Heel Click Quotes

To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else's heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.

Some girls need men to take them places. Others just click their heels, spread their own wings, and fly.

It's true. It's like the hidden secret that no one tells you. we can all be beautiful girls, Colie. it's so easy. it's like Dorothy clicking her heels to go home. You could do it all along.

It's in the click of my heels, The bend of my hair, the palm of my hand, The need of my care, 'Cause I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me.

How did you do that?” I shrug. “I click my heels three times and say, ‘There’s no place like home.’” “Uh-huh. So … you think this is your home? My barn? His tone is playful, but the look he’s giving me is dead serious. A question. “Haven’t you guessed by now?” I say, my heart hammering. “My home is you.

His breath caught, harsh enough that she looked over her shoulder. But his eyes weren't on her face. Or the water. They were on her bare back. Curled as she was against her knees, he could see the whole expanse of ruined flesh, each scar from the lashing. "Who did that to you?" It would have been easy to lie, but she was so tired, and he had saved her useless hide. So she said, "A lot of people. I spent some time in the Salt Mines of Endovier." He was so still that she wondered if he'd stopped breathing. "How long?" he asked after a moment. She braced herself for the pity, but his face was so carefully blank-no, not blank. Calm with lethal rage. "A year. I was there a year before... it's a long story." She was too exhausted, her throat too raw, to say the rest of it. She noticed then his arms were bandaged, and more bandages across his broad chest peeked up from beneath his shirt. She'd burned him again. And yet he had held her- had run all the way here and not let go once. "You were a slave." She gave him a slow nod. He opened his mouth, but shut it and swallowed, that lethal rage winking out. As if he remembered who he was talking to and that it was the least punishment she deserved. He turned on his heel and shut the door behind him. She wished he'd slammed it-wished he'd shattered it. But he closed it with barely more than a click and did not return.

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size But when I start to tell them, They think I'm telling lies. I say, It's in the reach of my arms The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me. I walk into a room Just as cool as you please, And to a man, The fellows stand or Fall down on their knees. Then they swarm around me, A hive of honey bees. I say, It's the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth, The swing in my waist, And the joy in my feet. I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me. Men themselves have wondered What they see in me. They try so much But they can't touch My inner mystery. When I try to show them They say they still can't see. I say, It's in the arch of my back, The sun of my smile, The ride of my breasts, The grace of my style. I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me. Now you understand Just why my head's not bowed. I don't shout or jump about Or have to talk real loud. When you see me passing It ought to make you proud. I say, It's in the click of my heels, The bend of my hair, the palm of my hand, The need of my care, 'Cause I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me.

You just click your heels and think there's no place like being pwned.

Nick and Vero glanced up as my heels clicked into the kitchen. Vero looked confused. “I’m sorry. Do I know you? Because I thought I worked for a vampire in yoga pants.

Believe me when I say: 'Out of all those around, she’s the best locksmith in town.' Her stethoscope ears know when the dials of your heart click into place. She’s been cutting keys for years. You don’t stand a chance with that flimsy case. Alas, no matter how you lock your heart— bolt, fixture, and key— she’s got nimble fingers that pick locks for free. Padlocks and deadbolts are all in vain. Why do you even bother with that chain? She’s way too smart. Along with ours, she’ll have your heart. And you will see that the best locksmith in town is she.

He handed me a bandana. "Tie that on." "Why?" I said, but I did it anyway. "Norman, you are way too into ceremony." "It's important." I could hear him moving around, adjusting things, before he came to sit beside me. "Okay," he said. "Take a look." I pulled off the blindfold. Beside me, Norman watched me see myself for the first time. And it was me. At least, it was a girl who looked like me. She was sitting on the back stoop of the restaurant, legs crossed and dangling down. She had her head slightly tilted, as if she had been asked something and was waiting for the right moment to respond, smiling slightly behind the sunglasses that were perched on her nose, barely reflecting part of a blue sky. The girl was something else, though. Something I hadn't expected. She was beautiful. Not in the cookie-cutter way of all the faces encircling Isabel's mirror. And not in the easy, almost effortless style of a girl like Caroline Dawes. This girl who stared back at me, with her lip ring and her half smile - not quite earned - knew she wasn't like the others. She knew the secret. And she'd clicked her heels three times to find her way home. "Oh, my God," I said to Norman, reaching forward to touch the painting, which still didn't seem real. My own face, bumpy and textured beneath my fingers, stared back at me. "Is this how you see me?" "Colie." He was right beside me. "That's how you are.

I can click my heels together all I want, but there's just no place to go.

Trent grinned and winked at him. "Just a heel click of my ruby slippers away, baby.

He pushed his two feet together and shot his right arm in the air before clicking his two heels together and saying in a deep and clear voice as possible the words he said every time he left a soldiers presence. 'Heil Hitler,' he said, which, he presumed, was another way of saying, 'Well, goodbye for now, have a pleasant afternoon'.

Miss Clover," said Minister Fairweller to the Viscount after a long moment, "is not here. She has gone to a speech with her father, in Werttemberg. I could set you up with a carriage, if you'd like." The girls' mouths dropped open. Viscount Duquette did not see. "Well!" he said,clicking his heels together. "It is nice to see that someone behaves like a gentleman around here!" The girls found Clover about an hour later, hidinga mong the untrimmed unicorn and lion topiaries, weeping on a stone bench. They flocked to her, wrapped an extra shawl around her shoulders, and told her the story. "Werttemberg, though," said Eve. That's two countries away!" Clover wept and laughed at the same time.

To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the pavement,the flight of her hands,the gold of her laughter.

Five A.M., that's the best time, when the clicking of your heels on the sidewalk sounds illicit.

I’ve said to my kids, ‘I don’t want you to think I jumped away from you and clicked my heels and said bon voyage. It wasn’t like that at all. It just about destroyed me.'

Put those heels away. That click, click, click, click is Morse code for rapists. It says their sentence will be lenient or non-existent. If only she didn't wear stilettos. If only she didn't walk through a park. If only she didn't go out at night.

Mr Wisdom,' said the girl who had led him into the presence. 'Ah,' said Howard Saxby, and there was a pause of perhaps three minutes, during which his needles clicked busily. 'Wisdom, did she say?' 'Yes. I wrote "Cocktail Time"' 'You couldn't have done better,' said Mr Saxby cordially. 'How's your wife, Mr Wisdom?' Cosmo said he had no wife. 'Surely?' "I'm a bachelor.' Then Wordsworth was wrong. He said you were married to immortal verse. Excuse me a moment,' murmured Mr Saxby, applying himself to the sock again. 'I'm just turning the heel. Do you knit?' 'No.' 'Sleep does. It knits the ravelled sleave of care.' (After a period of engrossed knitting, Cosmo coughs loudly to draw attention to his presence.) 'Goodness, you made me jump!' he (Saxby) said. 'Who are you?' 'My name, as I have already told you, is Wisdom' 'How did you get in?' asked Mr Saxby with a show of interest. 'I was shown in.' 'And stayed in. I see, Tennyson was right. Knowledge comes, but Wisdom lingers. Take a chair.' 'I have.' 'Take another,' said Mr Saxby hospitably.

A philosopher,' said Mrs. Cantanker, stalking across the study, black heels clicking, ruby silks whispering around her ankles, 'is one who attempts to capture the truths of the universe so precisely that they become too confusing to understand. A novelist is one who attempts to capture the truths of the universe in such a roundabout way that they become obvious to anyone who reads them.

You don't know me. I'm not good enough for you. I'm not what you think." He chuckled. "Isn't that usually what the guy tells the girl?" "I guess," I said, sucking in my cheeks and clicking my heels together. "But in this case, it's true.

And I wished myself back—back to the future or wherever home was supposed to be—clicking my heels together in a frantic ticking heart staccato like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.

Just click your heels together three times and say, there's no one like Cam, and I'll appear.

I am the law.” “Apparently. Heil.” I click my heels together and salute.

The quality of Venice that accomplishes what religion so often cannot is that Venice has made peace with the waters. It is not merely pleasant that the sea flows through, grasping the city like tendrils of vine, and, depending upon the light, making alleys and avenues of emerald and sapphire, Citi s a brave acceptance of dissolution and an unflinching settlement with death. Though in Venice you may sit in courtyards of stone, and your heels may click up marble stairs, you cannot move without riding upon or crossing the waters that someday will carry you in dissolution to the sea.

