A Woman Who Sleeps Around Quotes

There were plenty of women around who dressed smartly, and plenty more who dressed to impress, but this girl was different. Totally different. She wore her clothing with such utter naturalness and grace that she could have been a bird that had wrapped itself in a special wind as it made ready to fly off to another world. He had never seen a woman who wore her clothes with such apparent joy. And the clothes themselves looked as if, in being draped on her body, they had won new life for themselves.

What shall I give? and which are my miracles? 2. Realism is mine--my miracles--Take freely, Take without end--I offer them to you wherever your feet can carry you or your eyes reach. 3. Why! who makes much of a miracle? As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles, Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky, Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the water, Or stand under trees in the woods, Or talk by day with any one I love--or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love, Or sit at the table at dinner with my mother, Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car, Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of a summer forenoon, Or animals feeding in the fields, Or birds--or the wonderfulness of insects in the air, Or the wonderfulness of the sundown--or of stars shining so quiet and bright, Or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new moon in spring; Or whether I go among those I like best, and that like me best--mechanics, boatmen, farmers, Or among the savans--or to the _soiree_--or to the opera. Or stand a long while looking at the movements of machinery, Or behold children at their sports, Or the admirable sight of the perfect old man, or the perfect old woman, Or the sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to burial, Or my own eyes and figure in the glass; These, with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles, The whole referring--yet each distinct and in its place. 4. To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, Every inch of space is a miracle, Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same, Every cubic foot of the interior swarms with the same; Every spear of grass--the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women, and all that concerns them, All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles. To me the sea is a continual miracle; The fishes that swim--the rocks--the motion of the waves--the ships, with men in them, What stranger miracles are there?

In the struggle to remain a complete person and to love from her fullness instead of her inadequacy a woman may appear hard. She may feel her early conditioning tugging her in the direction of surrender, but she ought to remember that she was originally loved for herself; she ought to hang on to herself and not find herself nagging, helpless, irritable and trapped. Perhaps I am not old enough yet to promise that the self-reliant woman is always loved, but she cannot be lonely as long as there are people in the world who need her joy and her strength, but certainly in my experience it has always been so. Lovers who are free to go when they are restless always come back; lovers who are free to change remain interesting. The bitter animosity and obscenity of divorce is unknown where individuals have not become Siamese twins. A lover who comes to your bed of his own accord is more likely to sleep with his arms around you all night than a lover who has nowhere else to sleep.

Stop glaring at me, baby. You were the one who attacked me and got you knocked up.” Patrick turned to smile at her. He had a knack for reading her mind. “I’m pregnant, and it’s your fault.” “You took advantage of a sleeping man.” He walked up to her, wrapped his arms around her waist, and dropped a kiss on her lips. “How was I to refuse a woman what she wanted?” “Say no.” “When it comes to you that word doesn’t exist to me.

Whenever you give up an apartment in New York and move to another city, New York turns into the worst version of itself. Someone I know once wisely said that the expression "It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there" is completely wrong where New York is concerned; the opposite is true. New York is a very livable city. But when you move away and become a vistor, the city seems to turn against you. It's much more expensive (because you need to eat all your meals out and pay for a place to sleep) and much more unfriendly. Things change in New York; things change all the time. You don't mind this when you live here; when you live here, it's part of the caffeinated romance to this city that never sleeps. But when you move away, your experience change as a betrayal. You walk up Third Avenue planning to buy a brownie at a bakery you've always been loyal to, and the bakery's gone. Your dry cleaner move to Florida; your dentist retires; the lady who made the pies on West Fourth Street vanishes; the maitre d' at P.J. Clarke's quits, and you realize you're going to have to start from scratch tipping your way into the heart of the cold, chic young woman now at the down. You've turned your back from only a moment, and suddenly everything's different. You were an insider, a native, a subway traveler, a purveyor of inside tips into the good stuff, and now you're just another frequent flyer, stuck in a taxi on Grand Central Parkway as you wing in and out of La Guardia. Meanwhile, you rad that Manhattan rents are going up, they're climbing higher, they're reached the stratosphere. It seems that the moment you left town, they put a wall around the place, and you will never manage to vault over it and get back into the city again.

If you won 600 million dollars in the lottery, would you go out the next day and break into cars to steal the change from the cup holders? That’s what sleeping around is like when you’ve already found a woman who will pledge her life and her entire being to you for the remainder of her existence. You tell me that you are in an “open marriage.” I will probably be lambasted for “judging” you for it, but, sorry Professor, an “open marriage” makes about as much sense as a plane without wings or a boat that doesn’t float. Marriages, by definition, are supposed to be closed. Actually, I’m getting rather tired of people like you trying to hijack the institution, strip it of its beauty and purpose, and convert it into some shallow little thing that suits your vices.

In the cage is the lion. She paces with her memories. Her body is a record of her past. As she moves back and forth, one may see it all: the lean frame, the muscular legs, the paw enclosing long sharp claws, the astonishing speed of her response. She was born in this garden. She has never in her life stretched those legs. Never darted farther than twenty yards at a time. Only once did she use her claws. Only once did she feel them sink into flesh. And it was her keeper's flesh. Her keeper whom she loves, who feeds her, who would never dream of harming her, who protects her. Who in his mercy forgave her mad attack, saying this was in her nature, to be cruel at a whim, to try to kill what she loves. He had come into her cage as he usually did early in the morning to change her water, always at the same time of day, in the same manner, speaking softly to her, careful to make no sudden movement, keeping his distance, when suddenly she sank down, deep down into herself, the way wild animals do before they spring, and then she had risen on all her strong legs, and swiped him in one long, powerful, graceful movement across the arm. How lucky for her he survived the blow. The keeper and his friends shot her with a gun to make her sleep. Through her half-open lids she knew they made movements around her. They fed her with tubes. They observed her. They wrote comments in notebooks. And finally they rendered a judgment. She was normal. She was a normal wild beast, whose power is dangerous, whose anger can kill, they had said. Be more careful of her, they advised. Allow her less excitement. Perhaps let her exercise more. She understood none of this. She understood only the look of fear in her keeper's eyes. And now she paces. Paces as if she were angry, as if she were on the edge of frenzy. The spectators imagine she is going through the movements of the hunt, or that she is readying her body for survival. But she knows no life outside the garden. She has no notion of anger over what she could have been, or might be. No idea of rebellion. It is only her body that knows of these things, moving her, daily, hourly, back and forth, back and forth, before the bars of her cage.

A man goes out to work, he earns a wage, he comes back home, he eats, he sleeps. That’s what he does. Our men think earning money and ordering around others is where the power lies. They don’t think power is in the hands of the woman who takes care of everyone all day long, and gives birth to their children. In our house my mother managed everything because my father was so busy. It was my mother who would wake up early in the morning, iron our school clothes, make our breakfast and teach us how to behave. It was my mother who would go to the market, shop for us and cook. All those things she did.

Tiko has taught me, a sometimes headstrong and often ferociously independent woman, the importance of interdependence, the importance of taking care, and the importance of being cared for. It's a necessary part of being human and being connected to the world around us that we realize and acknowledge our vulnerability and the vulnerability of all creatures, and that we act in accord with that knowledge. It is critical that we allow the empathetic and altruistic part of ourselves to be the guiding force behind the way that we conduct our lives, whether we give to those less fortunate than ourselves, take care of the magnificent creatures that share our world, work tirelessly to preserve native habitat or separate each strand of an unruly mass of hair so gently that we do not wake our loved one as she sleeps.

I sent a clear warning to you, Aidan." There was a hint of censure in his words, although his voice was soft. There was a hard edge to Aidan's mouth. "I received your warning. But this is my city, Gregori, and my family. I take care of my own." Savannah rolled her eyes. "You could just beat on your chests,you know. It probably works just as well." You will show some respect, Gregori ordered. Savannah burst out laughing, then reached up to caress his shadowed jaw. "Keep hoping,my love, and perhaps someday someone will obey you." Aidan's mouth twitched, the golden eyes sliding over Gregori in amusement. "She inherited something besides her mother's good looks,did she not?" Gregori sighed heavily. "She is impossible." Aidan laughed,ignoring the warning flash from Gregori's pale eyes. "I believe they all are." Savannah ducked out from under Gregori's arm and found an overstuffed chair to curl up on. "Of course we're impossible.It's the only way to stay sane." "I would have brought Alexandria to meet you,but Gregori's warning dictated prudence." Aidan sounded smug, as if he had been able to lay down the law to his woman when Gregori was unable to do so. Savannah flashed an impish grin up at the man. "What did you do,leave her sleeping while you ran off to play hero? I'll just bet she has a thing or two to say to you when you wake her." Aidan had the grace to look sheepish. Then he turned to Gregori. "Your lifemate is a mean little thing, healer. I do not envy you." Savannah laughed, unrepentant. "He's crazy about me. Don't let him fool you." "I believe you," Aidan agreed. "Do not encourage her in her rebellion," Gregori tried to sound severe,but she was turning him inside out.She was everything to him, even with her silliness.Where did she get her outrageous sense of humor? How could she ever be happy with someone who hadn't laughed in centuries? She melted his insides. Melted him. He was careful to keep his face expressionless. It was bad enough that Savannah knew he was practically wrapped around her little finger. Aidan didn't need to know,too.

For you, a thousand times over." "Children aren't coloring books. You don't get to fill them with your favorite colors." "...attention shifted to him like sunflowers turning to the sun." "But even when he wasn't around, he was." "When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal a wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. There is no act more wretched than stealing." "...she had a voice that made me think of warm milk and honey." "My heart stuttered at the thought of her." "...and I would walk by, pretending not to know her, but dying to." "It turned out that, like satan, cancer had many names." "Every woman needed a husband, even if he did silence the song in her." "The first time I saw the Pacific, I almost cried." "Proud. His eyes gleamed when he said that and I liked being on the receiving end of that look." "Make morning into a key and throw it into the well, Go slowly, my lovely moon, go slowly. Let the morning sun forget to rise in the East, Go slowly, lovely moon, go slowly." "Men are easy,... a man's plumbing is like his mind: simple, very few surprises. You ladies, on the other hand... well, God put a lot of thought into making you." "All my life, I'd been around men. That night, I discovered the tenderness of a woman." "And I could almost feel the emptiness in [her] womb, like it was a living, breathing thing. It had seeped into our marriage, that emptiness, into our laughs, and our lovemaking. And late at night, in the darkness of our room, I'd feel it rising from [her] and settling between us. Sleeping between us. Like a newborn child." "America was a river, roaring along unmindful of the past. I could wade into this river, let my sins drown to the bottom, let the waters carry me someplace far. Someplace with no ghosts, no memories, and no sins. If for nothing else, for that I embraced America." "...and every day I thank [God] that I am alive, not because I fear death, but because my wife has a husband and my son is not an orphan." "...lifting him from the certainty of turmoil and dropping him in a turmoil of uncertainty." "...sometimes the dead are luckier." "He walked like he was afraid to leave behind footprints. He moved as if not to stir the air around him." "...and when she locked her arms around my neck, when I smelled apples in her hair, I realized how much I had missed her. 'You're still the morning sun to me...' I whispered." "...there is a God, there always has been. I see him here, in the eys of the people in this [hospital] corridor of desperation. This is the real house of God, this is where those who have lost God will find Him... there is a God, there has to be, and now I will pray, I will pray that He will forgive that I have neglected Him all of these years, forgive that I have betrayed, lied, and sinned with impunity only to turn to Him now in my hour of need. I pray that He is as merciful, benevolent, and gracious as His book says He is.

One thing she did know was the greatest book on human psychology is the Bible. If you were lazy and did not wish to work, or if you had failed to make your way in society, you could always say, 'My kingdom is not of this world.' If you were a jet-set woman who believed in sleeping around, VD or no VD, you could always say Mary Magdalene had no husband, but didn't she wash the feet of Our Lord? Wasn't she the first person to see our risen saviour? If, in the other hand, you believed in the inferiority of the blacks, you could always say, 'Slaves, obey your masters.' It is a mysterious book, one of the greatest of all books, if not the greatest. Hasn't it got all the answers?

(I know, it's a poem but oh well). Why! who makes much of a miracle? As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles, Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky, Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the water, Or stand under trees in the woods, Or talk by day with any one I love--or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love, Or sit at table at dinner with my mother, Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car, Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of a summer forenoon, Or animals feeding in the fields, Or birds--or the wonderfulness of insects in the air, Or the wonderfulness of the sun-down--or of stars shining so quiet and bright, Or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new moon in spring; Or whether I go among those I like best, and that like me best-- mechanics, boatmen, farmers, Or among the savans--or to the soiree--or to the opera, Or stand a long while looking at the movements of machinery, Or behold children at their sports, Or the admirable sight of the perfect old man, or the perfect old woman, Or the sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to burial, Or my own eyes and figure in the glass; These, with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles, The whole referring--yet each distinct, and in its place. To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, Every cubic inch of space is a miracle, Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same, Every foot of the interior swarms with the same; Every spear of grass--the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women, and all that concerns them, All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles. To me the sea is a continual miracle; The fishes that swim--the rocks--the motion of the waves--the ships, with men in them, What stranger miracles are there?

