Big Hips Quotes

I cannot go to school today" Said little Peggy Ann McKay. "I have the measles and the mumps, A gash, a rash and purple bumps. My mouth is wet, my throat is dry. I'm going blind in my right eye. My tonsils are as big as rocks, I've counted sixteen chicken pox. And there's one more - that's seventeen, And don't you think my face looks green? My leg is cut, my eyes are blue, It might be the instamatic flu. I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke, I'm sure that my left leg is broke. My hip hurts when I move my chin, My belly button's caving in. My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained, My 'pendix pains each time it rains. My toes are cold, my toes are numb, I have a sliver in my thumb. My neck is stiff, my voice is weak, I hardly whisper when I speak. My tongue is filling up my mouth, I think my hair is falling out. My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight, My temperature is one-o-eight. My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear, There's a hole inside my ear. I have a hangnail, and my heart is ... What? What's that? What's that you say? You say today is .............. Saturday? G'bye, I'm going out to play!

She's got a big belt around her hips. It has a shiny buckle with PRADA on it, which is Italian for insecure.

Where there's life, death is inevitable. Dying's easy; it's living that's hard. The harder it gets, the stronger the will to live. And the greater the fear of death, the greater the struggle to keep on living.

Big bad merc, down with a basic hip toss. In your place I'd be blushing.

Women have problem areas in a way that men don't. We have big hips and muffin tops. Men just have the thing where they create wars and wreak havoc all over the globe.

They wanted the real mother, the blood mother, the great womb, mother of fierce compassion, a woman large enough to hold all the pain, to carry it away. What we needed was someone who bled, someone deep and rich as a field, a wide-hipped mother, awesome, immense, women like huge soft couches, mothers coursing with blood, mother's big enough, wide enough for us to hide in, to sink down to the bottom of of, mother's who would breathe for us when we could not breathe anymore, who would fight for us, who would kill for us, die for us.

Liam cleared his throat again and turned to fully face me. “So, it’s the summer and you’re in Salem, suffering through another boring, hot July, and working part-time at an ice cream parlor. Naturally, you’re completely oblivious to the fact that all of the boys from your high school who visit daily are more interested in you than the thirty-one flavors. You’re focused on school and all your dozens of clubs, because you want to go to a good college and save the world. And just when you think you’re going to die if you have to take another practice SAT, your dad asks if you want to go visit your grandmother in Virginia Beach.” “Yeah?” I leaned my forehead against his chest. “What about you?” “Me?” Liam said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “I’m in Wilmington, suffering through another boring, hot summer, working one last time in Harry’s repair shop before going off to some fancy university—where, I might add, my roommate will be a stuck-up-know-it-all-with-a-heart-of-gold named Charles Carrington Meriwether IV—but he’s not part of this story, not yet.” His fingers curled around my hip, and I could feel him trembling, even as his voice was steady. “To celebrate, Mom decides to take us up to Virginia Beach for a week. We’re only there for a day when I start catching glimpses of this girl with dark hair walking around town, her nose stuck in a book, earbuds in and blasting music. But no matter how hard I try, I never get to talk to her. “Then, as our friend Fate would have it, on our very last day at the beach I spot her. You. I’m in the middle of playing a volleyball game with Harry, but it feels like everyone else disappears. You’re walking toward me, big sunglasses on, wearing this light green dress, and I somehow know that it matches your eyes. And then, because, let’s face it, I’m basically an Olympic god when it comes to sports, I manage to volley the ball right into your face.” “Ouch,” I said with a light laugh. “Sounds painful.” “Well, you can probably guess how I’d react to that situation. I offer to carry you to the lifeguard station, but you look like you want to murder me at just the suggestion. Eventually, thanks to my sparkling charm and wit—and because I’m so pathetic you take pity on me—you let me buy you ice cream. And then you start telling me how you work in an ice cream shop in Salem, and how frustrated you feel that you still have two years before college. And somehow, somehow, I get your e-mail or screen name or maybe, if I’m really lucky, your phone number. Then we talk. I go to college and you go back to Salem, but we talk all the time, about everything, and sometimes we do that stupid thing where we run out of things to say and just stop talking and listen to one another breathing until one of us falls asleep—” “—and Chubs makes fun of you for it,” I added. “Oh, ruthlessly,” he agreed. “And your dad hates me because he thinks I’m corrupting his beautiful, sweet daughter, but still lets me visit from time to time. That’s when you tell me about tutoring a girl named Suzume, who lives a few cities away—” “—but who’s the coolest little girl on the planet,” I manage to squeeze out.

To be honest, I don't know what qualities you ever saw in him. I can tell why he chose you, but-" "Oh yeah?" Cara's spirits lifted as she sensed a compliment coming on. "Why do you think he chose me?" "It's obvious." He swept a hand to indicate her loose curls. "Your long, shiny hair, healthy skin, and bright eyes show that you're well-nourished." "Uh, thank you?" "I'm not finished." "Go on then." "You're clearly intelligent." Then he felt the need to add, "For a human." "Gee. That's so sweet." "But Eric was probably most attracted to your wait-to-hip ratio." For a split second, Aelyx resembled a human boy as he leaned back and peered at her caboose. "Hips of that width are likely to pass life offspring without complication." Cara nearly swallowed her own tongue. She didn't have big hips did she?

I was beautiful; after all, my skin was as rich and dark as wet, brown mud, a complexion that any and every pale white girl would pray for - that is, if she believed in God. My butt sat high in the air and my hips obviously gave birth to Creation. Titties like mangoes, firm, sweet, and ready. My thighs and legs were big and powerful, kicking Vanna White and Cindy Crawford to the curb.

The new acts' major influences were movies and their curvy queens Brigitte Bardot and Marilyn Monroe. With their big blonde hair, ample breasts, and highly fertile hips, these bombshells inspired women everywhere to exxagerate their own voluptuousness.

One afternoon a girl walked by in a bikini and my cousin Janet scoffed, “Look at the hips on her.” I panicked. What about the hips? Were they too big? Too small? What were my hips? I didn’t know hips could be a problem. I thought there was just fat or skinny. This was how I found out that there are an infinite number of things that can be “incorrect” on a woman’s body.

Perhaps we don't like what we see: our hips, our loss of hair, our shoe size, our dimples, our knuckles too big, our eating habits, our disposition. We have disclosed these things in secret, likes and dislikes, behind doors with locks, our lonely rooms, our messy desks, our empty hearts, our sudden bursts of energy, our sudden bouts of depression. Don’t worry. Put away your mirrors and your beauty magazines and your books on tape. There is someone right here who knows you more than you do, who is making room on the couch, who is fixing a meal, who is putting on your favorite record, who is listening intently to what you have to say, who is standing there with you, face to face, hand to hand, eye to eye, mouth to mouth. There is no space left uncovered. This is where you belong.

It’s of some interest that the lively arts of the millenial U.S.A. treat anhedonia and internal emptiness as hip and cool. It’s maybe the vestiges of the Romantic glorification of Weltschmerz, which means world-weariness or hip ennui. Maybe it’s the fact that most of the arts here are produced by world-weary and sophisticated older people and then consumed by younger people who not only consume art but study it for clues on how to be cool, hip - and keep in mind that, for kids and younger people, to be hip and cool is the same as to be admired and accepted and included and so Unalone. Forget so-called peer-pressure. It’s more like peer-hunger. No? We enter a spiritual puberty where we snap to the fact that the great transcendent horror is loneliness, excluded encagement in the self. Once we’ve hit this age, we will now give or take anything, wear any mask, to fit, be part-of, not be Alone, we young. The U.S. arts are our guide to inclusion. A how-to. We are shown how to fashion masks of ennui and jaded irony at a young age where the face is fictile enough to assume the shape of whatever it wears. And then it’s stuck there, the weary cynicism that saves us from gooey sentiment and unsophisticated naivete. Sentiment equals naïveté on this continent... ...Hal, who’s empty but not dumb, theorizes privately that what passes for hip cynical transcendence of sentiment is really some kind of fear of being really human, since to be really human (at least as he conceptualizes it) is probably to be unavoidably sentimental and naive and goo-prone and generally pathetic, is to be in some basic interior way forever infantile, some sort of not-quite-right-looking infant dragging itself anaclitically around the map, with big wet eyes and froggy-soft skin, huge skull, gooey drool. One of the really American things about Hal, probably, is the way he despises what it is he’s really lonely for: this hideous internal self, incontinent of sentiment and need, that pules and writhes just under the hip empty mask, anhedonia.

Are women really wonderful things? Maybe they are. Yes, women are wonderful things, but when all is said and done, they aren't really “things

Blue jeans, white shirt Walked into the room you know you made my eyes burn It was like, James Dean, for sure You're so fresh to death and sick as ca-cancer You were sorta punk rock, I grew up on hip hop But you fit me better than my favourite sweater, and I know That love is mean, and love hurts But I still remember that day we met in december, oh baby! I will love you 'til the end of time I would wait a million years Promise you'll remember that you're mine Baby can you see through the tears Love you more Than those bitches before Say you'll remember, oh baby, say you'll remember I will love you 'til the end of time Big dreams, gangster Said you had to leave to start your life over I was like, “No please, stay here, We don't need no money we can make it all work,” But he headed out on sunday, said he'd come home monday I stayed up waitin', anticipatin', and pacin' But he was chasing paper "Caught up in the game" ‒ that was the last I heard I will love you 'til the end of time I would wait a million years Promise you'll remember that you're mine Baby can you see through the tears Love you more Than those bitches before Say you'll remember, oh baby, say you'll remember I will love you 'til the end of time You went out every night And baby that's alright I told you that no matter what you did I'd be by your side Cause Imma ride or die Whether you fail or fly Well shit at least you tried. But when you walked out that door, a piece of me died I told you I wanted more-but that's not what I had in mind I just want it like before We were dancing all night Then they took you away-stole you out of my life You just need to remember.... I will love you 'til the end of time I would wait a million years Promise you'll remember that you're mine Baby can you see through the tears Love you more Than those bitches before Say you'll remember, oh baby, say you'll remember I will love you 'til the end of time

She's not much taller than Tess and definitely lighter than Kaede. For a second it seems like the crowd's attention has made her umcomfortable and I'm ready to dismiss her as a real contender until I study her again. No, this girl is nothing like the last one. She's hesitating not because she's afraid to fight,or because she fears losing,but because she's thinking. Calculating.She has dark hair tied back in a high ponytail and a lean, athletic build. She stands deliberately, with a hand resting on her hip, as if nothing in the world can catch her off guard. I find myself pausing to admire her face. For a brief moment,I'm lost to my surroundings. The girl shakes her head at Kaede. This surprises me too-I've never seen anyone refuse to fight. Everyone knows the rules: if you're chosen,you fight. This girl doesn't seem to fear the crowds wrath. Kaede laughs at her and says something I can't quite make out. Tess hears it,though, and casts me a quick, concerned glance. This time the girl nods. The crowd lets out another cheer,and Kaede smiles. I lean a little bit out from behind the chimney. Something about this girl...I don't know what it is.But her eyes burn in the light,and although it's hot and might be my imagination, I think I see a small smile on the girl's face. Tess shoots a questioning look at me.I hesitate for a split second,then hold up one finger again. I'm grateful to this mystery girl for helping Tess out, but with my money on the line,I decide to play it safe. Tess nods,then casts our bet in favor of Kaede. But the instant the new girl steps into the circle and I see her stance...I know I've made a big mistake.Kaede strikes like a bull, a battering ram. This girl strikes like a viper.

Chase tugged my hips flush against his, and I felt a hard length between us. It was only a bulge against the leather of his pants, but it was enough to get me wetter than a rainforest between my legs.

Yeah," he grount out. "I nailed her." "Where?" Luc always wanted the dirty details. "Stockroom. Pay up." Luc snorted and reached for his wallet. "I really got taken on this one , didn't I?" He handed over four hundreds and five twenties. "Yeah, well, you can have the last laugh once the Sem brothers catch up with me. Seems she's their sister." "Dude." Luc streched out the word and then whistled, low and long. "Nice knowing you. So, will it at least have been worth it? Being gutted by Shade, I mean. Was she good ?" His body heated as though remembering. And wanting again. "Of course I was." Fuck. Con spun around to find Sin standing there, hands on hips and fury in her expression. Like a kid caught stealing candy, he whipped the money behind his back. She looked at him as if he was an idiot and grabbed his arm, briging it around. "It's not what you think," he said lamely, because it was exactly what she thought. "Really? So that big asshole behind you didn't bet you five hundred bucks that you couldn't fuck me ?" "Ah..." "That's what I thought. You dick. How stupid do you think I am ? Your name really fits you , Con." She snatched the money from him, took two hundreds and three twenties, and thrust the remaining two hundred and forty dollars back into his hand. Then, smiling broadly, she punched him in the shoulder. "Next time you make a bet like that, don't cheat me out of my half. I owe you a ten." She winked and left him, jaw-dropped and gaping, as she sauntered away.

these hips are big hips. they need space to move around in. they don't fit into little petty places.

the first Goddess, Gaia, who was the earth, wide hipped, big bellied, the womb of the human race, the nurturing breast of all humans, the opulent and voracious beginning of all things female.

