Horse Lover Quotes

We rode the merry-go-round like a couple of lovers. We weren’t though; we were just two horse enthusiasts from two different worlds (I think she was from Mars).

I want to see the front of you.” “That’s what all the girls say.” “Do you expect me to roll you over? ’Cuz I will.” “Your mate’s not going to like this.” “As if that’s going to bother you?” “True. It actually makes it worth the effort.” With a groan, he shoved his palms into the shimmering silver pool of blood beneath him, and flopped over like the side of beef he was. “Wow,” she breathed. “I know, right? Hung like a horse.” “If you’re really nice—and you live through this—I’ll promise not to tell V.” “About my size.” She laughed a little. “No, that you assumed I’d look at you in any fashion other than professionally.

Wow," she breathed. "I know, right? Hung like a horse." "If you're really nice-and you live through this-I'll promise not to tell V." "About my size." She laughed a little, "No, that you assumed I'd look at you in any fashion other than professionally.

I hated cats. I was a dog lover," Des says with a shrug. "What's the point of a cat? They're not affectionate. But that's because it's not my cat. I mean, your wife wouldn't jump on my lap. That's because she's your wife, not mine. Until you have your own cat, you really don't understand.

It is a delicious thing to write, to be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating. Today, for instance, as man and woman, both lover and mistress, I rode in a forest on an autumn afternoon under the yellow leaves, and I was also the horses, the leaves, the wind, the words my people uttered, even the red sun that made them almost close their love-drowned eyes.

The white horse and the black one wheeled like lovers at a harvest dance, the riders throwing steel in place of kisses.

How she loved to listen when he thought only the horse could hear.

Hay smells different to lovers and horses.

I am a book. Sheaves pressed from the pulp of oaks and pines a natural sawdust made dingy from purses, dusty from shelves. Steamy and anxious, abused and misused, kissed and cried over, smeared, yellowed, and torn, loved, hated, scorned. I am a book. I am a book that remembers, days when I stood proud in good company When the children came, I leapt into their arms, when the women came, they cradled me against their soft breasts, when the men came, they held me like a lover, and I smelled the sweet smell of cigars and brandy as we sat together in leather chairs, next to pool tables, on porch swings, in rocking chairs, my words hanging in the air like bright gems, dangling, then forgotten, I crumbled, dust to dust. I am a tale of woe and secrets, a book brand-new, sprung from the loins of ancient fathers clothed in tweed, born of mothers in lands of heather and coal soot. A family too close to see the blood on its hands, too dear to suffering, to poison, to cold steel and revenge, deaf to the screams of mortal wounding, amused at decay and torment, a family bred in the dankest swamp of human desires. I am a tale of woe and secrets, I am a mystery. I am intrigue, anxiety, fear, I tangle in the night with madmen, spend my days cloaked in black, hiding from myself, from dark angels, from the evil that lurks within and the evil we cannot lurk without. I am words of adventure, of faraway places where no one knows my tongue, of curious cultures in small, back alleys, mean streets, the crumbling house in each of us. I am primordial fear, the great unknown, I am life everlasting. I touch you and you shiver, I blow in your ear and you follow me, down foggy lanes, into places you've never seen, to see things no one should see, to be someone you could only hope to be. I ride the winds of imagination on a black-and-white horse, to find the truth inside of me, to cure the ills inside of you, to take one passenger at a time over that tall mountain, across that lonely plain to a place you've never been where the world stops for just one minute and everything is right. I am a mystery. -Rides a Black and White Horse

First came bright Spirits, not the Spirits of men, who danced and scattered flowers. Then, on the left and right, at each side of the forest avenue, came youthful shapes, boys upon one hand, and girls upon the other. If I could remember their singing and write down the notes, no man who read that score would ever grow sick or old. Between them went musicians: and after these a lady in whose honour all this was being done. I cannot now remember whether she was naked or clothed. If she were naked, then it must have been the almost visible penumbra of her courtesy and joy which produces in my memory the illusion of a great and shining train that followed her across the happy grass. If she were clothed, then the illusion of nakedness is doubtless due to the clarity with which her inmost spirit shone through the clothes. For clothes in that country are not a disguise: the spiritual body lives along each thread and turns them into living organs. A robe or a crown is there as much one of the wearer's features as a lip or an eye. But I have forgotten. And only partly do I remember the unbearable beauty of her face. “Is it?...is it?” I whispered to my guide. “Not at all,” said he. “It's someone ye'll never have heard of. Her name on earth was Sarah Smith and she lived at Golders Green.” “She seems to be...well, a person of particular importance?” “Aye. She is one of the great ones. Ye have heard that fame in this country and fame on Earth are two quite different things.” “And who are these gigantic people...look! They're like emeralds...who are dancing and throwing flowers before here?” “Haven't ye read your Milton? A thousand liveried angels lackey her.” “And who are all these young men and women on each side?” “They are her sons and daughters.” “She must have had a very large family, Sir.” “Every young man or boy that met her became her son – even if it was only the boy that brought the meat to her back door. Every girl that met her was her daughter.” “Isn't that a bit hard on their own parents?” “No. There are those that steal other people's children. But her motherhood was of a different kind. Those on whom it fell went back to their natural parents loving them more. Few men looked on her without becoming, in a certain fashion, her lovers. But it was the kind of love that made them not less true, but truer, to their own wives.” “And how...but hullo! What are all these animals? A cat-two cats-dozens of cats. And all those dogs...why, I can't count them. And the birds. And the horses.” “They are her beasts.” “Did she keep a sort of zoo? I mean, this is a bit too much.” “Every beast and bird that came near her had its place in her love. In her they became themselves. And now the abundance of life she has in Christ from the Father flows over into them.” I looked at my Teacher in amazement. “Yes,” he said. “It is like when you throw a stone into a pool, and the concentric waves spread out further and further. Who knows where it will end? Redeemed humanity is still young, it has hardly come to its full strength. But already there is joy enough int the little finger of a great saint such as yonder lady to waken all the dead things of the universe into life.

She's locked up with a spinning wheel She can't recall what it was like to feel She says, "This room's gonna be my grave And there's no one who can save me," She sits down to her colored thread She knows lovers waking up in their beds She says, "How long can I live this way Is there someone I can pay to let me go 'Cause I'm half sick of shadows I want to see the sky Everyone else can watch as the sun goes down So why can't I And it's raining And the stars are falling from the sky And the wind And the wind I know it's cold I've been waiting For the day I will surely die And it's here And it's here for I've been told That I'll die before I'm old And the wind I know it's cold... She looks up to the mirrored glass She sees a horse and rider pass She says, "This man's gonna be my death 'Cause he's all I ever wanted in my life And I know he doesn't know my name And that all the girls are all the same to him But still I've got to get out of this place 'Cause I don't think I can face another night Where I'm half sick of shadows And I can't see the sky Everyone else can watch as the tide comes in So why can't I But there's willow trees And little breezes, waves, and walls, and flowers And there's moonlight every single night As I'm locked in these towers So I'll meet my death But with my last breath I'll sing to him I love And he'll see my face in another place," And with that the glass above Her cracked into a million bits And she cried out, "So the story fits But then I could have guessed it all along 'Cause now some drama queen is gonna write a song for me," She went down to her little boat And she broke the chains and began to float away And as the blood froze in her veins she said, "Well then that explains a thing or two 'Cause I know I'm the cursed one I know I'm meant to die Everyone else can watch as their dreams untie So why can't I

What I told you tonight - it isn't my story alone. It belongs to every Irish person living and dead. And every Irish person living and dead belongs to it. And to all the story of Ireland; blood and bones, legends, guns and dreams, Catholics, Protestants, England, horses and poets and lovers.

All the king's horses, all the king's men Couldn't put me together again 'Cause all of my enemies started out friends Help me hold onto you

My heart thunders like the hooves of a thousand wild horses.

In the darkness as we lie side by side John Cole's left hand snakes over under the sheets and takes a hold of my right hand. We listen to the cries of the night revellers outside and hear the horses tramping along the ways. We're holding hands then like lovers who have just met or how we imagine lovers might be in the unknown realm where lovers act as lovers without concealment.

Naturalists tell of a noble race of horses that instinctively open a vein with their teeth, when heated and exhausted by a long course, in order to breathe more freely. I am often tempted to open a vein, to procure for myself everlasting liberty. Cento volte ho impugnato una lama per conficcarmela nel cuore. Si dice di una nobile razza i cavalli,che quando si sentono accaldati e affaticati, si aprono istintivamente una vena, per respirare più liberamente. Spesso anche io vorrei aprirmi una vena che mi desse libertà eterna.

I'll go get the horse and buggy," you'll say. And I'll say, "But I thought we were taking the hovercraft?

The one young officer swung his horse around, came back, and leaned over into Penthe's face. She did not look at him. "Are you free, Miss?" "I am free. Free from everyone, but my lover. He has stolen my heart and soul forever.

To Selene (Moon) Hear, Goddess queen, diffusing silver light, bull-horn'd and wand'ring thro' the gloom of Night. With stars surrounded, and with circuit wide Night's torch extending, thro' the heav'ns you ride: Female and Male with borrow'd rays you shine, and now full-orb'd, now tending to decline. Mother of ages, fruit-producing Moon [Mene], whose amber orb makes Night's reflected noon: Lover of horses, splendid, queen of Night, all-seeing pow'r bedeck'd with starry light. Lover of vigilance, the foe of strife, in peace rejoicing, and a prudent life: Fair lamp of Night, its ornament and friend, who giv'st to Nature's works their destin'd end. Queen of the stars, all-wife Diana hail! Deck'd with a graceful robe and shining veil; Come, blessed Goddess, prudent, starry, bright, come moony-lamp with chaste and splendid light, Shine on these sacred rites with prosp'rous rays, and pleas'd accept thy suppliant's mystic praise.

