum to dust, he sucks out my lesser selves, removes my sins. One by one they are suctioned away and underneath he finds my goodness, my innocence, my four-year-old before she was hit by The Hand and got mad. This is what he was looking for. This is what he finds. This is what he gives me.

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

  She left to her daughter (she died in 419) a multitude of debts, which she had contracted at a high rate of interest for benevolent purposes.372 Her obsequies, which lasted a week, were attended by the bishops of Jerusalem and other cities of Palestine, besides clergy, monks, nuns, and laymen innumerable. Jerome apostrophizes her: "Farewell, Paula, and help with prayer the old age of thy adorer!" § 43. Benedict of Nursia. Gregorius M.: Dialogorum, l. iv. (composed about 594; lib. ii. contains the biography of St. Benedict according to the communications of four abbots and disciples of the saint, Constantine, Honoratus, Valentinian, and Simplicius, but full of surprising miracles). Mabillon and other writers of the Benedictine congregation of St. Maurus: Acta Sanctorum ordinis S. Benedicti in saeculorum classes distributa, fol. Par. 1668–1701, 9 vols. (to the year 1100), and

• From A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1921)

  cally caUed "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ." Phil. 4** and Phm.25 are like Galatians in using /J,era rov TT^ei^uaros •ufji&v instead of the usual M€^* v/xawp. Ephesians only in- cludes the invocation of peace, which is regularly found in the opening salutations of the apostle's letters. On the wholly exceptional form of 2 Cor., see p. 509. The expression "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ" is to be taken at its full value; for, while the apostle closely associates the love of God mani- fest in Christ and the love of Christ (Rom. 835« 39) , he expressly ascribes to Christ in his earthly career a love for men and grace towards them (220 2 Cor. 8% etc.), and conceiving of Jesus as still living and in relation to men (i Thes. i10 Rom. 834, etc.) ascribes to him as thus living a gracious attitude towards men, manifest on the one hand in spiritual fellowship with them (a20) and, on the other hand, in intercession for them (Rom. 834). The phrase verb rov Trvev/maros VJULCOV shows that it is the former that is here in mind. The sentence is, therefore, a prayer that the Galatians may have the indwelling gracious presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. By the addition of a§eX<£ot (cf. on i11) at the end of this letter, in which there is much of reproof and much strenuous exhortation, the apostle expresses his continued affection for the Galatians. Though the term itself is frequent in PauFs letters, in no other case does he add it to a concluding benediction. The addition of auriv (of. on i5), appended to a doxology in i5 Rom. n36 i627 Eph. 321 Phil. 420, etc., and in Rom. is33 to a benediction (it is apparently a scribal addition in Rom. i624 i Cor. id24 i Thes. 3° Phm. 25), still further emphasises the strength and depth of the feeling with which the apostle brings to a close this remark- able letter. Though it was probably dictated rapidly, and was certainly composed under the stress of deep emotion, the six brief chapters of which it consists constitute one of the most important documents of early Christianity and one of the noblest pleas ever written for Christian liberty and spiritual religion. APPENDIX. DETACHED NOTES ON IMPORTANT TERMS OF PAUL'S VOCABULARY. PAGE I. 'Aic6<iToXo<; ............... 363 II. IXcrHjp as applied to God .......... 384 III. Titles and Predicates of Jesus ......... 392 IV. 'ExxXtjafoe ............... 417 V. "ETspos and *AXXo<; ............ 420 VI. EilocYY^ov ....... • ....... 422 VII. Xdcpte ................ 423 VIII. EEp^vTj ................ 424 IX. Al&v and At&vtoc ............ 426 X. 'EvsaTc&s ............... 432 XL * Ai7coxaX6(TCT6i> and 'AxoxAXu^t? ......... 433 XII. 'louSafoc ................ 435 XIII. f Aywcptfoe and *Ayt,apT<fcv<o .......... 436 XIV. NVos ................ 443 XV. A6caio<;, Aixaioatfvq, and Atxat6o> ........ 460 XVI. ntatcs and IItaTe6a> ............ 475 XVZI. IlveOpia and S<*p£ ............. 486 XVIII. AtaBfrci] ............... 496 XIX. Sic^pt^aTi and S-rc^pyuxaiv . .......... 505

