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 79 of 145 · 20 per page

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  a snowwoman. It’s a snowman.” I put Scotty’s smaller snow boulder on top of the first. “Help me make her head,” I told them both. Kim flew into a rage and sobbed. I touched her shoulders. “Are you really that upset?” She nodded and cried. I wiped her runny nose. 182 = Leslie Feinberg “It’s OK,” Scotty said gently, “She could be a snowman, tight?” I nodded. “Help us make his head, OK?” Kim sniffled and nodded. We rolled the head, and I put it in place. I scrounged for stones under the snow, and we used them to make a mouth and nose and eyes. “He needs a scarf, right?” I asked. They both nodded. I pulled off my scarf and put it around his neck. I took out my pack of cigarettes. “No,” they both shouted in unison, “don’t smoke!” “Well, I don’t have a pipe for the snowman. Should I put a cigarette in his mouth?” “No!” they shouted. “He doesn’t smoke! He’s smart!” I laughed. “OK, OK. But that’s a pretty good- looking snowman we made, isn’t it?” Scotty nodded and fell on the ground. “Watch me make a snow angel!” He wildly flailed his arms and legs. “Are you OK?” T asked Kim. She nodded. I pulled her scarf snug around her neck. “I’m sorry I upset you,” I told her. “I was just teasing.” She shrugged. “It’s OK.” “Tm sorry anyway,” I said. “No,” she told me. “I mean it’s OK about it being a snowwoman.” I smiled. “How about if we decide that this is a snowperson and we like him or her just the way she is?” Kim nodded without smiling, She silently stared out the car window during the long ride home. “Did they eat?” Gloria wanted to know. I nodded. ““Time for your bath,” she told them. “Aw, Mom, we’re too pooped,” Scotty said. Gloria laughed. “Alright, smart aleck. But tomorrow night you both take a bath, and I don’t want to hear any whining.” Scotty beamed in triumph. “Can Jess put us to bed?” Gloria glanced at me. I nodded. Scotty and Kim changed into their pajamas and kissed Gloria good night. I tucked each one under their covers. “You have to read us the story about when we were little kids,’ Scotty instructed me. I picked up the book from the nightstand. Kim pointed to a bookmark. “That’s where Mom left off,” she said. I began to read, my voice quiet and low: Where am I going? I dont quite know. Scotty yawned. I kissed his sweaty hair. A mobile turned slowly over our heads, casting the shadows of moving ships against the walls. Tf you were a bird, and lived on high, My voice cracked like a teenage boy’s and then dropped a bit deeper as I read. The hormones were beginning to work. Youd say to the wind as it took you away: ‘That's where I wanted to go today!’

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  Edna laughed. “What’s wrong? Did you write something you shouldn’t have?” I shifted my weight from foot to foot. “I wrote you a poem. I never did that before. Maybe you'll think it’s stupid.” Edna pulled my face against her neck and wrapped her arms around me. “Honey, you wrote a poem for me? Oh, thank you. That means so much to me. I don’t even have to read it if you don’t want me to.” Femmes can be so smart about these things. Of course I wanted her to read it, especially since she was giving me a choice. “Oh, alright, go ahead and read it,’ I told her, and braced myself for her reaction. I blushed because it surprised me when she read it out loud. But I liked the way her voice elevated my words: Ass yellow as leaves give way to the gentle insistence of the green _you touched my loneliness and my crisp, brown husks yielded to a tender newness. Edna burst into tears. She kissed my face all over till my embarrassment subsided. “Oh, Jess. Did you really write that just for me? It’s beautiful.” “Edna,” I whispered in her ear, “was that expressing a feeling?” Edna pulled back and held my face in her hands. Her lower lip trembled. “Oh yes, honey. That’s exactly what it was.” We held each other and swayed to music only we could heat. She took my hand and led me to her bedroom. I tried to make good love to her. But I couldn’t read her body signals—all I got was static. Couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong, Edna’s nipple tightened like a bud and then blossomed in my mouth. I heard her gasp. One sob followed another. I brought my face near hers, and she grabbed my T-shirt in both her fists. Her body shook violently. She buried her face against my neck and cried so hard it frightened me. I held her tight. “T can’t,” she said. “Shh. It’s alright.” “Don’t be mad at me,” she pleaded. “Tm not,” I whispered. “I’m not mad at you.” Stone Butch Blues 235 Edna didn’t say what was going on inside of her, and I was afraid to ask. If I was undesirable it was something I was in no hurry to find out. Besides, I'd been so unbearably lonely for so long that the sex didn’t matter to me as much as this intimacy. I continued holding her and settled into the simple comfort that her closeness offered. We lay without speaking for a long, long time. I finally broke the silence with a question. “Do you think ’m a woman?” Edna got up on one elbow and looked at me. “What do you think?” she asked gently.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  No one paid any attention to us inside the diner. Men dressed in flannel and truckers’ caps shared their own stories at booths and tables. The waitress looked weary. We stood in front of the cashier, waiting to pay, anxious to leave before there was trouble. A man appeared from the kitchen. He couldn’t have been more than three feet tall. He climbed up onto a stool in front of the register and rang up our purchase. He looked at Ruth’s face and then at mine. His expression softened. Ruth and I looked at each other shyly, then smiled at him. He beamed at us. “How’s your trip going, gals?” Ruth and I looked at each other wide-eyed and chuckled. I leaned closer. “It’s been an amazing journey. And somehow we’ve survived it. So far, anyway. How about yours?” His smile was a series of expressions. “It’s not what I thought it was gonna be, but it’s made me into somebody I can live with.” Ruth shook his hand. “Are you from around here too?” He nodded. “Born and bred here. My name’s Carlin.” Ruth smiled. “I’m from Vine Valley. ’m Ruth. Jess is from Buffalo. We’re headed back to New York City.” His eyes brightened. “I want to get out of here. I want to go to a big city where there’s never a dull moment.” Ruth laughed. “Then Manhattan’s just the place for you.” “Come with us,” I told him. “Come on! Let’s all get in the car and go.” Carlin shook his head sadly. “Part of me wishes I was the kind of person who could do that. But Pve got people here. I’d have to disengage slower than that.” Ruth scribbled her name and phone number on the back of a napkin. “Call us. Come visit. We'll show you why we love New York.” I nodded. “We'll show you why we hate it, too.” He leaned closer. “Are you gals really serious?” I leaned forward till my forehead was almost touching his. “We don’t have the time to waste on being insincere.” Carlin patted my cheek. “How about a nice fresh peach pie for the road? Helen, bring me that pie, please.” As Carlin and Ruth shook hands, I saw how Stone Butch Blues 321 beautiful his very small hand looked as it clasped her very large hand. We all said our goodbyes. Ruth and I got back in the car. I poured us each a cup of coffee. “You think we'll hear from Carlin?” She nodded. “Oh, I’d bet on it.” Ruth rested her hand on my arm. “How was Buffalo? Did you find what you were looking for?” I sighed. “I don’t know. Every time I go looking for something, I find something else. Pll tell you about the trip later. I’m just too tired to sort it out now. How about you?”