She aint worth it. None of em are. He didnt answer for a while. Then he said: Yes they are.

An artist is the magician put among men to gratify--capriciously--their urge for immortality. The temples are built and brought down around him, continuously and contiguously, from Troy to the fields of Flanders. If there is any meaning in any of it, it is in what survives as art, yes even in the celebration of tyrants, yes even in the celebration of nonentities. What now of the Trojan War if it had been passed over by the artist's touch? Dust. A forgotten expedition prompted by Greek merchants looking for new markets. A minor redistribution of broken pots. But it is we who stand enriched, by a tale of heroes, of a golden apple, a wooden horse, a face that launched a thousand ships--and above all, of Ulysses, the wanderer, the most human, the most complete of all heroes--husband, father, son, lover, farmer, soldier, pacifist, politician, inventor and adventurer...

Sheep!” Angel cried, catching sight of some fluffy brown wool. “Anne is quite the animal lover,” Fang said to me as we followed Angel. “Horses, sheep, goats. Chickens. Pigs.” “Yeah,” I said. “I wonder who’s for dinner?” He flashed one of his rare smiles at me, and it was like the sun coming out. I felt my cheeks get hot and strode on ahead.

What you have with Sadie is nothing like what I have with Sadie, so it doesn't even matter. You can fuck anyone," he says. "You can't make games with anyone, though." "I make games with both of you," you point out. "I named Ichigo, for God's sake. I have been with both of you every step of the way. You can't say I haven't been here." "You've been here, sure. But you're fundamentally unimportant. If you weren't here, it would be someone else. You're a tamer of horses. You're an NPC, Marx." An NPC is a character that is not playable by a gamer. It is an AI extra that gives a programmed world verisimilitude. The NPC can be a best friend, a talking computer, a child, a parent, a lover, a robot, a gruff platoon leader, or the villain. Sam, however, means this as an insult---in addition to calling you unimportant, he's saying you're boring and predictable. But the fact is, there is no game without the NPCs. "There's no game without the NPCs," you tell him. "There's just some bullshit hero, wandering around with no one to talk to and nothing to do.

Patton would have said a warmer goodbye to his horse, The author writes on Eisenhower's cold dismissal of his wartime lover.

Welfare mothers make better lovers

I always knew it was horses that would bring you back.

To Poetry" Don’t desert me just because I stayed up last night watching The Lost Weekend. I know I’ve spent too much time praising your naked body to strangers and gossiping about lovers you betrayed. I’ve stalked you in foreign cities and followed your far-flung movements, pretending I could describe you. Forgive me for getting jacked on coffee and obsessing over your features year after jittery year. I’m sorry for handing you a line and typing you on a screen, but don’t let me suffer in silence. Does anyone still invoke the Muse, string a wooden lyre for Apollo, or try to saddle up Pegasus? Winged horse, heavenly god or goddess, indifferent entity, secret code, stored magic, pleasance and half wonder, hell, I have loved you my entire life without even knowing what you are or how—please help me—to find you.

She was a horse lover and she and Whitey kept a mean old paint, a fancy quarter horse/Arabian mix, a roan Appaloosa with one ghost eye named Spook, and a pony. So along with the whiskey and perfume and smoke, she often exuded faint undertones of hay, dust, and the fragrance of horse, which once you smell it you always miss it. Humans were meant to live with the horse.

The Poem I Just Wrote The poem I just wrote is not real. And neither is the black horse who is grazing on my belly. And neither are the ghosts of old lovers who smile at me from the jukebox.

Between the onion and the parsley, therefore, I shall give the summation of my case for paying attention. Man's real work is to look at the things of the world and to love them for what they are. That is, after all, what God does, and man was not made in God's image for nothing. The fruits of his attention can be seen in all the arts, crafts, and sciences. It can cost him time and effort, but it pays handsomely. If an hour can be spent on one onion, think how much regarding it took on the part of that old Russian who looked at onions and church spires long enough to come up with St. Basil's Cathedral. Or how much curious and loving attention was expended by the first man who looked hard enough at the inside of trees, the entrails of cats, the hind ends of horses and the juice of pine trees to realize he could turn them all into the first fiddle. No doubt his wife urged him to get up and do something useful. I am sure that he was a stalwart enough lover of things to pay no attention at all to her nagging; but how wonderful it would have been if he had known what we know now about his dawdling. He could have silenced her with the greatest riposte of all time: Don't bother me; I am creating the possibility of the Bach unaccompanied sonatas. But if man's attention is repaid so handsomely, his inattention costs him dearly. Every time he diagrams something instead of looking at it, every time he regards not what a thing is but what it can be made to mean to him - every time he substitutes a conceit for a fact - he gets grease all over the kitchen of the world. Reality slips away from him; and he is left with nothing but the oldest monstrosity in the world: an idol. Things must be met for themselves. To take them only for their meaning is to convert them into gods - to make them too important, and therefore to make them unimportant altogether. Idolatry has two faults. It is not only a slur on the true God; it is also an insult to true things. They made a calf in Horeb; thus they turned their Glory into the similitude of a calf that eateth hay. Bad enough, you say. Ah, but it was worse than that. Whatever good may have resided in the Golden Calf - whatever loveliness of gold or beauty of line - went begging the minute the Israelites got the idea that it was their savior out of the bondage of Egypt. In making the statue a matter of the greatest point, they missed the point of its matter altogether.

I suppose I shall start from the beginning. It appears that I'm utterly lacking in the knowledge of the basics. I mean, I understand dogs and horses and such, but humans...well, they're different. And so..." She paused, then rushed forward, the words pouring out of her. "I wonder if you could explain the use of the tongue.

Everyone is a resource. They serve a purpose. You serve a purpose. I compartmentalized all of you. You are here to prop me up, to tear me down, to straighten my spine, to lighten the load. To be my carrier pigeon, my work horse, my lover, my fighter, my friend, my enemy.

It is a delicious thing to write, to be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating. Today, for instance, as man and woman, both lover and mistress, I rode in a forest on an autumn afternoon under the yellow leaves, and I was also the horses, the leaves, the wind, the words my people uttered, even the red sun that made them almost close their love-drowned eyes.” ― Gustave Flaubert

Girl going past clinging to a young man's arm. Putting up her face like a duck to the moon. Drinking joy. Green in her eyes. Spinal curvature. No chin, mouth like a frog. Young man like a pug. Gazing down at his sweetie with the face of a saint reading the works of God. Hold on, maiden, you've got him. He's your boy. Look out, Puggy, that isn't a maiden you see before you, it's a work of imagination. Nail him, girlie. Nail him to the contract. Fly laddie, fly off with your darling vision before she turns into a frow, who spends all her life thinking of what the neighbours think.

Moonlight I know when the sun is in China because the night shining other-light crawls into my bed. She is moon. Her eyes slit and yellow she is the last one out of a dingy bar in Albuquerque— Fourth Street, or from similar avenues in Hong Kong. Where someone else has also awakened, the night thrown back and asked, 'where is the moon, my lover'? And from here I always answer in my dreaming, 'the last time I saw her was in the arms of another sky'.

To be in favor of solitude is not to be against community or friendship or love. It’s not that being alone is better, just that without the experience of it we block ourselves from discovering something enormously beneficial, perhaps even vital, to selfhood. Who are you when you are not a friend, a partner, a lover, a sibling, a parent, a child? When no one is with you, what do you do, and do you do it differently than if someone was there? It’s hard to see someone fully when another person is always attached to them. More importantly, it’s hard for us to see our own selves if we’re not ever alone.

James had been acting a little weird. After waking up yesterday, he'd been a little bit distant. It might just be the stress of the trip. It was probably hard on James to be in charge of the little group. He was responsible for the welfare of his lover, a nun, and a talking horse. That couldn't be easy.

I had a dream about you. You’d never been in an elevator before, and I’d never been in love. I said I could help you, and you said you could help me. I got excited because you were so beautiful, but I was quickly let down when you introduced me to your friend, who looked like a horse and sang like Miley Cyrus.

What the Addict is seeking (though he doesn’t know it) is the ultimate and continuous “orgasm,” the ultimate and continuous “high.” This is why he rides from village to village and from adventure to adventure. This is why he goes from one woman to another. Each time his woman confronts him with her mortality, her finitude, her weakness and limitations, hence shattering his dream of this time finding the orgasm without end—in other words, when the excitement of the illusion of perfect union with her (with the world, with God) becomes tarnished—he saddles his horse and rides out looking for renewal of his ecstasy. He needs his “fix” of masculine joy. He really does. He just doesn’t know where to look for it. He ends by looking for his “spirituality” in a line of cocaine. Psychologists talk about the problems that stem from a man’s possession by the Addict as “boundary issues.” For the man possessed by the Addict, there are no boundaries. As we’ve said, the Lover does not want to be limited. And, when we are possessed by him, we cannot stand to be limited.

Shit of ten horses,” his twin said in the Old Language. “The new aftershave of the lessers,” Phury muttered, rubbing his eyes.

Anne is quite the animal lover,” Fang said to me as we followed Angel. “Horses, sheep, goats. Chickens. Pigs.” “Yeah,” I said. “I wonder who’s for dinner?

Living in the past will make you insane. I need to look forward and not be hindered by things out of my control.

You got hair like a girl,” Mr. D said. “And you smell like bubble bath. At least I can get a trim.” “I’m wearing Old Spice.” “Next time try something stronger. Like horse manure.” Mr.