When they reached the stairs, he didn’t make her climb them herself. He picked her up in his arms and carried her to the big bathroom off their bedroom. He didn’t speak, his expression didn’t soften. But he was hard. His cock was like a poker, steely and hot against her hip. His eyes blazed with lust.

Hey you, dragging the halo- how about a holiday in the islands of grief? Tongue is the word I wish to have with you. Your eyes are so blue they leak. Your legs are longer than a prisoner's last night on death row. I'm filthier than the coal miner's bathtub and nastier than the breath of Charles Bukowski. You're a dirty little windshield. I'm standing behind you on the subway, hard as calculus. My breath be sticking to your neck like graffiti. I'm sitting opposite you in the bar, waiting for you to uncross your boundaries. I want to rip off your logic and make passionate sense to you. I want to ride in the swing of your hips. My fingers will dig in you like quotation marks, blazing your limbs into parts of speech. But with me for a lover, you won't need catastrophes. What attracted me in the first place will ultimately make me resent you. I'll start telling you lies, and my lies will sparkle, become the bad stars you chart your life by. I'll stare at other women so blatantly you'll hear my eyes peeling, because sex with you is like Great Britain: cold, groggy, and a little uptight. Your bed is a big, soft calculator where my problems multiply. Your brain is a garage I park my bullshit in, for free. You're not really my new girlfriend, just another flop sequel of the first one, who was based on the true story of my mother. You're so ugly I forgot how to spell. I'll cheat on you like a ninth grade math test, break your heart just for the sound it makes. You're the 'this' we need to put an end to. The more you apologize, the less I forgive you. So how about it?

But then I realized, they weren't calling out for their own mothers. Not those weak women, those victims. Drug addicts, shopaholics, cookie bakers. They didn't mean the women who let them down, who failed to help them into womanhood, women who let their boyfriends run a train on them. Bingers, purgers, women smiling into mirrors, women in girdles, women on barstools. Not those women with their complaints and their magazines, controlling women, women who asked, what's in in for me? Not the women watching TV while they made dinner, women who dyed their hair blond behind closed doors trying to look twenty-three. They didn't mean the mothers washing dishes wishing they'd never married, the ones in the ER, saying they fell down the stairs, not the ones in prison saying lonliness is the human condition, get used to it. The wanted the real mother, the blood mother, the great womb, mother of fierce compassion, a woman large enough to hold all the pain, to carry it away. What we needed was someone who bled, someone deep and rich as a field, a wide-hipped mother, awesome, immense, women like huge soft couches, mothers coursing with blood, mothers big enough, wide enough for us to hid in, to sink down to the bottom of, mothers who would breathe for us when we could not breathe anymore, who would fight for us, who would kill for us, die for us.

At nearly three in the morning sleepiness weighted my body as we lay there together so still. I heard his breathing even out as we both hovered in that place between wake and sleep. And then his hand wandered lazily down my back and over my hip until he was cupping the full curve of my behind, part of me that he’d actively avoided touching all night. Scratch that sleepy thing. His firm hands clutched me closer and I breathed a heady gust of air at his throat. I’d been careful all night not to be too vocal about how good his touches felt. I knew each noise would act as fuel, making it even harder for him. He rolled to his back, pulling me on top of him with both hands fully on my backside now. “Kaidan,” I whispered. Looking half-asleep, he shushed me with a hot kiss, pulling my hips to crush us together. I whimpered into his mouth. “God, those little sounds,” he said against my lips. “I want to hear how you sound when I make you—” “Kai!” I practically leaped off him, and he sat up, eyes blazing, licking his lips. I was breathing hard. He had to be as tired as me after our long day, and it was starting to weaken us big-time. Oh, how I’d love to indulge that weakness. I scooted farther away. “Maybe we should try to get some sleep,” I suggested, though I was feeling wide-awake now. He stared at me with roaring passion. “I think a third shower might be necessary,” he said. A silly laugh wanted to escape me, but there was no humor in his eyes. Only want.

from Pearls and Poison… “In two minutes the cops are going to come barreling though that door,” I whispered to Auntie KiKi hoping to get her mind off the body in the back room. “Any suggestions how we tell these workers out here their candidate just croaked?” “Yell The jackass bit the big one, hip-hip hooray Gloria wins, then run like the dickens before someone recognizes us.

He who steals hooks is a thief. He who robs a nation is a nobleman.

It is not surprising that young white males – most between thirty and forty – play major roles in the production of hip-pop. It’s easy to forget this because when most people critique rap and hip-pop harshly, they assume that young black men are the sole creators and producers of misogynist rap. In fact, nothing is unilaterally produced anymore. As we’ve discussed, once you have a corporate takeover of the street culture, it is no longer the property of the young, Black and Latino men and women who have created it. It is reinvented with the mass consumer audience in mind. The hard-core misogyny and the hard-core sexism isn’t a translation from street to big-time studio, it is a product of the big-time studio.

I opened the fire door to four lips none of which were mine kissing tightened my belt around my hips where your hands were missing and stepped out into the cold collar high under the slate grey sky the air was smoking and the streets were dry and I wasn't joking when I said Good Bye magazine quality men talking on the corner French, no less much less of them then us so why do I feel like something's been rearranged? you know, taken out of context I must seem so strange killed a cockroach so big it left a puddle of pus on the wall when you and I are lying in bed you don't seem so tall I'm singing now because my tear ducts are too tired and my brain is disconnected but my heart is wired I make such a good statistic someone should study me now somebody's got to be interested in how I feel just 'cause I'm here and I'm real oh, how I miss substituting the conclusion to confrontation with a kiss and oh, how I miss walking up to the edge and jumping in like I could feel the future on your skin I opened the fire door to four lips none of which were mine kissing I opened the fire door

Suddenly, Kat turned to face him again. “Oh, and Howard?” “Yes?” “FYI—my number is listed.” With her parting shot, she sashayed off, hips swinging, leaving him with his mouth hanging open. Slowly, a big, sappy grin spread across his face.He scores! Nothin’ but net.

Gingee, Gingee, it's meeeeeeeeeeee!!!' I could hear her panting up the stairs to my room. She kicked open my bedroom door and ran from the door and leapt onto the bed, covering me with kisses. 'I LOBE you, my big big sister.' I couldn't get her off me. 'Libby, just let me...' 'Kissy kissy kiss, snoggy snog.' 'That's enough, now let me...' 'Mmmmmm, groovy baby.' What is she talking about? She is supposed to be in kindergarten to learn how to grow up, not turn into an even madder person. Then she stood up on the bed and starting thrusting her hips out and singing her favorite: 'Sex bum sex bum I am a sex bum.' Quite spectacularly mad.

Reagan wore eyeliner all the way around her eyes. Like a hard-ass Kate Middleton. And even though she was bigger than most girls-big hips, big chest, wide shoulders-she carried herself like she was exactly the same size everyone wanted to be. And everyone went along with it.

John lifted his head and looked down at her. His eyes were worried and he was careful as he brushed at her hair. She smiled. "Nah, I'm fine. I'm more than fine." A sly grin bloomed as he mouthed, ain't that the truth. "Hold up there, big man. You think you can make me blush like I'm some girl ? Pulling that sweet talk?" As he nodded, she rolled her eyes. "I'll have you know I'm not the kind of female who goes all dizzy, popping a stiletto off the floor just because some guy kisses her deep." John was all male as he cocked a brow. And damn it if she didn't feel a tingle in her cheeks. " Listen, John Matthew." She took his chin in her hand. "You're not turning me into one of these females who goes gaga over her lover. Not happening. I'm not hard-wired for that." Her voice was stern and she meant every word, except the instant he rolled his hips and that huge arousal pushed into her, she purred. She purred. The sound was utterly foreign and she'd have sucked it back down her throat if she could have. Instead, she just left out another of those decidedly non-tough-guy moans. John bowed his head to her breast and started suckling on her as he somehow manage to keep thrusting in slow, even penetrations. Swept away, her hands found his hair again, spearing through the thick softness. " Oh, John..." And then he stopped dead, lifted his lips from her nipple, and smiled so wide it was a wonder he didn't bust off his front teeth. His expression was one of total and complete gotcha. " You are a bastard, " she said on a laugh. He nodded. And pressed into her with his full lenght again. It was perfect that he was giving her shit and showing her a little of who was boss. Just perfect. Somehow it made her respect him even more, but then, she'd always loved strength in all its forms. Even the teasing kind. "I'm not surrendering , you know." He pursed his lips and shook his head, all oh, no, of course not. And then he started to pull out of her. As she growled low in her throat, she sank her nails into his ass. "Where do you think you're going ?

Morir es fácil; lo difícil es vivir. Y cuanto más difícil se vuelve, más fuerte es la voluntad de seguir viviendo. Y cuanto mayor es el miedo a la muerte, mayor es el esfuerzo que se hace por conservar la vida.

But then I realized, they didn't mean their own mothers. Not those weak women, those victims. Drug addicts, shopaholics, cookie bakers. They didn't mean the women who let them down, who failed to help them into womanhood. They didn't mean the mothers washing dishes wishing they'd never married, the ones in the ER, saying they fell down the stairs, not the ones in prison saying loneliness is the human condition. They wanted the real mother, the blood mother, the great womb, mother of a fierce compassion, a woman large enough to hold all the pain, to carry it away. What we needed was someone who bled, someone deep and rich as a field, a wide hipped mother, auwesome, immense, women like huge soft couches, mothers coursing with blood, mothers big enough, wide enough, for us to hide in, to sink down to the bottom of, mothers who would breathe for us when we could not breathe anymore, mothers who would fight for us, who would kill for us, and die for us.

Di mana ada kehidupan, di situ pasti ada kematian. Mati itu mudah ; hiduplah yang sulit. Semakin berat kehidupan yang dihadapi, semakin kuat keinginan untuk bertahan. Dan semakin besar ketakutan untuk mati, semakin besar pula perjuangan untuk terus hidup.

What do you mean by that?” Her frustration got the best of her. “You’re so used to feeling superior that you’ve forgotten there are people who might know something you don’t.” One of his big, competent hands landed on the blade of his hip. “What’s your deal anyway? Do you feel like such a failure that you need to attack anybody who’s successful?” “No. Maybe. I don’t know. Fuck you.

Travis slammed into my back, wrapping his arms around my waist. “You scared the shit outta me!” I complained. He ran his hands over my skin. I noticed they felt different; slow and deliberate. I closed my eyes when he pulled me against him and buried his face in my hair, nuzzling my neck. Feeling his bare skin against mine, it took me a moment to protest. “Travis…,” He pulled my hair to one side and grazed his lips along my back from one shoulder to the other, unsnapping the clasp of my bra. He kissed the bare skin at the base of my neck and I closed my eyes, the warm softness of his mouth felt oo good to make him stop. A quiet moan escaped from his throat when he pressed his pelvis against mine, and I could feel how much he wanted me through his boxers. I held my breath, knowing the only thing keeping us from that big step I was so opposed to a few moments before was two thin pieces of fabric. Travis turned me to face him, and then pressed against me, leaning my back against the wall. Our eyes met, and I could see the ache in his expression as he scanned the bare pieces of my skin. I had seen him peruse women before, but this was different. He didn’t want to conquer me; he wanted me to say yes. He leaned in to kiss me, stopping just an inch away. I could feel the heat from his skin radiating against my lips, and I had to stop myself from drawing him in the rest of the way. His fingers were digging into my skin as he deliberated, and then his hands slid from my back to the hem of my panties. His index fingers slid down my hips, in between my skin and the lacey fabric, and in the same moment that he was about to slip the delicate threads down my legs, he hesitated. Just when I opened my mouth to say yes, he clenched his eyes shut. “Not like this,” he whispered, brushing his lips across mine. “I want you, but not like this.

The belt slid down her thin hips, and she nervously gripped at it, pulling it up. Short sleeves showed her very thin arms and big delicate elbow joints. Her body was all concave and jerkily fluid lines; it moved with sensitive looseness, loosely threaded together: each movement had a touch of exaggeration , as though some secret power kept springing out.

In our hip-hop lives we make rhymes we make beats we go big or go home. - Esme from Sister Mischief

Every time I blink, all I can see are my flaws. My body in a fun-house mirror. Hips too wide. Thighs too big. And a head too small for the rest of me.