She went to bed mentally exhausted but woke after only a few hours of disrupted sleep…because she could smell Judd’s scent in her quarters. Getting out of bed still half-asleep, she saw it was four a.m. She walked out wearing the satin slip she used as her nightgown, her feet bare. “Judd?” For a second, she couldn’t locate him. Then her night vision kicked in and she found him seated in an armchair close to the coffee table. He was watching her, his entire body motionless. It didn’t strike her that she should be afraid or even wary. Yawning, she walked over and sat on his lap, curling her body into the armchair. His arms came around her without hesitation, one hand curving around her shoulders, the other sliding to close over the bare skin of her upper thigh. The sensual contact brought her to full wakefulness. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she nuzzled at his throat. “Are you okay?” His hand shifted to slide between her thighs, surprising a shocked feminine sound out of her. “Judd? Baby?” Something was wrong. With a changeling male, she would’ve let her body soothe him, used touch to connect. But Judd was Psy…and hers. At that moment, she knew the answer to the question that had tormented her all day—she would hold him, accept him, no matter what. That was what mates did. She didn’t care if there was no bond—no one was going to tell her she wasn’t meant to be with this man. “What do you want?” she asked, but he remained silent. Deciding to let instinct guide her, she softened for him. His other hand tangled in her hair, tilting her head back in a sharp move. She went rather than resist. A woman who loved a dominant male had to know when to bend…and when to bite.

DON’T CHEAT ON HER If you don’t love her and you want to be with or to sleep with another woman who is not your wife or your girlfriend, you must break up with her face to face like a real man. Don’t sneak around behind her back with another woman, she deserves a real man, not a coward. Never cheat on your woman.

One," said the recording secretary. "Jesus wept," answered Leon promptly. There was not a sound in the church. You could almost hear the butterflies pass. Father looked down and laid his lower lip in folds with his fingers, like he did sometimes when it wouldn't behave to suit him. "Two," said the secretary after just a breath of pause. Leon looked over the congregation easily and then fastened his eyes on Abram Saunders, the father of Absalom, and said reprovingly: "Give not sleep to thine eyes nor slumber to thine eyelids." Abram straightened up suddenly and blinked in astonishment, while father held fast to his lip. "Three," called the secretary hurriedly. Leon shifted his gaze to Betsy Alton, who hadn't spoken to her next door neighbour in five years. "Hatred stirreth up strife," he told her softly, "but love covereth all sins." Things were so quiet it seemed as if the air would snap. "Four." The mild blue eyes travelled back to the men's side and settled on Isaac Thomas, a man too lazy to plow and sow land his father had left him. They were not so mild, and the voice was touched with command: "Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise." Still that silence. "Five," said the secretary hurriedly, as if he wished it were over. Back came the eyes to the women's side and past all question looked straight at Hannah Dover. "As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman without discretion." "Six," said the secretary and looked appealingly at father, whose face was filled with dismay. Again Leon's eyes crossed the aisle and he looked directly at the man whom everybody in the community called "Stiff-necked Johnny." I think he was rather proud of it, he worked so hard to keep them doing it. "Lift not up your horn on high: speak not with a stiff neck," Leon commanded him. Toward the door some one tittered. "Seven," called the secretary hastily. Leon glanced around the room. "But how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity," he announced in delighted tones as if he had found it out by himself. "Eight," called the secretary with something like a breath of relief. Our angel boy never had looked so angelic, and he was beaming on the Princess. "Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee," he told her. Laddie would thrash him for that. Instantly after, "Nine," he recited straight at Laddie: "I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?" More than one giggled that time. "Ten!" came almost sharply. Leon looked scared for the first time. He actually seemed to shiver. Maybe he realized at last that it was a pretty serious thing he was doing. When he spoke he said these words in the most surprised voice you ever heard: "I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly." "Eleven." Perhaps these words are in the Bible. They are not there to read the way Leon repeated them, for he put a short pause after the first name, and he glanced toward our father: "Jesus Christ, the SAME, yesterday, and to-day, and forever!" Sure as you live my mother's shoulders shook. "Twelve." Suddenly Leon seemed to be forsaken. He surely shrank in size and appeared abused. "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up," he announced, and looked as happy over the ending as he had seemed forlorn at the beginning. "Thirteen." "The Lord is on my side; I will not fear; what can man do unto me?" inquired Leon of every one in the church. Then he soberly made a bow and walked to his seat.

Marlboro Man’s call woke me up the next morning. It was almost eleven. “Hey,” he said. “What’s up?” I hopped out of bed, blinking and stumbling around my room. “Who me? Oh, nothing.” I felt like I’d been drugged. “Were you asleep?” he said. “Who, me?” I said again, trying to snap out of my stupor. I was stalling, trying my darnedest to get my bearings. “Yes. You,” he said, chuckling. “I can’t believe you were asleep!” “I wasn’t asleep! I was…I just…” I was a loser. A pathetic, late-sleeping loser. “You’re a real go-getter in the mornings, aren’t you?” I loved it when he played along with me.

He was staring at the woman who stood holding the door open into another room . He weaved to his feet, lurching as he came near her, then he caught a whiff of perfume. The gray eyes seemed as big as saucers, like the eyes of a kitten when you hold its nose touching yours. He looked at the small mouth, the full lower lip, carefully tinted but not painted. She said nothing. As he started to push past her he seemed to fall; he found his arm around her and held on knowing that he was a fool, knowing something terrible would strike him dead, knowing he wanted to cry, to empty his bladder, to scream, to go to sleep, wondering as he tightened his arm around her…Stan lay sprawling on the floor.

The first symptom of true love in a young man is timidity; in a young girl, boldness. This is surprising, yet nothing is more simple. It is the two sexes tending to approach each other and assuming, each the other’s qualities. That day, Cosette’s glance drove Marius beside himself, and Marius’ glance set Cosette to trembling. Marius went away confident, and Cosette uneasy. From that day forth, they adored each other. The first thing that Cosette felt was a confused and profound melancholy. It seemed to her that her soul had become black since the day before. She no longer recognized it. The whiteness of soul in young girls, which is composed of coldness and gayety, resembles snow. It melts in love, which is its sun. Cosette did not know what love was. She had never heard the word uttered in its terrestrial sense. She did not know what name to give to what she now felt. Is any one the less ill because one does not know the name of one’s malady? She loved with all the more passion because she loved ignorantly. She did not know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, useful or dangerous, eternal or temporary, allowable or prohibited; she loved. She would have been greatly astonished, had any one said to her: ‘You do not sleep? But that is forbidden! You do not eat? Why, that is very bad! You have oppressions and palpitations of the heart? That must not be! You blush and turn pale, when a certain being clad in black appears at the end of a certain green walk? But that is abominable!’ She would not have understood, and she would have replied: ‘What fault is there of mine in a matter in which I have no power and of which I know nothing?’ It turned out that the love which presented itself was exactly suited to the state of her soul. It was admiration at a distance, the deification of a stranger. It was the apparition of youth to youth, the dream of nights become a reality yet remaining a dream, the longed-for phantom realized and made flesh at last, but having as yet, neither name, nor fault, nor spot, nor exigence, nor defect; in a word, the distant lover who lingered in the ideal, a chimaera with a form. Any nearer and more palpable meeting would have alarmed Cosette at this first stage, when she was still half immersed in the exaggerated mists of the cloister. She had all the fears of children and all the fears of nuns combined. The spirit of the convent, with which she had been permeated for the space of five years, was still in the process of slow evaporation from her person, and made everything tremble around her. In this situation he was not a lover, he was not even an admirer, he was a vision. She set herself to adoring Marius as something charming, luminous, and impossible. As extreme innocence borders on extreme coquetry, she smiled at him with all frankness. Every day, she looked forward to the hour for their walk with impatience, she found Marius there, she felt herself unspeakably happy, and thought in all sincerity that she was expressing her whole thought when she said to Jean Valjean:— ‘What a delicious garden that Luxembourg is!’ Marius and Cosette were in the dark as to one another. They did not address each other, they did not salute each other, they did not know each other; they saw each other; and like stars of heaven which are separated by millions of leagues, they lived by gazing at each other. It was thus that Cosette gradually became a woman and developed, beautiful and loving, with a consciousness of beauty and in ignorance of love.

What was in New York?” “I had to sign a new contract. A Thin Blue Line was renewed for another season.” “Oh, that’s awesome!” I heard rumblings on a few of the news outlets that the show might get dropped. “I really hope you’re finally able to get a new partner. I don’t know why they keep pushing that story line. Tina is not a good match for Jimmy. Brody and I have been riding together for almost seven years, and I would punch myself in the face before I ever kissed him. The show needs to give Jimmy a woman who he saved or something. That would be an interesting plot. Also, your brother on the show has to stop sleeping with that model. Twitter went nuts when he went back to her. She’s a bitch.” Eli’s gaze shifts to mine, and he chuckles. “I thought you didn’t watch the show.” Crap. I did say that. I chew on my thumb and shrug. “I guess I’ve seen a few seasons.” I say the last word under my breath, hoping he didn’t catch it. “Seasons?” No such luck. “Whatever. It’s just to see how bad you butcher my job.” Eli shakes his head and grabs my hand. His fingers thread with mine and then he gently squeezes. “Sounds like you’re a little more invested than that.” “Fine,” I admit. “I watch it religiously." He brings my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles. “I knew you liked me.” I laugh and hit his chest with our entwined hands. “You’re crazy. I like your show, but seriously, tell the writers they need to clear that up.

Anyway,” Beau—clearly eager to change the subject—pointed down the hall, “let’s talk about the color Jethro decided to paint the second bedroom.” “What’s wrong with green?” Jethro grinned slyly. His poker face had always sucked. “Nothing is wrong with green, but that’s a very odd shade of green. What was it called again?” “Sweet pea,” Duane supplied flatly for his twin. “It was called sweet pea and I believe it was labeled as nursery paint.” “Nursery paint, huh? You have something to tell us, Jethro?” Beau teased, mirroring Jethro’s grin. “No news to share? No big bombshell to drop?” Jethro glanced at me. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell them yet.” “Why would I? I’m good at keeping secrets.” I shoved my hands in my pockets, making sure I looked innocent. “And I’m not the one who’s pregnant.” “I knew it!” Beau attacked Jethro, pulling him into a quick man-hug. Jethro’s grin widened to as large as I’ve ever seen it. “How could you possibly know?” Duane clapped Jethro on the back as soon as Beau released him. “Because you’ve always wanted kids, and weren’t one to futz around once you made up your mind.” “You should have painted it vomit green, to disguise all the baby vomit you’re going to have to deal with,” Beau suggested. “And shit brown,” Duane added. “Don’t forget about the shit.” “Y’all are the best.” Jethro placed his hands over his chest. “You warm my heart.” “Make sure the floor is waterproof.” Beau grabbed a beer and uncapped it. “Don’t tell me, to catch the vomit and poop?” “No,” Beau wagged his eyebrows, “because of all the crying you’re going to do when you can’t sleep through the night or make love to your woman anymore.” “Ah, yes. Infant-interuptus is a real condition. No cure for it either.” Duane nodded and it was a fairly good imitation of my somber nod. In fact, how he sounded was a fairly good imitation of me. You sound like Cletus.” Drew laughed, obviously catching on. Duane slid his eyes to mine and gave me a small smile. I lifted an eyebrow at my brother to disguise the fact that I thought his impression was funny. “Y’all need to lay off. Babies are the best. Think of all the cuddling. This is great news.

During my college years I knew a man who, before professing faith in Christ, was a notorious womanizer. James’s pattern was to seduce a woman and, once he had sex with her, lose interest and move on. When he embraced Christianity he quickly renounced his sexual escapades. He became active in Christian ministry. However, his deep idol did not change. In every class or study, James was argumentative and dominating. In every meeting he had to be the leader, even if he was not designated to be so. He was abrasive and harsh with skeptics when talking to them about his new-found faith. Eventually it became clear that his meaning and value had not shifted to Christ, but was still based in having power over others. That is what made him feel alive. The reason James wanted to have sex with those women was not because he was attracted to them, but because he was seeking the power of knowing he could sleep with them if he wanted to. Once he achieved that power, he lost interest in them. The reason he wanted to be in Christian ministry was not because he was attracted to serving God and others, but to the power of knowing he was right, that he had the truth. His power idol took a sexual form, and then a religious one. It hid itself well. Idols of power, then, are not only for the powerful. You can pursue power in small, petty ways, by becoming a local neighborhood bully or a low-level bureaucrat who bosses around the few people in his field of authority. Power idolatry is all around us.

He had buried all softer emotions in favor of the combat soldier's two main preoccupations-duty and survival. For skillfully and without heroism, he had done his duty. And inflexibly, he had willed to survive. For what? So that one day he could cease to be a fearing, hating, expertly dangerous human being. So that one day he might forcibly lay hands on the hard husk and tear it off and restore to sunlight that young poet of life, a generously emotional, happy, affirmative creature. Johnny Shawnessy of Raintree County. So that one day he might sleep on a soft bed, eat good food, wear civilian clothes, walk freely where he pleased, work at some innocent task that didn't have homicide as its ultimate objective. So that one day-one impossibly remote, breath-taking day-he might put his arms around the supple waist of a young woman who loved him and whom he loved and kiss her upturned face and feel her bare arms on his shoulders.