In theory at any rate each militia was a democracy and not a hierarchy . It was understood that orders had to be obeyed, but it was also understood that when you gave an order you gave it as comrade to comrade and not as superior to inferior. There were officers and NCOs, but there was no military rank in the ordinary sense; not titles, no badges, no heel-clicking and saluting. They had attempted to produce within the militias a sort of temporary working model of the classless society.

How are you holding up?" "I'm good.And still untouched," she added. "Are you alone in that bed?" "Except for the six members of the all-girl Swedish volleyball team.Helga's got a hell of a spike.Aren't you going to ask what I'm wearing?" "Black Speedos,sweat,and a big smile." "How'd you guess?So,what are you wearing?" Slowly,she ran a tongue around her teeth. "Oh,just this little..very little..white lace teddy." "And stiletto heels." "Naturally.With a pair of sheer hose.They have little pink roses around the tops. It matches the one I'm tucking between my breasts right now. I should add I've just gotten out of the tub.I'm still a little..wet." "Jesus.You're too good at this.I'm hanging up." Her response was a long, throaty laugh."I'm going to love driving the Jag.let me know when to expect the shipment." When the phone clicked in her ear,she laughed again,turned, and found herself nearly face to face wth Kate. "how long have you been standing there?" "Long enough to be confused.Were you just having [hone sex with Josh? Our Josh?" Carelessly,Margo brushed her hair behind her ear. "It was more foreplay really.

All over Atlanta that fall, in the blue twilights, girls came clicking home from their jobs in their clunky heels and miniskirts and opened their apartment windows to the winesap air, and got out ice cubes, and put on Petula Clark singing 'Downtown', and sat down to wait. Soon the young men would come, drifting out of their bachelor apartments in Bermuda shorts and Topsiders, carrying beers and gin and tonics, looking for a refill and a a date and the keeping of promises that hung in the bronze air like fruit on the eve of ripeness.

She was now more than ever confronted with the outward cries of help that leaped at her like an overflowing bathtub where the water had grown cold and rancid. The catastrophe had caught up with her. It had always been there, a re-emerging siren in scarlet tones, a temptation of the abysmal artillery of the brain, a carousel waltzing with crazed horses, the heel-clicking and tap-dancing back chambers where arthropods lay on their carapaces.

Everyday I rewrite her name across my ribcage so that those who wish to break my heart will know who to answer to later She has no idea that I’ve taught my tongue to make pennies, and every time our mouths are to meet I will slip coins to the back of her throat and make wishes I wish that someday my head on her belly might be like home like doubt to doubt resuscitation because time is supposed to mean more than skin She doesn’t know that I have taught my arms to close around her clocks so they can withstand the fallout from her Autumn She is so explosive, volcanoes watch her and learn terrorists want to strap her to their chests because she is a cause worth dying for Maybe someday time will teach me to pick up her pieces put her back together and remind her to click her heels but she doesn’t need a wizard to tell her that I was here all along Lady let us catch the next tornado home let us plant cantaloupe trees in our backyard then maybe together we will realize that we don’t like cantaloupe and they don’t grow on trees we can laugh about it then we can plant things we’ve never heard of I’ve never heard of a woman who can make flawed look so beautiful the way you do The word smitten is to how I feel about you what a kiss is to romance so maybe my lips to yours could be the penance to this confession because I am the only one preaching your defunct religion sitting alone at your altar, praising you out of faith I cannot do this hard-knock life alone You are all the softness a rock dreams of being the mistakes the rain makes at picnics when Mother Nature bears witness in much better places So yes I will gladly take on your ocean just to swim beneath you so I can kiss the bends of your knees in appreciation for the work they do keeping your head above water

There was a click of high heels in the hall behind us, and a young woman appeared. She was pretty enough, I suspected, but in the tight black dress, black hose, and with her hair slicked back like that, it was sort of threatening. She gave me a slow, cold look and said, "So. I see that you’re keeping low company after all, Ravenius." Ever suave, I replied, "Uh. What?" "’Ah-ree," Thomas said. I glanced at him. He put his hand flat on the top of his head and said, "Do this." I peered at him. He gave me a look. I sighed and put my hand on the top of my head. The girl in the black dress promptly did the same thing and gave me a smile. "Oh, right, sorry. I didn’t realize." "I will be back in one moment," Thomas said, his accent back. "Personal business." "Right," she said, "sorry. I figured Ennui had stumbled onto a subplot." She smiled again, then took her hand off the top of her head, reassumed that cold, haughty expression, and stalked clickety-clack back to the bistro. I watched her go, turned to my brother while we both stood there with our hands flat on top of our heads, elbows sticking out like chicken wings, and said, "What does this mean?" "We’re out of character," Thomas said. "Oh," I said. "And not a subplot." "If we had our hands crossed over our chests," Thomas said, "we’d be invisible." "I missed dinner," I said. I put my other hand on my stomach. Then, just to prove that I could, I patted my head and rubbed my stomach. "Now I’m out of character—and hungry.

She led him down the hallway with long strides, heels clicking hard and precise like the sounds a faithful blacksmith makes early in the morning.

Didn’t think it was possible for the world to change so suddenly. I was aware of other people moving up and down the corridor: I heard heels clicking, people speaking, felt some bodies push past mine. But I felt so alone, as though within the space of time it had taken Yejide to say, “They have taken Olamide to the mortuary” I had been transported to a planet with no human life.

In New York it’s not three or four A.M. that’s the quiet time—there are too many bar stragglers, calling out to each other as they collapse into taxis, yelping into their cell phones as they frantically smoke that one last cigarette before bed. Five A.M., that’s the best time, when the clicking of your heels on the sidewalk sounds illicit. All the people have been put away in their boxes, and you have the whole place to yourself.

Every day there were three shifts of police. When they changed shifts, the two troopers would salute the sergeant. Some saluted an army salute, but others saluted like the nazis did in Germany. They held their hands in front of them and clicked their heels.

I miss the old Berlin of the Republic, the care-free, emancipated, civilized air, the snubnosed young women with short-bobbed hair and the young men with either cropped or long hair—it made no difference—who sat up all night with you and discussed anything with intelligence and passion. The constant Heil Hitler’s, clicking of heels, and brown-shirted storm troopers or black-coated S.S. guards marching up and down the street grate me, though the old-timers say there are not nearly so many brown-shirts about since the purge.

She shot him a smile, sweet and acidic, as she turned on her heels. She quickened her pace, the clicking of her shoes beating almost in time with her turbulent heart. And there, just beneath her heartbeat under layers of muscle and sinew, was the sound of a gun going off six times.

Glokta's walking made a steady rhythm on the grimy tiles of the floor. First the confident click of his right heel, then the tap of his cane, then the endless sliding of his left foot, with the familiar stabbing pains in the ankle, knee, arse and back. Click, tap, pain. That was the rhythm of his walking.

Her dreams felt so far out of reach. She’d faced one of them tonight, faced him in four-inch heels. But four-inch heels didn’t make her any younger. She couldn’t click her four-inch heels together and find her true way home. Four inches didn’t bring her any closer to happiness. Four inches didn’t erase the past.

I could hear the *click clack* of my heels on the brick walkway. *click* A boy starts a ballet class and doesn’t worry about what his friends will say. *clack* A college student reads Judith Butler. *click* A transgender person understands that, while they have a difficult life to face, they will not be alone. *clack* A sex worker reclaims her dignity and autonomy from a world that says she’s worthless. *click* A woman finds freedom from her abusive husband. *clack* A friend, struggling with bulimia, realizes that she is beautiful. *click* All people, man and woman, realize that in some small way, they have not been true to themselves, and the bonds of gender stereotypes and heterosexism dissolve into truth.