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

  Accordingly, if you find that directing love toward yourself is especially problematic, you might consider whether to practice with easier people first. Perhaps start with a teacher or mentor to whom you feel especially grateful, or a friend who the mere thought of can melt your face into a smile. After you’ve spent considerable time—perhaps even weeks—practicing cultivating warm and tender feelings for these people, then you can begin experimenting with cultivating warm and tender feelings for yourself. You may in fact be your own most “difficult” person on which to focus in the next stage of your practice. If so, you’re in good company. That’s a common experience. Rest assured, the order of targets to which you direct your warm wishes matters far less than the time and energy you devote to developing this habit and skill. Your aim is simply to condition your heart to be more comfortable and familiar with warm and tender sentiments. Sidestep Obstacles to Self-Love As I introduced the practice of LKM in the previous chapter, I suggested that you lightly reflect on the good qualities of the person or people for whom you are extending your good wishes. Here I expand on the logic of this. As you visualize a particular person, gently name what’s good about him or her: “Generous.” “Kind.” “Accepting.” “Honest.” “Grounded.” “Inspiring.” You don’t need a long list, one or two traits will do. Let yourself begin to see these one or two traits not simply as labels, affixed to these people in superficial ways, but rather as deep expressions of who they are in this world, of who they’ve been to you. Here you might lightly visualize the particular actions of this person that exemplify each trait. Keep in mind that calling up another’s good qualities does not require you to deny or disguise his or her bad qualities or shortcomings. Rather, it’s simply an invitation to shift your focus in this moment toward the good and be open to it. Think of it as turning toward the light, just as a sunflower tracks the position of the sun. It’s not that the sunflower is unaware of darkness, but rather that, in moments of daylight, it finds more energy—quite literally—in the light. You can, too.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  I immediately envisioned his cock entering my little asshole, his question firmly planted in the center of my being. I had it backwards, of course. My ass is the answer—for both of us. He strips, sits on the end of the bed, knees apart, and puts a pillow on the floor between his feet. I get on my knees, and as sucking begins, my heart is relieved. He takes my head between his hands, I put my own hands on either side of his hips, resting on the bed, and he slowly, smoothly guides my head, mouth rounded, open and wet, down the length of his cock. Very slowly, all the way until the tip of his cock meets the back of my throat. I give him total control, and become head and mouth for cock alone. It is so slow and his cock is so hard, the edge of cement. Beauty flowed back into my being and all my insanity flowed out like bilgewater. Then he fucked my ass, only my ass, and as his cock began entry he whispered, “If you ever forget, remember this, this is the point of connection, always.” SAVING FACE I was, however, now making other connections. When I confronted the mousy brunette that day, I asked her if she loved A-Man. I hadn’t planned on asking, but I guess I wanted to know. Well, no, I already knew. But I wanted, just as she had, confirmation. My sadism (to her) and my masochism (to myself) were—perhaps more than at any other point in my life—each struggling for dominance. Her big brown eyes filled with tears and she murmured, “I try not to.” And in that moment, all my desperate attempts to separate myself from her dissolved. Unlike her, I was too proud to admit to jealousy or let her see my grief, but they were both there, like hers. No longer different from me, she was me, and I suddenly recognized what I had been searching for all my life—the face beneath the banana, the face of a little girl crushed and humiliated by love. My tears were rolling down her cheeks. And it was horrid. For weeks afterwards, I was haunted by that reflection of myself that I had never seen before. But then the most astonishing realization gradually entered my consciousness. The brunette was, just as I had been, incapacitated, unable to act on her own behalf; she was not capable—not yet, anyway—of leaving her own pain behind her. But I was no longer incapable. I could make the decision for both of us, I could take action, because now I had the strength to leave the triangle, as I never could before. It was a kind of miracle.

• From A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1921)

  On the other hand, ett corresponds IVp2 2713 237 best with eoté, which must be supplied with Suets and better fits the parallelism, which is evidently intended to be paradoxical. The inter- pretation of Chrys. et al., according to which %uny is supplied after xdyo, giving the meaning, “because I was formerly under law as ye now are,” is open to the two objections: (a) that, the reference to past time being essential to the thought, #ju.yyv could hardly have been left to be supplied, and (b) that the appeal, to be effective, must be not sim- ply to the apostle’s former state, which he has now abandoned, but to his present state or his abandonment of the former state. ovdey pe Hoiknoare 13, ofdare dé bru OV aobdveray Tis TApKos EUNYYEALoauny bly Td TpdTeEpor, “Ye did me no wrong, but ye know that because of an infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel to you on that former occasion.” ovdév ye HduKnoareE is in all probability an allusion to an assertion of the Galatians that they had done the apostle no wrong, it being equally their right to accept his message when he came and that of the later Christian teachers when they came; to which the apostle adroitly replies conceding that they did him no wrong in the first instance, and going on to remind them of their former gen- erous and affectionate treatment of him. In v.!° he follows this up with the intimaticn that they are now doing him a wrong in counting him their enemy. The reference to the bodily weakness which was the occasion of his preaching to them had for its purpose in Paul’s mind to remind them of their affectionate attitude towards him and to renew it. For the modern reader it has the added value of furnishing an interesting and valuable detail concerning the circumstances under which Paul first preached in Galatia. On this aspect of the matter, see the Inirod., p. xxix. On the nature of the illness, see fine print below. Whether 70 mporepoy referred to the former of two occasions on which he had preached the gospel to them orally, hence of two visits to Galatia, was, of course, perfectly clear to the Galatians.

