Hot Flashes Quotes

Man...heats up like a lightbulb: red hot in the twinkling of an eye and cold again in a flash. The female, on the other hand...heats up like an iron. Slowly, over a low heat, like tasty stew. But then, once she has heated up, there's no stopping her.

Actually," Clary said, "I think he stayed because of me." Jace's glaze flicked up to hers with a flash of gold. "Because of you? Hoping for another hot date, was he?" Clary felt herself flush. "No. And our date wasn't hot. In fact, it wasn't even a date. Anyway, that's not the point. When he came into the Hall, he kept trying to get me to go outside with him so we could talk. He wanted something from me. I just don't know what." "Or maybe he just wanted you," Jace said. Seeing Clary's expression, he added, "Not that way. I mean maybe he wanted to bring you to Valentine.

My dear, dear girl [. . .] we can't turn back the days that have gone. We can't turn life back to the hours when our lungs were sound, our blood hot, our bodies young. We are a flash of fire--a brain, a heart, a spirit. And we are three-cents-worth of lime and iron--which we cannot get back.

Who knew that insanity came in hot flashes?

Hot flush, raging bluch. Ice flash, instant crash.

Don’t flash those green doe eyes at me.” “They don’t melt your heart of stone?” I banter. “Stone can’t fucking melt … it just grows hot.

Wishes For Sons i wish them cramps. i wish them a strange town and the last tampon. I wish them no 7-11. i wish them one week early and wearing a white skirt. i wish them one week late. later i wish them hot flashes and clots like you wouldn't believe. let the flashes come when they meet someone special. let the clots come when they want to. let them think they have accepted arrogance in the universe, then bring them to gynecologists not unlike themselves.

Anyone? On Snow's visit before the Victory Tour, he challenged me to erase any doubts of my love for Peeta. "Convince me," Snow said. It seems, under that hot pink sky with Peeta's life in limbo, I finally did. And In doing so, I gave him the weapon he needed to break me.

Cruel Prince James strode into the chamber, his cape flashing behind him and his terrible, terrible mustache askew with rage,” Lucie narrated the moment James walked through the door. “Does it need be said twice that it’s terrible?” James said. “He required a hot beverage to soothe his throat, parched from barking out his wicked commands all day. Tea, he thought, yes, tea and revenge.” “I’ll just go put the kettle on,” James sighed.

You sure about this?" I asked Thalia. She turned to me. "Amaltheia leads me to good things. The last time she appeared, she led me to you." The compliment warmed me like a cup of hot chocolate. I'm a sucker that way. Thalia can flash those blue eyes, give me one kind word, and she can get me to do pretty much whatever.

It was as hysterical as a woman having a hot flash.

Ok, look. Whenever I hear people say that they felt ‘sparks,’ I usually think it’s a load of poo. I mean, I have felt attraction to people, sure, and I have even felt some instant lust. But sparks? Please... Then he touched my skin. Sparks. Sparks. Sparks. Hot sparks. Flashing sparks. Lightning bolt sparks. J esus, Mary, and Joseph sparks.

Comes in hot flashes. Just when you feel like you can’t take it anymore, it passes for a bit. But it comes back, boy does it.

I am a cutter, you see. Also a snipper, a slicer, a carver, a jabber. I am a very special case. I have a purpose. My skin, you see, screams. It's covered with words - cook, cupcake, kitty, curls - as if a knife-wielding first-grader learned to write on my flesh. I sometimes, but only sometimes, laugh. Getting out of the bath and seeing, out of the corner of my eye, down the side of a leg: babydoll. Pull on a sweater and, in a flash of my wrist: harmful. Why these words? Thousands of hours of therapy have yielded a few ideas from the good doctors. They are often feminine, in a Dick and Jane, pink vs. puppy dog tails sort of way. Or they're flat-out negative. Number of synonyms for anxious carved in my skin: eleven. The one thing I know for sure is that at the time, it was crucial to see these letters on me, and not just see them, but feel them. Burning on my left hip: petticoat. And near it, my first word, slashed on an anxious summer day at age thirteen: wicked. I woke up that morning, hot and bored, worried about the hours ahead. How do you keep safe when your whole day is as wide and empty as the sky? Anything could happen. I remember feeling that word, heavy and slightly sticky across my pubic bone. My mother's steak knife. Cutting like a child along red imaginary lines. Cleaning myself. Digging in deeper. Cleaning myself. Pouring bleach over the knife and sneaking through the kitchen to return it. Wicked. Relief. The rest of the day, I spent ministering to my wound. Dig into the curves of W with an alcohol-soaked Q-tip. Pet my cheek until the sting went away. Lotion. Bandage. Repeat.

That's new.” His gaze was hot and fierce. “My cock? I'm fairly certain it's always been there.” His grin flashed briefly. “No Lio, you've been cut. Circumcised.” “Oh.” I stared at the smooth column of my shaft. “That must have hurt.

Hurt of this magnitude is like menopause,” Phyllis tells me. I’ve just wiped my nose with one of the hats. She takes it from me and hands me a tissue. “Comes in hot flashes. Just when you feel like you can’t take it anymore, it passes for a bit. But it comes back, boy does it.

Dear lord, the flash of his gleaming white teeth was like a hot button to my nether regions. Down vagina! Down, girl.” Bad Rep by A. Meredith Walters

My capacity for invention is flash hot stark, I thought. Sucker sunshade. Disembodied radar-reconnaissance. Not to mention Bitter Chocolate Death and Killer Zebras. Pity about the rest of me.

t’s a torrent of feeling, a simultaneous, ephemeral taste of death and bliss and my eyes close, white - hot heat flashes behind my eyelids and I have to fight the need to call out his name even as I feel us shatter together, destroyed and restored all at once and he gasps He says, “ Juliette —

He looked like every glossy frat boy in every nerd movie ever made, like every popular town boy who’d ever looked right through her in high school, like every rotten rich kid who’d ever belonged where she hadn’t. My mama warned me about guys like you. He turned to her as if he’d heard her and took off his sunglasses, and she went down the steps to meet him, wiping her sweaty palms on her dust-smeared khaki shorts. “Hi, I’m Sophie Dempsey,” she said, flashing the Dempsey gotta-love-me grin as she held out her hot, grimy hand, and after a moment he took it. His hand was clean and cool and dry, and her heart pounded harder as she looked into his remote, gray eyes. “Hello, Sophie Dempsey,” her worst nightmare said. “Welcome to Temptation.

For a moment she was convinced she was still dreaming. That she’d fallen asleep while reading one of JR Ward’s Brotherhood of The Black Dagger romances and had inserted herself into a dream based on the book. Any moment now he was going to start growling Mine Mine Mine and let loose with some spicy bonding scent. Or flash a massive set of fangs.

It occurred to her that this was what being caught might be like. The white-hot flash of recognition and then her life blown open, a radioactive mirror in a wasteland, her secretive life torn asunder and scattered outward in disarray.

The whole summer stretched out before us, long, hot, endless. September flashed like a tiny red warning light in the distance, but if I squinted, I could ignore it. I decided to squint for a while. 'It's going to be wonderful,' I said.

[Hot flashes] are the prime cause of sleep disruption in women over age fifty, Suzanne Woodward of Wayne State University School of Medicine reports. Her studies show that hot flashes in sleep occur about once an hour. Most prompt an arousal of three minutes or longer. Independently of their hot flashes, women who have them still awaken briefly every eight minutes on average. The sleep process dramatically blunts memory for awakenings, Woodward said, and in the morning women seldom realize how poorly they slept. Instead, they often focus on the daytime consequences of poor sleep, which include fatigue, lethargy, mood swings, depression, and irritability. Many women and their doctors, Woodward said, dismiss such symptoms as "just menopause." This is a mistake, she suggested, because treatment can reduce or eliminate hot flashes, aid sleep, relieve other symptoms, and improve a woman's quality of life. Treatment also helps keep frequent awakenings from becoming a bad habit that continues after hot flashes subside.

Jealousy hot flashes through my body, a thunderbolt crashing through.

My neck and chest go hot in a flash and I look away. I should just start building my cabin alongside Fuckboy Creek because obviously it’s where I intend to spend the rest of my days.

Suddenly, she burst out, "I want to punch her evil, lying face." Liam caught a flash of hot gold as Dad looked at them, narrow-eyed, in the rearview mirror. Dad said, completely seriously, "I can make that happen.

There are wild flowers in my desert which take up to twenty years to bloom. The seeds sleep like geodes beneath hot feldspar sand until a flash flood bolts the arroyo, lifting them in its copper current, opens them with memory— they remember what their god whispered into their ribs: Wake up and ache for your life.

While the train flashed through never-ending miles of ripe wheat, by country towns and bright-flowered pastures and oak groves wilting in the sun, we sat in the observation car, where the woodwork was hot to the touch and red dust lay deep over everything. The dust and heat, the burning wind, reminded us of many things. We were talking about what it is like to spend one’s childhood in little towns like these, buried in wheat and corn, under stimulating extremes of climate: burning summers when the world lies green and billowy beneath a brilliant sky, when one is fairly stifled in vegetation, in the color and smell of strong weeds and heavy harvests; blustery winters with little snow, when the whole country is stripped bare and gray as sheet-iron. We agreed that no one who had not grown up in a little prairie town could know anything about it. It was a kind of freemasonry, we said.

Sopping, and with no sign of stopping, either- then a breather. Warm again, storm again- what is the norm, again? It's fine, it's not, it's suddenly hot: Boom, crash, lightning flash!

