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 House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  Shandee applauded briefly and turned back toward her hotel. Sad about Ruzty, she thought. Maybe if she’d been stroking him he would have won. She got in bed and turned on a house-fix-up show and watched a man repair a screen door. She got Dave’s arm out and fed him and changed his liquid wastes, and they lay together and looked at the ceiling fan. Dave’s arm tweaked her nipple solicitously. She reached a moment of decision. “Come on, honey, let’s go,” she said. [image "decoration" file=image_rsrc2SW.jpg] Dave Gets His Old Cock Back [image "decoration" file=image_rsrc2SX.jpg] Shandee went to Dave’s room, number 434, and knocked. There was no answer. “Probably out carousing,” she said to Dave’s arm. “Would you feel comfortable writing him a note?” Dave’s hand took her pen and wrote this: Hey Dave, I’m not feeling too good. Shandee has been taking care of me and showing me some of her kind and loving ways, but I miss being attached to you and doing all the fun things we could do together. I want back on. Shandee will be in her room, 676, tonight after seven. Do not miss this opportunity. Signed, Your Arm. Shandee folded the note and held Dave’s arm as he slipped it under the door. They went back and took a nap together. At 7:15 there was a knock on the door. Shandee straightened her skirt and checked her lipstick before she answered. “Hi, I’m Dave,” said Dave. “Oh, hi, Dave,” said Shandee, as nonchalantly as she could. “I’ve got your arm for you. I found it in a quarry.” She kissed Dave’s arm softly on the knuckles and handed him over, and as she did she took a slow second to look Dave up and down. He was wearing a soft nubbly greeny-gray shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and he needed a haircut. She saw his stump, which ended smoothly and tastefully just below his elbow, and she felt tender stirrings in her nethers. Dave greeted his arm. “Hey there, dude,” he said. “I’m sorry I left you in the lurch.” He looked up at Shandee. “Thanks for taking care of him.” “I’m going to miss him a lot,” said Shandee. “He’s been nice to me—very caring, very responsible. Very sensual in the bedroom, may I add. A little jealous, which isn’t a bad thing.” “No, I guess not,” said Dave. Shandee waved at the couch. “You want to sit down? I feel I know a lot about you. You look the way I thought you’d look, except you’re taller.” “Well, you are quite stunningly, incredibly—damn!” Dave blushed at his enthusiasm. “I would have gotten in touch before now,” said Shandee, “but Lila said you were not ready to be reunited because then you’d have to say good-bye to your huge dick. I thought I’d see you onstage today at the festival.” Dave shrugged. “I kind of decided that being jacked off in front of hundreds of people wasn’t my style.”

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  Rhumpa watched, fascinated. Daggett seemed almost on the verge of coming, but, with what seemed to be an immense effort of will, he straightened and gained control of his compulsions. He flung the bra on the bed and pulled up his pants and buckled himself away. In a trice he had himself more or less arranged. His wary eye then darted once again to the bathroom door, but Rhumpa was too quick for him—she’d already pulled back from the gap. She got into the shower and began humming. Who could blame the poor man? Forbidden as he was to see any living breasts, he yet had to spend his life carrying around a bag of bras. It was no wonder that he developed what seemed to be a fetish. Rhumpa felt sorry for him. She liked him. [image "decoration" file=image_rsrc2SW.jpg] Cardell Goes to the Laundromat [image "decoration" file=image_rsrc2SX.jpg] Cardell put on a black corduroy jacket and went to the laundromat at 18th Street and Grover Avenue. A woman was peering into the dryers. “Do you know which dryer leads to the House of Holes?” she asked, giving him an appraising look. She was pretty in an ethereally wavy flaxen-haired way. “Well, I was told it was the fourth dryer from the end,” he said. An old man spoke. “It is indeed the fourth dryer from the end,” he said. “But stay away from the House, both of you. Lila will suck you dry. You ever heard of King Nynus?” Cardell shook his head. The ethereal girl nodded. “That was me. I wasn’t a king, but I was rich. I had a harem with eighteen women, each lovely in a different way, and I spent my days eating watercress sandwiches. Now that’s all gone.” “What happened?” asked the ethereal girl. “Debts. I couldn’t get enough of the summertime Tit Swarm. That’s when they put a lot of women in a dark room and tell them, ‘Okay, tops off, girls, it’s a tit swarm!’ Then they let in one guy—me. The speaker says, ‘Man entering, repeat, man entering,’ and then the man gropes around, feeling everyone’s breasts. It’s so damn much fun.” “What do you do now?” asked the flaxen girl. “Now I sit here and tell people never to go to the House of Holes.” “You’re kind of a naysayer, you know,” said the flaxen girl. Her curiosity piqued, she opened the door of the dryer and peered in. “See anything?” said Cardell. “Looks pretty ordinary to me,” she said. “It’s not ordinary,” warned King Nynus. The girl climbed in and pushed with her fingertips against the back. Cardell stared at the pockets of her jeans. “I think I found the way,” she called excitedly. Then suddenly she disappeared. “Don’t let it close up, hold it open for me!” said Cardell. He climbed in after her, but when he pushed on the back it didn’t budge. “It’ll be shut for a while now,” said King Nynus. “They never listen.”