Xavier looked at Shane's outfit of pants, pistol, and no shirt, and then glanced up at the porch. "You sleep outside?" Shane turned and looked through the screen door. There was no sign of Agnes or the sheets that had been tumbled there. A woman who could wake up fast and then remove evidence slightly. His kind of girl. "Yep. I like fresh air." Xavier nodded, his exasperation evaporating into amusement. "Right. Miss Agnes up yet?" "I wouldn't know." "Right." Xavier gave a lazy grin and walked around Shane. "Quite a woman, that Miss Agnes." "Yep," Shane said, following him up the walk. "Bit sharp-tempered, though." "I'd call her fiery." Xavier turned his head toward Shane and nodded amiably. "Fiery. That's good." They walked up the path, Rhett ambling with them. Xavier trooped up the steps to the porch and spared a glance at the air mattress and Shane's T-shirt, crumpled in a ball. "Restless night, son?" "Slept like a baby." "I bet you did," Xavier said, and went into the kitchen.

Paris,” a Seventh Army soldier wrote his wife. “It was wonderful, but I slept on the floor because the bed was just too much like sleeping in butter.” A woman working for the OSS described fleets of vélos, odd contraptions like “canvas-covered bathtubs and drawn or propelled by motorcycles or bicycles,” carting around GIs “who little count the cost in their exuberance at being alive.” The writer Simone de Beauvoir concluded that “the easygoing manner of the young Americans incarnated liberty itself.” Troops packed movie theaters along the Champs-Élysées, and two music halls featured vaudeville shows. Post Number One of the American Legion served hamburgers and bourbon, and bars opened with names intended to entice the homesick, like The Sunny Side of the Street and New York. Army special services organized activities ranging from piano recitals to jitterbug lessons, while distributing thousands of hobby kits for sketching, clay modeling, and leather craft. The Bayeux Tapestry, long tucked away for safekeeping, reemerged in an exhibit at the Louvre, with the segment depicting the Norman defeat of the Anglo-Saxons in 1066 tactfully

I recall when my youngest sister started to crawl. Papa insisted we have a party in the nursery, because his last little princess was up off the floor. I danced with him by standing on his shiny, tall boots.” “I can do that for you, you know.” “Let me dance on your boots?” She picked up a brush and tilted her head to the side so the mass of her hair fell over one shoulder. “Brush your hair.” He tossed the covers back, started across the room, and then caught sight of Sophie’s fascinated expression in the vanity mirror. He snatched the dressing gown from the bed and belted it snugly around his waist. When he stood directly behind her, she passed the brush back to him, letting their fingers barely touch. Ah, so she was teasing him. The subtle teasing of a woman who understood the value of anticipation, but teasing all the same. Vim smiled at her in the mirror. “You have gorgeous hair, Sophie Windham.” He drew the damp, curling length of it back over her shoulders in both of his hands and repeated the caress when she closed her eyes. “Shall I braid it?” “Please.” She opened her eyes. “Over the right shoulder, because I like to sleep on my left side.” “What

Chang came in five minutes later, in the same jeans but a fresh T-shirt, her hair still inky with water from the shower. Her own jacket was pulled down on one side, by her own Smith. Like any ex-cop she looked around, the full 360, seven or eight separate snapshots, and then she moved through the room with plenty of energy, powered by what looked like enthusiasm, or maybe some kind of shared euphoria at their mutual survival through the night. She slid in alongside him. He said, “Did you sleep?” She said, “I must have. I didn’t think I was going to.” “You didn’t go meet the train.” “He’s a prisoner, according to you. And that’s the best-case scenario.” “I’m only guessing.” “It’s a reasonable assumption.” “Did you see the woman in 203?” “I thought she was hard to explain. Dressed in black, she could have been an investor or a fund manager or something else deserving of the junior executive routine. Her face and hair were right. And she has a key to the company gym. That’s for sure. But dressed in white? She looked like she was going to a garden party in Monte Carlo. At seven o’clock in the morning. Who does that?” “Is it a fashion thing? Someone’s idea of summer clothes?” “I sincerely hope not.

We walk around inside that house like everything is okay, but it’s not, Quinn. We’ve been broken for years and I have no idea how to fix us. I find solutions. It’s what I do. It’s what I’m good at. But I have no idea how to solve me and you. Every day I come home, hoping things will be better. But you can’t even stand to be in the same room with me. You hate it when I touch you. You hate it when I talk to you. I pretend not to notice the things you don’t want me to notice because I don’t want you to hurt more than you already do.” He releases a rush of air. “I am not blaming you for what I did. It’s my fault. I did that. I fucked up. But I didn’t fuck up because I was attracted to her. I fucked up because I miss you. Every day, I miss you. When I’m at work, I miss you. When I’m home, I miss you. When you’re next to me in bed, I miss you. When I’m inside you, I miss you.” Graham presses his mouth to mine. I can taste his tears. Or maybe they’re my tears. He pulls back and presses his forehead to mine. “I miss you, Quinn. So much. You’re right here, but you aren’t. I don’t know where you went or when you left, but I have no idea how to bring you back. I am so alone. We live together. We eat together. We sleep together. But I have never felt more alone in my entire life.” Graham releases me and falls back against his seat. He rests his elbow against the window, covering his face as he tries to compose himself. He’s more broken than I’ve ever seen him in all the years I’ve known him. And I’m the one slowly tearing him down. I’m making him unrecognizable. I’ve strung him along by allowing him to believe there’s hope that I’ll eventually change. That I’ll miraculously turn back into the woman he fell in love with. But I can’t change. We are who our circumstances turn us into. “Graham.” I wipe at my face with my shirt. He’s quiet, but he eventually looks at me with his sad, heartbroken eyes. “I haven’t gone anywhere. I’ve been here this whole time. But you can’t see me because you’re still searching for someone I used to be. I’m sorry I’m no longer who I was back then. Maybe I’ll get better. Maybe I won’t. But a good husband loves his wife through the good and the bad times. A good husband stands at his wife’s side through sickness and health, Graham. A good husband- a husband who truly loves his wife - wouldn’t cheat on her and then blame his infidelity on the fact that he’s lonely.” Graham’s expression doesn’t change. He’s as still as a statue. The only thing that moves is his jaw as he works it back and forth. And then his eyes narrow and he tilts his head. “You don’t think I love you, Quinn?” “I know you used to. But I don’t think you love the person I’ve become.” Graham sits up straight. He leans forward, looking me hard in the eye. His words are clipped as he speaks. “I have loved you every single second of every day since the moment I laid eyes on you. I love you more now than I did the day I married you. I love you, Quinn. I fucking love you!” He opens his car door, gets out and then slams it shut with all his strength. The whole car shakes. He walks toward the house, but before he makes it to the front door, he spins around and points at me angrily. “I love you, Quinn!” He’s shouting the words. He’s angry. So angry. He walks toward his car and kicks at the front bumper with his bare foot. He kicks and he kicks and he kicks and then pauses to scream it at me again. “I love you!” He slams his fist against the top of his car, over and over, until he finally collapses against the hood, his head buried in his arms. He remains in this position for an entire minute, the only thing moving is the subtle shaking of his shoulders. I don’t move. I don’t even think I breathe. Graham finally pushes off the hood and uses his shirt to wipe at his eyes. He looks at me, completely defeated. “I love you,” he says quietly, shaking his head. “I always have. No matter how much you wish I didn’t.

Marlboro Man’s call woke me up the next morning. It was almost eleven. “Hey,” he said. “What’s up?” I hopped out of bed, blinking and stumbling around my room. “Who me? Oh, nothing.” I felt like I’d been drugged. “Were you asleep?” he said. “Who, me?” I said again, trying to snap out of my stupor. I was stalling, trying my darnedest to get my bearings. “Yes. You,” he said, chuckling. “I can’t believe you were asleep!” “I wasn’t asleep! I was…I just…” I was a loser. A pathetic, late-sleeping loser. “You’re a real go-getter in the mornings, aren’t you?” I loved it when he played along with me. I rubbed my eyes and pinched my own cheek, trying to wake up. “Yep. Kinda,” I answered. Then, changing the subject: “So…what are you up to today?” “Oh, I had to run to the city early this morning,” he said. “Really?” I interrupted. The city was over two hours from his house. “You got an early start!” I would never understand these early mornings. When does anyone ever sleep out there? Marlboro Man continued, undaunted. “Oh, and by the way…I’m pulling into your driveway right now.” Huh? I ran to my bathroom mirror and looked at myself. I shuddered at the sight: puffy eyes, matted hair, pillow mark on my left cheek. Loose, faded pajamas. Bag lady material. Sleeping till eleven had not been good for my appearance. “No. No you’re not,” I begged. “Yep. I am,” he answered. “No you’re not,” I repeated. “Yes. I am,” he said. I slammed my bathroom door and hit the lock. Please, Lord, please, I prayed, grabbing my toothbrush. Please let him be joking. I brushed my teeth like a crazed lunatic as I examined myself in the mirror. Why couldn’t I look the women in commercials who wake up in a bed with ironed sheets and a dewy complexion with their hair perfectly tousled? I wasn’t fit for human eyes, let alone the piercing eyes of the sexy, magnetic Marlboro Man, who by now was walking up the stairs to my bedroom. I could hear the clomping of his boots. The boots were in my bedroom by now, and so was the gravelly voice attached to them. “Hey,” I heard him say. I patted an ice-cold washcloth on my face and said ten Hail Marys, incredulous that I would yet again find myself trapped in the prison of a bathroom with Marlboro Man, my cowboy love, on the other side of the door. What in the world was he doing there? Didn’t he have some cows to wrangle? Some fence to fix? It was broad daylight; didn’t he have a ranch to run? I needed to speak to him about his work ethic. “Oh, hello,” I responded through the door, ransacking the hamper in my bathroom for something, anything better than the sacrilege that adorned my body. Didn’t I have any respect for myself? I heard Marlboro Man laugh quietly. “What’re you doing in there?” I found my favorite pair of faded, soft jeans. “Hiding,” I replied, stepping into them and buttoning the waist. “Well, c’mere,” he said softly.

She remembered those fancy receipt books written by Lady Nonesuch, or Countess Thingumabob, and laughed out loud. They boasted how damnable high bred the lady was, and how the reader might herself be reckoned à la mode, if she could only cook such stuff herself. No, her book would hold a dark mirror to such conceits. Since Mother Eve's day, women had whispered of herblore and crafty potions, the wise woman's weapons against the injustices of life; a life of ill treatment, the life of a dog. If women were to be kicked into the kitchen they might play it to their advantage, for what was a kitchen but a witch's brewhouse? Men had no notion of what women whispered to each other, hugger-mugger by the chimney corner; of treaclish syrups and bitter pods, of fat black berries and bulbous roots. Such remedies were rarely scribbled on paper; they were carried in noses, fingertips and stealthy tongues. Methods were shared in secret, of how to make a body hot with lust or shiver with fever, or to doze for a stretch or to sleep for eternity. Like a chorus the hungry ghosts started up around her: voices that croaked and cackled and damned their captors headlong into hell. Her ghosts were the women who had sailed out beside her to Botany Bay, nearly five years back on the convict ship Experiment. She made a start with that most innocent of dishes: Brinny's best receipt for Apple Pie. For there was magic in even that- the taking of uneatables: sour apples, claggy fat, dusty flour- and their abradabrification into a crisp-lidded, syrupy miracle. Mother Eve's Secrets, she titled her book, a collection of best receipts and treacherous remedies.

Vivien (spelled the same way as Vivien Leigh, lucky thing) was quite possibly the most beautiful woman she'd ever seen. She had a heart-shaped face, deep brown hair that gleamed in its Victory roll, and full curled lips painted scarlet. Her eyes were wide set and framed by dramatic arched brows just like Rita Hayworth's or Gene Tierney's, but it was more than that which made her beautiful. It wasn't the fine skirts and blouses she wore, it was the way she wore them, easily, casually; it was the strings of pearls strung airily around her neck, the brown Bentley she used to drive before it was handed over like a pair of boots to the Ambulance Service. It was the tragic history Dolly had learned in dribs and drabs- orphaned as a child, raised by an uncle, married to a handsome, wealthy author named Henry Jenkins, who held an important position with the Ministry of Information. "Dorothy? Come and put my sheets to rights and fetch my sleep mask." Ordinarily, Dolly might've been a bit envious to have a woman of that description living at such close quarters, but with Vivien it was different. All her life, Dolly had longed for a friend like her. Someone who really understood her (not like dull old Caitlin or silly frivolous Kitty), someone with whom she could stroll arm in arm down Bond Street, elegant and buoyant, as people turned to look at them, gossiping behind their hands about the dark leggy beauties, their careless charm. And now, finally, she'd found Vivien. From the very first time they'd passed each other walking up the Grove, when their eyes had met and they'd exchanged that smile- secretive, knowing, complicit- it had been clear to both of them that they were two of a kind and destined to be the very best of friends.

