Hungry Stomach Quotes

What have you done to my cat?" Magnus demanded... "You drank his blood, didn't you? You said you weren't hungry!" Simon was indignant. "I did not drink his blood. He's fine!" He poked the Chairman in the stomach. The cat yawned. "Second, you asked me if I was hungry when you were ordering pizza, so I said no, because I can't eat pizza. I was being polite." "That doesn't get you the right to eat my cat." "Your cat is fine!" Simon reached to pick up the tabby, who jumped indignantly to his feet and stalked off the table. "See?" "Whatever.

Hungry stomachs growl the same tune.

Falling in love is like getting hit by a truck and yet not being mortally wounded. just sick to your stomach, high one minute, low the next. Starving hungry but unable to eat. hot, cold, forever horny, full of hope and enthusiasm, with momentary depressions that wipe you out. It is also not being able to remove the smile from your face, loving life with a mad passionate intensity, and feeling ten years younger. Love does not appear with any warning signs. You fall into it as if pushed from a high diving board. No time to think about what's happening. It's inevitable. An event you can't control. A crazy, heart-stopping, roller-coaster ride that just has to take its course.

Hunger gnawed at her empty stomach again and she said aloud: 'As God is my witness, and God is my witness, the Yankees aren't going to lick me. I'm going to live through this, and when it's over, I'm never going to be hungry again. No, nor any of my folks. If I have to steal or kill - as God is my witness, I'm never going to be hungry again.

On Saturday, he ate through one piece of chocolate cake, one ice-cream cone, one pickle, one slice of Swiss cheese, one slice of salami, one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake, and one slice of watermelon That night he had a stomach ache.

At the bottom of philosophy something very true and very desperate whispers: Everyone is hungry all the time. Everyone is starving. Everyone wants so much, much more than they can stomach, but the appetite doesn't converse much with the stomach. Everyone is hungry and not only for food - for comfort and love and excitement and the opposite of being alone. Almost everything awful anyone does is to get those things and keep them.

Everybody’s got a hungry heart. The trick is to learn when you’re eating to fill the heart instead of the stomach. Feeding the stomach, she said, is easy. That’s just diet. It’s learning how to feed the heart that’s hard.

Hunger gives flavour to the food.

Close your eyes, Maxon." "What?" "Close your eyes. Somewhere in this palace, there is a woman who will be your wife. This girl? Imagine that she depends on you. She needs you to cherish her and make her feel like the Selection didn't even happen. Like if you were dropped in your own out in the middle of the country to wander around door to door, she's still the one you would have found. She was always the one you would have picked. She needs you to provide for her and protect her. And if it came to a point where there was absolutely nothing to eat, and you couldn't even fall asleep at night because the sound of her stomach growling kept you awake—" "Stop it!" "Sorry." "Is that really what it's like? Out there... does that happen? Are people hungry like that a lot?" "Maxon, I..." "Tell me the truth." "Yes. That happens. I know of families where people give up their share for their children or siblings. I know of a boy who was whipped in the town square for stealing food. Sometimes you do crazy things when you are desperate." "A boy? How old?" "Nine." "Have you ever been like that? Starving?...How bad?" "Maxon, it will only upset you more." "Probably, but I'm only starting to realize how much I don't know about my own country. Please." "We've been pretty bad. Most time if it gets to where we have to choose, we keep the food and lose electricity. The worst was when it happened near Christmas one year. May didn't understand why we couldn't exchange gifts. As a general rule, there are never any leftovers at my house. Someone always wants more. I know the checks we've gotten over the last few weeks have really helped, and my family is really smart about money. I'm sure they have already tucked it away so it will stretch out for a long time. You've done so much for us, Maxon." "Good God. When you said that you were only here for the food, you weren't kidding, were you?" "Really, Maxon, we've been doing pretty well lately. I—" "I'll see you at dinner.

Some people when they see cheese, chocolate or cake they don't think of calories.

Aren't you hungry?" he asked, distracted. "No." I didn't feel like mentioning that my stomach was already full - of butterflies.

So we know she's safe and taken care of?" Daniel asked, and she nodded. "Good. Then why don't we do something that you want to do?" "Like what?" "I don't know. What do you like to do?" "Um...." Her stomach rumbled, since crying always made her hungry. "I like eating breakfast." "That's so weird." Daniel grinned. "Because I like making French toast." "That works out, doesn't it?

Decisions to cut aid for the terminally ill, for the elderly, for dependent children, for food stamps, even school lunches, are being made by men with full stomachs who live in comfortable houses with two cars and umpteen tax shelters. None of them go hungry to bed at night.

while most people became irritable when hungry, a redheaded person with an empty stomach was a walking time bomb.

And just as the hungry stomach eagerly accepts every object it can get, hoping to find nourishment in it, Vronsky quite unconsciously clutched first at politics, then at new books, and then at pictures.

You must be hungry,” said the satyr. “Either that, or your stomach speaks hedgehog. That was quite a statement in hedgehog.

But the interior didn't smell like it'd had people here, not for a long, long time, and smelled instead like such old buildings do: green and damp and dark and hungry, hollow as a stomach that'd forgotten what it was like to eat.

I didn’t know what it was about red hair, but many years’ experience with Jamie, Brianna, and Jemmy had taught me that while most people became irritable when hungry, a redheaded person with an empty stomach was a walking time bomb.

The West, in its pursuit of material abundance, lost its soul, its interiority. Surrounded by meaninglessness, boredom, anguish, it cannot find its own humanity. All the success of science proves to be of no use—because the house is full of things, but the master of the house is missing. In the East, the end result of centuries of considering matter to be illusory and only consciousness to be real has been that the master is alive but the house is empty. It is difficult to rejoice with hungry stomachs, with sick bodies, with death surrounding you; it is impossible to meditate.