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  Noticing that she’d left the bathroom door slightly ajar, she peered through the crack, at an angle, and was surprised to see Daggett with his back to her and his pants around his ankles. He looked around at the bathroom door to be sure it was closed—it wasn’t—and as he turned she saw that he was clutching his erection in one hand and her bra in the other. He turned back and paused, evidently undergoing an inward struggle. Suddenly, with a moaning expression, he began wrapping her bra straps around his erection, which was startlingly large and curved upward slightly like some exotic purple tusk. Holding his hands motionless around her bunched and jumbled brassiere, he rocked his hips, poking and shoving the head of his cock into its waddedness. Then, doubling over, he folded one cup around the length of his cock and made several long gimbaling strokes. Rhumpa watched, fascinated. Daggett seemed almost on the verge of coming, but, with what seemed to be an immense effort of will, he straightened and gained control of his compulsions. He flung the bra on the bed and pulled up his pants and buckled himself away. In a trice he had himself more or less arranged. His wary eye then darted once again to the bathroom door, but Rhumpa was too quick for him—she’d already pulled back from the gap. She got into the shower and began humming. Who could blame the poor man? Forbidden as he was to see any living breasts, he yet had to spend his life carrying around a bag of bras. It was no wonder that he developed what seemed to be a fetish. Rhumpa felt sorry for him. She liked him. Cardell Goes to the Laundromat Cardell put on a black corduroy jacket and went to the laundromat at 18th Street and Grover Avenue. A woman was peering into the dryers. “Do you know which dryer leads to the House of Holes?” she asked, giving him an appraising look. She was pretty in an ethereally wavy flaxen-haired way. “Well, I was told it was the fourth dryer from the end,” he said. An old man spoke. “It is indeed the fourth dryer from the end,” he said. “But stay away from the House, both of you. Lila will suck you dry. You ever heard of King Nynus?” Cardell shook his head. The ethereal girl nodded. “That was me. I wasn’t a king, but I was rich. I had a harem with eighteen women, each lovely in a different way, and I spent my days eating watercress sandwiches. Now that’s all gone.” “What happened?” asked the ethereal girl. “Debts. I couldn’t get enough of the summertime Tit Swarm. That’s when they put a lot of women in a dark room and tell them, ‘Okay, tops off, girls, it’s a tit swarm!’ Then they let in one guy—me. The speaker says, ‘Man entering, repeat, man entering,’ and then the man gropes around, feeling everyone’s breasts.

• From The City of God

  510 Books That Matter: The City of God distributed far and wide in the West, wherever the Christian churches prayed, and preached, and thought in Latin. We may still have some of Augustine’s physical books even now; we definitely still possess some of that first Italian publication project. His bones made it, too. First, they were removed by his church to Cagliari in Sardinia, and then they finally found a home in Pavia, in the Basilica of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro, where they rest to this day near to the bones of that other great Latin Christian thinker Boethius. You can go and visit them even tomorrow, if you like, almost 1,600 years after his death. Walk into the church, past the other tourists flitting about, gawking at the art on the walls and the ceiling, gazing up at Saint Peter in his golden sky which covers the ceiling of the apse of the basilica, wondering uncomfortably what else they should do while they’re in this church. You are not here to look up. Walk steadily forward, up the stairs and into the apse; there the tomb stands, and you can walk all around it, brooding, two or three feet from the mortal remains of our saint. It’s monumental, set up on a base of stone. And it looks like it was made of a giant piece of ivory, beautifully carved with scenes of his life, encasing his remains. It’s fitting that Augustine now rests up there, back in the apse, behind the main altar, where the only sounds that can reach his bones now are those of the life of the church as it goes about its everyday business of prayer, communion, marriage, graving the freshly dead, and baptizing the newly born of 8 days or 80 years. After all, he was finally most interested in inhabiting that church and helping others come to inhabit it, too—counting it the least ill-suited home for the city of God in its pilgrimage upon this earth. For all these reasons, it seems to me a suitable place for our saint to rest. So we have his books, we have his bones. Do we then have him? In a very real way, we do not. In a very real way, he is lost to us forever, and all we have are relics—partial salvages, hypothesized

• From The City of God

  Chapter 13. --Reasons for Burying the Bodies of the Saints. Nevertheless the bodies of the dead are not on this account to be despised and left unburied; least of all the bodies of the righteous and faithful, which have been used by the Holy Spirit as His organs and instruments for all good works. For if the dress of a father, or his ring, or anything he wore, be precious to his children, in proportion to the love they bore him, with how much more reason ought we to care for the bodies of those we love, which they wore far more closely and intimately than any clothing! For the body is not an extraneous ornament or aid, but a part of man's very nature. And therefore to the righteous of ancient times the last offices were piously rendered, and sepulchres provided for them, and obsequies celebrated; [68] and they themselves, while yet alive, gave commandment to their sons about the burial, and, on occasion, even about the removal of their bodies to some favorite place. [69]And Tobit, according to the angel's testimony, is commended, and is said to have pleased God by burying the dead. [70]Our Lord Himself, too, though He was to rise again the third day, applauds, and commends to our applause, the good work of the religious woman who poured precious ointment over His limbs, and did it against His burial. [71]And the Gospel speaks with commendation of those who were careful to take down His body from the cross, and wrap it lovingly in costly cerements, and see to its burial. [72]These instances certainly do not prove that corpses have any feeling; but they show that God's providence extends even to the bodies of the dead, and that such pious offices are pleasing to Him, as cherishing faith in the resurrection. And we may also draw from them this wholesome lesson, that if God does not forget even any kind office which loving care pays to the unconscious dead, much more does He reward the charity we exercise towards the living. Other things, indeed, which the holy patriarchs said of the burial and removal of their bodies, they meant to be taken in a prophetic sense; but of these we need not here speak at large, what we have already said being sufficient. But if the want of those things which are necessary for the support of the living, as food and clothing, though painful and trying, does not break down the fortitude and virtuous endurance of good men, nor eradicate piety from their souls, but rather renders it more fruitful, how much less can the absence of the funeral, and of the other customary attentions paid to the dead, render those wretched who are already reposing in the hidden abodes of the blessed! Consequently, though in the sack of Rome and of other towns the dead bodies of the Christians were deprived of these last offices, this is neither the fault of the living, for they could not render them; nor an infliction to the dead, for they cannot feel the loss.