I was going to click my heels and go home, where life would be, as it is anywhere, a little bit dull Knasas, a little bit great and terrible Oz. I just wanted to stand here for a minute, first, and fix in my memory the life I wasn't choosing, the way Rajiv looked at me before I told him I was leaving, the cottonwood snow. Nathan watched me, an uncertain look on his perfectly, terribly familiar face. "Are you ready?" he said

It seems to be little noticed that this yearning to dragoon and terrify all persons who happen to be lucky is at the bottom of the puerile radicalism now prevailing among us, just as it is at the bottom of Ku Kluxery. The average American radical today likes to think of himself as a profound and somber fellow, privy to arcana not open to the general; he is actually only a poor fish, with distinct overtones of the jackass. What ails him, first and last, is simply envy of his betters. Unable to make any progress against them under the rules in vogue, he proposes to fetch them below the belt by making the rules over. He is no more an altruist than J. Pierpont Morgan is an altruist, or Jim Farley, or, indeed, Al Capone. Every such rescuer of the downtrodden entertains himself with gaudy dreams of power, far beyond his natural fortunes and capacities. He sees himself at the head of an overwhelming legion of morons, marching upon the fellows he envies and hates. He thinks of himself in his private reflections (and gives it away every time he makes a speech or prints an article) as a gorgeous amalgam of Lenin, Mussolini and Genghis Khan, with the Republic under his thumb, his check for any amount good at any bank, and ten million heels clicking every time he winks his eye.

her small white dog Bouton hurrying at her heels to keep up. A far cry from the fluffy lapdogs so popular with the ladies of the Court, he looked vaguely like a cross between a poodle and a dachshund, with a rough, kinky coat whose fringes fluttered along the edges of a wide belly and stumpy, bowed legs. His feet, splay-toed and black-nailed, clicked frantically over the stones of the floor as he trotted after Mother Hildegarde, pointed muzzle almost touching the sweeping black folds of her habit. “Is that a dog?” I had asked one of the orderlies in amazement, when I first beheld Bouton, passing through the Hôpital at the heels of his mistress. He paused in his floor-sweeping to look after the curly, plumed tail, disappearing into the next ward. “Well,” he said doubtfully, “Mother Hildegarde says he’s a dog. I wouldn’t like to be the one to say he isn’t.

She hears the men near the front of the open-air space, where they are tending to the wounded, shouting at one another, blaming one another in a language she doesn’t understand. But she understands panic in any tongue. She lets her heels click loudly enough for them to hear her coming. She didn’t want to preannounce her arrival lest there be an ambush awaiting her—old habits die hard—but likewise she finds no advantage in startling a group of heavily armed, violent men.

cafeteria, his heels clicking hollowly. Above, the fluorescents embedded in their long fixtures like inverted ice-cube trays threw a hard, shadowless light. There were more bodies. A man and a woman with their clothes off and holes in their heads. They screwed, Starkey thought, and then he shot her, and then he shot himself. Love among the viruses. The pistol, an army-issue .45, was still clutched in his hand. The tile floor was spotted with blood and gray stuff that looked like oatmeal.

The essential point of the system was social equality between officers and men. Everyone from general to private drew the same pay, ate the same food, wore the same clothes, and mingled on terms of complete equality. If you wanted to slap the general commanding the division on the back and ask him for a cigarette, you could do so, and no one thought it curious. In theory at any rate each militia was a democracy and not a hierarchy. It was understood that orders had to be obeyed, but it was also understood that when you gave an order you gave it as comrade to comrade and not as superior to inferior. There were officers and N.C.O.S. but there was no military rank in the ordinary sense; no titles, no badges, no heel-clicking and saluting. They had attempted to produce within the militias a sort of temporary working model of the classless society. Of course there was no perfect equality, but there was a nearer approach to it than I had ever seen or than I would have thought conceivable in time of war.

I looked back and forth between them, feeling the heat of their anger, the unspoken words swelling in the air like smoke. Jerry took a slow sip from his beer and lit another cigarette. "You don't know anything about that little girl," he told Nona. "You're just jealous because Cap belongs to her now." I could see Nona's heartbeat flutter beneath her t-shirt, the cords tightening in her neck. "Her mommy and daddy might have paid for him," she whispered. "But he's mine." I waited for Jerry to cave in to her, to apologize, to make things right between them. But he held her gaze, unwavering. "He's not." Nona stubbed her cigarette out on the barn floor, then stood. "If you don't believe me," she whispered, "I'll show you." My sister crossed the barn to Cap's stall and clicked her tongue at him. His gold head appeared in the doorway and Nona swung the stall door open. "Come on out." she told him. Don't!" I said, but she didn't pause. Cap took several steps forward until he was standing completely free in the barn. I jumped up, blocking the doorway so that he couldn't bolt. Jerry stood and widened himself beside me, stretching out his arms. "What the hell are you doing?" he asked. Nona stood beside Cap's head and lifted her arms as though she was holding an invisible lead rope. When she began to walk, Cap moved alongside her, matching his pace to hers. Whoa," Nona said quietly and Cap stopped. My sister made small noises with her tongue, whispering words we couldn't hear. Cap's ears twitched and his weight shifted as he adjusted his feet, setting up perfectly in showmanship form. Nona stepped back to present him to us, and Jerry and I dropped our arms to our sides. Ta da!" she said, clapping her hands at her own accomplishment. Very impressive," Jerry said in a low voice. "Now put the pony away." Again, Nona lifted her hands as if holding a lead rope, and again, Cap followed. She stepped into him and he turned on his heel, then walked beside her through the barn and back into his stall. Once he was inside, Nona closed the door and held her hands out to us. She hadn't touched him once. Now," she said evenly. "Tell me again what isn't mine." Jerry sank back into his chair, cracking open a fresh beer. "If that horse was so important to you, maybe you shouldn't have left him behind to be sold off to strangers." Nona's face constricted, her cheeks and neck darkening in splotches of red. "Alice, tell him," she whispered. "Tell him that Cap belongs to me." Sheila Altman could practice for the rest of her life, and she would never be able to do what my sister had just done. Cap would never follow her blindly, never walk on water for her. But my eyes traveled sideways to Cap's stall where his embroidered halter hung from its hook. If the Altmans ever moved to a different town, they would take Cap with them. My sister would never see him again. It wouldn't matter what he would or wouldn't do for her. My sister waited a moment for me to speak, and when I didn't, she burst into tears, her shoulders heaving, her mouth wrenching open. Jerry and I glanced at each other, startled by the sudden burst of emotion. You can both go to hell," Nona hiccuped, and turned for the house. "Right straight to hell.

Rowan didn’t speak as she turned on her heel and strode to the door. Didn’t speak as she opened it, exited, and shut it behind her with a gentle click. Then he swiveled in his chair and leveled Sean with a dark glare. “What the hell just happened?” “That’s called a strikeout,” Sean said with a grin. “I’ve never seen you crash and burn like that, my friend.” “I know. Embarrassing is what it is. I mean, really.” Rowan tangled his fingers through his hair. “You got a better response than I did.” “Please, I got nothing, same as you.” Rowan offered him a sheepish smile. “I know. But I felt the heat pulsing off you the moment she stepped into the office. Then I saw the fantasies you were weaving about her and decided to throw you a bone. So you want her, huh?” Sean lost his grin but managed to shrug. “Doesn’t matter. Unless you picked up on her weaving fantasies about me?” A sigh. “Sorry. Her mind was a blank slate to me. I didn’t pick up on a single thought, emotion, or desire. It’s like she operates on a completely different frequency than the rest of the world.” She probably did, with all those wires and chips in her head. “Still,” Rowan continued, “we can call Bill and tell him you’re the one who should be—” “Nope.” The word burned his tongue, and he hated himself for saying it, but he didn’t take it back. Success was too important. “I don’t exactly inspire trust in the women I date. The opposite, in fact. Something about me makes people distrust every word and action.” His affiliation with the shadows, with darkness, most likely. They must have sensed it on some level. “You’re better at romancing and I’m better at killing.

Phenomenal Woman Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size But when I start to tell them, They think I'm telling lies. I say, It's in the reach of my arms, The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me. I walk into a room Just as cool as you please, And to a man, The fellows stand or Fall down on their knees. Then they swarm around me, A hive of honey bees. I say, It's the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth, The swing in my waist, And the joy in my feet. I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me. Men themselves have wondered What they see in me. They try so much But they can't touch My inner mystery. When I try to show them, They say they still can't see. I say, It's in the arch of my back, The sun of my smile, The ride of my breasts, The grace of my style. I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me. Now you understand Just why my head's not bowed. I don't shout or jump about Or have to talk real loud. When you see me passing, It ought to make you proud. I say, It's in the click of my heels, The bend of my hair, The palm of my hand, The need for my care. 'Cause I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me.

Nate craned his head to see. The woman was Dominika, dressed in a dark suit and dark stockings, a prison-visitor’s badge was around her neck, and it swung as she walked, her heels clicking unevenly against the white floor tiles because of her slight limp. It was like a dream seeing her now, here, like this. Her hair was up as always, and their eyes met for an instant. It would have been the most natural thing for her to walk up to his chair, kiss him on the lips, order his bonds cut, and walk him out of this basement and through the front gates while holding his hand. She’d give him some khren, some grief, like “Dushka, you cannot manage even this without my help?

