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.

Page 39 of 145 · 20 per page

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  I’m expecting a string of expletives, but instead, he just calls out to her, “Be careful, sweetheart!” After a quiet moment, he says, as if to excuse himself for being a softie, “Well, she’s somebody’s sweetheart.” • Another lifetime driver offers to photograph my hands, make a drawing of them, and deliver it to my door—all for thirty dollars. There are samples of his artwork plastered around his dashboard and on the passenger door, like ghostly hands applauding. He used to set up his easel in Central Park with other street artists, he explains, but here, he has air-conditioning in summer and heat in winter. I tell him I don’t want a drawing but would like to contribute thirty dollars to his mobile art studio. First he declines, then says he’ll take twenty-five because that’s the entrance fee at the Metropolitan Museum—he goes there to look at paintings and copy just the hands. I tell him he’s one of the happiest people I’ve ever met. • I’m not surprised to get a taxi driver who is moonlighting as a film extra. Manhattan is one big movie set, and cops, firefighters, and homeless people sometimes try to make a little money as extras. But this guy is also an expert on taxi stories as a genre. He repeats, as if from something he read, “The combination of intimacy and anonymity make a great dramatic device.” He also gives me a filmography that starts with Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and ends with Taxicab Confessions, a cheap-to-produce reality show in which drivers elicit voyeuristic sexual stories from passengers who are caught on a hidden camera. I can’t believe people let their private lives go public, but when I say this, he tells me I’m a sucker if I think any reality show is real. “Hollywood people, a bunch of phonies in ripped jeans and thirty-thousand-dollar Rolexes…not one of them could survive in Bed-Stuy or Harlem….They just pay people to tell phony sex stories….They don’t give a damn about drivers getting robbed or shot, that’s reality….They should all go home to L.A.” Chastened, I pay my fare. On the front seat is a pile of eight-by-ten glossies of the driver, bare-chested and as sexy as an athlete, with a little Bob Marley thrown in. “Do you know anybody at Law and Order ?” he asks me anxiously. “My kid is sick—I need the gig.” Suddenly I guess why he’s so angry. All those shows tell the stories of passengers, not drivers. When I ask him, he says, “Exactly! This country thinks people with money are interesting, not people who need money like me.” I think he’s right. I’d rather watch a show called Taxi Drivers’ Confessions. • I’m being driven by a woman with bottle-red hair who could be anywhere between thirty-five and sixty.

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  He had volunteered to travel to New York, with union support, because he had no family. Like generations of young men imported from the Philippines as migrant laborers—and like earlier generations brought from China to lay tracks for the railroads—he couldn’t marry outside his race due to antimiscegenation laws, but he didn’t have enough money to import a bride. Now he was sleeping on a cot in a Brooklyn labor hall, with no kitchen, and he wanted to cook Filipino food for the boycott crew. He loved to cook. When he asked if he could use my kitchen, I made him laugh by explaining that I’d lived here four years before discovering the oven didn’t work. Soon he was making massive meals on my tiny stove. It did cross my mind that I’d lost first a couch and now a kitchen, but Marion and I were caught up in trying to find sympathetic journalists. Only the media seemed likely to bring attention to the boycott as well as to the threats against Cesar and his workers, and to change this from a secret to a public issue. My editor at Look magazine had long ago rejected a report on migrant farmworkers out of fear that orange juice advertisers would pull their ads. Instead, I proposed an interview with Cesar—just his words, without pretending it was an objective report. Later, orange juice advertisers did cancel, which contributed to the end of the magazine, and also to my learning the not-so-secret influence of ads. To raise money and public consciousness, Marion and I organized a Carnegie Hall benefit, complete with entertainers and political leaders reading aloud the stories of farmworkers’ lives. In July 1969 the visibility of the grape boycott plus continuing turmoil in California put Cesar on the cover of Time magazine. We had come a long way, yet this was just a preface to a secret closer to home. —MITCH, A YOUNG AFRICAN American organizer from Alabama, has been learning from the programs and methods of both Cesar and the Black Panthers. He asks if I want to visit a migrant farmworkers’ camp on Long Island, just two hours from where I live. I’ve often walked Long Island’s charming seaside towns, enjoyed its wide ocean beaches, and seen the old mansions of the Hamptons that seem to be straight out of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. I haven’t given a thought to what I’m not seeing. It’s the end of the summer when we drive over a crowded bridge and freeway out of the city, beyond the suburbs, then turn off onto asphalt roads, a backcountry dirt road, and finally the rutted lanes of farmland near Riverhead. Under the cover of trees, I see a long, ramshackle shed with doors hanging open. Inside are rows of iron cots with bare mattresses. On a cement floor near the shed, there is an old jukebox and a small makeshift store. This is one of many camps where migrant workers live, Mitch explains.