They pointed at each other, with starlight burning in their limbs like daggers and icicles and fireflies, and then fell to judging their limbs again, each finding himself intact, hot, excited, stunned, awed, and the other, ah yes, that other over there, unreal, a ghostly prism flashing the accumulated light of distant worlds…. … Now Tomas laughed. “You’re blind!” “I see very well. You are the one who does not see.

Are the Trials starting?” The girl claps her hands over her mouth. “I'm sorry,” she whispers. “I—” “It's all right.” I don't smile at her. It will only scare her. For a female slave, a smile from a Mask is not usually a good thing. “I'm actually wondering the same thing. What's your name?” “S-slave-Girl.” Of course. My mother would already have scourged her name out of existence. “Right. You work for the Commandant?” I want her to say no. I want her to say that my mother roped her into this. I want her to say she's assigned to the kitchens or infirmary, where slaves aren't scarred or missing body parts. But the girl nods in response to my question. Don't let my mother break you, I think. The girl meets my eyes, and there is that feeling again, low and hot and consuming. Don't be weak. Fight. Escape. A gust of wind whips a strand free from her bun and across her cheekbone. Defiance flashes across her face as she holds my gaze, and for a second, I see my own desire for freedom mirrored, intensified in her eyes. It's something I've never detected in the eyes of a fellow student, let alone a Scholar slave. For one strange moment, I feel less alone. But then she looks down, and I wonder at my own naiveté. She can't fight. She can't scape. Not from Blackcliff. I smile joylessly; in this, at least, the slave and I are more similar than she'll ever know.

In these days of physical fitness, hair dye, and plastic surgery, you can live much of your life without feeling or even looking old. But then one day, your knee goes, or your shoulder, or your back, or your hip. Your hot flashes come to an end; things droop. Spots appear. Your cleavage looks like a peach pit. If your elbows faced forward, you would kill yourself. You’re two inches shorter than you used to be. You’re ten pounds fatter and you cannot lose a pound of it to save your soul. Your hands don’t work as well as they once did and you can’t open bottles, jars, wrappers, and especially those gadgets that are encased tightly in what seems to be molded Mylar. If you were stranded on a desert island and your food were sealed in plastic packaging, you would starve to death. You take so many pills in the morning you don’t have room for breakfast. You lose close friends and discover one of the worst truths of old age: they’re irreplaceable. People who run four miles a day and eat only nuts and berries drop dead. People who drink a quart of whiskey and smoke two packs of cigarettes a day drop dead. You are suddenly in a lottery, the ultimate game of chance, and someday your luck will run out. Everybody dies. There’s nothing you can do about it. Whether or not you eat six almonds a day. Whether or not you believe in God.

I was looking forward to a hot shower - with him. We rarely showered alone. To be fair, who wouldn't conserve water after living through the Flash?

When Addison saw me, she actually laughed and said, "You're just so quirky. Like a cute little librarian." She meant it as a diss, but news flash, Addison: Librarians are hot.

This one’s for the unusual motherfuckers in this world. A lot of people think that once they reach a certain level of status, respect, or success, that they’ve made it in life. I’m here to tell you that you always have to find more. Greatness is not something that if you meet it once it stays with you forever. That shit evaporates like a flash of oil in a hot pan.

I leaned into Karrin a little and said, next to her ear, "You ready for this?" "Only a lunatic is ready for this," she said. I could hear her smile as she spoke. Then she turned her head and, before I could react, planted a kiss right on my mouth. I almost fell off the Harley. She drew her head back, flashed me a wicked little smile, and said, "For luck. Star Wars-style." "You are so hot right now," I told her.

Oh boy,” Lula said when she saw me. “Think we got a good story walking in the door, here. What’s with the handcuff?” “I thought it would look good with the cheese balls in my hair. You know, dress up the outfit.” “I hope it was Morelli,” Connie said. “I wouldn’t mind being cuffed by Morelli.” “Close,” I said. “It was Ranger.” “Uh-oh,” Lula said. “Think I just wet my pants.” “It wasn’t anything sexual,” I said. “It was … an accident. And then we lost the key.” Connie fanned herself with a manila folder. “I’m having a hot flash.

Steam coming off the planet, clouds of fleecy steam as boy and girl populations clash in religious riots, hot and whistling like a graveyard sodomist our little planet embraces its fragile yo-yo destiny, tuned in the secular mind like a dying engine. But some do not hear it this way, some flying successful moon-shot eyes do not see it this way. They do not hear the individual noises shhh,hiss, they hear the sound of the sounds together, they behold the interstices flashing up and down the cone of the flowering whirlwind.

His dark eyes flash up to meet mine. He says hotly, “Simple is better on you. Perfection doesn’t need any embellishment.

Staring at my smoldering hot date, her husband stands tall for the first time in a decade, adjusting his toupee while flashing a horrid green toothy grin that looks more like a Steven Hawkins muscle spasm. In his hands, a frightened beer bottle is choked with the steel grip of a sexually repressed Preacher.

He pinned me in place with a direct look, his dark brown eyes smoldering. “You’re Mary Jane,” he said finally. “And you have all these Flash Thompsons and Harry Osborns hovering around you, trying to make a move. Because...you’re basically amazing.

Mi Corazon. Mi alma. Son tuyos." My heart. My soul. They are yours, he whispered against the generous curve of her breast as a million sensations, all of them hot, all of them rich, all of them straddling the razor-sharp edge of pain, ripped through his loins like a flash fire and stripped him of everything but consciousness. "Tuyo. Todo que tengo es tuyo." Yours. Everything I have is yours.

She jotted down the order, then forced herself to meet his gaze. "It's going to be a bit of a wait, we're short-staffed this morning." The following words rushed out of her. "And breakfast's on me." "Normally, I wouldn't protest," he said, leaning closer. "But in public, I'd prefer a plate." An image of Rukh, hair untied, licking whipped cream off her navel flashed through her mind, left her staring.

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.

Bright flashes of memory sparked through Kaz’s mind. A cup of hot chocolate in his mittened hands, Jordie warning him to let it cool before he took a sip. Ink drying on the page as he’d signed the deed to the Crow Club. The first time he’d seen Inej at the Menagerie, in purple silk, her eyes lined with kohl. The bone-handled knife he’d given her. The sobs that had come from behind the door of her room at the Slat the night she’d made her first kill. The sobs he’d ignored. Kaz remembered her perched on the sill of his attic window, sometime during that first year after he’d brought her into the Dregs. She’d been feeding the crows that congregated on the roof. “You shouldn’t make friends with crows,” he’d told her. “Why not?” she asked. He’d looked up from his desk to answer, but whatever he’d been about to say had vanished on his tongue. The sun was out for once, and Inej had turned her face to it. Her eyes were shut, her oil-black lashes fanned over her cheeks. The harbor wind had lifted her dark hair, and for a moment Kaz was a boy again, sure that there was magic in this world. “Why not?” she’d repeated, eyes still closed. He said the first thing that popped into his head. “They don’t have any manners.” “Neither do you, Kaz.” She’d laughed, and if he could have bottled the sound and gotten drunk on it every night, he would have. It terrified him.

Another flash of recognition sped through her mind. It’s him, her thoughts whispered through the fog of arousal. And she wanted to know who he was. What else he could do for her. What he’d feel like inside her. What he would unleash within her.

Then she turned her head and, before I could react, planted a kiss right on my mouth. I almost fell off the Harley. She drew her head back, flashed me a wicked little smile, and said, “For luck. Star Wars–style.” “You are so hot right now,” I told her.

hot fury fighting to tear out of him. Mental flashes stabbed his brain of what was done to her—delicate flesh sliced open without care. Oh God. His stomach lurched as his mind suddenly connected the smell that had been in his nostrils since he’d gotten there. Blood. Fresh and dried, no doubt caking her inner thighs all the way to her feet.

Lover?” The boy lifts an eyebrow suggestively. My face grows hot. “He’s my—my friend.” “Then why worry?” The boy flashes a grin tinged with wickedness, and I find myself smiling in return. I glance over my shoulder at Izzi, talking to an earnest-looking Scholar. She laughs at something he says, her hands, for once, not straying to her eyepatch. When she catches me watching, she looks between the Tribal boy and me and waggles her eyebrows. My face goes hot again. One dance can’t hurt; we can leave after. The

She thrusts hurriedly into your hand an extremely hot buttered roll, flashes out a tiny pair of scissors, snips off the second button of your overcoat, meaningly ejaculates the one word, "parallelogram!" and swiftly flies down a cross street, looking back fearfully over her shoulder. That

I scooted out of the laundry room and skipped down the hallway, arms flaying around my head like one of the hot pink puppets from the movie Labyrinth. “A scent and a sound, I’m lost and I’m found. And I’m hungry like the wolf. Something on a line, it’s discord and rhyme—whatever, whatever, la la la—Mouth is alive, all running inside, and I’m hungry like the—” Warmth spread down my neck. “It’s actually, ‘I howl and I whine. I’m after you,’ and not blah or whatever.” Startled by the deep voice, I shrieked and whipped around. My foot slipped on a section of well-cleaned wood and my butt smacked on the floor. “Holy crap,” I gasped, clutching my chest. “I think I’m having a heart attack.” “And I think you broke your butt.” Laughter filled Daemon’s voice. I remained sprawled across the narrow hallway, trying to catch my breath. “What the hell? Do you just walk into people’s houses?” “And listen to girls absolutely destroy a song in a matter of seconds? Well, yes, I make a habit out of it. Actually, I knocked several times, but I heard your…singing, and your door was unlocked.” He shrugged. “So I just let myself in.” “I can see that.” I stood, wincing. “Oh, man, maybe I did break my butt.” “I hope not. I’m kind of partial to your butt.” He flashed a smile. “Your face is pretty red. You sure you didn’t smack that on the way down?” I groaned. “I hate you.

