Good Erection Quotes

Reason, Observation and Experience — the Holy Trinity of Science — have taught us that happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make others so. This is enough for us. In this belief we are content to live and die. If by any possibility the existence of a power superior to, and independent of, nature shall be demonstrated, there will then be time enough to kneel. Until then, let us stand erect.

If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him? If he is infinitely wise, what doubts should we have concerning our future? If he knows all, why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers? If he is everywhere, why erect temples to him? If he is just, why fear that he will punish the creatures that he has filled with weaknesses?

I say no to people who prioritize being cool over being good. I say no to misogynists who want to weaponize my body against me. I say no to men who feel entitled to my attention and reverence, who treat everything the light touches as a resource for them to burn. I say no to religious zealots who insist that I am less important than an embryo. I say no to my own instinct to stay quiet. It's a way of kicking down the boundaries that society has set up for women - be compliant, be a caregiver, be quiet - and erecting my own. I will do this; I will not do that. You believe in my subjugation; I don't have to be nice to you. I am busy. My time is not a public commodity.

Chicago has so much excellent architecture that they feel obliged to tear some of it down now and then and erect terrible buildings just to help us all appreciate the good stuff.

Look, Aerin, preparation is only half the challenge of winning a debate.” “And the other half?” He had her now. “You have to choose the right side.” “Your side, you mean.” She bristled. “No, the losing side.” “What?” “Always choose the weaker side.” “Why would I do that?” Doubt edged her voice, but now she was sitting erect, her feet flat on the floor. “Because then you have further to go to prove your case.” He eased the feet of his chair down. “In a debate, there are two sides. If both make a good argument, then the less popular side wins because that side had further to go to prove its point. Simple logistics.” “If you don’t care which side wins.” She frowned. “It’s a debate. It doesn’t matter which side wins.” “You mean it doesn’t matter to you.” The tone in her voice unsettled him. Or maybe it was the fact that that her criticism disturbed him at all. “It’s a class,” he said. “The point is to flesh out the different sides of an argument.” “And you don’t care if the truth gets lost in the shuffle. Don’t you believe in anything?!

For a long while I have believed – this is perhaps my version of Sir Darius Xerxes Cama’s belief in a fourth function of outsideness – that in every generation there are a few souls, call them lucky or cursed, who are simply born not belonging, who come into the world semi-detached, if you like, without strong affiliation to family or location or nation or race; that there may even be millions, billions of such souls, as many non-belongers as belongers, perhaps; that, in sum, the phenomenon may be as “natural” a manifestation of human nature as its opposite, but one that has been mostly frustrated, throughout human history, by lack of opportunity. And not only by that: for those who value stability, who fear transience, uncertainly, change, have erected a powerful system of stigmas and taboos against rootlessness, that disruptive, anti-social force, so that we mostly conform, we pretend to be motivated by loyalties and solidarities we do not really feel, we hide our secret identities beneath the false skins of those identities which bear the belongers’ seal of approval. But the truth leaks out in our dreams; alone in our beds (because we are all alone at night, even if we do not sleep by ourselves), we soar, we fly, we flee. And in the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celebrate the non-belongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks. What we forbid ourselves we pay good money to watch, in a playhouse or a movie theater, or to read about between the secret covers of a book. Our libraries, our palaces of entertainment tell the truth. The tramp, the assassin, the rebel, the thief, the mutant, the outcast, the delinquent, the devil, the sinner, the traveler, the gangster, the runner, the mask: if we did not recognize in them our least-fulfilled needs, we would not invent them over and over again, in every place, in every language, in every time.

The wise thing is for us diligently to train ourselves to lie thoughtfully, judiciously; to lie with a good object, and not an evil one; to lie for others' advantage, and not our own; to lie healingly, charitably, humanely, not cruelly, hurtfully, maliciously; to lie gracefully and graciously, not awkwardly and clumsily; to lie firmly, frankly, squarely, with head erect, not haltingly, tortuously, with pusillanimous mien, as being ashamed of our high calling.

What is that?” The question is inane. But, honestly, what the fuck am I supposed to do with this? Alex chuckles nervously. As is appropriate since I’m holding his dick and I’m clearly not sane. “I mean, I know what it is. Obviously. Do you have some kind of . . . disorder? Like elephantiasis of the penis or something?” I did not say that out loud. “It’s not that big.” His erection slides in my grip. I can’t stop staring. My thumb and middle finger must have a good inch or more before they can meet. I squeeze to see if it helps bring them closer together. It doesn’t. What it does is make Alex groan, and that, oh holy monster of cock, is one hot noise.

Once upon a time, I wrote a book. People seemed to dig it, so I wrote another and one after that. That’s when Hollywood came knocking at my back door. As soon as I cashed that check, I wrapped my lips around the mighty erection that is the film industry and sucked hard, just like a good whore should. Unfortunately, I had to be taught not to orphan the balls.

The pathetic thing that grows out of this condition is called faith: in other words, closing one's eyes upon one's self once for all, to avoid suffering the sight of incurable falsehood. People erect a concept of morality, of virtue, of holiness upon this false view of all things; they ground good conscience upon faulty vision; they argue that no other sort of vision has value any more, once they have made theirs sacrosanct with the names of "God," "salvation" and "eternity." I unearth this theological instinct in all directions: it is the most widespread and the most subterranean form of falsehood to be found on earth.

Laws" and "Rules" imposed on you From days of old renown. Are not intended for your "good" But for your crushing down. Then dare to rend the chains that bind And to yourself be true. Dare to liberate your mind, From all things, old and new. Always think your own thought. All other thoughts reject; Learn to use your own brain And boldly stand erect.

We want to believe in the essential, unchanging goodness of people, in their power to resist external pressures, in their rational appraisal and then rejection of situational temptations. We invest human nature with God-like qualities, with moral and rational faculties that make us both just and wise. We simplify the complexity of human experience by erecting a seemingly impermeable boundary between Good and Evil.

If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him? If he is infinitely wise, why should we have doubts concerning our future? If he knows all, why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers? If he is everywhere, why erect temples to him? If he is just, why fear that he will punish the creatures that he has filled with weaknesses? If grace does everything for them, what reason would he have for recompensing them? If he is all-powerful, how offend him, how resist him? If he is reasonable, how can he be angry at the blind, to whom he has given the liberty of being unreasonable? If he is immovable, by what right do we pretend to make him change his decrees? If he is inconceivable, why occupy ourselves with him? IF HE HAS SPOKEN, WHY IS THE UNIVERSE NOT CONVINCED?

Whatever the man’s age, history, condition, knowledge, culture, development, he had an erection. Good currency anywhere. Recognized by the Bank of England.

It seemed now as if, touched by human penitence and all its toil, divine goodness had parted the curtain and displayed behind it, single, distinct, the hare erect; the wave falling; the boat rocking, which did we deserve them, should be ours always. But alas, divine goodness, twitching the cord, draws the curtain; it does not please him; he covers his treasures in a drench of hail, and so breaks them, so confuses them that it seems impossible that their calm should ever return or that we should ever compose from their fragments a perfect whole or read in the littered pieces the clear words of truth. For our penitence deserves a glimpse only; our toil respite only.

Love made us partners in narcissism, and we talked ceaselessly about how close we were, how perfect our connection was, like we were the first people in history to ever get it exactly right. We were that couple for a while, nauseatingly impervious assholes, busy staring into each other’s eyes while everyone else was trying to have a good time. When I think about how stupid we were, how obstinately clueless about the realities that awaited us, I just want to go back to that skinny, cocksure kid with his bloated heart and perennial erection, and kick his teeth in.

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it." This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense. The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable. It is extremely probable that we have overlooked some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and mysterious. There are reformers who get over this difficulty by assuming that all their fathers were fools; but if that be so, we can only say that folly appears to be a hereditary disease. But the truth is that nobody has any business to destroy a social institution until he has really seen it as an historical institution. If he knows how it arose, and what purposes it was supposed to serve, he may really be able to say that they were bad purposes, that they have since become bad purposes, or that they are purposes which are no longer served. But if he simply stares at the thing as a senseless monstrosity that has somehow sprung up in his path, it is he and not the traditionalist who is suffering from an illusion.

Lying is universal - we all do it. Therefore, the wise thing is for us diligently to train ourselves to lie thoughtfully, judiciously; to lie with a good object, and not an evil one; to lie for others' advantage, and not our own; to lie healingly, charitably, humanely, not cruelly, hurtfully, maliciously; to lie gracefully and graciously, not awkwardly and clumsily; to lie firmly, frankly, squarely, with head erect, not haltingly, tortuously, with pusillanimous mien, as being ashamed of our high calling.

And of the sixth day yet remained There wanted yet the master work, the end Of all yet done: a creature who not prone And brute as other creatures but endued With sanctity of reason might erect His stature and, upright with front serene, Govern the rest, self-knowing, and from thence Magnanimous to correspond with Heaven, But grateful to acknowledge whence his good Descends, thither with heart and voice and eyes Directed in devotion to adore And worship God supreme who made him chief Of all His works.

I heard him sweeping with the broom, and then he suddenly stopped. I had obviously got his attention, and he was looking. Take a good look, honey, I thought. Take a good look at what I’m offering. I liked the sound of that silence. Do you know what I mean? Have you heard that silence yourself? I love that silence you get, when a man who you fancy notices your body. In a weird way, it’s so loud, it’s deafening. It could be because of the way you sway your hips, your legs, or thrust your breasts. And you just know his erection is talking to him, about what he’d like to do to your body. How he’d like to have his delightfully wicked way with you, undress you, smother your naked skin with hungry urgent kisses, and thrust his hard and moist cock deep inside the pouting red lips of your mouth… I think you get my drift. There’s a lovely tension in that moment; I call it the lust moment. When a sexy man sees what you’ve deliberately put out on offer, and he stops in his steps as his lust lights up his mind, and puts him on a new track.

...for those who value stability, who fear transience, uncertainty, change, have erected a powerful system of stigmas and taboos against rootlessness, that disruptive, anti-social force, so that we mostly conform, we pretend to be motivated by loyalties and solidarities we do not really feel, we hide our secret identities beneath the false skins of those identities which bear the belongers' seal of approval. But the truth leaks out in our dreams; alone in our beds (because we are all alone at night, even if we do not sleep by ourselves), we soar, we fly, we flee. And in the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celbrate the non-belongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks. What we forbid ourselves we pay good money to watch, in a playhouse or movie theatre, or to read about between the secret covers of a book. Our libraries, our palaces of entertainment tell the truth. The tramp, the assassin, the rebel, the thief, the mutant, the outcast, the delinquent, the devil, the sinner, the traveller, the gangster, the runner, the mask: if we did not recognize in them our least-fulfilled needs, we would not invent them over and over again, in every place, in every language, in every time.

The French Revolution, which is nothing else than the idea armed with the sword, rose erect, and, with the same abrupt movement, closed the door of ill and opened the door of good.

She frowned. Then blurted, "Do you have other females?" As if anyone could measure up to her? "No! Why do you ask?" "We haven't layed together and you are a male with obvious... needs. Even now, your body has changed, hardening, growing big." Crap. He'd tried to hide the erection, he really had. "Marissa-" "Surely you need to be eased regularly. Your body is phearsom." That didn't sound good. "What?" "Potent and powerful. Worthy of entering a female." Butch closed his eye, thinking Mr. Worthy was really rising to the occasion now.