• From Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982)

  She and Naomi had met in high school. I said I was thirty-five. Then, I told her a little bit about Gennie. And on that first Sunday night in the Page Three on Seventh Avenue, Muriel and I put our heads forehead to forehead, over a small table in the front, and shed a few tears together over our dead girls. We shyly exchanged the thin sheaf of poems we each had brought as an introductory offering. Once on the street, we promised to write to each other as we separated, Muriel going off to meet Ginger and catch the train back to Stamford. “Here, take my gloves,” she’d said, impulsively, just as she ran into the subway. “Your hands are gonna get cold walking home.” I hesitated as she tucked the suede gloves into my hands with an almost pleading smile. “Keep them for me till next time.” Then she was gone. Something in her face reminded me of Gennie giving me her notebooks. The strongest and most lasting sense I had of Muriel after she was gone was of great sweetness hidden, and a vulnerability which surpassed even my own. Her gentle voice belying her dour appearance. I was intrigued by her combination of opposites, by her making no attempt to hide her weaknesses, nor even seeming to consider them shameful or suspect. Muriel radiated a quiet self-knowledge which I mistook for self-acceptance. Her sense of humor was sudden and appealing, with only a trace of the gallows behind it, and her frequent joking asides were insightful and without malice. From our very first meeting and without explanation, Muriel made me feel that she was understanding whatever I was saying, and, given the massive weight of my inarticulate pain, a great deal of all that I could not yet put into words. Rhea was still up as I came back into the house, whistling. “What’s making you so happy all of a sudden?” she asked jokingly, and I realized that for the first time since I’d come home from Mexico, I felt lighthearted and excited again. Two weeks later on a Sunday night, Muriel and I met for dinner, and then went to the Bagatelle. Fast and crowded, it was a good place for cruising, but had always seemed a little too rich for my blood, or too threatening to face alone. Laurel’s and the Sea Colony and the Page Three and the Swing were called bars, but the Bag was always The Club. The first room we entered was already smoky, although it was still early in the evening.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  She tweaked his nipple, as Kathy had done, and his hand brushed her away. That was good—it was a sign of his having preferences. She wanted to know what Nedbody wanted and what he didn’t want. “I think I want you to have no clothes on,” she said to him. She pulled, and he got up, and she slipped the robe off and slipped his underpants off, and he almost lost his balance getting out of them, but she held his arm to steady him. Then she walked him over to the bed and stood behind him. His butt was his best feature, it was quite amazing—two strong bouncy male musclecakes covered in a furze of hair. She helped him bend forward, and, showing him how to place his hands, she urged him to lie on his stomach on the bed. He did so, his legs hanging out over the floor. She wanted to look at everything about him. She punched lightly at his ass cheeks, and then she looked at the back part of his balls for a while. Then she lifted the phone. Kathy answered. “Kathy,” she said, “I don’t think I can do this. I really need him to have a head.” Kathy came back in. “I’m so sorry, Reese, his head is unavailable.” She said. “You have to make do. But have a look at this body.” She pointed to him facedown on the bed. He was sleeping. He seemed to drop off easily. A slight sound of breathing escaped from his neckhole. “Can you at least give me some pointers?” “Sure,” Kathy said. “He likes to be massaged. The seat of his intelligence is his lower back, so I massage there first to get his attention. It’s like getting eye contact.” She parted his legs and stood between them, squeezing her thumbs into his back. He stirred slightly in his sleep. “Another thing is he likes you to tickle just behind his knees. Watch.” She tickled, and Nedbody’s legs jumped. She tickled again. Reese noticed that now Nedbody’s hips were grinding into the bed. She turned to Kathy. “He seems to be getting into the bed action there.” “That’s what he does, poor guy,” said Kathy. “Anytime you put any pressure on his genitals, he dry humps you.” “Oh,” said Reese. “Well, I can live with that.” “I’m going to leave you now,” said Kathy. “It’s a little traumatic for me because I take care of him. I can’t help it. Sometimes I feel jealousy. But I want him to have as good a time as he can have, and I have to do an oil change on three of the other guys.” “What’s an oil change?” “All the bodily necessities—we have to flush them out every other day to keep them healthy.” “This is pretty impressive but pretty nutty,” Reese said.