I admitted it to myself. I had all kinds of dreams. I wanted to go skiing again and get fast and good. I wanted to go to London too someday. I wanted to fall in love.i wanted to own a bookstore or a restraunt and have people come in and say, "Hi, Cedar," and I wanted from ride a bike down the streets in a little town in a country where people spoke a different language. Maybe my bike would a basket and maybe the basket would have flowers in it. I wanted to live in a big city and wear lipstick and my hair in bun and buy groceries and carry them home in a paper bag. My high heels would click when I climbed the stairs to my apartment. I wanted to stand at the edge of a lake and listen.

Thank you, V, he thought as he jumped out himself. Balz stayed tight on her heels as she hit a little walkway with a long stride, and about halfway to her front door, he realized how ridiculous he looked: He was still nakie with a sheet wrapped around his hey-nannies, and he had a gun down at one thigh and a duffle bag full of click-click-bang-bang hanging off his other shoulder. Too bad this wasn’t Halloween for the humans. He could have called himself a flasher-assassin and maybe gotten away with it. Plus, hey, guy shows up on your trick-or-treat doorstep with a forty caliber in his palm, you were likely to dump your bowl of candy wherever he told you to put the stuff. So he’d clean up and Rhage would be psyched.

On Monday morning, she called me into her bedroom. Her dark hair was tousled, her light robe very feminine against the soft blue of her bed. Her eyes were full of mischief. “Oh, Mr. West,” she whispered in her beguiling child’s voice. “I’ve gotten myself into something. Can you help me get out of it?” “What can I do?” I asked, wondering who was next in line to be fired. “I’ve invited someone to stay here,” she said, “but now we’ve changed our minds.” She cast a glance in the direction of the President’s bedroom. “Could you help us cook up something so we can get out of having her as a houseguest?” Without waiting for a reply, she rushed on, her request becoming a command in mid-breath. “Would you fix up the Queen’s Room and the Lincoln Room so that it looks like we’re still decorating them, and I’ll show her that our guest rooms are not available.” Her eyes twinkled, imagining the elaborate deception. “The guest rooms will be redecorated immediately,” I said, and almost clicked my heels. I called Bonner Arrington in the carpenter’s shop. “Bring drop-cloths up to the Queen’s Room and Lincoln Bedroom. Roll up the rugs and cover the draperies and chandeliers, and all the furniture,” I instructed. “Oh yes, and bring a stepladder.” I called the paint shop. “I need six paint buckets each for the Queen’s Room and the Lincoln Room. Two of the buckets in each room should be empty—off-white—and I need four or five dirty brushes.” I met the crews on the second floor. “Now proceed to make these two rooms look as if they’re being redecorated,” I directed. “You mean you don’t want us to paint?” said the painters. “No,” I said. “Just make it look as if you are.” The crew had a good time, even though they didn’t know what it was all about. As I brought in the finishing touches, ashtrays filled with cigarette butts, Bonner shook his head. “Mr. West, all I can say is that this place has finally got to you,” he said. That evening the President and Mrs. Kennedy entertained a Princess for dinner upstairs in the President’s Dining Room. Before dinner, though, President Kennedy strolled down to the East Hall with his wife’s guest. He pointed out the bedraped Queen’s Room. “… And you see, this is where you would have spent the night if Jackie hadn’t been redecorating again,” he told the unsuspecting lady. The next morning, Mrs. Kennedy phoned me. “Mr. West, you outdid yourself,” she exclaimed. “The President almost broke up when he saw those ashtrays.

Monday ushers in a particularly impressive clientele of red-eyed people properly pressed into dry-cleaned suits in neutral tones. They leave their equally well-buttoned children idling in SUVs while dashing to grab double-Americanos and foamy sweet lattes, before click-clacking hasty escapes in ass-sculpting heels and polished loafers with bowl-shaped haircuts that age every face to 40. My imagination speed evolves their unfortunate offspring from car seat-strapped oxygen-starved fast-blooming locusts, to the knuckle-drag harried downtown troglodytes they’ll inevitably become. One by one I capture their flat-formed heads between index finger and thumb for a little crush-crush-crushing, ever aware that if I’m lucky one day their charitable contributions will fund my frown-faced found art project to baffle someone’s hallway.

Wiping his streaming eyes on his jacket sleeve, Hagrid swung himself onto the motorcycle and kicked the engine into life; with a roar it rose into the air and off into the night. “I shall see you soon, I expect, Professor McGonagall,” said Dumbledore, nodding to her. Professor McGonagall blew her nose in reply. Dumbledore turned and walked back down the street. On the corner he stopped and took out the silver Put-Outer. He clicked it once, and twelve balls of light sped back to their street lamps so that Privet Drive glowed suddenly orange and he could make out a tabby cat slinking around the corner at the other end of the street. He could just see the bundle of blankets on the step of number four. “Good luck, Harry,” he murmured. He turned on his heel and with a swish of his cloak, he was gone. A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky,

Via Negativa Sometimes it's too hard with words or dark or silence. Tonight I want a prayer of high-rouged cheekbones and light: a litany of back-lit figures, lithe and slim, draped in fabrics soft and wrinkleless and pale as onion slivers. Figures that won't stumble or cough: sleek kid-gloved Astaires who'll lift ladies with glamorous sweeps in their hair— They'll bubble and glitter like champagne. They'll whisper and lean and waltz and wink effortlessly as figurines twirling in music boxes, as skaters in their dreams. And the prayer will not be crowded. You'll hear each click of staccato heel echo through the glassy ballrooms—too few shimmering skirts; the prayer will seem to ache for more. But the prayer will not ache. When we enter, its chandeliers and skies will blush with pleasure. Inside we will be weightless, and our goodness will not matter in a prayer so light, so empty it will float.

Will you need assistance with the boilers, as well?” “I can manage those on my own, but we’ll need two wheelbarrow loads of wood to fuel the fireboxes. There’s a barrow out by the woodshed. If you would start loading it while I move the boilers down to the pond, that would save considerable time.” “Aye, aye, Captain.” Nicole clicked her heels together and snapped a salute. Her employer seemed a bit nonplussed by her actions until she winked at him and allowed the smile she’d been fighting to bloom across her face. He laughed then and gave her a playful push in the direction of the shed. “Hop to, sailor, before I make you walk the plank for insubordination.” Nicole scurried away, giving her best imitation of a cowed crew member, bowing and scraping as she trotted over the packed dirt of the yard. Darius’s deep chuckles followed her, the rich sound warming a place inside her that she hadn’t even realized had been cold.

Every time a human walks out of a room, something with more feet walks in. For every job a human holds, there is a mouse with the same job and doing it better. You don't see a cat that shocked every day of the week. Even her whiskers looked scandalized. Time you saw a bit of the world, if you're to find your place in it, the horse said. Nobody ever learned who he was by staying in the stable. He was the picture of skepticism. Also pomposity. He was so noble a figure that I could scarcely look at him full on. Every bit of his bearing was living proof of the grandeur mice can rise to. British mice. Of course they would be foreign, being bats. Romanian, Transylvanian, Something. The Belgians followed in a great mob. And hard on their heels the Spanish, their claws clicking like castanets across the marble. Then the Russians in all their barbaric splendor. Romanov rodents in caterpillar-fur caps. Even one of the Gorgonzola princes from Italy, looking very blue-veined.

I told my best friend in the world, my sister. “Okay, so I’m not going now,” I told Betsy over the phone. I’d awakened her from a deep collegiate sleep. “Going where?” she asked groggily. “Chicago,” I continued. “What?” she shrieked. That woke her up. That woke her up but good. “I’m, like, totally in love,” I said. “I’m totally in love with the Marlboro Man.” I giggled wildly. “Oh, God,” she said. “Are you gonna get married to him and move out to the boonies and have his babies?” “No!” I exclaimed. “I’m not moving to the boonies. But I might have his babies.” I giggled wildly again. “What about Chicago?” Betsy asked. “Well…but…,” I argued. “You have to see him in his Wranglers.” Betsy paused. “Well, so much for this conversation. I’ve gotta go back to sleep anyway--I’ve got class at noon and I’m exhausted…” “And you should see him in his cowboy boots,” I continued. “Alrighty, then…” “Okay, well, don’t worry about me,” I continued. “I’ll just be here, kissing the Marlboro Man twenty-four hours a day in case you need me.” “Whatever…,” Betsy said, trying hard not to laugh. “Okay, well…study hard!” I told her. “Yep,” she replied. “And don’t sleep around,” I admonished. “Gotcha,” Betsy replied. She was used to this. “And don’t smoke crack,” I added. “Righty-oh,” she replied, yawning. “Don’t skip class, either,” I warned. “You mean, like you did?” Betsy retorted. “Well, then, don’t go all the way!” I repeated. Click.