When I became convinced that the Universe is natural – that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world -- not even in infinite space. I was free -- free to think, to express my thoughts -- free to live to my own ideal -- free to live for myself and those I loved -- free to use all my faculties, all my senses -- free to spread imagination's wings -- free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope -- free to judge and determine for myself -- free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the "inspired" books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past -- free from popes and priests -- free from all the "called" and "set apart" -- free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies -- free from the fear of eternal pain -- free from the winged monsters of the night -- free from devils, ghosts and gods. For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought -- no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings -- no chains for my limbs -- no lashes for my back -- no fires for my flesh -- no master's frown or threat – no following another's steps -- no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds. And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain -- for the freedom of labor and thought -- to those who fell on the fierce fields of war, to those who died in dungeons bound with chains -- to those who proudly mounted scaffold's stairs -- to those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn -- to those by fire consumed -- to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still.

all agree that the people are most uncommonly amiable and good-looking, their only faults being cannibalism and unlimited fornication. But neither of these is erected into a religious system, oh no: the divine offerings are invariably swine, the cannibalism being simply a matter of taste or inclination; while the fornication has nothing ceremonial or compulsory about it.

With a volley of blasts it emerged from the shed, moving in a fierce and stately way. Mr. Shiftlet was in the driver’s seat, sitting very erect. He had an expression of serious modesty on his face as if he had just raised the dead.

It is good to recall that three centuries ago, around the year 1660, two of the greatest monuments of modern history were erected, one in the West and one in the East; St. Paul's Cathedral in London and the Taj Mahal in Agra. Between them, the two symbolize, perhaps better than words can describe, the comparative level of architectural technology, the comparative level of craftsmanship and the comparative level of affluence and sophistication the two cultures had attained at that epoch of history. But about the same time there was also created—and this time only in the West—a third monument, a monument still greater in its eventual import for humanity. This was Newton's Principia, published in 1687. Newton's work had no counterpart in the India of the Mughals.

He who knows that power is inborn, that he is weak because he has looked for good out of him and elsewhere, and so perceiving, throws himself unhesitatingly on his thought, instantly rights himself, stands in the erect position, commands his limbs, works miracles; just as a man who stands on his feet is stronger than a man who stands on his head.

Revolutionists are accused of sowing fear abroad. Every barricade seems a crime. Their theories are incriminated, their aim suspected, their ulterior motive is feared, their conscience denounced. They are reproached with raising, erecting, and heaping up, against the reigning social state, a mass of miseries, of griefs, of iniquities, of wrongs, of despairs, and of tearing from the lowest depths blocks of shadow in order therein to embattle themselves and to combat. People shout to them: “You are tearing up the pavements of hell!” They might reply: “That is because our barricade is made of good intentions.

And from that time on the boys were no longer called Elder and Younger, but they were given school names by the old teacher, and this old man, after inquiring into the occupation of their father, erected two names for the sons; for the elder, Nung En, and for the second Nung Wen, and the first word of each name signified one whose wealth is from the earth.

I want you,” she said. “Naked.” His nostrils flared as if he was soaking in the scent of her arousal. “Tally, honey, I can’t get any more naked. That’s my cock you’re playing with.” She grazed him lightly, very lightly, with her teeth for that remark. He swore again but didn’t make any attempt to take control. “I want you,” she said, “naked and on your front.” “Why?” A suspicious growl. “So I can stroke you. Pet you. Love you.” She ran her nails along the inside of one thigh, felt him shudder. “At least half an hour.” Bending again, she closed her mouth over the top of his erection without warning. Something definitely tore this time. “Fuck!” She released him. “Yes?” “Yes! Damn it, yes! Now suck me or I’m going to have you on your back so fast, you’ll—” His threat ended in a roar as she took as much of him in her mouth as she could fit. Clay, she decided, tasted good. Very good. She liked giving him this pleasure. But more, she liked that he allowed her to see the extremity of his reaction, no holds barred. So she loved him, learned him, tasted him. And when he tugged at her hair to pull her off him, she resisted.

That’s it, Charlotte. Good girl.” His words spur me on, sending bolts of lightning through my body. My own fingers rub my clit in fast circles, and it feels so good; it’s a relief. Emerson’s hand rests over mine, but he isn’t touching me. Instead, he grips my hip with one hand and grinds his erection against my backside.

The people are a story that never ends, A river that winds and falls and gleams erect in many dawns; Lost in deep gulleys, it turns to dust, rushes in the spring freshet, Emerges to the sea. The people are a story that is a long incessant Coming alive from the earth in better wheat, Percherons, Babies, and engines, persistent and inevitable. The people always know that some of the grain will be good, Some of the crop will be saved, some will return and Bear the strength of the kernel, that from the bloodiest year Some survive to outfox the frost.

Lying is universal—we all do it. Therefore, the wise thing is for us diligently to train ourselves to lie thoughtfully, judiciously; to lie with a good object, and not an evil one; to lie for others' advantage, and not our own; to lie healingly, charitably, humanely, not cruelly, hurtfully, maliciously; to lie gracefully and graciously, not awkwardly and clumsily; to lie firmly, frankly, squarely, with head erect, not haltingly, tortuously, with pusillanimous mien, as being ashamed of our high calling. Then

[Myne] shouldn’t be enjoying the feeling of closeness, of holding someone who didn’t belong to him, but damn, this felt good. He didn’t get to be with females often, not when his bite caused excruciating pain, and he definitely didn’t get to save a life . . . ever. Nicole was depending on him in order to survive, and he began to shake with the magnitude of it all. Rike, he whispered to himself. If you come back and don’t mate this female before the next daybreak, I’ll kill you myself. Of course, that was if Riker didn’t kill him first for getting a raging erection for his female.

We grow accustomed to the Dark — When Light is put away — As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp To witness her Good bye — A Moment — We Uncertain step For newness of the night — Then — fit our Vision to the Dark — And meet the Road — erect — And so of larger — Darknesses — Those Evenings of the Brain — When not a Moon disclose a sign — Or Star — come out — within — The Bravest — grope a little — And sometimes hit a Tree Directly in the Forehead — But as they learn to see — Either the Darkness alters — Or something in the sight Adjusts itself to Midnight — And Life steps almost straight.

Each religion claims the future for its followers; or, at least, the good thereof. The evil is for those benighted ones who will have none of it; seeing the light the true believers worship, as the fishes see the stars, but dimly. The religions come and the religions pass, and the civilisations come and pass, and naught endures but the world and human nature. Ah! if man would but see that hope is from within and not from without—that he himself must work out his own salvation! He is there, and within him is the breath of life and a knowledge of good and evil as good and evil is to him. Thereon let him build and stand erect, and not cast himself before the image of some unknown God, modelled like his poor self, but with a bigger brain to think the evil thing, and a longer arm to do it.

Is it really true that the only good thing a Blackman can offer in a relationship with a white woman is thunderous sex? Of course, sex plays a vital healing role in every loving relationship. That is a fact of life. But, as we discover in the story of Glasgow Kiss, sex is not always the only thing that occupies a Blackman’s mind. On the contrary, when a man is as passionate, dedicated, committed and determined as Mamadu is to fight and hold onto his true love, irrespective of the numerous challenges he faces, he is able show that it is far more important to pay attention to his heartbeat than the growing erection in his trousers!

Why did people ignore the lessons of history and their own senses, deny a law of life immutable as the seasons, and erect twisted barriers against it in their minds? He didn't know why, but they did. They wept for the goodness of half-imaginary yesterdays, yesterdays beyond altering, instead of anticipating and helping to shape the good of possible tomorrows. They found things to blame for the flow of events they wanted to stop and could not. They blamed God, their wives, government, books, fanciful combinations of unnamed men--sometimes even voices in their own heads. They lived tortured and unhappy lives, trying to dam Niagara with a teacup.

She leaned over him to pull the waistband of his flannel pants down. His erection popped out, startling her. "Oh!" She fell across his thighs. "Oh my. Good heavens." He groaned and dragged his hands down his face. "Ye needna stare at it in horror. It willna harm you." "Its . . . really big." He snorted. "It comes in peace.

You believe what you are and you are what you believe. This is a vicious or virtuous cycle in which we are all trapped. Our faiths and beliefs are like walls erected around us that provide us security but also act like a prison by blocking our view from the complete reality. We live in a make-believe world, oblivious to the reality that exists outside the four walls of our beliefs. The deep-rooted belief is called ‘faith’, which is responsible for many good things, but also for much of the evil in the world.

when Rownt penises grew an easy two feet longer and picked up a good thirty pounds as part of their erections. “Enjoying

I bunch his hair between my fingers and tug his head up. “Get on your back.” “Not done with you,” he mumbles. “Trust me.” His eyes gleam as he shifts onto his side. Then he grins and rolls over, propping his hands behind his head and awaiting my next move. The ache between my legs is unbearable, making it difficult to move. I order my shaky limbs to cooperate, and climb onto his muscular body, twisting around so that my butt is wiggling in his face and his massive erection is at eye level with me. “Fuck,” he gasps. “Yeah, babe, that’s what I like to see.

Good behavior is often a means of keeping God at bay. Obedience and obligation can erect as much a barrier to life with God as lawless rebellion and wanton destruction. Duty and debauchery have more in common than we might expect. Selfishness and self-righteousness just might be twins separated at birth. Both good and evil hang from the tree of knowledge of good and evil; the problem is that they are on the wrong tree.

Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, “Why should anything go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape?” The young sceptic says, “I have a right to think for myself.” But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says, “I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all...Man, by a blind instinct, knew that if once things were wildly questioned, reason could be questioned first. The authority of priests to absolve, the authority of popes to define the authority, even of inquisitors to terrify: these were all only dark defences erected round one central authority, more undemonstrable, more supernatural than all—the authority of a man to think. We know now that this is so; we have no excuse for not knowing it. For we can hear scepticism crashing through the old ring of authorities, and at the same moment we can see reason swaying upon her throne. In so far as religion is gone, reason is going. For they are both of the same primary and authoritative kind. They are both methods of proof which p 60 cannot themselves be proved. And in the act of destroying the idea of Divine authority we have largely destroyed the idea of that human authority by which we do a long-division sum. With a long and sustained tug we have attempted to pull the mitre off pontifical man; and his head has come off with it.

The rational side of me insisted I leave things as they were. No good would come of pursuing her any further, especially with the board watching my every move. I couldn’t afford a scandal before the CEO vote, and everything about Isabella—from her indecent conversation topics to her ability to storm through every defense I’d erected with nothing but a smile—screamed scandal. The irrational side of me, however, didn’t give a fuck. For the first time in my life, the irrational side was winning.

A woman may walk around naked in front of a man, but a civilized man would never jump over her, driven by his primordial state of arousal, regardless of an involuntary erection. Erection is involuntary, but whether a man would act on it, is voluntary.

I stretched out on the bed and slept. It was twilight when I awakened and turned on the light. I felt better, no longer tired. I went to the typewriter and sat before it. My thought was to write a sentence, a single perfect sentence. If I could write one good sentence I could write two and if I could write two I could write three, and if I could write three I could write forever. But suppose I failed? Suppose I had lost all of my beautiful talent? Suppose it had burned up in the fire of Biff Newhouse smashing my nose or Helen Brownell dead forever? What would happen to me? Would I go to Abe Marx and become a busboy again? I had seventeen dollars in my wallet. Seventeen dollars and the fear of writing. I sat erect before the typewriter and blew on my fingers. Please God, please Knut Hamsun, don’t desert me now. I started to write and I wrote: “The time has come,” the Walrus said, “To talk of many things: Of shoes—and ships—and sealing wax— Of cabbages—and kings—” I looked at it and wet my lips. It wasn’t mine, but what the hell, a man had to start someplace.

And if we really want to stay current and relevant, we have to use social media. And by that I mean Facebook. There are one billion people on Facebook. Maybe older people should have our own social media. We can call it What Did That Doctor Do to Your Face Book? In fact, we can have our own text and Facebook abbreviations. We can have our own WTF, LOL, and LMAO. GNIB: Good news, it’s benign. OMG: Oh, my gout. DMMLIMNWD: Don’t make me laugh, I’m not wearing Depends. WAI: Where am I? ITIHSBCR: I think I had sex but can’t remember. ILI: I like Ike. TKDC: The kids didn’t call. DTLSTY: Does this look swollen to you? CTDMELOFM: Call the doctor—my erection lasted over four minutes. PAMUHNASIHSB: Put a mirror under his nose and see if he’s still breathing. Bottom line: we can’t be dial-up in a Wi-Fi world.