• From The City of God

  But some good and Christian men have been put to the torture, that they might be forced to deliver up their goods to the enemy. They could indeed neither deliver nor lose that good which made themselves good. If, however, they preferred torture to the surrender of the mammon of iniquity, then I say they were not good men. Rather they should have been reminded that, if they suffered so severely for the sake of money, they should endure all torment, if need be, for Christ's sake; that they might be taught to love Him rather who enriches with eternal felicity all who suffer for Him, and not silver and gold, for which it was pitiable to suffer, whether they preserved it by telling a lie or lost it by telling the truth. For under these tortures no one lost Christ by confessing Him, no one preserved wealth save by denying its existence. So that possibly the torture which taught them that they should set their affections on a possession they could not lose, was more useful than those possessions which, without any useful fruit at all, disquieted and tormented their anxious owners. But then we are reminded that some were tortured who had no wealth to surrender, but who were not believed when they said so. These too, however, had perhaps some craving for wealth, and were not willingly poor with a holy resignation; and to such it had to be made plain, that not the actual possession alone, but also the desire of wealth, deserved such excruciating pains. And even if they were destitute of any hidden stores of gold and silver, because they were living in hopes of a better life,--I know not indeed if any such person was tortured on the supposition that he had wealth; but if so, then certainly in confessing, when put to the question, a holy poverty, he confessed Christ. And though it was scarcely to be expected that the barbarians should believe him, yet no confessor of a holy poverty could be tortured without receiving a heavenly reward. Again, they say that the long famine laid many a Christian low. But this, too, the faithful turned to good uses by a pious endurance of it. For those whom famine killed outright it rescued from the ills of this life, as a kindly disease would have done; and those who were only hunger-bitten were taught to live more sparingly, and inured to longer fasts. [53] Rom. viii. 28. [54] 1 Pet. iii. 4. [55] l Tim. vi. 6-10. [56] Job i. 21. [57] 1 Tim. vi. 17-19. [58] Matt. vi. 19-21. [59] Paulinus was a native of Bordeaux, and both by inheritance and marriage acquired great wealth, which, after his conversion in his thirty-sixth year, he distributed to the poor. He became bishop of Nola in A. D. 409, being then in his fifty-sixth year. Nola was taken by Alaric shortly after the sack of Rome.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  The Pearloiner Says She’s Sorry Shandee Goes to the Festival Dave Gets His Old Cock Back Lila Says It’s Almost Time to Go The Silver Egg Hatches [image "decoration" file=image_rsrc2SW.jpg] Shandee Finds Dave’s Arm [image "decoration" file=image_rsrc2SX.jpg] Shandee’s sister gave her all her makeup because she was going off to Guatemala. That night Shandee spent about two hours trying on lipstick. Then, the next morning, she went to a quarry with her Geology 101 class. The quarry was called the “Rock of Ages.” It was vast and they dug granite there, mostly for tombstones. The tour guide was kind of cute although his hair wasn’t good—he was maybe twenty-seven. Pretty drastically cute, though, she thought. They were standing on the brink of a space that looked like something from another planet, and he said, “There’s enough granite here to last us four thousand five hundred years.” My gracious goodness, thought Shandee, that’s a lot of tombstones. She turned away from the edge, and that’s when she saw a hand poking out from behind a rock. While the others listened to the tour guide, she went over to the hand. The hand was attached to its forearm, and there was a clean torn cloth wrapped around the end that would have been attached to the rest of his arm. There was no blood on the cloth. Shandee picked it up and felt it. It was warm; the fingers moved a little. The hand pointed urgently at her bag, so she stuffed it inside and went back to the group and listened to the rest of the tour. When she got home she pulled the forearm out and laid it on her bed. It was strong, with sensitive fingers and a blue vein traveling up along the muscle on the underside. She lifted it and whispered, “Arm, can you hear me?” In answer the arm caressed her cheek with two fingers. It had a gentle touch. Shandee said, “Are you comfortable? Do you need anything?” The arm made a handwriting gesture. Shandee found a pen and handed it over. The hand wrote, “Please unwrap the rag and feed me some mashed-up fish food in an electrolyte solution.” “Where?” Shandee asked. “Funnel it into the little hole with the green rim,” the arm wrote. And then: “I’m glad you found me.” She unwrapped the towel and saw that the arm was capped with a sort of power pack made of black rubber. There looked to be a place for a battery and a place for waste to be discharged, and a place for nutrients to enter. She had an intuition. “Are you Italian?” “Half Italian, half Welsh,” the arm wrote. “I’m known as Dave’s arm.” “Well, Dave’s arm, I’m very pleased to meet you.” They shook. Then she noticed the clock. “Oh dear. Can you sit tight here for an hour?” she said. “I promised someone I’d go to his party and I can’t bear to hurt his feelings.”