...drawn to the cities where you'd hear a voice kissing and talking deep love in every shadow of the ditch, and you passing on with an empty, hungry stomach failing from your heart...

How miraculous it was, noted Diogenes, that whenever one felt that sort of urge, one could readily masturbate. But conversely how disheartening that one could not simply rub one’s stomach when hungry.

Guys," Grover said. "What's the name of the last Roman king?" I thought. "Ta ... hmm. I just had it, and now it's gone. Ta-something." "Taco?" Grover said helpfully. "Why would a Roman king be named Taco?" "I don't know." Grover rubbed his stomach. "Because I'm hungry?" Curse the satyr. Now all I could think of was tacos.

A full stomach allows the brain to be hungry for common sense.

If a friend starts behaving silly because you bother him so much, don't worry, you're not the first person, he has got a sting in his stomach, an hunger that causes an epidemic hatred.

Aurora once told me that she knew I was different within the first few months after I was born, because as a baby, I never cried. She had no way of knowing if I was hungry or if my stomach hurt until I was old enough to point and talk. Even when I fell and it was obvious that I had hurt myself, I did not cry. When I didn't get my way, I would go off by myself and sulk or have a tantrum. But I never cried. Later, when I was eleven and Abba died, I didn't cry. When Joseph, my best friend at St. Elizabeth's, died, I didn't cry. Maybe I don't feel what others feel. I have no way of knowing. But I do feel. It's just that what I feel does not elicit tears. What I feel when others cry is more like a dry, empty aloneness, like I'm the only person left in the world. So it is very strange to feel my eyes well with tears as I read Jasmine's list.

And dieting, I discovered, was another form of disordered eating, just as anorexia and bulimia similarly disrupt the natural order of eating. "Ordered" eating is the practice of eating when you are hungry and ceasing to eat when your brain sends the signal that your stomach is full. ... All people who live their lives on a diet are suffering. If you can accept your natural body weight and not force it to beneath your body's natural, healthy weight, then you can live your life free of dieting, of restriction, of feeling guilty every time you eat a slice of your kid's birthday cake.

Oh, Anyone can make a quilt,' she said modestly. 'It's just scraps, from the clothes you've sewn.' 'Yes, but the talent is in joining the pieces, the way you have.' 'Look,' Om pointed, 'look at that - the poplin from our very first job.' 'You remember,' said Dina, pleased. 'And how fast you finished those first dresses. I thought I had two geniuses.' 'Hungry stomachs were driving our fingers,' chuckled Ishvar. 'Then came that yellow calico with orange strips. And what a hard time this young fellow gave me. Fighting and arguing about everything.' 'Me?Argue?Never.' ......... He steeped back, pleased with himself, as though he had elucidated an intricate theorem. 'So that's the rule to remember, the whole quilt is much more important than the square'.

Ten truths must you find during the day; otherwise you will seek truth during the night, and your soul will stay hungry. Ten times must you laugh during the day, and be cheerful; otherwise your stomach, the father of affliction and gloom, will disturb you in the night.

I’m starving my stomach is a tortured pit of starvation I’m so hungry so hungry so hungry I can’t even imagine what real food must taste like.

A hungry stomach, an empty wallet, and a broken heart can teach you the best lessons of life.

Some people might laugh or roll their eyes and accuse me of tired cliches. But there it was-hot food in an empty stomach, water on a parched throat, that first glimpse of home just around the bend, or that first bite of something you thought you'd never have the courage to try, only to realize it was the best thing you'd ever tasted. That was what Finn's kiss was like. And in that moment, I realized I was starving and had been for a long time. I was starving. Hungry for companionship, affection, connection. And strangest of all, hungry for Finn Clyde.

In its revolt against congestion and sordor, a space-hungry generation has, I fear, developed eyes that are bigger than its stomach.

Below the surface of the most civilised human beings, the hunger-lust darts and snaps like a fish, snatches and rends like a bird, growls like a wolf, snarls like a panther, buzzes like a hornet, bleats like a sheep and stamps like a bull; and there is nothing so aggravating to hungry stomachs as the sight of dirty plates pushed away from satisfied rival stomachs.

Yes, we laughed, because I have learned this at least during these four years, that it really requires an empty stomach to laugh with, that only when you are hungry or frightened do you extract some ultimate essence out of laughing just as the empty stomach extracts the ultimate essence out of alcohol.

Everything is about to go to hell very quickly, so I want one moment where we don't talk about that. We pretend it doesn't exist. I want one last quiet moment with you." "No, Loki." I shook my head, but I didn't pull away. "I told you that one night wasn't enough." Loki leaned down, kissing me deeply and pressing me to him. I didn't even attempt to resist. I wrapped my arms around his neck. It wasn't the way we had kissed before, not as hungry or fevered. This was something different, nicer. We were holding on to each other, knowing this might be the last time we could. It felt sweet and hopeful and tragic all at once. When he stopped kissing me he rested his forehead against mine. He breathed as if struggling to catch his breath. I reached up and touched his face, his skin smooth and cool beneath my hand. Loki lifted his head so he could look me in the eyes, and I saw something in them, something I'd never seen before. Something pure and unadulterated, and my heart seemed to grow with the warmth of my love for him. I don't know how it happened or when it had, but I knew it with complete certainty. I had fallen in love with Loki, more intensely than anything I had felt for anyone before. "Wendy!" Finn shouted, pulling me from my moment with Loki. "What are you doing? You're married! And not to him!" "Nothing slips by you, does it?" Loki asked. "Finn," I said, and stepped away from Loki. "Calm down." "No!" Finn yelled. "I will not calm down! What were you thinking? We're about to go to war, and you're cheating on your husband?" "Everything's not exactly the way it seems," I said, but guilt and regret were gripping my stomach. My marriage might be over, but I was still technically wed to another man. And I should be worrying about things more important than kissing Loki. "It seemed like you had your tongue down his throat." Finn glared at us both. "Well, then, everything is exactly as it seems," Loki said glibly.