Spanking is about pleasure, not pain, and contemporary couples of my acquaintance swap positions so that she has a turn at spanking and he submits to her loving hand. He does not have a clitoris, of course, but an erection heated by a good spanking is firmer and lasts long into the night.

Good people?” Hangfire repeated. “Are you sure about that, Snicket? Would good people chop down a tree that was hundreds of years old, to erect a statue in honor of bloodshed? Would good people drain the sea, just so they could force ink out of the last few octopi? What do you think happened to the water that drained away? A whole valley was flooded. Countless creatures of Killdeer Fields were drowned, and an entire village was forced to leave their homes, just so the Knight family could add a few pennies to their ink fortune and the town could limp along for a little while longer.

Over the past fifteen years, the iconoclastic mathematician Irakli Loladze has isolated a dramatic effect of carbon dioxide on human nutrition unanticipated by plant physiologists: it can make plants bigger, but those bigger plants are less nutritious. “Every leaf and every grass blade on earth makes more and more sugars as CO2 levels keep rising,” Loladze told Politico, in a story about his work headlined “The Great Nutrient Collapse.” “We are witnessing the greatest injection of carbohydrates into the biosphere in human history—[an] injection that dilutes other nutrients in our food supply.” Since 1950, much of the good stuff in the plants we grow—protein, calcium, iron, vitamin C, to name just four—has declined by as much as one-third, a landmark 2004 study showed. Everything is becoming more like junk food. Even the protein content of bee pollen has dropped by a third. The problem has gotten worse as carbon concentrations have gotten worse. Recently, researchers estimated that by 2050 as many as 150 million people in the developing world will be at risk of protein deficiency as the result of nutrient collapse, since so many of the world’s poor depend on crops, rather than animal meat, for protein; 138 million could suffer from a deficiency of zinc, essential to healthy pregnancies; and 1.4 billion could face a dramatic decline in dietary iron—pointing to a possible epidemic of anemia. In 2018, a team led by Chunwu Zhu looked at the protein content of eighteen different strains of rice, the staple crop for more than 2 billion people, and found that more carbon dioxide in the air produced nutritional declines across the board—drops in protein content, as well as in iron, zinc, and vitamins B1, B2, B5, and B9. Really everything but vitamin E. Overall, the researchers found that, acting just through that single crop, rice, carbon emissions could imperil the health of 600 million people. In previous centuries, empires were built on that crop. Climate change promises another, an empire of hunger, erected among the world’s poor.

But what after all is one night? A short space, especially when the darkness dims so soon, and so soon a bird sings, a cock crows, or a faint green quickens, like a turning leaf, in the hollows of the wave. Night, however, succeeds to night. The winter holds a pack of them in store and deals them equally, evenly, with indefatigable fingers. They lengthen; they darken. Some of them hold aloft clear planets, plates of brightness. The autumn trees, ravaged as they are, take on the flesh of tattered flags kindling in the doom of cool cathedral caves where gold letters on marble pages describe death in battle and how bones bleach and burn far away in Indian sands. The autumn trees gleam in the yellow moonlight, in the light of harvest moons, the light which mellows the energy of labour, and smooths the stubble, and brings the wave lapping blue to the shore. It seemed now as if, touched by human penitence and all its toil, divine goodness had parted the curtain and displayed behind it, single, distinct, the hare erect; the wave falling; the boat rocking; which, did we deserve them, should be ours always. But alas, divine goodness, twitching the cord, draws the curtain; it does not please him; he covers his treasures in a drench of hail, and so breaks them, so confuses them that it seems impossible that their calm should ever return or that we should ever compose from their fragments a perfect whole or read in the littered pieces the clear words of truth. For our penitence deserves a glimpse only; our toil respite only. The nights now are full of wind and destruction; the trees plunge and bend and their leaves fly helter skelter until the lawn is plastered with them and they lie packed in gutters and choke rain pipes and scatter damp paths. Also the sea tosses itself and breaks itself, and should any sleeper fancying that he might find on the beach an answer to his doubts, a sharer of his solitude, throw off his bedclothes and go down by himself to walk on the sand, no image with semblance of serving and divine promptitude comes readily to hand bringing the night to order and making the world reflect the compass of the soul. The hand dwindles in his hand; the voice bellows in his ear. Almost it would appear that it is useless in such confusion to ask the night those questions as to what, and why, and wherefore, which tempt the sleeper from his bed to seek an answer.

Because while it surely felt cathartic to see it all laid bare, even briefly, the view did not undo the damage. We could not go back in time and have the story of Hillary Clinton be written by people who had not also pressed their erections into the shoulders of young women who’d worked for them. We could not retroactively resituate the women who’d left jobs and whole careers because the navigation of the risks, of the daily abuses, drove them out. We would not see the movies or the art that those women would have made, could not live by the laws that they might have enacted, could not read the news as they might have reported it, had they ever truly had a fair shake at getting to tell it their way. The tsunami of #metoo stories hadn’t just revealed the way that men had grabbed and rubbed and punished and shamed women; it had also shown us that they had done it all while building the very world in which we still were forced to live.

Nothing in the record of human history argues for divine morality, and a great deal argues against it. What we know is that good people very often suffer terribly, while the perpetrators of horrific evil backstroke through all the pleasures of the world. There is no evidence that the score is ever evened in this life or any after. The barbarian Andrew Jackson rejoiced in mass murder, regaled in enslavement, and died a national hero. For three decades, J. Edgar Hoover incited murder and perfected blackmail against citizens who only sought some equal pursuit of liberty and happiness. Today his name is affixed to a building that we are told was erected in the pursuit of justice. Hitler pushed an entire people to the brink of extinction, escaped human censure, and now finds acolytes among some of the very states he conquered. The warlords of history are still kicking our heads in, and no one, not our fathers, not our Gods, is coming to save us.

The Nigger was a handsome, austere woman with snow-white hair and a dark and awful dignity. Her brown eyes, brooding deep in her skull, looked out on an ugly world with philosophic sorrow. She conducted her house like a cathedral dedicated to a sad but erect Priapus. If you wanted a good laugh and a poke in the ribs, you went to Jenny’s and got your money’s worth; but if the sweet worldsadness close to tears crept out of your immutable loneliness, the Long Green was your place. When you came out of there you felt that something pretty stern and important had happened. It was no jump in the hay. The dark beautiful eyes of the Nigger stayed with you for days.

The man who wields the blood-clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. The man who robs me of my earnings at the end of each week meets me as a class- leader on Sunday morning, to show me the way of life, and the path of salvation. He who sells my sister, for purposes of prostitution, stands forth as the pious advocate of purity. He who proclaims it a religious duty to read the Bible denies me the right of learning to read the name of the God who made me. He who is the religious advocate of marriage robs whole millions of its sacred influence, and leaves them to the ravages of wholesale pollution. The warm defender of the sacredness of the family relation is the same that scatters whole families,— sundering husbands and wives, parents and children, sisters and brothers,—leaving the hut vacant, and the hearth desolate. We see the thief preaching against theft, and the adulterer against adultery. We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen! all for the glory of God and the good of souls! The slave auctioneer’s bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave-trade go hand in hand together. The slave prison and the church stand near each other. The clanking of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious psalm and solemn prayer in the church, may be heard at the same time. The dealers in the bodies and souls of men erect their stand in the presence of the pulpit, and they mutually help each other. The dealer gives his blood-stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return, covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity. Here we have religion and robbery the allies of each other—devils dressed in angels’ robes, and hell presenting the semblance of paradise.

Have you heard about the Knights of Malta?" I ask. "Vaguely." "They had a special technique, such that they would penetrate their partner, and then do nothing, just do nothing, for hours, just stay in place, frozen in time, as it were." "And erections, did they freeze too?" "Good question. More historical research will be needed, " I whisper.

Now let’s be honest here: erections are ridiculous things. When men are aroused, it’s plainly evident, and there’s really nothing we can do about that. So there I stood in the supply closet at work, my penis out there and practically screaming, I FIND THIS VERY GOOD, PLEASE LOVE ME LONG TIME, and there wasn’t a single thing I could do about it.

You hear the groans of prisoners (Ps. 101: 21) and release us from the chains we have made for ourselves, on condition that we do not erect against you the horns (Ps. 74: 5 f.) of a false liberty by avaricious desire to possess more and, at the risk of losing everything, through loving our private interest more than you,36 the good of all that is.

I find his erection and stroke my fist up its length. “Breathe,” I whisper. “Relax for me.” His throat dips. Then he lets out another breath. I push forward again, and this time I’m able to ease in. Just the tip, but holy hell, the pressure is incredible. He’s hot and tight, squeezing me into oblivion. “Ohfuckohfuckohfuck.” It’s all he seems capable of saying as my cock tunnels deeper. Jamie’s cheeks are flushed, his eyes glassy. If I last more than five strokes, it’ll be a miracle. Then again, we are in Lake Placid, which just happens to be Miracle Central. His erection pulsates in my fist, but I don’t stroke it. Not yet. Not until he begs me to. “Jamie…you doing good?” He moans in response.

Two rows of five showers faced each other, so you could get a good look at as many as three different guys. For instance, today he saw three different guys all diligently scrubbing their penises into various states of erection. The one in the middle wore a thick metal cock ring, which shocked Martin. He did think you should at least pretend you came to the gym to workout.

One of the obvious danger signs that we may be on our way to bring into existence the ideal of the animal laborans is the extent to which our whole economy has become a waste economy, in which things must be almost as quickly devoured and discarded as they have appeared in the world, if the process itself is not to come to a sudden catastrophic end. But if the ideal were already in existence and we were truly nothing but members of a consumers’ society, we would no longer live in a world at all but simply be driven by a process in whose ever-recurring cycles things appear and disappear, manifest themselves and vanish, never to last long enough to surround the life process in their midst. The world, the man-made home erected on earth and made of the material which earthly nature delivers into human hands, consists not of things that are consumed but of things that are used. If nature and the earth generally constitute the condition of human life, then the world and the things of the world constitute the condition under which this specifically human life can be at home on earth. Nature seen through the eyes of the animal laborans is the great provider of all “good things,” which belong equally to all her children, who “take [them] out of [her] hands” and “mix with” them in labor and consumption.86 The same nature seen through the eyes of homo faber, the builder of the world, “furnishes only the almost worthless materials as in themselves,” whose whole value lies in the work performed upon them.87 Without taking things out of nature’s hands and consuming them, and without defending himself against the natural processes of growth and decay, the animal laborans could never survive. But without being at home in the midst of things whose durability makes them fit for use and for erecting a world whose very permanence stands in direct contrast to life, this life would never be human.

Her Majesty to the theatre. The performance took place on a stage erected in the courtyard, and Her Majesty closed in one part of her veranda for the use of the guests and Court ladies. During the performance I began to feel very drowsy, and eventually fell fast asleep leaning against one of the pillars. I awoke rather suddenly to find that something had been dropped into my mouth, but on investigation I found it was nothing worse than a piece of candy, which I immediately proceeded to eat. On approaching Her Majesty, she asked me how I had enjoyed the candy, and told me not to sleep, but to have a good time like the rest. I never saw Her Majesty in better humor. She played with us just like a young girl, and one could hardly recognize in her the severe Empress Dowager we knew her to be.

Ah! if man would but see that hope is from within and not from without--that he himself must work out his own salvation! He is there, and within him is the breath of life and a knowledge of good and evil as good and evil is to him. Thereon let him build and stand erect, and not cast himself before the image of some unknown God, modelled like his poor self, but with a bigger brain to think the evil thing, and a longer arm to do it.