I'm sorry Donatella wounded you so badly,' Evangeline said. And she meant it. She imagined Jacks was probably leaving a few things out, but she believed his hurt was genuine. 'Maybe the stories have it wrong and there's another true love waiting for you.' Jacks laughed derisively. 'Are you saying this because you think you can be her?' He eyed Evangeline through the bars, gaze bordering on indecent. 'Do you want to kiss me, Little Fox?' Something new and terrible knotted up inside her. 'No, that's not what I'm saying.' 'You don't sound too sure about that. You might not like me, but I bet you'd like it if I kissed you.' His eyes went to her lips, and the heat that swept across her mouth felt like the beginning of a kiss. 'Jacks, stop it,' she demanded. He didn't really want to kiss her. He was just teasing her to deflect the pain. 'I know what you're doing.' 'I doubt it.' He smiled, flashing his dimples as he ran his tongue over the tip of a very sharp and long incisor, looking suddenly thoughtful. 'Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to stay like this. I rather like these.' 'You also like daylight.' Evangeline reminded him. 'I could probably live without the sun if I could trade it for other things.' He cocked his head. 'I wonder... if I were to become a true vampire, perhaps my kiss wouldn't be fatal anymore.' His fangs lengthened. 'You could let me bite you and we could try it out.' Another piercing lick of heat, this time right beneath her jaw, then her wrist, and a few other intimate places she'd have never thought anyone would bite. Evangeline blushed from her neck down to her collarbone. 'We're not talking about biting,' she said hotly.

I have to act the way I always do with you. Because otherwise they’ll see.” He flings his arm in the direction of the dining room, color rising over his cheeks. “They’ll all know how much I want you. That I’m fucking aching to touch you.” My breath leaves in a whoosh, and his comes out in a pant. “They’ll see right through me,” he whispers hotly. “I couldn’t let them know that, Bren. Not if we want to keep us a secret.” “There is no us.” His eyes flash. “Bullshit.

THE LILIES This morning it was, on the pavement, When that smell hit me again And set the houses reeling. People passed like rain: (The way rain moves and advances over the hills) And it was hot, hot and dank, The smell like animals, strong, but sweet too. What was it? Something I had forgotten. I tried to remember, standing there, Sniffing the air on the pavement. Somehow I thought of flowers. Flowers! That bad smell! I looked: down lanes, past houses-- There, behind a hoarding, A rubbish-heap, soft and wet and rotten. Then I remembered: After the rain, on the farm, The vlei that was dry and paler than a stone Suddenly turned wet and green and warm. The green was a clash of music. Dry Africa became a swamp And swamp-birds with long beaks Went humming and flashing over the reeds And cicadas shrilling like a train. I took off my clothes and waded into the water. Under my feet first grass, then mud, Then all squelch and water to my waist. A faint iridescence of decay, The heat swimming over the creeks Where the lilies grew that I wanted: Great lilies, white, with pink streaks That stood to their necks in the water. Armfuls I gathered, working there all day. With the green scum closing round my waist, The little frogs about my legs, And jelly-trails of frog-spawn round the stems. Once I saw a snake, drowsing on a stone, Letting his coils trail into the water. I expect he was glad of rain too After nine moinths of being dry as bark. I don't know why I picked those lilies, Piling them on the grass in heaps, For after an hour they blackened, stank. When I left at dark, Red and sore and stupid from the heat, Happy as if I'd built a town, All over the grass were rank Soft, decaying heaps of lilies And the flies over them like black flies on meat...

I hate when a man feels I’m obligated to disclose my marital status to somebody I don’t even know. Even this bullshit about status itself as if married and spinster are the only two choices for defining myself. Or because I’m a woman I’m supposed to have a status at all. Hey big boy, here’s my status. Hi, before I tell you my name here’s my status. Maybe I should just say I’m a lesbian and throw the problem back in their faces for them to define it. Xanax for anxiety. Valium for sleep. Prozac for depression. Phenergan for nausea. Tylenol for headaches. Mylanta for bloating. Midol for cramps. I mean, Jesus Christ, menopause come already. Isn’t there some fast-track for a hot flash? It’s not like I’m ever going to breed, so why keep the damn store door open?

So then you do feel for me." His face looked pained. "Tell me you love me in the same way that I love you, and maybe that will provide some relief to hang on to when you're not here. Tell me that you'll be tortured because you're not with me, and that you'll spend hours trying to think of what you could have done differently. Tell me you'll see my face when you close your eyes at night and that i'll haunt you until morning. Tell me," he said, his voice louder now. His eyes flashing, hot and angry. "I can't do that," I whispered.

But Nick still had one person left to speak to. Mark. “How did you survive?” he asked as Mark left Simi, who was licking her fingers and joined them by the truck. Mark flashed him a grin. “What? Did you forget the first rule I taught you, boy?” Nick scowled as he tried to remember Mark’s various rules for survival. “Duck urine chases away every living and unliving thing?” “Nah, that’s number six. Rule number one: I don’t have to outrun the zombie. I just have to outrun you. How you think Eric and Tabitha got captured?” Tabitha laughed. “Oh please. Inspector Gadget over there made a blowtorch out of Eric’s art sealant and a lighter. I’m not sure the house is stil standing, but he got us out of there and Simi covered the rest of our retreat. We’d have gotten away completely had Eric not tripped and I made the mistake of going back for him while Mark was hot-wiring a neighbour’s car.” Nick laughed at more proof Mark wasn’t completely insane. Never go back for the fallen unless you want to be captured or killed. Unless the fallen was Bubba, who usually had a larger calibre of weapons. Mark sighed. “By the time I realized they weren’t behind me, they were gone and I was sick over it. I really thought they’d gotten eaten. But luckily I saw your girlfriend under attack and, with Simi’s help, was able to get her to safety.

The kiss ignited like a rocket flash. Not that this surprised her. Everything pertaining to Mark seemed to burn hot and fast. Frustration, lust… His mouth was rough, hot and hungry on hers as he pulled her closer, taking control. She heard herself moan, kissing him with helpless desperation. If dessert was her usual drug of choice, it’d just been replaced because she couldn’t seem to get enough of him.

Now she’s talking to her soul pieces.” Siret was back to being amused over my weird brain. “Can I keep her?” He turned pleading eyes on his brothers, only for Yael to spin in a flash and deliver a punch right into the centre of his chest. “If anyone is keeping her, it’s me,” he snapped. “I won her fair and square.” Oh for fuc—“Listen up, assholes. For the last time, I’m not a piece of furniture that you guys own, and can trade around when you feel like it—

Tonglen practice has four stages: Rest your mind for a second or two in a state of openness or stillness. This is called flashing absolute bodhichitta, or suddenly opening to the basic spaciousness and clarity of the awakened heart. Work with texture. Breathe in a feeling of hot, dark, and heavy—a sense of claustrophobia—and breathe out a feeling of cool, bright, and light—a sense of freshness. Breathe in through all the pores of your body and radiate out completely, through all the pores of your body. Do this until your visualization feels synchronized with your in and out-breaths. Now contemplate any painful situation that’s real to you. For example, you can breathe in the hot, dark, constricted feeling of sadness that you feel, and breathe out a light, cool sense of joy or space or whatever might provide relief. Widen the circle of compassion by connecting with all those who feel this kind of pain, and extending the wish to help everyone.

When I change I change fast. The moon drags the whatever-it-is up from the earth and it goes through me with crazy wriggling impatience. I picture it as an electrical discharge, entering at my soles and racing upwards in haywire detonations that shock the bones and explode the neurons. The magic's dark red, violent, compressed. I get random flashes of mundane memory-- pushing a shopping cart around Met Foods; opening my apartment window; standing on a subway platform; saying to someone, No, that's carbohydrates in the evenings-- intercut with images of the kills; a white male body on an oil-stained warehouse floor; a solitary trailer with a storm lamp burning; a female thigh releasing a dark arc of blood; my clawed hand scooping out a still-hot heart. This is the Curse's neatest trick: one type of memory doesn't destroy the other. It's still you. It's still all you. You wouldn't think you were built to bear such opposites, but you are. You'd think the system would crash, but it doesn't.

I wasn’t terribly surprised to find Greg standing outside the door to my suite. But I was impressed when he handed me a mug of hot coffee. “I don’t know what a xenophobic hermit requires in the morning, so I made coffee.” His voice was hushed. “Coffee works,” I whispered and took a sip of the black liquid, found it magnificently strong, “as long as it was made with the tears of women and children.” Greg flashed me a grin that made my stomach do backflips. “Is there any other way to make coffee?

