Harrison Brace

“It’s torsos that join together and then withdraw in a hurry to remove clothing, the Nordic sweater, the T-shirt, so that finally it’s skin next to skin. His torso is muscular and hairless, with nipples that are flat and dark. My chest is skinny, not yet deformed as it will be four years later by the blows of an emergency room doctor. It’s skin that is frantically caressed. My fingers find a constellation of moles, just as I guessed, on his back. It’s jeans that we unbutton. I discover his sex, veiny, white, sumptuous. I am enthralled by his sex. It will take many years and many lovers before I ever return to this sense of amazement. Love, it’s taking each other in the mouth, maintaining a certain comportment despite the frenzy. It’s exercising restraint not to come, the excitement is so powerful. It’s abandonment, that crazy trust in the other. I guessed that it was not the first time for him. His movements are too sure, too simple not to have been practiced before with someone else, maybe with many others. And then, he asks me to take him. He says the words, without shame, without ordering me to either. I obey him, though I’m afraid. I know that it can hurt if the other person doesn’t know how to do it, that the body can resist.”
― Philippe Besson, Lie With Me

“Why in the fuck did the vast, vast, vast majority of seemingly normal, decent people whom I worked with go along with the most abnormal, indecent of men? And why hadn’t I seen it coming? If we are to summon even a hint of value from our manifest failures throughout this whole sordid mess, to find any guideposts for bringing people into the light—those were the questions that needed answering. Answering them required plumbing the complicated motivations of real, living humans.”
― Tim Miller, Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell

“In fact, the removal of those books is one cut in the death by a thousand small cuts being meted out to democracy. Given that so many of the recent political cataclysms have unfolded when more countries than at any time call themselves democracies, just imagine the number (and severity) of calamities possible in a world dominated by totalitarian regimes. Picture America being one of those countries, ruled by an autocrat, with no regard to the history that has shaped us, and nothing but disdain for anyone who does not hold the methods of tyranny close to the heart.”
― Wesley Morris, The Best American Essays 2024

“J’ai toujours voulu écrire comme si je devais être absente à la parution du texte. Écrire comme si je devais mourir, qu’il n’y ait plus de juges.”
― Annie Ernaux, L'Occupation