He unfastened his pants and shrugged off his shirt, baring his beautiful chest, the ripple of his abs, and the soft trail of hair leading below. "I was saving the best for last." He ground his palm over his erection. "Tease." She couldn't tear her eyes away. "Take it all off." "You're not in a position to make demands." But he didn't make her wait. Instead he lowered his zipper and pulled out his cock. Thick and hard, he was more than ready for her. "Do you want this, sweetheart?" She wasn't complaining about the term of endearment now. "Very much." He gave a casual shrug that belied the evidence of his desire. "Maybe when I've finished my search." "What else..." Her voice trailed off when he lay between her legs, slid off her panties, and placed her feet on his shoulders. "The best things are found in the most secret places." He lowered his head. His tongue did the most wicked things that had her arching and twisting on the bed. "Jay..." It was a plea. It was a demand. "That's Mr. Dayal to you." Without warning, he slid two fingers deep inside her, his firm steady strokes making all her nerve endings fire at once. His tongue found her sensitive clit and her inner walls tightened around his fingers. She soared and peaked, her orgasm crashing through her body in a tidal wave of sensation. Dazed, languid on the bed, she watched him shrug off his trousers and roll on a condom. "Did you find what you were looking for?" "Not yet." He lifted her legs, spread them wide, opening her for him as he positioned himself between her thighs. "You're very good at your job." Now that her body was sated, she was generous with her praise. "And you are a beautiful, sexy temptress who is about to be fucked by a man who wants her so desperately he's willing to do anything to have her.

Wicked, to be sure.” He repeated the word as though tasting it, his gaze now following her finger's progress. “Perhaps you'd better punish me.” Good Lord, what next? “Punish you, indeed.” She advanced her finger just to the base of his erection and stopped. “Suppose I were to walk out of this room and leave you here alone until you remembered your decency. Would that be punishment enough?” He smiled as though he were teaching her chess and she'd just made a clever move. “Maybe.” His eyes came to her face, and wandered in leisurely, thorough fashion down her body and back to her still finger. “Or maybe you ought to touch yourself. Pleasure yourself, and force me to watch.” “Now I know beyond question that you've confused me with someone else.” Aplomb had company: his every shameless utterance was waking strange--or not so strange--sensations that spiraled from her core on out. “And I doubt you would take it as punishment, quite.” "Darling, I would take it as torture.” Again he twisted against his bonds, so much power at her mercy. “Because you'd taunt me with it, wouldn't you? You'd place yourself where I could nearly reach you. And you'd say things to inflame me, but never touch me at all. I'd have to lie here helpless, watching you give yourself what you won't take from me.” He sucked in a breath. “Start now, if you would.

Not everyone will be capable of shouldering this task of personal responsibility or of being a good example for their children. But the heroes of the next generation will be those who can calm the buzzing and jigging of outside distraction long enough to listen to the sound of their own hearts, those who will follow their own path until they learn to walk erect—not hunched over like a Neanderthal, palm-gazing. Into traffic. You have a choice in where to direct your attention. Choose wisely. The world will wait. And if it’s important, they’ll call back.

The architect, the sculptor, are highly interested that men should look to their art—to their hand, for a continuance of their being; and, therefore, I should wish to see well-designed, well-executed monuments; not sown up and down by themselves at random, but erected all in a single spot, where they can promise themselves endurance. Inasmuch as even the good and the great are contented to surrender the privilege of resting in person in the churches, we may, at least, erect there or in some fair hall near the burying-place, either monuments or monumental writings.

Life wisdom “When anger is not in control, there appears ‘I’; When desire is fulfilled, there enters ‘I’; When greed overtakes the need, there develops ‘I’; When desire is secured, emotional attachment takes over desire, there gains 'I', When pride is erected due to money, beauty, power, people, youthfulness, there is always 'I', When jealousy crawls over contentment, it gets into the grip of 'I', When good things enter life, ego dominates, and there maintains 'I'. When ‘I or Ego’ comes everything goes, when ‘Ego’ goes everything comes. Overcoming Ego brings peace and happiness

We lunged for each other at the same time and collided, crazy with need and starving for a taste. Warnings and alarms wailed in my mind, but I shut them down. Screw it. I wanted him. He found my mouth. The thrust of his tongue against mine made my head spin. He tasted like heaven. I kissed him back, nipping, licking, melting against him. It felt so good . . . His lips traced a fiery line from my mouth to the corner of my jaw and down my neck. My whole body sang in warm liquid triumph. His voice was a ragged whisper in my ear. “Only if you want to . . . Say no, and I’ll stop.” “No,” I whispered to see if he would do it. Curran pulled back. His eyes were pure need, raw and barely under control. He swallowed. “Okay.” It was the most erotic thing I had ever seen. I reached for him and slid my hand up his chest, feeling the taut muscle. He caught my hand and kissed my palm gently. Heated, tightly controlled want shone in his eyes. I pulled my fingers free, pushed from the wall, and kissed his throat just under the jaw. This was bliss. There was no hope for me. He growled, closing his eyes. “What are you doing?” “Pulling on Death’s whiskers,” I murmured, letting my tongue play over his skin, rough with stubble. He smelled divine, clean and male. My hands slid up his biceps. His muscles tensed under the light pressure of my fingers. He was trying very, very hard to stand still and I almost laughed. All those times when he’d called me “baby” . . . Revenge was sweet. “Is that a yes or a no?” he asked. I slid against him and nipped his bottom lip. “I’ll take it as a yes.” The steel muscles of his arms flexed under my hands. He grabbed me, hoisted me up onto him, and kissed me, thrusting into my mouth with his tongue in a hot, slick rhythm, greedy and eager. I threw my arms around his neck. His right hand grasped my hair, his left cupped my butt and pushed me closer against him, his erection a hard, hot length across my lap. Finally— “Let me in,” Derek growled at the door. Go away. The guard said something. Curran’s hand found my breast and caressed the nipple, sending an electric shock through my skin, threatening to melt me . . . “Yes,” Derek snarled. “I’m a member of the damn team. Ask them.” “Curran,” I whispered. “Curran!” He snarled and kept going. The door swung open. I hit him on the back of the neck. He submerged. Help. I’ve drowned the Beast Lord.

Let us consider some of the most important Anarchist acts within the last two decades. Strange as it may seem, one of the most significant deeds of political violence occurred here in America, in connection with the Homestead strike of 1892. During that memorable time the Carnegie Steel Company organized a conspiracy to crush the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. Henry Clay Frick, then Chairman of the Company, was intrusted with that democratic task. He lost no time in carrying out the policy of breaking the Union, the policy which he had so successfully practiced during his reign of terror in the coke regions. Secretly, and while peace negotiations were being purposely prolonged, Frick supervised the military preparations, the fortification of the Homestead Steel Works, the erection of a high board fence, capped with barbed wire and provided with loopholes for sharpshooters. And then, in the dead of night, he attempted to smuggle his army of hired Pinkerton thugs into Homestead, which act precipitated the terrible carnage of the steel workers. Not content with the death of eleven victims, killed in the Pinkerton skirmish, Henry Clay Frick, good Christian and free American, straightway began the hounding down of the helpless wives and orphans, by ordering them out of the wretched Company houses.

Abundance and scarcity In a society where value is created by the manufacture of goods or the allocation of limited resources, it’s not a surprise that organizations seek scarcity. We hesitate to share, because if I give you this, then I don’t have it any more. We erect barriers and create rules to make it difficult for some people to have access to these limited resources. While we don’t set out to become miserly, it’s an economic instinct, because what’s yours is no long mine. Even though we give lip service to sharing when kids show up for kindergarten classes, most of school is organized around the same ideas. We rank students, we cut players from the roster, we grade on a curve. Success, we teach, is scarce. Our new economy, though, is based on abundance, the abundance that comes from ideas and access. If I benefit when everyone knows my idea, then the more people I give the idea to, the better we all do. If I benefit when I earn a reputation leading, connecting and creating positive change, then I’ll benefit if I can offer these insights to anyone who can benefit from them. With an abundance mindset, we intentionally create goods that can be shared. It’s not based on our traditional factory-based economy, but it works now (in fact, it’s just about all that works)… engaging with the mesh, building communities that benefit from sharing resources instead of destroying them is a strategy that scales. With an abundance mindset, we create ideas and services that do better when people share.

In the factory era, the goal was to have the highest PERL. Think about it. If you can easily replace most of your workers, you can pay them less. The less you pay them, the more money you make. The city newspaper, for example, might have four hundred employees, but only a few dozen salespeople and columnists were hard to replace on a moment’s notice. The goal was to leverage and defend the system, not the people. So we built giant organizations (political parties, nonprofits, schools, corporations) filled with easily replaced laborers. Unions fought back precisely because they saw coordinated action as the only way to avoid becoming commodities. Ironically, the work rules they erected merely exacerbated the problem, making every union worker just as good as every other.

…the expression “beyond good and evil” is all too easily (mis)understood. When we say of someone that he is acting as if he were “beyond good and evil,” we usually mean that, to put it plainly, he doesn’t give a damn about the good. The expression “beyond good and evil,” which has become a kind of ritornello, is typically misused—that is to say, it is used to refer to what would be more correctly referred to as “beyond good.” In other words, it is employed to describe a space where, although the good is no longer taken into consideration, the evil and fascination with evil are still very much at work. In this context (and if we follow Lacan’s thinking to its logical conclusion), even the scandalous Marquis de Sade got no further than merely transgressing the good. In de Sade’s literature, the victims not only remain beautiful throughout the horror to which they are subjected, but even gain in beauty during this process: right up to the end, a sublime beauty “covers” the bodies of the victims, even in their naked exposure. Lacan’s point is that there are walls and defences that humanity has erected as shields against the central field of das Ding (connoted as evil): the first protective barrier is the good; the second is the beautiful or sublime. This is where the intimate link between sublime beauty and evil (or danger) originally springs from. Nietzsche himself develops the idea that, by transgressing (or being indifferent to) the good, we enter the domain of the sublime, although this does not by any means imply that, for all this, we are effectively “beyond good and evil".

He was over ninety years of age, his walk was erect, he talked loudly, saw clearly, drank neat, ate, slept, and snored. He had all thirty-two of his teeth. He only wore spectacles when he read. He was of an amorous disposition, but declared that, for the last ten years, he had wholly and decidedly renounced women. He could no longer please, he said; he did not add: "I am too old," but: "I am too poor." He said: "If I were not ruined--Heee!" All he had left, in fact, was an income of about fifteen thousand francs. His dream was to come into an inheritance and to have a hundred thousand livres income for mistresses. He did not belong, as the reader will perceive, to that puny variety of octogenaries who, like M. de Voltaire, have been dying all their life; his was no longevity of a cracked pot; this jovial old man had always had good health.