So!” Jack said, clapping his hands and grinning at me. “We ready to go? What’s the transportation plan?” “I guess I’ll go with Reth, and—” Lend shouted, “No, you’re not going anywhere alone with Reth.” “Fine, I’ll go with Jack, and—” “That doesn’t work for me either.” I laughed drily. “Okay then, I’ll click my heels together three times and say, ‘There’s no place like the Center, there’s no place like the Center,’ and then magically appear there!” He was quiet for a few seconds. “You’ll probably be safer with Reth.” It sounded like he was speaking through clenched teeth. “And I can keep a better eye on Jack.” “Well, I for one am thrilled to spend more time with Lend. That’s the top of my Fun Things to Do list. We should come up with a secret handshake!” Jack said, pushing me to the side and throwing the door open, which resulted in Lend falling to the floor immediately unconscious. “Oh, whoops.” Jack smiled, his eyes gleaming. “Too bad, I like him so much when he’s talking.” “Very funny. Keep him safe, okay? I don’t Raquel’s in the Iron Wing—she would have heard me shouting. Look anywhere you can think of. They might have her in a random room somewhere. We’ll meet in Raquel’s old office in two hours, whether we’ve found anything or not.” He nodded, not looking at me as he poked Lend repeatedly with his foot. “And, Jack? That threat Reth made about your hands? I’m going to apply it to Lend, too. Keep him safe. Or else.

A young woman stepped in front of the dais and cleared her throat. She had reddish-brown hair that hung in loose waves down her back. Her figure was slender and regal, and Ian could have easily drowned in her emerald eyes. But what captured his attention the most was the way the lass carried herself—confident, yet seemingly unaware of her true beauty. She wore a black gown with hanging sleeves, and the embroidered petticoat under her skirts was lined in gray. With the added reticella lace collar and cuffs dyed with yellow starch, she looked as though she should have been at the English court rather than in the Scottish Highlands. “Pardon me, Ruairi. Ravenna wanted me to tell you that we’re taking little Mary to the beach. We won’t be long. We’ll be in the garden until the mounts are readied, if you need us.” When the woman’s eyes met Ian’s, something clicked in his mind. His face burned as he remembered. He shifted in the seat and pulled his tunic away from his chest. Why was the room suddenly hot? He felt like he was suffocating in the middle of the Sutherland great hall. God help him. This was the same young chit who had pined after him, following him around the castle and nipping at his heels like Angus, Ruairi’s black wolf. But like everything else that had transformed around here, so had she. She was no longer a girl but had become an enchantress—still young, but beautiful nevertheless. His musings were interrupted by a male voice. “Munro, ye do remember Lady Elizabeth, eh?” How could he forget the reason why he’d avoided Sutherland lands for the past three years?

You must go back to bed.” “No,” I shouted. “Not yet! I have to finish this game.” I couldn’t leave Andrew, not now, not when I was finally winning. Hannah released me so suddenly I staggered backward. “I’ll fetch Papa!” she cried. Andrew threw himself at her. “Hannah, stop, you’re ruining everything!” I grabbed his arm. “Let her go. We don’t have much time!” Casting a last terrified look at me, Hannah ran downstairs, calling for Mama and Papa. Andrew turned to me, his face streaked with tears. “Quick, Drew. Shoot four more marbles out of the ring!” Holding my breath I aimed. Click, click, click. An immie, a cat’s-eye, and a moonstone spun across the floor, but I missed the fourth. Andrew knuckled down and shot at the scattered marbles. Of the seven in the ring, he managed to hit two before he missed. Downstairs I heard Hannah pounding on Papa and Mama’s door. “One more, Drew,” Andrew whispered. It was hard to aim carefully. Papa and Mama were awake. Their voices rose as Hannah tried to explain I was in the attic acting as if I’d lost my mind. My hand shook and the first marble I hit merely clicked against another. Andrew took his turn, hit three, and missed the fourth. “Send me home, Drew,” he begged. “I don’t care if I die when I get there.” Two marbles were left--a carnelian and an immie, widely separated. Neither was close to my aggie. Even for someone as good as Andrew, it was a hard shot. Holding his breath, Andrew crossed his fingers and closed his eyes. I knuckled down and aimed for the carnelian. Click. As Papa tramped up the steps with Mama at his heels, the seventh marble rolled into the shadows. My aggie stayed in the middle of the ring. Andrew let out his breath and stared at me. I’d won--what would happen now?

I run out onto the front porch, trying to slow my racing heart as I peer out into the night. The light gets closer and closer, causing hope to blossom in my chest. “Hey!” a familiar voice calls out, and I nearly weep with relief. He’s back. Thank God. But the relief is immediately replaced with anger. “Where the hell have you been?” I ask, my voice shaking. He clicks off the flashlight and makes his way up the porch steps. “Didn’t you see my note?” “Are you kidding me?” I sputter. “Do you have any idea how many hours you’ve been gone?” “Yeah, sorry about that. The house was fine, but the pool was a mess. A tree fell through the screen, and the roof was ripped off the pool house.” “You’re sorry? That’s all you have to say?” I take two steps toward him, fury thrumming through my veins. “Do you have any idea how worried I was? God, Ryder! I thought you were lying in a ditch somewhere. I thought you were hurt, or…or…” I trail off, shaking my head. “I was about to go looking for you, out in the pitch-dark!” He reaches for my hand, but I slap him away. “Don’t touch me! I swear, I can’t even look at you right now.” I turn and reach for the door. But before I can fling it open, Ryder pulls me toward him, his hands circling my wrists. “Look, I’m sorry, Jemma. It took me forever to get there, what with all the flooding and everything. And then I was trying to clean stuff up and…well, I guess the time just got away from me.” I try to pull away, but he tightens his grip. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says. “Well, you did scare me.” I manage to pull one hand loose, and I use it to whack him in the chest. “Idiot!” “I’m fine, okay? I’m here.” “I wish you weren’t!” I yell, fired up now. “I wish you were lying in a ditch somewhere!” I stumble backward, my heel catching on the porch’s floorboards. “You don’t mean that,” Ryder says, sounding hurt. He’s right; I don’t. But I don’t care if I hurt his feelings. I’m too angry to care. Angry and relieved and pissed off and…and, God, I’m so glad he’s okay. I thump his chest one more time in frustration, and then somehow my lips are on his--hungry and demanding and punishing all at once.

this thing—his thing—still well and alive inside me. # I dreamed of clawed hooks and sexual abandon. Faces covered in leather masks and eyeliner so dark I could only see black. Here the monsters would come alive, but not the kind you have come to expect. I watched myself as if I were outside my own flesh, free from the imprisonment of bone and conscience. Swollen belly stretch-marked and ugly; my hair tethered and my skin vulnerable. Earthquake beats blared from the DJ booth as terrible looking bodies thrashed, moshed and convulsed. Alone, so alone. Peter definitely gone, no more tears left but the ones that were to come from agony. She was above me again, Dark Princess, raging beauty queen, and I was hers to control. The ultimate succession into human suspension. Like I’d already learned: the body is the final canvas. There is no difference between love and pain. They are the same hopeless obsession. The hooks dived, my legs opened and my back arched. Blood misted my face; pussy juice slicked my inner thigh as my water suddenly broke. # The next night I had to get to the club. 4 A.M. is a time that never lets me down; it knows why I have nightmares, and why I want to suspend myself above them. L train lunacies berated me once again, but this time I noticed the people as if under a different light. They were all rather sad, gaunt and bleary. Their faces were to be pitied and their hands kept shaking, their legs jittering for another quick fix. No matter how much the deranged governments of New York City have cleaned up the boroughs, they can’t rid us of our flavor. The Meatpacking District was scarily alive. Darkness laced with sizzling urban neon. Regret stitched up in the night like a black silk blanket. The High Line Park gloomed above me with trespassers and graffiti maestros. I was envious of their creative freedom, their passion, and their drive. They had to do what they were doing, had to create. There was just no other acceptable life than that. I was inside fast, my memories of Peter fleeting and the ache within me about to be cast off. Stage left, stage right, it didn’t matter. I passed the first check point with ease, as if they already knew the click of my heels, the way my protruding stomach curved through my lace cardigan. She found me, or I found her, and we didn’t exchange any words, any warnings. It was time. Face up, legs open, and this time I’d be flying like Superman, but upside down. There were many hands, many faces, but no

If you look at it that way, we have a fucked-up fairy god-murderer on our hands. Bastard clicks his heels together and says, ‘There’s no asshole like a dead asshole,’ or something catchy like that.