Wyatt should’ve looked ridiculous sitting on the floor, leaning into the crate making kissykiss noises at the cat, but he didn’t. He looked … mouthwatering. “Hey, sweet thing,” he said in a low cajoling voice. “Come on out. I’ll gonna love you up, I promise. You know you want some of that.” “Oh, please,” Emily said on a laugh to cover up the fact that her bones melted at the sound of him. “That’s never going to work—“ But hell if the cat didn’t shift ever so slightly closer to Wyatt and sniff at him. Wyatt flashed both Sweetie and Emily a smile. “Aw, that’s it,” he crooned to the suspicious, wary cat. “Come on, baby girl, all the way. I’ll be good to you, I promise.” Emily laughed again, even as she felt her nipples tighten. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Honestly, Wyatt, no selfrespecting female – cat or woman – is going to—

You know, sleeping outdoors isn’t all bad. You get to stare up at the stars and cool breezes ruffle your fur after a hot day. The grass smells sweet and,” he made eye contact with me, “so does your hair.” I blushed and grumbled, “Well, I’m glad someone enjoyed it.” He smiled smugly and said, “I did.” I had a quick flash of him as a man snuggled up next to me in the forest, imagined him resting his head on my lap while I stroked his hair, and decided to focus on the matter at hand. “Well, listen, Ren, you’re changing the subject. I don’t appreciate the way you manipulated me into being here. Mr. Kadam should’ve told me at the circus.” He shook his head. “We didn’t think you’d believe his story. He made up the trip to the tiger reserve to get you to India. We figured once you were here, I could change into a man and clarify everything.” I admitted, “You’re probably right. If you had changed to a man there, I don’t think I would have come” “Why did you come?” “I wanted to spend more time with…you. You know, the tiger. I would have missed him. I mean you.” I blushed. He grinned lopsidedly. “I would have missed you too.” I wrung the hem of my shirt between my hands. Misreading my thoughts, he said, “Kelsey. I’m truly sorry for the deception. If there’d been any other way-“ I looked up. He hung his head in a way that reminded me of the tiger. The frustration and awkwardness I felt about him dissipated. My instincts told me that I should believe him and help him. The strong emotional connection that drew me to the tiger tugged at my heart even more powerfully with the man. I felt pity for him and his situation. Softly, I asked, “When will you change into a tiger?” “Soon.” “Does it hurt?” “Not as much as it used to.” “Do you understand me when you are a tiger? Can I still speak to you?” “Yes, I’ll still be able to hear and understand you.” I took a deep breath. “Okay. I’ll stay here with you until the shaman comes back. I still have a lot of questions for you though.” “I know. I’ll try to answer them as best I can, but you’ll have to save them for tomorrow when I’ll be able to speak with you again. We can stay here for the night. The shaman should be back around dusk.” “Ren?” “Yes?” “The jungle frightens me, and this situation frightens me.” He let go of the apron string and looked into my eyes. “I know.” “Ren?” “Yes?” “Don’t…leave me, okay?” His face softened into a tender expression, and his mouth turned up in a sincere smile. “Asambhava. I won’t.” I felt myself responding to his smile with one of my own when a shadow fell across his face. He clenched his fists and tightened his jaw. I saw a tremor pass through his body, and the chair fell forward as he collapsed to the ground on his hands and knees. I stood to reach out to him and was amazed to see his body morph back into the tiger form I knew so well. Ren the tiger shook himself, then approached my outstretched hand and rubbed his head against it.

I want to hear you say cock.” Lenora’s eyes flash to mine. And she frowns. “Those are cheap words. Vulgar words.” “They’re real words. Hot words. Sensual words real people use in the throes of passion and fucking and lust and love. If you can’t bring yourself to say it, sweetheart, you’ve got no business getting anywhere near it. Lenora lifts her chin and lets out a shuddery breath. And then she looks me right in the eyes – stunning in her stubbornness – and that beautiful bud of a mouth gives me exactly what I want. “Cock.” And it’s fucking sublime.

Healing Foods When you’re looking to boost the immune system and support the reproductive system, the best foods to concentrate on are wild blueberries, sesame tahini, avocados, black beans, asparagus, apples, spinach, black grapes, and cucumbers. They’ll help by variously providing antioxidants, preventing hot flashes, providing critical nutrients to fortify vital organs, reducing inflammation, and keeping hormone levels balanced. Herbs and Supplements to Address General Symptoms Silver hydrosol: kills viruses, bacteria, and other microbes on contact and supports the immune system. Zinc: kills viruses, boosts the immune system, and helps protect the endocrine system. Licorice root: aids the adrenal glands and helps balance the body’s levels of cortisol and cortisone. L-lysine: impairs the ability of virus cells to move and reproduce. Vitamin B12 (as methylcobalamin and/or adenosylcobalamin): strengthens the central nervous system. Nascent iodine: stabilizes and strengthens the thyroid and the rest of the endocrine system. Ashwagandha: fortifies the adrenal glands and helps balance the production of cortisol.

LAST summer I happened to be crossing the plains of Iowa in a season of intense heat, and it was my good fortune to have for a traveling companion James Quayle Burden—Jim Burden, as we still call him in the West. He and I are old friends—we grew up together in the same Nebraska town—and we had much to say to each other. While the train flashed through never-ending miles of ripe wheat, by country towns and bright-flowered pastures and oak groves wilting in the sun, we sat in the observation car, where the woodwork was hot to the touch and red dust lay deep over everything. The dust and heat, the burning wind, reminded us of many things. We were talking about what it is like to spend one's childhood in little towns like these, buried in wheat and corn, under stimulating extremes of climate: burning summers when the world lies green and billowy beneath a brilliant sky, when one is fairly stifled in vegetation, in the color and smell of strong weeds and heavy harvests; blustery winters with little snow, when the whole country is stripped bare and gray as sheet-iron. We agreed that no one who had not grown up in a little prairie town could know anything about it. It was a kind of freemasonry, we said.

As I feel less overwhelmed, my fear softens and begins to subside. I feel a flicker of hope, then a rolling wave of fiery rage. My body continues to shake and tremble. It is alternately icy cold and feverishly hot. A burning red fury erupts from deep within my belly: How could that stupid kid hit me in a crosswalk? Wasn’t she paying attention? Damn her! A blast of shrill sirens and flashing red lights block out everything. My belly tightens, and my eyes again reach to find the woman’s kind gaze. We squeeze hands, and the knot in my gut loosens. I hear my shirt ripping. I am startled and again jump to the vantage of an observer hovering above my sprawling body. I watch uniformed strangers methodically attach electrodes to my chest. The Good Samaritan paramedic reports to someone that my pulse was 170. I hear my shirt ripping even more. I see the emergency team slip a collar onto my neck and then cautiously slide me onto a board. While they strap me down, I hear some garbled radio communication. The paramedics are requesting a full trauma team. Alarm jolts me. I ask to be taken to the nearest hospital only a mile away, but they tell me that my injuries may require the major trauma center in La Jolla, some thirty miles farther. My heart sinks.

His hope was like an intake of icy air—it hurt—and just as sharp and sudden was his jealousy. In an instant he was hot and cold with it, his hands clenching into fists so tight they burned. A flare of adrenaline coursed through him and left him shaking, and it wasn’t her. It wasn’t her, and for the fleeting flash of an instant, he felt relief. Followed by crushing disappointment and self-loathing for what his reaction had been.

Her flesh was powdery and voluptuously weary, as if tenderized by all the different beds and arms in which she had lain. Her face was as soft as the pulpy flash of an overripe banana, her breasts like two tiny bunches of grapes. She exuded a certain seedy charm, a poetry of premature corruption and decay. She breathed the air as if it burned her palate, baking her small, hot, whorish mouth. It was as if she were sucking a sweet or slurping champagne.

God, what makes you such an expert on love? You’ve liked five guys in your life. One was gay, one lives in Indiana or Montana or some place, McClaren moved away before anything could actually happen, one was dating your sister. And then there’s me. Hmm, what do we all have in common? What’s the common denominator?” I feel all the blood rush to my face. “That’s not fair.” Peter leans in close and says, “You only like guys you don’t have a shot with, because you’re scared. What are you so scared of?” I back away from him, right into the wall. “I’m not scared of anything.” “The hell you’re not. You’d rather make up a fantasy version of somebody in your head than be with a real person.” I glare at him. “You’re just mad because I didn’t die of happiness because the great Peter Kavinsky said he liked me. Your ego really is that enormous.” His eyes flash. “Hey, I’m sorry I didn’t show up on your doorstep with flowers and profess my undying love for you, Lara Jean, but guess what, that’s not real life. You need to grow up.” That’s it. I don’t have to listen to this. I turn on my heel and walk away. Over my shoulder I say, “Enjoy the hot tub.” “I always do,” he calls back.

He felt that he had unwittingly stuck his hand into The Great Wasps' Nest of Life. As an image it stank. As a cameo of reality, he felt it was serviceable. He had stuck his hand through some rotted flashing in high summer and that hand and his whole arm had been consumed in holy, righteous fire, destroying conscious thought, making the concept of civilized behaviour obsolete. Could you be expected to behave as a thinking human being when your hand was being impaled on red-hot darning needles? Could you be expected to live in the love of your nearest and dearest when the brown, furious cloud rose out of the hole in the fabric of things (the fabric you thought was so innocent) and arrowed straight at you? Could you be held responsible for your own actions as you ran crazily about on the sloping roof seventy feet above he ground, not knowing where you were going, not remembering that your panicky, stumbling feet could lead you crashing and blundering right over the rain gutter and down to your death on the concrete seventy feet below? Jack didn't think you could. When you unwittingly stuck your hand into the wasps' nest, you hadn't made a covenant with the devil to give up your civilized self with its trappings of love and respect and honour. It just happened to you. Passively, with no say, you ceased to be a creature of the mind and became a creature of the nerve endings; from college-educated man to wailing ape in five seconds.