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  It had a gentle touch. Shandee said, “Are you comfortable? Do you need anything?” The arm made a handwriting gesture. Shandee found a pen and handed it over. The hand wrote, “Please unwrap the rag and feed me some mashed-up fish food in an electrolyte solution.” “Where?” Shandee asked. “Funnel it into the little hole with the green rim,” the arm wrote. And then: “I’m glad you found me.” She unwrapped the towel and saw that the arm was capped with a sort of power pack made of black rubber. There looked to be a place for a battery and a place for waste to be discharged, and a place for nutrients to enter. She had an intuition. “Are you Italian?” “Half Italian, half Welsh,” the arm wrote. “I’m known as Dave’s arm.” “Well, Dave’s arm, I’m very pleased to meet you.” They shook. Then she noticed the clock. “Oh dear. Can you sit tight here for an hour?” she said. “I promised someone I’d go to his party and I can’t bear to hurt his feelings.” Dave’s arm scribbled something rapidly. “Sure, but—let me put on the lipstick for you,” he wrote. “Okay, you can try.” Shandee grasped the arm firmly and held him so that his hand was in front of her mouth. He touched all the way around her lips, feeling the exact shape, and then, with very fine almost vibrating movements, he applied the lipstick. It was extremely red, a color called Terranova. “Good job,” said Shandee. “You’re good. And this color is great.” Her lips looked really luscious. “Thank you, Dave’s arm.” He made a little nod with his hand and then, lifting the pen, reminded her that he needed to have some of the fish-food mash and to be relieved of his chemical wastes. She took him to the toilet and popped open a little vent on his cap. A tiny trickle of gray water dripped out. Then she fed him some fish-food gruel, and he seemed quite revived. He asked her to place him on the windowsill, because he had a solar panel for energy. She did, and then she went to the party and danced and had a wonderful time, but she came home early because she felt she had a new friend that she had to take care of. When she got back her roommate Rianne was there. Rianne’s lips were very red—she’d been sampling the new lipsticks, probably—and she was holding on to Dave’s arm. The hand end was in her shirt, obviously doing something tender with one of her breasts. Rianne hurriedly drew him out. There was a pad of paper with lots of hasty writing scrawled on it next to where she was lounging on her bed. “So, you’ve discovered my arm,” Shandee said, with an edge. Rianne nodded. “He has a lovely touch.” “That he does,” Shandee agreed.

• From Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982)

  Sometimes he was still asleep in a room upstairs, and the janitor had to go up and knock on the room door to waken him. I was never allowed to go upstairs, nor to enter the room where my father slept. I always wondered what mysteries occurred “upstairs,” and what it was up there my parents never wanted me to see. I think it was that same vulnerability that had so shocked and embarrassed me the day I peered into their bedroom at home. His ordinary humanity. When my father came downstairs, I kissed him hello, and he went into the back of the office to wash his face and hands preparatory to eating. I spread out the meal carefully, on a special desk in the back room. If anyone came in to see my father while he was eating, I wrote out a receipt, proudly, or relayed the message to him in the back room. For my father, eating was too human a pastime to allow just anyone to see him at it. If no one came in, I sat quietly in the back room and watched him eat. He was meticulously neat, placing his bones in even rows on the paper towel beside his plate. Sometimes my father looked up and saw me watching him, and he reached out and gave me a morsel of meat or a taste of rice and gravy from his plate. Other times I sat with my book, quietly reading, but secretly waiting and hoping for this special treat. Even if I had already just eaten the same food, or even if it was some dish I did not particularly like, these tastes of my father’s food from his plate in the back room of his office had an enchantment to them that was delicious and magical, and precious. They form the fondest and closest memories I have of warm moments shared with my father. There were not many. When my father was finished with his meal, I rinsed out the bottles, and washed his dish and silverware. I placed them back upon the shelf especially cleared for them, and covered them with the cloth napkin that was kept there for that purpose, to protect them from the dust of the back room. I carefully repacked the bottles into the shopping bag, and took the nickel carfare that my father gave me for the bus trip back. I kissed him goodbye and headed for home. Sometimes no more than two or three sentences passed between us during the whole time we were together in the office. But I remember those evenings, particularly in the springtime, as very special and satisfying times. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name: A Biomythography 10 The first time I went to Washington, D.C. was on the edge of the summer when I was supposed to stop being a child. At least that’s what they said to us all at graduation from the eighth grade.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  Dave Gets His Old Cock Bac k S handee went to Dave’s room, number 434, and knocked. There was no answer. “Probably out carousing,” she said to Dave’s arm. “Would you feel comfortable writing him a note?” Dave’s hand took her pen and wrote this: Hey Dave, I’m not feeling too good. Shandee has been taking care of me and showing me some of her kind and loving ways, but I miss being attached to you and doing all the fun things we could do together. I want back on. Shandee will be in her room, 676, tonight after seven. Do not miss this opportunity. Signed, Your Arm. Shandee folded the note and held Dave’s arm as he slipped it under the door. They went back and took a nap together. At 7:15 there was a knock on the door. Shandee straightened her skirt and checked her lipstick before she answered . “Hi, I’m Dave,” said Dave. “Oh, hi, Dave,” said Shandee, as nonchalantly as she could. “I’ve got your arm for you. I found it in a quarry.” She kissed Dave’s arm softly on the knuckles and handed him over, and as she did she took a slow second to look Dave up and down. He was wearing a soft nubbly greeny-gray shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and he needed a haircut. She saw his stump, which ended smoothly and tastefully just below his elbow, and she felt tender stirrings in her nethers. Dave greeted his arm. “Hey there, dude,” he said. “I’m sorry I left you in the lurch.” He looked up at Shandee. “Thanks for taking care of him.” “I’m going to miss him a lot,” said Shandee. “He’s been nice to me—very caring, very responsible. Very sensual in the bedroom, may I add. A little jealous, which isn’t a bad thing.” “No, I guess not,” said Dave. Shandee waved at the couch. “You want to sit down? I feel I know a lot about you. You look the way I thought you’d look, except you’re taller.” “Well, you are quite stunningly, incredibly—damn!” Dave blushed at his enthusiasm. “I would have gotten in touch before now,” said Shandee, “but Lila said you were not ready to be reunited because then you’d have to say good-bye to your huge dick. I thought I’d see you onstage today at the festival.” Dave shrugged. “I kind of decided that being jacked off in front of hundreds of people wasn’t my style.” “I understand,” said Shandee. They were quiet for a moment . “I hope you’ve had some fun times here,” said Dave. “Oh, definitely. You?” “I snuck off the reservation, did some crazy stuff. Spent more time in the old Porndecahedron than I care to admit.” He breathed. “And now here we are.” “Here we are.” Shandee smiled at him, loving his rueful in-telligent eyes. Her vagina—or maybe it was her heart?—felt as if it weighed about eight pounds.