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  AMBROSE. But the Lord is not moved against them, that He might shew that perfect virtue has no feeling of revenge, nor is there any anger where there is fulness of love. For weakness must not be thrust out, but assisted. Let indignation be far from the religious, let the high-souled have no desire of vengeance. Hence it follows, But he turned and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. BEDE. The Lord blames them, not for following the example of the holy Prophet, but for their ignorance in taking vengeance while they were yet inexperienced, perceiving that they did not desire correction from love, but vengeance from hatred. After that He had taught them what it was to love their neighbour as themselves, and the Holy Ghost also had been infused into them, there were not lacking these punishments, though far less frequent than in the Old Testament, because the Son of man came not to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. As if He said, And do you therefore who are sealed with His Spirit, imitate also His actions, now determining charitably, hereafter judging justly. AMBROSE. For we must not always punish the offender, since mercy sometimes does more good, leading thee to patience, the sinner to repentance. Lastly, those Samaritans believed the sooner, who were in this place saved from fire. 9:57–6257. And it came to pass, that, as they went in the way, a certain man said unto him, Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. 58. And Jesus said unto him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. 59. And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. 60. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead; but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. 61. And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. 62. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  CHRYSOSTOM. And they immediately reap the reward of this; for it follows, And he went out and saw a great multitude, and he had compassion upon them, and healed their sick. For though great was the affection of those who had left their cities, and sought Him carefully, yet the things that were done by Him surpassed the reward of any zeal. Therefore he assigns compassion as the cause of this healing. And it is great compassion to heal all, and not to require faith. HILARY. Mystically; The Word of God, on the close of the Law, entered the ship, that is, the Church; and departed into the desert, that is, leaving to walk with Israel, He passes into breasts void of Divine knowledge. The multitude learning this, follows the Lord out of the city into the desert, going, that is, from the Synagogue to the Church. The Lord sees them, and has compassion upon them, and heals all sickness and infirmity, that is, He cleanses their obstructed minds, and unbelieving hearts for the understanding of the new preaching. JEROME. It is to be observed moreover, that when the Lord came into the desert, great crowds followed Him; for before He went into the wilderness of the Gentiles, He was worshipped by only one people. They leave their cities, that is, their former conversation, and various dogmas. That Jesus went out, shews that the multitudes had the will to go, but not the strength to attain, therefore the Saviour departs out of His place and goes to meet them. 14:15–2115. And when it was evening, his disciples came to him, saying, This is a desert place, and the time is now past; send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages, and buy themselves victuals. 16. But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart; give ye them to eat. 17. And they say unto him, We have here but five loaves, and two fishes. 18. He said, Bring them hither to me. 19. And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. 20. And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full. 21. And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  THEOPHYLACT. But our Lord went into a desert place because He was about to perform the miracle of the loaves of bread, that no one should say that the bread was brought from the neighbouring cities. CHRYSOSTOM. (ubi sup.) Or He went into a desert place that no one might follow Him. But the people did not retire, but accompanied Him, as it follows, And the people when they knew it, followed him. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. Some indeed asking to be delivered from evil spirits, but others desiring of Him the removal of their diseases; those also who were delighted with His teaching attended Him diligently. BEDE. But He as the powerful and merciful Saviour by receiving the weary, by teaching the ignorant, curing the sick, filling the hungry, implies how He was pleased with their devotion; as it follows, And he received them, and spake unto them of the kingdom of God, &c. THEOPHYLACT. That you may learn that the wisdom which is in us is distributed into word and work, and that it becomes us to speak of what has been done, and to do what we speak of. But when the day was wearing away, the disciples now beginning to have a care of others take compassion on the multitude. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. For, as has been said, they sought to be healed of different diseases, and because the disciples saw that what they sought might be accomplished by His simple assent, they say, Send them away, that they be no more distressed. But mark the overflowing kindness of Him who is asked. He not only grants those things which the disciples seek, but to those who follow Him, He supplies the bounty of a munificent hand, commanding food to be set before them; as it follows, But he said unto them, Give ye them to eat. THEOPHYLACT. Now He said not this as ignorant of their answer, but wishing to induce them to tell Him how much bread they had, that so a great miracle might be manifested through their confession, when the quantity of bread was made known. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. But this was a command which the disciples were unable to comply with, since they had with them but five loaves and two fishes. As it follows, And they said, We have no more but five loaves and two fishes; except we go and buy meat for all this people.