I am inundated with feeling. I feel like a pinball machine on tilt. All the buzzers are ringing, lights are flashing, and I am about to fry my circuits. Nothing is coming in,and nothing is going out. I feel electrified. The wires ignited, sparked, and fizzled. I want it all to slow down. I go right to the water to douse my flame. I immerse myself in the hot water. I want to wash the smells off my body. I can smell Isabella's hair, her breath, and her child vaginal scent. My hair smells of smoke,and I want to wash Francis off me.

Looking down she arched her back, giving him more. His tanned complexion against her milky, slightly freckled skin was visually stark and sexually exciting. She watched as his mouth claimed her other nipple, stroking it with his tongue, and her vision blurred as he rhythmically rocked his erection against her sex. Hot, damp, desperate, she braced herself with her hands on his knees behind her and met him thrust for thrust, pushing hard. Breathing as heavy as he was, she trembled with the flash fire of passion overtaking them both.

Sera loaded the new ammunition and held up the gun. “I bet I can hit closer to the bulls-eye than you can.” Her victory came to him on a flash, right down to the cute little dance he was sure was last popular in the nineties. “Sucker bet, sunshine. Never wager with a precog.” “So cheat.” She grinned. “You haven’t even hear the terms yet. If you win, I’ll let you buy me a pretty dress and take me out for a fancy dinner.” “And if I lose?” “I get a cheap bar, beer, and hot wings, and dirty sex in the bathroom.” Julio cleared his throat, took the gun from her and winked. “Like I said, sucker bet.” “Uh-huh.” As she stepped behind him, she trailed her fingers up his arm. “I’m bad news, mister. I hope you can handle me.” “I’ll try.” He lined up a shot, squeezed the trigger and snorted when the bullet went wide. “I told you I suck at this.” She laughed and retrieved the gun to line up her shot with adorable concentration that furrowed her brows. Her shot wasn’t perfect, but it winged the target, and her victory dance was just as cute as it had been in his vision.

It might be instructive to try seeing things from the perspective of, say, a God-fearing hard-working rural-Midwestern military vet. It's not that hard. Imaging gazing through his eyes at the world of MTV and the content of video games, at the gross sexualization of children's fashions, at Janet Jackson flashing her aureole on what's supposed to be a holy day. Imagine you're him having to explain to your youngest what oral sex is and what it's got to do with a US president. Ads for penis enlargers and HOT WET SLUTS are popping up out of nowhere on your family's computer. Your kids' school is teaching them WWII and Vietnam in terms of Japanese internment and the horrors of My Lai. Homosexuals are demanding holy matrimony; your doctor's moving away because he can't afford the lawsuit insurance; illegal aliens want driver's licenses; Hollywood elites are bashing America and making millions from it; the president's ridiculed for reading his Bible; priests are diddling kids left and right. Shit, the country's been directly attacked, and people aren't supporting our commander in chief.

An asteroid or comet traveling at cosmic velocities would enter the Earth’s atmosphere at such a speed that the air beneath it couldn’t get out of the way and would be compressed, as in a bicycle pump. As anyone who has used such a pump knows, compressed air grows swiftly hot, and the temperature below it would rise to some 60,000 Kelvin, or ten times the surface temperature of the Sun. In this instant of its arrival in our atmosphere, everything in the meteor’s path—people, houses, factories, cars—would crinkle and vanish like cellophane in a flame. One second after entering the atmosphere, the meteorite would slam into the Earth’s surface, where the people of Manson had a moment before been going about their business. The meteorite itself would vaporize instantly, but the blast would blow out a thousand cubic kilometers of rock, earth, and superheated gases. Every living thing within 150 miles that hadn’t been killed by the heat of entry would now be killed by the blast. Radiating outward at almost the speed of light would be the initial shock wave, sweeping everything before it. For those outside the zone of immediate devastation, the first inkling of catastrophe would be a flash of blinding light—the brightest ever seen by human eyes—followed an instant to a minute or two later by an apocalyptic sight of unimaginable grandeur: a roiling wall of darkness reaching high into the heavens, filling an entire field of view and traveling at thousands of miles an hour. Its approach would be eerily silent since it would be moving far beyond the speed of sound. Anyone in a tall building in Omaha or Des Moines, say, who chanced to look in the right direction would see a bewildering veil of turmoil followed by instantaneous oblivion. Within minutes, over an area stretching from Denver to Detroit and encompassing what had once been Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, the Twin Cities—the whole of the Midwest, in short—nearly every standing thing would be flattened or on fire, and nearly every living thing would be dead. People up to a thousand miles away would be knocked off their feet and sliced or clobbered by a blizzard of flying projectiles. Beyond a thousand miles the devastation from the blast would gradually diminish. But that’s just the initial shockwave. No one can do more than guess what the associated damage would be, other than that it would be brisk and global. The impact would almost certainly set off a chain of devastating earthquakes. Volcanoes across the globe would begin to rumble and spew. Tsunamis would rise up and head devastatingly for distant shores. Within an hour, a cloud of blackness would cover the planet, and burning rock and other debris would be pelting down everywhere, setting much of the planet ablaze. It has been estimated that at least a billion and a half people would be dead by the end of the first day. The massive disturbances to the ionosphere would knock out communications systems everywhere, so survivors would have no idea what was happening elsewhere or where to turn. It would hardly matter. As one commentator has put it, fleeing would mean “selecting a slow death over a quick one. The death toll would be very little affected by any plausible relocation effort, since Earth’s ability to support life would be universally diminished.

I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I spin to leave. “No fucking way.” It clicks in his mind. “Little Vee?” Here he is. “You’re that girl Finn and I used to…” He doesn’t complete his sentence, but I know all too well what he was going to say. “Annoy? Tease? Torture? Why, yes, that would be me. Did you seriously just figure that out? A bit slow, are we?” I snark. My outburst only seems to amuse him. “Look, in my defense, your mom only ever called you ‘Vee.’ I thought it was short for Vicky or Vivian or something. And it was ten years ago. I can’t even remember what I had for dinner last night.” “Whatever.” I shrug. “Shit, I’ve got to say, Vee.” He gives me a once-over. “Puberty did you a solid.” My cheeks combust. “Wish I could say the same about you,” I lie through my teeth. Xavier smiles at my failed attempt to deny the undeniable. Let’s not pretend like puberty didn’t do every female on earth a solid when Xavier Emery went from “cute” to “sinfully hot” in the span of a summer. “I think you mispronounced thank you.” He flashes a smug grin that makes me want to knee him where it hurts.

Thank you, Mr. Rodman.” When he heard her whispered response, his gaze fell to her lips, and desire coiled through his body as he imagined how they would feel beneath his. Warm and pliant, no doubt. Eager and willing, maybe. Greedy with insatiable need? He hoped. “You’re most welcome.” She didn’t move, and he? He couldn’t move. He remained rooted to the stone floor as her lovely face entranced him. He was too aware of how close they stood to one another for rational thought. It would take no effort whatsoever for him to lean down and kiss her luscious lips. Something flickered in her eyes as they stared at each other, and he could sense the moment she felt the same pull as he did. Something primal, something hot flashed between them, and as he reached up to stroke her cheek with the backs of his fingers, he determined right then he would do it. He parted his lips slightly and bent down subtly. He was inches away from contact, but he wavered just one second too long as he debated with himself whether to touch her lips lightly with his own or give in to the powerful urge to crush his mouth and body against hers.

This is how it should have been that first night down on the sand," he whispered. "This is our beginning Ivy. I want to make it official. I want there to be no doubt, 'cause I'm gonna do stupid shit all the time." I giggled, and his white teeth flashed. "I'm gonna leave the toilet seat up. I'm gonna be overprotective, probably bossy, and my temper is always gonna run hot." "I don't care," I told him, sliding my hands up to rest on his chest. "Tell me you'll be my girl, and I swear I'll love you with everything I got." "I'm always gonna be stubborn. I'm not gonna take your shit. My makeup will be all over the bathroom, and I still don't have a major. Oh, and I want to keep Prada. You have to like her, too." "I already told Rim to get your adoption paperwork ready for that rat." Then in lower tones, he said, "She's grown on me." I smiled. He totally loved Prada. "So what's my answer?" He tightened his arms around my waist. I pretended to think it over. A girl should never sound too eager-even if she was practically peeing herself with glee. "Blondie," Braeden growled. "I'm already yours, B. I have been for a long time.