The typical capitalists are lovers of power rather than sensual indulgence, but they have the same tendency to crush and to take tribute that the cruder types of sensualism possess. The discipline of the capitalist is the same as that of the frugalist. He differs from the latter in that he has no regard for the objects through which productive power is acquired. HE does not hesitate to exploit natural resources, lands, dumb animals and even his fellowman. Capital to such a man is an abstract fund, made up of perishable elements which are quickly replaced… The frugalist…stands in marked contrast to the attitude of the capitalist. The frugalist takes a vital interest in his tools, in his land, and in the goods he produces. He has a definite attachment to each. He dislikes to see an old coat wear out, an old wagon break down, or an old horse go lame. He always thinks of concrete things, wants them and nothing else. He desires not land, but a given farm, not horses or cattle and machines, but particular breeds and implements; not shelter, but a home…. He rejects as unworthy what is below standard and despises as luxurious what is above or outside of it. Dominated by activities, he thinks of capital as a means to an end.

Lovers inside and horses ignoring the lovers. And the creek nearby. The willows. That was the scene. I forget the sky. The sky, let’s say, was green and dotted with silly clouds that looked like dimes. Then

Henry says, “It almost looks like it’s been here forever.” “And will be forevermore,” Julius says. They look at each other and like lovers everywhere take such claims about the world to be their own fortune.

Eventually they climb sixteen steps into the Gallery of Mineralogy. The guide shows them a gate from Brazil and violet amethysts and a meteorite on a pedestal that he claims is as ancient as the solar system itself. Then he leads them single file down two twisting staircases and along several corridors and stops outside an iron door with a single keyhole. “End of tour,” he says. A girl says, “But what’s through there?” “Behind this door is another locked door, slightly smaller.” “And what’s behind that?” “A third locked door, smaller yet.” “What’s behind that?” “A fourth door, and a fifth, on and on until you reach a thirteenth, a little locked door no bigger than a shoe.” The children lean forward. “And then?” “Behind the thirteenth door”—the guide flourishes one of his impossibly wrinkled hands—“is the Sea of Flames.” Puzzlement. Fidgeting. “Come now. You’ve never heard of the Sea of Flames?” The children shake their heads. Marie-Laure squints up at the naked bulbs strung in three-yard intervals along the ceiling; each sets a rainbow-colored halo rotating in her vision. The guide hangs his cane on his wrist and rubs his hands together. “It’s a long story. Do you want to hear a long story?” They nod. He clears his throat. “Centuries ago, in the place we now call Borneo, a prince plucked a blue stone from a dry riverbed because he thought it was pretty. But on the way back to his palace, the prince was attacked by men on horseback and stabbed in the heart.” “Stabbed in the heart?” “Is this true?” A boy says, “Hush.” “The thieves stole his rings, his horse, everything. But because the little blue stone was clenched in his fist, they did not discover it. And the dying prince managed to crawl home. Then he fell unconscious for ten days. On the tenth day, to the amazement of his nurses, he sat up, opened his hand, and there was the stone. “The sultan’s doctors said it was a miracle, that the prince never should have survived such a violent wound. The nurses said the stone must have healing powers. The sultan’s jewelers said something else: they said the stone was the largest raw diamond anyone had ever seen. Their most gifted stonecutter spent eighty days faceting it, and when he was done, it was a brilliant blue, the blue of tropical seas, but it had a touch of red at its center, like flames inside a drop of water. The sultan had the diamond fitted into a crown for the prince, and it was said that when the young prince sat on his throne and the sun hit him just so, he became so dazzling that visitors could not distinguish his figure from light itself.” “Are you sure this is true?” asks a girl. “Hush,” says the boy. “The stone came to be known as the Sea of Flames. Some believed the prince was a deity, that as long as he kept the stone, he could not be killed. But something strange began to happen: the longer the prince wore his crown, the worse his luck became. In a month, he lost a brother to drowning and a second brother to snakebite. Within six months, his father died of disease. To make matters even worse, the sultan’s scouts announced that a great army was gathering in the east. "The prince called together his father’s advisers. All said he should prepare for war, all but one, a priest, who said he’d had a dream. In the dream the Goddess of the Earth told him she’d made the Sea of Flames as a gift for her lover, the God of the Sea, and was sending the jewel to him through the river. But when the river dried up, and the prince plucked it out, the goddess became enraged. She cursed the stone and whoever kept it.

He called me Jess because that is the name of the hood which restrains the falcon. I was his falcon. I hung on his arm and fed at his hand. He said my nose was sharp and cruel and that my eyes had madness in them. He said I would tear him to pieces if he dealt softly with me. At night, if he was away, he had me chained to our bed. It was a long chain, long enough for me to use the chamber pot or to stand at the window and wait for the late owls. I love to hear the owls. I love to see the sudden glide of wings spread out for prey, and then the dip and the noise like a lover in pain. He used the chain when we went riding together. I had a horse as strong as his, and he’d whip the horse from behind and send it charging through the trees, and he’d follow, half a head behind, pulling on the chain and asking me how I liked my ride. His game was to have me sit astride him when we made love and hold me tight in the small of my back. He said he had to have me above him, in case I picked his eyes out in the faltering candlelight. I was none of these things, but I became them. At night, in June I think, I flew off his wrist and tore his liver from his body, and bit my chain in pieces and left him on the bed with his eyes open. He looked surprised, I don’t know why. As your lover describes you, so you are.

What makes my bed seem hard seeing it is soft? Or why slips downe the Coverlet so oft? Although the nights be long, I sleepe not tho, My sides are sore with tumbling to and fro. Were Love the cause, it's like I shoulde descry him, Or lies he close, and shoots where none can spie him? T'was so, he stroke me with a slender dart, Tis cruell love turmoyles my captive hart. Yeelding or striving doe we give him might, Lets yeeld, a burden easly borne is light. I saw a brandisht fire increase in strength, Which being not shakt, I saw it die at length. Yong oxen newly yokt are beaten more, Then oxen which have drawne the plow before. And rough jades mouths with stubburn bits are tome, But managde horses heads are lightly borne, Unwilling Lovers, love doth more torment, Then such as in their bondage feele content. Loe I confesse, I am thy captive I, And hold my conquered hands for thee to tie. What needes thou warre, I sue to thee for grace, With armes to conquer armlesse men is base, Yoke VenusDoves, put Mirtle on thy haire, Vulcan will give thee Chariots rich and faire. The people thee applauding thou shalte stand, Guiding the harmelesse Pigeons with thy hand. Yong men and women, shalt thou lead as thrall, So will thy triumph seeme magnificall. I lately cought, will have a new made wound, And captive like be manacled and bound. Good meaning, shame, and such as seeke loves wrack Shall follow thee, their hands tied at their backe. Thee all shall feare and worship as a King, Jo, triumphing shall thy people sing. Smooth speeches, feare and rage shall by thee ride, Which troopes hath alwayes bin on Cupids side: Thou with these souldiers conquerest gods and men, Take these away, where is thy honor then? Thy mother shall from heaven applaud this show, And on their faces heapes of Roses strow. With beautie of thy wings, thy faire haire guilded, Ride golden Love in Chariots richly builded. Unlesse I erre, full many shalt thou burne, And give woundes infinite at everie turne. In spite of thee, forth will thy arrowes flie, A scorching flame burnes all the standers by. So having conquerd Inde, was Bacchus hew, Thee Pompous birds and him two tygres drew. Then seeing I grace thy show in following thee, Forbeare to hurt thy selfe in spoyling mee. Beholde thy kinsmans Caesars prosperous bandes, Who gardes the conquered with his conquering hands. -- ELEGIA 2 (Quodprimo Amore correptus, in triumphum duci se a Cupidine patiatur)

It is a delightful thing to write, to cease to be oneself, to flow through the whole creation of which one speaks. Today, for example, man and woman at the same time, lover and mistress at once, I rode horseback through a forest on an autumn afternoon under the yellow leaves, and I was the horses, the leaves, the wind, the words they said to each other and the red sun that beat down on their eyelids, heavy with love, and made them droop. Is this pride or piety? Is it the inane outpouring of egotism, or a vague and noble religious instinct? When I think it over, after experiencing these delights, I would be tempted to offer a prayer of gratitude to God, if I were sure he could hear me.