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  Many times we would just admire them in silence, take our time, we both had lots of time….Invariably, he would reach into another pocket and pull out a roll of money and ask if I needed any. Somehow, I never did. I never could figure out why he carried all that money and those precious gems on his person. It was all very mysterious and dangerous. My favorite time was going to lunch across the street at the Radar Room. It was painted black outside, with a single neon sign that you could hardly see during the day but at night was a spectacular green, blinking and spelling Radar in both directions. Inside, it was also black, with red leather bar stools and booths and a large mirror behind the bar. We sat in my dad’s favorite booth in the dark. I would always have a cheeseburger, my dad would always have one martini with his lunch, and Leo would eat but never drink. For entertainment, Leo and my dad would get customers to bet that I couldn’t name a particular bone or muscle in the body. This worked better when I was eight, but anytime I was stumped, I would just say, “sternocleidomastoideus.” The customer would look amazed and pay his dime, but I knew I had to know the real answer by the time my father and I went home. Leo didn’t care if I was right or wrong, we were just having fun. He didn’t sweat the small stuff. I wanted to be like Leo. One sunny morning my father told me that Leo hadn’t been around because he’d been in a serious car accident. We drove down to Orange County, where he was in intensive care. My dad talked to the staff, then we went in to see Leo. He was breathing oxygen through a clear mask, the sheet was around his massive waist, and he didn’t have a shirt on. This was the first time I’d ever seen him without his gray suit. He was breathing heavily, obviously working hard, and sweating profusely. His entire upper body was bruised. Even though he was laboring, he was calm. I imagine he was getting lots of morphine, but he talked to us, and we talked to him. We told him we’d be back in the morning to see him. We’d been told his family was on the way. I wish I could remember all that was said. But I guess it doesn’t matter. The main thing was he knew he wasn’t alone. Before we got to the car, my dad told me matter-of-factly that Leo wouldn’t make it through the night. I was already planning the return visit. I was irritated he told me. I was already miserable, I didn’t feel like being a good soldier. But I knew he was right. The sunny morning had given me optimism. Now I got a dose of reality. Maybe I was learning street sense.

• From Querelle (1953)

  "Come on, you won't have to worry about that for a moment. I'll take care of myself, the cops will never get to know anything about you. I never met you. Well, is it tonight I'm leaving?" "Yeah, it's time for you to get going. Makes me feel a little sick, to see you leaving. Really got to like you, kid." "Me too. You've been a real friend. But we'll meet again. I won't forget you." "That's what you're saying now, but it won't take you long to chuck me overboard." "No, man. Don't say that. I'm not like that." "Is that right? You won't forget me?" With these last words Querelle put his hand on Gil's shoulder. Gil looked at him and replied : "You heard what I said." Querelle smiled and put his arm round Gil's neck. "So it's true, we really got to be very close, right?" "I liked the cut of your jib the moment I saw you." They stood facing each other, looking into each other's eyes. "I sure wish everything goes all right for you." Querelle pulled Gil up against his shoulder. There was no resistance. "You god damn kid, get going." He kissed him, and Gil kissed him back, but Querelle still held him tight, and whispered : "It's a pity.'" In a similar whisper, Gil asked : 235 I QUERELLE .. What? \Vhat is a pity?" .. Eh? Oh, I don't know. I just said that, I don't know why. It's a pity I have to lose you." .. But you know, you're not losing me. We'll n1eet again. I'll keep you posted on what happens. And once you've done your time in the Navy you can come and stay with me." "Is that true, you'll still remember me?" .. I swear I will, J o. You're my buddy for life." All these exchanges were uttered in whispers growing quieter and quieter. Querelle felt a true feeling of friendship beginning to unfold inside hin1. The entire length of his body touched Gil's abandoned body. Querelle kissed him . once more, and again Gil returned the kiss . .. Here we are, pecking away at each other like lovers." Gil smiled. Querelle kissed him again, more fervently and very quickly, a fusillade of kisses, working his way up to the ear and covering that with a long kiss. Then he put his cheek against his friend's. Gil hugged him. "Goddamn kid. I real1y like you, you know." Querelle held Gil's head in the crook of his arm and kissed him again. He pressed Gil closer to himself, pushed a leg between his legs . .. So we're really buddies?" ··Yes, Jo. You are n1y one true friend." They remained a long time in their embrace, Querelle caressing Gil's hair and showering him with further and warmer kisses. He now felt a physical desire for GiL "You're really great, you know?" .. What's so great about me?"

• From Querelle (1953)

  193 I QUERELLE tum out to be smaller than Robert's; yet there were times when she imagined the reverse, even dared to hope for it. "But then, what difference would that make? If it's him (Robert) who has the smaller one, that would just be ... " (she couldn't find the right word, but felt a twinge of maternal tenderness toward a Robert less well-endowed than his brother). " ... I could mention it to him, to make him mad ... But then, if his eyes turned sad, and he replied to me, in a light and confident tone : '\Veil, it isn't my fault'-if he said that, it would be a very serious business. It would mean that he recog nized his infirmity and placed himself under my wing, having broken his own. What would I do then? If I kissed him straightway, and smiled the way he smiled at me, the way he kissed me when I pushed my tousled head up from under the sheets-then he would know how it hurts to be pitied, by a creature one loves. Does he love me? I'd go on loving him, I. would-more tenderly, but not so passionately." Quere11e flipped his cigarette into the air. It landed some distance away, yet quite close enough to lie there like a small wh ite stick of dynamite, still smouldering, the fateful sign that war had been declared, that it was "out of his hands," even if its burning a little further would lead to some cataclysm. Qu erelle did not look at it, but he knew what he had thrown away there. The gravity o f his gesture became conscious to h�m, and it forced him-irresistibly, now that the gauntlet had been thrown-to proceed straight ahead. He put his hands into his pockets, the diagonal ones on his belly, and said, staring at Mario with a fixed and malicious frown, taking care to pro nounce his words very clearly: "Wh at are you trying to say? Yeah, you. What is it you're trying to tell me? Asking me if you could take Nona's place." The sailor's calmness frightened Mario. If he went along with