Why were we hungry? my stomach cried. Even then I understood that if the rich could only spare all the hungry a bowl of rice, they would be less rich but they would not starve. If the solution was so simple, why was anyone hungry? Was it only a lack of sympathy?

get butterflies in my stomach when I’m with you. First time it happened, I thought I was hungry or something. But I wasn’t. It was just you.

I pushed away my dessert, suddenly no longer hungry. Resentment had a way of filling up your stomach.

your shriveled stomach’s aching with hunger, you forget all about your hungry heart. And you keep on forgetting it a little each day until a stray dog has more heart or soul than you.

Throughout the South for fifty years there would be bitter-eyed women who looked backward, to dead times, to dead men, evoking memories that hurt and were futile, bearing poverty with bitter pride because they had those memories. But Scarlett was never to look back. She gazed at the blackened stones and, for the last time, she saw Twelve Oaks rise before her eyes as it had once stood, rich and proud, symbol of a race and a way of living. Then she started down the road toward Tara, the heavy basket cutting into her flesh. Hunger gnawed at her empty stomach again and she said aloud: “As God is my witness, as God is my witness, the Yankees aren’t going to lick me. I’m going to live through this, and when it’s over, I’m never going to be hungry again. No, nor any of my folks. If I have to steal or kill–as God is my witness, I’m never going to be hungry again.

She always liked being hungry. Feeling herself bend but not break, hearing her stomach groan emptily and then conquering her need, proving herself above all that. Thinness has become a way of life.

What leads me to accredit the truth of what great Savonati has conveyed to us is the way in which he conscientiously tells us everything. In novels written nowadays, writers pay little heed to their heroes' stomachs. They send them off on errands, embroil them in adventures which leave them as breathless as the reader, and yet they are never hungry. In this respect, they bear little resemblance to the author. In my opinion, this, more than anything else, serves to discredit this type of work. Does anybody eat in René? ... Whatever period you depict, you will find that people had dinner.

She felt livid. They'd all lost so many powers. It was ridiculous to have to communicate by flapping bits of your skin, and as for the tongue... Yuerkkk ... As far as she knew, in the whole life of the universe, no Auditor had ever experienced the sensation of yuerkkk. This wretched body was full of opportunities for yuerkkk. She could leave it at any time and yet, and yet... part of her didn't want to. There was this horrible desire, second by second, to hang on. And she felt hungry. And that also made no sense. The stomach was a bag for digesting food. It wasn't supposed to issue commands. The Auditors could survive quite well by exchanging molecules with their surroundings and making use of any local source of energy. That was a fact. Try telling that to the stomach. She could feel it. It was sitting there, grumbling. She was being harassed by her internal organs. Why the ... why the. . why had they copied internal organs? Yuerkkk. It was all too much. She wanted to... she wanted to... express herself by shouting some, some, some terrible words...

I’ve tried to forget what it was like as a stray boy heading toward Cuz. I was barely human after the first wretched few days, and as time went on I cared less about being so. When your shriveled stomach’s aching with hunger, you forget all about your hungry heart. And you keep on forgetting it a little each day until a stray dog has more heart or soul than you.

Fox Jung...I dunno why I get so hungry whenever I see you. Just once...if I could swallow you up in one bite, just once...I'd never need anything else." "Now, I'm really scared...that one day, I'll open my eyes and find myself inside your stomach.

Santiago thought about how at Slim Again, Begin Again the group talked a lot about why people ate, the hunger that was beyond food. They ate because it reminded them of their parents feeding them and the times they were taken care of. They ate because their parents did not feed them, and it’s how they learned to take care of themselves. They ate because they felt less alone when eating. Because they wanted to feel full, then wanted to feel nothing. Dominique said it was like that Bruce Springsteen song “ Hungry Heart ” from the 1980s. Everybody’s got a hungry heart. The trick is to learn when you’re eating to fill the heart instead of the stomach. Feeding the stomach, she said, is easy. That’s just diet. It’s learning how to feed the heart that’s hard.

Speech baffled my machine. Helen made all well-formed sentences. But they were hollow and stuffed--linguistic training bras. She sorted nouns from verbs, but, disembodied, she did not know the difference between thing and process, except as they functioned in clauses. Her predications were all shotgun weddings. Her ideas were as decorative as half-timber beams that bore no building load. She balked at metaphor. I felt the annoyance of her weighted vectors as they readjusted themselves, trying to accommodate my latest caprice. You're hungry enough to eat a horse. A word from a friend ties your stomach in knots. Embarrassment shrinks you, amazement strikes you dead. Wasn't the miracle enough? Why do humans need to say everything in speech's stockhouse except what they mean?