Dex gasped, his back arching at the feel of strong hands kneading his ass cheeks, pushing them apart as the head of his lover’s slick cock aligned itself then pushed in slowly, the pressure both painful and exhilarating. God, it had been too long. Dex palmed his erection as he was entered, his lover burying deep inside him inch by inch. Hard muscles pressed up against his back, lowering Dex onto the mattress, his breath coming out ragged as his lover buried himself to the root and started rotating his hips, drawing out then pushing back in painfully slow. Dex moaned, his stomach filled with butterflies, the anticipation building like nothing he’d ever felt before. His whole body was on fire, and he writhed with need beneath the deliciously heavy weight. He couldn’t remember Lou feeling like this. Had it always felt this damn good? Dex moaned when lips pressed against his skin beneath his ear. “Easy there, Rookie.” Dex’s

There are Californians who waiver in their allegiance to the climate of California. Sometimes the climate of San Francisco has made me cross. Sometimes I have thought that the winds in summer were too cold, that the fogs in summer were too thick. But whenever I have crossed the continent—when I have emerged from New York at ninety-five degrees, and entered Chicago at one hundred degrees—when I have been breathing the dust of alkali deserts and the fiery air of sagebrush plains—these are the times when I have always been buoyed up by the anticipation of inhaling the salt air of San Francisco Bay. If ever a summer wanderer is glad to get back to his native land, it is I, returning to my native fog. Like the prodigal youth who returned to his home and filled himself with husks, so I always yearn in summer to return to mine, and fill myself up with fog. Not a thin, insignificant mist, but a fog—a thick fog—one of those rich pea-soup August fogs that blow in from the Pacific Ocean over San Francisco. When I leave the heated capitals of other lands and get back to California uncooked, I always offer up a thank-offering to Santa Niebla, Our Lady of the Fogs. Out near the Presidio, where Don Joaquin de Arillaga, the old comandante, revisits the glimpses of the moon, clad in rusty armor, with his Spanish spindle-shanks thrust into tall leathern boots—there some day I shall erect a chapel to Santa Niebla. And I have vowed to her as an ex-voto a silver fog-horn, which horn will be wound by the winds of the broad Pacific, and will ceaselessly sound through the centuries the litany of Our Lady of the Fogs. Every Californian has good reason to be loyal to his native land. If even the Swiss villagers, born in the high Alps, long to return to their birthplace, how much more does the exiled Californian yearn to return to the land which bore him. There are other, richer, and more populous lands, but to the Californian born, California is the only place in which to live. And to the returning Californian, particularly if he be native-born, the love of his birthplace is only intensified by visits to other lands. Why do men so love their native soil? It is perhaps a phase of human love for the mother. For we are compact of the soil. Out of the crumbling granite eroded from the ribs of California’s Sierras by California’s mountain streams—out of earth washed into California’s great valleys by her mighty rivers—out of this the sons of California are made, brain, and muscle, and bone. Why then should they not love their mother, even as the mountaineers of Montenegro, of Switzerland, of Savoy, lover their mountain birth-place? Why should not exiled Californians yearn to return? And we sons of California always do return; we are always brought back by the potent charm of our native land—back to the soil which gave us birth—and at the last back to Earth, the great mother, from whom we sprung, and on whose bosom we repose our tired bodies when our work is done.

I’m going to spank you for each time you disobeyed me in class, Miss Irons. Do you remember how often that was?” “I think it was twenty times,” I answered immediately. “Hmm, don’t think so. Let’s try ten.” The first crack of the wooden ruler slapped against my ass with a loud thwack. It rocked me forward against King’s erection in a delicious way that had me thrusting back for the next strike. “Good fuckin’ girl,” he growled, losing his character as he beat back and forth over my ass cheeks with the wicked little ruler. My ass was on fire by the time the tenth spank landed and I was about to beg King to fuck me, but he was already lifting me off his lap to stand before him. He stared up at me with his desire bright in his eyes, a flush streaked high across his brutal cheekbones. “Take out my cock and ride me. Wanna see you fuck yourself on my cock.” Immediately, my hands were at his belt and I was straddling his lap, hissing when I slammed myself down on his cock. I couldn’t take him all the way, a fact that made me writhe and moan helplessly on top of him.

He broke a piece off his cookie and handed it to her. "Want some?" She let him put it in her mouth, her stomach fluttering because the look in his eyes suggested those words might not be about the cookie. Although he could be hard to read, and she wanted him so much she was always half sure she was projecting her desire onto him. "Good, right?" he asked. His gaze ran down her face and stopped at her lips. "Yeah," she said, swallowing the last of the cookie. Now tell him. Right. "Shit, I have to..." His hand threaded into her hair and grasped the back of her head. And then his mouth found hers and his tongue slid in deep, stroking, twirling, penetrating. She surrendered to the kiss and pressed her body against his, loving how big and hard an strong he was against her. His erection dug into her belly, and she loved that too, the evidence that she wasn't the only one feeling so out of control. By the time he pulled back from the kiss, Haven was breathing hard and a little dizzy and totally aroused. Had to taste you with that flavor in your mouth," he said in a gritty voice. "Just as good as I thought it'd be.

I’m willing to bargain with you,” he said gently, “for the same reason anyone tries to bargain-you have something I want.” Desperately trying to prove to her she wasn’t powerless or empty-handed, he added, “I want it badly, Elizabeth.” “What is it?” she asked warily, but much of the resentment in her lovely face was already being replaced by surprise. “This,” he whispered huskily. His hands tightened on her shoulders, pulling her close as he bent his head and took her soft mouth in a slow, compelling kiss, sensually molding and shaping her lips to his. Although she stubbornly refused to respond, he felt the rigidity leaving her; and as soon as it did, Ian showed her just how badly he wanted it. His arms went around her, crushing her to him, his mouth moving against hers with hungry urgency, his hands shifting possessively over her spine and hips, fitting her to his hardened length. Dragging his mouth from hers, he drew an unsteady breath. “Very badly,” he whispered. Lifting his head, he gazed down at her, noting the telltale flush on her cheeks, the soft confusion in her searching green gaze, and the delicate hand she’d forgotten was resting against his chest. Keeping his own hand splayed against her lower back, he held her pressed to his rigid erection, torturing himself as he slid his knuckles against her cheek and quietly said, “For that privilege, and the others that follow it, I’m willing to agree to any reasonable terms you state. And I’ll even forewarn you,” he said with a tender smile at her upturned face, “I’m not a miserly man, nor a poor one.” Elizabeth swallowed, trying to keep her voice from shaking in reaction to his kiss. “What other privileges that follow kissing?” she asked suspiciously. The question left him nonplussed. “Those that involve the creation of children,” he said, studying her face curiously. “I want several of them-with your complete cooperation, of course,” he added, suppressing a smile. “Of course,” she conceded without a second’s hesitation. “I like children, too, very much.” Ian stopped while he was ahead, deciding it was wiser not to question his good fortune. Evidently Elizabeth had a very frank attitude toward marital sex-rather an unusual thing for a sheltered, well-bred English girl.

Today, if a landowner feels the urge, he can put a backhoe into his hillside pasture and disembowel it. He can set his plow against the contours and let his wealth run down into the brook and into the sea. He can sell his topsoil off by the load and make a gravel pit of a hayfield. For all the interference he will get from the community, he can dig through to China, exploiting as he goes. With an ax in his hand he can annihilate the woods, leaving brush piles and stumps. He can build any sort of building he chooses on his land in the shape of a square or an octagon or a milk bottle. Except in zoned areas he can erect any sort of sign. Nobody can tell him where to head in—it is his land and this is a free country. Yet people are beginning to suspect that the greatest freedom is not achieved by sheer irresponsibility. The earth is common ground and we are all over-lords, whether we hold title or not; gradually the idea is taking form that the land must be held in safekeeping, that one generation is to some extent responsible to the next, and that it is contrary to the public good to allow an individual, merely because of his whims or his ambitions, to destroy almost beyond repair any part of the soil or the water or even the view.

Well you know who's whereabouts is rather important to me," Richard said stiffly. and then pointed out, "And I wouldn't have had to wake you from a dead slumber to find out where he is if you hadn't left without me last night." Daniel dropped into the nearest seat with disgust. You know who was George, of course. They had been calling him that sine this conversation started just in case they were overheard by a servant. Scowling irritably at Richard now, he asked, "Well, what else was I do to? Sit about in my carriage while you gave you know who's wife a tumble." Richard stiffened. "She is my wife, thank you very much." Daniel snorted and said dryly, "My, we've changed our tune this morning, have we not? Last night you weren't at all sure you wanted to keep her." "Yes,well,I hardly have a choice now. I've-" He paused and scowled. "How the devil did you know I tumbled her?" Daniel raised his eyebrows in disbelief. "Was it supposed to be a secret? If so, you shouldn't have done it in the front window for anyone on the street to see." Richar'd eyes widened in horrified realization and he simply stood for the longest time, until Daniel was irritated enough to prompt, "Well?" Richard blinked as if awaking from a dream and asked, uncertainly, "Well, what?" "Are you really planning to keep her?" Daniel asked with exasperation. Richard sighed and moved to settle in a chair himself before confessing, "She was a virgin until last night." Daniel blew out a silent whistle. "That was very remiss of you know who." Richard merely grunted. He looked pretty miserable, but Daniel wasn't feeling much sympathy at the moment. Aside from having had to deal with George's body on his own, he'd left the Radnor townhouse with aching balls and an erection that could have been mistaken for a pistol in his pocket. Richard on the other hand, had apparently had a jolly good time with his dead brother's not quite wife depending on how you looked at it. A woman, Daniel recalled, who disliked her "husband" intensely and had been obviously soused and, accoring to Richard, had still been a virgin. Daniel didn't like to think that Richard had taken advantage of the woman; he wasn't the sort to do that. However, he was having trouble seeing how it had come to pass. "So," Daniel said finally, "after a year of misery with you know who, whom she thought was you, she just forgave all and fell into your arms last night?" Guilt immediately filled Richard's expression. He scrubbed at his face as if trying to wipe away the feeling, and then sighed and muttered with self-disgust. "I took advantage of an inebriated woman.

Because,' he said, 'I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you, especially when you are near me, as now; it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situation in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land, come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapped; and the nI've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you, you'd forget me.' 'That I never would, sir; you know -,' impossible to proceed. [...] The vehemence of emotion, stirred by grief and love within me, was claiming mastery, and struggling for full sway and asserting a right to predominate - to overcome, to live, rise, and reign at last; yes, and to speak. 'I grieve to leave Thornfield; I love Thornfield; I love it, because I have lived in it a full and delightful life, momentarily at least. I have not been trampled on. I have not been petrified. I have not been buried with inferior minds, and excluded from every glimpse of communion with what is bright, and energetic, and high. I have talked, face to face, with what I reverence; with what I delight in, with an origin, a vigorous, and expanded mind. I have known you, Mr. Rochester; and it strikes me with terror and anguish to feel I absolutely must be torn from you forever. I see the necessity of departure; and it is like looking on the necessity of death.' 'Where do you see the necessity?' he asked, suddenly. 'Where? You, sir, have placed it before me.' 'In what shape?' 'In the shape of Miss Ingram; a noble and beautiful woman, your bride.' 'My bride! What bride? I have no bride!' 'But you will have.' 'Yes; I will! I will!' He set his teeth. 'Then I must go; you have said it yourself.' 'No; you must stay! I swear it, and the oath shall be kept.' 'I tell you I must go!' I retorted, roused to something like passion. 'Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you think I am an automation? a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! I have as much soul as you, and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty, and much wealth, I should have made it hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh; it is my spirit that addresses your spirits; just as if both had passed through the grace, and we stood at God's feel, equal - as we are!' 'As we are!' repeated Mr. Rochester - 'so,' he added, including me in his arms, gathering me to his breast, pressing his lips on my lips; 'so, Jane!' 'Yes, so, sir,' I rejoined; 'and yet not so; for you are a married man, or as good as a married man, and we'd to one inferior to you - to one with whom you have no sympathy - whom I do not believe you truly love; for I have seen and heard you sneer at her. I would scorn such a union; therefore I am better than you - let me go!' 'Where, Jane? to Ireland?' 'Yes - to Ireland. I have spoke my mind, and can go anywhere now.' 'Jane, be still; don't struggle so, like a wild, frantic bird that is tending its own plumage in its desperation.' 'I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you.' Another effort set me at liberty, and I stood erect before him. 'And your will shall decide your destiny,' he said; 'I offer you my hand, my heart, and a share of all my possessions.' 'You play a farce, which I merely taught at.' 'I ask you to pass through life at my side - to be my second self, and best earthly companion.' [...] 'Do you doubt me, Jane?' 'Entirely.' 'You have no faith in me?' 'Not a whit.