Gregori brought Savannah's hand to the warmth of his mouth,his breath heating the pulse beating in her wrist. The night is especially beautiful, mon petit amour.Your hero saved the girl, walks among humans, and converses with a fool.That alone should bring a smile to your face.Do not weep for what we cannot change.We will make certain that this human with us comes to no harm. Are you my hero,then? There were tears in her voice, in her mind, like an iridescent prism. She needed him, his comfort,his support under her terrible weight of guilt and love and loss. Always,for all eternity, he answered instantly,without hesitation, his eyes hot mercury. He tipped her chin up so that she met the brilliance of his silver gaze.Always, mon amour.His molten gaze trapped her blue one and held her enthralled. Your heart grows lighter.The burden of your sorrow becomes my own. He held her gaze captive for a few moments to ensure that she was free of the heaviness crushing her. Savannah blinked and moved a little away from him, wondering what she had been thinking of.What had they been talking about? "Gary." Gregori drawled the name slowly and sat back in his chair,totally relaxed. He looked like a sprawling tiger,dangerous and untamed. "Tell us about yourself." "I work a lot.I'm not married. I'm really not much of a people person. I'm basically a nerd." Gregori shifted, a subtle movement of muscles suggesting great power. "I am not familiar with this term." "Yeah,well,you wouldn't be," Gary said. "It means I have lots of brains and no brawn.I don't do the athlete thing. I'm into computers and chess and things requiring intellect. Women find me skinny,wimpy,and boring. Not something they would you." There was no bitterness in his voice,just a quiet acceptance of himself,his life. Gregori's white teeth flashed. "There is only one woman who matters to me, Gary, and she finds me difficult to live with.I cannot imagine why,can you?" "Maybe because you're jealous, possessive, concerned with every single detail of her life?" Gary plainly took the question literally, offering up his observations without judgement. "You're probably domineering,too. I can see that. Yeah.It might be tough." Savannah burst out laughing, the sound musical, rivaling the street musicians. People within hearing turned their heads and held their breath, hoping for more. "Very astute, Gary.Very, very astute. I bet you have an anormous IQ." Gregori stirred again, the movement a ripple of power,of danger. He was suddenly leaning into Gary. "You think you are intelligent? Baiting the wild animal is not too smart.

At first there was nothing - a profound blue darkness running running deep, laced by skeins of starlight and pale phosphorescent flashes. This four o-clock hour was a moment of utter silence, the indrawn breath of dark, the absolute, trance-like balance between night and day. Then, when it seemed that nothing would ever move or live or know the light again, a hot wind would run over the invisible water. It was like a fore-blast of the turning world, an intimation that its rocks and seas and surfaces still stirred against the sun. One strained one's eyes, scarce breathing, searching for a sign. Presently it came. Far in the east at last the horizon hardened, an imperceptible line dividing sky and sea, sharp as a diamond cut on glass. A dark bubble of cloud revealed itself, warmed slowly, flushing from within like a seed growing, a kernel ripening, a clinker hot with locked-in fire. Gradually the cloud throbbed red with light, then suddenly caught the still unrisen sun and burst like an expanding bomb. Flares and streamers began to fall into the sea, setting all things on fire. After the long unthinking darkness everything now began to happen at once. The stars snapped shut, the sky bled green, vermillion tides ran over the water, the hills around took on the colour of firebrick, and the great sun drew himself at last raw and dripping from the waves. Scarlet, purple, and clinker-blue, the morning, smelling of thyme and goats, of charcoal, splintered rock and man's long sojourn around this lake

Postcolonial Love Poem (excerpt) I’ve been taught bloodstones can cure a snakebite, Can stop the bleeding-most people forgot this When the war ended. The war ended Depending on which war you mean: those we started, Before those, millennia ago and onward, Those which started me, which I lost and won- Those ever-blooming wounds. --- There are wildflowers in my desert which take up to twenty years to bloom. The seeds sleep like geodes beneath hot feldspar sand until a flash flood bolts the arroyo, lifting them in its copper current, opens them with memory— they remember what their god whispered into their ribs: Wake up and ache for your life. Where your hands have been are diamonds on my shoulders, down my back, thighs- I am your culebra. I am in the dirt for you. Your hips are quartz-light and dangerous, two rose-horned rams ascending a soft desert wash before the November sky untethers a hundred-year flood- the desert returned suddenly to its ancient sea. --- The rain will eventually come, or not. Until then, we touch our bodies like wounds- The war never ended and somehow begins again.

This is how ignition works. Where deep practice is a cool, conscious act, ignition is a hot, mysterious burst, an awakening. Where deep practice is an incremental wrapping, ignition works through lightning flashes of image and emotion, evolution-built neural programs that tap into the mind's vast reserves of energy and attention. Where deep practice is all about staggering-baby steps, ignition is about the set of signals and subconscious forces that create our identity; the moments that lead us to say that is who I want to be. We usually think of passion as an inner quality. But the more I visited hotbeds, the more I saw it as something that came first from the outside world. In the hotbeds the right butterfly wingflap was causing talent hurricanes.

That was enough dialogue for a few pages - he had to get into some fast, red-hot action. There weren't any more hitches now. The story flowed like a torrent. The margin bell chimed almost staccato, the roller turned with almost piston-like continuity, the pages sprang up almost like blobs of batter from a pancake skillet. The beer kept rising in the glass and, contradictorily, steadily falling lower. The cigarettes gave up their ghosts, long thin gray ghosts, in a good cause; the mortality rate was terrible. His train of thought, the story's lifeline, beer-lubricated but no whit impeded, flashed and sputtered and coursed ahead like lightning in a topaz mist, and the loose fingers and hiccuping keys followed as fast as they could. ("The Penny-A-Worder")

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice 'without pictures or conversation?' So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her. There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, 'Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!' (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch

So why aren’t more marketing companies targeting our age group? Why are there so many youth-oriented programs and advertisements on television today? Why are we being ignored? Don’t companies realize they are missing a huge market? Now granted, a visit to the local mall will show you there are a lot of teenagers hanging out there these days. But are they shopping? Are they spending money? No. They’re “hanging.” Contrary to what our skin might be doing, we members of the over-forty crowd don’t “hang.” We shop, and not just window shop either. We’re serious buyers. When we pick up an item and turn it over to see the price, we often carry it right on over to the checkout counter and pay for it. Why? Because we know the energy involved with picking up items. We don’t do it unless we’re committed.

Oh, the way he was looking at her, really looking at her . . . this was the Christopher of her dreams. This was the man who had written to her. He was so caring, and real, and dazzling, that she wanted to weep. “I thought . . .” Christopher broke off and drew his thumb over the hot surface of her cheek. “I know,” she whispered, her nerves sparking in excitement at his touch. “I didn’t mean to do that.” “I know.” His gaze went to her parted lips, lingering until she felt it like a caress. Her heart labored to supply blood to her nerveless limbs. Every breath caused her body to lift up against his, a teasing friction of firm flesh and clean, warm linen. Beatrix was transfixed by the subtle changes in his face, the heightening color, the silver brightness of his eyes. She wondered if he were going to kiss her. And a single word flashed through her mind. Please. . .

The hell of it is that my son, my only child, has to turn out to be,” he added with a return of his old spirit, black eyes flashing, “the one man in Washington, D.C. who hates my guts!” “You weren’t too fond of him, either, if you recall,” she pointed out. He glared at her. “He’s hot-tempered and arrogant and stubborn!” “Look who he gets it from,” she said with a grin. He unlinked his hands as he considered that. “Those can be desirable traits,” he agreed with a faint smile. “Anyway, it’s nice to know I won’t die childless,” he said after a minute. He lifted his eyes to her face. “Leta can’t know any of this. When and if the time comes, I’ll tell her.” “Who’s going to tell him?” she ventured. “You?” he suggested. “In your dreams,” she said with a sweet smile. He stuffed his hands back into his pockets. “We’ll cross that bridge when the river comes over it. You’ll be careful, do you hear me? I’ve invested a lot of time and energy into hijacking you for my museum. Don’t take the slightest risk. If you think you’ve been discovered, get out and take Leta with you.” “She’s afraid to fly,” she pointed out. “She won’t get in an airplane unless it’s an emergency.” “Then I’ll come out and stuff her into a car and drive her to the airport and put her on a plane,” he said firmly. She pursed her lips. He was very like Tate. “I guess you would, at that.

Nothing, again, could be more prosaic and impenetrable than the domestic energies of Miss Diana Duke. But Innocent had somehow blundered on the discovery that her thrifty dressmaking went with a considerable feminine care for dress--the one feminine thing that had never failed her solitary self-respect. In consequence Smith pestered her with a theory (which he really seemed to take seriously) that ladies might combine economy with magnificence if they would draw light chalk patterns on a plain dress and then dust them off again. He set up "Smith's Lightning Dressmaking Company," with two screens, a cardboard placard, and box of bright soft crayons; and Miss Diana actually threw him an abandoned black overall or working dress on which to exercise the talents of a modiste. He promptly produced for her a garment aflame with red and gold sunflowers; she held it up an instant to her shoulders, and looked like an empress. And Arthur Inglewood, some hours afterwards cleaning his bicycle (with his usual air of being inextricably hidden in it), glanced up; and his hot face grew hotter, for Diana stood laughing for one flash in the doorway, and her dark robe was rich with the green and purple of great decorative peacocks, like a secret garden in the "Arabian Nights." A pang too swift to be named pain or pleasure went through his heart like an old-world rapier. He remembered how pretty he thought her years ago, when he was ready to fall in love with anybody; but it was like remembering a worship of some Babylonian princess in some previous existence. At his next glimpse of her (and he caught himself awaiting it) the purple and green chalk was dusted off, and she went by quickly in her working clothes.