Have you a room that you could let?" "Yes, I have a room that I could let, but I do not want to let it. I have only two rooms, and there are six of us already, and the boys and girls are growing up. But school books cost money, and my husband is ailing, and when he is well it is only thirty-five shillings a week. And six shillings of that is for the rent, and three shillings of that is for the rent, and three shillings for travelling, and a shilling that we may all be buried decently, and a shilling for the books, and three shillings is for clothes and that is little enough, and a shilling for my husband's beer, and a shilling for his tobacco, and these I do not grudge for he is a decent man and does not gamble or spend his money on other women, and a shilling for the Church, and a shilling for sickness. And that leaves seventeen shillings for food for six, and we are always hungry. Yes I have a room but I do not want to let it. How much could you pay?" "I could pay three shillings a week for the room." "And I would not take it." "Three shillings and sixpence." "Three shillings and sixpence. You can't fill your stomach on privacy. You need privacy when your children are growing up, but you can't fill your stomach on it. Yes, I shall take three shillings and sixpence.

I knew at least Banalia was dead; that had happened right in front of my eyes. They would either eat her now or smoke her body to sell the meat. It made my stomach turn--the DNA in that meat was almost 99 percent the same as human DNA; it was nearly cannibalism. But the men were hungry.

I was hungry when I left Pyongyang. I wasn't hungry just for a bookshop that sold books that weren't about Fat Man and Little Boy. I wasn't ravenous just for a newspaper that had no pictures of F.M. and L.B. I wasn't starving just for a TV program or a piece of music or theater or cinema that wasn't cultist and hero-worshiping. I was hungry. I got off the North Korean plane in Shenyang, one of the provincial capitals of Manchuria, and the airport buffet looked like a cornucopia. I fell on the food, only to find that I couldn't do it justice, because my stomach had shrunk. And as a foreign tourist in North Korea, under the care of vigilant minders who wanted me to see only the best, I had enjoyed the finest fare available.

He fell in love with a skinny stray cat that would skulk around the dining hall during meals. Every day, Jake would offer it sausage or egg from breakfast and pepperoni or hamburger from lunch. Every day, it ran away from him. But Jake didn’t give up. Even when he had the stomach flu, he snuck out of the infirmary to try to feed it. He was not going to let it down. He would watch it from classroom windows. He even made up a poem about it that he sent home to his mother in a letter. Three months later, the little cat was finally hungry enough to trust him. It never occurred to Jake that the cat...

Yes, we laughed, because I have learned this at least during these four years: that it really requires an empty stomach to laugh with, that only when you are hungry or frightened do you extract some ultimate essence out of laughing just as the empty stomach extracts the ultimate essence out of alcohol.

And dieting, I discovered, was another form of disordered eating, just as anorexia and bulimia similarly disrupt the natural order of eating. “Ordered” eating is the practice of eating when you are hungry and ceasing to eat when your brain sends the signal that your stomach is full. “Ordered” eating is about eating for enjoyment, for health, and to sustain life. “Ordered” eating is not restricting certain kinds of foods because they are “bad.” Obsessing about what and when to eat is not normal, natural, and orderly. Thinking about food to the point of obsession and ignoring your body’s signals is a disorder.

I thought how money was like food. The smell, the way it came in portions, how badly you needed it. How hungry you got for it, that acidic longing which burned and sickened in your stomach. Firm muscular control was needed over food and money. Money could kill you, wanting and needing it and fighting its power.

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

You reason like a well-fed man, while your comrade's philosophy comes from an empty stomach. With reason you won't vanquish one another. You would agree at once if either you were hungry or he were full. The animal is always first in you and only when it is appeased, Man becomes conscious and in his great pride, despises his real nature.

Does my face not look hungry? My mouth is the path and mouthpiece to my stomach, so I’d believe what I’m telling you if I were inside your ears.

Life is about fulfillment. If your life isn’t fulfilled, your stomach can never supply what’s missing.

A person should never take on a city with an empty stomach, and I am always hungry.

What have you done to my cat?” Magnus demanded, returning to the living room carrying a pot of coffee, with a circle of mugs floating around his head like a model of the planets rotating around the sun. “You drank his blood, didn’t you? You said you weren’t hungry!” Simon was indignant. “I did not drink his blood. He’s fine!” He poked the Chairman in the stomach. The cat yawned. “Second, you asked me if I was hungry when you were ordering pizza, so I said no, because I can’t eat pizza. I was being polite.” “That doesn’t give you the right to eat my cat.

I am a very good cook.” When she did cook. “Good. I like to eat.” He lightly bit her palm. The too-much-air feeling in Lucy’s stomach pressed upward into her heart. “What?” she asked past the constriction in her chest. “What do I like to eat?” “Yeah.” “Blondes with blue eyes.” Oh God. She pulled her hand from his. “Are you hungry?” His gaze lowered to her mouth. “I could eat.

My period continued, an inevitable cycle, yet every month I was somehow surprised by the violent pain. It was as if I refused to believe my body, something I’d trusted for years, would repeatedly betray me. My stomach ate itself from the inside, a revelry I had been dragged to, a feast I was forced to join though I was not hungry. The meal lasted four to six days, gorging on cramps, the spilled crumbs falling out of me stained with raspberry jam. My stomach was never a clean eater, gnawing on my uterus and fallopian tubes, leaving bite marks. I counted each rotation of the sun with heightening anxiety until it passed and I reset the clock. The knife carved my insides into pot roasts; the fork jabbed my sides into holey cheese. I could distinguish each fork prong—the pain was profound. My guts twisted around the spoon like spaghetti, tangled noodles slathered in scarlet marinara. Menstruation was more smashed acidic tomatoes than sweet fruit compote. I wiped my fingers on white jeans made of napkins and left streaks dried to rust. The stains came out with bleach and detergent. I died and regenerated every month. How else could I define the experience? The reasonable explanation was death. I decided when my body was wheeled into the morgue, the coroner would declare I died of being a woman. Which was far better than dying of being a man.