The Loneliness of the Military Historian Confess: it's my profession that alarms you. This is why few people ask me to dinner, though Lord knows I don't go out of my way to be scary. I wear dresses of sensible cut and unalarming shades of beige, I smell of lavender and go to the hairdresser's: no prophetess mane of mine, complete with snakes, will frighten the youngsters. If I roll my eyes and mutter, if I clutch at my heart and scream in horror like a third-rate actress chewing up a mad scene, I do it in private and nobody sees but the bathroom mirror. In general I might agree with you: women should not contemplate war, should not weigh tactics impartially, or evade the word enemy, or view both sides and denounce nothing. Women should march for peace, or hand out white feathers to arouse bravery, spit themselves on bayonets to protect their babies, whose skulls will be split anyway, or,having been raped repeatedly, hang themselves with their own hair. There are the functions that inspire general comfort. That, and the knitting of socks for the troops and a sort of moral cheerleading. Also: mourning the dead. Sons,lovers and so forth. All the killed children. Instead of this, I tell what I hope will pass as truth. A blunt thing, not lovely. The truth is seldom welcome, especially at dinner, though I am good at what I do. My trade is courage and atrocities. I look at them and do not condemn. I write things down the way they happened, as near as can be remembered. I don't ask why, because it is mostly the same. Wars happen because the ones who start them think they can win. In my dreams there is glamour. The Vikings leave their fields each year for a few months of killing and plunder, much as the boys go hunting. In real life they were farmers. The come back loaded with splendour. The Arabs ride against Crusaders with scimitars that could sever silk in the air. A swift cut to the horse's neck and a hunk of armour crashes down like a tower. Fire against metal. A poet might say: romance against banality. When awake, I know better. Despite the propaganda, there are no monsters, or none that could be finally buried. Finish one off, and circumstances and the radio create another. Believe me: whole armies have prayed fervently to God all night and meant it, and been slaughtered anyway. Brutality wins frequently, and large outcomes have turned on the invention of a mechanical device, viz. radar. True, valour sometimes counts for something, as at Thermopylae. Sometimes being right - though ultimate virtue, by agreed tradition, is decided by the winner. Sometimes men throw themselves on grenades and burst like paper bags of guts to save their comrades. I can admire that. But rats and cholera have won many wars. Those, and potatoes, or the absence of them. It's no use pinning all those medals across the chests of the dead. Impressive, but I know too much. Grand exploits merely depress me. In the interests of research I have walked on many battlefields that once were liquid with pulped men's bodies and spangled with exploded shells and splayed bone. All of them have been green again by the time I got there. Each has inspired a few good quotes in its day. Sad marble angels brood like hens over the grassy nests where nothing hatches. (The angels could just as well be described as vulgar or pitiless, depending on camera angle.) The word glory figures a lot on gateways. Of course I pick a flower or two from each, and press it in the hotel Bible for a souvenir. I'm just as human as you. But it's no use asking me for a final statement. As I say, I deal in tactics. Also statistics: for every year of peace there have been four hundred years of war.

Tonight, no one will rage and cry: "My Kingdom for a horse!" No ghost will come to haunt the battlements of a castle in the kingdom of Denmark where, apparently something is rotten. Nor will anyone wring her hands and murmur: "Leave, I do not despise you." Three still young women will not retreat to a dacha whispering the name of Moscow, their beloved, their lost hope. No sister will await the return of her brother to avenge the death of their father, no son will be forced to avenge an affront to his father, no mother will kill her three children to take revenge on their father. And no husband will see his doll-like wife leave him out of contempt. No one will turn into a rhinoceros. Maids will not plot to assassinate their mistress, after denouncing her lover and having him jailed. No one will fret about "the rain in Spain!" No one will emerge from a garbage pail to tell an absurd story. Italian families will not leave for the seashore. No soldier will return from World War II and bang on his father's bedroom dor protesting the presence of a new wife in his mother's bed. No evanescent blode will drown. No Spanish nobleman will seduce a thousand and three women, nor will an entire family of Spanish women writhe beneath the heel of the fierce Bernarda Alba. You won't see a brute of a man rip his sweat-drenched T-shirt, shouting: "Stella! Stella!" and his sister-in-law will not be doomed the minute she steps off the streetcar named Desire. Nor will you see a stepmother pine away for her new husband's youngest son. The plague will not descend upon the city of Thebes, and the Trojan War will not take place. No king will be betrayed by his ungrateful daughters. There will be no duels, no poisonings, no wracking coughs. No one will die, or, if someone must die, it will become a comic scene. No, there will be none of the usual theatrics. What you will see tonight is a very simple woman, a woman who will simply talk...

Cats can be a very affectionate type of animal, but it's an affection you have to win. Pretty much the way you earn the affection of your friends and your lovers and your wives and your girlfriends and anybody else that's meaningful in your life,' says Des philosophically. 'There's a period of time where you don't know your positioning, and you work for it. And then all of a sudden, the relationship is established and it's yours, it belongs to you, it's something tangible. You can feel it, you can touch it.

Any hawk looking down on the orchard's cloistered square, hoping for the titbit of a beetle or a mouse, would see a patterned canopy of trees, line on line, the orchard's melancholy solitude, the jewellery of leaves. It would see the backs of horses, the russet, apple-dotted grass, the saltire of two crossing paths worn smooth by centuries of feet, and two grey heads, swirling in a lover's dance, like blown seed husks caught up in an impish and exacting wind and with no telling when or where they'll come to ground again.

It is a delicious thing to write, whether well or badly--to be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating. Today, for instance, man and woman, lover and beloved, I rode in a forest on an autumn afternoon under the yellow leaves, and I was also the horses, the leaves, the wind, the words my people spoke, even the red sun that made them half-shut their love-drowned eyes. Is this pride or piety? Is it a silly overflow of exaggerated self-satisfaction, or is it really a vague and noble religious instinct?

Wild rode the wind though the West country. Banners were blowing, black was the raven they bore as blazon. Blaring of trumpets, neighing of horses, gnashing of armour, in the hoar hollows of the hills echoed . Mordred was marching; messengers speeding northward and eastward the news bearing through the land of Logres. Lords and chieftains to his side he summoned swift to hasten their tryst keeping, true to Mordred, faithful in falsehood, foes of Arthur, lovers of treason and freebooters of Erin and Alban, and East-Sassoin, of Almain and Angel and the isles of mist.

He had been living in a down-town Y.M.C.A., but when he quit the task of making sow-ear purses out of sows' ears, he moved up-town and went to work immediately as a reporter for The Sun. He kept at this for a year, doing desultory writing on the side, with little success, and then one day an infelicitous incident peremptorily closed his newspaper career. On a February afternoon he was assigned to report a parade of Squadron A. Snow threatening, he went to sleep instead before a hot fire, and when he woke up did a smooth column about the muffled beats of the horses' hoofs in the snow… This he handed in. Next morning a marked copy of the paper was sent down to the City Editor with a scrawled note: "Fire the man who wrote this." It seemed that Squadron A had also seen the snow threatening—had postponed the parade until another day. A week later he had begun "The Demon Lover."… In

For pleasure is a state of soul, and to each man that which he is said to be a lover of is pleasant; e.g. not only is a horse pleasant to the lover of horses, and a spectacle to the lover of sights, but also in the same way just acts are pleasant to the lover of justice and in general virtuous acts to the lover of virtue.

A tender smile softened his face. "That would be Esme. She's nine and a delight. I haven't seen much of her these past few years, but she writes me letters. Sends me drawings as well. I have a likeliness of every cat, hound, and horse she's ever met, and considering the menagerie she keeps in the country at Clybourne, that's a great many indeed.

They are alike, prim scholar and perfervid lover: When comes the season of decay, they both decide Upon sweet, husky cats to be the household pride; Cats choose, like them, to sit, and like them, shudder. Like partisans of carnal dalliance and science, They search for silence and the shadowings of dread; Hell well might harness them as horses for the dead, If it could bend their native proudness in compliance. In reverie they emulate the noble mood Of giant sphinxes stretched in depths of solitude Who seem to slumber in a never-ending dream; Within their fertile loins a sparkling magic lies; Finer than any sand are dusts of gold that gleam, Vague starpoints, in the mystic iris of their eyes.

TIME TO SACRIFICE TAURUS This is the night of union when the stars scatter their rice over us. The sky is excited! Venus cannot stop singing the little songs she's making up, like birds in the first warm spring weather. The North Star can't quit looking over at Leo. Pisces is stirring milky dust from the ocean floor. Jupiter rides his horse near Saturn, "Old man, jump up behind me! The juice is coming back! Think of something happy to shout as we go. "Mars washes his bloody sword, puts it up, and begins building things. The Aquarian water jar fills, and the Virgin pours it generously. The Pleiades and Libra and Aries have no trembling in them anymore. Scorpio walks out looking for a lover, and so does Sagittarius! This is not crooked walking like the Crab. This is a holiday we've been waiting for. It is finally time to sacrifice Taurus and learn how the sky is a lens to look through. Listen to what's inside what I say. Shams will appear at dawn; then even night will change from its beloved animated darkness to a day within this ordinary sweet daylight.

the reason the average person is at the track is that they are driven screwy by the turn of the bolt, the foreman’s insane face, the landlord’s hand, the lover’s dead sex; taxation, cancer, the blues; clothes that fall apart on a 3rd wearing, water that tastes like piss, doctors that run assembly-line and indecent offices, hospitals without heart, politicians with skulls filled with pus … we can go on and on but would only be accused of being bitter and demented, but the world makes madmen (and women) of us all, and even the saints are demented, nothing is saved. so shit. well. according to my figures I’ve only had 2500 pieces of ass but I’ve watched 12,500 horse races, and if I have any advice to anybody it’s this: take up watercolor painting.

It is a delicious thing to write, to be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating. Today, for instance, as man and woman, both lover and mistress, I rode in a forest on an autumn afternoon under the yellow leaves, and I was also the horse, the leaves, the wind, the words my people uttered, even the red sun that made them almost close their love-drowned eyes.

Knit me a sweater out of your best stories. Not the day’s petty injustices. Not the glimmer of a seven-eighths-forgotten moment from your past. Not something that somebody said to somebody, who then told it to you. No, I want a yarn. It doesn’t have to be true. “Okay,” you say. “Do you want to know how I met you?” I nod. “It was on the carousel. You were on the pink horse, I was on the yellow. You

As an artist she finds Dick's work hopelessly naive, yet she is a lover of certain kinds of bad art, art which offers a transparency into the hopes and desires of the person who made it. Bad art makes the viewer much more active. (Years later Chris would realise that her fondness for bad art is exactly like Jane Eyre's attraction to Rochester, a mean horse-faced junkie: bad characters invite invention.)