..."Emeninemletters," Caucasian girls from the wrong side of the tracks with big mouths and big attitudes, who weren't taking shit from anyone(except the men in their lives). They had thinly plucked eyebrows, corn-rowed hair, hip-hop vocabularies, and baby daddies, and they thought Paris Hilton was the ne plus ultra of feminine beauty." -Piper Kerman, page 137

The red lipstick? It's supposed to signal fertility and readiness to mate. Just like the swollen red butt of a baboon. That tight-fitting little dress that shows off your curves? From the standpoint of evolutionary biology, big breasts represent a healthy mate who can feed a lot of offspring. That's why men are programmed to like big tits. When you show off your curves, what you're really doing is advertising to the whole world: "Look at me! I'm a healthy female! I'd be a perfect mate! Come mount me!

Black Girls… Strive to be a woman of substance! Don’t solely allow your big butt, thick thighs, wide hips, large breasts, and overall good looks to define you as a woman. Your looks alone shouldn’t define who you are. What more do you have to offer? What is your TRUE character? How is your attitude? What have you accomplished? Do you have respect for yourself? What do you represent? Everywhere you look, there’s another beautiful, stunning, fine looking sista. Stand out from the rest and dare to be different! Your good looks should only be a bonus, not the main factor. #RealTalk

As I was waiting, a man came out of a side room, and at a glance I was sure he must be Long John. His left leg was cut off close by the hip, and under the left shoulder he carried a crutch, which he managed with wonderful dexterity, hopping about upon it like a bird. He was very tall and strong, with a face as big as a ham—plain and pale, but intelligent and smiling. Indeed, he seemed in the most cheerful spirits, whistling as he moved about among the tables, with a merry word or a slap on the shoulder for the more favoured of his guests.

You won’t let me touch you, Erin? You sure as hell better ride me rough for the both of us.” He gave an upward thrust of his hips. “My cock is big and angry because you made it that way. That makes it your responsibility. Move.

He settled his big hands on her hips. He let them slide slowly down to cup her ass which she had jammed into a Spanx hide and seek high rise panty. Before slipping on the slinky purple faux wrap dress that her daughter had given her after surviving being held at gunpoint together gift the prior fall. Stella was fairly sure she would enjoy the sensation of Goat’s strong fingers kneading her flesh if it hadn’t gotten numb in its fierce polyester lycra prison hours ago.

you don’t need big reasons to love a woman. And the size of the love has nothing to do with the size of the reason. Sometimes one word she says is enough. Sometimes only the line of the hip, like a poppy stem. And sometimes it’s how her lips look when she says ‘seven’ or ‘thirteen.’ Look and see, with ‘seven’ the lips are starting out like with a kiss. Then you see the teeth are touching the lips a moment to make the ‘v.’ And then the mouth is opening a little … like this … se-ven. See? And with ‘thirteen,’ the tip of the tongue is peeping out for the ‘th.’ Then the mouth is opening and the tongue is touching the top of the mouth at the end.

And then there was the young male walk. At least women swung only their hips. Young men swung everything, from the shoulders down. You have to try to occupy a lot of space. It makes you look bigger, like a tomcat fluffing his tail. The boys tried to walk big in self-defense against all those other big boys out there. I’m bad, I’m fierce, I’m cool, I’d like a pint of shandy and me mam wants me home by nine.

The trucks roll monotonously onwards, the shouts are monotonous, the falling rain is monotonous. It falls on our heads and on the heads of the dead men up at the front of the truck, on the body of the little recruit with a wound that is far too big for his hip, it’s falling on Kemmerich’s grave, and it’s falling in our hearts.

Agent Jones switched to the big screen and a grainy video of MoMo sitting at his enormous desk, a swivel-hipped Elvis clock ticking behind his bewigged head. 'Death to the capitalist pigs! Death to your cinnamon bun-smelling malls! Death to your power walking and automatic car windows and I'm With Stupid T-shirts! The Republic of ChaCha will never bend to your side-of-fries -drive -through-please-oh-would-you-like-ketchup-with-that corruption! MoMo B. ChaCha defies you and all you stand for, and one day, you will crumble into the sea and we will pick up the pieces and make them into sand art.

Small, Local, Old, and Particular are almost always better than Big, Global, New, and Abstract.

And then there was the young-male walk to master. At least women swung only their hips. Young men swung everything, from the shoulders down. You have to try to occupy a lot of space, she thought. It makes you look bigger, like a tomcat fluffing his tail. She’d seen it a lot in the inn. The boys tried to walk big in self-defense against all those other big boys out there. I’m bad, I’m fierce, I’m cool, I’d like a pint of shandy and me mam wants me home by nine… Let

Here,” he growled and I blinked. “Deacon, I’m not a big fan of—” “Future,” he cut me off. “Assert your feminism when I’m not three seconds away from fuckin’ you on your porch. I come to you, that’s gonna happen. You come to me, maybe it won’t.” Maybe? I didn’t ask that. I asked , “So if you get your way and I come to you, you can miraculously control your base instincts?” His reply? “One.” My body jerked and my brows shot together as the meaning of that word hit me. “Are you counting down—?” “Two.” I planted my hands on my hips. “You are!” I cried angrily. “You’re counting—” “Fuck it,” he muttered, took two long strides, and I was in his arms.

When he reached out with both huge hands to grasp me, I ducked under them and stepped forward, smoothly pulling my knife out of my sleeve. Then, with one quick swipe, I sliced him across the belly. I wasn't certain enough of his anatomy to try stabbing him in the heart. As big as he was, his ribs were probably as thick as my wrist. He stared at me in utter amazement. Then he looked down at the entrails that came boiling out of the gaping wounds that ran from hip to hip across his lower belly. "I think you dropped something there, Grul," I suggested. He clutched at his spilling entrails with both hands, a look of consternation on his brutish face. "'Grat cut Grul's belly," he said. "Make Grul's insides fall out." "Yes, I noticed that. Did you want to fight some more, Grul? I think you could spend your time better by sewing yourself back together. You're not going to be able to move very fast with your guts tangled around your feet." "'Grat is not nice," he accused mournfully, sitting down and holding his entrails in his lap.

Alec answered her, “You do know that it’s disturbing that you know all that, right? We thought you were some go-hard; take no prisoners, don’t-look-at-me-or-I’ll-bust-a-cap-in-your-ass, warrior.” She balled her hands up by her hips and barked in annoyance, “Well I wasn’t raised on G.I. Joes, you know! Mama raised me on princesses and fairy tales, I just happened to end up liking the swords better than the shoes in the stories, okay?” ~ Jenna

Then, walking across the room, hips swaying, blond hair flowing as if in a shampoo commercial, came Joe's date. Tall. Skinny. Big boobs despite the skinniness, their cantaloupe-like roundness announcing them as store-bought

I’m going to have to start you off easy. Can’t pull out the big guns on the first night. I’d just set myself up for failure on the second date.” Putting her hands on her hips, she tilted her head. “Is that what you did last night in bed? I thought you were holding out on me.” “What the hell, Ash!” She burst out laughing. “That is not what you are supposed to tell a man! Repeat after me: I ruined you for all men, all the while fulfilling your every fantasy.

With a great sigh, Jesper removed the gun belts at his hips. She had to admit he looked less himself without them. The Zemeni sharpshooter was long-limbed, brown-skinned, constantly in motion. He pressed his lips to the pearl handles of his prized revolvers, bestowing each with a mournful kiss. “Take good care of my babies,” Jesper said as he handed them over to Dirix. “If I see a single scratch or nick on those, I’ll spell forgive me on your chest in bullet holes.” “You wouldn’t waste the ammo.” “And he’d be dead halfway through forgive,” Big Bolliger said as he dropped a hatchet, a switchblade, and his preferred weapon—a thick chain weighted with a heavy padlock—into Rotty’s expectant hands. Jesper rolled his eyes. “It’s about sending a message. What’s the point of a dead guy with forg written on his chest?” “Compromise,” Kaz said. “I’m sorry does the trick and uses fewer bullets.” Dirix laughed, but Inej noted that he cradled Jesper’s revolver’s very gently. “What about that?” Jesper asked, gesturing to Kaz’s walking stick. Kaz’s laugh was low and humorless. “Who’d deny a poor cripple his cane?” “If the cripple is you, then any man with sense.

That's not what justice is," the colonel jeered, and began pounding the table again with his big fat hand. "That's what Karl Marx is. I'll tell you what justice is. Justice is a knee in the gut from the floor on the chin at night sneaky with a knife brought up down on the magazine of a battleship sandbagged underhanded in the dark without a word of warning. Garroting. That's what justice is when we've all got to be tough enough and rough enough to fight Billy Petrolle. From the hip. Get it?

Georgette was a hip queer. She (he) didn't try to disguise or conceal it with marriage and mans talk, satisfying her homosexuality with the keeping of a secret scrapbook of pictures of favorite male actors or athletes or by supervising activities of young boys or visiting turkish baths or mens locker rooms, leering sidely while seeking protection behind a carefully guarded guise of virility (fearing that moment at a cocktail party or in a bar when this front may start crumbling from alcohol and be completely disintegrated with an attempted kiss or groping of an attractive young man and being repelled with a punch and - rotten fairy - followed with hysteria and incoherent apologies and excuses and running from the room) but, took a pride in being a homosexual by feeling intellectually and esthetically superior to those (especially women) who weren't gay (look at all the great artists who were fairies!); and with the wearing of womens panties, lipstick, eye makeup (this including occasionally gold and silver - stardust - on the lids),long marcelled hair, manicured and polished fingernails, the wearing of womens clothes complete with a padded bra, high heels and wig (one of her biggest thrills was going to BOP CITY dressed as a tall stately blond ( she was 6'4 in heels) in the company of a negro (he was a big beautiful black bastard and when he floated in all the cats in the place jumped and the squares bugged. We were at crazy pad before going and were blasting like crazy, and were up so high that I just didnt give ashit for anyone honey, let me tell you!); and the occasional wearing of menstrual napkin.

Seeing a big scratch on Andy's cheek, he tried again. "You win this fight?" he touched the little boy's cheek lightly. Andy's eyes filled with tears. "I fallded down." "Fell," Jordan corrected automatically. "DADDY!! COME HERE!!" JD commanded furiously. He stomped off to behind the sofa. Jordan rolled his eyes and followed. Leaning down, Jordan whispered, "What?" JD had on his 'frog face'. The one he wore when grownups have been bad. Brows wrinkled, mouth all scrunched and frowny, hands on hips, all 33 inches of righteous indignation, he hissed, "He be's just a baby. He dunna talk good yet." Jordan cocked his eyebrow at his son. "I'm a big boy, Daddy. I know this stuff.

Sick" "I cannot go to school today," Said little Peggy Ann McKay. "I have the measles and the mumps, A gash, a rash and purple bumps. My mouth is wet, my throat is dry, I'm going blind in my right eye. My tonsils are as big as rocks, I've counted sixteen chicken pox And there's one more--that's seventeen, And don't you think my face looks green? My leg is cut--my eyes are blue-- It might be instamatic flu. I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke, I'm sure that my left leg is broke-- My hip hurts when I move my chin, My belly button's caving in, My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained, My 'pendix pains each time it rains. My nose is cold, my toes are numb. I have a sliver in my thumb. My neck is stiff, my voice is weak, I hardly whisper when I speak. My tongue is filling up my mouth, I think my hair is falling out. My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight, My temperature is one-o-eight. My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear, There is a hole inside my ear. I have a hangnail, and my heart is--what? What's that? What's that you say? You say today is. . .Saturday? G'bye, I'm going out to play!

Dear Kai, The sun is probably streaming in through the big barn windows now, which means you're awake. And if you're awake, it means you're wondering where I went. I haven't run away from you, I promise. But I knew that today of all days, they'd need me in the house. Tatiana may be the head of our household now, but she's not the one our staff will look to in my mother's absence. And there is so much to do to prepare for the funeral. Also, I have to go tell my grandfather what has happened to his daughter. I don't want him to hear of her death from anyone but me. Thank you for last night. I wish I could say I don't know why you re the one I ran to,- you, Kai, not Tatiana or my father or even my grandfather. But I know why. And I have a confession to make. After you let me cry, after you let me sob and shout and choke on all that pain-after you did all that, and didn't say a word-I didn't fall asleep like you thought. Not right away. I lay there, wadded up into a ball, and you curved your body behind mine. You were barely touching me-your thigh against the edge of my hip, your arm draped lightly across my waist, your fingers entwined with mine. How many times have our hands touched, when we were passing each other tools or helping each other in and out of machines? Hundreds of times. Thousands. But last night was different. You cradled my hand in yours, palms up, our fingers curled in like a pair of fallen leaves. Fallen, maybe, but not dead. My hand never felt so alive. Every place you touched me sparked with energy. I couldn't sleep. Not like that. And so I bent my head, just the slightest bit, until my mouth reached our hands. I smelled the oil you never quite get off your fingers. I breathed in the scent of your skin. And then, as if that was all I was doing, just breathing, I let my bottom lip brush against your knuckle. Time stopped, I was sure you'd see through my ruse and pull away. I was sure you'd know that I was not asleep, that I was not just breathing. But you didn't move, so I did it again. And again. And in the third time, I let my top lip join my bottom. I kissed your hand, Kai. I didn't do it to thank you for letting me cry. For letting me sleep in your arms. I thought you should know. Yours, Elliot Dear Elliot, I know. When will I see you again? Yours, Kai

A CRUNCHY CON MANIFESTO 1. We are conservatives who stand outside the conservative mainstream; therefore, we can see things that matter more clearly. 2. Modern conservatism has become too focused on money, power, and the accumulation of stuff, and insufficiently concerned with the content of our individual and social character. 3. Big business deserves as much skepticism as big government. 4. Culture is more important than politics and economics. 5. A conservatism that does not practice restraint, humility, and good stewardship—especially of the natural world—is not fundamentally conservative. 6. Small, Local, Old, and Particular are almost always better than Big, Global, New, and Abstract. 7. Beauty is more important than efficiency. 8. The relentlessness of media-driven pop culture deadens our senses to authentic truth, beauty, and wisdom. 9. We share Russell Kirk's conviction that "the institution most essential to conserve is the family.