I hung up the phone after saying good night to Marlboro Man, this isolated cowboy who hadn’t had the slightest probably picking up the phone to say “I miss you.” I shuddered at the thought of how long I’d gone without it. And judging from the electrical charges searing through every cell of my body, I realized just how fundamental a human need it really is. It was as fundamental a human need, I would learn, as having a sense of direction in the dark. I suddenly realized I was lost on the long dirt road, more lost than I’d ever been before. The more twists and turns I took in my attempt to find my bearings, the worse my situation became. It was almost midnight, and it was cold, and each intersection looked like the same one repeating over and over. I found myself struck with an illogical and indescribable panic--the kind that causes you to truly believe you’ll never, ever escape from where you are, even though you almost always will. As I drove, I remembered every horror movie I’d ever watched that had taken place in a rural setting. Children of the Corn. The children of the corn were lurking out there in the tall grass, I just knew it. Friday the 13th. Sure, it had taken place at a summer camp, but the same thing could happen on a cattle ranch. And The Texas Chain Saw Massacre? Oh no. I was dead. Leatherface was coming--or even worse, his freaky, emaciated, misanthropic brother. I kept driving for a while, then stopped on the side of the road. Shining my brights on the road in front of me, I watched out for Leatherface while dialing Marlboro Man on my car phone. My pulse was rapid out of sheer terror and embarrassment; my face was hot. Lost and helpless on a county road the same night I’d emotionally decompensated in his kitchen--this was not exactly the image I was dying to project to this new man in my life. But I had no other option, short of continuing to drive aimlessly down one generic road after another or parking on the side of the road and going to sleep, which really wasn’t an option at all, considering Norman Bates was likely wandering around the area. With Ted Bundy. And Charles Manson. And Grendel.

My phone rang at midnight, just as I was clearing my bed of the scissors and magazines and glue. It was Marlboro Man, who’d just returned to his home after processing 250 head of cattle in the dark of night. He just wanted to say good night. I would forever love that about him. “What’ve you been doing tonight?” he asked. His voice was scratchy. He sounded spent. “Oh, I just finished up my homework assignment,” I answered, rubbing my eyes and glancing at the collage on my bed. “Oh…good job,” he said. “I’ve got to go get some sleep so I can get over there and get after it in the morning…” His voice drifted off. Poor Marlboro Man--I felt so sorry for him. He had cows on one side, Father Johnson on the other, a wedding in less than a week, and a three-week vacation in another continent. The last thing he needed to do was flip through old issues of Seventeen magazine for pictures of lip gloss and Sun-In. The last thing he needed to deal with was Elmer’s glue. My mind raced, and my heart spoke up. “Hey, listen…,” I said, suddenly thinking of a brilliant idea. “I have an idea. Just sleep in tomorrow morning--you’re so tired…” “Nah, that’s okay,” he said. “I need to do the--” “I’ll do your collage for you!” I interrupted. It seemed like the perfect solution. Marlboro Man chuckled. “Ha--no way. I do my own homework around here.” “No, seriously!” I insisted. “I’ll do it--I have all the stuff here and I’m totally in the zone right now. I can whip it out in less than an hour, then we can both sleep till at least eight.” As if he’d ever slept till eight in his life. “Nah…I’ll be fine,” he said. “I’ll see you in the morning…” “But…but…,” I tried again. “Then I can sleep till at least eight.” “Good night…” Marlboro Man trailed off, probably asleep with his ear to the receiver. I made the command decision to ignore his protest and spent the next hour making his collage. I poured my whole heart and soul into it, delving deep and pulling out all the stops, marveling as I worked at how well I actually knew myself, and occasionally cracking up at the fact that I was doing Marlboro Man’s premarital homework for him--homework that was mandatory if we were to be married by this Episcopal priest. But on the outside chance Marlboro Man’s tired body was to accidentally oversleep, at least he wouldn’t have to walk in the door of Father Johnson’s study empty-handed.

MY PROCESS I got bullied quite a bit as a kid, so I learned how to take a punch and how to put up a good fight. God used that. I am not afraid of spiritual “violence” or of facing spiritual fights. My Dad was drafted during Vietnam and I grew up an Army brat, moving around frequently. God used that. I am very spiritually mobile, adaptable, and flexible. My parents used to hand me a Bible and make me go look up what I did wrong. God used that, as well. I knew the Word before I knew the Lord, so studying Scripture is not intimidating to me. I was admitted into a learning enrichment program in junior high. They taught me critical thinking skills, logic, and Greek Mythology. God used that, too. In seventh grade I was in school band and choir. God used that. At 14, before I even got saved, a youth pastor at my parents’ church taught me to play guitar. God used that. My best buddies in school were a druggie, a Jewish kid, and an Irish soccer player. God used that. I broke my back my senior year and had to take theatre instead of wrestling. God used that. I used to sleep on the couch outside of the Dean’s office between classes. God used that. My parents sent me to a Christian college for a semester in hopes of getting me saved. God used that. I majored in art, advertising, astronomy, pre-med, and finally English. God used all of that. I made a woman I loved get an abortion. God used (and redeemed) that. I got my teaching certification. I got plugged into a group of sincere Christian young adults. I took courses for ministry credentials. I worked as an autism therapist. I taught emotionally disabled kids. And God used each of those things. I married a pastor’s daughter. God really used that. Are you getting the picture? San Antonio led me to Houston, Houston led me to El Paso, El Paso led me to Fort Leonard Wood, Fort Leonard Wood led me back to San Antonio, which led me to Austin, then to Kentucky, then to Belton, then to Maryland, to Pennsylvania, to Dallas, to Alabama, which led me to Fort Worth. With thousands of smaller journeys in between. The reason that I am able to do the things that I do today is because of the process that God walked me through yesterday. Our lives are cumulative. No day stands alone. Each builds upon the foundation of the last—just like a stairway, each layer bringing us closer to Him. God uses each experience, each lesson, each relationship, even our traumas and tragedies as steps in the process of becoming the people He made us to be. They are steps in the process of achieving the destinies that He has encoded into the weave of each of our lives. We are journeymen, finding the way home. What is the value of the journey? If the journey makes us who we are, then the journey is priceless.

As the sun set, I ate a hospital meal and watched TV. Every few minutes, I glanced at the girl on the bed and tried to see Raven. I struggled to remember her smile and laugh. With her face so swollen, she didn’t seem like my love. I worried I’d lost her because I brought Caleb to Ellsberg. Eventually, the nurse showed me how to turn the chair into a pull out bed. I thanked her, but the thing was too damn small for me to fit on. Besides, I didn’t want to sleep until Raven woke up. Finally, I gave into my weird little urge to kiss the sleeping beauty. I needed to know she was okay. Know she wanted me to stay because she still loved me. I felt nervous until her swollen lips twitched into a smile after my kiss. “Tell me a story,” she mumbled while gripping my shirt with her good hand and tugging me into the bed with her. I adjusted our bodies just enough for me to rest next to her. While the position wasn’t comfortable, I finally relaxed at knowing my woman wanted me close. Caressing her battered face with my fingers, I loved how she smiled for me. Even in pain and after a hellish day, she soothed my fears. “Once upon a time,” I said and she smiled again, “there was a lonely fool who wasted one day after another of his life. One day, he met the most fascinating chick and she quickly wrapped the fool around her finger. She loved him in the best way and saved him from himself. He loved her too and only wanted for her to be happy and safe.” Hesitating, I frowned at the sight of her suffering. As if knowing what I was thinking, she reached up and ran a finger of my lips. “More.” “After the evil… let’s call them gnomes because I hate those ugly little fuckers. So, once the gnomes were destroyed, the fool and his lovely savior bought a big house for all the beautiful blond babies they would have together.” As Raven smiled at this idea, my uneasiness faded. “Their kids all had names with a V in them to honor their hot parents.” Raven laughed then moaned at the gesture. Still, she kept smiling for me. “The fool, his beautiful woman, and their army of glorious babies played videogames, bowled, and roller skated. They were always happy and never sad in a town with their friends and family. They all lived happily ever after.” Raven swollen lips smiled enough to show her missing tooth. Even though she was essentially blind with her battered eyes, she knew I’d seen her mouth and covered it with her hand. “You’re beautiful, darling. Nothing will ever change that.” Raven grunted, unconvinced. “There’s more to love about you than your beauty.” Another grunt followed by a hint of a pout. “Sugar, if I got all banged up and my stunning good looks were damaged, you’d still love me, right?” Raven laughed, but said nothing, so I answered for her. “Of course, you would. My amazing personality and giant brain would keep you horny even if my hot body wasn’t at its best.” Laughing harder now, Raven leaned against me. “I liked your story.” “Unlike most fairytales, this one is coming true.

When I swung open the door, there he was: Marlboro Man, wearing Wranglers and a crisp white shirt and boots. And a sweet, heart-melting smile. What are you doing here? I thought. You’re supposed to be in the shower. You’re supposed to be with the sex kitten. “Hey,” he said, wasting no time in stepping through the door and winding his arms around my waist. My arms couldn’t help but drape over his strong shoulders; my lips couldn’t help but find his. He felt soft, warm, safe…and our first kiss turned into a third, and a sixth, and a seventh. It was the same kiss as the night before, when the phone call alerting him to the fire had come. My eyes remained tightly closed as I savored every second, trying to reconcile the present with the horror movie I’d imagined just moments earlier. I had no idea what was going on. At that point, I didn’t even care. “Ummmmm!!! I’m t-t-t-ttellin’!” Mike teased from the top of the stairs, just before running down and embracing Marlboro Man in a bear hug. “Hi, Mike,” Marlboro Man said, politely patting him on the back. “Mike?” I said, smiling and blinking my eyes. “Will you excuse us for a couple of minutes?” Mike obliged, giggling and oooo-ing as he walked toward the kitchen. Marlboro Man picked me up and brought my eyes to the level of his. Smiling, he said, “I’ve been trying to call you this afternoon.” “You have?” I said. I hadn’t even heard the phone ring. “I, um…I sort of took a nine-hour nap.” Marlboro Man chuckled. Oh, that chuckle. I needed it badly that night. He set my feet back down on the floor. “So…,” he teased. “You still cranky?” “Nope,” I finally answered, smiling. So, who is that woman in your house? So…what did you do all day? “Did you ever get any sleep?” So, who is that woman in your house? “Well,” he began. “I had to help Tim with something this morning, then I crashed on the couch for a few hours…it felt pretty good.” Who was the woman? What’s her name? What’s her cup size? He continued. “I would’ve slept all day, but Katie and her family showed up in the middle of my nap,” he said. “I forgot they were staying at my house tonight.” Katie. His cousin Katie. The one with the two young kids, who had probably just gone to bed when I’d called earlier. “Oh…really?” I said, my chest relaxing with a long, quiet exhale. “Yeah…but it’s a little crowded over there,” he said. “I thought I’d come over here and take you to a movie.” I smiled, stroking his back with my hand. “A movie sounds perfect.” The busty, bronze mystery girl slowly faded into oblivion. Mike came barreling out of the kitchen, where he’d been listening to every word. “Hey--if you guys are goin’ to the movie, c-c-c-can you drive me to the mall?” he yelled. “Sure, Mike,” Marlboro Man said. “We’ll drive you to the mall. It’ll cost you ten bucks, though.” And as the three of us made our way outside to Marlboro Man’s diesel pickup, I had to bite my lip to keep myself from articulating the only seven words in the English language that were in my vocabulary at that moment: God help me--I love that man.

I’d take it from you if I could. You have so much more to live for than I do,” she whispered, resting her hand against the side of his head as he continued to sleep. “I forgive you.” Uninvited tears stung her eyes. “I know you’re going to leave me.” She bit her upper lip, hard. “It’s okay to go. They need you more.” Maybe someday it would be okay for her to need someone more than anyone else. Then again, maybe she was the ultimate survivor and needed no one. Who could live like that? “What if I need you more?” AJ whispered, startling Jillian. Resting her cheek on his back, she snaked her arms around his waist. He grabbed her hands and squeezed them, wringing the tears from her eyes—the life from her soul. “Then I’m the luckiest woman alive. And I know I am … but not because you’re going to stay. It’s because I’ve had the privilege of loving a man that’s going to be completely selfless and go home for all the right reasons.

Just a normal dinner party, Dallas thought. Just your average, every day evening around the table with the man who may well have masterminded your kidnapping, the sister you're in love with, and the older woman you used to sleep with. No doubt about it--as a group, they made one hell of a Norman Rockwell painting.

A little while later, I found myself waking, groggy and nauseated, from a deep sleep in a regular hospital room. Disoriented, I glanced around the room and finally found Marlboro Man, who was quietly parked in a comfortable chair in the corner and holding our flannel-wrapped little bundle. He was wearing faded jeans and a white T-shirt--the best he could manage the night before, when my unexpected labor had yanked us both out of bed. His muscular arms holding our baby were almost too much for me to take. Just as I sat up to take a closer look, the baby stretched out her two arms and made a series of tiny gurgling sounds. I was not in Kansas anymore. “Hey, Mama,” Marlboro Man said, smiling. I smiled back, unable to take my eyes off the sight in front of me. Those Hallmark commercials weren’t kidding. A man holding a newborn baby was a beautiful thing to behold.

Another uplifting development was Amy’s recovery from her ordeal. Loretta could scarcely believe how quickly the child was regaining her former gaiety, and she soon realized Swift Antelope was the cause. The young warrior clearly adored Amy and spent hours roaming the river with her, forging a friendship that set Amy’s cheeks aglow. Hunter, quite the opposite of Loretta, found this same period of time a trial. While Swift Antelope made steady progress with Amy, he couldn’t see himself making any headway with Loretta. She still went to great lengths to avoid sleeping beside him, choosing instead to share Amy’s far less comfortable pallet. To complicate matters further there was Bright Star’s campaign to make Hunter take notice of her. It seemed to Hunter that every time he turned around, Bright Star hovered nearby, fluttering her lashes and blushing, making such an obvious play for Hunter’s affections that he knew it couldn’t escape his wife’s notice for long. Hunter didn’t want to shame Bright Star by scorning her. At the same time, he didn’t want Loretta to believe he was encouraging the girl. He already had enough problems. While he mulled the situation over, trying to think of a kind way to discourage Bright Star, the young maiden intensified her campaign, and, as Hunter had feared, Loretta at last realized what was going on. When she did, Hunter took the brunt. “Who is that girl?” Loretta demanded one evening. “What girl?” Hunter felt heat rising up his neck and avoided meeting his wife’s flashing blue gaze. “That girl, the one who seems to have something in her eye.” Hunter obliged Loretta by giving Bright Star a bored glance. “She is sister to my woman who is dead.” He bent back over the arrowhead he was sharpening. “She is called Bright Star.” “She doesn’t look very bright. Is that a tic, or does she always blink that way?” Hunter smothered a snort of laughter. “She makes eyes, yes?” “At you?” He straightened and lifted a dark brow. “You think she makes eyes for you?