• From Delta of Venus (1977)

  He wanted to know when she had experienced her first sensual tremor. It was while reading, said Elena, and then while coasting on a sled with a boy lying full length over her, and then when she fell in love with men she only knew at a distance, for as soon as they came near her, she discovered some defect that estranged her. She needed strangers, a man seen at a window, a man seen once a day in the street, a man she had seen once in a concert hall. After such encounters, Elena let her hair fall wild, was negligent in her dress, slightly wrinkled, and sat like some Chinese woman concerned with small events and delicate sadnesses. Then, lying at her side, holding only her hand, Pierre talked about his life, offering her images of himself as a boy, to match those of the little girl she brought him. It was as if in each the older shells of their mature personalities had dissolved, like some added structure, a superimposition, revealing the cores. As a child, Elena had been what she had suddenly become again for him—an actress, a simulator, someone who lived in her fantasies and roles and never knew what she truly felt. Pierre had been a rebel. He had been raised among women, without his father, who had died at sea. The woman who mothered him was his nurse, and his mother lived only to find a replacement for the man she had lost. There was no motherhood in her. She was a born mistress. She treated her son like a young lover. She fondled him extravagantly, received him in the morning in her bed, in which he could still detect the recent presence of a man. He shared her lazy breakfast brought by the nurse, who was always incensed to find the boy lying in bed next to his mother, where a moment before her lover had been. Pierre loved the voluptuousness of his mother, the flesh always appearing through lace, the outline of the body transparent between skirts of chiffon; he loved the sloping shoulders, the fragile ears, the long mocking eyes, the opalescent arms emerging from full-blown sleeves. Her preoccupation was how to make a feast of every day. She eliminated people who were not amusing, anyone who told stories of illness or misfortune. If she went shopping, it was done extravagantly, as if for Christmas, and included everyone in the family, surprises for all; and for herself—caprices and useless things, which accumulated around her until she gave them away.

• From A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1921)

  The perfect xexottaxa, referring to a past action and its existing result, is appro- priately employed, since it is precisely the result of his action that the apostle has chiefly in mind. ets bya is equivalent to a strengthened dative of advantage, “‘for you.” 9. An affectionate appeal to the Galatians to enter fully into their freedom from law, referring to their former enthusiastic reception of the apostle and affection for him, and expressing the wish that he were now with them and could speak to them in more per- suasive language than he had formerly used (4!-*°). Dropping argument, the resumption of which in vv.7-5! is probably an after-thought, the apostle turns to appeal, begging the Galatians ‘to take his attitude towards the law, referring to the circumstances under which he had preached the gospel to them, and the enthusiasm and personal affection with which, despite an illness which made him unattractive to them, they had received him and his message. He compares his own zealous pursuit of them with that of his opponents, justifying his by its motive, but expresses, also, the wish that he could be present with them right now and speak in a different tone from that, by implication harsher one, which he had employed on some previous occasion when he had “told them the truth.” 236 GALATIANS 12Become as I am (or have become), because I am as ye are, I beseech you, brethren. “Ye did me no wrong, but ye know that because of an infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel to you on that former occasion; “and that which was a temptation to you in my flesh, ye did not reject or despise, but ye received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. Where, then, is that gratulation of your- selves? For I bear you witness that ye would, if possible, have plucked out your eyes and given them to me. 1°So that I have be- come your enemy by telling you the truth! ‘They zealously seek you, not honesily, but wish to shut you out that ye may seek them. 18But it is good to be zealously sought after in a good thing, always, and not only when I am present with you, oh, my children, with whom I travail again in birth pangs till Christ be formed in you. 20But I could wish to be present with you now, and to change my tone ; because I am in perplexity in reference to you. 12.

• From A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1921)