He’s not the kind of man you want to be involved with.” Sahara made a face at him. “That would be my business.” “Sorry, doesn’t work like that.” Folding his arms, he leaned back against the wall, eyes fully jaguar. “You’re family now, little sister.” “And look how safe you are,” she said, hands on her hips. “I’m sorry, anyone who turns into a predatory cat with big teeth and claws can’t exactly throw stones.” Vaughn narrowed his eyes at her. “I will hurt him if he puts a single bruise on you.” “You won’t have to,” Sahara said softly. “He’d end himself before causing me harm.

It’s of some interest that the lively arts of the millennial U.S.A. treat anhedonia and internal emptiness as hip and cool. It’s maybe the vestiges of the Romantic glorification of Weltschmerz, which means world-weariness or hip ennui. Maybe it’s the fact that most of the arts here are produced by world-weary and sophisticated older people and then consumed by younger people who not only consume art but study it for clues on how to be cool, hip — and keep in mind that, for kids and younger people, to be hip and cool is the same as to be admired and accepted and included and so Unalone. Forget so-called peer-pressure. It’s more like peer-hunger. No? We enter a spiritual puberty where we snap to the fact that the great transcendent horror is loneliness, excluded encagement in the self. Once we’ve hit this age, we will now give or take anything, wear any mask, to fit, be part-of, not be Alone, we young. The U.S. arts are our guide to inclusion. A how-to. We are shown how to fashion masks of ennui and jaded irony at a young age where the face is fictile enough to assume the shape of whatever it wears. And then it’s stuck there, the weary cynicism that saves us from gooey sentiment and unsophisticated naïveté. Sentiment equals naïveté on this continent (at least since the Reconfiguration). One of the things sophisticated viewers have always liked about J. O. Incandenza’s The American Century as Seen Through a Brick is its unsubtle thesis that naïveté is the last true terrible sin in the theology of millennial America. And since sin is the sort of thing that can be talked about only figuratively, it’s natural that Himself’s dark little cartridge was mostly about a myth, viz. that queerly persistent U.S. myth that cynicism and naïveté are mutually exclusive. Hal, who’s empty but not dumb, theorizes privately that what passes for hip cynical transcendence of sentiment is really some kind of fear of being really human, since to be really human (at least as he conceptualizes it) is probably to be unavoidably sentimental and naïve and goo-prone and generally pathetic, is to be in some basic interior way forever infantile, some sort of not-quite-right-looking infant dragging itself anaclitically around the map, with big wet eyes and froggy-soft skin, huge skull, gooey drool. One of the really American things about Hal, probably, is the way he despises what it is he’s really lonely for: this hideous internal self, incontinent of sentiment and need, that pules and writhes just under the hip empty mask, anhedonia. 281 281 - This had been one of Hal’s deepest and most pregnant abstractions, one he’d come up with once while getting secretly high in the Pump Room. That we’re all lonely for something we don’t know we’re lonely for. How else to explain the curious feeling that he goes around feeling like he misses somebody he’s never even met? Without the universalizing abstraction, the feeling would make no sense.

Now put your hands on the countertop, and bend over. I’m going to shove you so full of cock you won’t even remember how to spell your name for a week,” he said in his deep voice. “Oh my. Ok,” I said as I did what he asked. As I grabbed the edges of the countertop, I felt his foot kicking the insides of my shoes, spreading my legs farther apart. “You long legged, sexy little bitch. I have to get your pussy down here where I can get to it,” he said, as he slapped the right side of my butt, hard. The slap startled me, and the sting felt like fire. As soon as he stopped kicking my shoes and spreading my legs apart, I felt the head of his cock slide past my lips. His hands grabbed my waist, and he slid all the way inside of me. As soon as I felt his balls against my clit, I began to contract and felt as if I was going to cum. His cock slid out, and then back in again. He found a rhythm and began to fuck me slowly, his hips slapping lightly against my butt as he slid all the way into my wet pussy. As his hips slapped my ass, I could feel his balls against my clit. I couldn’t take it anymore. If he kept up this pace, I would explode. “Fuck me Erik, fuck me. Fuck me harder. Fuck me,” I said loudly. “Fuck me, Erik. Oh God. Fuck me.” “Fuck me.” “Harder.” I begged. “Who owns you, baby girl? Who fucking owns you?” he almost screamed. “Oh God, you do. You own me. You.” “Don’t forget it, do you hear me?” he said in a loud, stern tone. “Yes, I am yours. You own me,” I responded...I loved this. In and out he forced himself, each time it felt as I was being stretched open for the first time. Not a tremendous pain, but each stroke felt like it was the first, the entry stroke. It was a new feeling to me, and it was more than I could take. I was going to explode. “Please…Faster. Fuck me. Give me that cock. Give me that big fat….Oh my God. Give it to me.

On the back of the government scratching Wall Street’s back with its corrupt bailout, it was corporate America’s turn to return the favor. They did it by directly assuming the responsibilities of democratic government—especially the agendas of liberal politicians who might otherwise have harmfully regulated or penalized big business. Messy debates about racial inequality? Don’t worry: we’ve got it covered. New policies to fight climate change? We’ll take care of that too. Big business volunteered to take on the role of liberal government itself—crucially, on terms that were favorable to its own interests. That’s what woke capitalism is all about. It’s the hip new avatar of old-school crony capitalism.

But I have reasons to feel forever grateful to my fake teenage girlfriends, for they taught me about junk food, and they taught me how to be feminine. Smuggled in their blossoming Love's Baby Soft-scented bosoms, I learned how to approximate female—how to talk, how to walk, how to dance, how to flip your hair. How to part your lips as for a kiss but not for a bite of food. How to end your sentences in a question. How to twitch your hips as you left a room. Why to laugh when you feel like screaming. Over trays of Bonnie Bell Lipsmackers and mountains of cooling fries, I learned that being female is as prefab, thoughtless, soulless and abjectly capitalist as a Big Mac. It's not important that it's real. It's only important that it's tasty.

Yeah, you like that? You like it when Big Papa gives you his hot and juicy wiener?” I pant, my hips hammering against her. Her fists yank my hair, pulling my head away from her neck so hard that I see stars. “Ow! What the fuck?” I complain as she gives me a dirty look. “You cannot say shit like that when we’re fucking. You Just can’t,” she warns me, letting out a low groan when I shift my hips and grind my pubic bone against her clit. “What’s wrong with a little dirty talk? I thought you’d like it.” “I like dirty talk. I LOVE dirty talk. What you’re doing is not dirty talk. It’s ‘weird as fuck’ talk. Repeat after me: I love fucking you, your pussy is so tight,” Ava demands. (Well, damn, that was hot. I kind of wish I had a vagina right now).

I turned to see him looming over me, his belt undone, his pants shoved to his hips, his rude little purple prick sticking straight out from a dark, tangled nest of pubic hair. By the gods, men thought they were so damned impressive. I giggled. The man hesitated as his features knotted in confusion. His cock drooped slightly, as if being revealed in all its tiny, veiny glory had been a big disappointment for both of us. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I just—” I giggled again. “It’s just, that’s the least impressive dick I’ve ever seen.

Slowly, his hands coasted down to my hips, tracing my panties before he tugged them down. He looked up at me, even as his hand eased between my thighs. Ice-green eyes burned bright. "I've never wanted anyone as much as I want you." The calloused tips of his fingers slid along my swollen, slick sex. "Now that I have you, I don't know where to start." My lids fluttered, hands clutching at his shoulders as he rubbed back and forth. "Right there works for me." His smile was sin and promise. "You like that, honey?" "Yes." He toyed with the entrance to my sex, pausing there to push just enough for me to feel it, to want it. "How about here?" "There is..." My breath caught. He pushed in, long strong fingers filling me. "Is what?" he murmured darkly, those talented fingers slowly fucking me, as though he had all the time in the world. The blunt end of his thumb found my puffy clit and circled it. I whimpered again, falling against him, my arms wrapping around his neck. "So fucking good." He made a noise, possessive and greedy, his mouth finding my nipple, his long fingers pushing up into me. "God, you're perfect. So perfect for me." The slight curl of his fingers hit a spot, and that was it. I came in waves, shaking with it, heat swamping me. His eyes held mine as he coaxed me along, drawing my pleasure out. With a groan that sounded almost pained, Lucian slid to the floor, his wide shoulders edging between my legs. He palmed my thighs in his big hands to hold me steady. And then, with an impatient grunt, he leaned in and kissed my throbbing clit. Kissed it like he kissed my mouth, greedy and deep, licking and sucking, nibbling with firm lips. I cried out again, my knees so weak he had to hold me up. He ate me like a dessert, lapping at my slit before thrusting his tongue inside me. I couldn't take it. It was too much. I came again, writhing against his mouth. "That's it," he said between frantic kisses. "That's it, Em. Work that sweet pussy on my mouth." Oh, hell. I crumpled, dislodging myself before falling onto his lap. I cupped the thick column of his nape and kissed him, drawing in his breath as he groaned and devoured me.

They wanted the real mother, the blood mother, the great womb, mother of a fierce compassion, a woman large enough to hold all the pain, to carry it away. What we needed was someone who bled, someone deep and rich as a field, a wide-hipped mother, awesome, immense, women like huge soft couches, mothers coursing with blood, mothers big enough, wide enough, for us to hide in, to sink down to the bottom of, mothers who would breathe for us when we could not breathe anymore, who would fight for us, who would kill for us, die for us. Yvonne

He wasn’t a pretty boy, his nose was crooked and his grin lopsided, but he had that square-jawed, salt-of-the-earth handsome look that made a girl think of loose-hipped cowboys and demanding Scottish Lairds. And speaking of Scottish Lairds, old mate was a redhead. Usually gingers weren’t her scene but this guy’s hair was the rich coppery-auburn of a fox's pelt. It gleamed like rose gold under the floodlights, his short beard the exact colour as the stuff on his head. Big Red was doing it for her. Big time. And apparently, the feeling was mutual.

His teeth flashed white as he smiled. “Let us strike a bargain, wife.” “What sort of bargain?” She made no attempt to hide her suspicion. “I will do as I please with no resistance from you, and when I am satisfied, you may do as you wish.” For just one moment, his evenhandedness surprised her. Just a moment . . . “Do you remember what I said about ignorance and innocence, my lord?” “Very clearly, my lady.” “I have shucked off both. You toy with me. When you are satisfied, you will go to sleep and leave me to fume at having entered into so poor a pact.” “You wound me, all the worse for wounding yourself. Do you not know you are a temptress no man could resist?” He frowned at the sudden thought. “Although they had damn well better lest they be fodder for my sword.” His big hand caught her hair, drawing her head back, baring her throat to his caress. “Be advised, wife, I am a possessive man.” She took a breath, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and parted her legs, drawing him into the cradle of her hips. “Be advised, husband,” she murmured close beside his ear just before she bit it lightly, “I am a possessive woman.

Old Tom giggled, "Fooled ya, huh, Ma? We aimed to fool ya, and we done it. Jus' stood there like a hammered sheep. Wisht Grampa'd been here to see. Looked like somebody'd beat ya between the eyes with a sledge. Grampa would a whacked 'imself so hard he'd a throwed his hip out–like he done when he seen Al take a shot at that grea' big airship the army got. Tommy, it come over one day, half a mile big, an' Al gets the thirty-thirty and blazes away at her. Grampa yells, 'Don't shoot no fledglin's, Al; wait till a growed-up one goes over,' an' then he whacked 'imself an' throwed his hip out.