• From Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982)

  I heard the thump of wood brought down heavily upon wood, and I felt the harsh impact throughout my body, as if something had broken inside of me. Thump, thump, went the pestle, purposefully, up and down in the old familiar way. “It was getting mashed, Mother,” I dared to protest, turning away to the icebox. “I’ll fetch the meat.” I was surprised at my own brazenness in answering back. But something in my voice interrupted my mother’s efficient motions. She ignored my implied contradiction, itself an act of rebellion strictly forbidden in our house. The thumping stopped. “What’s wrong with you, now? Are you sick? You want to go to your bed?” “No, I’m all right, Mother.” But I felt her strong fingers on my upper arm, turning me around, her other hand under my chin as she peered into my face. Her voice softened. “Is it your period making you so slow-down today?” She gave my chin a little shake, as I looked up into her hooded grey eyes, now becoming almost gentle. The kitchen felt suddenly oppressively hot and still, and I felt myself beginning to shake all over. Tears I did not understand started from my eyes, as I realized that my old enjoyment of the bone-jarring way I had been taught to pound spice would feel different to me from now on, and also that in my mother’s kitchen there was only one right way to do anything. Perhaps my life had not become so simple, after all. My mother stepped away from the counter and put her heavy arm around my shoulders. I could smell the warm herness rising from between her arm and her body, mixed with the smell of glycerine and rosewater, and the scent of her thick bun of hair. “I’ll finish up the food for supper.” She smiled at me, and there was a tenderness in her voice and an absence of annoyance that was welcome, although unfamiliar. “You come inside now and lie down on the couch and I’ll make you a hot cup of tea.” Her arm across my shoulders was warm and slightly damp. I rested my head upon her shoulder, and realized with a shock of pleasure and surprise that I was almost as tall as my mother, as she led me into the cool darkened parlor. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name: A Biomythography 12 At home, my mother said, “Remember to be sisters in the presence of strangers.” She meant white people, like the woman who tried to make me get up and give her my seat on the Number 4 bus, and who smelled like cleaning fluid. At St. Catherine’s, they said, “Be sisters in the presence of strangers,” and they meant noncatholics. In high school, the girls said, “Be sisters in the presence of strangers,” and they meant men.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  The first time that she smiled was when they were both feeling especially cramped. Either the egg was getting smaller, or they were getting a little larger. They fell asleep, and when Gallanos woke his hand was cupping the silver chalice of her breast. He pulled it away, horrified that he’d been so forward, and bumped his elbow on the slippery curving wall of their enclosure. And then she smiled and shrugged: Oh well, it can’t be helped. Gallanos opened his mouth and tried to make a sound. Nothing came out. They slept, and they breathed the glutinous liquid that gave them sustenance, and they slept some more, and sometimes they smiled and nodded and shrugged, and then gradually they developed a sort of language of gestures. They tapped to say “I’m going to sleep now, good night.” And when they woke up they tapped and waved to say good morning. Mellinnas was very concerned about her hair, which was marvelous fine silvery angel hair stuff that she moved and sometimes adroitly twisted into a small bun. He tapped her shoulder when she had arranged her hair especially well. They were never not touching. They lived inches away from each other, but they couldn’t smell each other, and they couldn’t talk. And then one day they discovered kissing. Their lips found each other and smooched and lipped over each other and centered, and Gallanos couldn’t believe how much Mellinnas was giving him with her soft metallic shiny perfect lips. After a long day of kissing, Gallanos told her that he was going to go to sleep, and she bade him with her taps and looks that she was going to sleep, too. But that night he dreamed that she was wearing clothes and wasn’t silver and that they were both in a bedroom, and she was unbuttoning her clothes and then she pulled his head down so that he could listen to her heart beating. He could smell her skin and hear her talking and telling him interesting facts using sound waves, and suddenly he felt an incredibly pleasurable dollop of liquid happiness traveling in his transmission bump. Then he woke and looked down and saw that his silver cock was much larger than normal and that it was sticking out at an angle from his body, though subsiding. He was alarmed, and he looked over at her, but her eyes were closed, and she was sleeping. Soon the stiffness went away, and he went back to sleep.

• From Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982)