How do you find your mount, Miss de Lacy?” Amy found it a slug. It was clear Rowanford had taken her caution too seriously. This horse would be ideal for a non-equestrian grandmother. “I feel very safe,” she said. “Excellent. I shall take good care of you, Miss de Lacy. Have no fear.” Amy sighed and wished there was a convenient piece of furniture to heft to prove she was not as fragile as she appeared.

My name is Carana, now get on or by Davalar I’ll leave you here.” He jumped up and slowly floated down onto the horse behind her, slowly sliding his arms around her waist as a lover might. “So do I hold on to you...here?” “Have you ever tried playing the harp without fingers? “Can’t say that I have, although there was this one time in Alrin when I only had one hand so...” “Oh gods above what have I got myself into

Damen said, ‘You haven’t told him.’ ‘You don’t even deny it?’ said Jord. A harsh laugh, when Damen was silent. ‘You hated us so much, all this time? It wasn’t enough to invade, to take our land? You had to play this—sick game as well?’ Damen said, ‘If you tell him, I can’t serve him.’ ‘Tell him?’ said Jord. ‘Tell him the man he trusts has lied, and lied again, has deceived him into the worst humiliation?’ ‘I wouldn’t hurt him,’ said Damen, and heard the words drop like lead. ‘You killed his brother, then got him under you in bed.’ Put like that, it was monstrous. It’s not that way between us, he ought to have said, and didn’t, couldn’t. He felt hot, then cold. He thought of Laurent’s delicate, needling talk that froze into icy rebuff if Damen pushed at it, but if he didn’t—if he matched himself to its subtle pulses and undercurrents—continued, sweetly deepening, until he could only wonder if he knew, if they both knew, what they were doing. ‘I’m going to leave,’ he said. ‘I was always going to leave. I stayed only because—’ ‘That’s right, you’ll leave. I won’t allow you to wreck us. You’ll command us to Ravenel, you’ll say nothing to him, and when the fort is won, you’ll get on a horse and go. He’ll mourn your loss, and never know.’ It was what he had planned. It was what, from the beginning, he had planned. In his chest, the beats of his heart were like sword thrusts. ‘In the morning,’ said Damen. ‘I’ll give him the fort, and leave him in the morning. It’s what I promised.’ ‘You’re gone by the time the sun hits the middle of the sky, or I tell him,’ said Jord. ‘And what he did to you in the palace will seem like a lover’s kiss compared with what will happen to you then.’ Jord was loyal. Damen had always liked that about him, the steadfast nature that reminded him of home. Strewn around them was the end of the battle, victory marked by silence and churned grass. ‘He’ll know,’ Damen heard himself say. ‘When word of my return to Akielos reaches him. He’ll know. I wish you would tell him then that I—’ ‘You fill me with horror,’ said Jord. His hands were tight on his knife. Both his hands, now. ‘Captain,

Moreno, Morelos, Cantine, Gomez, Gutierrez, Villanousul, Ureta, Licon, Navarro, Iturbi; Jorge, Filomena, Nena, Manuel, Jose, Tomas, Ramona. This man walked and this man sang and this man had three wives; and this man died of this, and that of that, and the third from another thing, and the fourth was shot, and the fifth was stabbed and the sixth fell straight down dead; and the seventh drank deep and died dead, and the eighth died in love, and the ninth fell from him horse, and the tenth coughed blood, and the eleventh stopped his heart, and the twelfth used to laugh much, and the thirteenth was a dancing one, and the fourteenth was most beautiful of all, the fifteenth had ten children and the sixteenth is one of those children as is the seventeenth; and the eighteenth was Tomas and did well with his guitar; the next three cut maize in their fields, had three lovers each; the twenty-second was never loved; the twenty-third sold tortillas, patting and shaping them each at the curb before the Opera House with her little charcoal stove; and the twenty-fourth beat his wife and now she walks proudly in the town and is merry with new men and here he stands bewildered by this unfair thing, and the twenty-fifth drank several quarts of river with his lungs and was pulled forth in a net, and the twenty-sixth was a great thinker and his brain now sleeps like a burnt plum in his skull.

But now here she was, Lady Cornelia Secunda known as Marcella, looking down at all Rome with three emperors lying dead at her feet. No one else knew they were there—not the husband who despised her, not the sister who made pained expressions about her writing, not the idiot cousins who cared only for lovers and horses. None of them knew. But I know. Marcella laughed aloud, imagining the look on Tullia’s face if she knew her hated sister-in-law had brought down three emperors.

A journey, then? But to where? To be cared for in their dotage by a spinster cousin in New Haven? Possible, likely even, but how dull! La Floride? Better—certainly more alligators. No, I know: one dispatched the other. A fight over a man, some handsome young horse trader who has been tupping one, then the other, in the barn. Hardly knows which one he’s with, but of course the old girls keep score. I peg Alice the murderer. Buries Mary somewhere in the woods and runs off with her lover, settles in San Francisco, where her guilt consumes her, sends her into a tailspin of drink and debt. Maybe she is still there today, one of those deathless madams, forever enticing fresh-faced laundresses into a life of vice. Too dark? Very well: how about a tour of the Continent? In our footsteps, in high-necked calico, apples in their palms, slipping through the Canals of Venice under the spell of a handsome gondolier. Alice with her easel, Mary recording her Travels to be lauded the Goethe of her time

When Chiwantopel calls the snake his “little sister,” this is not without significance for Miss Miller, because the hero is in fact her brother-beloved, her “ghostly lover,” the animus. She herself is his life-snake which brings death to him. When the hero and his horse die, the green snake remains, and the snake is nothing other than the unconscious psyche of the author herself who now, as we have seen, will suffer the same fate as Chiwantopel, that is, she will be overpowered by her unconscious.

Since anything that accords with one’s nature is pleasant and being of the same kind is a natural relationship, then things that are of the same kind and resemble one another also usually please one another. So a human being pleases another human being, a horse a horse, a young man a young man. Hence the proverbs: ‘Youth delights in youth’, ‘Ever like to like’, ‘Beast knows beast’, ‘Birds of a feather flock together’, and so on. Since things that resemble oneself and are of the same kind as oneself are bound to afford one pleasure, and since every individual experiences these things above all in relation to himself, then we are all inevitably to a greater or lesser degree lovers of ourselves, seeing that we stand in these relationships primarily to ourselves. Since we are all lovers of ourselves, we are all bound to find pleasure in things that are our own — our own achievements and words, for instance. That is also why we are usually fond of flatterers, lovers, honour, and our children (who are our own achievements). And it is also pleasant to complete something unfinished, since then it immediately becomes one’s own achievement.

I have put you on a horse—that same horse—and watched you ride away from me before. I thought I should never get over it that first time. I think I followed you for that; not for any noble desire to help you save Damar; only to pick up whatever pieces Agsded might have left of you.… I know I shall never get over it this time. If you do it, someday, a third time, it will probably kill me.” Aerin tried to smile, but Luthe stopped her with a kiss. “Go now. A quick death is the best, I believe.” “You can’t scare me,” Aerin said, almost succeeding in keeping her voice level. “You told me long ago that you aren’t mortal.” “I never said I can’t be killed,” replied Luthe. “If you wish to chop logic with me, my dearest love, you must make sure of your premises.” “I shall practice them—while—I shall practice, that I may dazzle you when next we meet.” There was a little silence, and Luthe said, “You need not try to dazzle me.” “I must go,” Aerin said hopelessly, and flung herself at Talat just as she had done once before. “I will see you again.” Luthe nodded. She almost could not say the words: “But it will be a long time—long and long.” Luthe nodded again. “But we shall meet.” Luthe nodded a third time. “Gods of all the worlds, say something,” she cried, and Talat startled beneath her. “I love you,” said Luthe. “I will love you till the stars crumble, which is a less idle threat than is usual to lovers on parting. Go quickly, for truly I cannot bear this.” She closed her legs violently around the nervous Talat, and he leaped into a gallop. Long after Aerin was out of sight, Luthe lay full length upon the ground, and pressed his ear to it, and listened to Talat’s hoofbeats carrying Aerin farther and farther away.

The Heat of Autumn" The heat of autumn is different from the heat of summer. One ripens apples, the other turns them to cider. One is a dock you walk out on, the other the spine of a thin swimming horse and the river each day a full measure colder. A man with cancer leaves his wife for his lover. Before he goes she straightens his belts in the closet, rearranges the socks and sweaters inside the dresser by color. That’s autumn heat: her hand placing silver buckles with silver, gold buckles with gold, setting each on the hook it belongs on in a closet soon to be empty, and calling it pleasure.

Was not writing poetry a secret transaction, a voice answering a voice? So that all this chatter and praise and blame and meeting people who admired one and did not admire one was as ill suited as could be to the thing itself—a voice answering a voice. What could have been more secret, she thought, more slow, and like the intercourse of lovers, than the stammering answer she had made all these years to the old crooning song of the woods, and the farms and the brown horses standing at the gate, neck to neck, and the smithy and the kitchen and the fields, so laboriously bearing wheat, turnips, grass, and the garden blowing irises and fritillaries?