  834, etc.) ascribes to him as thus living a gracious attitude towards men, manifest on the one hand in spiritual fellowship with them (22°) and, on the other hand, in intercession for them (Rom. 8%), The phrase meta Tod mvevpatos tua shows that it is the former that is here in mind. The sentence is, therefore, a prayer that the Galatians may have the indwelling gracious presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. By the addition of adedpot (cf. on 1") at the end of this letter, in which there is much of reproof and much strenuous exhortation, the apostle expresses his continued affection for the Galatians. Though the term itself is frequent in Paul’s letters, in no other case does he add it to a concluding benediction. The addition of apny (cf. on 15), appended to a doxology in 1° Rom. 11° 1627 Eph. 3” Phil. 42°, etc., and in Rom. 15% to a benediction (it is apparently a scribal addition in Rom. 16% 1 Cor. 16% 1 Thes. 3 Phm. *), still further emphasises the strength and depth of the feeling with which the apostle brings to a close this remark- able letter. Though it was probably dictated rapidly, and was certainly composed under the stress of deep emotion, the six brief chapters of which it consists constitute one of the most important documents of early Christianity and one of the noblest pleas ever written for Christian liberty and spiritual religion. APPENDIX. DETACHED NOTES ON IMPORTANT TERMS OF PAUL’S VOCABULARY. PAGE T. ’Anxéstohoc. . eRe ee Lr ee ee ee ir) II. Ilerhe as applied S God Pe ee one aes yt i eeitles a ndebtedicates ots) esis seminary enn me ween 302 LIN oA BEE Sonica oa aan le Get Ne ee ies a ae a ne we ae a Wo “dieses enelMUN yaa fae ee a, i ed Whe ee ewer NAL Dla aoe tp Pees She eee) ar a Se) NADL 2coliet #2, OY one eas Exit ti eniy ad eles ee ee rr NAM is Any co me Neen ee Se et ep Aya ae ee Ree TX. Aidyv and Aidyos Ady Ely SEN ene ee ee oe Bee) X. ’Evectts . . Lem SPREE | OWES gc 432 XI. ’Axoxadtrcu and Ieee ae re ee ee eS Me lovtcien Sid aa ean ariel it a ee ee XII. ‘Ayuaette and EAR ooe a ee et nl ge ee 0 CV ceeINGLOG) nee Se a ee eda XV.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  She laughed again, while I marvelled. Then she leaned with her napkin to wipe a splash of gravy from my cheek. We had been served cutlets and sweetbreads, all very fine. I ate steadily, as I had eaten at breakfast. Diana, however, did more drinking than eating, and more smoking than drinking; and more watching, even, than smoking. After the exchange about the servants, we fell silent: I found that many of the things I said produced a kind of twitching at her lips and brow, as if my words - sensible enough to my ears - amused her; so at last I said no more, and neither did she, until the only sounds were the low hiss of the gas-jets, the steady ticking of the clock upon the mantel, and the clink of my knife and fork against my plate. I thought involuntarily of those merry dinners in the Green Street parlour, with Grace and Mrs Milne. I thought of the supper I might be having with Florence, in the Judd Street public. But then I finished my meal, and Diana threw me one of her pink cigarettes; and when I had grown giddy on that, she came to me and kissed me. And then I remembered that it was hardly for table-talk that I had been engaged. That night our love-making was more leisurely than it had been before - almost, indeed, tender. Yet she surprised me by seizing my shoulder as I lay on the edge of sleep - my body delightfully sated and my arms and legs entwined with hers - and rousing me to wakefulness. The day had been a day of lessons for me; now came the last of all. ‘You may go, Nancy,’ she said, in exactly the tone I had heard her use on her maid and Mrs Hooper. ‘I wish to sleep alone tonight.’ It was the first time she had spoken to me as a servant, and her words drove the lingering warmth of slumber quite from my limbs. Yet I took my leave, uncomplaining, and made my way to the pale room along the hall, where my own cold bed awaited. I liked her kisses, I liked her gifts still more; and if, to keep them, I must obey her - well, so be it.

• From Delta of Venus (1977)

  She lay back weary from desire and caresses, but without fulfillment. Pierre bent over her and said in a gentle voice: “I deserve this. You are hiding away, even though you want to meet me. I may have lost you forever.” “No,” said Elena, “wait. Give me time to believe in you again.” Before she left Pierre, he tried again to possess her. He again met with that secret, ultimately closed being, she who had attained a wholeness in sexual pleasure the first time she had been caressed by him. Then Pierre bowed his head and sat at the edge of the bed, defeated, sad. “But you’ll come back tomorrow, you’ll come back? What can I do to make you trust me?” He was in France without papers, risking arrest. For greater security Elena hid him at the apartment of a friend who was away. They met every day now. He liked to meet her in the darkness, so that before they could see each other’s face, their hands became aware of the other’s presence. Like blind people, they felt each other’s body, lingering in the warmest curves, making the same trajectory each time; knowing by touch the places where the skin was softest and tenderest and where it was stronger and exposed to daylight; where, on the neck, the heartbeat was echoed; where the nerves shivered as the hand came nearer to the center, between the legs. His hands knew the fullness of her shoulders so unexpected in her slender body, the tautness of her breasts, the febrile hairs under her arm, which he had asked her not to shave. Her waist was very small, and his hands loved that curve opening wider and wider from the waist to the hips. He followed each curve lovingly, seeking to take possession of her body with his hands, imagining the color of it. Only once had he looked at her body in full daylight, in Caux, in the morning, and then he had delighted in the color of it. It was pale ivory, and smooth, and only towards the sex this ivory became more golden, like old ermine. Her sex he called “the little fox,” whose hair bristled when his hand reached out for it. His lips followed his hands; his nose, too, buried in the odors of her body, seeking oblivion, seeking the drug that emanated from her body. Elena had a little mole hidden away in the folds of secret flesh between the legs. He would pretend to be seeking it when his fingers ran up between the legs and behind the fox’s bush, pretend to be wanting to touch the little mole and not the vulva; and as he caressed the mole, it was only accidentally that he touched the vulva, so lightly, just lightly enough to feel the quick plantlike contraction of pleasure which his fingers produced, the leaves of the sensitive plant closing, folding over the excitement, enclosing its secret pleasure, whose vibrato he felt.