It’s profoundly ironic,” he observed with obvious amusement. “A strong, independent woman is now one who meekly obeys the media’s and society’s clamor to be a career girl and sleep around with whatever stud catches her fancy or with other girls, for that matter. A woman with the courage to defy that social pressure and devote herself from a young age to building a home and raising a family is an aberration, a weirdo, a traitor to her sex. There aren’t many women with the balls to stand up against that kind of social pressure. It’s not in their nature.

Miss Noavek,” the woman said, offering your hand. “I am Aza. I sit on our council here.” I glanced at Akos, asking a silent question. He rested his hand on the bare skin where my neck met my shoulder, extinguishing my currentshadows. I knew without trying that I was not capable of controlling my gift right now, as I had learned to in the renegade hideout in Voa. Not in Ogra’s currentgift-enhancing atmosphere, with days of limited sleep behind me. It was taking all the energy I had just to keep it contained, so it wouldn’t explode out of me as it had when we first landed. I took the woman’s hand, and shook it. Akos may not have commanded her attention before, but his ability to extinguish my gift certainly did. In fact, everyone around us looked at him--specifically, at the hand he kept on my skin. “Call me Cyra, please,” I said to Aza. Aza’s gaze was curious, and sharp. When I dropped her hand, Akos dropped his, and my currentshadows returned. His cheeks were bright with color, and it was spreading to his neck. “And you are?” Aza asked him. “Akos Kereseth,” he said, a little too quietly. I wasn’t used to the meek side of him, but now that we weren’t constantly surrounded by the people who had kidnapped him or killed his father or otherwise tormented him--well. Perhaps this was what he was like, under somewhat more normal circumstances.

In Gethsemane, Jesus experienced the pains of a person dying of cancer. He experienced what it is like to be a queer kid who is constantly bullied. He experienced the birthing pains of every mother who ever lived or would live. He experienced the embarrassment of a gay boy having an erection at the sight of his school crush in the locker room. He experienced conversion therapy. He experienced rejection. He experienced the brutal physical and psychological attacks that trans women endure. He experienced the acid poured on a woman’s face for her defiance to the patriarchs. He experienced the fear, grief, and sorrow of every parent who has buried their child. He experienced sex slavery. He experienced his first period. He experienced menstruation, not simply from a vagina but from every pore of his body. He experienced rape. He experienced catcalls. He experienced hunger. He experienced disease. He experienced an ectopic pregnancy. He experienced an abortion. He experienced a miscarriage and stillbirth. He experienced the Holocaust. He experienced war – both the killing and being killed. He experienced internment camps. He experienced depression, anxiety, and suicide. He experienced sleeping on the street with the homeless. He experienced the slave master’s whip on his back and the noose around his neck. He knew the fear of every black mother who kissed her son before he left the house, praying he would return home safely. He experienced the effects of unrighteous dominion, corrupt politicians, and all manner of injustice. He experienced the migrant mother with no food or diapers for her baby as she desperately walked north in search of a better life. He experienced having his child taken away from him at the border due to “legal complications.” He experienced it all – every death, every cut, every tear, every pain, every sorrow, every bit of suffering imaginable and beyond imagination. He experienced an onslaught of suffering, which was so great that it took a god to bear it. He experienced death and came through the other side to show us the way.

SOLOMON’S LAWS 1. Try not to piss off a cop unless you have a damn good reason . . . or a damn good lawyer. 2. The best way to hustle a case is to pretend you don’t want the work. 3. When arguing with a woman who is strong, intelligent, and forthright, consider using trickery, artifice, and deceit. 4. A prosecutor’s job is to build a brick wall around her case. A defense lawyer’s job is to tear down the wall, or at least to paint graffiti on the damn thing. 5. Listen to bus drivers, bailiffs, and twelve-year-old boys. Some days, they all know more than you do. 6. When the testimony is too damn good, when there are no contradictions and all the potholes are filled with smooth asphalt, chances are the witness is lying. 7. A shark who can’t bite is nothing but a mermaid. 8. When the woman you love is angry, it’s best to give her space, time, and copious quantities of wine. 9. Be confident, but not cocky. Smile, but don’t snicker. And no matter how desperate your case, never let the jurors see your fear. 10. Never sleep with a medical examiner, unless you’re dead. 11. If you can’t keep a promise to a loved one, you probably aren’t going to keep the loved one, either. 12. Life may be a marathon, but sometimes you have to sprint to save a life.

She and her kisses It was Saturday afternoon, The Summer Sun shone bright, And there she was as usual basking in the casual moments of the noon, While I stood there looking at her beautiful face in the Summer light, She turned sideways and sometimes I could only see her back, And as her locks of hair descended downwards from her shoulders, I could witness in the daylight the magic of the beautiful black, It was a beautiful sight for all heavenly and earthly beholders, To see her splendor of beauty humble the Summer light, And what made her even more beautiful was her ignorance of this fact, That she was brighter than the summer light and during the night she was the envy of moonlight, And with time she seemed to have a secret pact, For the afternoon sun had now set behind the horizon of dusk, But she and her beauty were still embalmed by a mysterious eternal light, That charged at the keeper of time like the ferocious tusk, And guarded her beauty like the most devout knight, When she finally stood up and left the place, I followed the trail of her scent, her shadows and her feet, And there I saw her enter a grand palace of grace, The residence of beautiful innocence made radiant by acts of kindness that nothing can defeat, Because time and beauty are the gatekeepers of this place, Where she sleeps and renews her youth, her charms and her sensitive acts of tenderness, Then in a moment she vanishes behind the veil of sleep without leaving any trace, On the fleeting moments of time, so nobody knows how she attains this beautiful grace of absolute calmness, Maybe it is her ability to look at men and women differently, For no matter who she comes across she greets them genuinely, And offers them a smile of kindness fondly, And it is these acts, small insignificant acts of kindness that flash on her face so beautifully, That is why I love her, even if it means looking at her from the distance, Because I seek not that smile of kindness that she offers to all, I love to be with her and feel that secret romance, That has enslaved time to her commands and makes her the most beautiful woman of all, Someday when the sun has set and the moonlight is bright, And she travels in her dreams into the kingdom of time and eternity, There I shall be her dream, to be so then every night, And then that is what I shall love to be her and my eternity, Where she kisses me, And we lie cocooned in the shell of love, With time winding its silk strings around me, As she kisses me like the rain drops of love, Then as the silk cocoon of time preserves us both, I shall confess to her, under the afternoon Sun, That for her I was the moth, That died a billion times just to let her face, be the beauty’s eternal Sun, So she owes me a moment of love, with a billion kisses, And as she agrees we both shall sleep in the cocoon of time together, Nothing to separate us, not even light, we shall then grow as a grand feeling of love thriving on kisses, And grow in the cocoon of eternal time where love and kisses shall be the only weather.

Well?” the guard who discovered me prompted. “I recognize her,” Saadi answered, staring directly at the woman. “She works for my sister as an errand girl.” I briefly closed my eyes in relief. Saadi waved the guard back to her post and issued an order to the man behind him to retrieve his cloak. When it was thrust into his hands, he escorted me back across the base, not speaking until we were out of earshot of those on patrol. “So, Rava has a message for me?” I shoved him unthinkingly, teasingly, and he laughed, jumping away. “You wanted to see me, remember?” I pointed out. “But you never picked a time or place!” “So you decided to do it for me. Fair enough, but I’m dying to know what you have in mind to do.” “I don’t have anything in mind.” We had reached the thoroughfare, and he chuckled. “You braved Cokyrian soldiers and the stronghold of the military base, but don’t have a thing in mind for us to do?” “That’s right,” I admitted, irritated that he was laughing at me. “Would you grow up please?” “Shaselle, there’s nothing ‘grown-up’ about what we’re doing. I assume you snuck away from home to see me, and I have a five o’clock call in the morning.” I came to a halt and turned to face him, my eyes issuing a challenge. “If you want to go back, feel free. Tell those soldiers that Rava just wanted to make sure her baby brother went to bed on time.” He grinned, enjoying my feisty responses, and smoothed his bronze hair forward, a habit I still found annoying. It also served to make my heart flutter. “Trust me, I’ve survived many a night without sleep.” He came closer, putting his hands on my hips, and I spontaneously leaned in to kiss him. He drew me close, his mouth more hungry than it had been in the barn, and a tingle ran from my lips to my toes. Then I pulled away, smiling mischievously, loving how reckless my actions were. He took my hand, kissing each of my fingers before tugging me down the street. “Come on, Shaselle.” “Where are we going?” Saadi didn’t answer, but led me in the direction of the Market District. As a Cokyrian solider on horseback trotted by, he pulled me into the shadows of a storefront, placing a finger upon his lips. “I’ve thought of something for us to do,” he whispered. “Since you came so unprepared.” Once more he took my hand, and I went with him blindly, happily, until we reached the shop from which I’d stolen fruit and wine when I’d run away from home. “What are you--?” He gave the door a strong kick, and I winced at the crack of the wood in the stillness. “Saadi!” I hissed, glancing around, expecting the mounted Cokyrian to come galloping back. He ignored me, pushing the door open. “Come on now. No errand girl of Rava’s would be such a coward!

At around six a.m., he gave up on trying to go back to sleep. He called Leo, whose first reply instead of good morning or hello was, “Haven’t you gone to bed yet?” “Actually, I am just getting up.” That silenced Leo for a moment. “Are you sick?” “No.” “You do realize it’s not even close to noon, right?” “I know what time it is,” Hayder snapped, getting irked. “It’s time for you to stop messing with me and bring me some clothes.” “Why would I do that? Where are you? Wait, don’t tell me you stayed with the girl last night.” “She’s mine. Where else would I be?” “Dude, you met her yesterday.” “Yeah, and?” “You. Met. Her. Yesterday.” Leo enunciated each word slowly. “I. Know,” Hayder mocked. “What is this hang-up everyone has with time? She keeps saying the same thing. Who cares? She’s the one.” “This is my fault,” Leo grumbled. “How do you figure that? Are you in charge of the fates and the decision on who belongs together?” “No, but I might have knocked some sense into you one too many times.” “Aren’t you just the comedian? But this is no joke. Arabella’s mine, and that’s that. Now would you bring me some clothes?” “What about Jeoff?” “What about Jeoff?” “You don’t think her brother might have an issue with you hooking up with his sister, who, by all accounts, is vulnerable right now.” “Hey, are you implying my Arabella has loose morals? I’ll have you know she turned me down. Would you believe she shoved me out of bed? Told me to go away?” Incredulity still filled him. It didn’t take super hearing to catch Leo’s snort of mirth. “Ha. In that case, maybe she is the one. You need a woman who can say no to you sometimes.” “You are not a nice omega, Leo.” “Nice is for pussies. Now, are you done whining, or should I come over there and really give you something to whine about?” Hayder rubbed his jaw. “No need.” “Are you sure? You know I’m always ready to help a pride member in need.” “All I need right now are some clothes.

Why don’t you get along with her?” His expression sobered. “Rava is who she is. Being older than me and of more importance, she was raised differently and never felt the need to have much of a relationship with me. That’s not to say she doesn’t care about me--she does. I think she’s even proud of me, in her own way.” He touched the officer’s insignia tacked to the shoulder of his black, asymmetrically cut uniform jacket. “I fought to achieve this rank, not an easy task, for men are not generally placed in command positions. We’re too hotheaded, as a group. Still, she has no trouble stepping on and over me, which you can probably appreciate.” “Perhaps,” I said, though his words confused me. Certain activities were not deemed appropriate for me since I was a woman, but for the most part, I did not resent my lot in life. But Saadi was strong, intelligent and extremely capable. In Hytanica, he would have been the pride of his family. How could he have been overlooked in Cokyri? Had Rava been the pride of his family instead? “This place. It’s so different from Cokyri,” he continued, content to accept my simple answer. “Not that different,” I replied with a short laugh. “We eat and work and sleep.” “That’s not what I mean.” He rolled his eyes. “It’s how people look at me. It’s not the same at all.” “People hate you because you’re Cokyrian. Did you expect to take pleasure in that?” “That’s not it, either.” He thought for a moment. “It’s strange, the level of fear in the eyes of your women. Belligerence I expect, from everyone, but the fear primarily radiates from the women.” He shrugged, suddenly self-conscious. “But what do I know? Listen, I haven’t even seen half of what there is to see in Hytanica. You could show me one day.” “You seem to be everywhere in this city,” I scoffed. “There can’t be much left for you to explore. Or have you just been following me around?” “Well, you’re the most interesting feature of the city I’ve come across.” He smirked, and I gave him a sideways glance. Was he admitting to stalking me? Then he chuckled. “As long as I’m assigned to oversee the city, we’re bound to run into each other. I would be lying, however, if I denied that I look forward to our encounters.” Heat again flooded my face. Saadi was making me uncomfortable. I was in danger of liking him too much.