Your inclination appears to be much as it was last night.’ Damen found himself saying, ‘You talk the same in bed,’ and the words came out sounding like he felt: helplessly charmed. ‘Can you think of a better way of putting it?’ ‘I want you,’ said Damen. ‘You’ve had me,’ said Laurent. ‘Twice. I can still feel the . . . sensation of it.’ Laurent shifted, just so. Damen buried his face in Laurent’s neck and groaned, and there was laughter too, and something akin to happiness that hurt as it pushed at the inside of his chest. ‘Stop it. You will not be able to walk,’ said Damen. ‘I’d welcome the chance to walk,’ said Laurent. ‘I have to ride a horse.’ ‘Is it . . . ? I tried to . . . I wouldn’t—’ ‘I like the way it feels,’ said Laurent. ‘I liked the way it felt. You’re a generous, giving lover, and I feel—’ Laurent broke off, and gave a shaky laugh at his own words. ‘I feel like the Vaskian tribe, in the body of one person. I suppose it is often like this?’ ‘No,’ said Damen. ‘No, it’s—’ It’s never like this. The idea that Laurent might find this with someone else hurt him. ‘Does that betray my inexperience? You know my reputation. Once every ten years.’ ‘I can’t,’ said Damen. ‘I can’t have this for just one night.’ ‘One night and one morning,’ said Laurent, and this time it was Damen who found himself pushed down onto the bed. *

Her hands flew off the keyboard—she crouched as though she had been shot, saw yellow spots and then experienced a peaceful wave of oneness in which she entered pure communion. She was locked into the music, held there safely, entirely understood. Such was her innocence that she didn’t know she was experiencing a sexual climax, but believed rather that what she felt was the natural outcome of this particular nocturne played to the utmost of her skills—and so it came to be. Chopin’s spirit became her lover. His flats caressed her. His whole notes sank through her body like clear pebbles. His atmospheric trills were the flicker of a tongue. His pauses before the downward sweep of notes nearly drove her insane. The

From the pleasure podium of Ali Qapu, beyond the enhanced enclosure, the city spread itself towards the horizon. Ugly buildings are prohibited in Esfahan. They go to Tehran or stay in Mashhad. Planters vie with planners to outnumber buildings with trees. Attracting nightingales, blackbirds and orioles is considered as important as attracting people. Maples line the canals, reaching towards each other with branches linked. Beneath them, people meander, stroll and promenade. The Safavids' high standards generated a kind of architectural pole-vaulting competition in which beauty is the bar, and ever since the Persians have been imbuing the most mundane objects with design. Turquoise tiles ennoble even power stations. In the meadow in the middle of Naghshe Jahan, as lovers strolled or rode in horse-drawn traps, I lay on my back picking four-leafed clovers and looking at the sky. There was an intimacy about its grandeur, like having someone famous in your family. The life of centuries past was more alive here than anywhere else, its physical dimensions unchanged. Even the brutal mountains, folded in light and shadows beyond the square, stood back in awe of it. At three o'clock, the tiled domes soaked up the sunshine, transforming its invisible colours to their own hue, and the gushing fountains ventilated the breeze and passed it on to grateful Esfahanis. But above all was the soaring sky, captured by this snare of arches.(p378)

What else do you like?” She blew out a breath, her expression considering while Vim used the brush in long strokes from her crown to her hips. It was beautiful hair, thick, lustrous, and gleaming with an indication of basic health and sound living. “I like music,” she said, “and sweets. I am quite partial to sweets.” Vim took this answer for a deliberate and charming prevarication. “I meant, what do you like from your lovers? Shall I kiss you all over? Shall you bind my wrists and have your way with me?” He leaned down and nuzzled her neck, the braid he’d been fashioning forgotten. “Shall you put your mouth on me, Sophie, and make me forget myself utterly?” She sat very still while Vim slid a hand over her shoulder and let it rest there, just above her breast while he pressed his cheek to hers. “My love, are you blushing?” “You are very bold, Mr. Charpentier.” He straightened, feeling it imperative that he braid up her hair, so he might have the pleasure of unbraiding it once they’d gained the bed. “I like your hands on me,” he volunteered. “There’s a particular quality to your touch I can’t quite describe. There’s… meaning in it.” “Meaning?” She regarded him in the mirror, her blush fading. “That’s not the right word. Some people can calm a nervous horse with their touch. They communicate to the animal with hands, tone of voice, and posture in ways more substantial than words. Your hands on me feel that way—more substantial than words.” She turned and pressed her forehead to his midriff. “You must not say such things.” He stroked his palm over her crown, holding her half-finished braid with the other hand. “Why not, Sophie?” “You simply must not.

Oholah played the whore  owhile she was mine, and  pshe lusted after her lovers  qthe Assyrians, warriors 6clothed in purple,  rgovernors and commanders,  sall of them desirable young men,  thorsemen riding on horses. 7She bestowed her whoring upon them, the choicest men of Assyria all of them, and she defiled herself with all the idols of everyone after whom she lusted. 8She did not give up her whoring  uthat she had begun in Egypt; for in her youth men had lain with her and handled her virgin bosom and poured out their whoring lust upon her. 9Therefore  vI delivered her into the hands of her lovers, into the hands of the Assyrians, after whom she lusted. 10 wThese uncovered her nakedness;  xthey seized her sons and her daughters; and as for her, they killed her with the sword; and she became  ya byword among women,  zwhen judgment had been executed on her.

I Used to Love Winter" In the past, I was inclined to love winter, and I listen to my body. Rain, rain, like a love letter pours licentiously from the imprudent heavens. Winter. A cry. An echo hungry for the embrace of women. In the distance, the steamy breath of a horse carrying clouds...white, white. I used to love winter, to walk joyfully to my rendezvous in space drenched in water. My love used to dry my short hair with Long hair luxuriant with wheat and chestnuts. She was not content with singing I and winter love you, so stay with us! She would warm my heart on two hot gazelle fawns. I used to love winter, and I would listen to it, drop by drop. Rain, rain like an appeal to a lover, Pour down my body! Winter was not lament pointing to the end of life. It was the beginning. It was hope. So what shall I do, as life falls like hair? What will I do this winter? VOR Summer 2009

Witch," he grumbled as the woman committed an exploit that caused them both to gasp with a sort of reciprocal anguish. Then... they were moving conjointly, much as one would when riding a horse. The motion went on and on, the lovers more involved, more intense in their enterprise. The woman adjusted herself so that her breasts dangled over Michael's zealous mouth. He pressured, milked, and suckled. Sarah watched to the end, repelled, captivated, discomfited, wanting them to cease immediately, while at the same juncture, never wanting the torrid exhibition to conclude. They reached a mutual goal, a pinnacle, both crying out with a strangled elation, and she felt ashamed and sickened to have witnessed the intense emotion that flared between them, yet she was glad she had. Their pace slackened, the tension abated, the pair relaxed, and Michael rubbed the woman's back. Arrogant and satisfied with himself, he murmured, "Feeling better?" "Oh, Lord... but you utterly kill me when you do that.

Ronan was waiting for her beyond the estate’s guarded gate. From the looks of things, he had been waiting for some time. His horse was nosing brown grass as Ronan sat on a nearby boulder, throwing pebbles at the general’s stone wall. When he saw Kestrel ride through the gate on Javelin, he flung his handful of rocks to the path. He remained sitting, elbows propped on his bended knees as he stared at her, his face pinched and white. He said, “I have half a mind to tear you down from your horse.” “You got my message, then.” “And rode instantly here, where guards told me that the lady of the house gave strict orders not to let anyone--even me--inside.” His eyes raked over her, taking in the black fighting clothes. “I didn’t believe it. I still don’t believe it. After you vanished last night, everyone at the party was talking about the challenge, yet I was sure it was just a rumor started by Irex because of whatever has caused that ill will between you. Kestrel, how could you expose yourself like this?” Her hands tightened around the reins. She thought about how, when she let go, her palms would smell like leather and sweat. She concentrated on imagining that scent. This was easier than paying heed to the sick feeling swimming inside her. She knew what Ronan was going to say. She tried to deflect it. She tried to talk about the duel itself, which seemed straightforward next to her reasons for it. Lightly, she said, “No one seems to believe that I might win.” Ronan vaulted off the rock and strode toward her horse. He seized the saddle’s pommel. “You’ll get what you want. But what do you want? Whom do you want?” “Ronan.” Kestrel swallowed. “Think about what you are saying.” “Only what everyone has been saying. That Lady Kestrel has a lover.” “That’s not true.” “He is her shadow, skulking behind her, listening, watching.” “He isn’t,” Kestrel tried to say, and was horrified to hear her voice falter. She felt a stinging in her eyes. “He has a girl.” “Why do you even know that? So what if he does? It doesn’t matter. Not in the eyes of society.” Kestrel’s feelings were like banners in a storm, snapping at their ties. They tangled and wound around her. She focused, and when she spoke, she made her words disdainful. “He is a slave.” “He is a man, as I am.” Kestrel slipped from her saddle, stood face-to-face with Ronan, and lied. “He is nothing to me.