• From On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019)

  “You have to find a way, Little Dog,” you said into my hair. “You have to because I don’t have the English to help you. I can’t say nothing to stop them. You find a way. You find a way or you don’t tell me about this ever again, you hear?” You pulled back. “You have to be a real boy and be strong. You have to step up or they’ll keep going. You have a bellyful of English.” You placed your palm on my stomach, almost whispering, “You have to use it, okay?” “Yes, Ma.” You brushed my hair to one side, kissed my forehead. You studied me, a bit too long, before falling back on the sofa waving your hand. “Get me another cigarette.” When I came back with the Marlboro and a Zippo lighter, the TV was off. You just sat there staring out the blue window. — The next morning, in the kitchen, I watched as you poured the milk into a glass tall as my head. “Drink,” you said, your lips pouted with pride. “This is American milk so you’re gonna grow a lot. No doubt about it.” I drank so much of that cold milk it grew tasteless on my numbed tongue. Each morning after that, we’d repeat this ritual: the milk poured with a thick white braid, I’d drink it down, gulping, making sure you could see, both of us hoping the whiteness vanishing into me would make more of a yellow boy. I’m drinking light, I thought. I’m filling myself with light. The milk would erase all the dark inside me with a flood of brightness. “A little more,” you said, rapping the counter. “I know it’s a lot. But it’s worth it.” I clanked the glass down on the counter, beaming. “See?” you said, arms crossed. “You already look like Superman!” I grinned, milk bubbling between my lips. — Some people say history moves in a spiral, not the line we have come to expect. We travel through time in a circular trajectory, our distance increasing from an epicenter only to return again, one circle removed. Lan, through her stories, was also traveling in a spiral. As I listened, there would be moments when the story would change—not much, just a minuscule detail, the time of day, the color of someone’s shirt, two air raids instead of three, an AK-47 instead of a 9mm, the daughter laughing, not crying. Shifts in the narrative would occur—the past never a fixed and dormant landscape but one that is re-seen. Whether we want to or not, we are traveling in a spiral, we are creating something new from what is gone. “Make me young again,” Lan said. “Make me black again, not snow like this, Little Dog. Not snow.”

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  I unlocked my front door and shook my head. “No, but thank you.” Once inside, I threw open the windows and began a serious cleaning frenzy. Hours later I scrubbed the gunk under my sink while my music blasted. The knock at the door startled me, and I hit my skull on the pipes. I rubbed my head angrily as I opened the door. Ruth extended an armful of orange gladiolas. “I thought you might like these. I heard you cleaning and I hoped they would brighten up the place after all that hard work.” I opened the front door a little further. “Thanks. I don’t think I have anything to put these in.” Ruth returned a moment later with a cut-glass vase. She couldn’t conceal her horror at my barren apartment. I shifted my weight uncomfortably. “I haven’t had time to shop for furniture or anything,” I put the flowers in water and set them in the middle of the empty living room. “They’re really pretty, Ruth. I’ve brought women flowers, but no woman ever gave me flowers before. It’s a beautiful thing to do.” Ruth blushed. “People need flowers.” She turned to go and stopped. “You know, I don’t even know your name.” “Jess.” She smiled. “I had an uncle named Jesse. Is it short for Jesse?” I shook my head. “Just Jess.” “Tl leave you to your cleaning, Jess.” I nodded. “Thanks for the flowers.” When she left I went back to scrubbing. Hours later, I sat down wearily on the living room floor next to the flowers. Maybe Ruth had been right: being afraid to lose anything I cared about meant Id already lost it all. I heard another knock on my door, the second time in one day. It was Ruth. She extended a bundle of unbleached muslin. “These are the curtains I used to have in my Stone Butch Blues 275 living room. My windows are the same size as yours so I thought Id offer them. It’s up to you.” I stood and looked at Ruth and at the gift in her large hands, and I said yes to both. A week later I brought Ruth’s vase back to her, filled with irises. Her smile was my reward. “Do you have a vase?” she asked me. I shook my head. “Come in. Here, do you like this?” She handed me a cobalt blue glass vase. I sighed. “Oh! The color is so intense it pulls me in. I can almost taste the color.” Ruth rested her fingertips on my cheek. “You’re hungry, Jess. Your senses are starved.” I stared into the depth of the deep blue. “If I made you dinner tonight, what would you eat? Fish?” I laughed. “Ts fish food?” Ruth shook her head. “Oh no, you’re not a meat and potatoes kind of guy, are your” I dropped my eyes. “I’m not a guy, Ruth.”