• From Querelle (1953)

  236 I JEAN GENET found it, and they stood there lip against lip, he whispered, in a breath: "So it's really true, it doesn't make you want to puke?" Breathing back, Gil answered: "No." Their tongues touched. "Gil?" "Yes, what?" "You have to be my best buddy for real . Forever. Do you understand?" "Yes." "D'you want to?" "Yes." Querelle's feeling of friendship toward Gil grew toward the limits of love. He regarded him with the tenderness of an elder brother. Like himself, Gil, too, had killed. He was a small Querelle, but one that would not be allowed to develop, who would not go any further; looking at him Querelle felt respect and curiosity, as if he had been admitted into the presence of himself as a fetus. He wanted to make love, because he thought that this would strengthen the tenderness inside him and would join him closer to Gil, by joining Gil closer to himself. But he did not know how to go about it. "My little buddy ... " _ His hand on Gil's back slid down until it reached the trem· bling buttocks. Querelle squeezed them, with his large and solid hand. He took possession of them with a newly born authority. ' Then he stuck his fingers between the belt and the shirt. He loved Gil. He forced himself to love him. "It is a pity we can't stay together all the time, just the two of us ... " "Yes, but we'll get together again . . ." Now Gil's voice was a little troubled, anguished even. "I would have liked us to live together, to stay just like th . , IS • • •

• From Querelle (1953)

  . . . (he hesitated, not really knowing whether to say ' . . . all the genuflections, all the caresses of seraphim's wings, all the perfume of lilies . . .' ) . You deserve to be punished." Querelle looked him in the eye. Simply and so calmly that it was hurtful, he said: 82 I JEAN GENET "Have you finished with my handkerchief, sir?" ''That's right. Well, come along and get it." Querelle followed the officer to his cabin. The latter started looking for the handkerchief, but did not find it. Querelle waited, immobile, strictly at attention. Then Lieutenant Seblon took one of his own, monogrammed, clean handkerchiefs, white cambric, and offered it to the seaman. "Sorry. Seems I can't find yours. Do you mind if I give you this one?" Querelle nodded his indifferent-seeming acceptance. "I'm sure it'll tum up again. I had it laundered. Now, I'm pretty certain you wouldn't have done that yourself. You don't look like that kind of lad to me." Querelle was taken aback by the officer's "tough" expression as he uttered those words in an aggressive, almost accusing tone. All the same, he smiled. "That ain't quite so, sir. I know how to take care of things." That's news to me. You're the kind of guy, it seems to me, takes his washing to some little sixteen-year-old Syrian chick, so she can do it and . . . (here Lieutenant Seblon's voice quavered. He knew he better not say what he perfectly well knew he would say, after three seconds of silence) . . . bring it to you all nicely stnoothed and ironed." "No such luck. I don't know any girls in Beirut. What there is to wash, I do myself." And then, without understanding why, Querelle noticed a slight relaxation of the officer's rigid attitude. Spontaneously, with the amazing sense for putting their attractions to work for them that young men have, even those to whom any degree of methodical coquetry is quite foreign, he gave his voice a somewhat sly inflection, and his body, relaxing too, became animated from neck to calves-by the almost imperceptible shifting of one foot in front of the other-by a series of short-lived ripples that were truly graceful and reminded Querelle himself of the 83 I QUERELLE existence of his buttocks and shoulders. Suddenly he appeared as if drawn in quick, broken lines, and, to the officer, drawn by the very hand of the master. "Well?" The Lieutenant looked at him. Querelle was again immobile, yet the grace of his movements remained. He smiled. His eyes were like asterisks. "Well, in that case . . .'' The Lieutenant spoke in a casual drawl. "Well . . . (and in one breath, managing not to betray too much of his unease) . . . if you're really so good at all that, how would you like to be my steward for a while?"