Then I came back to Christine. She was waiting for me..." Erik here rose solemnly. Then he continued, but, as he spoke, he was overcome by all his former emotion and began to tremble like a leaf: "Yes, she was waiting for me... waiting for me erect and alive, a real, living bride... as she hoped to be saved... And, when I... came forward, more timid than... a little child, she did not run away... no, no... she stayed... she waited for me... I even believe... daroga... that she put out her forehead... a little... oh, not too much... just a little... like a living bride... And... and... I... kissed her!... I!... I!... I!... And she did not die!... Oh, how good it is, daroga, to kiss somebody on the forehead!... You can't tell!... But I! I!... My mother, daroga, my poor, unhappy mother would never... let me kiss her... She used to run away... and throw me my mask!... Nor any other woman... ever, ever!... Ah, you can understand, my happiness was so great, I cried. And I fell at her feet, crying... and I kissed her feet... her little feet... crying. You're crying, too, daroga... and she cried also... the angel cried!..." Erik sobbed aloud and the Persian himself could not retain his tears in the presence of that masked man, who, with his shoulders shaking and his hands clutched at his chest, was moaning with pain and love by turns. "Yes, daroga... I felt her tears flow on my forehead... on mine, mine!... They were soft... they were sweet!... They trickled under my mask... they mingled with my tears in my eyes... they flowed between my lips... Listen, daroga, listen to what I did... I tore off my mask so as not to lose one of her tears... and she did not run away!... And she did not die!... She remained alive, weeping over me, with me. We cried together! I have tasted all the happiness the world can offer!" And Erik fell into a chair, choking for breath: "Ah, I am not going to die yet... presently I shall... but let me cry!... Listen, daroga... listen to this... While I was at her feet... I heard her say, 'Poor, unhappy Erik!'... And she took my hand!... I had become, no more, you know, than a poor dog ready to die for her... I mean it, daroga!... I held in my hand a ring, a plain gold ring which I had given her... which she had lost... and which I had found again... a wedding-ring, you know... I slipped it into her little hand and said, 'There!... Take it!... Take it for you... and him!... It shall be my wedding-present from your poor, unhappy Erik... I know you love the boy... don't cry any more!'.... She asked me, in a very soft voice, what I meant... Then I made her understand that, where she was concerned, I was only a poor dog, ready to die for her... but that she could marry the young man when she pleased, because she had cried with me and mingled her tears with mine!..." Erik's emotion was so great that he had to tell the Persian not to look at him, for he was choking and must take off his mask.

The story we are told of women is not this one. The story of women is the story of love, of foundering into another. A slight deviation: longing to founder and being unable to. Being left alone in the foundering, and taking things into one's own hands: rat poison, the wheels of a Russian train. Even the smoother and gentler story is still just a modified version of the above. In the demotic, in the key of bougie, it's the promise of love in old age for all the good girls of the world. Hilarious ancient bodies at bath time, husband's palsied hands soaping wife's withered dugs, erection popping out of the bubbles like a pink periscope. I see you! There would be long, hobbledy walks under the plane trees, stories told by a single sideways glance, one word sufficing. Anthill, he'd say; Martini! she'd say; and the thick swim of the old joke would return to them. The laughter, the beautiful reverberations. Then the bleary toddling on to an early-bird dinner, snoozing through a movie hand in hand. Their bodies like knobby sticks wrapped in vellum. One laying the other on the deathbed, feeding the overdose, dying the day after, all heart gone out of the world with the beloved breath. Oh, companionship. Oh, romance. Oh, completion. Forgive her if she believed this would be the way it would go. She had been led to this conclusion by forces greater than she. Conquers all! All you need is! Is a many-splendored thing! Surrender to! Like corn rammed down goose necks, this shit they'd swallowed since they were barely old enough to dress themselves in tulle. The way the old story goes, woman needs an other to complete her circuits, to flick her to fullest blazing.

We have become so trusting of technology that we have lost faith in ourselves and our born instincts. There are still parts of life that we do not need to “better” with technology. It’s important to understand that you are smarter than your smartphone. To paraphrase, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your Google. Mistakes are a part of life and often the path to profound new insights—so why try to remove them completely? Getting lost while driving or visiting a new city used to be an adventure and a good story. Now we just follow the GPS. To “know thyself” is hard work. Harder still is to believe that you, with all your flaws, are enough—without checking in, tweeting an update, or sharing a photo as proof of your existence for the approval of your 719 followers. A healthy relationship with your devices is all about taking ownership of your time and making an investment in your life. I’m not calling for any radical, neo-Luddite movement here. Carving out time for yourself is as easy as doing one thing. Walk your dog. Stroll your baby. Go on a date—without your handheld holding your hand. Self-respect, priorities, manners, and good habits are not antiquated ideals to be traded for trends. Not everyone will be capable of shouldering this task of personal responsibility or of being a good example for their children. But the heroes of the next generation will be those who can calm the buzzing and jigging of outside distraction long enough to listen to the sound of their own hearts, those who will follow their own path until they learn to walk erect—not hunched over like a Neanderthal, palm-gazing. Into traffic. You have a choice in where to direct your attention. Choose wisely. The world will wait. And if it’s important, they’ll call back.

I flip the lock back in place and turn, hitting a concrete wall of a man. “What’s he made of? Concrete and sex?” I whisper into the phone like the man in front of me can’t hear me. “Good, he’s already there,” I hear Elle say as my eyes travel up and up an endless span of chest. Up, up, up, until my eyes finally land on a hard face with a clenched jaw. He’s hot in that oh-my-God-he-could-crush-me way. Wait, is that hot? “Listen here, Hulk. You can take your incredible body and vacate my home. I won’t be needing your services.” “I’m standing in the middle of your apartment, and you didn't so much as scream. This is despite you knowing someone has been stalking you. I could have been that someone. Fuck. I could be that someone.” I snort and roll my eyes. “Yeah right, Hulk-man.” I pat him on the chest before resting my hand there. I start to rub. I only meant to do a quick pat, but now I can’t seem to remove my hand. I like the feel of him. I don’t think I’ve ever liked the feel of a man before. I don’t think I’ve ever had the urge to touch one before. “You think I couldn’t hurt you?” He grabs my wrist, pulling it away from his chest. The action makes me frown. Oh, I know he could hurt me, but someone like him would never stalk me. That just didn’t add up to me. If anything, I’d end up stalking him. “Oh, I’m sure you could Hulk smash me.” Now that I’m not touching him, I bring my other hand up to his chest and continue doing what I was doing before, but he just grabs that wrist, too. “Then why aren’t you worried?” His words are hard and laced with anger. So unlike the soft hold he has on my wrist. I could easily pull away with one good tug. Maybe. “Someone like you wouldn’t stalk me.In fact, I don’t see anyone stalking me. There has to be a mi...” His mouth hits mine, cutting off my words. He gives a little tug on my wrist, and I fall into him, gasping when I feel his erection press into me. He takes the opening and pushes his tongue into my mouth. I let my eyes close as he devours me. My body feels like I’m buzzing. I push further into him, wanting to be closer. I deepen the kiss. He goes to pull back, but I wrap my hands around his neck, not even noticing that I’m eye level with him and that my feet are no longer on the floor as I pull him back to me. I move against him, needing the friction. His cock is settled against my core, and I move my hips against him, taking what I want. What I need. Everything else is forgotten, my mind just shuts off. He growls into my mouth, and I swear the sound vibrates through my whole body and goes straight to where I need it. My body explodes. A moan falls from my lips as I finally pull them from his. I let my head drop back and enjoy the sensations rocking through my whole body. I feel like I’m floating. When I finally come back down, I realize I kind of am. My legs are wrapped around his waist and I’ve somehow ended up with my back to a wall. I feel his tongue come out and lick my neck, making my body jerk. “I wanna do that again,” I say lazily. I think I could do that over and over again. “Your place isn’t secure. Come to mine and I’ll do it over and over again.” “Mmkay,” is all I say. I’d probably go anywhere he asked me at the moment. “Holy shit.” I roll my head to the side and see my sister standing in the doorway. A man stands beside her with a shocked looked on his face, mirroring Elle’s expression. I’m guessing that’s her guard. “I’m keeping this one,” I say, locking my arms around him, not wanting to do a trade. “Fuck,” Hart says, placing me on the floor. I regretfully let my arms fall from around his neck. He steps in front of me, blocking my view of my sister and the other man. “I don’t think you should be her guard, Hart,” I hear the other man say. His words make my heart drop. “I’m moving in with him,” I retort, popping my head out from behind him. Elle giggles.

Senor, a large river separated two districts of one and the same lordship—will your worship please to pay attention, for the case is an important and a rather knotty one? Well then, on this river there was a bridge, and at one end of it a gallows, and a sort of tribunal, where four judges commonly sat to administer the law which the lord of river, bridge and the lordship had enacted, and which was to this effect, 'If anyone crosses by this bridge from one side to the other he shall declare on oath where he is going to and with what object; and if he swears truly, he shall be allowed to pass, but if falsely, he shall be put to death for it by hanging on the gallows erected there, without any remission.' Though the law and its severe penalty were known, many persons crossed, but in their declarations it was easy to see at once they were telling the truth, and the judges let them pass free. It happened, however, that one man, when they came to take his declaration, swore and said that by the oath he took he was going to die upon that gallows that stood there, and nothing else. The judges held a consultation over the oath, and they said, 'If we let this man pass free he has sworn falsely, and by the law he ought to die; but if we hang him, as he swore he was going to die on that gallows, and therefore swore the truth, by the same law he ought to go free.' It is asked of your worship, senor governor, what are the judges to do with this man? For they are still in doubt and perplexity; and having heard of your worship's acute and exalted intellect, they have sent me to entreat your worship on their behalf to give your opinion on this very intricate and puzzling case." To this Sancho made answer, "Indeed those gentlemen the judges that send you to me might have spared themselves the trouble, for I have more of the obtuse than the acute in me; but repeat the case over again, so that I may understand it, and then perhaps I may be able to hit the point." The querist repeated again and again what he had said before, and then Sancho said, "It seems to me I can set the matter right in a moment, and in this way; the man swears that he is going to die upon the gallows; but if he dies upon it, he has sworn the truth, and by the law enacted deserves to go free and pass over the bridge; but if they don't hang him, then he has sworn falsely, and by the same law deserves to be hanged." "It is as the senor governor says," said the messenger; "and as regards a complete comprehension of the case, there is nothing left to desire or hesitate about." "Well then I say," said Sancho, "that of this man they should let pass the part that has sworn truly, and hang the part that has lied; and in this way the conditions of the passage will be fully complied with." "But then, senor governor," replied the querist, "the man will have to be divided into two parts; and if he is divided of course he will die; and so none of the requirements of the law will be carried out, and it is absolutely necessary to comply with it." "Look here, my good sir," said Sancho; "either I'm a numskull or else there is the same reason for this passenger dying as for his living and passing over the bridge; for if the truth saves him the falsehood equally condemns him; and that being the case it is my opinion you should say to the gentlemen who sent you to me that as the arguments for condemning him and for absolving him are exactly balanced, they should let him pass freely, as it is always more praiseworthy to do good than to do evil; this I would give signed with my name if I knew how to sign; and what I have said in this case is not out of my own head, but one of the many precepts my master Don Quixote gave me the night before I left to become governor of this island, that came into my mind, and it was this, that when there was any doubt about the justice of a case I should lean to mercy; and it is God's will that I should recollect it now, for it fits this case.

was a commonplace among his colleagues—especially the younger ones—that he was a “dedicated” teacher, a term they used half in envy and half in contempt, one whose dedication blinded him to anything that went on outside the classroom or, at the most, outside the halls of the University. There were mild jokes: after a departmental meeting at which Stoner had spoken bluntly about some recent experiments in the teaching of grammar, a young instructor remarked that “To Stoner, copulation is restricted to verbs,” and was surprised at the quality of laughter and meaningful looks exchanged by some of the older men. Someone else once said, “Old Stoner thinks that WPA stands for Wrong Pronoun Antecedent,” and was gratified to learn that his witticism gained some currency. But William Stoner knew of the world in a way that few of his younger colleagues could understand. Deep in him, beneath his memory, was the knowledge of hardship and hunger and endurance and pain. Though he seldom thought of his early years on the Booneville farm, there was always near his consciousness the blood knowledge of his inheritance, given him by forefathers whose lives were obscure and hard and stoical and whose common ethic was to present to an oppressive world faces that were expressionless and hard and bleak. And though he looked upon them with apparent impassivity, he was aware of the times in which he lived. During that decade when many men’s faces found a permanent hardness and bleakness, as if they looked upon an abyss, William Stoner, to whom that expression was as familiar as the air he walked in, saw the signs of a general despair he had known since he was a boy. He saw good men go down into a slow decline of hopelessness, broken as their vision of a decent life was broken; he saw them walking aimlessly upon the streets, their eyes empty like shards of broken glass; he saw them walk up to back doors, with the bitter pride of men who go to their executions, and beg for the bread that would allow them to beg again; and he saw men, who had once walked erect