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  wanted to have Elizabeth executed on charges of conspiring against the Crown but could not gather enough evidence.) How had these experiences affected the young Elizabeth? Was she as impetuous as her father or as arrogant as her half-sister, Mary? With so much at stake, they were beyond curious to know more about her. For the English, the procession was a day for celebration and merriment, and Elizabeth did not disappoint on that score. It was quite a spectacle—colorful tapestries on the exterior walls of houses, banners and streamers from every window, musicians and jesters roaming the streets entertaining the crowd. As a light snow fell, the queen-to-be herself now appeared on the streets, and wherever she passed the crowd grew hushed. Carried in an open litter, she wore the most beautiful golden royal robe and the most magnificent jewels. She had a charming face and the liveliest dark eyes. But as the procession moved along and various pageants were performed for her benefit, the English saw something they had never witnessed before or could even begin to imagine: the queen seemed to enjoy mingling with the crowds, tears filling her eyes as she listened attentively to the poorest of Londoners with their petitions and blessings for her reign. When she talked, her manner of speaking was natural and even a bit folksy. She fed off the growing excitement in the crowd, and her affection for the people in the streets was all too apparent. One older and quite poor woman handed her a withered sprig of rosemary for good luck, and Elizabeth clutched it the entire day. One witness wrote of Elizabeth, “If ever any person had either the gift or the style to win the hearts of people, it was this Queen. . . . All her faculties were in motion, and every motion seemed a well-guided action: her eye was set upon one, her ear listened to another, her judgment ran upon a third, to a fourth she addressed her speech; her spirit seemed to be everywhere, and yet so entire in herself as it seemed to be nowhere else. Some she pitied, some she commended, some she thanked, at others she pleasantly and wittily jested . . . and distributing her smiles, looks, and graces . . . that thereupon the people again redoubled the testimony of their joys, and afterwards, raising everything to the highest strain, filled the ears of all men with immoderate extolling of their Prince.” That night the city of London was abuzz with stories of the day. In taverns and homes, people commented on Elizabeth’s strange and electrifying presence. Kings and queens would often appear before the public, but they were surrounded with such pomp and eager to maintain their distance. They expected the people to obey and worship them. But Elizabeth seemed eager to win the people’s love, and it had charmed everyone who had seen her that day. As word

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  I remember, it was abvays the same. I would put on the briefs, and then Id just get the T-shirt over my head and _you would find some reason to come into the bathroom, to get something or put something away. In a glance you would memorize the wounds on my body like a road map—the gashes, bruises, cigarette burns. 4 Leslie Feinberg Later, in bed, you held me gently, caressing me everywhere, the tenderest touches reserved for the places I was hurt, knowing each and every sore place—inside and out. You didnt flirt with me right away, knowing I wasnt confident enough to feel sexy. But slowly you coaxed my pride back out again by showing me how much you wanted me. You knew it would take you weeks again to melt the stone. Lately I've read these stories by women who are so angry with stone lovers, even mocking their passion when they finally give way to trust, to being touched. And I’m wondering: did it hurt you the times I couldnt let you touch me? I hope it didn’. You never showed it if it did. I think you knew it wasn't you I was keeping myself safe from. You treated my stone self as a wound that needed loving healing. Thank you. No ones ever done that since. If you were here tonight ... well, its hypothetical, isnt ite I never said these things to you. Tonight I remember the time I got busted alone, on strange turf. You're probably wincing already, but I have to say this to you. It was the night we drove ninety miles to a bar to meet friends who never showed up. When the police raided the club we were “alone,” and the cop with gold bars on his uniform came right over to me and told me to stand up. No wonder, I was the only he-she in the place that night. He put his hands all over me, pulled up the band of my Jockeys and told his men to cuff me—lI didnt have three pieces of women’s clothing on. I wanted to fight right then and there because I knew the chance would be lost in a moment. But I also knew that everyone would be beaten that night if I fought back, 50 I just stood there. I saw they had pinned your arms behind your back and cuffed your hands. One cop had his arm across _your throat. I remember the look in your eyes. It hurts me even now.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  separations, and crises in life. It gives us a sense of proportion, of what really matters in this brief existence of ours. Most people continually look for ways to separate themselves from others and feel superior. Instead, we must see the mortality in everyone, how it equalizes and connects us all. By becoming deeply aware of our mortality, we intensify our experience of every aspect of life. The Bullet in the Side As a child growing up in Savannah, Georgia, Mary Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) felt a strange and powerful connection to her father, Edward. Some of this naturally stemmed from their striking physical resemblance—the same large, piercing eyes, the same facial expressions. But more important to Mary, their whole way of thinking and feeling seemed completely in sync. She could sense this when her father participated in the games she invented—he slipped so naturally into the spirit of it all, and his imagination moved in such a similar direction to her own. They had ways of communicating without ever saying a word. Mary, an only child, did not feel the same way about her mother, Regina, who came from a socially superior class to her husband and had aspirations of being a figure in local society. The mother wanted to mold her rather bookish and reclusive daughter into the quintessential southern lady, but Mary, stubborn and willful, would