• From Querelle (1953)

  of the wide leather strap he used as a belt, behind his back : he seemed to be implying that their doings were just good clean fun. Since this scene took place close to the beginning of Madame Lysiane's affair with Querelle, and as Querelle was unable to figure out the exact intertwining relationships between Nono, the cop Mario, and his brother, he came close to suspecting some kind of conspiracy. It scared him. The foiiowing evening he told Gil to take off. As soon as he entered the old penitentiary, he methodicaily went into the routine he had planned the night before and which was designed to ensure h is own safety. The first thing was to get the revolver back from Gil, by starting out with the cunning question : "You stiii got the-heater?" "Sure. I've got it hidden in here." "Can I see it?" "Why? 'What's the matter?" Gil was afraid to ask whether the time had come to use it, but feared this might be the case. Quereiie had spoken in very gentle tones. He knew that he had to proceed very carefuiiy so as not to arouse any suspicions in Gil's mind. He was doing a great acting job. Holding back the explanation while making it impossible for Gil to refuse or even hesitate, he did not say "] ust give it to me," but "Let's see it, I'Il tell you what it's about . . . " Gil watched Quereiie watching him, and both of them were bewildered by the gentleness of their O\vn voices-in the dark, they sounded almost te�der. The shadows and this gentleness plunged both of them, naked, flayed alive, into the same vat of sweet balm. Quereile truly felt friendship, more than that, love for Gil, and Gil reciprocated. We do not want to imply that Gil already suspected what Quereiie was leading him to ( that sacrificial and necessary end ) , we only want to point out the universality contained in a particular occasion. It was not a case of forebodings-not that we don't believe in such, it is only that they belong to a realm of scientific study that no longer is art-because the work of art is free. Reading, 249 I QUERELLE

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “You go to them, darling,” said Kitty to her sister, “and entertain them. They saw Stiva at the station; he was quite well. And I must run to Mitya. As ill-luck would have it, I haven’t fed him since tea. He’s awake now, and sure to be screaming.” And feeling a rush of milk, she hurried to the nursery. This was not a mere guess; her connection with the child was still so close, that she could gauge by the flow of her milk his need of food, and knew for certain he was hungry. She knew he was crying before she reached the nursery. And he was indeed crying. She heard him and hastened. But the faster she went, the louder he screamed. It was a fine healthy scream, hungry and impatient. “Has he been screaming long, nurse, very long?” said Kitty hurriedly, seating herself on a chair, and preparing to give the baby the breast. “But give me him quickly. Oh, nurse, how tiresome you are! There, tie the cap afterwards, do!” The baby’s greedy scream was passing into sobs. “But you can’t manage so, ma’am,” said Agafea Mihalovna, who was almost always to be found in the nursery. “He must be put straight. A-oo! a-oo!” she chanted over him, paying no attention to the mother. The nurse brought the baby to his mother. Agafea Mihalovna followed him with a face dissolving with tenderness. “He knows me, he knows me. In God’s faith, Katerina Alexandrovna, ma’am, he knew me!” Agafea Mihalovna cried above the baby’s screams. But Kitty did not hear her words. Her impatience kept growing, like the baby’s. Their impatience hindered things for a while. The baby could not get hold of the breast right, and was furious. At last, after despairing, breathless screaming, and vain sucking, things went right, and mother and child felt simultaneously soothed, and both subsided into calm. “But poor darling, he’s all in perspiration!” said Kitty in a whisper, touching the baby. “What makes you think he knows you?” she added, with a sidelong glance at the baby’s eyes, that peered roguishly, as she fancied, from under his cap, at his rhythmically puffing cheeks, and the little red-palmed hand he was waving. “Impossible! If he knew anyone, he would have known me,” said Kitty, in response to Agafea Mihalovna’s statement, and she smiled. She smiled because, though she said he could not know her, in her heart she was sure that he knew not merely Agafea Mihalovna, but that he knew and understood everything, and knew and understood a great deal too that no one else knew, and that she, his mother, had learned and come to understand only through him. To Agafea Mihalovna, to the nurse, to his grandfather, to his father even, Mitya was a living being, requiring only material care, but for his mother he had long been a moral being, with whom there had been a whole series of spiritual relations already.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  He was grateful then that he hadn’t said more to Charles, that he’d recognized the pitying, facile nature of Charles’s regard for him. For what he’d gone through. He was grateful he hadn’t betrayed himself by feeling more than he’d let himself feel. “I didn’t mean that,” Charles said. “You’re selfish.” “Yeah, probably.” Charles turned and reached for Lionel. But Lionel moved away. He slid from beneath the table, and Charles followed. They sat up together. It felt like a game. Every time Lionel moved, Charles followed. They were locked in a round of Simon Says. “Stop it,” Lionel said, but Charles just assumed his posture. Lionel huffed and spun around, and Charles did the same. Charles’s ability to copy not only his actions, but also the attitude each action contained, was uncanny. Lionel had the feeling of watching himself in a mirror, though on a delay. After a while, he forgot to be angry at Charles. They sat facing each other, doing mirrored gestures. “This is one of the first things I learned to do. You learn to watch people. Imitate. Improvise.” “You’re really good at it,” Lionel said. “No. I’m not. The best people make you feel like you’re copying them . This isn’t even close.” Their palms didn’t touch, but Lionel could feel the static from Charles’s skin. The human warmth of him. When Lionel sped up, Charles sped up. Except there was no gap between Lionel doing the thing and Charles adjusting. It seemed that they decided upon what they would do at the same moment. Lionel reversed direction, but there was Charles right in front of him. No matter what he did, there was Charles. They made a circuit with their hands, a figure out. Then more complicated sinuous patterns. “We’re all just selfish assholes,” Lionel said. “Just like Sophie said.” After a few minutes, Charles said, “I need a haircut.” “You do,” Lionel said, but he was only half paying attention. “You weren’t supposed to agree,” Charles said, a little pained. “But it’s true. You’re kind of shaggy.” • • • Charles sat in the chair with a towel draped over his shoulders. Lionel got the trimmers from the bathroom. He didn’t like electric clippers. The buzzing irritated something fragile in him, and the vibrations sometimes stayed stuck in his head for a long time. But ever since the hospital, he had been too anxious to use manual razors—as if a part of him worried that, with sufficient opportunity, he might try again. He found that he could use the clippers on the lowest setting. Mostly, he used them for his head because his facial hair was far from formidable. He reconsidered this as he looked at Charles’s broad head, shaggy like a large, friendly dog’s. There was also the fact that Charles had white-people hair, which was a unique complication in this endeavor.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “Beg pardon, excuse me, please,” he said as to a stranger, but recognizing Levin, he smiled timidly. It seemed to Levin that he would have liked to say something, but could not speak for emotion. His face and his whole figure in his uniform with the crosses, and white trousers striped with braid, as he moved hurriedly along, reminded Levin of some hunted beast who sees that he is in evil case. This expression in the marshal’s face was particularly touching to Levin, because, only the day before, he had been at his house about his trustee business and had seen him in all his grandeur, a kind-hearted, fatherly man. The big house with the old family furniture; the rather dirty, far from stylish, but respectful footmen, unmistakably old house serfs who had stuck to their master; the stout, good-natured wife in a cap with lace and a Turkish shawl, petting her pretty grandchild, her daughter’s daughter; the young son, a sixth form high school boy, coming home from school, and greeting his father, kissing his big hand; the genuine, cordial words and gestures of the old man—all this had the day before roused an instinctive feeling of respect and sympathy in Levin. This old man was a touching and pathetic figure to Levin now, and he longed to say something pleasant to him. “So you’re sure to be our marshal again,” he said. “It’s not likely,” said the marshal, looking round with a scared expression. “I’m worn out, I’m old. If there are men younger and more deserving than I, let them serve.” And the marshal disappeared through a side door. The most solemn moment was at hand. They were to proceed immediately to the election. The leaders of both parties were reckoning white and black on their fingers. The discussion upon Flerov had given the new party not only Flerov’s vote, but had also gained time for them, so that they could send to fetch three noblemen who had been rendered unable to take part in the elections by the wiles of the other party. Two noble gentlemen, who had a weakness for strong drink, had been made drunk by the partisans of Snetkov, and a third had been robbed of his uniform. On learning this, the new party had made haste, during the dispute about Flerov, to send some of their men in a sledge to clothe the stripped gentleman, and to bring along one of the intoxicated to the meeting. “I’ve brought one, drenched him with water,” said the landowner, who had gone on this errand, to Sviazhsky. “He’s all right? he’ll do.” “Not too drunk, he won’t fall down?” said Sviazhsky, shaking his head. “No, he’s first-rate. If only they don’t give him any more here.... I’ve told the waiter not to give him anything on any account.” Chapter 29