He laughed. “I’m never forgettin’, so….” “So what you’re saying is we’re doing this?” “Yeah, because I’m not forgettin’ you used to like me—” “Oh hell no.” I rolled onto my hip and freaking went for him. Not for his head but for his ribs. His weak spot. “What the fuck, Bianca!” Zac literally fucking shouted as he threw his body and head back against the headboard, his arms slamming down into place against his ribs… and my fingers. I cackled, digging my fingers even deeper into his sides. “You remember now? Who’s your daddy, huh?” Those big, strong arms jerked up and down along his sides, trying to disengage me as he tried to melt into the headboard to get away from me. “You said you were gonna noogie me! What the hell are you doing? Stop it!” “Duh. Ouch!” He instantly stopped moving, and so did I in surprise that he’d actually stopped after his elbow clipped one of the bones on my wrist. Zac’s face was flushed red, eyes bright, and I decided to take pity on him. So I smiled, keeping my fingers where they were but not digging in anymore. “You thought I didn’t remember?” I asked him before dipping my face in even closer. Then I whispered, like a psycho, “I remember everything.” I tapped my fingers lightly along his sides, feeling him flinch. “Especially you being ticklish.” Those blue eyes bore into mine, and his mouth went damn near flat. Zac’s voice was almost a whisper too as he said, “Did you ask me who my daddy is?” I nodded gravely. His voice was still a whisper when he went on with, “You’re my daddy now, I guess.” Pulling my fingers away, I sat back on my knees and laughed. “Deal. I promise not to use that against you unless I have to.” His nostrils flared, and he stared at me right in the eyes as he said, still quietly, “Bianca.” “Yes?” “I remember things too.” What? Before I could process who this man was, what he did for a living, and what talents he’d polished over the years, he came at me with one of those hands that were lightning fast and accurate. Zac licked the tip of his index finger and shoved that turd into my ear just as I started yelling, “Don’t you dare!” He dared.

the fact is, our relationships to these corporations are not unambiguous. some memebers of negativland genuinely liked pepsi products. mca grew up loving star wars and didn't mind having his work sent all over the united states to all the "cool, underground magazines" they were marketing to--why would he? sam gould had a spiritual moment in the shower listening to a cd created, according to sophie wong, so that he would talk about tylenol with his independent artist friends--and he did. many of my friends' daughters will be getting american girl dolls and books as gifts well into the foreseeable future. some skateboarders in washington, dc, were asked to create an ad campaign for the east coast summer tour, and they all love minor threat--why not use its famous album cover? how about shilling for converse? i would have been happy to ten years ago. so what's really changed? the answer is that two important things have changed: who is ultimately accountable for veiled corporate campaigns that occasionally strive to obsfucate their sponsorship and who is requesting our participation in such campaigns. behind converse and nike sb is nike, a company that uses shit-poor labor policies and predatory marketing that effectively glosses over their shit-poor labor policies, even to an audience that used to know better. behind team ouch! was an underground-savvy brainreservist on the payroll of big pharma; behind the recent wave of street art in hip urban areas near you was omd worldwide on behalf of sony; behind your cool hand-stenciled vader shirt was lucasfilm; and behind a recent cool crafting event was toyota. no matter how you participated in these events, whether as a contributor, cultural producer, viewer, or even critic, these are the companies that profited from your attention.

But there was one girl who had a big influence over me. Barbie. I worshipped Barbie. In fact, I would say Barbie was my twelve-inch plastic life coach. She had it all, a camper, a dune buggy, even a dream house. Part of why it was a dream house to me was that she was the only one who lived there. Her boyfriend, Ken, came to visit when she--er, I decided. She had a sports car and would bounce from job to job as she--er, I saw fit.Barbie owned zero floral baby-making dresses. I craved that indepence. And her weird-ass boobs? So what? She still reached the steering wheel of her royal blue sports car. Some people thought that the fact that her feet were fucked and she couldn't stand was a problem. But to me, it meant she was free. Free from standing at a stove, or a washing machine, or with a baby hanging off her hip. She has no hip. She has no hips. Plus, she didn't have to walk; she drove her convertible everywhere. God, I loved Barbie. She was free in every way I knew how to define freedom.

It's of some interest that the lively arts of the millenial U.S.A. treat anhedonia and internal emptiness as hip and cool. It's maybe the vestiges of the Romantic glorification of Weltschmerz, which means world-weariness or hip ennui. Maybe it's the fact that most of the arts here are produced by world-weary and sophisticated older people and then consumed by younger people who not only consume art but study it for clues on how to be cool, hip -- and keep in mind that, for kids and younger people, to be hip and cool is the same to be admired and accepted and included and so Unalone. Forget so-called peer pressure. It's more like peer-hunger. No? We enter a spiritual puberty where we snap to the fact that the great tanscendent horror is loneliness, excluded encagement in the self. Once we've hit this age, we will now give or take anything, wear any mask, to fit, be part-of, not be Alone, we young. The U.S. arts are our guide to inclusion. A how-to. We are shown how to fashion masks of ennui and jaded irony at a young age where the face is fictile enough to assume the sahpe of whatever it wears. And then it's stuck there, the weary cynicism that save us from gooey sentiment and unsophisticated naïveté. Sentiment equals naïveté on this continent (at least since the Reconfiguration). One of the things sophisticated viewers have always liked about J. O. Incandenza's The American Century as Seen Through a Brick is its unsubtle thesis that naïveté is the last true terrible sin in the theology of millennial America. And since sin is the sort of thing that can be talked about only figuratively, it's natural that Himself's dark little cartridge was mostly about a myth, viz. that queerly persistent U.S. myth that cynicism and naïveté are mutually exclusive. Hal, who's empty but not dumb, theorizes privately that what passes for hip cynical transcendence of sentiment is really some kind of fear of being really human, since to be really human (at least as he conceptualizes it) is probably to be unavoidably sentimental and naïve and goo-prone and generally pathetic, is to be in some basic interior way forever infantile, some sort of not-quite-right-looking infant dragging itself anaclitically around the map, with big wet eyes and froggy-soft skin, huge skull, gooey drool. One of the really American things about Hal, probably, is thie way he despises what it is he's really lonely for: this hideous internal self, incontinent of sentiment and need, that pules and writhes just under the hip empty mask, anhedonia.

Not fair,” I muttered. “Your sword was bigger than mine.” “My sword is bigger than everyone’s.” I lobbed my controller at his head, but of course he ducked and made me miss. Damn it. “Perv.” “Oh, come on,” he laughed. “You walked right into that one, Duffy.” I scowled at him for a moment, but I could feel the aggravation slipping away. Finally, I just shook my head… and smiled. “Okay, you’re right. I did leave that one wide open. But you know, boys that talk big never are.” Wesley frowned. “We both know that isn’t true. I’ve proved it to you plenty of times.” He smirked, then leaned against me, letting his lips brush against my ear. “But I can prove it again if you want me to… and you know you want me to.” “I… I don’t think that’s necessary,” I managed. His lips were moving down my neck, sending an electric current up my spine. “Oh,” he growled playfully. “I do.” I laughed as he shoved me to the floor, one of his hands perfectly catching the space above my left hip where I was most ticklish. He’d discovered that spot a couple of weeks ago, and I was furious with myself for letting him use it against me. Now he could make me squirm and laugh uncontrollably whenever he wanted, and I could tell that he totally got off on it. Jerk. His fingers probed the sensitive spot over my hip as his mouth moved from my collarbone to my ear. I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe. Not fair. So not fair. I made a halfhearted attempt to kick him away, but he trapped my leg between his and proceeded to tickle me harder.

It was as she remembered, a haven of comfort and serenity. With a glad sigh, she kicked off her shoes and sat down on the side of the bed.Smiling, she patted the mattress beside her. Her husband scowled. It seemed to have become his habit. "We aren't here to relax." "Wolscroft may not even be in the area. It could take days for this to be settled." "He's here," Dragon said with certainty. "He will know what happened at Winchester, and he will be looking for a way to stop us before we can threaten him further." Privately, Rycca believed the same but she saw no reason to stress it. Nothing would happen until dark. Of that she was confident. Which meant... "We have hours to fill.Any ideas?" When he realized her meaning,he looked startled. With a laugh,she scrambled off the bed and went to him. "Oh,Dragon,for heaven's sake, do you really want to mope around here all day? I certainly don't. I still haven't gotten over being afraid Magnus was going to kill you,and I simply don't want to think about death anymore. I want to celebrate life." "There are three hundred men out there-" "Which is why we're in here." She raised herself on tiptoe, bit the lobe of his ear, and whispered, "I promise not to yell too loudly." A shudder ran through him. Even as his big hands stroked her back,he said, "Warriors don't mope." "No,of course they don't.It was a poor choice of words.But you'll be pacing back and forth, looking out the windows, or you'll go get that whetstone I noticed in the stable and sharpen your sword endlessly, or you'll be staring off into space with that dangerous look you get when you're contemplating mayhem. You'll be totally oblivious to me and-" He laughed despite himself and drew her closer. "Enough! Heaven forbid I behave so churlishly." "Speaking of heaven..." With the covers kicked back,the bed was smooth and cool.They undressed each other slowly, relishing the wonder of discovery that still came to them fresh and pure as their very first time. "Remember?" Rycca murmured as she trailed her lips along his broad, powerfully muscled shoulder and down the solid wall of his chest. "I was so nervous..." "Really?" Fooled me....Ah..." "I'd never seen anything so beautiful as you." "Not...beautiful...you are..." "I can't believe how strong you are. Why am I never afraid with you?" "Know I'd die 'fore hurting you? Sweetheart..." "Ohhh! Dragon...please..." His hands and lips moved over her, sweetly tormenting. She clutched his shoulders, her hips rising, and welcomed him deep within her. Still he tantalized her, making her writhe and laughing when she squeezed him hard with her powerful inner muscles. But the laughter turned quickly to a moan of delight. She looked up into his perfectly formed face,more handsome than any man had a right to be, and into his tawny eyes that were the windows of a soul more beautiful than any physical form. A piercing sense of blessedness filled her that she should be so fortunate as to love and be loved by such a man. Her cresting cry was caught by him, hismouth hard against hers, the spur to his own completion that went on and on,seemingly without end.

Shaking, I pushed at him and managed to turn my head long enough to gasp, “I can’t. No. That’s enough, Jack.” He stopped at once. But he kept me against him, his chest moving hard and fast. I couldn’t look at him. My voice was hoarse as I said, “That shouldn’t have happened.” “I’ve wanted this since the first second I saw you.” His arms tightened, and he bent over me until his mouth was close to my ear. Gently he whispered, “You did, too.” “I didn’t. I don’t.” “You need some fun, Ella.” I let out an incredulous laugh. “Believe me, I don’t need fun, I need—” I broke off with a gasp as he pressed my hips closer to his. The feel of him was more than my dazzled senses could handle. To my mortification, I hitched up against him before I could stop myself, heat and instinct winning out over sanity. Feeling the reflexive response, Jack smiled against my scarlet cheek. “You should take me on. I’d be good for you.” “You are so full of yourself . . . and you would not be good for me, with your steaks and power tools and your attention-deficit libido, and . . . I’ll bet you’re a card-carrying member of the NRA. Admit it, you are.” I couldn’t seem to shut up. I was talking too much, breathing too fast, jittering like a wind-up toy that had been wound to the limits of its mechanism. Jack nuzzled into a sensitive place behind my ear. “Why does that matter?” “Is that a yes? It must be. God. It matters because— stop that. It matters because I would only go to bed with a man who respected me and my views. My—” I broke off with an inarticulate sound as he nibbled lightly at my skin. “I respect you,” he murmured. “And your views. I think of you as an equal. I respect your brains, and all those big words you like to use. But I also want to rip your clothes off and have sex with you until you scream and cry and see God.” His mouth dragged gently along my throat. I jerked helplessly, muscles jolting with pleasure, and his hands gripped my hips, keeping me in place. “I’m gonna show you a good time, Ella. Starting with some take-no-prisoners sex. The kind when you can’t remember your own name after.

A drumbeat joins Sami's rhythm, the crowd ripples and separates, and soon we are dancing. Here in this place the city carved out and abandoned, there is only movement and heat and darkness. I can't see my body, or Reem's, or Sami's, or anyone's. I can only feel my hips moving the stale air and listen to the rise and fall of the feet of those around me. I have been taught all my life that masculinity means short hair and square-toed shoes, taking up space, raising one's voice. To be soft is to be less of a man. To be gentle, to laugh, to create art, to bleed between the legs -- I have been taught that these things make me a woman. I have been taught all my life that to dance is to be vulnerable, and that the world will crush the vulnerable. I was taught to equate invincibility with being worthy of love. But here in the darkness of his abandoned subway platform, I can almost imagine a world big enough for boys like Sami and me to love each other, to dance and let the pain out of our bodies, to breathe and make love and be enough and be enough and be enough.