  I am a reflection of my mother’s secret poetry as well as of her hidden angers . Sitting between my mother’s spread legs, her strong knees gripping my shoulders tightly like some well-attended drum, my head in her lap, while she brushed and combed and oiled and braided. I feel my mother’s strong, rough hands all up in my unruly hair, while I’m squirming around on a low stool or on a folded towel on the floor, my rebellious shoulders hunched and jerking against the inexorable sharp-toothed comb. After each springy portion is combed and braided, she pats it tenderly and proceeds to the next. I hear the interjection of sotto voce admonitions that punctuated whatever discussion she and my father were having. “Hold your back up, now! Deenie, keep still! Put your head so!” Scratch, scratch. “When last you wash your hair? Look the dandruff!” Scratch, scratch, the comb’s truth setting my own teeth on edge. Yet, these were some of the moments I missed most sorely when our real wars began. I remember the warm mother smell caught between her legs, and the intimacy of our physical touching nestled inside of the anxiety/pain like a nutmeg nestled inside its covering of mace. The radio, the scratching comb, the smell of petroleum jelly, the grip of her knees and my stinging scalp all fall into— the rhythms of a litany, the rituals of Black women combing their daughters’ hair . Saturday morning. The one morning of the week my mother does not leap from bed to prepare me and my sisters for school or church. I wake in the cot in their bedroom, knowing only it is one of those lucky days when she is still in bed, and alone. My father is in the kitchen. The sound of pots and the slightly off-smell of frying bacon mixes with the smell of percolating Bokar coffee. The click of her wedding ring against the wooden headboard. She is awake. I get up and go over and crawl into my mother’s bed. Her smile. Her glycerine-flannel smell. The warmth. She reclines upon her back and side, one arm extended, the other flung across her forehead. A hot-water bottle wrapped in body-temperature flannel, which she used to quiet her gall-bladder pains during the night. Her large soft breasts beneath the buttoned flannel of her nightgown. Below, the rounded swell of her stomach, silent and inviting touch.

• From The City of God

  [68] Gen. xxv. 9, xxxv. 29, etc. [69] Gen. xlvii. 29, l. 24. [70] Tob. xii. 12. [71] Matt. xxvi. 10-13. [72] John xix. 38. Chapter 14. --Of the Captivity of the Saints, and that Divine Consolation Never Failed Them Therein. But, say they, many Christians were even led away captive. This indeed were a most pitiable fate, if they could be led away to any place where they could not find their God. But for this calamity also sacred Scripture affords great consolation. The three youths [73] were captives; Daniel was a captive; so were other prophets:and God, the comforter, did not fail them. And in like manner He has not failed His own people in the power of a nation which, though barbarous, is yet human,--He who did not abandon the prophet [74] in the belly of a monster. These things, indeed, are turned to ridicule rather than credited by those with whom we are debating; though they believe what they read in their own books, that Arion of Methymna, the famous lyrist, [75] when he was thrown overboard, was received on a dolphin's back and carried to land. But that story of ours about the prophet Jonah is far more incredible,--more incredible because more marvellous, and more marvellous because a greater exhibition of power. [73] Dan. iii. [74] Jonah. [75] "Second to none," as he is called by Herodotus, who first of all tells his well-known story (Clio. 23, 24).