I know he makes mistakes, but basically he’s a good kid,” she told him. “Trust him, and trust yourself.” She looked so earnest, he thought, as aroused as he was amused. “You’re the one who shouldn’t be trusting me,” he told her, right before he kissed her. As he lowered his mouth to hers, he wrapped his arms around her and drew her close. She leaned into him, her slender body warm and supple in his embrace. Her lips clung, then parted. When he swept inside, she was hot, sweet and more than willing to take him on. The second his tongue touched hers, she moaned. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, and he felt a shudder ripple through her body. He went from hard to ready to explode in two seconds. The way they were next to each other on a log didn’t allow him to explore her the way he wanted, so he broke the kiss and pulled her to her feet. Phoebe went willingly, if a little unsteadily. When they were both standing, he pressed his mouth to her jaw before sliding to her neck. She moaned and leaned back her head. Their lower bodies brushed against each other. When her belly came in contact with his erection, it was his turn to groan. He slid one hand from her waist up to her breast and cupped the feminine curve. Even through the layers of her shirt and bra, he could feel her tight nipple. One sweep of his thumb against it had her gasping. She touched his head and guided his mouth back to hers. This time when he entered her, she closed her lips around his tongue and sucked. He dropped his free hand to the small of her back, holding her in place so he could rub against her. The thick ropes of his control began to unravel. When she curled both arms around his neck, it seemed natural to place his around her waist and pick her up. She wrapped her legs around his hips, bringing herself in direct contact with his hard-on. It was paradise. It was pure torture. He swore. She broke the kiss and smiled at him. “So you find me annoying, but you still want me,” she whispered. “I don’t find you annoying.” He pushed against her crotch. “I don’t find you annoying, either.

Tell me you didn’t,” she groaned, knowing it would not be the truth. “Please tell me you didn’t take advantage of these poor people.” “I didn’t,” he chirped. “Liar.” With an irritated sigh he tried to convince her. “Amora, you’re not seeing things from an immortal perspective. The people who built this temple…” “Temple?” she cried, cutting him off. “You forced these people to build you a temple? Why? Because all of a sudden you’re God now?” Perturbed by her interruption, he raised a warning finger. “No, no, Amora, not God. But from their viewpoint I may seem a bit…..god-like.” She rolled her eyes in an exaggerated manner. “If you would let me finish,” he went on, “these particular individuals had no part in the construction of that monument; it was their ancestors who erected it. And I must say, they did a fine job. My likeness has weathered the centuries quite well.” “You’re despicable.” He frowned at the insult. “Nobody was forced to build us a temple, Amora. They chose to do so.” “You were that impressive to them, huh?” “Apparently.” His eyes twinkled at the memory. He took a few steps toward the distant city, pulling Eena along. “Come on, let’s go have some fun.” “No way.” She planted her feet, refusing. Surprisingly it put a stop to him. “And why not?” “Because your sudden appearance will upset them! No doubt you’ll want to show off with some shockingly grand entrance. I’m not going to take part in a game of deceit.” “I’m not deceiving anyone,” Edgar disputed. “I can’t help it if they happen to think I’m perfectly magnificent.” His pompous view of himself earned a nasty look as well as a lecture. “I can’t believe you’re okay with selling people lies that affect the way they live and think! You’re not even close to being a god, Edgar, and yet you allow them to accept you as some sort of deity because of your unusual abilities. For centuries now you’ve abandoned this world and a population who probably looked to you and your lousy sisters for help. It’s all a big, disgusting sham!” Edgar pouted like a child. “Fine—spoil all my fun. We’ll go do something else. Something that doesn’t include your poor, fragile, stupid mortals.” “They’re not stupid.” “They think I’m a god,” he snapped. That was a pretty good argument.

Did the Führer take her (mother) away?” The question surprised them both, and it forced Papa to stand up. He looked at the brown-shirted men taking to the pile of ash with shovels. He could hear them hacking into it. Another lie was growing in his mouth, but he found it impossible to let it out. He said, “I think he might have, yes.” “I knew it.” The words were thrown at the steps and Liesel could feel the slush of anger, stirring hotly in her stomach. “I hate the Führer,” she said. “I hate him.” And Hans Hubermann? What did he do? What did he say? Did he bend down and embrace his foster daughter, as he wanted to? Did he tell her that he was sorry for what was happening to her, to her mother, for what had happened to her brother? Not exactly. He clenched his eyes. Then opened them. He slapped Liesel Meminger squarely in the face. “Don’t ever say that!” His voice was quiet, but sharp. As the girl shook and sagged on the steps, he sat next to her and held his face in his hands. It would be easy to say that he was just a tall man sitting poorpostured and shattered on some church steps, but he wasn’t. At the time, Liesel had no idea that her foster father, Hans Hubermann, was contemplating one of the most dangerous dilemmas a German citizen could face. Not only that, he’d been facing it for close to a year. “Papa?” The surprise in her voice rushed her, but it also rendered her useless. She wanted to run, but she couldn’t. She could take a Watschen from nuns and Rosas, but it hurt so much more from Papa. The hands were gone from Papa’s face now and he found the resolve to speak again. “You can say that in our house,” he said, looking gravely at Liesel’s cheek. “But you never say it on the street, at school, at the BDM, never!” He stood in front of her and lifted her by the triceps. He shook her. “Do you hear me?” With her eyes trapped wide open, Liesel nodded her compliance. It was, in fact, a rehearsal for a future lecture, when all of Hans Hubermann’s worst fears arrived on Himmel Street later that year, in the early hours of a November morning. “Good.” He placed her back down. “Now, let us try …” At the bottom of the steps, Papa stood erect and cocked his arm. Forty-five degrees. “Heil Hitler.” Liesel stood up and also raised her arm. With absolute misery, she repeated it. “Heil Hitler.” It was quite a sight—an eleven-year-old girl, trying not to cry on the church steps, saluting the Führer as the voices over Papa’s shoulder chopped and beat at the dark shape in the background.

He was so very gentle, despite his power and size, his fingertips sliding over her in light, beguiling patterns. His focus on her, his awareness of every sound, pulse, shiver, was absolute. His low voice tickled her ear as he murmured how beautiful she was, how good she felt, how hard she made him... and all the while, the thick shaft kept sinking deeper and deeper. By the time he filled her completely, she was feverish with need. A little sob of anticipation escaped her as he began to move. But every thrust was long and agonizingly slow, withholding the last bit of stimulation she needed. He held her more closely now, his weight on her from pelvis to breasts, while his hips rolled and circled, drawing up new surges of feeling. His mouth lowered to one of her breasts, licking and gently gnawing at the erect nipple. Squirming in frustration, she pushed her hips upward, but he pulled back reflexively. "No, love. I could hurt you." "You won't. Please... Keir..." "Please what?" "I need more." His laugh, a smolder of a sound, could have come from the devil himself. "I dinna think you can take more than this, darlin'." "I can." She strained against him. "This deep?" he asked, reaching places in her that had never been touched before. She shook at the pleasure of it. "Oh, God. Yes." His hands grasped her hips, keeping them angled firmly upward as he pumped in a steady rhythm. Slow in... slow out... "Faster," she said desperately. "No' yet," he whispered. "Please," she begged. His low, dark voice curled in her ear. "There's a saying we have about whisky: Slow fire makes sweet malt." She whimpered as he rolled his hips gently, his hardness caressing everywhere inside. The deliberate pace didn't alter, no matter how she tried to drive herself harder onto the rigid length of him. Every time she began to plead for more, his mouth came to hers in another one of those obliterating kisses. None of this was what she'd expected. Her husband had been a considerate lover, doing everything she liked and giving her exactly what she wanted. Keir, however, was doing the exact opposite. He delighted in tormenting her until she didn't recognize herself in the frantic creature she'd become. He was absolutely wicked, shameless, making love to her in ways that felt unimaginably good, always holding satisfaction just out of reach. "You give me so much pleasure, darlin'... more than a body can stand. The way you hold me so tight inside... like that... I can feel you pulling at me. Your wee, hungry body wants me deeper, aye? Put your hands on me... anywhere... ah, how I love your sweet touch...

Whatever comes,” she said, “cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it. There was Marie Antoinette when she was in prison and her throne was gone and she had only a black gown on, and her hair was white, and they insulted her and called her Widow Capet. She was a great deal more like a queen then than when she was so gay and everything was so grand. I like her best then. Those howling mobs of people did not frighten her. She was stronger than they were, even when they cut her head off.” This was not a new thought, but quite an old one, by this time. It had consoled her through many a bitter day, and she had gone about the house with an expression in her face which Miss Minchin could not understand and which was a source of great annoyance to her, as it seemed as if the child were mentally living a life which held her above the rest of the world. It was as if she scarcely heard the rude and acid things said to her; or, if she heard them, did not care for them at all. Sometimes, when she was in the midst of some harsh, domineering speech, Miss Minchin would find the still, unchildish eyes fixed upon her with something like a proud smile in them. At such times she did not know that Sara was saying to herself: “You don’t know that you are saying these things to a princess, and that if I chose I could wave my hand and order you to execution. I only spare you because I am a princess, and you are a poor, stupid, unkind, vulgar old thing, and don’t know any better.” This used to interest and amuse her more than anything else; and queer and fanciful as it was, she found comfort in it and it was a good thing for her. While the thought held possession of her, she could not be made rude and malicious by the rudeness and malice of those about her. “A princess must be polite,” she said to herself. And so when the servants, taking their tone from their mistress, were insolent and ordered her about, she would hold her head erect and reply to them with a quaint civility which often made them stare at her. “She’s got more airs and graces than if she come from Buckingham Palace, that young one,” said the cook, chuckling a little sometimes. “I lose my temper with her often enough, but I will say she never forgets her manners. ‘If you please, cook’; ‘Will you be so kind, cook?’ ‘I beg your pardon, cook’; ‘May I trouble you, cook?’ She drops ’em about the kitchen as if they was nothing.

Raphael pulled out a paperback and handed it to me. The cover, done back in the time when computer-aided imagine manipulation had risen to the level of art, featured an impossibly handsome man, leaning forward, one foot in a huge black boot resting on the carcass of some monstrous sea creature. His hair flowed down to his shoulders in a mane of white gold, in stark contrast to his tanned skin and the rakish black patch hiding his left eye. His white, translucent shirt hung open, revealing abs of steel and a massive, perfectly carved chest graced by erect nipples. His muscled thighs strained the fabric of his pants, which were unbuttoned and sat loosely on his narrow hips, a touch of a strategically positioned shadow hinting at the world’s biggest boner. The cover proclaimed in loud golden letters: The Privateer’s Virgin Mistress, by Lorna Sterling. “Novel number four for Andrea’s collection?” I guessed. Raphael nodded and took the book from my hands. “I’ve got the other one Andrea wanted, too. Can you explain something to me?” Oh boy. “I can try.” He tapped the book on his leather-covered knee. “The pirate actually holds this chick’s brother for ransom, so she’ll sleep with him. These men, they aren’t real men. They’re pseudo-bad guys just waiting for the love of a ‘good’ woman.” “You actually read the books?” He gave me a chiding glance. “Of course I read the books. It’s all pirates and the women they steal, apparently so they can enjoy lots of sex and have somebody to run their lives.” Wow. He must’ve had to hide under his blanket with a flashlight so nobody would question his manliness. Either he really was in love with Andrea or he had a terminal case of lust. “These guys, they’re all bad and aggressive as shit, and everybody wets themselves when they walk by, and then they meet some girl and suddenly they’re not uber-alphas; they are just misunderstood little boys who want to talk about their feelings.” “Is there a point to this dissertation?” He faced me. “I can’t be that. If that’s what she wants, then I shouldn’t even bother.” I sighed. “Do you have a costume kink? French maid, nurse . . .” “Catholic school girl.” Bingo. “You wouldn’t mind Andrea wearing a Catholic school uniform, would you?” “No, I wouldn’t.” His eyes glazed over and he slipped off to some faraway place. I snapped my fingers. “Raphael! Focus.” He blinked at me. “I’m guessing—and this is just a wild stab in the dark—that Andrea might not mind if once in a while you dressed up as a pirate. But I wouldn’t advise holding her relatives for ransom nookie. She might shoot you in the head. Several times. With silver bullets.