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

  The number of refugees amounted at that time to about four hundred.507 Most of them belonged to the "little French Church."508 His first sermon was delivered in the Church of St. Nicholas, and attracted a large crowd of Frenchmen and Germans.509 He preached four times a week (twice on Sunday), and held Bible classes. He trained deacons to assist him, especially in the care of the poor, whom he had much at heart. The names of the first two were Nicholas Parent, who afterwards became pastor at Neuchâtel, and Claude de Fer or Féray (Claudius Feraeus), a French Hellenist, who had fled to Strassburg, taught Greek, and died of the pestilence in 1541, to the great grief of Calvin. He introduced his favorite discipline, and as he was not interfered with by the magistracy he had better success than at Geneva during his first sojourn. "No house," he says, "no society, can exist without order and discipline, much less the Church." He laid as much stress upon it as Luther did upon doctrine, and he regarded it as the best safeguard of sound doctrine and Christian life. He excluded a student who had neglected public worship for a month and fallen into gross immorality, from the communion table, and would not admit him till he professed repentance.510 Not a few of the younger members, however, objected to excommunication as a popish institution. But he distinguished between the yoke of Christ and the tyranny of the pope. He persevered and succeeded. "I have conflicts," he wrote to Farel, "severe conflicts, but they are a good school for me." He converted many Anabaptists, who were wisely tolerated in the territory of Strassburg, and brought to him from the city and country their children for baptism. He was consulted by the magistrates on all important questions touching religion. He conscientiously attended to pastoral care, and took a kindly interest in every member of his flock. In this way he built up in a short time a prosperous church, which commanded the respect and admiration of the community of Strassburg.511 Unfortunately, this Church of the Strangers lasted only about twenty-five years, and was extinguished by the flames of sectarian bigotry, though not till after many copies had been made from it as a model. An exclusive Lutheranism, under the lead of Marbach, obtained the ascendency in Strassburg, and treated the Calvinistic Christians as dangerous heretics. When Calvin passed through the city on his way to Frankfort, in August, 1556, he was indeed honorably received by John Sturm and the students, who respectfully rose to their feet in his presence, but he was not allowed to preach to his own congregation, because he did not believe in the dogma of consubstantiation. A few years later the Reformed worship was altogether forbidden by order of the Council, Aug. 19, 1563.512 § 87. The Liturgy of Calvin.

• From A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1921)

  Though to be free from law is to obtain adoption, sonship in its full realisation is more than mere freedom from law. The significance of such freedom lies, indeed, precisely in the fact that it makes it possible that a truly filial relation and attitude of man to God shall displace the legal relation that law creates, that instead of our looking upon God as lawgiver in the spirit of bondage and fear (Rom. 8°) he becomes to us Father with whom we live in fellowship as his sons. See detached note on Ilarnp as applied to God, p. 391. 224 GALATIANS ‘O xazhe, Greek equivalent of the Aramaic ’A@@&, N2N, is a nomi- native form with vocative force. Cf. Rom. 8% Mk. 148° Mt. 11?6 Jn. 208; Bl. D. 147.3. The repetition of the idea in Aramaic and Greek form gives added solemnity to the expression, and doubtless reflects a more or less common usage of the carly church (see Mk. 143¢ Rom. 85). On the origin of this usage, see Th. s. v.’ AGG&, Ltit. ad loc., Sief. ad loc. It is quite likely that the use of the Aramaic word was derived from Jesus, being taken up into the vocabulary of Greek-speaking Christians through the medium of those who, knowing both Aramaic and Greek, in reporting in Greek the words of Jesus used this word with a sort of affectionate fondness for the very term that Jesus himself had used to express an idea of capital importance in his teaching. This is more probable than that it was taken over into the Christian vocabulary from that of the Jewish synagogue in which the idea of God as Father had so much less prominent place than in the thought and teaching of Jesus. See Bous. Rel. d. Jud. pp. 432-3, 434; Dal. WJ. p. 1092. The attachment of the Greek translation 6 ratqe to the Aramaic word would naturally take place on the passage of the term into Greek- speaking circles. 7, date ovKkeTs ef SodAOS AAXA vids: “So that thou art no longer a slave, but a son.” In the possession of the Spirit of God’s Son, assumed to be known as a fact of the experience of the readers (cf. 32), the apostle finds confirmation of the éoTé viol of v.*, as there the sonship is said to be the ground for the bestowal of the Spirit. That the emphasis of sonship is still upon the fact of freedom from bondage to law is shown in the insertion of the negative ovKére dodXos, and that those addressed were formerly in this bondage is implied in ovxére, The change from plural to singular has the effect of bringing the matter home to each individual reader; the persons desig- nated remaining, of course, unchanged.