Before she could say anything more, Sabella swung around at the sound of Noah’s Harley purring to life behind the garage. God. He was dressed in snug jeans and riding chaps. A snug dark T-shirt covered his upper body, conformed to it. And he was riding her way. “Is there anything sexier than a man in riding chaps riding a Harley?” Kira asked behind her. “It makes a woman simply want to melt.” And Sabella was melting. She watched as he pulled around the side of the garage then took the gravel road that led to the back of the house. The sound of the Harley purred closer, throbbing, building the excitement inside her. “I think it’s time for me to leave,” Kira said with a light laugh. “Don’t bother to see me out.” Sabella didn’t. She listened as the Harley drew into the graveled lot behind the house and moved to the back door. She opened it, stepping out on the back deck as he swung his legs over the cycle and strode toward her. That long-legged lean walk. It made her mouth water. Made her heart throb in her throat as hunger began to race through her. “The spa treated you well,” he announced as he paused at the bottom of the steps and stared back at her. “Feel like messing your hair up and going out this evening? We could have dinner in town. Ride around a little bit.” She hadn’t ridden on a motorcycle since she was a teenager. She glanced at the cycle, then back to Noah. “I’d need to change clothes.” His gaze flickered over her short jeans skirt, her T-shirt. “That would be a damned shame too,” he stated. “I have to say, Ms. Malone, you have some beautiful legs there.” No one had ever been as charming as Nathan. She remembered when they were dating, how he would just show up, out of the blue, driving that monster pickup of his and grinning like a rogue when he picked her up. He’d been the epitome of a bad boy, and he had been all hers. He was still all hers. “Bare legs and motorcycles don’t exactly go together,” she pointed out. He nodded soberly, though his eyes had a wicked glint to them. “This is a fact, beautiful. And pretty legs like that, we wouldn’t want to risk.” She leaned against the porch post and stared back at him. “I have a pickup, you know.” She propped one hand on her hip and stared back at him. “Really?” Was that avarice she saw glinting in his eyes, or for just the slightest second, pure, unadulterated joy at the mention of that damned pickup? He looked around. “I haven’t seen a pickup.” “It’s in the garage,” she told him carelessly. “A big black monster with bench seats. Four-by-four gas-guzzling alpha-male steel and chrome.” He grinned. He was so proud of that damned pickup. “Where did something so little come up with a truck that big?” he teased her then. She shrugged. “It belonged to my husband. Now, it belongs to me.” That last statement had his gaze sharpening. “You drive it?” “All the time,” she lied, tormenting him. “I don’t have to worry about pinging it now that my husband is gone. He didn’t like pings.” Did he swallow tighter? “It’s pinged then?” She snorted. “Not hardly. Do you want to drive the monster or question me about it? Or I could change into jeans and we could ride your cycle. Which is it?” Which was it? Noah stared back at her, barely able to contain his shock that she had kept the pickup. He knew for a fact there were times the payments on the house and garage had gone unpaid—his “death” benefits hadn’t been nearly enough—almost risking her loss of both during those first months of his “death.” Knowing she had held on to that damned truck filled him with more pleasure than he could express. Knowing she was going to let someone who wasn’t her husband drive it filled him with horror. The contradictor feelings clashed inside him, and he promised himself he was going to spank her for this.

Marilee lay perfectly still,waiting for her world to settle.She had to fight the unreasonable urge to weep. Wyatt's face was pressed to the hollow of her throat,his breathing rough, his damp body plastered to hers. He nuzzled her neck. "Am I too heavy?" "Umm." It was all she could manage. "You all right?" "Umm." "Did anybody ever tell you that you talk too much?" "Umm." He brushed his mouth over hers. "If you hum a bit more,I might be able to name that tune." That broke the spell of tears that had been threatening and caused her to laugh. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back. "Have I told you how much I like your silly sense of humor?" "No,you haven't." He rolled to his side and gathered her into his arms,nuzzling her cheek,while his big hands moved over her hip,her back,her waist, as though measuring every inch of her. "What else do you like about me?" "You fishing for compliments?" "Of course I am." "Glutton. Your sense of humor isn't enough?" "Not nearly enough.How about my looks?" "They're okay,for a footloose rebel." "Stop.All these mushy remarks will inflate my ego." He gave a mock frown. "How about the way I kiss?" "You're not bad." "Not bad?" His hands stopped their movement. He drew a little away. "That's all you can say?" "If you recall,tonight was the first time we've kissed.I haven't had nearly enough practice to be a really good judge of your talent." "Then we'd better take care of that right now." He framed her face. With his eyes steady on hers, he lowered his mouth to claim her lips. Marilee's eyelids fluttered and she felt an explosion of color behind them. As though the moon and stars had collided while she rocketed through space. It was the most amazing sensation, and, as his lips continued moving over hers,she found herself wishing it could go on forever. When at last they came up for air, she took in a long,deep breath before opening her eyes. "Oh,yes,rebel.I have to say,I do like the way you kiss." "That's good,because I intend to do a whole lot more of it." He lay back in the grass,one hand beneath his head. "Now it's my turn.Want to know all the things I like about you?" "I'm afraid to hear it." Marilee lay on her side,her hand splayed across his chest. "Besides your freckles,which I've already mentioned,the thing about you I like best is your take-charge attitude." She chuckled. "A lot of guys feel intimidated by that." "They're idiots.Don't they know there's something sexy about a woman who knows what to do and how to do it? I've watched you as a medic and as a pilot, and I haven't decided which one turns me on more." "Really?" She sat up. "Want me to fetch my first-aid kit from the plane? I could always splint your arm or leg and really turn you on." He dragged her down into his arms and growled against her mouth, "You don't need to do a single thing to turn me on. All I need to do is look at you and I want you." "You mean now? Again? So soon?" "Oh,yeah." "Liar.I don't believe it's possible." "You ought to know by now that I never say anything I can't back up with action." "Prove it,rebel." "My pleasure." There was a wicked smile on his lips as he rolled over her and began to kiss her breathless,all the while taking her on a slow,delicious ride to paradise.

Dude, wait until you see the hot little number on there!” He was grinning like the Cheshire cat. “What are you talking about? Aren’t all flight attendant’s middle-aged, blonde women?” “Not this one. She’s feisty too, kneed me right in the balls.” I smiled, and it was actually genuine. I wondered if he was fucking with me. But, it was enough to peak my curiosity. I slowly walked towards the plane wondering if it was going to be a grandma, or something. It wouldn’t be the first time. I really hoped that it wasn’t some die-hard groupie either. As soon as I reached the top of the stairs I almost tripped and fell on my face when I got my first look at her. She was gorgeous! She looked like she walked straight off of a pin-up girl calendar. She had long, black hair with strands of hot pink. I appraised my way down her body. She had a slim waist and curvy hips. She was built like an hourglass. I noticed a couple of sexy facial piercings. She had an adorable little nose and big brown eyes. Then I saw a tattoo peeking out on her shoulder. I could tell that she had a chest piece. I was instantly hard. Awesome…

You have to stop letting me do this,” he bit off, half-angrily. “If you’ll stop leaning on me so that I can get my hands on a blunt object, I’ll be happy to…!” He kissed the words into oblivion. “It isn’t a joke,” he murmured into her mouth. His hips moved in a gentle, sensuous sweep against her hips. He felt her shiver. “That’s…new,” she said with a strained attempt at humor. “It isn’t,” he corrected. “I’ve just never let you feel it before.” He kissed her slowly, savoring the submission of her soft, warm lips. His hands swept under the blouse and up under her breasts in their lacy covering. He was going over the edge. If he did, he was going to take her with him, and it would damage both of them. He had to stop it, now, while he could. “Is this what Colby gets when he comes to see you?” he whispered with deliberate sarcasm. It worked. She stepped on his foot as hard as she could with her bare instep. It surprised him more than it hurt him, but while he recoiled, she pushed him and tore out of his arms. Her eyes were lividly green through her glasses, her hair in disarray. She glared at him like a female panther. “What Colby gets is none of your business! You get out of my apartment!” she raged at him. She was magnificent, he thought, watching her with helpless delight. There wasn’t a man alive who could cow her, or bend her to his will. Even her drunken, brutal stepfather hadn’t been able to force her to do something she didn’t want to do. “Oh, I hate that damned smug grin,” she threw at him, swallowing her fury. “Man, the conqueror!” “That isn’t what I was thinking at all.” He sobered little by little. “My mother was a meek little thing when she was younger,” he recalled. “But she was forever throwing herself in front of me to keep my father from killing me. It was a long time until I grew big enough to protect her.” She stared at him curiously, still shaken. “I don’t understand.” “You have a fierce spirit,” he said quietly. “I admire it, even when it exasperates me. But it wouldn’t be enough to save you from a man bent on hurting you.” He sighed heavily. “You’ve been…my responsibility…for a long time,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “No matter how old you grow, I’ll still feel protective about you. It’s the way I’m made.” He meant to comfort, but the words hurt. She smiled anyway. “I can take care of myself.” “Can you?” he said softly. He searched her eyes. “In a weak moment…” “I don’t have too many of those. Mostly, you’re responsible for them,” she said with black humor. “Will you go away? I’m supposed to try to seduce you, not the reverse. You’re breaking the rules.” His eyebrow lifted. Her sense of humor seemed to mend what was wrong between them. “You stopped trying to seduce me.” “You kept turning me down,” she pointed out. “A woman’s ego can only take so much rejection.

French said: “It’s like this with us, baby. We’re coppers and everybody hates our guts. And as if we didn’t have enough trouble, we have to have you. As if we didn’t get pushed around enough by the guys in the corner offices, the City Hall gang, the day chief, the night chief, the Chamber of Commerce, His Honor the Mayor in his paneled office four times as big as the three lousy rooms the whole homicide staff has to work out of. As if we didn’t have to handle one hundred and fourteen homicides last year out of three rooms that don’t have enough chairs for the whole duty squad to sit down in at once. We spend our lives turning over dirty underwear and sniffing rotten teeth. We go up dark stairways to get a gun punk with a skinful of hop and sometimes we don’t get all the way up, and our wives wait dinner that night and all the other nights. We don’t come home any more. And nights we do come home, we come home so goddam tired we can’t eat or sleep or even read the lies the papers print about us. So we lie awake in the dark in a cheap house on a cheap street and listen to the drunks down the block having fun. And just about the time we drop off the phone rings and we get up and start all over again. Nothing we do is right, not ever. Not once. If we get a confession, we beat it out of the guy, they say, and some shyster calls us Gestapo in court and sneers at us when we muddle our grammar. If we make a mistake they put us back in uniform on Skid Row and we spend the nice cool summer evenings picking drunks out of the gutter and being yelled at by whores and taking knives away from greaseballs in zoot suits. But all that ain’t enough to make us entirely happy. We got to have you.” He stopped and drew in his breath. His face glistened a little as if with sweat. He leaned forward from his hips. “We got to have you,” he repeated. “We got to have sharpers with private licenses hiding information and dodging around corners and stirring up dust for us to breathe in. We got to have you suppressing evidence and framing set-ups that wouldn’t fool a sick baby. You wouldn’t mind me calling you a goddam cheap double-crossing keyhole peeper, would you, baby?” “You want me to mind?” I asked him. He straightened up. “I’d love it,” he said. “In spades redoubled.

Hunter filled the opening in the privacy curtains. He wore green scrubs like the doctors and nurses who had scraped me off the pavement. For a split second I mistook him for an adorable doctor who looked a lot like Hunter. I knew it was Hunter when he gaped at me with a mixture of outrage and horror, his face pale, and demanded, “What did you do?” “Crossed the street,” I said. “Badly.” Wincing, I eased up from the gurney, putting my weight on my hand and my good hip. Only a few minutes had passed since they had brought me in, ascertained I wasn’t dying, and dumped me here. I still felt very shaky from the shock of being hit. But I didn’t want to face Hunter lying down. In two steps he bent over me and wrapped his arms around me. He was careful not to press on my hospital gown low against my back where the road rash was, but his touch on my shoulders radiated pain to the raw parts. I winced again. “Oh, God. I’m sorry.” He let me go but hovered over me, placing his big hands on my shoulder blades. He was so close that the air felt hot between us. “What did you hurt?” “This is just where I skidded across the road.” I gestured behind my back and then flinched at the sting in my skin as I moved my arm. “How far down does it go?” My back felt cold as he lifted on flap of my paper gown and looked. I kept my head down, my red cheeks hidden. He was peering at my back where my skin was missing. What could be sexier? Even if the circumstances had been happier, I was wearing no makeup and I was sure my hair was matted from my scarf. There was no reason for my blood to heat as if we were on a date instead of a gurney. But my body did not listen to logic when it came to Hunter. He was no examining my wound. He was captivated by the sight of my lovely and unblemished bottom. I was a novelist. I could dream, couldn’t I? Lightly I asked, “Are you asking whether I have gravel embedded in my ass? By the grace of God, no.” Hunter let my gown go and stood up “The doc said the car hit your hip,” he insisted. “Is it broken?” I rolled on my side to face him. “It really hurts,” I said. “If it were broken, I think it would hurt worse.” He nodded. “When I broke my ribs, I couldn’t breathe.” “That’s because your ribs punctured your lung.” He pointed at me. “True.” Then he cocked his head to one side, blond hair falling into his eyes. “I’m surprised you remember that.