Around the glade this pair of woodland nymphs danced. He swept her in a waltz to a duet that was sometimes off tune, sometimes rent with giggling and laughter as they made their own music. A breathless Erienne fell to a sun-dappled hummock of deep, soft moss, and laughing for the pure thrill of the day, she spread her arms, creating a comely yellow-hued flower on the dark green sward while seeming every bit as fragile as a blossom to the man who watched her. With bliss-bedazzled eyes, she gazed through the treetops overhead where swaying branches, bedecked in the first bright green of spring, caressed the underbellies of the freshlet zephyrs, and the fleecy white clouds raced like frolicking sheep across an azure lea. Small birds played courting games, and the earlier ones tended nests with single-minded perseverance. A sprightly squirrel leapt across the spaces, and a larger one followed, bemused at the sudden coyness of his mate. Christopher came to Erienne and sank to his knees on the thick, soft carpet, then bracing his hands on either side of her, slowly lowered himself until his chest touched her bosom. For a long moment he kissed those blushing lips that opened to him and welcomed him with an eagerness that belied the once-cool maid. Then he lifted her arm and lay beside her, keeping her hand in his as he shared her viewpoint of the day. They whispered sweet inanities, talked of dreams, hopes, and other things, as lovers are wont to do. Erienne turned on her side and taking care to keep her hand in the warm nest, ran her other fingers through his tousled hair. “You need a shearing, milord,” she teased. He rolled his head until he could look up into those amethyst eyes. “And does my lady see me as an innocent lamb ready to be clipped?” At her doubtful gaze, he questioned further. “Or rather a lusting, long-maned beast? A zealous suitor come to seduce you?” Erienne’s eyes brightened, and she nodded quickly to his inquiry. “A love-smitten swain? A silver-armored knight upon a white horse charging down to rescue you?” “Aye, all of that,” she agreed through a giggle. She came to her knees and grasped his shirt front with both hands. “All of that and more.” She bent to place a honeyed kiss upon his lips, then sitting back, spoke huskily. “I see you as my husband, as the father of my child, as my succor against the storm, protector of my home, and lord of yonder manse. But most of all, I see you as the love of my life.” -Erienne & Christopher

I always had trouble with the feet of Jón the First, or Pre-Jón, as I called him later. He would frequently put them in front of me in the evening and tell me to take off his socks and rub his toes, soles, heels and calves. It was quite impossible for me to love these Icelandic men's feet that were shaped like birch stumps, hard and chunky, and screaming white as the wood when the bark is stripped from it. Yes, and as cold and damp, too. The toes had horny nails that resembled dead buds in a frosty spring. Nor can I forget the smell, for malodorous feet were very common in the post-war years when men wore nylon socks and practically slept in their shoes. How was it possible to love these Icelandic men? Who belched at the meal table and farted constantly. After four Icelandic husbands and a whole load of casual lovers I had become a vrai connaisseur of flatulence, could describe its species and varieties in the way that a wine-taster knows his wines. The howling backfire, the load, the gas bomb and the Luftwaffe were names I used most. The coffee belch and the silencer were also well-known quantities, but the worst were the date farts, a speciality of Bæring of Westfjord. Icelandic men don’t know how to behave: they never have and never will, but they are generally good fun. At least, Icelandic women think so. They seem to come with this inner emergency box, filled with humour and irony, which they always carry around with them and can open for useful items if things get too rough, and it must be a hereditary gift of the generations. Anyone who loses their way in the mountains and gets snowed in or spends the whole weekend stuck in a lift can always open this special Icelandic emergency box and get out of the situation with a good story. After wandering the world and living on the Continent I had long tired of well-behaved, fart-free gentlemen who opened the door and paid the bills but never had a story to tell and were either completely asexual or demanded skin-burning action until the morning light. Swiss watch salesmen who only knew of “sechs” as their wake-up hour, or hairy French apes who always required their twelve rounds of screwing after the six-course meal. I suppose I liked German men the best. They were a suitable mixture of belching northerner and cultivated southerner, of orderly westerner and crazy easterner, but in the post-war years they were of course broken men. There was little you could do with them except try to put them right first. And who had the time for that? Londoners are positive and jolly, but their famous irony struck me as mechanical and wearisome in the long run. As if that irony machine had eaten away their real essence. The French machine, on the other hand, is fuelled by seriousness alone, and the Frogs can drive you beyond the limit when they get going with their philosophical noun-dropping. The Italian worships every woman like a queen until he gets her home, when she suddenly turns into a slut. The Yank is one hell of a guy who thinks big: he always wants to take you the moon. At the same time, however, he is as smug and petty as the meanest seamstress, and has a fit if someone eats his peanut butter sandwich aboard the space shuttle. I found Russians interesting. In fact they were the most Icelandic of all: drank every glass to the bottom and threw themselves into any jollity, knew countless stories and never talked seriously unless at the bottom of the bottle, when they began to wail for their mother who lived a thousand miles away but came on foot to bring them their clean laundry once a month. They were completely crazy and were better athletes in bed than my dear countrymen, but in the end I had enough of all their pommel-horse routines. Nordic men are all as tactless as Icelanders. They get drunk over dinner, laugh loudly and fart, eventually start “singing” even in public restaurants where people have paid to escape the tumult of

Knit me a sweater out of your best stories. Not the day’s petty injustices. Not the glimmer of a seven-eighths-forgotten moment from your past. Not something that somebody said to somebody, who then told it to you. No, I want a yarn. It doesn’t have to be true. “Okay,” you say. “Do you want to know how I met you?” I nod. “It was on the carousel. You were on the pink horse, I was on the yellow. You were two horses ahead of me, and from the moment you got in the saddle, I wanted to draw up right next to you and say hello. "Around and around we went, and I kept waiting for my horse to pull ahead. I sensed it would know when I was ready, and it was waiting for that moment. You rose and you fell, and I followed, and I followed. I thought my chance would never come. But then, like magic, all the power in the entire city went out at once. It was darkness, utter darkness. The music stopped, and there were only heartbeats to be heard. Heartbeats. I couldn’t see you, and worried that you’d left. But right at that moment, the moon came out from behind the clouds. And there you were. I stepped off my horse just as you stepped off yours. I turned right and you turned left. We met in the middle.” “And what did you say?” “Don’t you remember? I said, ‘What a lovely evening this is.’ And you said, ‘I was just thinking the same thing.’” As long as we can conjure, who needs anything else? As long as we can agree on the magical lie and be happy, what more is there to ask for? “I loved you from that moment on,” I say. “I loved you from that moment on,” you agree.

Hey." Jesse leaned on a rail to watch as Wyatt bent to his task. "When did you get back?" Wyatt barely paused. "Not sure. Time passes,you know?" "Yeah." Jesse arched a brow. "Something eating you,cuz?" "I'm fine." "Yeah.I can see that." Jesse turned to Zane and rolled his eyes. "We're heading up to the north range. Want to ride along?" "I'm fine here." "Well,yeah,you're doing a great job on that stall.But when you're through shoveling manure,what're you planning on doing the rest of the day?" Instead of te laugh he was expecting, Wyatt swore. Loudly. Fiercely. "I guess that means you'd like to be alone." Jesse shoved his hands into his back pockets. "Speaking from experience as an old married man,I'd say this also means that you and the lovely Lee have had a lovers' spat." In response Wyatt dug the pitchfork into a pile of dung and tossed it Jesse's way. Jesse ducked,avoiding most of the mess, except for a few bits of straw that clung to his hair. From a safe distance Zane gave a roar of laughter. "I think that means he isn't seeking your sage device, O Ancient One." "Your loss,cuz.I could have told you that what women really want is for you to admire their minds. Even when they don't make any sense at all." Jesse picked out the pieces of straw and tossed them aside before turning to Zane. "Come on.We've got a herd to deal with. Let's leave Mr. Happy to work out his problems in this pile of...horse manure." Laughing,the two strolled out of the barn. Wyatt swore gain and continued shoveling until every stall sparkled. Then he moved on to the cow barns, working his way through a mountain of frustration.

Jd_O wti d-d- God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. -GENESIS 1:31 As we look at life, are we bound to the idea that bad things happen to people? Look at all the bad news on television and radio. The newspapers are full of disasters: people dying of illness, accidents, drownings, fires destroying property, uprisings in countries abroad, and on and on. Do you sometimes ask God, "Why me?" As we look around, we get the idea that everything is falling apart, and our whole world is in a spiral downward. Charles L. Allen expressed this idea about our perspective: Our glasses aren't half-empty; they are really half-full. He says, It seems to be a general belief that the will of God is to make things distasteful for us, like taking medicine when we are sick or going to the dentist. Somebody needs to tell us that sunrise is also God's will. In fact, the good things in life far outweigh the bad. There are more sunrises than cyclones. His glass was certainly half-full. There's a story of a young boy who was on top of a pile of horse manure digging as fast and as hard as he could. His father, seeing his son work so hard on a pile of smelly waste, asked, "Weston, what are you doing on that pile of horse manure?" Weston replied, "Daddy, with this much horse manure there must be a pony here somewhere." This son certainly had his glass half-full. You, too, can choose to be positive in all events of life. There is goodness in everything-if we will only look for it. PRAYER Father God, thank You for helping me be a positive person. I appreciate You giving me

...and the handsome jester, Devil’s Gold, is shaking his bead-covered rattle, making medicine and calling us by name. We are so tired from our long walk that we cannot but admire his gilded face and his yellow magic blanket. And, holding each other’s hands like lovers, we stoop and admire ourselves in the golden pool that flickers in the great campfire he has impudently built at the crossing of two streets in Heaven. But we do not step into the pool as beforetime. Our boat is beside us, it has overtaken us like some faithful tame giant swan, and Avanel whispers: “Take us where The Golden Book was written.” And thus we are up and away. The boat carries us deeper, down the valley. We find the cell of Hunter Kelly,— . St. Scribe of the Shrines. Only his handiwork remains to testify of him. Upon the walls of his cell he has painted many an illumination he afterward painted on The Golden Book margins and, in a loose pile of old torn and unbound pages, the first draft of many a familiar text is to be found. His dried paint jars are there and his ink and on the wall hangs the empty leather sack of Johnny Appleseed, from which came the first sowing of all the Amaranths of our little city, and the Amaranth that led us here. And Avanel whispers:—“I ask my heart: —Where is Hunter Kelly, and my heart speaks to me as though commanded: ‘The Hunter is again pioneering for our little city in the little earth. He is reborn as the humblest acolyte of the Cathedral, a child that sings tonight with the star chimes, a red-cheeked boy, who shoes horses at the old forge of the Iron Gentleman. Let us also return’.” It is eight o’clock in the evening, at Fifth and Monroe. It is Saturday night, and the crowd is pouring toward The Majestic, and Chatterton’s, and The Vaudette, and The Princess and The Gaiety. It is a lovely, starry evening, in the spring. The newsboys are bawling away, and I buy an Illinois State Register. It is dated March 1, 1920. Avanel of Springfield is one hundred years away. The Register has much news of a passing nature. I am the most interested in the weather report, that tomorrow will be fair. THE END - Written in Washington Park Pavilion, Springfield, Illinois.