The doors burst open, startling me awake. I nearly jumped out of bed. Tove groaned next to me, since I did this weird mind-slap thing whenever I woke up scared, and it always hit him the worst. I'd forgotten about it because it had been a few months since the last time it happened. "Good morning, good morning, good morning," Loki chirped, wheeling in a table covered with silver domes. "What are you doing?" I asked, squinting at him. He'd pulled up the shades. I was tired as hell, and I was not happy. "I thought you two lovebirds would like breakfast," Loki said. "So I had the chef whip you up something fantastic." As he set up the table in the sitting area, he looked over at us. "Although you two are sleeping awfully far apart for newlyweds." "Oh, my god." I groaned and pulled the covers over my head. "You know, I think you're being a dick," Tove told him as he got out of bed. "But I'm starving. So I'm willing to overlook it. This time." "A dick?" Loki pretended to be offended. "I'm merely worried about your health. If your bodies aren't used to strenuous activities, like a long night of lovemaking, you could waste away if you don't get plenty of protein and rehydrate. I'm concerned for you." "Yes, we both believe that's why you're here," Tove said sarcastically and took a glass of orange juice that Loki had poured for him. "What about you, Princess?" Loki's gaze cut to me as he filled another glass. "I'm not hungry." I sighed and sat up. "Oh, really?" Loki arched an eyebrow. "Does that mean that last night-" "It means that last night is none of your business," I snapped. I got up and hobbled over to Elora's satin robe, which had been left on a nearby chair. My feet and ankles ached from all the dancing I'd done the night before. "Don't cover up on my account," Loki said as I put on the robe. "You don't have anything I haven't seen." "Oh, I have plenty you haven't seen," I said and pulled the robe around me. "You should get married more often," Loki teased. "It makes you feisty." I rolled my eyes and went over to the table. Loki had set it all up, complete with a flower in a vase in the center, and he'd pulled off the domed lids to reveal a plentiful breakfast. I took a seat across from Tove, only to realize that Loki had pulled up a third chair for himself. "What are you doing?" I asked. "Well, I went to all the trouble of having someone prepare it, so I might as well eat it." Loki sat down and handed me a flute filled with orange liquid. "I made mimosas." "Thanks," I said, and I exchanged a look with Tove to see if it was okay if Loki stayed. "He's a dick," Tove said over a mouthful of food, and shrugged. "But I don't care." In all honesty, I think we both preferred having Loki there. He was a buffer between the two of us so we didn't have to deal with any awkward morning-after conversations. And though I'd never admit it aloud, Loki made me laugh, and right now I needed a little levity in my life. "So, how did everyone sleep last night?" Loki asked. There was a quick knock at the bedroom doors, but they opened before I could answer. Finn strode inside, and my stomach dropped. He was the last person I'd expected to see. I didn't even think he would be here anymore. After the other night I assumed he'd left, especially when I didn't see him at the wedding. "Princess, I'm sorry-" Finn started to say as he hurried in, but then he saw Loki and stopped abruptly. "Finn?" I asked, stunned. Finn looked appalled and pointed at Loki. "What are you doing here?" "I'm drinking a mimosa." Loki leaned back in his chair. "What are you doing here?" "What is he doing here?" Finn asked, turning his attention to me. "Never mind him." I waved it off. "What's going on?" "See, Finn, you should've told me when I asked," Loki said between sips of his drink.

Why are you in my room?” “Because I can be.” “You shouldn’t be.” “Save it, Rochester. You broke my nose.” “Does it hurt?” He lifted a hand toward his face and dropped it. “You could say that.” “Good.” He nudged a tray on the floor with his boot. It had oatmeal, toast, and orange juice on it. “Hungry?” Honor’s stomach growled. “No.” Ryder’s lips turned up in a fleeting sadistic smile. He kicked the tray across the room. It hit the wall and overturned. “Good.

Mother, I am ravenous. Mother it is not what they said, they did not tell us the truth, they did not even say that it would look like the underbelly of a skinned mammal. That it would be like the inside of a lip. It is the scrape of his teeth on the soft of my arm and how I moaned for days. It is greedy and hungry. I am always hungry. I am always a stomach full of teeth and need. Need, god, I need. Once in the morning and once in the afternoon, sometimes in between. Sometimes I am not a girl, but a slice of desire. Mother, if desperation were human, she would wear my eyes. She would hold my hands. She would take me by the neck and fill me until I was boneless. Later she would write in her diary, today I destroyed a girl and it tasted like wine.

At the bottom of philosophy something very true and very desperate whispers: Everyone is hungry all the time. Everyone is starving. Everyone wants so much, more than they can stomach, but the appetite doesn’t converse much with the stomach. Everyone is hungry and not only for food—for comfort and love and excitement and the opposite of being alone. Almost everything awful anyone does is to get those things and keep them. Even the mites and the mussels. But no one can use you up unless you let them.

Sometimes I'm torn about eyes because there are times when I'm riding the bus walking to class shopping with my mom, when I look up to find eyes on my body, hungry stare, sometimes someone my age and sometimes not, a stare that turns me into a meal. And sometimes I like the way it feels like someone has lit a torch in my stomach in the deepest night and all the moths come seeking. Is it possible to like something sometimes and hate it other times? Am I allowed to decide when I want to be a feast?

No small art is it to sleep: it is necessary for that purpose to keep awake all day. Ten times a day must thou overcome thyself: that causeth wholesome weariness, and is poppy to the soul. Ten times must thou reconcile again with thyself; for overcoming is bitterness, and badly sleep the unreconciled. Ten truths must thou find during the day; otherwise wilt thou seek truth during the night, and thy soul will have been hungry. Ten times must thou laugh during the day, and be cheerful; otherwise thy stomach, the father of affliction, will disturb thee in the night.