• From Querelle (1953)

  spected overmuch. And then-the gesture seemed spontaneous, but was most deliberate-then he put his hand on Querelle's beret, keeping it there lightly at first, then pressing it down and touching the sailor's hair. Querelle was still swaying back and forth. Grateful for the opportunity, the officer pulled the sailor's head toward him, and Querelle rested his cheek on Seblon's thigh. "Wou ldn't like to see you in jail, you know." "Is that right? Come on, you're just saying that. You're an officer, what the hell do you care!" It was then that Lieutenant Seblon dared to stroke the other cheek and say: "You know very well that I do care." Querelle put an arm round his waist, forced him to bend down and kissed him, hard, on the mouth. Then he got up, throwing his arms round the officer's neck, and there was such a sense of abandon and languor in his movements that for the first time, riding the crest of a wave of femininity from god knows where, this gesture became a masterpiece of manly grace: the muscular arms formed a flower-basket, holding a human head more lovely than any flower, and they had dared to forget their usual function and taken on another one, expressing their most essential nature. Querelle smiled at the thought of draw ing so close to that shame from which there is no return, and in which one might well discover peace. He felt so weak, so over come, that this phrase formed in his mind, saddening in all that it evoked of autumn, of stains, of delicate and mortal wounds: 4'H ere's the one who will follow in my footsteps."