not go along. Mary found her mother and relatives a bit formal and superficial. At the age of ten, she wrote a series of caricatures of them, which she called “My Relitives.” In a mischievous spirit, she let her mother and relatives read the vignettes, and they were, naturally, shocked—not only by how they were portrayed but also by the sharp wit of this ten-year-old. The father, however, found the caricatures delightful. He collected them into a little book that he showed to visitors. He foresaw a great future for his daughter as a writer. Mary knew from early on that she was different from other children, even a bit eccentric, and she basked in the pride he displayed in her unusual qualities. She understood her father so well that it frightened her when in the summer of 1937 she sensed a change in his energy and spirit. At first it was subtle—rashes on his face, a sudden weariness that came over him in the afternoon. Then he began to take increasingly long naps and suffer frequent bouts of flu, his entire body aching. Occasionally Mary would eavesdrop on her parents as they talked behind closed doors of his ailments, and what she could glean was that something was seriously wrong. The real estate business her father had started some years earlier was not doing so well, and he had to let it go. A few months later, he was able to land a government job in Atlanta, which did not pay very well. To manage their tight budget Mary and her mother

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  I smiled at Scotty. “That’s not weird. If you grow up and become the wind, I'll take off my helmet while I’m riding a motorcycle and you can blow through my hair.” 172 = Leslie Feinberg Kim shook her head. “That’s dangerous.” I nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. Why don’t you become the sunshine, Scotty? Then you could keep me warm.” Scotty shook his head emphatically from side to side. “No, the wind.” Kim looked far away. “Hey, Kim?” I asked het. “What do you want to be when you grow up? “T don’t know,” she answered. “That’s alright,” I told her. “You don’t have to know now.” Kim looked worried. “My mother says I should be something special when I grow up.” I cupped her head with my hand. “You already ate,” I said. Her expression flickered as she watched my face. Then her smile began to grow until it filled her whole face, Gloria came home from work early, gripped with a stomach flu. She asked me to stay overnight and drop the kids off at school in the morning, She looked green around the gills. When I urged her to go to bed, she didn’t argue. Scotty emerged from sleep the next morning as though he was stuck in glue. Kim opened her eyes, sat bolt upright, and hugged me. I cooked pancakes for breakfast. I tried to make smiling faces on them with raisins, but when I flipped them over the raisins sank into the batter. “T think I found his smile,’ Kim announced, picking at her pancake with a fork. Scotty looked over at Kim’s plate. “That’s her eye,” he said. I heard my own laughter. It reminded me of spring water bubbling from the earth. “Are you married?” Kim asked me. I looked at the gold band on my finger. My throat tightened. “Not anymore.” Scotty nodded. “My mommy and daddy are diborced.” “Di-vorced,” Kim corrected him. “Who were you mattied to?” If I spoke openly with the kids would Gloria forbid me to see them? I took a deep breath. “Her name is Theresa.” Kim weighed the information. “Was she pretty?” I smiled. “Very pretty.” Kim frowned. “Wait a minute, girls can’t get married to girls.” Syrup dripped slowly down Scotty’s chin. “Yes, they can,” he said. I wiped his chin with my thumb. “No, they can’t, stupid.” Kim told him. She looked back at me. “My teacher says boys and girls get married when they grow up.” I checked my watch. It was almost time to drive them to school. “Well, Kim, teachers know a lot of things, but they don’t know everything. Finish your breakfast.” Kim stabbed her pancake, angry because I hadn’t really answered het.

• From The Hours (1998)

  She adds another and another until she has created a rough circle of rosebuds, thorny stems, and leaves. “That’s nice,” she says, and surprisingly, it is. Virginia looks with unanticipated pleasure at this modest circlet of thorns and flowers; this wild deathbed. She would like to lie down on it herself. “Shall we put her in, then?” she says softly to Angelica. Virginia leans toward Angelica as if they shared a secret. Some force flows between them, a complicity that is neither maternal nor erotic but contains elements of both. There is an understanding here. There is some sort of understanding too large for language. Virginia can feel it, as surely as she feels weather on her skin, but when she looks deeply into Angelica’s face she sees by Angelica’s bright, unfocused eyes that she is already growing impatient with the game. She’s made her arrangement of grass and roses; now she wants to dispatch the bird as quickly as possible and go hunting for its nest. “Yes,” Angelica says. Already, at five, she can feign grave enthusiasm for the task at hand, when all she truly wants is for everyone to admire her work and then set her free. Quentin kneels with the bird and gently, immeasurably gently, lays it on the grass. Oh, if men were the brutes and women the angels—if it were as simple as that. Virginia thinks of Leonard frowning over the proofs, intent on scouring away not only the setting errors but whatever taint of mediocrity errors imply. She thinks of Julian last summer, rowing across the Ouse, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and how it had seemed to be the day, the moment, he became a man and not a child. When Quentin takes his hands away, Virginia can see that the bird is laid on the grass compactly, its wings folded up against its body. She knows it has died already, in Quentin’s palms. It seems to have wanted to make the smallest possible package of itself. Its eye, a perfect black bead, is open, and its gray feet, larger than you’d expect them to be, are curled in on themselves. Vanessa comes up behind Virginia. “Let’s leave her now, everyone,” Vanessa says. “We’ve done what we can.” Angelica and Quentin disperse willingly. Angelica starts her circuit of the house, squinting up at the eaves. Quentin wipes his hands on his jersey and goes inside to wash up. (Does he believe the bird has left a residue of death on his hands? Does he believe good English soap and one of Aunt Virginia’s towels will wash it away?) Julian stays with Vanessa and Virginia, still in attendance on the little corpse.