For the next eight or ten months, Oliver was the victim of a systematic course of treachery and deception. He was brought up by hand. The hungry and destitute situation of the infant orphan was duly reported by the workhouse authorities to the parish authorities. The parish authorities inquired with dignity of the workhouse authorities, whether there was no female then domiciled in 'the house' who was in a situation to impart to Oliver Twist, the consolation and nourishment of which he stood in need. The workhouse authorities replied with humility, that there was not. Upon this, the parish authorities magnanimously and humanely resolved, that Oliver should be 'farmed,' or, in other words, that he should be dispatched to a branch-workhouse some three miles off, where twenty or thirty other juvenile offenders against the poor-laws, rolled about the floor all day, without the inconvenience of too much food or too much clothing, under the parental superintendence of an elderly female, who received the culprits at and for the consideration of sevenpence-halfpenny per small head per week. Sevenpence-halfpenny's worth per week is a good round diet for a child; a great deal may be got for sevenpence-halfpenny, quite enough to overload its stomach, and make it uncomfortable. The elderly female was a woman of wisdom and experience; she knew what was good for children; and she had a very accurate perception of what was good for herself. So, she appropriated the greater part of the weekly stipend to her own use, and consigned the rising parochial generation to even a shorter allowance than was originally provided for them. Thereby finding in the lowest depth a deeper still; and proving herself a very great experimental philosopher.

Her kiss is hungry, as if long deprived. As if they didn’t already spend the morning doing just exactly this, making up for the lost time they were apart. Triton’s trident, I could do this all day. Then he catches himself. No, I couldn’t. Not without wanting more. Which is why we need to stop. Instead, he entwines his hands in her hair, and she teases his lips with her tongue, trying to get him to fully open his mouth to her. He gladly complies. Her fingers sneak their way under his shirt, up his stomach, sending a trail of fire to his chest. He is about to lose his shirt altogether. Until Antonis’s voice booms from the doorway. “Extract yourself from Prince Galen, Emma,” he says. “You two are not mated. This behavior is inappropriate for any Syrena, let alone a Royal.” Emma’s eyes go round as sand dollars. He can tell she’s not sure what to think about her grandfather telling her what to do. Or maybe she’s caught off guard that he called her a Royal. Either way, like most people, Emma decides to obey. Galen does, too. They stand up side by side, not daring to be close enough to touch. They behold King Antonis in a polka-dot bathrobe, and though he’s the one who looks silly, they are the ones who look shamed. Galen feels like a fingerling again. “I apologize, Highness,” he says. It seems like all he does lately is apologize to the Poseidon king. “It was my fault.” Antonis gives him a reproving look. “I like you, young prince. But you well know the law. Do not disappoint me, Galen. My granddaughter is deserving of a proper mating ceremony.” Galen can’t meet his eyes. He’s right. I shouldn’t be flirting with temptation like this. With the Archives on their way-or possibly here already-there is a distant but small chance that he and Emma can still live within the confines of the law. That they can still live as mates under the Syrena tradition. And he almost just blew it. What if it had gone too far? Then his mating with Emma would forever be blemished by breaking the law. “It won’t happen again, Highness.” Not until we’re mated, anyway. “Um. Did you just promise not to kiss me ever again?” Emma whispers. “Can we talk about this later? The Archives are obviously here, angelfish.” She’s on the verge of a fit, he can tell. “He’s just looking out for us,” Galen says quickly. “I agree, we need to respect the law-“ At this her fit subsides as if it was never there. She smiles wide at him. He can’t decide if it’s genuine, or if it’s the kind of smile she gives him when he’ll pay for something later. “Okay, Galen.” “Galen, Emma,” Nalia calls from the dining room, saving him from making a fool of himself. “Everyone is here.” Emma gives him a look that clearly says, “We’re so not done with this conversation.” Then she turns and walks away. Galen takes a second to regain a little bit of composure-which kissing Emma tends to steal from him. Then there’s the mortification of being interrupted by-Get it together, idiot.

No,” Ted said, returning his gaze to James, “I do need to tell you. As much for me as for you. Because I haven’t told anybody else yet, not even Grandmum. I think if I don’t tell somebody, I’ll go nutters. See, I couldn’t sleep because I was so hungry. I was starved! I lay there in bed the first time it happened, telling myself that this was just crazy. I’d had a nice big dinner and everything, just like normal. But no matter what I told myself, my stomach just kept telling me it wanted food. And not just anything. It wanted meat. Raw meat. Fresh-off-the-bone meat. You see what I’m getting at?

Hungry?" he asked as embarrassment flushed her cheeks, and he laughed. "Get dressed, and I'll have supper brought up to us." "Isn't getting dressed defeating the purpose?" she said as she slowly rolled onto her side and trailed her fingers across his chest. "I mean you're just going to take off whatever I put on, right?" Her fingers stirred a fire inside him as she dragged them down toward his stomach.With a life of its own, his cock stirred as she brushed her fingertips over his growing erection. Nicholas growled with need at her touch. "You're deliberately trying to distract me." "Is it working?" she murmured in a husky voice.

Are you sure you want to do this?” She holds her palm against my chest. “I don’t want to take advantage.” I throw back my head and laugh. “Babe. There isn’t a scenario I can ever imagine where that would happen. Feel free to take advantage whenever you get the urge.” I wink, and she narrows her eyes suspiciously. “Sweetheart.” I lean in, planting a hungry kiss on her lips. “I need to lose myself in you.” I run circles on her stomach with the tip of my finger, mentally fist-pumping the air when she trembles underneath my touch. “This is the best thing you can do to help me right now.” “Well.” She grins seductively, reaching down to grab me. “When you put it like that, I can hardly refuse, now can I?