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Carefully set to rights, with hair well-brushed, in a smart little cap with some blue in it, her arms out on the quilt, she was lying on her back. Meeting his eyes, her eyes drew him to her. Her face, bright before, brightened still more as he drew near her. There was the same change in it from earthly to unearthly that is seen in the face of the dead. But then it means farewell, here it meant welcome. Again a rush of emotion, such as he had felt at the moment of the child’s birth, flooded his heart. She took his hand and asked him if he had slept. He could not answer, and turned away, struggling with his weakness. “I have had a nap, Kostya!” she said to him; “and I am so comfortable now.” She looked at him, but suddenly her expression changed. “Give him to me,” she said, hearing the baby’s cry. “Give him to me, Lizaveta Petrovna, and he shall look at him.” “To be sure, his papa shall look at him,” said Lizaveta Petrovna, getting up and bringing something red, and queer, and wriggling. “Wait a minute, we’ll make him tidy first,” and Lizaveta Petrovna laid the red wobbling thing on the bed, began untrussing and trussing up the baby, lifting it up and turning it over with one finger and powdering it with something. Levin, looking at the tiny, pitiful creature, made strenuous efforts to discover in his heart some traces of fatherly feeling for it. He felt nothing towards it but disgust. But when it was undressed and he caught a glimpse of wee, wee, little hands, little feet, saffron-colored, with little toes, too, and positively with a little big toe different from the rest, and when he saw Lizaveta Petrovna closing the wide-open little hands, as though they were soft springs, and putting them into linen garments, such pity for the little creature came upon him, and such terror that she would hurt it, that he held her hand back. Lizaveta Petrovna laughed. “Don’t be frightened, don’t be frightened!” When the baby had been put to rights and transformed into a firm doll, Lizaveta Petrovna dandled it as though proud of her handiwork, and stood a little away so that Levin might see his son in all his glory. Kitty looked sideways in the same direction, never taking her eyes off the baby. “Give him to me! give him to me!” she said, and even made as though she would sit up. “What are you thinking of, Katerina Alexandrovna, you mustn’t move like that! Wait a minute. I’ll give him to you. Here we’re showing papa what a fine fellow we are!” And Lizaveta Petrovna, with one hand supporting the wobbling head, lifted up on the other arm the strange, limp, red creature, whose head was lost in its swaddling clothes. But it had a nose, too, and slanting eyes and smacking lips. “A splendid baby!” said Lizaveta Petrovna.

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  Leo was larger than life. He was a big man, over three hundred pounds. We would always start out the same way: I would call him “Mr. Steinem,” and he would look a little pained and say, “Call me Leo.” Not “Uncle Leo” or anything like that, just Leo. It was how I knew we were pals. When he told me to sit down, he always patted the couch next to him, looking furtively around the room. What was going to happen next was not for just anyone to see. He would start searching around in his suitcoat pockets, eventually coming out with gems. Diamonds, rubies, sapphires. Big ones, little ones. They were not in boxes, no wrappings of any kind. No settings, just loose in his pockets. He loved them. I loved them. We would carefully examine them. We would talk about them. Many times we would just admire them in silence, take our time, we both had lots of time....Invariably, he would reach into another pocket and pull out a roll of money and ask if I needed any. Somehow, I never did. I never could figure out why he carried all that money and those precious gems on his person. It was all very mysterious and dangerous. My favorite time was going to lunch across the street at the Radar Room. It was painted black outside, with a single neon sign that you could hardly see during the day but at night was a spectacular green, blinking and spelling Radar in both directions. Inside, it was also black, with red leather bar stools and booths and a large mirror behind the bar. We sat in my dad’s favorite booth in the dark. I would always have a cheeseburger, my dad would always have one martini with his lunch, and Leo would eat but never drink. For entertainment, Leo and my dad would get customers to bet that I couldn’t name a particular bone or muscle in the body. This worked better when I was eight, but anytime I was stumped, I would just say, “sternocleidomastoideus.” The customer would look amazed and pay his dime, but I knew I had to know the real answer by the time my father and I went home. Leo didn’t care if I was right or wrong, we were just having fun. He didn’t sweat the small stuff. I wanted to be like Leo. One sunny morning my father told me that Leo hadn’t been around because he’d been in a serious car accident. We drove down to Orange County, where he was in intensive care. My dad talked to the staff, then we went in to see Leo. He was breathing oxygen through a clear mask, the sheet was around his massive waist, and he didn’t have a shirt on.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  “That’s okay,” Charles said. “Do it.” “All right,” Lionel said, and drew the trimmers back through the first, delicate layer of Charles’s hair. He enjoyed running his fingers though it again and again as he buzzed it all away. It seemed like such a shame to do it to hair this good, this beautiful. It hadn’t even started to thin the way his own had. Charles had the kind of face that was suitable for any kind of hair, but the curls suited him most, brought out the boyishness in him. Without them, he would be too severe, too intimidating, too much like a man. But it was too late, all gone. Charles caught whatever hair he could and piled it in a little mound on his lap. Lionel slid his fingers against the fuzzy scalp that was slowly emerging from beneath the hair. He occasionally scraped too close, and Charles hissed at him, which made Lionel hard. The reprimand reminded him of how they’d fucked. It was done in about twenty minutes, and Lionel was proud of how even it all was. “You look good,” he said, appraising him. “You look really good.” “Let me see,” Charles said, and went to the bathroom. He stayed in there a long time. Lionel could hear the water running. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, rocking his feet back and forth, testing the strength of his ligaments. He was chewing the edge of his lip raw. He could see falling snow through the window over the bed. It fell through the blue light of the street lamp, drifting sideways in the wind. It was accumulating on the sidewalk and the windowsill. He let the window up, and cold air blew in on him, clear and perfect. “I like it,” Charles said from the bathroom. “You did a great job. I feel tingly all over, raw.” He came from the hallway, rubbing water into his hair. He had been rinsing away the loose bits. His face had lost its softness. There was still warmth in his eyes and in his brow, but now there was also sharpness, clean, cruel lines. “You look different,” Lionel said, and Charles frowned at him. “Bad? I thought you liked it.” “I do like it,” he said. “I do. You look great.” “I don’t believe you,” Charles said. His feelings were hurt. Lionel got up from the bed and gathered Charles’s hair into his hands. “We have to burn it,” he said. “Why?” Charles asked. “So that birds don’t take it and make you crazy. It’s something my grandma says.” “Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.” • • •