Noble? I'm sorry, scholar, but I don't see it that way. You people throw that word around like it mirrors bravery, honor, and loyalty. I've known people, without noble blood, who act more courageously than any man or woman sleeping soundly in their massive mansions.

He turned and rose up on his knees, slipping his arms around Sophie’s waist. “He’s the one who died at the holidays?” She nodded, the lump in her throat making words too difficult. Vim’s hand settled on her hair, gently pushing Sophie’s forehead to his shoulder. “Cry, Sophie. When it hurts this badly, a woman needs to cry.” She’d cried. She’d cried buckets every time she’d left Victor’s room because he was feigning sleep just to get rid of her. She’d cried after she chased the damned leeches from his bedside, as if bleeding was going to do anything in the face of consumption. She’d cried when she heard her father railing at Victor to quit malingering and get the hell out of that damned bed. She’d cried until she wished she couldn’t cry any more ever again. “I never cried where Victor could catch me at it.” “You never cried where anybody could catch you at it.” His hand made slow circles on her back; his chin rested against her hair. The simple comfort of it, the acceptance, was reason enough to start crying all over again. “Men

Sean walked over to her, so close she wondered if he was going to try to shake some sense into her. “Then there’s just one more thing to do.” “Oh, crap. What did I forget?” Considering how much time she’d spent going over everything in her mind instead of sleeping, she couldn’t imagine what it would be. When he rested his hand at her waist for a few seconds before sliding it around to the small of her back, she felt her muscles tense and her cheeks burn. “You can’t be doing that,” he said in the same low, husky kind of voice a man would use to tell a woman he wanted to take off her clothes. Her mind was frozen, all of her attention on that warm pressure against her T-shirt, and it took a few seconds to form a coherent sentence. “Doing what?” “You’re as jumpy as a virgin at a frat party.” He ran his fingers up over her spine until he reached the small bump of her bra strap, and then back down to her waist. “We’ve been dating a year and a half, and living together for a year of it, but you still blush and tense up when I touch you?” He had a point, but there was no way to fix that before Gram got off her plane. “Maybe you’re just that good.” It was the worst thing to say if she was trying to back him off and settle her overheating nerves. The grin he gave her would have been potent enough to get her out of her clothes if the situation was different. “That’s a story I can get behind,” he said. “Thought we were trying to keep the lies to a minimum.” The grin only widened. “Who says it’s a lie?

Shelby, you should run for your life, I’m not kidding. I’ve never been reliable where women are concerned. And I’m not real well fixed with brakes, either. God, I really don’t want to hurt you.” “Are you trying to scare me again, Luke?” “Yeah, I’m trying to scare you. Warn you. Use your head, Shelby. You’re young, you’re sweet, and I’m just an irresponsible, horny bastard. You’d be making a mistake, getting mixed up with me.” She traced his ear with a finger. “Well, Luke, I’m already a little mixed up with you. And you got yourself mixed up with me.” “Shelby, I’m temporary at best. I’m not staying here.” “Me, neither. Is that it?” He sighed and shook his head. “I’ve been known to run through women like sharks run through scuba divers. I wouldn’t be good for you.” “Are you sleeping with a lot of women right now?” she asked him. He hadn’t been with a woman in so long, he had a hard time remembering the last one. That fact alone made him even more vulnerable to Shelby’s incredibly seductive charm. “There has been only one woman on my mind. My brain is like a frickin’ missile and if you don’t move out of the target, I’m afraid I’m going to end up doing some things you might hate me for later. And then your Uncle Walt is going to shoot me.” It only made her chuckle. “Do you always warn your women not to get involved with you before you swoop down and devour them?” “Never. That could keep me from getting laid. But I worry about you. You need to fall in love, I can smell it on you. And I don’t fall in love. I don’t put down roots and I don’t make commitments.” “You know something, Luke?” she asked, smiling. “I think maybe you’re more worried you might fall in love with me than the other way around.” “See, you shouldn’t think like that—” “I just said maybe. It’s not like I expect it.” “You don’t?” “I’m going to travel and go to school. You’re going to fix up your cabins and sell them. You’ve been very clear. You’ve warned me a hundred times. And now, I’m just warning you.” “You want a fling? With a guy like me? Who’s too old for you?” She just laughed and he wanted to shake her. “You are pretty old,” she said. “Pretty soon, all these long warnings won’t even be necessary.” She tilted her head back and laughed. His

WOMAN!” I SHOUTED, and shook Rachel’s bed roughly. “Wake up.” She shot straight up, her eyes wide in panic as she looked around her room before settling them on me. “God, I thought earthquakes had followed me to Texas.” Taking a calming breath, she brushed her wild hair back from her face and scowled at me. “What is wrong with you? And what time is it—seven? Really, Kash?” “Get up and get ready.” “No.” Pulling the covers up past her shoulders, she sank back into the mattress and shut her eyes. Hell. No. “This is your last warning, Rach. Get up.” A single snort was her only reply. “Such a pain in my ass,” I mumbled, and walked to the foot of the bed. Grabbing the bottom of the comforter, I ripped it off the bed and dropped it on the ground. “Oh my God, what if I had been naked?!” I raised an eyebrow and let my gaze run over her body. I wouldn’t have minded. Ah shit, now I was getting hard and the jersey material of these shorts wouldn’t hide that fact. Think about Mrs. Adams and her fake cats. Think about Mrs. Adams and her fake cats! “Moot point; you’re not. Now, get your ass out of bed.” “Give me at least another couple hours. I just went to sleep.” “Not my fault, and you’ve had more than enough chances to get up yourself.” “Kash, please,” she whined. “Don’t whine. It’s not attractive.” Without giving her any more time, I scooped her into my arms and threw her over my shoulder before heading toward her bathroom. A low oompf left her before she began bitching at me. “I am going to gut you, you freakin’ asshole! Seven in the damn morning, what the hell is wrong with you?! Put me down—ugh! Easy, this shit hurts. You have really bony shoulders, has anyone ever told you that?” She gasped when I turned the shower water on. “Put me down right now, Logan Hendricks, or I swear to all that is holy you will regret the day you moved in across from me and almost took my Jeep door off!” “No can do, my little Sour Patch.” Thank God I was still only in my workout shorts. Kicking off my running shoes, I stepped into the large tub and winced when she shrieked. “You evil bastard, let me go!” “You sure have a mouth on you when you wake up.” “I will murder you!” I couldn’t help but smile. She was just so damn cute. “And you’re a little dramatic.” “This water is freezing,” she whined, and I’d bet she was pouting just as bad as Candice usually did. At least her anger was dying down and her fists had stopped pounding on my back. “What did I ever do to you?” “I gave you every opportunity to get yourself ready. You were the one who wouldn’t get out of bed.” “I had barely gone to sleep!” “Rach,” I snorted, “it’s seven in the morning and you left my place at nine last night. Why had you just gone to sleep?” She didn’t answer and stopped wiggling against me. She just hung there, limp. “What—no more threats? No more whining?” Silence. “Woman, I swear to God, if you fell asleep on my damn shoulder . . .” I trailed off when I heard her mumble something. “What’d you say?” “I was afraid to fall back asleep,” she whispered, and my eyes clenched shut. “Ah, Rach.” I slid her awkwardly down my body until she was standing in front of me. I tried to block the water that was directed at her, but little droplets were bouncing off my bare shoulders and hitting her face. She blinked rapidly against them before dropping her head. “Why didn’t you call me or something?” She huffed and shook her head. “What for, Kash? To make you sit there with me in sweats longer? So you could act like what happened yesterday morning didn’t? I don’t need you to babysit me when I’m being ridiculous.” “That’s not ridiculous.

Realizing that she was clad only in the fur, she pulled it tight around her, trying to cover her legs, her shoulders, and her breasts all at the same time. “You monster!” she said. “You promised me you’d call out before you came back. You tricked me.” She grabbed her shift and retreated to the shadows in the back of the cave. “I did call you,” he said. “You were sleeping like a bear in winter. I killed the turkey, plucked it, and cooked it. Still you slept. I think Simon Brandt has a lazy woman for a wife.” Rebecca sputtered, too angry for words, as she struggled to get into her shift without dropping the wolfskin. She did notice that not only was she dry, but her garment was dry as well. She had been asleep, and not just for a few moments. “You seem to have lost your dress,” he said, “so I brought you the Huron’s French coat instead. I think it will fit you if you tie his belt around your waist.” He reached over and held up a blue men’s military jacket. “You expect me to wear a dead man’s coat?” “You will wear it, woman, or I will take your last garment and leave you only the wolf pelt to wear.” “Go to hell!” she shouted. “If the English are right about their god, I will. But what if the Shawnee are right, and you are wrong. Have you thought of that?” “No.” “Think of it while you eat my turkey and sit at my fire. Perhaps it will help you to be properly grateful to a man who has gone to great lengths to keep you from harm.” “I’ll never be grateful to you.” He smiled. “But you will eat my turkey.” She nodded. “Only to have enough strength to live long enough to see you hanged for the savage you are.

No!” She yanked it away, curling protectively around it. He felt like she had slapped him. “What do you think I am going to do, snatch it and throw it in the lake?” he demanded in an angry voice. She took a step back, and he followed. “Do you?” “Shhhh!” she said in a fierce whisper. “People are still sleeping!” He stepped closer, his face inches from hers. “And I am dying here because a woman I have hankered after for years just kicked me in the teeth. Again.” Mollie blanched. “Why do you keep talking like that? We barely know each other!” He was mad enough to spit fire. “I couldn’t court a woman who did business with Hartman’s,” he ground out. “That was the quickest route for me to get canned, but after the fire, I don’t care anymore about rules. You are a woman I want in my life, but my hand to God, if you keep accusing me of trying to swindle you, I am liable to combust.” Her eyes narrowed in distrust, and he was smart enough to know that blasted scrap of paper was going to be a wedge between them forever unless he could figure a way to dispose of it. He settled his hands on her shoulders. “Mollie, you have a piece of paper. In the coming years, the court system in this city is going to be swamped with a legal quagmire the likes of which this country has never seen before. With the archives of the courthouse in ashes, there is no way to prove the legitimacy of that deed.” “No way to disprove it either.” “Exactly.” He turned her around and cupped the side of her face. He tried using a gentle pressure to nudge her face up to look at him, but she resisted. “Mollie, I have cared about you for years. I have made a great study of Mollie Knox and the way she runs her business, but you know nothing about me. I suppose it is not fair for me to expect you to trust me when I’ve never been more than the man signing off on your quarterly revenue statements. Come live at my house. Bring Frank. Heaven help me, you can even bring Sophie, but come. I can’t stand the thought of you shivering in that church. No matter what it takes, I intend to earn your trust, and after that, you’d better put an armed guard around your heart, because I plan on winning you and folding you into my life. Fair warning, woman.” Mollie squinted at something over his shoulder, and Zack realized she had not been paying attention to a single word he’d said.

One thing she did not know was the greatest book on human psychology is the Bible. If you were lazy and did not wish to work, or if you had failed to make your way in the society, you could always say 'my kingdom is not of this world'. If you were a jet-set woman who believed in sleeping around, VD or no VD you could always say Mary Magdalene had no husband but didn't she wash the feet of our Lord? 'Wasn't she the first person to see our risen Saviour'? If on the other hand you believed in the inferiority of the Blacks you could always say 'slaves obey your Master. It's a mysterious book, one of the greatest of all books, if not the greatest. Hasn't it got all the answers?

We�'ve all heard the statement "It�s not fair that a woman who sleeps around is a whore, but men who sleep around are studs." There�s been more than enough digital ink spilled on this topic in the manosphere, so I won�t go in to it. Everybody knows it�s easy to be a whore, but hard to be a player � and society doesn�t award trophies for doing easy shit. It�s not a double standard; it�s two different standards for two different genders with two different barriers to sexual entry and two different sets of risk factors.

What is marriage anymore, anyway? How is the institution structured? What assumptions do we bring to it? Is it an irreducible economic unit, in which production and labor remain distributed along traditional lines (the model of husband as protector and breadwinner and wife as 'angel in the house,' domestic goddess, and nurturer)? Or is it a spiritual, intellectual, artistic, and social partnership - a lifelong collaboration, a project, a constant becoming? Is it what patriarchal society said it is, or what Hollywood pretended it was? What does it mean to be a modern woman? Where does a woman's 'modern-ness' reside? In what she looks like, how she acts, what she does, wears, or says? Or is it somewhere else entirely outside of her, in a larger system that allows her to be a whole, free person? that represents her as such? that allows her to represent herself? that recognizes her individuality and subjectivity? Is it about things like voting and birth control, the issues that Katharine Hepburn's mother devoted her life to fighting for? Is it about wearing pants, not aiming to please, sleeping around, and not getting married, like Katharine Hepburn did? Is it about smoking Virginia Slims? Is it not perhaps all and none of these things but the fact that we keep having to make a case for our personhood? Is it not the story that needs to be reframed? the heroine who needs to be allowed to create herself, from scratch?