Never give up on horses, they are the only humans that don't speak.

The local pub, The Red Lion, has the double distinction of being the only pub in Britain to be surrounded by a stone circle and be voted one of the top 10 most haunted bars in the world. The pub has quite a bit of history. It started as a farmhouse in the early 17th century before becoming a coaching inn in 1802, acting as a rest stop for the growing network of horse-drawn coaches taking passengers and mail between cities. It continues to serve drinks to this day. The Red Lion’s landlord says there are at least five ghosts in his pub. The best known is a young woman named Florrie, who married a local soldier in the 17th century. When he went off to fight in the English Civil War, she took another lover. The soldier returned unexpectedly, discovered them together, and shot the man who had cuckolded him before stabbing Florrie and throwing her down a well located inside the building. The well is still there today, and she is often seen hovering nearby or floating in and out of it. Sometimes, she is not seen, but acts as a poltergeist, throwing small objects across the bar.

THE AMERICANS Major James Pitman: West Point graduate, lover of dogs and horses. Executive officer of the 42nd Squadron of the 2nd Cavalry. Lieutenant William Donald “Quin” Quinlivan: Career cavalryman. Assigned to the 42nd Squadron of the 2nd Cavalry. Colonel Charles Hancock “Hank” Reed: Virginia-born, expert horseman, commanding officer of the 2nd Cavalry. Captain Ferdinand Sperl: Swiss-born naturalized U.S. citizen. Interrogator attached to the 2nd Cavalry. Captain Thomas Stewart: Son of a Tennessee senator. Intelligence officer in the 2nd Cavalry.

I Don’t Care Anymore,” Hellyeah “Ballad of a Prodigal Son,” Lincoln Durham “Battleflag,” Lo Fidelity Allstars “How You Like Me Now (Raffertie Remix),” The Heavy “Black Honey,” Thrice “Bourbon Street,” Jeff Tuohy “Cellophane,” Sara Jackson-Holman “Drive,” Joe Bonamassa “Fake It,” Bastille “Heathens,” twenty one pilots “Jekyll and Hyde,” Five Finger Death Punch “Lovers End,” The Birthday Massacre “Meth Lab Zoso Sticker,” 7Horse “Bad Reputation,” Joan Jett “Peace,” Apocalyptica “Send Them Off!,” Bastille “Tainted Love,” Marilyn Manson “Take It All,” Pop Evil

With a start, she forced a smile to her face. “I would prefer to be surprised.” Now he grinned deeply. “Even more fun—well, as I said, I want to introduce you to someone.” His smile faded a little. “I think you might like her.” Her? As in a female? Like? Verily, that would happen only if the “she” in question had a horse face and a big butt, Payne thought. “How lovely,” she said.

Watson, you idiot. Some so-and-so has stolen our tent.

He could handle his former lover under his roof for a couple of days. No sweat, right? But when Trevor’s eyes caught Edgard’s, the punch of lust whomped him as sharply as a hoof to the belly, making him just as breathless. Dammit, don’t look at me that way, Ed. Please. Edgard banked the hunger in those topaz-colored eyes and Trevor silently breathed a sigh of relief. The blank stare was a reaction they’d both mastered during the years they’d spent together on the road. If sponsors, promoters or fans caught wind of his and Edgard’s nocturnal proclivities they would’ve been blackballed. Or would’ve been beat to shit on a regular basis if the other rodeo cowboys suspected he and Edgard weren’t merely traveling partners. There’d been no choice but to become discreet. Nothing discreet about the way Edgard had eyeballed him. “Trev, hon, you comin’?” “Go on. I’ll be right in after I take care of this motor.” He retreated to the barn, needing to find his balance after being knocked sideways. Edgard was here. Trevor’s gut clenched remembering the last time he’d seen the man. Remembering the misery on Edgard’s face, knowing his face reflected the same desolation when they’d said goodbye three and a half years ago. Crippled by pain, fear, and loss, Trevor hadn’t had the balls to wrap Edgard in his arms one last time. He’d snapped off some dumbass comment and done nothing but sit on his ass in the horse trailer like a lump of moldy shit and watched him go. No. Let him go. He’d gotten drunk that night. And every night after for damn near six months. He’d f**ked every woman who’d crossed his path. Sex and booze did nothing to chase away the sense he’d made a huge mistake. Or on the really bad nights, his all-too smug relief that he’d never really felt “that way” about Edgard and he was glad the too-tempting bastard was gone for good.

When the shot rang out, she jerked as if the ball had plowed into her own body. The blast echoed and reechoed, loud and reverberating, punctuating her worst fear with a cutting finality. Running, running. She saw only Hunter, sitting on his horse one second, beautiful and proud, then thrown forward, as if a mighty hand had slammed into his back. He pitched sideways off his horse. Falling, falling, forever falling. Hunter, shot. Loretta couldn’t think beyond that. The other Comanches were a blur. Hunter was her only reality, and the cold fingers of death were curling around him. The events of the last three months spun through her head like the acts in a play. Her fierce captor, her trusted friend, her gentle lover. She couldn’t lose him like this. “Hunter! Oh, please, dear God, not Hunter!” Loretta reached him and dropped to her knees, trying to gather him into her arms. Dead weight. She couldn’t lift him. Blood, everywhere blood. A tortured moan worked its way up her throat. Not Hunter. With a trembling hand, she cupped the side of his jaw, sobbing his name. This Comanche cannot change his face. She touched the scar that slashed his cheek, the lifeless lips that had so frequently whispered comfort to her. If her face was carved on his heart, his was carved on her soul. “Don’t die! Hunter, please, don’t die! I love you! Hunter--” A sob tore the words from her guts in ragged spurts. “I love--you. Nah-ich-ka, you hear? I love you! You can’t die and leave me. Please, don’t leave me!

The joy of Loretta’s homecoming was overshadowed by Henry’s rage. Friends with a murderin’ savage, was she? A Comanche slut, that’s what, kissin’ on him in broad daylight, comin’ home to shame them all with her Injun horse and heathen necklace. His land looked like a bloomin’ pincushion with all them heathen lances pokin’ up. He was gonna get shut of ’em, just like he had those horses. Half of ’em stole from white folks! Some trade that was! Loretta listened to his tirade in stony silence. When he wound down she said, “Are you quite finished?” “No, I ain’t!” He leveled a finger at her. “Just you understand this, young lady. If that bastard planted his seed in that belly of yours, it’ll be hell to pay. The second you throw an Injun brat, I’ll bash its head on a rock!” Loretta flinched. “And we call them animals?” Henry backhanded her, catching her on the cheek with stunning force. Loretta reeled and grabbed the table to keep from falling. Rachel screamed and threw herself between them. Amy’s muffled sobs could be heard coming up through the floor. “For the love of God, Henry, please…” Rachel wrung her hands in her apron. “Get a hold on your temper.” Henry swept Rachel aside. Leveling a finger at Loretta again, he snarled, “Don’t you sass me, girl, or I’ll tan your hide till next Sunday. You’ll show respect, by gawd.” Loretta pressed her fingers to her jaw, staring at him. Respect? Suddenly it struck her as hysterically funny. She had been captured by savages and dragged halfway across Texas. Never once, not even when he had just cause, had Hunter hit her with enough force to hurt her, and never in the face. She’d had to come home to receive that kind of abuse. She sank onto the planked bench and started to laugh, a high-pitched, half-mad laughter. Aunt Rachel crossed herself, and that only made her laugh harder. Henry stormed outside to get “those dad-blamed Indian lances” pulled up before a passing neighbor spied them and started calling them Injun lovers. Loretta laughed harder yet. Maybe she had gone mad. Stark, raving mad.

I don’t understand her. I treat her kindly, yet she still shakes with fear at the thought of being one with me. I try to make her happy and make her angry instead.” Many Horses lifted an eyebrow. “Fear is not like a layer of dust on a tree leaf that washes away in a gentle rain. Give her time. Be her good friend, first--then become her lover. As for making a woman happy, you succeed sometimes, you fail sometimes. That is the way of it.” Hunter took a deep breath and let it out on a weary sigh. “It’s not that I have another woman in mind to take as wife. It’s just--” “That you are bullheaded?” Hunter smothered an outraged laugh. “A little bit, yes?” Many Horses shrugged. “One unto the other is not a bad thing for a man. I am sure enough glad I have only one tug rope coming into my lodge. Can you imagine how exhausting three or four wives would be?” “My mother has been enough for you, but she is a special woman.” Many Horses grinned. “She is a jealous woman. And I’m not a stupid man. I didn’t want to live in a wasp’s nest all my life.” He shrugged. “I like things as they are. Fewer sharp tongues nagging me. Fewer mouths to feed. And only one woman to try to understand. I brought her slaves to help her with the work.” “My yellow-hair does not believe in having slaves.” “Neither does she believe in many wives. Give her a choice, slaves or wives. See which she chooses.” Many Horses waved his hand before him to clear the air of ash. “You must also remember the yellow-hair may give you many more children than a Comanche woman. Take care or you could father more children than you can feed. I’ve never seen a white woman yet who wasn’t a good breeder.” A slow grin spread across Hunter’s mouth. “You will tell her this, yes? So far she isn’t showing the proper enthusiasm.