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  She turned on the light in her bedroom as we walked in. A Harley-Davidson gas tank hung from the ceiling. “You like bikes?” she asked me. I nodded. I walked over to the light switch and snapped it off. She stood awkwardly near her bed. I came up behind her and rested my hands on her shoulders. I lifted her hair with one hand and nipped the nape of her neck with my lips. I pressed my pelvis gently against her ass as I pulled her shoulders back so that my mouth could take more of her neck. Annie turned and gently pulled me down on the bed. She trembled. “Are you afraid?” I asked. “Fuck you,” she answered with a twisted smile. “You’ve been hurt before,” I said to myself out loud. “What woman hasn’t?” she snapped. I rolled over on my back and pulled her against my body. “I'd really like to make you feel good,” I whispered. “If you’d trust me enough to show me what you want.” Stone Butch Blues 205 “What’s your trip, mister?” she snorted. “You want to fuck or not?” “We can if you want to,” I said. “Or we can do other things. It’s up to you.” Annie did a double take. “Whatdya mean it’s up to me?” “It’s your body. What do you want? I mean, you can show me how you really want to be touched. Or you can act excited and hope I come—not too quick, but don’t take too long—tight?” Annie shook her head and sat bolt upright. “You're scaring me,” she said. “Because I want you to really be there when I touch you?” She nodded, “Yeah, exactly.” I lay quietly. “T don’t know if I can,’ she said. I sat up and took her in my arms. “Try,” I whispered and pulled her down on top of me. I rolled Annie over on her back as I kissed her, deep and long, I unbuttoned her blouse with slow steady fingers and teased her breasts for a long time before I came near her nipples with my fingertips. Then I brushed them, lightly, and felt her body shudder. I took each nipple in my mouth and played with it ever so gently. Somehow she told me with her body where to touch, how to touch, when to touch. As I rubbed the front 206 = Leslie Feinberg of her jeans I could feel her passion building, but she deserved the luxury of wanting it real bad. Then she said something to me I knew took a lot of courage. “I’ve always wanted to come before I fuck.” She turned her head away in shame. I kissed the part of her throat she left exposed. “Anything you want,” I told her. She turned her head to look at me. She had tears in her eyes. “Anything?” she asked.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  They had gotten to know each other because Johnson had requested and received a seat on the Armed Services Committee, on which Russell was second in seniority. Russell crossed paths with Johnson in the cloakroom, in the corridors, on the Senate floor; he seemed to be everywhere. And although Johnson visited Russell in his office almost every day, Russell came to enjoy his presence. Like Russell, Johnson was mostly all business, and full of questions on arcane Senate procedures. He began to call Russell “the Old Master,” and he would often say, “Well, that’s a lesson from the Old Master. I’ll remember that.” Russell was one of the few senators who had remained a bachelor. He never admitted he was lonely, but he spent almost all of his time at his Senate office, even on Sundays. As Johnson would often be in Russell’s office discussing some matter until the evening, he would sometimes invite Russell over for dinner at his house, telling him that his wife, Lady Bird, was an excellent cook, particularly good with southern dishes. The first few times Russell politely refused, but finally he relented and he soon became a weekly regular at the Johnson house. Lady Bird was charming and he quickly took to her. Slowly the relationship between Russell and Johnson deepened. Russell was a baseball fanatic, and to his delight, Johnson confessed a weakness for the sport as well. Now they would go together to night games of the Washington Senators. A day would not pass in which they did not see each other, as the two of them would often be the only senators in their offices working on the weekends. They seemed to have so many interests in common, including the Civil War, and they thought alike on so many issues dear to southern Democrats, such as their opposition to a civil rights bill. Soon Russell could be heard touting the junior senator as “a can- do young man” with a capacity equal to his own for hard work. Johnson was the only junior senator over his long career whom he referred to as a “disciple.” But the friendship went deeper than that. After attending a hunting party that Johnson had organized in Texas, Russell wrote to him, “Ever since I reached home I have been wondering if I would wake up and find that I had just been dreaming that I had made a trip to Texas. Everything was so perfect that it is difficult to realize that it could happen in real life.” In 1950 the Korean War broke out and there was pressure on the Armed Services Committee to form a subcommittee to investigate the military’s preparedness for the war. Such a subcommittee had been formed during World War II and chaired by Harry Truman, and it was through that chairmanship that Truman had become famous and risen to power. The current chairman of the Armed Services Committee was Senator Millard Tydings of Maryland.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  “It changes you,” she said. “What they do to you in here, the shit you take every day on the streets—it changes you, you know?” I listened. She smiled. “T can’t remember if I was ever as sweet as you are when I was your age.” Her smile faded. “I don’t want to see you change. I don’t want to see you after you’ve hardened up.” I sort of understood. But I was really worried about Al and I didn’t know what was going to happen to me. This sounded like a philosophical discussion. I didn’t know if I was going to live to an age where experience would change me. I just wanted to live through tonight. I wanted to know where Al was. The cops told Mona she’d been bailed out. “T must look a mess,” she said. “You look beautiful,” I told her, and I meant it. I looked at her face for a last moment, wondering if the men she gave herself to loved her as much as I did. “You really are a sweet butch,” Mona said before she left. That felt good. 34 Leslie Feinberg The cops dragged Al in just after Mona left. She was in pretty bad shape. Her shirt was partly open and her pants zipper was down. Her binder was gone, leaving