Hungry?” he asks. “The wager?” I remind him. “I’m getting there—it’s related to my question.” He lifts his chin to the meat locker. “They have good steaks here.” And just like that, I’m interested in whatever he’s suggesting. “They do. What’re you thinking?” “They have a porterhouse for two, three, or four.” I haven’t eaten in nearly twenty-four hours, and the idea of a big juicy steak has me salivating. “Yeah?” “So, I say we split the one for three, and whoever eats more wins.” “I’m going to guess their porterhouse for three could feed us both for a week.” “I’m betting you’re right.” His adorable grin should be accompanied by the sound of a silvery ding. “And your dinner is on me.” For not the first time, it occurs to me to ask him how he makes ends meet, but I can’t—not here, and maybe not when we’re alone, either. “You don’t have to do that.” “I think I can handle treating my wife to dinner on our wedding night.” Our wedding night. My heart thuds heavily. “That’s a lot of meat. No pun intended.” He grins enthusiastically. “I’d sure like to see how you handle it.” “You’re betting Holland can’t finish a steak?” Lulu chimes in from behind me. “Oh, you sweet summer child.” *** As we get up, I groan, clutching my stomach. “Is this what pregnancy feels like? Not interested.” “I could carry you,” Calvin offers sweetly, helping me with my coat. Lulu pushes between us, giddy from wine as she throws her arms around our shoulders. “You’re supposed to carry the bride across the threshold to be romantic, not because she’s broken from eating her weight in beef.” I stifle a belch. “The way to impress a man is to show him how much meat you can handle, don’t you know this, Lu?” Calvin laughs. “It was a close battle.” “Not that close,” Mark says, beside him. We went so far as to have the waiter split the cooked steak into two equal portions, much to the amused fascination of our tablemates. I ate roughly three-quarters of mine. Calvin was two ounces short. “Calvin Bakker has a pretty solid ring to it,” I say. He laugh-groans. “What did I get myself into?” “A marriage to a farm girl,” I say. “It’s best you learn on day one that I take my eating very seriously.

Tristran sat at the top of the spire of cloud and wondered why none of the heroes of the penny dreadfuls he used to read so avidly were ever hungry. His stomach rumbled, and his hand hurt him so. Adventures are all very well in their place, he thought, but there’s a lot to be said for regular meals and freedom from pain. Still, he was alive, and the wind was in his hair, and the cloud was scudding through the sky like a galleon at full sail. Looking out over the world from above, he could never remember feeling so alive as he did at that moment. There was a skyness to the sky and a nowness to the world that he had never seen or felt or realized before. He understood that he was, in some way, above his problems, just as he was above the world.

At the bottom of philosophy something very true and very desperate whispers: Everyone is hungry all the time. Everyone is starving. Everyone wants so much, more than they can stomach, but the appetite doesn’t converse much with the stomach. Everyone is hungry and not only for food—for comfort and love and excitement and the opposite of being alone. Almost everything awful anyone does is to get those things and keep them. Even the mites and the mussels. But no one can use you up unless you let them.” Almanack gave a great and happy sigh. “The whole point of growing is to get big enough to hold the world you want inside you. But it takes a long time, and you really must eat your vegetables, and most often you have to make the world you want out of yourself.” September

Dear Mama, I hope this letter finds you well. It contains all my love and affection. (It also contains all my questions about how you could ever have loved a man like Professor Miller.) You asked about where I live. I cannot believe I haven’t mentioned it, but I suppose I’m so used to it now I don’t think of it. The dorms are small and plain, but as a student I don’t need much more. (I cannot afford the dorms. I do not live in them.) The food is dreadful, all heavy meat and sauce. I miss fruit! (I am always hungry; a supper with a strange man was the fullest my stomach has been since I got here.) As I have mentioned in every letter, my professors are all interesting and I take copious notes during lectures. (If you do not bring up my father, I am certainly not going to offer you information on that louse of a man.) The course work is challenging but I am excelling. (I have to be perfect so they can find no excuse to dock my grades.) I have delivered Aunt Nani’s package to Jacabo. He was so happy to receive it, and I take tea with him once a week. It is a great comfort to speak Melenese with someone. (I live in the hotel where Jacabo works. He saved me when I realized I could not afford room and board at the school. I work long, hard hours in the evenings to earn a tiny hole of a servant’s room and whatever scraps of food are left over.) Please give everyone my love and tell them how much I am learning to bring back to the island as a teacher. (I will not fail, and I will use everything I learn here to make Melei better.) Your affectionate daughter, Jessamin

How could any of them not see where they were going? They’d been going around and around in tiny circles, had been for years, years that sat heavy in the gut of the living. And this was what made stomachs turn: it was the weight of all that time wasted. It was the seconds and minutes and hours, the true nectar of life, gorged on hungrily and thoughtlessly, forever undigestible, everyone hungry for more.

The shovel worked in and out of the light beams as the dirt hit him in the stomach, on his back, fell into his ears, his eyes, as I covered him along with the things that had made him: his walks, his rest, his eating when hungry, the stars he watched sometimes, the first day I brought him home, the first time he saw snow, and every second of his friendship, what he took with him into silence and stillness ...