But when my ex opens the door, her somber expression and baggy sweats do not suggest we’re about to roll around naked. Nor does the toddler asleep on the bed behind her. I’m frozen as Janelle wraps her arms around me in a hug. “I’ve missed you,” she coos in a baby voice. I would not consider myself the paragon of virtue, but there’s no way I’m doing kinky shit with my ex while a kid sleeps a few feet away. I’ve never seen her baby before. When I found out Janelle’s new guy had knocked her up, I did my best to eradicate thoughts of her from my life. It was too painful to see her move on when she’d promised me that future. I only vaguely inquire about her through my cousin Bianca when I plan trips home so I can avoid my ex. As I take a good long look at the sleeping bundle, I stop breathing. Ernest has blond hair. And Janelle has light brown. My eyes are lasered on the kid, who has thick, black hair. Much like mine. Sweat breaks out on my body, and a giant lump forms in my throat. I cough. “What the fuck is going on?” Janelle wrings her hands, tears forming in her eyes. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Why I needed to do this in person. It’s long overdue.” But like all truly messed-up things in my life, I know the answer to my question before the words are out of her mouth. “She’s yours, Ben.” 3 BEN A suffocating, twisting blackness spreads through me as I stare at this woman I once loved.

Who doesn’t like to be a center for concern? A kind of second childhood falls on so many men. They trade their violence for the promise of a small increase of life span. In effect, the head of the house becomes the youngest child. And I have searched myself for this possibility with a kind of horror. For I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I’ve lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment. I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage. My wife married a man; I saw no reason why she should inherit a baby. I knew that ten or twelve thousand miles driving a truck, alone and unattended, over every kind of road, would be hard work, but to me it represented the antidote for the poison of the professional sick man. And in my own life I am not willing to trade quality for quantity. If this projected journey should prove too much then it was time to go anyway. I see too many men delay their exits with a sickly, slow reluctance to leave the stage. It’s bad theater as well as bad living. I am very fortunate in having a wife who likes being a woman, which means that she likes men, not elderly babies. Although this last foundation for the journey was never discussed, I am sure she understood it.

Our Dutch hostess—or rather, the woman we are hoping will host us once we show up on her doorstep—is known to everyone but me. And though I had been warned about Johanna Hoffman’s friendliness and large dogs, there is no way to be truly prepared for either. When the door to her canal house opens, three dogs that look as though they each weigh more than I do spill out, followed by a plump, bright-faced woman in a pink dress that matches the bows around each dog’s neck. When she sees Felicity, she screams. In spite of not having anything in her hands, I swear she somehow still drops a vase. She throws her arms around Felicity, squeezing her so hard she nearly lifts her off the ground. “Felicity Montague, I thought you were dead!” “Not dead,” Felicity says. One of the dogs tries to wedge itself between the two of them, tail wagging so furiously it makes a thumping drumbeat against the door frame. A second snuffles its nose against my palm, trying to flip my hand onto the top of its head in an encouragement to pet. “It’s been years. Years, Felicity, I haven’t heard from you in years.” She takes Felicity’s face in her hands and presses their foreheads together. “Hardly a word since you left! What on earth are you doing here? I can’t believe it!” She releases Felicity just long enough to turn to Monty and throw open her arms to him. “And Harold!” “Henry,” he corrects, the end coming out in a wheeze as she wraps him in a rib-crushing hug. The dog gives up nudging my hand and instead mashes its face into my thigh, leaving a trail of spittle on my trousers. “Of course, Henry!” She lets go of him, turns to me, and says with just as much enthusiasm, “And I don’t know who you are!” And then I too am being hugged. She smells of honey and lavender, which makes the embrace feel like being wrapped in a loaf of warm bread. “This is Adrian,” Felicity says. “Adrian!” Johanna cries. One of the dogs lets out a long woof in harmony and the others take up the call, an off-key, enthusiastic chorus. She releases me, then turns to Felicity again, but Felicity holds up a preemptive hand. “All right, that’s enough. No more hugs.” She brushes an astonishing amount of dog hair off the front of her skirt, then says brusquely, “It’s good to see you, Johanna.” In return, Johanna smacks her on the shoulder. “You tell me you’re going to Rabat with some scholar and then you never come back and I never hear a single word! Why didn’t you write? Come inside, come on, push the dogs out the way, they won’t bite.” As we follow her into the hallway and then the parlor, she’s speaking so fast I can hardly understand her. “Where are you staying? Wherever it is, cancel it; let me put you up here. Was your luggage sent somewhere? I can have one of my staff collect it. We have plenty of room, and I can make up the parlor for you, Harry—” “Henry,” Monty corrects, then corrects himself. “Monty, Jo, I’ve told you to call me Monty.” She waves that away. “I know but it always feels so terribly glib! You were nearly a lord! But I’m happy to set you up down here so you needn’t navigate the stairs on your leg—gosh, what have you done to it? Your lovely Percy isn’t here, is he? Though we’ll have to do something so the dogs don’t jump on you in the night. They usually sleep with Jan and me, but they get squirrely when we have company. One of Jan’s brokers from Antwerp stayed with us last week and he swears he locked the bedroom door, but somehow Seymour still jumped on top of him in the middle of the night. Poor man thought he was being murdered in his bed. Please sit down—the dogs will move if you crowd them.

sighed with bliss. She’d always known he had beautiful hands and she needed that human touch for healing her frightened heart. ‘I’ll never sleep, but I will have to move. My legs have gone numb under Harley.’ ‘Here. Let me lift him. Would you like to sleep with him tonight in your bed?’ ‘Put him in his own bed and we’ll leave the door open. I’ll hear him if he wants me. I need your arms around me tonight, Iain. He won’t mind me sleeping with you – though he might come in in the morning.’ Iain laughed softly, dropped a tender kiss on her lips and lifted the boy easily out of her lap to carry him up the stairs. Chapter Fifty-two Noni Half an hour later, Noni had showered and was sipping the hot chocolate Iain had insisted she needed. He came back into the room, sat down and slid his arm around her. ‘This wasn’t quite the situation and setting I’d planned, but I do have something to say.’ Noni put down the cup and tried to calm the sudden thumping in her heart. She looked into the face of the man she’d come to love and knew, without a doubt, that she had to stay with him despite the dilemmas they hadn’t resolved. It wasn’t just Harley who’d been heartbroken that he’d left. ‘First of all, I’m sorry for accusing you of knowing Jacinta was planning on staying with you. On Saturday, it took me until about fifty kilometers south of Burra to realize that of course you hadn’t known she planned to stay behind. I think I always knew you’d never stoop to underhanded methods to arrange that change of plan.’ He sighed. ‘It was all Jacinta’s idea, although for the life of me I couldn’t understand why she left telling me until the last minute.’ He grimaced and squeezed her shoulder. ‘I was so disappointed in her lack of loyalty, I blamed you. And I was over the top about it. I’m sorry.’ Noni ran her finger along his jaw. ‘I understand that. Before she went to bed, Jacinta told me she wanted to make sure we still saw each other. That she could see we were good for each other if we could hang in there. She stayed so we would still keep in contact.’ ‘She’s a stubborn young woman.’ ‘Just like her father.’ Noni took a deep breath and hoped the offer was still open. ‘But I can see what she means. I will take you on your terms, Iain. I think we should try to make a life together, and it’s no good Harley and me staying in Burra if our hearts are down in Sydney with you.’ She expelled her breath. There. She’d said it and she meant it. He took her face in his hands and kissed her gently. ‘Ah, Noni. You’re too much for me. Thank you for your typically brave offer, but let me finish. Where was I? Oh, yes. I’m not stubborn, by the way! ‘It only took another five kilometers to realize I didn’t want to leave Burra, either. The challenges of a country practice might be the answer to rejuvenating my interest in obstetrics. But it’s you, not the town, which is drawing me back. If you’ll have me.’ Noni was lost now. ‘What are you saying, Iain?’ ‘I’m saying … I love you. I want to marry you. I want to live with you, be a part of your family and you be a part of mine, in Burra if you want to, for the rest of our lives.’ He took her hand in his and kissed her fingers. ‘Say that again,’ Noni whispered. She couldn’t believe it. ‘I love you. The first time I saw you it was as if I’d been searching for you my whole life. Or maybe we’ve connected before in

. I may save him, but he saves me, too. He woke me from a lifetime of sleep, years of walking around without truly being awake. He helped make me the woman I am now by letting me see myself for who I really am, and who I am in the reflection of those ocean eyes. I break him and pick up his pieces, but he obliterates me, tearing down the thoughts that used to make me, building me up again with my own instructions. He makes me the best form of myself. How could I not save him? He’s the only one I’ve ever known worth saving.

The list of things that keep me up at night includes, but is not limited to: appendicitis, typhoid, leprosy, unclean meat, foods I haven’t seen emerge from their packaging, foods my mother hasn’t tasted first so that if we die we die together, homeless people, headaches, rape, kidnapping, milk, the subway, sleep. An assistant teacher comes to school with bloodshot eyes, and I am convinced he’s infected with Ebola. I wait for blood to trickle from his ear or for him to just fall down dead. I stop touching my shoelaces (too filthy) or hugging adults outside of my family. In school, we are learning about Hiroshima, so I read Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes and I know instantly that I have leukemia. A symptom of leukemia is dizziness and I have that, when I sit up too fast or spin around in circles. So I quietly prepare to die in the next year or so, depending on how fast the disease progresses. My parents are getting worried. It’s hard enough to have a child, much less a child who demands to inspect our groceries and medicines for evidence that their protective seals have been tampered with. I have only the vaguest memory of a life before fear. Every morning when I wake up there is one blissful second before I look around the room and remember my daily terrors. I wonder if this is what it will always be like, forever, and I try to remember moments I felt safe: In bed next to my mother one Sunday morning. Playing with Isabel’s puppy. Getting picked up from a sleepover just before bedtime.

1. His back is full of knives. Notes are brittle around the blades. 2. He sleeps face down every night in a chalk outline of himself. 3. He has difficulties with metal detectors. 4. At birthday parties, someone might politely ask, may I borrow one of those knives to slice this chocolate cake? 5. He likes to stand with his back to walls. At restaurants, he likes the corner tables. 6. There is a detective who calls to ask him about the brittle notes. Also: a biographer, a woman who'd like to film a documentary, a curator of a museum, his mother. I can't read them, he says. They're on my back. 7. It would be a mistake for anyone to assume he wants the knives removed. 8. Most of the brittle notes are illegible. One of them, even, is written in French. 9. Every Halloween, he goes as a victim of a brutal stabbing. Once he tried going as a whale, but it was a hassle explaining away the knives. 10. He always wears the same bloody suit. 11. When he walks, he sounds like a tree still full of dead leaves holding on. 12. It is ok for children to count on his knives, but not to climb on them. 13. He saw his own shadow in a park. He moved his body to make the knives reach other people's shadows. He did it all evening. In the shadows, his knives looked like soft outstretched arms. 14. His back is running out of space. 15. On a trip to Paris, he fell in love and ended up staying for a few years. He got a job performing on the street with the country's best mimes. 16. The knives are what hold him together. It is the notes that are slowly killing him. 17. He is difficult to hold when he cries. 18. He will be very old when he dies and the Doctor will say, he was obviously stabbed, brutally and repeatedly. I'm sorry, the Doctor will say to a person in the room, but he's not going to make it.

Jesse was moaning in her sleep. She was a delicate woman of thirty-five with long curly red hair. She lay deep in a shapeless feather mattress, cradled in a wooden bed which hung from the ceiling on four rusted chains. Somewhere in the big rambling house a clock chimed. She must wake up. Two hours until the Vampire Lestat’s concert. But she could not leave the twins now. This was new to her, this part unfolding so rapidly, and the dream was maddeningly dim as all the dreams of the twins had been. Yet she knew the twins were in the desert kingdom again. The mob surrounding the twins was dangerous. And the twins, how different they looked, how pale. Maybe it was an illusion, this phospherescent luster, but they appeared to glow in the semidarkness, and their movements were languid, almost as if they were caught in the rhythm of a dance. Torches were thrust at them as they embraced one another; but look, something was wrong, very wrong. One of them was now blind. Her eyelids were shut tight, the tender flesh wrinkled and sunken. Yes, they have plucked out her eyes. And the other one, why she make those terrible sounds? “Be still, don’t fight anymore,” said the blind one, in the ancient language which was always understandable in the dreams. And out of the other win came a horrid, gutteral moaning. She couldn’t speak. They’d cut out her tongue! I don’t want to see any more, I want to wake up. But the soldiers were pushing their way through the crowd, something dreadful was to happen, and the twins became suddenly very still. The soldiers took hold of them, dragged them apart. Don’t separate them! Don’t you know what this means to them? Get the torches away. Don’t set them on fire! Don’t burn their red hair. The blind twin reached out for her sister, screaming her name: “Mekare!” And Mekare, the mute one, who could not answer, roared like a wounded beast. The crowd was parting, making way for two immense stone coffins, each carried in a great heavy bier. Crude these sarcophagi, yet the lids had the roughened shape of human faces, limbs. What have the twins done to be put in these coffins? I can’t stand it, the biers being set down, the twins dragged towards the coffins, the crude stone lids being lifted. Don’t do it! The blind one is fighting as if she can see it, yet they are overpowering her, lifting her and putting her inside the stone box. In mute terror, Mekare is watching, though she herself is being dragged to the bier. Don’t lower the lid, or I will scream for Mekare! For both of them- Jesse sat up, her eyes opened. She had screamed. Alone in the house, with no one to hear her, she’d screamed and she could feel the echo still. Then nothing but the quiet settling around her, and the faint creaking of the bed as it moved on its chains. The song of the birds outside in the forest, the deep forest; and her own curious awareness that the clock had struck six.