Scared?” Terrified. “Of you? Nah. If you grow claws, I might get my sword, but I’ve fought you in your human shape.” It took all my will to shrug. “You aren’t that impressive.” He cleared the distance between us in a single leap. I barely had time to jump to my feet. Steel fingers grasped my left wrist. His left arm clasped my waist. I fought, but he outmuscled me with ridiculous ease, pulling me close as if to tango. “Curran! Let . . . “ I recognized the angle of his hip but I could do nothing about it. He pulled me forward and flipped me in a classic hip-toss throw. Textbook perfect. I flew through the air, guided by his hands, and landed on my back. The air burst from my lungs in a startled gasp. Ow. “Impressed yet?” he asked with a big smile. Playing. He was playing. Not a real fight. He could’ve slammed me down hard enough to break my neck. Instead he had held me to the end, to make sure I landed right. He leaned forward a little. “Big bad merc, down with a basic hip toss. In your place I’d be blushing.” I gasped, trying to draw air into my lungs. “I could kill you right now. It wouldn’t take much. I think I’m actually embarrassed on your behalf. At least do some magic or something.” As you wish. I gasped and spat my new power word. “Osanda.” Kneel, Your Majesty. He grunted like a man trying to lift a crushing weight that fell on his shoulders. His face shook with strain. Ha-ha. He wasn’t the only one who got a boost from a flare. I got up to my feet with some leisure. Curran stood locked, the muscles of his legs bulging his sweatpants. He didn’t kneel. He wouldn’t kneel. I hit him with a power word in the middle of a bloody flare and it didn’t work. When he snapped out of it, he would probably kill me. All sorts of alarms blared in my head. My good sense screamed, Get out of the room, stupid! Instead I stepped close to him and whispered in his ear, “Still not impressed.” His eyebrows came together, as a grimace claimed his face. He strained, the muscles on his hard frame trembling with effort. With a guttural sigh, he straightened. I beat a hasty retreat to the rear of the room, passing Slayer on the way. I wanted to swipe it so bad, my palm itched. But the rules of the game were clear: no claws, no saber. The second I picked up the sword, I’d have signed my own death warrant. He squared his shoulders. “Shall we continue?” “It would be my pleasure.” He started toward me. I waited, light on my feet, ready to leap aside. He was stronger than a pair of oxen, and he’d try to grapple. If he got ahold of me, it would be over. If all else failed, I could always try the window. A forty-foot drop was a small price to pay to get away from him. Curran grabbed at me. I twisted past him and kicked his knee from the side. It was a good solid kick; I’d turned into it. It would’ve broken the leg of any normal human. “Cute,” Curran said, grabbed my arm, and casually threw me across the room. I went airborne for a second, fell, rolled, and came to my feet to be greeted by Curran’s smug face. “You’re fun to play with. You make a good mouse.” Mouse? “I was always kind of partial to toy mice.” He smiled. “Sometimes they’re filled with catnip. It’s a nice bonus.” “I’m not filled with catnip.” “Let’s find out.” He squared his shoulders and headed in my direction. Houston, we have a problem. Judging by the look in his eyes, a kick to the face simply wouldn’t faze him. “I can stop you with one word,” I said. He swiped me into a bear hug and I got an intimate insight into how a nut feels just before the nutcracker crushes it to pieces. “Do,” he said. “Wedding.” All humor fled his eyes. He let go and just like that, the game was over.

Ode to the Beloved’s Hips" Bells are they—shaped on the eighth day—silvered percussion in the morning—are the morning. Swing switch sway. Hold the day away a little longer, a little slower, a little easy. Call to me— I wanna rock, I-I wanna rock, I-I wanna rock right now—so to them I come—struck-dumb chime-blind, tolling with a throat full of Hosanna. How many hours bowed against this Infinity of Blessed Trinity? Communion of Pelvis, Sacrum, Femur. My mouth—terrible angel, ever-lasting novena, ecstatic devourer. O, the places I have laid them, knelt and scooped the amber—fast honey—from their openness— Ah Muzen Cab’s hidden Temple of Tulúm—licked smooth the sticky of her hip—heat-thrummed ossa coxae. Lambent slave to ilium and ischium—I never tire to shake this wild hive, split with thumb the sweet- dripped comb—hot hexagonal hole—dark diamond— to its nectar-dervished queen. Meanad tongue— come-drunk hum-tranced honey-puller—for her hips, I am—strummed-song and succubus. They are the sign: hip. And the cosign: a great book— the body’s Bible opened up to its Good News Gospel. Alleluias, Ave Marías, madre mías, ay yay yays, Ay Dios míos, and hip-hip-hooray. Cult of Coccyx. Culto de cadera. Oracle of Orgasm. Rorschach’s riddle: What do I see? Hips: Innominate bone. Wish bone. Orpheus bone. Transubstantiation bone—hips of bread, wine-whet thighs. Say the word and healed I shall be: Bone butterfly. Bone wings. Bone Ferris wheel. Bone basin bone throne bone lamp. Apparition in the bone grotto—6th mystery— slick rosary bead—Déme la gracia of a decade in this garden of carmine flower. Exile me to the enormous orchard of Alcinous—spiced fruit, laden-tree—Imparadise me. Because, God, I am guilty. I am sin-frenzied and full of teeth for pear upon apple upon fig. More than all that are your hips. They are a city. They are Kingdom— Troy, the hollowed horse, an army of desire— thirty soldiers in the belly, two in the mouth. Beloved, your hips are the war. At night your legs, love, are boulevards leading me beggared and hungry to your candy house, your baroque mansion. Even when I am late and the tables have been cleared, in the kitchen of your hips, let me eat cake. O, constellation of pelvic glide—every curve, a luster, a star. More infinite still, your hips are kosmic, are universe—galactic carousel of burning comets and Big Big Bangs. Millennium Falcon, let me be your Solo. O, hot planet, let me circumambulate. O, spiral galaxy, I am coming for your dark matter. Along las calles de tus muslos I wander— follow the parade of pulse like a drum line— descend into your Plaza del Toros— hands throbbing Miura bulls, dark Isleros. Your arched hips—ay, mi torera. Down the long corridor, your wet walls lead me like a traje de luces—all glitter, glowed. I am the animal born to rush your rich red muletas—each breath, each sigh, each groan, a hooked horn of want. My mouth at your inner thigh—here I must enter you—mi pobre Manolete—press and part you like a wound— make the crowd pounding in the grandstand of your iliac crest rise up in you and cheer.

Chase grunts at that, shoving himself up and away. For a moment he looks down at me, flushed and open mouthed. “Suck me.” It’s a demand. “I want to feel your tongue on my cock.” He isn’t gentle. Once I take him in my mouth he twists his fingers in my hair, the hold burning as I tilt my face to see the drop of his head, his eyes closed, his mouth parted to an O. “Fuck.” He shudders, the word hardly a shaping of his heavy breath. “Like that.” He feels so good in my mouth. Hot and hard, too much for me to take into my throat without gagging a little over his length. That makes him grunt, the hard planes of his belly tensing. I can feel his twitching indecision in the movements of his fingers through my hair, torn between the need to hold me close and the need to be inside another part of me. He doesn’t stay indecisive for long. “You want me to fuck you?” His voice is ragged. Yes, yes. I try to tell him with the sweep of my tongue and the hollow of my cheeks, the enthusiastic bob of my head. When Chase grabs me he’s rough. His hands hold tight at my shoulders as he shoves me over, face down on the bed. One fist tugs my hip up as the other braces low over my spine. “Wait,” is a rasped order. I can feel the mattress move as he leans to the bedside drawer, and then there’s the ripping sound of a foil packet torn on his teeth. There’s no warning after that. Only his cock, buried inside of me in one savage thrust. I cry out his name, and everything splinters with too much and yes and the good-ache pain of being opened by him. “Brooke.” It’s grunted at my ear as Chase begins a slow, solid pound into me, each thrust shoving to full sink. It hurts a little. He’s too big. It’s too quick. But god, it’s amazing. “Your pussy feels so good wrapped around my cock. So fucking good.” His fingers find my clit, and it’s all I can do not to cry out with how good it feels. His hips slam against my raised ass as he pounds into me, all that muscle riding me as expertly as he rode the mountains today. “Come.” He bites it at my ear, grinding his cock into me, holding the deepest penetration all the way into my aching core. “Come for me.” He’s starting to pound me again, and where my face is smashed against the pillow I whimper out the too-much-good of it, each slam of his body into mine forcing the breath from my lungs and spiking pleasure along my spine. “Please—please—please—” “Beg me,” Chase growls. “Say you want me. Say you need me inside of you.” “Please. Make me come. Chase. Please. Fuck me.” It’s so much I’m almost sobbing with it. Chase pounds on, relentless, until as I begin to spasm with my orgasm he grunts out his own. My hips pinned in his fingers. His body slammed into mine. Both of us, breaking apart together.

Lady Isabeau was tall for a woman, nearly as tall as Molly, but slender where Molly was stout, with a smooth immobile face that looked as if it had been carved from ivory, pale and serene. Hob stared at her: glossy black hair bound about the brows with a broad white linen fillet and partly concealed by a veil that draped down her neck; dark eyes beneath dark brows plucked thin; unsmiling lips, full and well-shaped. There was so little expression on her face, and its beauty was so unworldly, that Hob had a moment when he thought her an apparition, or a graven figure. “Blanche comme la neige,” came to his mind, a song Molly had taught him, “belle comme le jour.” The thinnest of scars ran from her hairline down her forehead, divided her left eyebrow, and curved along her cheek to the corner of her mouth, and seemed at once to augment her beauty and to reinforce its carven stillness, as if some wright's chisel had slipped in the course of fashioning her visage. A linen band of the sort known as a barbette ran down from the fillet at her temples and passed under her chin, framing her face, and rendering her features all the more austere. Her gown was a muted purple; heavy embroidery of red and blue circled its neckline, and it was gathered by a zone of gray silk, sewn with pearls, that circled her hips. From this belt depended a silver ring, as wide around as a big man's fist. On the ring was a bunch of black iron keys, of varying sizes: the symbol and reality of her standing as administrator of the household. As she spoke, she fiddled with the keys as though they were prayer beads; they gave off a continual muted clink, just barely audible to Hob above the rumble of voices, the thuds and thumps of plank tabletops settling onto their trestles.

He whirled,almost violently,and stared at her accusingly. "Damn it, Gennie, I've had my head lopped off." It was her turn to stare.Her fingers went numb against the stoneware. Her pulse seemed to stop long enough to make her head swim before it began to race. The color drained from her face until it was like porcelain against the glowing green of her eyes.On another oath, Grant dragged a hand through his hair. "You're spilling the coffee," he muttered, then stuck his hands in his pockets. "Oh." Gennie looked down foolishly at the tiny twin puddles that were forming on the floor,then set down the mugs. "I'll-I'll wipe it up." "Leave it." Grant grabbed her arm before she could reach for a towel. "Listen,I feel like someone's just given me a solid right straight to the gut-the kind that doubles you over and makes your head ring at the same time.I feel that way too often when I look at you." When she said nothing, he took her other arm and shook. "In the first place I never asked to have you walk into my life and mess up my head. The last thing I wanted was for you to get in my way,but you did.So now I'm in love with you, and I can tell you,I'm not crazy about the idea." Gennie found her voice, though she wasn't quite certain what to do with it. "Well," she managed after a moment, "that certainly puts me in my place." "Oh,she wants to make jokes." Disgusted, Grant released her to storm over to the coffee. Lifting a mug, he drained half the contents, perversely pleased that it scalded his throat. "Well, laugh this off," he suggested as he slammed the mug down again and glared. "You're not going anywhere until I figure out what the hell I'm going to do about you." Struggling against conflicting emotions of amusement,annoyance,and simple wonder, she put her hands on her hips. The movement shifted the too-big robe so that it threatened to slip off one shoulder. "Oh,really? So you're going to figure out what to do about me, like I was an inconvenient head cold." "Damned inconvenient," he muttered. "You may not have noticed, but I'm a grown woman with a mind of my own, accustomed to making my own decisions. You're not going to do anything about me," she told him as her temper began to overtake everything else. She jabbed a finger at him,and the gap in the robe widened. "If you're in love with me, that's your problem. I have one of my own because I'm in love with you." "Terrific!" he shouted at her. "That's just terrific.We'd both have been better off if you'd waited out that storm in a ditch instead of coming here." "You're not telling me anything I don't already know," Gennie retorted, then spun around to leave the room. "Just a minute." Grant had her arm again and backed her into the wall. "You're not going anywhere until this is settled." "It's settled!" Tossing her hair out of her face, she glared at him. "We're in love with each other and I wish you'd go jump off that cliff.If you had any finesse-" "I don't." "Any sensitivty," she continued, "you wouldn't announce that you were in love with someone in the same tone you'd use to frighten small children.