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “When he wakes up, please God, you shall see for yourself. Then when I do like this, he simply beams on me, the darling! Simply beams like a sunny day!” said Agafea Mihalovna. “Well, well; then we shall see,” whispered Kitty. “But now go away, he’s going to sleep.” Chapter 7 Agafea Mihalovna went out on tiptoe; the nurse let down the blind, chased a fly out from under the muslin canopy of the crib, and a bumblebee struggling on the window-frame, and sat down waving a faded branch of birch over the mother and the baby. “How hot it is! if God would send a drop of rain,” she said. “Yes, yes, sh—sh—sh——” was all Kitty answered, rocking a little, and tenderly squeezing the plump little arm, with rolls of fat at the wrist, which Mitya still waved feebly as he opened and shut his eyes. That hand worried Kitty; she longed to kiss the little hand, but was afraid to for fear of waking the baby. At last the little hand ceased waving, and the eyes closed. Only from time to time, as he went on sucking, the baby raised his long, curly eyelashes and peeped at his mother with wet eyes, that looked black in the twilight. The nurse had left off fanning, and was dozing. From above came the peals of the old prince’s voice, and the chuckle of Katavasov. “They have got into talk without me,” thought Kitty, “but still it’s vexing that Kostya’s out. He’s sure to have gone to the bee-house again. Though it’s a pity he’s there so often, still I’m glad. It distracts his mind. He’s become altogether happier and better now than in the spring. He used to be so gloomy and worried that I felt frightened for him. And how absurd he is!” she whispered, smiling. She knew what worried her husband. It was his unbelief. Although, if she had been asked whether she supposed that in the future life, if he did not believe, he would be damned, she would have had to admit that he would be damned, his unbelief did not cause her unhappiness. And she, confessing that for an unbeliever there can be no salvation, and loving her husband’s soul more than anything in the world, thought with a smile of his unbelief, and told herself that he was absurd.

• From Escape (2007)

  But Merril’s family had shunned her after she got sick. Her illness was seen as a sign that she had disgraced her father by not being in harmony with the husband she never wanted to marry. Even though she eventually married the man the prophet had ordered her to, she was seen as someone who’d been in resistance to Uncle Roy’s will. Audrey had also never kowtowed to Barbara, for which she also paid a price. Harrison had been getting his IV therapy through home health visits. It was always a challenge because of his spasms. I asked Audrey if she might be able to do this. His screaming was bad enough without the additional trauma of being stuck like a pincushion when he needed his IVs. The first time Audrey examined him she shook her head. “Carolyn, nearly all his veins are blown. It’s because he’s needed a lot of IVs but also because they’ve missed his veins so many times. You can’t allow anyone to stick him several times. He won’t have any IV access left at all.” Audrey, in her calm and determined way, managed to place the IV line on her first try. From then on, whenever there was an emergency or whenever Harrison needed an IV, Audrey was the person I called. She was the one I confided in first when I found out I was pregnant. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I said. “If I get into trouble with this one, we’re doomed.” Audrey tried to reassure me and promised she would do whatever it took to help me keep Harrison alive. She said she’d be there around the clock if it came to that. I knew she meant it. Harrison’s surgery was scheduled for June. I had to make arrangements for the trip and also find a way to pay for it. Merril had forced me to go on Medicaid and would give me no extra help. Cathleen volunteered to drive me. She said she could pay for the trip with her own money. Barbara was infuriated at this idea, but Merril did not object. Merril was relieved that I was no longer threatening to leave him. I had been sexually compliant, even when I was completely wiped out by Harrison’s screaming, spasms, and vomiting. When Merril came into my room in the middle of the night and flung himself on top of me I didn’t have either the will or the energy to refuse. Sex was the price I had to pay to make him think I’d given up the idea of escape. Harrison’s surgery was a success—at least initially. His post-op recovery was more complicated than we anticipated. Cathleen stayed with me in Phoenix, which was a relief. Merril didn’t bother to come. He had no interest in Harrison.