• From A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1921)

  al. The preponderance of evidence for Y&P w very slight. Both readings must be very ancient. y<4p is the reading of the distinctively Western authorities, and U apparently of the Alexandrian text. But which In this case diverged from the original can not be derided by genealogical evidence. The group BDFG supporting ydcp, and that supporting 81, viz., KAP al., each support readings well attested by internal evidence. Se&Introd.t p. Ixxx* The addition of 33 to the former group in this case somewhat strengthens it, and throws the balance of evidence slightly in favour of j&g. Internal evidence gives no decided ground of preference for either against the other, and the question muxt uppar< cntly be left about as it is by WHM t^P fa the text m a little more prab* ably right, Si on the margin tw almost equally well att fitted. If M Is the true reading, It is probably resumptive In force (Th. 5, ». 7; W. LIIL 7 b; Rob. p. 1185 i»ll,)f marking a return to tlir thought of the superhuman authority of the after the of v, »«. Among the Jews it WM customary to m ill the membera of a given family or tribe (Lev. 25** Kunt. i6s*}» aiui indeed all meml>er5 of the nation (l^ev* IQ« Deut, i*« a Mar, il Artu 7* Rom. 91). Papyri of the second t'fntury &. c!, nhow that membrm «f the same religious community were Sr« M. and M. Fo^, ^, t* The hidbit of the Christiana to tmll «»«<« another may have been the procluct In |»rt of both «'»l*lfr In ilir Christian the o! the relation in purely and national lines, an well as lines of ilk- reganlcd. Thus while the brethren la v.1 Jews, wfeo are here w €*/» also is** Arcordling to the li«l llti art bis bretJMrtn who <Ia C5ad*» will, mid to rows who In a» Ml. $$*4r»* Mt aj§, In Paul the of the Is lit mutually 01 to en* ft Cor. j11 fr» * 8»"» is*» a Cor. i« f » i4»* M. »), UMB «f * «;om • mm to and Qoi M not {ten I, ii 37 Sis, if, si»)j and the use of it constitutes an appeal to all those relations of affection and fellowship which Christians sustain to one another by virtue of their common faith, and membership in one body (i Cor. i2lff-)- On later Christian usage, see Harnack, Mission and Expansion of Christianity 3* I 405 /.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  cuando nos dimos cuenta que teníamos la misma cicatriz en el dorso de nuestros metacarpianos. Ahora solo somos Cole y yo. Apenas los dos. Dos cicatrices, ya no somos tres. —Quédate conmigo, ¿de acuerdo? —susurra—. Te necesito. Y por un extraño momento, veo vulnerabilidad. También lo necesité una vez, y él estuvo allí. Hemos pasado por muchas cosas, y probablemente sea mi mejor amigo. Por eso soy demasiado indulgente con él. No quiero que sufra. Y es por esa razón que permito que me convenza de esto. Realmente no quiero mudarme con mi papá y mi madrastra, y es solo hasta el final del verano. Una vez que reciba mis préstamos estudiantiles para el otoño y haya ahorrado dinero por trabajar este verano, puedo pagar mi propio apartamento nuevamente. Creo. Cole me abraza y se queda callado. Sabe que todavía estoy enojada con él por haber sido arrestado y por el daño al apartamento, pero sabe que me preocupo. Estoy comenzando a preguntarme si es una de mis fallas. Definitivamente mi debilidad. Se inclina y ahueca mi trasero, se zambulle en mi cuello y me besa. Jadeo cuando se presiona contra mí, y me río, retorciéndome en sus brazos. —¡Detente! —lo regaño en un susurro mientras miro nerviosamente a la casa de dos pisos detrás de mí—. Ya no tenemos privacidad. Sonríe. —Mi papá todavía está en el trabajo, nena. No estará en casa hasta alrededor de las cinco. Oh. Bueno, al menos eso es bueno. Miro a un lado y al otro de