Not wanting to be seen, I shrunk back into the shadows, when I heard a friendly voice ask, “Sind sie allein Fraulein? Warum tanzen sie nicht.” I couldn’t believe that I was being asked by this handsome German Naval Officer if I was alone and why I wasn’t dancing. When I tried to explain, he interjected by saying, “I too am alone. Would you dance with me?” I was so overwhelmed that I couldn’t resist his offer to dance. Stepping out onto the dance floor I could see Richard on the other side of the room looking in my direction. I really couldn’t resist being a little naughty as I feigned flirtatious girlish laughter, while whirling in the arms of this gallant, dapper, and oh-so-handsome Naval Officer. Captain Dönitz concluded our dance in typical German fashion, by clicking his heels and kissing my hand. Later that evening Richard reluctantly apologized for his behavior. I could understand that he had been totally engrossed with his duties and decided to forgive the incident and move on. That evening quite a number of the cadets had also asked me for a dance. I felt flattered but decided that I would be loyal to Richard. Later in Germany, Richard loved to tell this story to friends and family or anyone else that would listen.

loudly for Truth have liars pled, their heels for Freedom slaves will click; where Boobs are holy, poets mad, illustrious punks of Progress shriek; when Souls are outlawed, Hearts are sick, Hearts being sick, Minds nothing can:

shuddered. That couldn’t be my life. Outside, I heard the restroom door open, admitting the sounds from the bar, along with a click of heels on tile and a waft of distinctive perfume. Then it closed again, deadening the noise, but that scent lingered. The vamp. I sensed her on the other side of the cubicle

I climb into the passenger seat and slam the door. I sit with my arms crossed over my chest, my lips a tight line. This moment is so cruel. For a second I forget myself. All I want is to be the normal girl, with parents who let her date and a house that smells of seasonally appropriate candles and not fried onions. I slink back in the car seat. I know I can wish for life to be different. I can click my heels and hope I'm somewhere else. But in the end, I'm here. I'm me.

my spot in the back seat. It was the same look and phrase that everyone gave me. It happened at the funeral and it had happened every day since. I’d learned to hate that pitying look as well as the reassuring words that people spoke. Neither eased my mind in the slightest. I just wished that Mrs. Williams pitied me enough to leave me where I wanted to be instead of with strangers. When the car slowed, I peered at the house that I’d now be living in for who knew how long. I took in the untidy façade in disgust. It was hard to see much through the overgrown trees and garden that spilled out over the pavement. The long grass seemed to be springing up from the ground like weeds. They probably were weeds. How could Mrs. Williams think that this mess of a house was a good place for me? She parked the car and jumped out. Her heels clicked over the pavement as she opened the gate at the bottom of the driveway. The fence was a dirty shade of white and chipped in many places. She got back into the car and I noticed she was panting slightly. “Okay, here we go,” she said.

Not wanting to be seen, I shrunk back into the shadows, when I heard a friendly voice ask, “Sind sie allein Fraulein? Warum tanzen sie nicht.” I couldn’t believe that I was being asked by this handsome German Naval Officer if I was alone and why I wasn’t dancing. When I tried to explain, he interjected by saying, “I too am alone. Would you dance with me?” I was so overwhelmed that I couldn’t resist his offer to dance. Stepping out onto the dance floor I could see Richard on the other side of the room looking in my direction. I really couldn’t resist being a little naughty as I feigned flirtatious girlish laughter, while whirling in the arms of this gallant, dapper, and oh-so-handsome Naval Officer. Captain Dönitz concluded our dance in typical German fashion, by clicking his heels and kissing my hand. Later that evening Richard reluctantly apologized for his behavior. I could understand that he had been totally engrossed with his duties and decided to forgive the incident and move on. That evening quite a number of the cadets had also asked me for a dance. I felt flattered but decided that I would be loyal to Richard. Later in Germany, Richard loved to tell this story to friends and family or anyone else that would listen.

He paused for dramatic effect, waiting until all eyes were on him before turning and looking at Jane, an intimate, heavy-lidded look designed just for her—and his audience. Holding out both hands to her, he said in a voice designed to carry, “It is traditional, is it not, for an alliance to be sealed with a marriage?” Taking Jane’s hands, he drew her forward, into the center of the room, where everyone could have the best possible view. Jane’s hands were cold, cold as ice. She drew them away, frozen with the wrongness of it. “Nicolas—don’t. Please.” She cast an anxious glance over her shoulder at Jack, who was doing his best impression of a stone boulder. Nicolas tugged on her hand, claiming her attention. “Surely now,” he said softly, smiling up at her in a way that would once have made her all fluttery, “there can be no obstacle to our union.” “Aside from good taste and common sense,” said Henrietta hotly. “He’s not bad-looking,” commented Miss Gwen. “If you like reptiles.” Dropping to the floor at Jane’s feet, Nicolas drew the signet from his finger. Not his personal signet, the one he used as the Gardener, but the sigil of the counts of Brillac. Once, a very long time ago, Jane had imagined this moment, had imagined a world in which she and Nicolas might be together. That, however, was before she had known him. And before she had known Jack. “Well, my Jeanne?” Nicolas said whimsically, proffering the ring. “Will you make me the happiest of men?” Gold glittered in the torchlight. On the edge of the circle, Jack turned on his heel and stalked off. Yanking her skirt away, Jane said sharply, “Did you really believe that making a public spectacle of me would change my answer?” From the side of the room, there was the faint click of a door closing. The dimple was very apparent in Nicolas’s cheek as he smiled up at her. “I live in hope.” “Don’t,” said Jane crisply. “Not on that score.” “That,” said Henrietta, “in case you didn’t notice, was a no.” Nicolas rose easily to his feet. “I prefer to think of it as a ‘perhaps later.’” “It was a no,” said Jane, and turned on her heel, not sure whom she wanted to shake more: Nicolas for refusing to take no for an answer, or Jack for walking away.

Down on Cyprus Avenue With a childlike vision leaping into view Clicking, clacking of the high heeled shoe Ford and Fitzroy, Madame George

We wouldn’t have stopped talking except for the distinct sound of high heels clicking across the floor. Our

She crossed the lobby, boot heels clomping on the hard floor. The door to the hallway was locked. Taylor swiped the key card again, was rewarded with a resounding click. Making her way toward the autopsy suite, knowing what lay ahead, she resigned herself to the case at hand. All thoughts of spring and happiness left her. In

If we do not strike now,” Nehemia went on, “then whatever he is brewing will only grow more powerful. And then we will be beyond any chance of hope.” “There is no hope,” Celaena said. “There is no hope in standing against him. Not now, not ever.” That was a truth she’d slowly been realizing. If Nehemia and Elena were right about this mysterious power source, then how could they ever overthrow him? “And I will not be a part of whatever plan you have. I will not help you get yourself killed, and bring down even more innocent people in the process.” “You will not help because all you care about is yourself.” “And so what if I do?” Celaena splayed her arms. “So what if I want to spend the rest of my life in peace?” “There can never be any peace—not while he reigns. When you said you weren’t killing the men on his list, I thought you were finally taking a step toward making a stand. I thought that when the time came, I could count on you to help me start planning. I didn’t realize that you were doing it just to keep your own conscience clean!” Celaena began storming toward the door. Nehemia clicked her tongue. “I didn’t realize that you’re just a coward.” Celaena looked over her shoulder. “Say that again.” Nehemia didn’t flinch. “You’re a coward. You are nothing more than a coward.” Celaena’s fingers clenched into fists. “When your people are lying dead around you,” she hissed, “don’t come crying to me.” She didn’t give the princess the chance to reply before she stalked out of the room, Fleetfoot close on her heels.

It was not altogether easy to be cordial and warm with this lawyer. She snapped and clicked. Heavy brass snap catch on handbag, heavy copper and brass jewelry that clattered, clump-heel shoes, and a huge silver ring with a horribly ugly African mask design, frowning eyebrows, hard voice: clack, clash, snap … In the second ten seconds, Haber suspected that the whole affair was indeed a mask, as the ring said: a lot of sound and fury signifying timidity. That, however, was none of his business. He would never know the woman behind the mask, and she did not matter, so long as he could make the right impression on Miss Lelache the lawyer.