To me, it doesn’t seem right to keep clothes we don’t enjoy for relaxing around the house. This time at home is still a precious part of living. Its value should not change just because nobody sees us. So, starting today, break the habit of downgrading clothes that don’t thrill you to loungewear. The real waste is not discarding clothes you don’t like but wearing them even though you are striving to create the ideal space for your ideal lifestyle. Precisely because no one is there to see you, it makes far more sense to reinforce a positive self-image by wearing clothes you love. The same goes for pajamas. If you are a woman, try wearing something elegant as nightwear. The worst thing you can do is to wear a sloppy sweat suit. I occasionally meet people who dress like this all the time, whether waking or sleeping. If sweatpants are your everyday attire, you’ll end up looking like you belong in them, which is not very attractive. What you wear in the house does impact your self-image.

She lifted her arms and wrapped them around his neck. She had liked him from the moment she had met him Monday at school. No wonder he thought she had been acting weird on Wednesday when she couldn't even remember his name. But other memories came to her now. Ones that filled her with sadness. She saw her mother, father, and sister. Tears burned into her eyes. Having her memories suddenly restored made it feel as if they had died all over again. "You're crying." Derek pressed her against him and rubbed her back soothingly. She remembered the way she had struggled through the woodlot that first night and finally found shelter in the trashed boxes behind a liquor store. She had fallen into a deep sleep and was awakened the next morning by the woman who owned the store. That began her first foster placement. More than anything she had wanted a home. She had lived in so many different houses and towns. West Covina. Ontario. Long Beach. Wilmington. She had kept a key from each one. That's why there were so many on her key chain. She felt suddenly sorry for herself, sorry that she had lived like a stray.

Why do you care what happens to a human teacher?” Sabrina said. “I thought you hated humans.” Charming said nothing. “You don’t want anything bad to happen to Ms. White,” Daphne cried. “You are in love with her. You want to kiss and hug her!” “Nonsense!” the mayor shouted. “I can’t have terrorists running around the elementary school, even if I approve of who they’re killing.” “You want to write her love notes,” the little girl persisted. “You want to hold her hand in the park and look at puppies in the pet store.” “Is there an Off button for this one?” Charming asked Granny Relda. The old woman grinned at the mayor. “You haven’t answered the questions.” “All right!” Charming surrendered. “Snow has a knack for getting in trouble. I would sleep better at night knowing she is safe.

after they interviewed the owner, then she’d need the change in the cupholder in her car to loosen their lips. Giving it away now would only throw that chance away later.  Roper paused at the door and proffered it to her. ‘After you,’ he said. She knew he just didn’t want to touch the handle. She took hold of it and pulled back, wondering for a second if she should open it just enough to slip through so that Roper would have to grab it to let himself in.  She decided that was too petty for the morning of a murder investigation. Inside, the interior was cool. A short reception area led into the main hall — a double-height function room with a hard rubberised floor filled with sleeping bags and other homeless people. There were at least twenty, maybe thirty. It was difficult to tell at a glance. At the back of the room, a woman in her fifties with a long fleece vest on, the pockets heavy and sagging with keys and who knows what else, was filling cups of coffee from a big stainless steel dispenser, handing them to a line of people queuing silently, their heads bowed.  The air was humid inside and the low murmurings of the people talking around them created a soft background din that swallowed their footsteps. Roper looked around, not hiding his disdain very well.  But with the nights getting colder, these people deserved somewhere warm to hole up. The winter was vicious and it was closing in fast this year, bearing down on the city in waves of rain and frost.  The woman serving coffee leaned around the line and looked at them, squinting a little to make them out. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold and her reddish hair was curled back up over her head, spilling around her ears. Big and cheap gold earrings clung to her stretched lobes and shook a little as she looked them up and down, her face a mixture of trepidation and worry. Police turning up at a homeless shelter never meant anything good. She smiled warmly at the person at the front of the line, told him to help himself to coffee, and then walked around the table towards Roper and Jamie.  She held her hands wide and then clasped them together, raising her eyebrows and shaking her head. Her earlobes wobbled and her heavy earrings caught the halogen strip lights overhead, glinting. ‘Can I, uh, help you?’ she asked.  Jamie and Roper flashed their badges to get it out of the way. ‘My name is Detective Sergeant Paul Roper, and this is my associate, Detective Sergeant Jamie Johansson.’ ‘Mary Cartwright,’ she answered diligently. ‘Are you the owner of this — er — establishment, Mary?’ Roper asked less than tactfully.

One night around 7:30 the phone rang. Now remember, Betty had been in a comatose state for two weeks . . . but here she was on the other end of the line as rational and cheery as she’d been as a healthy young woman. “Hi, Ed, how are you?” And I said, “Who is this?” And she said, “It’s Betty. Betty Chap-man?” Lorraine: “I picked up the other phone when I heard Ed say this because I was shocked. I’d seen Betty only a day ago and she was deep in a coma. Very deep. This couldn’t possibly be her on the phone—and yet it was. She said, ‘I must have been sleeping for the last couple of weeks and now I’m just waking up.

I am the default woman who was never noted as special. I'm the tolerant one that he's blessed to have. Im not the Apple of anyone's eye. I'm not the one longed for or the one that is dreamed about. I am the woman that sticks around and gives her all. Im not the woman that he's always wanted. I remember writing a song for him and he blew it off. I remember trying to spoil him and he barely reacted.. I remember feeling foolish for him and he quickly became comfortable and then I was just "the wife". I remember being told that "I cheated him" as if I deliberately decieved him and little did I know I was the one who was being deceived. I was being looked down on. I would never compare. I was not good enough in the eyes of him, her or the family. I remember trying to motivate only to be blamed for being part of the reason for poor family ties. I remember having to stand up for myself. I remember giving birth multiple times only to feel afterwards that maybe he wished it had been someone else baring his children. Ive read oh God what you think of me. I'm losing the battle in my mind. How many times will I take up arms in this battle only to find myself dying to sleep and waking up to fight it all over again. This woman will not die and the fight is not changing. It's like a self defeat life loop of my reincarnated self. Just thinking.

Jamie got back to her apartment in nineteen minutes and forty-nine seconds.  It wasn’t a personal best for a five-kilometre run, but it was still fast.  She showered and dressed, pulled on her boots, and was out the door in seventeen minutes flat. Which probably was close to a personal best.  She was wearing jeans she picked up from a supermarket. She liked them because they had a three percent lycra content woven into the denim, which stretched a little and meant that she could more easily crouch, walk, and kick someone in the side of the head if the situation called for it. It hadn’t yet, but she had a long career ahead of herself, she hoped.  She jumped into her car — a small and economical hybrid hatchback which squeezed around the city easily — and headed north towards the Lea.  It took nearly forty minutes to get there in rush hour traffic, and by the time she pulled up, Roper was leaning against the bonnet of his ten-year-old Volvo saloon, smoking a cigarette. He was tall with thinning, short hair, and a face that looked like he was always squinting into a stiff wind.  His long black coat was pinned to his right leg in the breeze and his shirt looked like it’d been pulled out of the laundry hamper rather than a clean drawer. He was perpetually single, and it showed. There was no one to hold him accountable when he decided it was okay to skip a morning shower for an extra ten minutes sleeping off his hangover. What she hated most about him, beyond the cigarette stink and the pissed-at-life attitude, was that she always had to look twice to make sure he wasn’t her father.  Her mother had dragged her away from him in Sweden, and now, she’d been thrown together with a guy who seemingly had inherited all his bad habits. Her mum said it was because all detectives were like it if they did the job long enough. They saw too much and didn’t talk about it enough. Which led inevitably to drink, and drugs, and other women. She’d spoken from experience of course. And Jamie knew she hadn’t exaggerated.  Though moving them both to Britain seemed like a bit of a dramatic reaction. But then again, her father had given her mother gonorrhoea and couldn’t say which woman he’d gotten it from. So Jamie figured it was reasonable.  He would have turned sixty-one this year. Roper pushed off the Volvo and ground out his cigarette under the heel of his battered Chelsea boot. Jamie looked at it, stopping short of his odour-radius. ‘You gonna just leave that there?’ He looked between his feet, rolling onto the outsides of them as he inspected the flattened butt. ‘It’ll wash away in the rain.’ ‘Into the ocean, yeah, where some poor fish is going to eat it,’ Jamie growled, coming to a stop in front of him.

I, like a river, Have been turned aside by this harsh age. I am a substitute. My life has flowed Into another channel And I do not recognize my shores. O, how many fine sights I have missed, How many curtains have risen without me And fallen too. How many of my friends I have not met even once in my life, How many city skylines Could have drawn tears from my eyes, I who know only the one city And by touch, in my sleep, I could find it ... And how many poems I have not written, Whose secret chorus swirls around my head And possibly one day Will stifle me ... I know the beginnings and the ends of things, And life after the end, and something It isn’t necessary to remember now. And another woman has usurped The place that ought to have been mine, And bears my rightful name, Leaving me a nickname, with which I’ve done, I like to think, all that was possible. But I, alas, won’t lie in my own grave. But sometimes a madcap air in spring, Or a combination of words in a chance book Or somebody’s smile, suddenly Draws me into that non-existent life. In such a year would such have taken place, Something else in another: travelling, seeing, Thinking, remembering, entering a new love Like entering a mirror, with a dull sense Of treason, and a wrinkle that only yesterday Was absent ... But if, from that life, I could step aside, And see my life such as it is, today, Then at last I’d know what envy means ...

man goes out to work, he earns a wage, he comes back home, he eats, he sleeps. That’s what he does. Our men think earning money and ordering around others is where power lies. They don’t think power is in the hands of the woman who takes care of everyone all day long, and gives birth to their children.

He was in a room filled with people, and it was warm, with firelight glowing on a hearth. He could see through a window that outside it was night, and snowing. There were colored lights: red and green and yellow, twinkling from a tree which was, oddly, inside the room. On a table, lighted candles stood in a polished golden holder and cast a soft, flickering glow. He could smell things cooking, and he heard soft laughter. A golden-haired dog lay sleeping on the floor. On the floor there were packages wrapped in brightly colored paper and tied with gleaming ribbons. As Jonas watched, a small child began to pick up the packages and pass them around the room: to other children, to adults who were obviously parents, and to an older, quiet couple, man and woman, who sat smiling together on a couch. While Jonas watched, the people began one by one to untie the ribbons on the packages, to unwrap the bright papers, open the boxes and reveal toys and clothing and books. There were cries of delight. They hugged one another. The small child went and sat on the lap of the old woman, and she rocked him and rubbed her cheek against his. Jonas opened his eyes and lay contentedly on the bed, still luxuriating in the warm and comforting memory. It had all been there, all the things he had learned to treasure. “What did you perceive?” The Giver asked. “Warmth,” Jonas replied, “and happiness. And—let me think. Family. That it was a celebration of some sort, a holiday. And something else—I can’t quite get the word for

because there was a new face in the chorus, and rumor—in the person of his friend Aubrey—said she was a promising possibility as a mistress. And indeed she was, Lucien had to admit—at least, she would be for Aubrey, who had come into his title and had full control of his fortune. But not for someone like Lucien—a young man on a strict allowance and whose title of Viscount Hartford was only a courtesy one, borrowed from his father. Being my lord was, he had found, one of the few benefits of being the only son of the Earl of Chiswick. “She’s quite attractive, as game pullets go,” he told Aubrey carelessly after the play, as they cracked the first bottle of wine at their club. “Have her with my blessing.” Aubrey snorted. “You know, Lucien, it’s just as well you’re not looking for a high-flyer, for you damned well couldn’t afford her.” Lucien forced a smile. “She’s not my sort, as it happens.” “Balderdash—she’s any man’s sort.” Not mine, Lucien thought absently. He might have said it aloud if the sentiment hadn’t been so startlingly true. How odd—for the chorus girl had been a prime piece, buxom and long-limbed and flashy, as well as incredibly flexible as she moved around the stage. How could he not be interested? Aubrey was looking at him strangely, so Lucien said, “If she’s so much to your taste, I’m surprised you didn’t go around to the stage door after the performance and make yourself known.” “Strategy, my friend. Never let a woman guess exactly how interested you are.” Aubrey waved a hand at a waiter to bring another bottle, and as they drank it, he detailed his plan for winning the chorus girl. “It’s too bad you can’t join the fun, for I’m certain she has a friend,” Aubrey finished. “The gossips have it that your father is never without a lightskirt, so why should he object to you having one?” “Oh, not a lightskirt. Only the finest of the demimonde will do for the Earl of Chiswick.” Lucien drained his glass. “I’m meant to be on the road to Weybridge at first light—for the duke’s birthday, you know. A few hours’ sleep before I climb into a jolting carriage will not come amiss.” “Too late.” Aubrey tilted his head toward the nearest window. “Dawn’s breaking now, if I’m not mistaken. You won’t mind if I don’t come to see you off? Deadly dull it is, waving good-bye—and I’ve a mind for a hand or two of piquet before I go home.” Lucien walked from the club to his rooms in Mount Street, hoping a fresh breeze might help clear his head. The post-chaise Uncle Josiah had ordered for him was already waiting. The horses stamped impatiently, snorting in the cool morning air, and the postboys looked bored. Nearby, Lucien’s valet paced—but he