So Dad was a tedious, well-connected workaholic. But the other thing you need to understand is that Mom was a living wet dream. A former Guess model and Miller Lite girl, she was tall, curvy and gorgeous. At thirty-eight, she had somehow managed to remain ageless and maintained her killer body. She’s five-foot-nine with never-ending legs, generous breasts and full hips that scoop dramatically into her slim waist. People who say Barbie’s proportions are unrealistic obviously never met my stepmother. Her face is pretty too, with long eyelashes, sculpted cheekbones and big, blue eyes that tease and smile at the same time. Her long brown hair rests on her shoulders in thick, tousled layers like in one of those Pantene Pro-V commercials. One memory seared in to my brain from my early teenage years is of Mom parading around the house one evening in nothing but her heels and underwear. I was sitting on the couch in the living room watching TV when a flurry of long limbs and blow-dried hair burst in front of the screen. “Teddy-bear. Do you know where Silvia left the dry cleaning? I’m running late for dinner with the Blackwells and I can’t find my red cocktail dress.” Mom stood before me in matching off-white, La Perla bra and panties and Manolo Blahnik stilettos. Some subtle gold hoop earrings hung from her ears and a tiny bit of mascara on her eye lashes highlighted her sparkling, blue eyes. Aside from the missing dress, she was otherwise ready to go. “I think she left them hanging on the chair next to the other sofa,” I said, trying my best not to gape at Mom’s perfect body. Mom trotted across the room, her heels tocking on the hard wood floor. I watched her slim, sexy back as she lifted the dry cleaning onto the sofa and then bent over to sort through the garments. My eyes followed her long mane of brown hair down to her heart-shaped ass. Her panties stretched tightly across each cheek as she bent further down. “Found it!” She cried, springing back upright, causing her 35Cs to bounce up and down from the sudden motion. They were thrusting proudly off her ribcage and bulging out over the fabric of the balconette bra like two titanic eggs. Her supple skin pushed out over the silk edges. And then she was gone as quickly as she had arrived, her long legs striding back down the hallway.

I think sexy is a grown-up word to describe a person who’s confident that she is already exactly who she was made to be. A sexy woman knows herself and she likes the way she looks, thinks, and feels. She doesn’t try to change to match anybody else. She’s a good friend to herself—kind and patient. And she knows how to use her words to tell people she trusts about what’s going on inside of her—her fears and anger, love, dreams, mistakes, and needs. When she’s angry, she expresses her anger in healthy ways. When she’s joyful, she does the same thing. She doesn’t hide her true self because she’s not ashamed. She knows she’s just human—exactly how God made her and that’s good enough. She’s brave enough to be honest and kind enough to accept others when they’re honest. When two people are sexy enough to be brave and kind with each other, that’s love. Sexy is more about how you feel than how you look. Real sexy is letting your true self come out of hiding and find love in safe places. That kind of sexy is good, really good, because we all want and need love more than anything else. “Fake sexy is different. It’s just more hiding. Real sexy is taking off all your costumes and being yourself. Fake sexy is just wearing another costume. Lots of people are selling fake sexy costumes. Companies know that people want to be sexy so badly because people want love. They know that love can’t be sold, so they have big meetings in boardrooms and they say, ‘How can we convince people to buy our stuff? I know! We’ll promise them that this stuff will make them sexy!’ Then they make up what sexy means so they can sell it. Those commercials you see are stories they’ve written to convince us that sexy is the car or mascara or hair spray or diet they’re selling. We feel bad, because we don’t have what they have or look how they look. That’s what they want. They want us to feel bad, so we’ll buy more. It almost always works. We buy their stuff and wear it and drive it and shake our hips the way they tell us to—but that doesn’t get us love, because none of that is real sexiness. People are even more hidden underneath fake sexiness, and the one thing you can’t do if you want to be loved is hide. You can’t buy sexy, you have to become sexy through a lifetime of learning to love who God made you to be and learning who God made someone else to be.” My

Nobody ever talked about what a struggle this all was. I could see why women used to die in childbirth. They didn't catch some kind of microbe, or even hemorrhage. They just gave up. They knew that if they didn't die, they'd be going through it again the next year, and the next. I couldn't understand how a woman might just stop trying, like a tired swimmer, let her head go under, the water fill her lungs. I slowly massaged Yvonne's neck, her shoulders, I wouldn't let her go under. She sucked ice through threadbare white terry. If my mother were here, she'd have made Melinda meek cough up the drugs, sure enough. "Mamacita, ay," Yvonne wailed. I didn't know why she would call her mother. She hated her mother. She hadn't seen her in six years, since the day she locked Yvonne and her brother and sisters in their apartment in Burbank to go out and party, and never came back. Yvonne said she let her boyfriends run a train on her when she was eleven. I didn't even know what that meant. Gang bang, she said. And still she called out, Mama. It wasn't just Yvonne. All down the ward, they called for their mothers. ... I held onto Yvonne's hands, and I imagined my mother, seventeen years ago, giving birth to me. Did she call for her mother?...I thought of her mother, the one picture I had, the little I knew. Karin Thorvald, who may or may not have been a distant relation of King Olaf of Norway, classical actress and drunk, who could recite Shakespeare by heart while feeding the chickens and who drowned in the cow pond when my mother was thirteen. I couldn't imagine her calling out for anyone. But then I realized, they didn't mean their own mothers. Not those weak women, those victims. Drug addicts, shopaholics, cookie bakers. They didn't mean the women who let them down, who failed to help them into womanhood, women who let their boyfriends run a train on them. Bingers and purgers, women smiling into mirrors, women in girdles, women in barstools. Not those women with their complaints and their magazines, controlling women, women who asked, what's in it for me? Not the women who watched TV while they made dinner, women who dyed their hair blond behind closed doors trying to look twenty-three. They didn't mean the mothers washing dishes wishing they'd never married, the ones in the ER, saying they fell down the stairs, not the ones in prison saying loneliness is the human condition, get used to it. They wanted the real mother, the blood mother, the great womb, mother of a fierce compassion, a woman large enough to hold all the pain, to carry it away. What we needed was someone who bled, someone deep and rich as a field, a wide-hipped mother, awesome, immense, women like huge soft couches, mothers coursing with blood, mothers big enough, wide enough, for us to hide in, to sink down to the bottom of, mothers who would breathe for is when we could not breathe anymore, who would fight for us, who would kill for us, die for us. Yvonne was sitting up, holding her breath, eyes bulging out. It was the thing she should not do. "Breathe," I said in her ear. "Please, Yvonne, try." She tried to breathe, a couple of shallow inhalations, but it hurt too much. She flopped back on the narrow bed, too tired to go on. All she could do was grip my hand and cry. And I thought of the way the baby was linked to her, as she was linked to her mother, and her mother, all the way back, insider and inside, knit into a chain of disaster that brought her to this bed, this day. And not only her. I wondered what my own inheritance was going to be. "I wish I was dead," Yvonne said into the pillowcase with the flowers I'd brought from home. The baby came four hours later. A girl, born 5:32 PM.

I am your wife, but I will do as I please, I raged, and the spell rose in my head without effort. Belt that holds my husband’s pants, Loosen now and make him dance. Tiras’s belt flew from his breeches like a sea serpent, slithering through the air only to strike at him with its tail. He stepped back from me, his eyes growing wide as he gripped the gyrating length of leather, holding it at arm’s length with one hand as he held up his pants with the other. But I wasn’t finished. Boots upon my husband’s feet, Kick him so he’ll take a seat. Tiras fell flat on his behind as his boots shimmied and wriggled free, throwing him off balance. His boots then proceeded to kick him on his back and his thighs as he yowled in stunned outrage. “Lark!” Shirt upon my husband’s chest, Wrap yourself around his head. His tunic promptly rose like Tiras was shrugging it off, only it wrapped itself around him, obscuring his angry face. I started to laugh then. I couldn’t help it. He looked so ridiculous sitting on the floor of the library, his socks hanging from his feet, his breeches falling around his hips, his shirt over his head, and his boots and belt attacking him. Tiras lashed out and grabbed my skirts, yanking me down beside him. “Call off the hounds, Lark!” he bellowed, and I laughed even harder, shaking with mirth even as he rolled himself on top of me and valiantly fought the tunic that kept wrapping itself around his face. The tunic was slightly dangerous, the boots weren’t very accurate, and the tail end of the belt had made a welt across my cheek. I decided enough was enough. I performed a sloppy rhyme, and Tiras let out a stream of profanities as the shirt ceased its murderous attempts and the belt and boots fell to the floor, inanimate once again. Tiras’s breathing was harsh and fast, his hair mussed and falling over his eyes as he braced his forearms on either side of my head. His big body pressed me into the floor, making it hard to draw breath. I was well and truly trapped, but I felt like the victor regardless. Are you injured, husband? He was glaring and angry for all of three seconds. Then the lines around his eyes deepened and a smile broke out across his face. He laughed with me, but he kept me pinned beneath him, his face inches from mine. “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?” Immensely. “Tell me this, wife. Is there a spell to quickly remove your dress?” he whispered, still smiling, his breath tickling my mouth. I felt my face grow hot, and I closed my eyes, trying to retreat, even as I immediately considered a spell to render us both naked.

Honest to God, I hadn’t meant to start a bar fight. “So. You’re the famous Jordan Amador.” The demon sitting in front of me looked like someone filled a pig bladder with rotten cottage cheese. He overflowed the bar stool with his gelatinous stomach, just barely contained by a white dress shirt and an oversized leather jacket. Acid-washed jeans clung to his stumpy legs and his boots were at least twice the size of mine. His beady black eyes started at my ankles and dragged upward, past my dark jeans, across my black turtleneck sweater, and over the grey duster around me that was two sizes too big. He finally met my gaze and snorted before continuing. “I was expecting something different. Certainly not a black girl. What’s with the name, girlie?” I shrugged. “My mother was a religious woman.” “Clearly,” the demon said, tucking a fat cigar in one corner of his mouth. He stood up and walked over to the pool table beside him where he and five of his lackeys had gathered. Each of them was over six feet tall and were all muscle where he was all fat. “I could start to examine the literary significance of your name, or I could ask what the hell you’re doing in my bar,” he said after knocking one of the balls into the left corner pocket. “Just here to ask a question, that’s all. I don’t want trouble.” Again, he snorted, but this time smoke shot from his nostrils, which made him look like an albino dragon. “My ass you don’t. This place is for fallen angels only, sweetheart. And we know your reputation.” I held up my hands in supplication. “Honest Abe. Just one question and I’m out of your hair forever.” My gaze lifted to the bald spot at the top of his head surrounded by peroxide blonde locks. “What’s left of it, anyway.” He glared at me. I smiled, batting my eyelashes. He tapped his fingers against the pool cue and then shrugged one shoulder. “Fine. What’s your question?” “Know anybody by the name of Matthias Gruber?” He didn’t even blink. “No.” “Ah. I see. Sorry to have wasted your time.” I turned around, walking back through the bar. I kept a quick, confident stride as I went, ignoring the whispers of the fallen angels in my wake. A couple called out to me, asking if I’d let them have a taste, but I didn’t spare them a glance. Instead, I headed to the ladies’ room. Thankfully, it was empty, so I whipped out my phone and dialed the first number in my Recent Call list. “Hey. He’s here. Yeah, I’m sure it’s him. They’re lousy liars when they’re drunk. Uh-huh. Okay, see you in five.” I hung up and let out a slow breath. Only a couple things left to do. I gathered my shoulder-length black hair into a high ponytail. I looped the loose curls around into a messy bun and made sure they wouldn’t tumble free if I shook my head too hard. I took the leather gloves in the pocket of my duster out and pulled them on. Then, I walked out of the bathroom and back to the front entrance. The coat-check girl gave me a second unfriendly look as I returned with my ticket stub to retrieve my things—three vials of holy water, a black rosary with the beads made of onyx and the cross made of wood, a Smith & Wesson .9mm Glock complete with a full magazine of blessed bullets and a silencer, and a worn out page of the Bible. I held out my hands for the items and she dropped them on the counter with an unapologetic, “Oops.” “Thanks,” I said with a roll of my eyes. I put the Glock back in the hip holster at my side and tucked the rest of the items in the pockets of my duster. The brunette demon crossed her arms under her hilariously oversized fake breasts and sent me a vicious sneer. “The door is that way, Seer. Don’t let it hit you on the way out.” I smiled back. “God bless you.” She let out an ugly hiss between her pearly white teeth. I blew her a kiss and walked out the door. The parking lot was packed outside now that it was half-past midnight. Demons thrived in darkness, so I wasn’t surprised. In fact, I’d been counting on it.