They'd eaten dinner in bed, and Lindsay had accidentally dropped an edamame bean down her towel dress, which he'd needed to fish out. With his mouth, naturally. "Ohhh," she moaned again. Was she trying to kill him? "My dick is hard enough to hammer nails," he said, gritting his teeth. 'I could be a proper handyman now." She didn't seem to hear him. She was too busy moaning as he rubbed her foot, using one of the techniques he'd discovered using Google. This would be the end of him. When she shimmied a little to adjust her position, her towel dress split apart, and fuck, it was a beautiful view. Her skin was so dewy, but her nipples were tight buds... He could be a fairly patient man at times, but this was testing his limits. "That's it," he growled. "I'll do the other foot afterward." "After...?" A moment later, he was on top of her. He slipped his hand down her body, cupping her mound as his middle finger slid inside her. She made some noises that were even better than the ones she'd made earlier, and she certainly squirmed more than she had during the foot massage. He grinned down at her. "How does that feel? Am I hitting the right spot?" "Yeah, that's a good...spot," she said in a strangled voice. He thrust a finger inside her before bending down and bringing the peak of her nipple into his mouth. She jerked beneath him. "What about that spot?" he asked, raising his head. In response, she cupped the back of his head and brought it down to her other breast. He tugged the brownish pink tip into his mouth as he continued to pleasure her between her legs. "Ryan," she moaned, raking her nails over his back. He didn't care about anything but making her feel good right now. He slid down her body and circled his tongue over her clit before feasting on her. "Is that the right spot?" Her inarticulate response was certainly gratifying, and when he looked up, she shoved his head back down. He chuckled. It didn't take long before she was coming apart, bucking against his face, twisting the sheets in her hands. He moved up her body and kissed her slowly, reverently on the lips as he fumbled for a condom. When he finally managed to roll it on, his hands shaking, he positioned his erection at her entrance and pushed inside. Sex was different with her than with other women. Not that sex had been bad for him before, and not that his partners hadn't enjoyed themselves---he always made sure of it. But. This. This was something else entirely. She ran her foot over the back of his leg, and he groaned as he pumped inside her. Her lips were parted, and he needed to kiss them. So, he did. She met him greedily, and that spurred him on. He didn't move faster; rather, he moved deeper. Filling her up, pulling back... again and again... When he stopped kissing her, he watched every little change in her expression, and then her face contorted in the loveliest way, and she cried out.

Wrath…” “What,” he murmured against her, working her with his nose. “You don’t like?” “Shut up and get back to doing—” His tongue slipping under the panties cut her off…and made him have to slow himself down. She was so slick and wet and soft and willing, it was all he could do to keep himself from hauling her on the rug and going at her deep and hard. And then they’d both miss out on the fun of anticipation. Moving the cotton aside with his hand, he kissed her pink flesh, then delved in. She was oh, so ready for him, and he knew it because of the honey that he swallowed as he dragged upward in a long, slow lick. But it wasn’t enough, and holding the panties to the side was distracting. With his fang, he punctured them, then split them apart right up the middle, leaving the two halves to hang off her hips. His palms went up to her ass and squeezed hard as he quit fooling around and got busy working out his female with his mouth. He knew exactly what she liked best, the sucking and the licking and the going in with his tongue. Closing his eyes, he took it all in, the scent and the taste and the feel of her shuddering against him as she peaked and came apart. Behind the fly of his leathers, his cock was screaming for attention, the rasp of the buttons not nearly sufficient to satisfy what it was demanding, but tough shit. His erection was going to have to chill for a while, because this was too sweet to stop anytime soon. When Beth’s knees wobbled, he took her down to the floor and stretched one of her legs up, keeping to his pace while shoving her fleece to her neck and putting his hand under her bra. As she orgasmed again, she grabbed onto one of the desk legs, pulling hard and bracing her free foot into the rug. His pursuit pushed them both farther and farther beneath where he discharged his kingly duties until he had to crouch down to fit his shoulders. Eventually her head was out the other side and she was gripping the pansy-ass chair he sat in and dragging it with her. As she cried out his name once more, he prowled up her body and glared at the stupid, nancy chair. “I need something heavier to sit in.” Last coherent thing he said. His body found the entrance to hers with an ease that spoke of all the practice they’d had and…Oh, yeah, still as good as the first time. Wrapping his arms around her, he rode her hard, and she was right there with him as the storm rolling through his body gathered in his balls until they stung. Together, he and his shellan moved as one, giving, receiving, going faster and faster until he came and kept going and came again and kept going until something hit his face. In full animal mode, he growled and swiped at it with his fangs. It was the drapes. He’d managed to fuck them out from under the desk, past the chair, and over to the wall. Beth burst out laughing and so did he, and then they were cradling each other.

Amazing.” Anders glanced around with a start. He found Lucian leaning against the door frame, eyeing him with amusement. “What?” he asked, sitting up straight. “How everything can change so swiftly,” Lucian said dryly, moving into the kitchen. Anders watched him get a glass out of the cupboard before asking mildly, “And what is it you think is changing?” “Three days ago when you first realized you couldn’t read her and that she might possibly be your life mate, you weren’t happy,” Lucian said. He filled the glass with water, took a drink, and then continued, “You didn’t like the idea of anyone stealing so much of your attention, of having something to lose, of becoming a mother hen like me, or of being led around by your dick. Now you want to follow that presently very evident dick upstairs and claim Valerie by any means necessary.” Anders glanced down to note that not only did he still have an erection, but it was very evident in his boxers. Grabbing one of the couch pillows, he dragged it over his lap and muttered, “You caught all that from reading my thoughts, did you?” “Clear as glass,” Lucian said. “Right.” Anders said and grimaced at the knowledge that Lucian had read his less than complimentary thoughts about his worry for Leigh and being led around by his dick. Raising an eyebrow, he asked, “Do I owe you an apology?” “Nope. I can hardly complain when I was eavesdropping on your thoughts.” He took another drink of his water. As Lucian lowered the glass, he swallowed, and added, “But I’d go softly with Valerie. I wouldn’t want you to rush things and blow it.” “Thanks for the advice,” Anders said dryly. “I’m serious,” Lucian said softly. Anders stilled. As a rule, Lucian could be counted on to growl, grunt, or bark. His voice only got that soft, solemn sound on very rare occasions. When it did, you were smart to listen. Anders nodded. “I’m listening.” “She just experienced a nightmarish two weeks at the hands of what she thinks is a vampire. One of our kind,” he pointed out. “Ten days and nights in the flesh and three in fever-driven nightmares.” “But we aren’t vampires,” Anders pointed out. “We’re immortals.” “Semantics,” Lucian said with a shrug. “It won’t make any difference to her whether we are the mythological cursed and soulless beast Stoker wrote about, or scientifically evolved mortals turned nearly immortal by bio-engineered nanos that were introduced into our blood before the fall of Atlantis.” “Scientifically evolved mortals who need more blood than the human body can produce to power those nanos,” Anders added wearily. Lucian nodded. “We have fangs, we don’t age, we are hard to kill and we need blood to survive. To her and many others, we are vampires.” “We drink bagged blood to survive now,” Anders argued. “The immortal who kidnapped and held Valerie and the other women is a rogue.” “True,” Lucian agreed. “Unfortunately, Valerie’s first encounter with our kind was via that rogue. She, understandably, is not going to be very receptive to the possibility that there are good guys among our kind. She needs to get to know and trust us, you especially, before you reveal too much.” Anders nodded, seeing the wisdom in what he said. Then he cleared his throat and asked, “By don’t reveal too much, you aren’t including—” “No,” Lucian said, rare amusement curving his lips. “Bed her all you want, just keep your mouth shut while you do. At least until you think she can handle it. Otherwise,” he warned, “you could lose the chance of a lifetime.

Rowan coughed and spluttered on his gulp of beer. “I’ve never played with my pussy,” he said with an amused glint in his eye.” Her cheeks heated at his dirty language, but the tingles running under her skin made her aware of her reaction to being alone in the hotel room with Rowan, sitting on the big bed and playing silly games. “I’ve never touched a woman’s breasts beside my own.” “I’ve never given a blow job.” “I’ve never received a blow job,” she said, tilting the mini wine bottle to her mouth and realizing it was empty. “I’ve never played I never with a woman I love before,” he said, setting his beer can on the nightstand with a clink. “I’ve never kissed a man in a hotel room before.” She pressed forward onto her hands and knees to reach and kiss him. Their lips lingered for a long moment before she leaned back and waited for his next I never. “I’ve never removed a woman’s shirt in a hotel room.” Now it was his turn to lean forward and tug her sweater up over her head. She thought long and hard about her next words, knowing he would act on whatever she said. “I’ve never ordered a man to take off his shirt in a hotel room,” she said finally and watched happily as he removed his long sleeve navy cotton T–shirt. She’d never tire of seeing his smooth skin over hard pectorals. A narrow line of hair trailed down the center of his belly disappearing into jeans. She’d licked her way along that line yesterday and licked her lips now in anticipation of tasting him again. “I’ve never kissed a woman’s nipples in a hotel room,” he said. In a flash, her bra was flying through the air to land in a pile on the carpet in front of the window, and Rowan’s mouth was on her breasts. Sensation spiraled through her as she shuddered and her arousal built. She’d been on edge since their heated kisses in the car in the parking lot, and it didn’t take much for Rowan’s tongue to turn her into a shuddering, needy wanton. “I think this game has turned from I Never into Truth or Dare,” she said, clasping Rowan’s head to her chest. He pulled away from his decadent kisses to look her in the face. “Let’s do it. Dare me, Jill.” The look in his eye told her she might’ve taken on more than she could handle. Though she’d been an active participant in their lovemaking up to now, Rowan had taken the lead and guided her. She had the power here. The question was what to do with it. “I dare you to”—she licked her lips thoughtfully—“I dare you to get naked and lie on your back. Eyes closed,” she added. When all was as she wanted, she leaned over him and planted a kiss on his lips. Then she kissed her way down his body, stopping at all the best spots. His chin, where his unshaven beard scratched at her skin. His pectorals, one nipple, then another. His belly button. “You’re ticklish,” she observed. “Yeah.” Then she made her way lower to his erection, lying over his belly pointing at the chin. She freaking loved his body and how it reacted to her every touch. Being alone with him in the hotel room was even better. Here there were no echoes of footsteps in the hallway, no clock ticking signaling the end of their hour together, no narrow bed forcing them to get creative in their positions. They had a king–size bed and a whole night to explore. Kneeling at the side, she took him in her mouth, eliciting a moan. His musky taste filled her mouth, and she lovingly used her tongue to drive him wild. His hand found the crease of her jeans between her legs and explored her while she used her mouth on him. She parted her legs, giving him better access, and it was all she could do to concentrate on giving him pleasure when he was making her feel so good. She wanted to straddle him so bad. The temptation to stop the foreplay and ride this thing to completion was great, but she held off. “Are you ready for me?” Rowan asked. “You want my cock in you?” His eyes remained closed, and a smile lingered on his face.