her large breasts free. Her hair was wet. There was blood running from her mouth and nose. She looked dazed, like Mona. The cops pushed her into the cell. Then they approached me. I backed up until I was up against the bars. They stopped and smiled. One cop rubbed his crotch. The other put his hands under my armpits and lifted me up, a couple inches off the floor, and slammed me against the bars. He pressed his thumbs deep into my breasts and jammed his knee between my legs. “You should be this tall soon, tall enough your feet would reach the ground. That’s when we'll take cate of you like we did your pussy friend Allison,” he taunted me. Then they left. Allison. I grabbed my pack of cigarettes and Zippo lighter and slid over to where Al was slumped on the floor. I was shaking, “Al,” I said, extending the pack. She didn’t look up. I put my hand on her arm. She sloughed it off. Her head was down. I could just see the expanse of her wide back, the curves of her shoulders. I touched them without thinking twice. She let me. I smoked with one hand and touched her back with the other. She began to tremble. I put my arms around her. Her body softened against me. She was hurt. The parent had become the child for this moment. I felt strong. There was comfort to be found in my arms. “Hey, look at this,” one cop yelled to another. “Allison found herself a baby butch. They look like two faggots.” The cops laughed.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  “What’s the matter, baby?” Angie asked. We both looked down at the dildo and the harness in her hands. Angie’s face passed through a series of expressions I couldn’t read. “It’s OK,” she said as I started to turn away. “C’mere, baby,’ she coaxed me. Angie turned me around, “Tl show you how.” Those were the most comforting words I ever heard. She went over to the radio and turned the dial until she heard Nat King Cole’s silky voice singing “Unforgettable.” She came into my arms. “Dance with me, baby. You know how to make me feel good. Feel how I’m following you?” she whispered in my 74 = Leslie Feinberg eat. “That’s what I want you to do for me when we fuck. I want you to slow dance with me. I want you to follow me like ’m following you. C’mete.” She tossed the dildo aside, lay down on the mattress, and pulled me on top of her. “Listen to the music. Feel how ’m moving? Move with me,’ she said. I did. She taught me a new dance. When that song ended another slow song came on, the one from the movie with Humphrey Bogart—“Casablanca.” When it got to the part where the man sang, Woman needs man and man must have his mate, we laaghed together. Angie rolled me over and began unbuttoning my shirt, leaving my T-shirt on. She got up on her knees and slowly fingered the button on my pants. She slid my pants off but left on my BVDs. I struggled to slip on the harness and the dildo. Angie pushed me back on the pillow and took the rubber cock in both her hands. The way she touched it mesmerized me. “Feel how ’m touching you?” she whispered with a smile. She ran her nails down the sides of my T-shirt and up my thighs. Her mouth was very near my cock. “If you’re going to fuck me with this,” she said, stroking it, “then I want you to feel it. This is an act of sweet imagination.” She took the head of the cock in her lips and began to move her mouth up and down the length of it. When she finally spoke, Now was all she said. Angie rolled over on her back as I fumbled with her clothing. I touched her with an adolescent’s lack of grace. At first I thought she was being very patient about it. Then I wondered if my clumsiness allowed her to be more excited with me than she could have been if I was experienced. When I was fearful or unsure, she became more present in our lovemaking, encouraging me. When I got excited like a colt, she guided me back under control.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  I smiled and shrugged. “What are butches for?” Contained in those four words were all my hurt and confusion over why, a month after we’d been reunited, Edna still wouldn’t let me make love to het. “Oh no,” Edna said, shaking her head slowly. “Butches are wonderful about lending a hand. But that’s not all yow’re good for. Butches have moved my world. They’ve made me feel beautiful when the world took that away from me. It’s butch love that’s sustained me.” My eyes filled with tears of gratitude and with the frustration of restraining myself from touching het. She stroked my face with fingertips that wanted me, and yet I couldn’t be sure that her whole body wanted the same. “You are so beautiful,” she whispered. “Handsome, I should have said you are so handsome.” I laughed. “Oh, I'll take either right about now.” All I saw was her mouth, so close to mine I felt the warmth of her breath. Still I didn’t move toward her. Edna hesitated. I held my breath as I waited for her to come to me—hoping she would, fearing she wouldn’t. She came into my atms afraid, but trusting me. I welcomed her with my embrace. Edna fumbled with the buttons on my paint- 234 = Leslie Feinberg splattered shirt. We left it on the living room floor. In her bedroom she unzipped my jeans. Only then did I allow my passion to meet hers. Once it began, all of our needs were unleashed. She knew exactly what she wanted and she took me there, demanding everything from me that I could give. And I gave gladly, without restraint. Even as I touched her body with my mouth, with my hands, with my thighs—I knew it was not only pleasure I was trying to give her, it was all my love. And as she alternately caressed me with her hands and dug her nails into my back, I could feel all of hers. I lay in her arms, dressed only in a T-shirt and briefs. Her fingernails drifted down my neck, across my shoulders. She smiled seductively. ’'d forgotten the sheer pleasure of a high femme tease. Edna moved against me, tormenting me with her nails and her lips until I felt crazy with wanting more. Fear gripped my throat. I couldn’t remember how to submit, but I wanted her to guide me there. Her nails trailed up the inside of one of my thighs. “Tm scated,”’ I admitted out loud. She stopped touching me and lay still in my arms. Even after she’d fallen asleep in my embrace I stared at the ceiling, longing for her to take me past my own fear and now knowing how to ask. Edna gasped with pleasure at the flowers I brought her. “Oh, irises. They’re so beautiful.” I kissed her on the cheek. “They remind me of you.” Edna found the card I’d tucked inside. “Wait,” I restrained her hand.