The first caller’s avatar appeared in front of me in my support chat room. His name and stats also appeared, floating in the air above him. He had the astoundingly clever name of “HotCock007.” I could see that it was going to be another fabulous day. HotCock007 was a hulking bald barbarian with studded black leather armor and lots of demon tattoos covering his arms and face. He was holding a gigantic bastard sword nearly twice as long as his avatar’s body. “Good morning, Mr. HotCock007,” I droned. “Thank you for calling technical support. I’m tech rep number 338645. How may I help you this evening?” The customer courtesy software filtered my voice, altering its tone and inflection to ensure that I always sounded cheerful and upbeat. “Uh, yeah …” HotCock007 began. “I just bought this bad-ass sword, and now I can’t even use it! I can’t even attack nothing with it. What the hell is wrong with this piece of shit? Is it broke?” “Sir, the only problem is that you’re a complete fucking moron,” I said. I heard a familiar warning buzzer and a message flashed on my display: COURTESY VIOLATION—FLAGS: FUCKING, MORON LAST RESPONSE MUTED—VIOLATION LOGGED

Have you ever watched a storm approaching on a hot summer’s day? It’s especially spectacular in the mountains. At first there’s nothing to see, but you feel a sort of weariness that tells you something is in the air. Then you hear thunder - just a rumble here and there- you can’t quite tell where it is coming from. All of a sudden, the mountains seem strangely near. There isn't a breath of wind, yet dense clouds pile up in the sky. And now the mountains have almost vanished behind a wall of haze. Clouds rush in from all sides, but still there’s no wind. There’s more thunder now, and everything around looks eir and menacing. You wait and wait. And then, suddenly, it erupts. At first it is almost a release. The storm descends into the valley. There’s thunder and lightning everywhere. The rain clatters down in huge drops. The storm is trapped in the narrow cleft of the valley and thunderclaps echo and reverberate off the steep mountain sides. The wind buffets you from every angle. And when the storm finally moves away, leaving in its place a clear, still, starlit night, you can hardly remember where those thunderclouds were, let alone which thunderclap belonged to which flash of lightning.

All these thoughts flashed through Amelia’s mind in one searing mass. But as she stiffened and waited for the ax to fall, Rohan came to her in two long strides. And before Amelia could move, or think, or even breathe, he had jerked her full length against him, and pulled her head to his. Rohan kissed her with an indecent frankness that sent her reeling. His arms were firm around her, keeping her steady while his mouth caught hers at just the right angle. Her hands moved in tentative objection, her palms encountering the tough muscles of his chest, the catch of his shirt buttons. He was the only solid thing in a kaleidoscopic world. She stopped pushing as her body absorbed the arousing details of him, the hard masculine contours, the fresh outdoors scent, the sensuous probing of his mouth. She had relived his kiss a thousand times in her dreams. She just hadn’t realized it until now. Graceful fingers cupped around her neck and jaw, turning her face upward. The tips of his fingers found the fine skin behind her ears, where it met the silken edge of her hairline. And all the while he continued to fill her with concentrated fire, until the inside of her mouth prickled sweetly and her legs shook beneath her. He used his tongue delicately, exploring without haste, entering her repeatedly while she clung to him in bewildered pleasure. His mouth lifted, his breath a hot caress against her lips. He turned his head as he spoke to whoever had entered the room. “I beg your pardon, my lord. We wanted a moment of privacy.” Amelia turned crimson as she followed his gaze to the doorway, where Lord Westcliff stood with an unfathomable expression. An electric moment passed while Westcliff appeared to marshal his thoughts. His gaze moved to Amelia’s face, then back to Rohan’s. A smile flickered in his dark eyes. “I intend to return in approximately a half hour. It would probably be best if my study were vacated by then.” Giving a courteous nod, he took his leave. As soon as the door closed behind him, Amelia dropped her forehead to Rohan’s shoulder with a groan. She would have pulled away, but she didn’t trust her knees to hold. “Why did you do that?” He didn’t look at all repentant. “I had to come up with a reason for both of us to be in here. It seemed the best option.

Or is it the opposite-that the US has moved so far and so fast toward cultural permissiveness that we've reached a kind of apsidal point? It might be instructive to try seeing things from the perspective of, say, a God-fearing hard-working rural-Midwestern military vet. It's not that hard. Imagine gazing through his eyes at the world of MTV and the content of video games, at the gross sexualization of children's fashions, at Janet Jackson flashing her aureole on what's supposed to be a holy day. Imagine you're him having to explain to your youngest what oral sex is and what it's got to do with a US president. Ads for penis enlargers and Hot Wet Sluts are popping up out of nowhere on your family's computer. Your kids' school is teaching them WWII and Vietnam in terms of Japanese internment and the horrors of My Lai. Homosexuals are demanding holy matrimony; your doctor's moving away because he can't afford the lawsuit insurance; illegal aliens want driver's licenses; Hollywood elites are bashing America and making millions from it; the president's ridiculed for reading his Bible; priests are diddling kids left and right. Shit, the country's been directly attacked, and people aren't supporting our commander in chief. Assume for a moment that it's not silly to see things this man's way. What cogent, compelling, relevant message can the center and left offer him? Can we bear to admit that we've actually helped set him up to hear "We 're better than they are" not as twisted and scary but as refreshing and redemptive and true? If so, then now what?

They [mountains] are portions of the heart of the earth that have escaped from the dungeon down below, and rushed up and out. For the heart of the earth is a great wallowing mass, not of blood, as in the hearts of men and animals, but of glowing hot melted metals and stones. And as our hearts keep us alive, so that great lump of heat keeps the earth alive: it is a huge power of buried sunlight—that is what it is. Now think: out of that caldron, where all the bubbles would be as big as the Alps if it could get room for its boiling, certain bubbles have bubbled out and escaped—up and away, and there they stand in the cool, cold sky—mountains. Think of the change, and you will no more wonder that there should be something awful about the very look of a mountain: from the darkness—for where the light has nothing to shine upon, it is much the same as darkness—from the heat, from the endless tumult of boiling unrest—up, with a sudden heavenward shoot, into the wind, and the cold, and the starshine, and a cloak of snow that lies like ermine above the blue-green mail of the glaciers; and the great sun, their grandfather, up there in the sky; and their little old cold aunt, the moon, that comes wandering about the house at night; and everlasting stillness, except for the wind that turns the rocks and caverns into a roaring organ for the young archangels that are studying how to let out the pent-up praises of their hearts, and the molten music of the streams, rushing ever from the bosoms of the glaciers fresh-born. Think too of the change in their own substance—no longer molten and soft, heaving and glowing, but hard and shining and cold. Think of the creatures scampering over and burrowing in it, and the birds building their nests upon it, and the trees growing out of its sides, like hair to clothe it, and the lovely grass in the valleys, and the gracious flowers even at the very edge of its armour of ice, like the rich embroidery of the garment below, and the rivers galloping down the valleys in a tumult of white and green! And along with all these, think of the terrible precipices down which the traveller may fall and be lost, and the frightful gulfs of blue air cracked in the glaciers, and the dark profound lakes, covered like little arctic oceans with floating lumps of ice. All this outside the mountain! But the inside, who shall tell what lies there? Caverns of awfullest solitude, their walls miles thick, sparkling with ores of gold or silver, copper or iron, tin or mercury, studded perhaps with precious stones—perhaps a brook, with eyeless fish in it, running, running ceaseless, cold and babbling, through banks crusted with carbuncles and golden topazes, or over a gravel of which some of the stones are rubies and emeralds, perhaps diamonds and sapphires—who can tell?—and whoever can't tell is free to think—all waiting to flash, waiting for millions of ages—ever since the earth flew off from the sun, a great blot of fire, and began to cool. Then there are caverns full of water, numbing cold, fiercely hot—hotter than any boiling water. From some of these the water cannot get out, and from others it runs in channels as the blood in the body: little veins bring it down from the ice above into the great caverns of the mountain's heart, whence the arteries let it out again, gushing in pipes and clefts and ducts of all shapes and kinds, through and through its bulk, until it springs newborn to the light, and rushes down the mountain side in torrents, and down the valleys in rivers—down, down, rejoicing, to the mighty lungs of the world, that is the sea, where it is tossed in storms and cyclones, heaved up in billows, twisted in waterspouts, dashed to mist upon rocks, beaten by millions of tails, and breathed by millions of gills, whence at last, melted into vapour by the sun, it is lifted up pure into the air, and borne by the servant winds back to the mountain tops and the snow, the solid ice, and the molten stream.

Now let me tell you something. I have seen a thousand sunsets and sunrises, on land where it floods forest and mountains with honey coloured light, at sea where it rises and sets like a blood orange in a multicoloured nest of cloud, slipping in and out of the vast ocean. I have seen a thousand moons: harvest moons like gold coins, winter moons as white as ice chips, new moons like baby swans’ feathers. I have seen seas as smooth as if painted, coloured like shot silk or blue as a kingfisher or transparent as glass or black and crumpled with foam, moving ponderously and murderously. I have felt winds straight from the South Pole, bleak and wailing like a lost child; winds as tender and warm as a lover’s breath; winds that carried the astringent smell of salt and the death of seaweeds; winds that carried the moist rich smell of a forest floor, the smell of a million flowers. Fierce winds that churned and moved the sea like yeast, or winds that made the waters lap at the shore like a kitten. I have known silence: the cold, earthy silence at the bottom of a newly dug well; the implacable stony silence of a deep cave; the hot, drugged midday silence when everything is hypnotised and stilled into silence by the eye of the sun; the silence when great music ends. I have heard summer cicadas cry so that the sound seems stitched into your bones. I have heard tree frogs in an orchestration as complicated as Bach singing in a forest lit by a million emerald fireflies. I have heard the Keas calling over grey glaciers that groaned to themselves like old people as they inched their way to the sea. I have heard the hoarse street vendor cries of the mating Fur seals as they sang to their sleek golden wives, the crisp staccato admonishment of the Rattlesnake, the cobweb squeak of the Bat and the belling roar of the Red deer knee-deep in purple heather. I have heard Wolves baying at a winter’s moon, Red howlers making the forest vibrate with their roaring cries. I have heard the squeak, purr and grunt of a hundred multi-coloured reef fishes. I have seen hummingbirds flashing like opals round a tree of scarlet blooms, humming like a top. I have seen flying fish, skittering like quicksilver across the blue waves, drawing silver lines on the surface with their tails. I have seen Spoonbills flying home to roost like a scarlet banner across the sky. I have seen Whales, black as tar, cushioned on a cornflower blue sea, creating a Versailles of fountain with their breath. I have watched butterflies emerge and sit, trembling, while the sun irons their wings smooth. I have watched Tigers, like flames, mating in the long grass. I have been dive-bombed by an angry Raven, black and glossy as the Devil’s hoof. I have lain in water warm as milk, soft as silk, while around me played a host of Dolphins. I have met a thousand animals and seen a thousand wonderful things. But— All this I did without you. This was my loss. All this I want to do with you. This will be my gain. All this I would gladly have forgone for the sake of one minute of your company, for your laugh, your voice, your eyes, hair, lips, body, and above all for your sweet, ever-surprising mind which is an enchanting quarry in which it is my privilege to delve.