She doesn’t realize how easy it is to do these things, to ruin everything. I remember myself at her age, an unhappy girl working a dead-end job in a dead-end town. I wanted to leave, to change, but it seemed so impossible. That I could actually pick up and go, quit my job, give notice to my landlord, break up with my boyfriend, tell my parents, my friends. It seemed overwhelming. And then one day, I did it and realized it’s the easiest thing in the world. To pick up and go. Easier than staying. And then I hated myself for staying as long as I did, for treading water so long, when really what I needed was perched at the end of my legs the whole time. Those ruby slippers, heels clicked together, a simple incantation.

I have frequently shown this sequence at my seminars and people all see a great deal of lechery, or lusty appreciation, or male chauvinism, or some erotic response in every male face. Since the heel clicks function to “sell” us this kind of response, I take Orson’s “everything was a fake” rather literally here. I imagine that not one single male in that sequence ever saw Oja Kodor. They all, probably, registered such emotions or thoughts as Two weeks to tax day and I don’t have the money yet — Where in hell did I leave that toothbrush? — I think I’ll use a line from Moliere to open my lecture — About time to stop and have some coffee etc.

The Witch stood on an isthmus connecting two rocky lands, and on either side of her stretch patches of cerulean blue sea, with white-lipped waves of astonishing vigor and particularity. The Witch held in her hands a beast of unrecognizable species, though it was clearly drowned, or nearly drowns. She cradled it in an arm that, without attention to actual skeletal flexibility, lovingly encircled the beast's wet, spiky-furred back. With her other hand she was freeing a breast from her robe, offering suck to the creature. Her expression was hard to read, or had the monk's hand smudged, or age and grime bestowed a sfumato sympathy? She was nearly motherly, with miserable child. Her look was inward, or sad, or something. But her feet didn't match her expression, for they were planted on the narrow strand with prehensile grip, apparent even through the silver-colored shoes, whose coin-of-the-realm brilliance had first caught Boq's eyes. Furthermore, the feet were turned out at ninety-degree angles to the shins. They showed in profile as mirror images, heels clicked together and toes pointing in opposite directions, like a stance in ballet. The gown was a hazy dawn blue.

I’m coming,” she called “Good.” It was a man at her door, his voice deep and stern. Ash’s heart beat faster. She walked towards the front door, her heels clicking loudly against the floorboards. “If you’re here to do any weird shit, you should know that my boyfriend’s asleep in the other room and he’s a…” she racked her brain for something scary “…convicted sex offender.

street, nor when two owls swooped overhead. In fact, it was nearly midnight before the cat moved at all. A man appeared on the corner the cat had been watching, appeared so suddenly and silently you’d have thought he’d just popped out of the ground. The cat’s tail twitched and its eyes narrowed. Nothing like this man had ever been seen in Privet Drive. He was tall, thin and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak which swept the ground and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. This man’s name was Albus Dumbledore. Albus Dumbledore didn’t seem to realise that he had just arrived in a street where everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome. He was busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for something. But he did seem to realise he was being watched, because he looked up suddenly at the cat, which was still staring at him from the other end of the street. For some reason, the sight of the cat seemed to amuse him. He chuckled and muttered, ‘I should have known.’ He had found what he was looking for in his inside pocket. It seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter. He flicked it open, held it up in the air and clicked it. The nearest street lamp went out with a little pop. He clicked it again – the next lamp flickered into darkness. Twelve times he clicked the Put-Outer, until the only lights left in the whole street were two tiny pinpricks in the distance, which were the eyes of the cat watching him. If anyone looked out of their window now, even beady-eyed Mrs Dursley, they wouldn’t be able to see anything that was happening down on the pavement. Dumbledore slipped the Put-Outer back inside his cloak and set off down the street towards number four, where he sat down on the wall next to the cat. He didn’t look at it, but after a moment he spoke to it. ‘Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall.

The military manners and bearing permeate the people, so that even the civilian learnt to click his heels together and bow with the requisite stiffness.

purple cloak which swept the ground and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. This man’s name was Albus Dumbledore. Albus Dumbledore didn’t seem to realise that he had just arrived in a street where everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome. He was busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for something. But he did seem to realise he was being watched, because he looked up suddenly at the cat, which was still staring at him from the other end of the street. For some reason, the sight of the cat seemed to amuse him. He chuckled and muttered, ‘I should have known.’ He had found what he was looking for in his inside pocket. It seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter. He flicked it open, held it up in the air and clicked

This is so fucked. I need to find my ruby slippers so I can click my heels, and then go home and graduate, and go to college like a normal girl." "Well, if this were Oz, I think I would be a wizard to your Dorothy. I would force you to stay with me forever and never go home." She

It was because he wanted to kiss her so much that he stopped himself, bent over her hand, clicking his heels together, then let her go. "Adios, Isabella. Good luck. Please be careful. Stay safe." "Goodbye, Finlay. May God protect you and keep you from harm.

Although Grandpa hits on the blonde next door, he does it with such charm and perkiness that Brennan gets away with playing what is essentially a dirty old man part. It is worth watching the movie to see him dance with his blonde pickup, clicking his heels, and then sitting her down at a table and showing her his $32,000 bank account—actually just a little notebook, although he claims to have the money (which turns out to be Confederate currency) hidden under his bed. When his date rejects his advances, he says, “The night is young. Why don’t you be like the night?” When she pleads to be taken home and is willing do anything he wants in return, he says, “Then what’s the use of going home?” But of course his role dictates that he resign himself to playing the grouchy guy who drives her home. Brennan’s lines came from one of Hollywood’s greatest screenwriters, Herman Mankiewicz, who wrote Citizen Kane.

telling the truth.” “What did you say?” “That I’d seen you attacked by DAR agents. That you’d had plenty of opportunities to make sure I got arrested, and that you hadn’t.” She grinned. “Kobb stopped just short of advising Epstein to have us both arrested. I don’t think he enjoyed that meeting.” “I don’t get the feeling Kobb enjoys very much.” They strolled through the lobby, heels clicking on the polished floor. “He must be a kick in bed, huh?” She laughed. “Three to five minutes of church-approved fore-play, followed by restrained intercourse during which both partners think about baseball.” “Mr. Cappello?” He and Shannon spun, easy enough but both shifting weight, softening the knees, positioning themselves back-to-back. They’d grown used to each other already, knew which side to cover if something went wrong. Funny. The woman who had called his pseudonym wore too much lipstick and her hair in a tight bun. “Tom Cappello?” “Yes?” “Mr. Epstein asked me to give you this.” She held up a tan calfskin briefcase,

D’aron the Daring, Derring, Derring-do, stealing base, christened D’aron Little May Davenport, DD to Nana, initials smothered in Southern-fried kisses, dat Wigga D who like Jay Z aw-ite, who’s down, Scots-Irish it is, D’aron because you’re brave says Dad, No, D’aron because you’re daddy’s daddy was David and then there was mines who was named Aaron, Doo-doo after cousin Quint blew thirty-six months in vo-tech on a straight-arm bid and they cruised out to Little Gorge glugging Green Grenades and read three years’ worth of birthday cards, Little Mays when he hit those three homers in the Pee Wee playoff, Dookie according to his aunt Boo (spiteful she was, misery indeed loves company), Mr. Hanky when they discovered he TIVOed ‘Battlestar Galactica,’ Faggot when he hugged John Meer in third grade, Faggot again when he drew hearts on everyone’s Valentine’s Day cards in fourth grade, Dim Dong-Dong when he undressed in the wrong dressing room because he daren’t venture into the dark end of the gym, Philadelphia Freedom when he was caught clicking heels to that song (Tony thought he was clever with that one), Mr. Davenport when he won the school’s debate contest in eighth grade, Faggot again when he won the school’s debate contest in eighth grade, Faggot again more times than he cared to remember, especially the summer he returned from Chicago sporting a new Midwest accent, harder on the vowels and consonants alike, but sociable, played well with others that accent did, Faggot again when he cried at the end of ‘WALL-E,’ Donut Hole when he started to swell in ninth grade, Donut Black Hole when he continued to put on weight in tenth grade (Tony thought he was really clever with that one), Buttercup when they caught him gardening, Hippie when he stopped hunting, Faggot again when he became a vegetarian and started wearing a MEAT IS MURDER pin (Oh yeah, why you craving mine then?), Faggot again when he broke down in class over being called Faggot, Sissy after that, whispered, smothered in sniggers almost hidden, Ron-Ron by the high school debate team coach because he danced like a cross between Morrissey and some fat old black guy (WTF?) in some old-ass show called ‘What’s Happening!!’, Brainiac when he aced the PSATs for his region, Turd Nerd when he hung with Jo-Jo and the Black Bruiser, D’ron Da’ron, D’aron, sweet simple Daron the first few minutes of the first class of the first day of college.