la calle del vecindario, viendo una casa tras otra, las cortinas abiertas y niños jugando aquí y allá. No es como en los apartamentos donde todo el mundo se entera de todo, pero realmente no importa, porque estás de forma temporal y no te quedarás lo suficiente como para que nadie piense que mereces su atención. Aquí, en un vecindario de verdad, las personas invierten su tiempo en quién vive al lado. Respiro profundamente, empapándome del olor de las parrillas y el sonido de las cortadoras de césped. Es un barrio realmente agradable. Me pregunto si esta podría ser yo algún día. ¿Encontraré un buen trabajo? ¿Tendré una buena casa? ¿Seré feliz? Cole inclina su frente hacia la mía otra vez.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Mierda, estoy envejeciendo. Al pensar en todo lo que ha pasado en mi vida donde ella no estuvo, o no era lo suficientemente mayor para recordarlo. La observo, admirando su joven piel y esperanzadores ojos. Estaba justo en la secundaria hace un año. Comemos en silencio el siguiente par de horas, absortos en una de mis películas favoritas. No tengo idea si la ha visto, pero después de un tiempo, su plato está a medio comer y olvidado sobre la mesa de café, y está sentada al otro lado del sofá, abrazándose las piernas y mirándola con interés. —Hacen que fumar se vea apetecible —comenta finalmente, mirando a Marla Singer en la pantalla. —¿Apetecible? Se aclara la garganta y se endereza. —Bueno, es como Bruce Willis —explica—. Podría verlo fumar durante días. Es como si estuviese comiendo. Comiendo un agradable, suculento… —Filete —termino por ella, comprendiéndolo. —Exacto. —Me lanza una suave sonrisa—. Lo posee totalmente. Es parte de su vestuario. —Bueno. —Suspiro, recogiendo nuestros platos—. No comiences a fumar. —Tú lo haces. Me detengo, bajando la mirada hacia ella. Solo he fumado una vez desde que se mudaron y nunca fumo en casa. Ni siquiera creo que Cole sepa que fumo. Probablemente viendo la confusión en mi rostro, aclara: —Noté la colilla de cigarro en el cenicero de afuera. Ah. Me dirijo a la cocina, rodeando la mesa de café mientras llevo los platos. —En raras ocasiones, sí. Me gusta el olor. —¿Por qué? —Se levanta del sofá, tomando las latas vacías de soda y servilletas mientras me sigue. —Simplemente me gusta. —Limpio los platos y los coloco en el lavavajillas—. Mi abuelo fumaba, así que… Parecía natural comenzar a compartir, pero de repente se siente estúpido. —¿Así que…? —insiste. Pero simplemente sacudo la cabeza, cerrando el lavavajillas y poniéndolo en marcha. —Solo me gusta el olor, es todo. —Termino bruscamente. No estoy seguro de por qué estoy teniendo problemas para hablar con ella. No hay ningún misterio. Mi abuelo era increíble, tuve una gran infancia, pero mientras más crezco, más alejado me siento del sentimiento de cuando tenía ocho años. El sentimiento de estar en algún lugar que amaba y sintiendo lo que sentía. Felicidad. Fumo cigarros de vez en cuando para transportarme allí. Aunque no es el tipo de cosas con las que me siento cómodo compartiendo. Pero es divertido lo cerca que llegué a estar de hacer eso con ella hace un momento. Puedo sentir su mirada sobre mí, y siento la incomodidad. —¿Quieres una cerveza? —pregunto, abriendo el refrigerador y sacando dos. Cualquier cosa para cambiar de tema. —Um… claro. Las abro y le entrego una Corona, finalmente encontrándome con su mirada. Con sus ojos muy jóvenes, muy azules y muy de diecinueve años de edad. Mierda. De nuevo olvidé que es menor de edad. Lo que sea. Tomo un trago y salgo de la cocina. Trabaja en un bar, ¿no es así? Estoy seguro que los clientes la han invitado a unos tragos antes.

• From The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (2004)