Okay, so I shouldn't have fucked with her on the introduction thing. Writing nothing except, Saturday night. You and me. Driving lessons and hot sex ... in her notebook probably wasn't the smartest move. But I was itching to make Little Miss Perfecta stumble in her introduction of me. And stumbling she is. "Miss Ellis?" I watch in amusement as Perfection herself looks up at Peterson. Oh, she's good. This partner of mine knows how to hide her true emotions, something I recognize because I do it all the time. "Yes?" Brittany says, tilting her head and smiling like a beauty queen. I wonder if that smile has ever gotten her out of a speeding ticket. "It's your turn. Introduce Alex to the class." I lean an elbow on the lab table, waiting for an introduction she has to either make up or fess up she knows less than crap about me. She glances at my comfortable position and I can tell from her deer-in-the-headlights look I've stumped her. "This is Alejandro Fuentes," she starts, her voice hitching the slightest bit. My temper flares at the mention of my given name, but I keep a cool facade as she continues with a made-up introduction. "When he wasn't hanging out on street corners and harassing innocent people this summer, he toured the inside of jails around the city, if you know what I mean. And he has a secret desire nobody would ever guess." The room suddenly becomes quiet. Even Peterson straightens to attention. Hell, even I'm listening like the words coming out of Brittany's lying, pink-frosted lips are gospel. "His secret desire," she continues, "is to go to college and become a chemistry teacher, like you, Mrs. Peterson." Yeah, right. I look over at my friend Isa, who seems amused that a white girl isn't afraid of giving me smack in front of the entire class. Brittany flashes me a triumphant smile, thinking she's won this round. Guess again, gringa. I sit up in my chair while the class remains silent. "This is Brittany Ellis," I say, all eyes now focused on me. "This summer she went to the mall, bought new clothes so she could expand her wardrobe, and spent her daddy's money on plastic surgery to enhance her, ahem, assets." It might not be what she wrote, but it's probably close enough to the truth. Unlike her introduction of me. Chuckles come from mis cuates in the back of the class, and Brittany is as stiff as a board beside me, as if my words hurt her precious ego. Brittany Ellis is used to people fawning all over her and she could use a little wake-up call. I'm actually doing her a favor. Little does she know I'm not finished with her intro. "Her secret desire," I add, getting the same reaction as she did during her introduction, "is to date a Mexicano before she graduates." As expected, my words are met by comments and low whistles from the back of the room. "Way to go, Fuentes," my friend Lucky barks out. "I'll date you, mamacita, " another says. I give a high five to another Latino Blood named Marcus sitting behind me just as I catch Isa shaking her head as if I did something wrong. What? I'm just having a little fun with a rich girl from the north side. Brittany's gaze shifts from Colin to me. I take one look at Colin and with my eyes tell him game on. Colin's face instantly turns bright red, resembling a chile pepper. I have definitely invaded his territory.

Stopping just short of her mouth, he rasped, “Are you still engaged to Blakeborough?” Her gorgeous eyes narrowed. “My engagement didn’t stop you last night.” “It would now.” A coy smile broke over her lips, and she tightened her grip on his neck. “Then I suppose it’s a good thing I am not.” With a growl of triumph, he kissed her once more. She was here. She was his. Nothing else mattered. Still kissing her, he jerked both sets of curtains closed. Then he tugged her onto his lap and began to tear at the fastenings of her pelisse-dress. He wanted to touch her, taste her…be inside her. He could think of naught else. “I take it that you mean to seduce me,” she murmured between kisses. “Yes.” Seduce her and marry her. And then seduce her again, as often as he could. “Well then, carry on.” So he did. He unfastened her clothes just enough to bare her breasts, then seized one in his mouth. God, she was perfect. His perfect jewel. She buried her hands in his hair to pull her into him, sighing and moaning as if she would die if he didn’t make love to her. Which was exactly how he felt. Working his hand up beneath her skirts and into the slit in her drawers, he found her so wet and hot that he nearly came right there. He slipped a finger inside her silky sweetness, and she gasped, then began to tug at his trouser buttons. “You’re all I want, Jane.” As he stroked her, he used his other hand to brush hers away so he could unfasten his own trouser buttons. “The only woman I ever cared about.” “You’re the only man Iever cared about.” She undulated against his fingers, begging for him with her body. “Why do you think…I waited for you so long?” “Not long enough, apparently,” he muttered, “or you wouldn’t have gotten yourself engaged to Blakeborough.” He tugged at her nipple with his teeth, then relished her cry of pleasure. “I only…did it because I was…tired of waiting.” She arched against his mouth. “Because you clearly weren’t…coming back for me.” “I was sure you hated me.” At last he got his trousers open. “You acted like you hated me still.” “I did.” Her breath was unsteady. “But only because…you tore us apart.” He shifted her to sit astride him. “And now?” Flashing him a provocative smile he would never have dreamed she had in her repertoire, she unbuttoned his drawers. “Do I look like I hate you?” His cock, so hard he thought it might erupt right there and embarrass him, sprang free. “You look like…like…” He paused to take in her lovely face with its flushed cheeks, sparkling eyes, and lush lips. Then he swept his gaze down to her breasts with their brazen tips, displayed so enticingly above the boned corset and her undone shift. He then dropped his eyes to the smooth thighs emerging from beneath her bunched-up skirts. Shoving the fabric higher, he exposed her dewy thatch of curls, and a shudder of anticipation shook him. “You look like an angel.” She uttered a breathy laugh. “A wanton, more like.” Taking his cock in her hand, she stroked it so wonderfully that he groaned. “Would an angel do this?

If loneliness or sadness or happiness could be expressed through food, loneliness would be basil. It’s not good for your stomach, dims your eyes, and turns your mind murky. If you pound basil and place a stone over it, scorpions swarm toward it. Happiness is saffron, from the crocus that blooms in the spring. Even if you add just a pinch to a dish, it adds an intense taste and a lingering scent. You can find it anywhere but you can’t get it at any time of the year. It’s good for your heart, and if you drop a little bit in your wine, you instantly become drunk from its heady perfume. The best saffron crumbles at the touch and instantaneously emits its fragrance. Sadness is a knobby cucumber, whose aroma you can detect from far away. It’s tough and hard to digest and makes you fall ill with a high fever. It’s porous, excellent at absorption, and sponges up spices, guaranteeing a lengthy period of preservation. Pickles are the best food you can make from cucumbers. You boil vinegar and pour it over the cucumbers, then season with salt and pepper. You enclose them in a sterilized glass jar, seal it, and store it in a dark and dry place. WON’S KITCHEN. I take off the sign hanging by the first-floor entryway. He designed it by hand and silk-screened it onto a metal plate. Early in the morning on the day of the opening party for the cooking school, he had me hang the sign myself. I was meaning to give it a really special name, he said, grinning, flashing his white teeth, but I thought Jeong Ji-won was the most special name in the world. He called my name again: Hey, Ji-won. He walked around the house calling my name over and over, mischievously — as if he were an Eskimo who believed that the soul became imprinted in the name when it was called — while I fried an egg, cautiously sprinkling grated Emmentaler, salt, pepper, taking care not to pop the yolk. I spread the white sun-dried tablecloth on the coffee table and set it with the fried egg, unsalted butter, blueberry jam, and a baguette I’d toasted in the oven. It was our favorite breakfast: simple, warm, sweet. As was his habit, he spread a thick layer of butter and jam on his baguette and dunked it into his coffee, and I plunked into my cup the teaspoon laced with jam, waiting for the sticky sweetness to melt into the hot, dark coffee. I still remember the sugary jam infusing the last drop of coffee and the moist crumbs of the baguette lingering at the roof of my mouth. And also his words, informing me that he wanted to design a new house that would contain the cooking school, his office, and our bedroom. Instead of replying, I picked up a firm red radish, sparkling with droplets of water, dabbed a little butter on it, dipped it in salt, and stuck it into my mouth. A crunch resonated from my mouth. Hoping the crunch sounded like, Yes, someday, I continued to eat it. Was that the reason I equated a fresh red radish with sprouting green tops, as small as a miniature apple, with the taste of love? But if I cut into it crosswise like an apple, I wouldn't find the constellation of seeds.