Two weeks later I’m the last one in the locker room to change for gym. The click of heels makes me look up. It’s Carmen Sanchez. I don’t freak out. Instead, I stand and look right at her. “He was back in Fairfield, you know,” she tells me. “I know,” I say, remembering the hand warmers in my locker. But he left. Like a whisper, he was there and then disappeared. She looks almost nervous, vulnerable. “You know those giant stuffed-animal prizes at the carnival? The kind practically nobody wins, except the lucky few? I’ve never won one.” “Yeah. I’ve never won one, either.” “Alex was my giant prize. I hated you for taking him away,” she admits. I shrug. “Yeah, well, stop hating me. I don’t have him, either.” “I don’t hate you anymore,” she says. “I’ve moved on.” I swallow and then say, “Me, too.” Carmen chuckles. Then, just as she walks out of the room, I hear her mumble, “Alex sure as hell hasn’t.” What’s that supposed to mean?

measuring tools into a tall cabinet at the back of the large, industrial kitchen. I returned for the six-quart mixer, hoisting it in my arms and stumbling under its weight. The click of her heels grew closer and I knew I didn’t have time to hide the machine like I wanted, so I lowered it to the ground and covered it with my apron, spinning around just as my momma appeared in the doorway. “Thank goodness.” Her hands were

She had come twenty minutes early, but he was already there. He sat in a corner booth with a view of the street and the entrance. Watching her. She forced a smile and walked unsteadily down the aisle beside the counter. The points of her heels clicked on the nicotine-stained linoleum. Sliding into the booth across from Javier, she nodded hello. He had short black hair and flawless brown skin. Every time they’d met, Letty thought of that saying, Eyes are windows to the soul. Because Javier’s weren’t. They didn’t reveal anything—so clear and blue they seemed fake. Like a pair of rhinestones, with nothing human behind them.

My original agenda for requesting your company this afternoon was not to talk your ear off about King William.” She took a bench behind a privet hedge and patted the place beside her. “Your agenda was rescuing me from Mr. Trit-Trot, though I fear you’re too late. He has that blindly determined look in his eye.” “Trit-Trot?” While he took the place beside her, Eve took off her bonnet and set it aside, then smoothed her hand over her hair. When that little delaying tactic was at an end, she grimaced. “Louisa finds these appellations and applies them indiscriminately to the poor gentlemen who come to call. She’s gotten worse since she married. Tridelphius Trottenham, ergo Trit-Trot, and it suits him.” “Dear Trit-Trot has a gambling problem.” One did not share such a thing with the ladies, generally, but if the idiot was thinking to offer for a Windham daughter, somebody needed to sound a warning. And as to that, the idea of Trit-Trot—the man was now doomed to wear the unfortunate moniker forevermore in Deene’s mind—kissing any of Moreland’s young ladies, much less kissing Eve, made Deene’s sanguine mood… sink a trifle. “He also clicks his heels in the most aggravating manner,” Eve said, her gaze fixed on a bed of cheery yellow tulips. “And he doesn’t hold a conversation, he chirps. He licks his fingers when he’s eaten tea cakes, though he’s a passable dancer and has a kind heart.” Bright

I don’t take kindly to any of you shanty boys touching me,” she said. “So unless I give you permission, from now on, you’d best keep your hands off me.” With the last word, she lifted her boot and brought the heel down on Jimmy’s toes. She ground it hard. Like most of the other shanty boys, at the end of a day out in the snow, he’d taken off his wet boots and layers of damp wool socks to let them dry overnight before donning them again for the next day’s work. Jimmy cursed, but before he could move, she brought her boot down on his other foot with a smack that rivaled a gun crack. This time he howled. And with an angry curse, he shoved her hard, sending her sprawling forward. She flailed her arms in a futile effort to steady herself and instead found herself falling against Connell McCormick. His arms encircled her, but the momentum of her body caused him to lose his balance. He stumbled backward. “Whoa! Hold steady!” Her skirt and legs tangled with his, and they careened toward the rows of dirty damp socks hanging in front of the fireplace. The makeshift clotheslines caught them and for a moment slowed their tumble. But against their full weight, the ropes jerked loose from the nails holding them to the beams. In an instant, Lily found herself falling. She twisted and turned among the clotheslines but realized that her thrashing was only lassoing her against Connell. In the downward tumble, Connell slammed into a chair near the fireplace. Amidst the tangle of limbs and ropes, she was helpless to do anything but drop into his lap. With a thud, she landed against him. Several socks hung from his head and covered his face. Dirty socks covered her shoulders and head too. Their stale rotten stench swarmed around her. And for a moment she was conscious only of the fact that she was near to gagging from the odor. She tried to lift a hand to move the sock hanging over one of her eyes but found that her arms were pinned to her sides. She tilted her head and then blew sideways at the crusty, yellowed linen. But it wouldn’t budge. Again she shook her head—this time more emphatically. Still the offending article wouldn’t fall away. Through the wig of socks covering Connell’s head, she could see one of his eyes peeking at her, watching her antics. The corner of his lips twitched with the hint of a smile. She could only imagine what she looked like. If it was anything like him, she must look comical. As he cocked his head and blew at one of his socks, she couldn’t keep from smiling at the picture they both made, helplessly drenched in dirty socks, trying to remove them with nothing but their breath. “Welcome to Harrison.” His grin broke free. “You know how to make a girl feel right at home.” She wanted to laugh. But as he straightened himself in the chair, she became at once conscious of the fact that she was sitting directly in his lap and that the other men in the room were hooting and calling out over her intimate predicament. She scrambled to move off him. But the ropes had tangled them together, and her efforts only caused her to fall against him again. She was not normally a blushing woman, but the growing indecency of her situation was enough to chase away any humor she may have found in the situation and make a chaste woman like herself squirm with embarrassment. “I’d appreciate your help,” she said, struggling again to pull her arms free of the rope. “Or do all you oafs make a sport of manhandling women?” “All you oafs?” His grin widened. “Are you insinuating that I’m an oaf?” “What in the hairy hound is going on here?” She jumped at the boom of Oren’s voice and the slam of the door. The room turned quiet enough to hear the click-click of Oren pulling down the lever of his rifle. She glanced over her shoulder to the older man, to the fierceness of his drawn eyebrows and the deadly anger in his eyes as he took in her predicament.

Having an emotional connection with what we wear is at once transformative and talismanic. Why else would Glenda the Good Witch have given Dorothy a pair of ruby slippers? Clicking those heels did more than get Miss Garland back to Kansas; they manifested magic – that sweet spot where memories are made.

burned low. The next morning servants brought in bananas, milk, and sweet rice to their room. After breakfast, Madam Vesteria pursed her lips as she inspected them, and satisfied, led them down a white marble hallway, broad and lined with statues of gods, goddesses, and mythical heroes and creatures. They came to the grand foyer, a circular and open room with light streaming in from above, and with one direction leading to a massive carved mahogany door, and opposite, a spiral staircase wound up and around four stories high.  “You will wait here.” Master Vesteria pulled on a long, silken rope that sounded a deep, melodic bell. “Prepare yourselves to meet the young masters of the Five Calazars.” Talis heard the slow clicking of heels down the staircase. Two boys, twins about the same age as Rikar, sauntered down, followed by a girl who appeared a year younger than Mara. Talis laughed to himself, expecting more children from five families. The girl was petite and pale, shy to the point of almost being afraid to glance at them. The twins chuckled as they whispered, staring at Talis as if caught up in some private joke. Their eyes held proud, indifferent expressions. They also were dressed in white, but their clothes were made of woven silk, layered with gold and some black metal.  “Just arrived?” a twin said, his voice laced with sarcasm. “Let

My heels click on the tile floor, and I feel like a velociraptor.

The rhythmic click of my high heels echoes off the concrete walls,

How do I get back to hell?” “You’re already here, child,” Marcelene said with her soft kindness. “The doors, the gates, they’re all yours. Always have been. Try clicking your ruby heels together, Dorothy.