• From Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir (2004)

  love saves the day (1981) Emily—fresh-faced, braless—after a year with the gangsters I feel a hundred years old beside her. My first creative writing class I make a point to find a seat near her. Emily’s story, about a man who sells cocaine and gets lost in it and ends up dying a very Jack London death in a snowstorm, is better than anything I’m writing, the best thing in the class. We begin talking and decide to go to a party together on Halloween. I show up at her dorm room that night with Doug, the friend I went to Europe with who I eventually followed to Amherst. Sloppy makeup around my eyes, a choirboy robe, I’m the approximation of a ghoul. Doug wears a broken plastic street lamp as a helmet, his body wrapped in a shower curtain, a spontaneous mess. Emily’s still transforming herself into a wood sprite. I roll a joint, we pass it. We drink some beer, small talk. Once sufficiently spritelike and sparkly, she takes out a baggie with a large quantity of white powder in it, asks if we want “to sniff.” Doug and I look at each other—the bag holds ten or twenty grams of cocaine, easy, and we’ve never seen more than a gram at a time, ever. She’s eighteen, dating her boss, a twenty-nine-year-old coke dealer and the owner of a music shop in Provincetown. Generous with his drugs, as are most of the older straight men in Provincetown, especially with teenage girls. When I meet him a few months later he takes me aside, tells me to treat her well, and gives me a baggie full of quaaludes, as if they’re the keys to his car. Doug and I tend more toward crystal meth, which is cheaper and lasts longer, though teeth-shatteringly unpredictable. But we don’t say no. We help ourselves to an unhealthy line or two. I then offer Emily half of my hit of acid— Love Saves the Day . It’s my second or third time tripping, Emily’s first, and she’s understandably trepid. Awake all night, at one point I find her touching her reflection in a cruelly lit dorm bathroom, asking if she’ll ever be the same. I kiss her then for the first time and whisper, No . We got the acid from Sam. Sam lives in an old camper, the type you pull behind a car—rounded corners, a tiny sink, a table that folds down. He pays a farmer a couple hundred bucks to park it in a field for the winter. It has no heat, no electricity—essentially a bed in a field, dead husks all around it. I never ask where he shits. That winter we all end up living together, through the cold months, in Doug’s dorm room. Doug’s the only one supposed to be in the room, except for a phantom roommate who never appeared.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  Jacqueline’s face tightened. The question threatened to reveal something that could pierce Butch Al’s armor. Then Jacqueline saw I really needed the answer. “She’s been hurt real bad. It’s hard for Al to say everything she feels. But, yeah, I don’t think I could be with her if she wasn’t tender with me.” We both heard Al unlock the bathroom door. Jacqueline looked apologetic. I signaled that I understood. She left the kitchen. I was alone. I had a lot to think about. I lay down on the couch. After a while, Jackie brought me bedding, She sat down beside me and stroked my face. It felt good. She looked at me for a long time with a pained expression. I didn’t know why but it scared me. I guess I figured she could see what was coming and I couldn't. 36 Leslie Feinberg “Are you teally OK, honey?” she asked. I smiled. “Yeah.” “Do you need anything?” Yeah. I needed a femme who loved me like she loved Al. I needed Al to tell me exactly what they were going to do to me next time and how to live through it. And I needed Jacqueline’s breast. Almost as soon as the thought crossed my mind, she put my hand on her breast. She turned her head in the direction of the bedroom as though she was listening for Al. “Are you sure you’re OK?” she asked one last time. “Yeah, ?m OK,” I said. Her face softened. She touched my cheek and pulled my hand away from her breast. “You're a real butch,” she said, shaking her head. I felt proud when she said that. In the morning I woke up early and left quietly. Butch Al and Jacqueline weren’t at the bar after that. Their phone was disconnected. I heard some stories about what happened to Al. I didn’t choose to believe any of them. The summer passed. It was time for my junior year of high school to begin. As summer turned to fall I stopped going to Niagara Falls on the weekends. Just before Christmas I went back to Tifka’s to see the old crowd. Yvette wasn’t there. I heard she died alone in an alleyway, her throat slashed from ear to eat. Mona overdosed, purposely. No one had seen Al. Jackie was working the streets again. I walked against a bitter wind from bar to bar along the Tenderloin strip. I heard her laughter before I saw her. There was Jacqueline in the shadow of an alley, sharing an ironic laugh with other working girls. She saw me. Jacqueline came to me readily, smiling. I saw the glaze of heroin across her eyes. She was thin, very thin. She faced me. She opened the collar of my overcoat in order to straighten my tie. She turned my collar up against the cold. I stood with my hands buried deep in my pockets. I felt like I did the night I danced with Yvette.