• From Querelle (1953)

  263 I QUERRLE with such violence-[ have to arouse it in the hearts of the crew men. If only they would love me thus! I want to be their father, and hurt them. I want to brand them: they will hate me. Impas sively I shall watch their being tortured, not hvitching a single nerve. Little by little, a feeling of extreme power will enter into me and fill me. I shall be strong, having overcome pity. I shall be sad as well, while watching my own pitiful comedy: that little sm ile, the soft voice, illuminating my commands. I, too, am a victim of recruitment posters. Of one in particular, depicting a Marine rifleman in white leggings, standing guard at the frontiers of the French Empire. A wind rose under his heel, a red thistle above his head. I know that I'll never abandon Querelle. I shall devote my whole life to him. One day I fixed my stare on him and told him: "Do you have a slight cast in one eye?" Instead of getting angry or impertinent, that splendid boy answered, in a voice that was suddenly sad and revealed a small but incurable sorrow: "It's not my fault." I understood instantly that there was an opening here, into which I could pour my tenderness. Once his arrogance cracks its annor, Querelle is no longer such pure marble, but human flesh. And it is in this way that Madame Lysiane expressed her kind ness and took care of her unfortunate clients. When I am suffering, I find myself unable to believe in God. I am, then, too keenly aware of my own impotence to address my complaints about a Being-and to Him-that is impossible to attain. In pain, I have recourse only to myself. When I am unhappy, I know I have someone to thank for it.

• From Querelle (1953)

  252 I JEAN GENET silence, Querelle's own salvation. Alert, quick, a winner already, he toned down his scorn and haughtiness, knowing that these might crack or upset the balance now weighted in his favor and indicating that he would gain a ri d keep his freedom. (Let us note that Querelle was able to discern the ways and means he had to employ in order to succeed because he was, and knew himself to be, utterly free; thus he saw he could afford to temper his scorn and arrogance with a little buddy-talk.) With a little, crooked smile_-thus, in his own mind, showing Gil the irony and basic insignihcance of the entire situation-he said: "Hell, come on. You're not the guy who would break down at a time like this. You just have to listen what I tell you to do. D'you understand?" He put his hand on Gil's shoulder, whom he was now ad dressing like a sick man, someone bound to die, giving his final advice tha t concerned Gil's soul more than his body. "You get into an empty compartment. Then, first of all, you hide your dough. Just stick it under one of the seat cushions. Just keep some change on you. You see what I mean. You have to take care not to have too much money on you. ' ' "And what about the clothes?" Gil had thought of saying "So you want me to go in these old rags," but as it indicated too great a degree of intimacy and emotional attachment between the two of them (and he was already ashamed of this), he realized that such a way of putting it might irritate Querelle. He said: "They'II recognize me in these." "HeU, no. Don't you worry about that. The cops can't remember what you were wearing then." Querelle went on in the same, simultaneously imperious and tender manner. As luck would have it (this kind of luck being a kind of affection o r disease, caused by the humors circulating in the vascular system of events), there was one more most appro priate slip of the tongue. Holding Gil by the shoulders with both hands, Querelle said:

• From Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture (2018)

  Being invited to engage with someone in an intimate way, to entwine your lips with theirs, to slip your tongue into their mouth, to put your hands on their body in ways that no one else does is a gift, an act of vulnerability and trust. So when that almost inevitable moment comes when I realize that, for a new lover, this act that we are undertaking together once began for them as a violation, my stomach faithfully drops. The best I can do, usually, is to try to stay present and loving, as an act of resistance and reclamation. I’d like to think that the fact that so many of my partners are survivors is exceptional: maybe it’s because I’m queer; maybe it’s because I’m Latinx, a child of immigrants; maybe it’s because many of my partners are people of color and immigrants too. I know the statistics—that one in four girls and one in six boys (based on how they were assigned at birth) are sexually abused as children; I know that for people of color, especially Black and Latinx folks, those rates are even higher. In the grand scheme of things, even though the kiss list in my journal takes up a full page, my sample size is small. It’s likely that many of my friends are survivors too—or that many of them find themselves having the same realization, over and over again, with new lovers as I do. I know that my own trauma shapes all of my relationships and interactions: though I’m not a survivor and I wasn’t sexually abused as a child, my early family dynamics have left me with all sorts of distorted ways of relating to others. I’m a caretaker and a caregiver; a top and caballero if I’m feeling romantic and want to reclaim my machista Cuban roots in my own queer feminist way. But the shadow side of it means that my default is to put other people’s needs and desires before my own. In some ways, my instinct to put myself last has served me well in my relationships, particularly with the partners who have experienced sexual abuse: being deferential, attentive, and accommodating has helped my lovers feel some sense of safety as they navigated their own complicated relationships with sex and boundaries as survivors. But I was also forced to confront that, in other ways, my selflessness may be the result of my own coping mechanisms, and be reinforcing unhealthy approaches to sex. If I peruse my list of partners, there are probably only one or two people about whom I could say confidently that our relationship never involved any sex that I performed out of obligation, rather than actual desire. Then, during sex with a relatively new partner recently, we agreed at the outset of one encounter that we would focus on my pleasure. A few minutes into it, I burst into sobs and cried for the better part of ten minutes.