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  Kathy helped Lonny-body stand. Reese feasted her eyes on a headless man with a set of callused hands and a wiry strong build that had come about by work and not by working out. “Then there’s Bosco,” said Kathy. “Bosco is a painter.” “Hm, nice, trim, but too old,” said Reese. “And then there’s Ned,” Kathy said. “He’s my favorite. Come on, Ned.” She cooed at him, gently nudging his arm so that he would stand. “Look at this,” she said. She pinched his nipple, and his arm flapped her hand away. “Ned doesn’t like that, see? He’s got a lot of personality left in his body. He knows how to move. Watch.” She stood behind him and put her hands on his hips, and Ned’s body swayed, his robe flapping. Reese felt a sudden throb, which she masked perfectly. “They’re all very nice,” she said, “but I agree with you that this one is the most normal. If anyone can be normal when he’s missing his head.” “I know what you mean. Just remember that even though he has been freed of his head, he still is going to have some feelings. Treat him well, and he’ll treat you well.” “What do I call him?” Reese asked. “Well, he can’t hear, but it helps to have a name. His head’s name is Ned, so call him Nedbody.” Reese walked up to Nedbody and took his hand. He seemed to sense that she was a different person from Kathy. When she lifted his hand, he didn’t resist, but followed her movements. Kathy showed her that two fingers gently squeezing his arm muscle meant “good.” The room was large and sparely furnished. Kathy explained that furniture had to be kept to a minimum because Nedbody was blind, of course. Then she left. There were some grapes in the corner, and Reese looked at them wistfully, thinking that she could eat them but Nedbody couldn’t. She ate a grape, and then, feeling a little shy, sat down next to him on a couch and put her head on his shoulder. She inspected the low mound of his neck. It was surprisingly easy to get used to his headlessness. If you hadn’t known what human beings looked like you would simply assume that this was the way they were.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  It had a gentle touch. Shandee said, “Are you comfortable? Do you need anything?” The arm made a handwriting gesture. Shandee found a pen and handed it over. The hand wrote, “Please unwrap the rag and feed me some mashed-up fish food in an electrolyte solution.” “Where?” Shandee asked. “Funnel it into the little hole with the green rim,” the arm wrote. And then: “I’m glad you found me.” She unwrapped the towel and saw that the arm was capped with a sort of power pack made of black rubber. There looked to be a place for a battery and a place for waste to be discharged, and a place for nutrients to enter. She had an intuition. “Are you Italian?” “Half Italian, half Welsh,” the arm wrote. “I’m known as Dave’s arm.” “Well, Dave’s arm, I’m very pleased to meet you.” They shook. Then she noticed the clock. “Oh dear. Can you sit tight here for an hour?” she said. “I promised someone I’d go to his party and I can’t bear to hurt his feelings.” Dave’s arm scribbled something rapidly. “Sure, but—let me put on the lipstick for you,” he wrote . “Okay, you can try.” Shandee grasped the arm firmly and held him so that his hand was in front of her mouth. He touched all the way around her lips, feeling the exact shape, and then, with very fine almost vibrating movements, he applied the lipstick. It was extremely red, a color called Terranova. “Good job,” said Shandee. “You’re good. And this color is great.” Her lips looked really luscious. “Thank you, Dave’s arm.” He made a little nod with his hand and then, lifting the pen, reminded her that he needed to have some of the fish-food mash and to be relieved of his chemical wastes. She took him to the toilet and popped open a little vent on his cap. A tiny trickle of gray water dripped out. Then she fed him some fish-food gruel, and he seemed quite revived. He asked her to place him on the windowsill, because he had a solar panel for energy. She did, and then she went to the party and danced and had a wonderful time, but she came home early because she felt she had a new friend that she had to take care of. When she got back her roommate Rianne was there. Rianne’s lips were very red—she’d been sampling the new lipsticks, probably—and she was holding on to Dave’s arm. The hand end was in her shirt, obviously doing something tender with one of her breasts. Rianne hurriedly drew him out. There was a pad of paper with lots of hasty writing scrawled on it next to where she was lounging on her bed. “So, you’ve discovered my arm,” Shandee said, with an edge. Rianne nodded. “He has a lovely touch.” “That he does,” Shandee agreed.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  Their bodies were dull silver. Gallanos seemed to have forgotten how to talk. He re-membered that he’d had a former life—that there was a space for him somewhere that wasn’t a silver person sharing an egg, but he had no details. He couldn’t recollect what had happened. The first time that she smiled was when they were both feeling especially cramped. Either the egg was getting smaller, or they were getting a little larger. They fell asleep, and when Gallanos woke his hand was cupping the silver chalice of her breast. He pulled it away, horrified that he’d been so forward, and bumped his elbow on the slippery curving wall of their enclosure. And then she smiled and shrugged: Oh well, it can’t be helped. Gallanos opened his mouth and tried to make a sound. Nothing came out. They slept, and they breathed the glutinous liquid that gave them sustenance, and they slept some more, and sometimes they smiled and nodded and shrugged, and then gradually they developed a sort of language of gestures. They tapped to say “I’m going to sleep now, good night.” And when they woke up they tapped and waved to say good morning. Mellinnas was very concerned about her hair, which was marvelous fine silvery angel hair stuff that she moved and sometimes adroitly twisted into a small bun. He tapped her shoulder when she had arranged her hair especially well. They were never not touching. They lived inches away from each other, but they couldn’t smell each other, and they couldn’t talk. And then one day they discovered kissing. Their lips found each other and smooched and lipped over each other and centered, and Gallanos couldn’t believe how much Mellinnas was giving him with her soft metallic shiny perfect lips. After a long day of kissing, Gallanos told her that he was going to go to sleep, and she bade him with her taps and looks that she was going to sleep, too. But that night he dreamed that she was wearing clothes and wasn’t silver and that they were both in a bedroom, and she was unbuttoning her clothes and then she pulled his head down so that he could listen to her heart beating. He could smell her skin and hear her talking and telling him interesting facts using sound waves, and suddenly he felt an incredibly pleasurable dollop of liquid happiness traveling in his transmission bump. Then he woke and looked down and saw that his silver cock was much larger than normal and that it was sticking out at an angle from his body, though subsiding.

• From House of Holes: A Book of Raunch (2011)

  More from the Author The Way the World Works The Anthologist Human Smoke The Silver Egg Hatches G allanos woke up curled in what he later found out was a small egg made of silver. Around him was a woman. Their heads were sometimes at opposite ends of the egg, and sometimes they stared at each other, blinking their silver luminous eyes. They floated in a shadowy fluid. They drank it, they breathed it. Their bodies were dull silver. Gallanos seemed to have forgotten how to talk. He re-membered that he’d had a former life—that there was a space for him somewhere that wasn’t a silver person sharing an egg, but he had no details. He couldn’t recollect what had happened. The first time that she smiled was when they were both feeling especially cramped. Either the egg was getting smaller, or they were getting a little larger. They fell asleep, and when Gallanos woke his hand was cupping the silver chalice of her breast. He pulled it away, horrified that he’d been so forward, and bumped his elbow on the slippery curving wall of their enclosure . And then she smiled and shrugged: Oh well, it can’t be helped. Gallanos opened his mouth and tried to make a sound. Nothing came out. They slept, and they breathed the glutinous liquid that gave them sustenance, and they slept some more, and sometimes they smiled and nodded and shrugged, and then gradually they developed a sort of language of gestures. They tapped to say “I’m going to sleep now, good night.” And when they woke up they tapped and waved to say good morning. Mellinnas was very concerned about her hair, which was marvelous fine silvery angel hair stuff that she moved and sometimes adroitly twisted into a small bun. He tapped her shoulder when she had arranged her hair especially well. They were never not touching. They lived inches away from each other, but they couldn’t smell each other, and they couldn’t talk. And then one day they discovered kissing. Their lips found each other and smooched and lipped over each other and centered, and Gallanos couldn’t believe how much Mellinnas was giving him with her soft metallic shiny perfect lips. After a long day of kissing, Gallanos told her that he was going to go to sleep, and she bade him with her taps and looks that she was going to sleep, too. But that night he dreamed that she was wearing clothes and wasn’t silver and that they were both in a bedroom, and she was unbuttoning her clothes and then she pulled his head down so that he could listen to her heart beating. He could smell her skin and hear her talking and telling him interesting facts using sound waves, and suddenly he felt an incredibly pleasurable dollop of liquid happiness traveling in his transmission bump.