  He places me on my left side, two pillows snug under my hip, raising my ass in a fetching little upward sideways arch. I rest my left cheek on the bed, turn my head, and look up to him—it’s always up with him, never down. He grabs one of the tubes of K-Y scattered about the bed. I adore the sound as the top clicks open. Looking at me, he squeezes a gob onto two of his fingers. Looking to my ass, he spreads my cheeks so deliberately I cannot believe my luck. He rubs the gel gently, firmly onto my asshole, into my asshole, rimming the entryway, smoothing the passage. There is the most wondrous look on his face as he does this, alternately gazing in my eyes and gazing to my ass. He slips a finger inside, then two, watching my face, keeping the gaze as I feel his fingers turning inside me, connecting us internally and externally, full circle. Sliding his fingers out, he squeezes more K-Y onto his fingers and rubs it smoothly along the length of his cock, hard as a rock. It’s Time. Holding his cock, he guides it toward the crack in my ass, like a canoe aiming down a narrow ravine. I feel the smooth tip, both hard and velvety on my skin. The center of my asshole, like a magnet, gravitates toward the pressure. We meet. His key to my door, his positive to my negative, his plug to my socket. And the light goes on. Center to center, he nudges, I breathe, he pushes, I release, he pulses, I open, he pushes, he pushes, I open, he plunges in, our eyes lock, and he sends me home. Sometimes he’ll then pull back, and thrust short at the entry for a while, other times he’ll slide inward, downward, slowly, slowly until he is buried in my ass with no cock to spare, only balls outside. He’ll stay there for a moment, not moving. Then he’ll pulse farther. Sometimes he will move me into a different position—on my hands and knees; or standing up while bending over, hands plastered to the wall; or on my back, feet to the ceiling; or, a favorite, legs over my head and ass to the ceiling. Whichever position I’m in, he remains above me, always looking down upon me, watching me, loving me. And he’ll usually make these shifts without pulling his dick from my ass. Totally fantastic. But whatever the angle I can feel his cock growing inside me, stronger, harder, deeper, pressing into my anxieties, my pettiness, my pride, my vanity. Like a vacuum to dust, he sucks out my lesser selves, removes my sins. One by one they are suctioned away and underneath he finds my goodness, my innocence, my four-year-old before she was hit by The Hand and got mad. This is what he was looking for. This is what he finds. This is what he gives me.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Suelto más información, esperando que diga algo y salga de aquí. —Solo pasaba por Etienne’s y recordé que no tuviste ningún pastel en tu cumpleaños —le digo, actuando con indiferencia—, o la oportunidad de celebrar realmente. Solo pensé que les podía gustar. —Tomo tres cartas nuevas de la pila cuando Dutch no puede pasarme las nuevas—. Iba de pasada de todos modos. No es gran cosa. Si no fuera gran cosa, no me habría sentido raro al respecto cuando llegué a casa. Fue estúpido comprarlo en primer lugar. Ella no es mi hija. Pero por alguna razón, al pasar por la ventana y ver el pastel de tres capas, con rosas que cubrían cada centímetro, pensé en ella. Creo que todavía estaba tratando de compensarle por actuar como un idiota el otro día. Y la otra noche mencionó apagar velas, pedir deseos… No pudo hacer eso correctamente en su cumpleaños, las donas no cuentan, así que me sentí mal aunque no fue mi culpa. Comprarlo parecía una buena idea en ese momento. Sin embargo, llevarlo a casa se sintió sentimental. Demasiado sentimental. Lo metí en el refrigerador, escondido en la caja rosa, esperando ver si el estado de ánimo me golpeaba de nuevo antes de botarlo. —Pero sí, es tuyo, así que deja que lo coma —digo finalmente, mirándola de reojo antes de volver a mirar mis cartas. —¿No ibas a decirme que estaba allí? Me encojo de hombros. —Me olvidé, supongo. La mentira no suena convincente, pero su voz emocionada me salva del calor de los ojos de todos en mí. —Bueno, en ese caso, entonces no —afirma firmemente—. No puede comerlo. Es mío. Mi corazón se calienta y no puedo evitarlo. Miro hacia arriba lentamente. Me sonríe mientras asciende el resto de las escaleras. —¡Gracias! —dice, y luego escucho la puerta abrirse y la música inundar el espacio antes de cerrarse de nuevo. Rosado. Le compré un jodido pastel rosado como si tuviera siete. Con rosas. ¿Vio el pastel? ¿Se ve como el pastel de una niña? O peor, ¿algo romántico? Tenían pasteles con globos. Tenían pasteles sencillos. Mierda, soy un idiota. Ni siquiera pensé. Tiro mis cartas, cierro los ojos y deslizo mi mano por mi cabello. —Solo un minuto, muchachos —digo, empujando mi silla hacia atrás y rodeando la mesa, hacia las escaleras. Estallan algunas risas y carcajadas detrás de mí cuando salgo del sótano y corro detrás de la chica. Sabes, no fue hace mucho tiempo que podía pensar claramente. No dudaba constantemente de cada movimiento que hacía y enumeraba todos los resultados posibles para una sola acción y cómo respondería Jordan a ella. No he estado tan confundido sobre nada en mucho tiempo. Saliendo por la puerta en la parte superior de las escaleras, escucho el estruendo de I Love Rock 'n Roll que viene del patio y el chapoteo de alguien que salta a la piscina. Le pedí a Jordan que recogiera las llaves de cualquiera que bebiera,