I hit someone." "Yes." I stopped four feet away. She shook her hand at her side, lifted it, looked at it. "I hit him. He came down the stairs and I hit him. I really hit him. I've spent years wondering if I could, wondering what I'd do if it happened to me, if I'd been the one in front of that theatre...." She looked at her hand again, fascinated. "I hit him, and he ran away." The realization of what she had done, the exhilaration of her own strength rushed into her, like champagne rushing to fill lead crystal. She shimmered with it, she fizzed. I wanted to lift her in both hands, drink her down, drain her, feel the foam inside me, curling around heart, lungs, stomach. I stepped closer. She lifted her chin. Closer still. "Wolf eyes," she whispered, and I could feel her breath on my throat, "so pale and hungry.

On the days when I am hungry—for community, for peace, for belief—I remember what it was like to feed people Jesus, and for people to feed Jesus to me. And those pieces of memory multiply, like the bread that fed the five thousand, spilling out of their baskets and filling every hollow space. Communion doesn’t answer every question, nor does it keep my stomach from rumbling from time to time, but I have found that it is enough.

stands of stunted trees. There was little to eat: a few fruits here and there, always either unripe or worm-rotten. Salva’s peanuts were gone by the end of the third day. After about a week, they were joined by more people—another group of Dinka and several members of a tribe called the Jur-chol. Men and women, boys and girls, old and young, walking, walking. . . . Walking to nowhere. Salva had never been so hungry. He stumbled along, somehow moving one foot ahead of the other, not noticing the ground he walked on or the forest around him or the light in the sky. Nothing was real except his hunger, once a hollow in his stomach but now a deep buzzing pain in every part of him. Usually he walked among the Dinka, but today, shuffling along in a daze, he found he had fallen a little behind. Walking next to him was a young man from the Jur-chol. Salva didn’t

But the pigs--seventy pounds of porcine weight that did not take kindly to weekly endoscopies--did not sprout any ulcers. And testing the theory on humans was ethically impossible: how could one justify infecting a human with a new, uncharacterized species of bacteria to prove that it caused gastritis and predisposed to cancer? In July 1984, with his experiments stalled and his grant applications in jeopardy, Marshall performed the ultimate experiment: "On the morning of the experiment, I omitted my breakfast….Two hours later, Neil Noakes scraped a heavily inoculated 4 day culture plate of Helicobacter and dispersed the bacteria in alkaline peptone water (a kind of meat broth used to keep bacteria alive). I fasted until 10 am when Neil handed me a 200 ml beaker about one quarter full of the cloudy brown liquid. I drank it down in one gulp then fasted for the rest of the day. A few stomach gurgles occurred. Was it the bacteria or was I just hungry?

Gregori tugged on her hair to force her back to him. "You make me feel alive, Savannah." "Do I? Is that why you're swearing?" She turned onto her stomach, propping herself up onto her elbows. He leaned into her, brushing his mouth across the swell of her breast. "You are managing to tie me up in knots. You take away all my good judgement." A slight smile curved her mouth. "I never noticed that you had particularly good judgement to begin with." His white teeth gleamed, a predator's smile, then sank into soft bare flesh. She yelped but moved closer to him when his tongue swirled and caressed, taking away the sting. "I have always had good judgement," he told her firmly, his teeth scraping back and forth in the valley between her breasts. "So you say.But that doesn't make it so. You let evil idiots shoot you with poisoned darts. You go by yourself into laboratories filled with your enemies. Need I go on?" Her blue eyes were laughing at him. Her firm, rounded bottom was far too tempting to resist. He brought his open palm down in mock punishment. Savannah jumped, but before she could scoot away, his palm began caressing, producing a far different effect. "Judging from our positions, ma petite, I would say my judgement looks better than yours." She laughed. "All right,I'm going to let you win this time." "Would you care for a shower?" he asked solicitously. When she nodded, Gregori flowed off the bed, lifted her high into his arms,and cradled her against his chest. There was something too innocent about him. She eyed him warily. But in an instant he had already glided across the tiled floor to the balcony door, which flew open at his whim, and carried her, naked, into the cold, glittering downpour. Savannah tried to squirm away, wiggling and shoving at his chest, laughing in spite of the icy water cascading over her. "Gregori! You're so mean. I can't believe you did this." "Well,I have poor judgement." He was grinning at her in mocking, male amusement. "Is that not what you said?" "I take it back!" she moaned, clinging to him, burying her fact on his shoulder as the chill rain pelted her bare breasts, making her nipples peak hard and fast. "Run with me tonight," Gregori whispered against her neck. An enticement. Temptation. Drawing her to him, another tie to his dark world. She lifted her head, looked into his silver eyes, and was lost.The rain poured over her, drenching her, but as Gregori slowly glided with her to the blanket of pine needles below the balcony,she couldn't look away from those hungry eyes.

As for me: I hadn’t even known that I was hungry until I’d stepped into the hallway, but at that moment, standing there with a rough stomach and a bad taste in my mouth and the prospect of what would be my last freely chosen meal, it seemed to me that I’d never smelled anything quite so delicious as that sugary warmth: coffee and cinnamon, plain buttered rolls from the Continental breakfast. Funny, I thought, going back into the room and picking up the room service menu: to want something so easy, to feel such appetite for appetite itself.

We started getting hungry again, and some of the women started chanting, "MEAT, MEAT, MEAT!" We were having steak tartare. It was the only appropriate main course we could think of, for such a graceless theme, and seeing as nobody in the club was confident making it, we had to order it in. I made chips to serve with it, though. I deep-fried them in beef fat. The steak was served in little roulades, raw and minced, like horsemeat. It was topped with a raw egg yolk, chopped onions, pickled beetroot, and capers. I had wanted to use the Wisconsin version, which is served on cocktail bread and dubbed "cannibal sandwich," but Stevie insisted we go classic. Not everyone could stomach theirs with the raw egg yolk, too, and so, unusually for a Supper Club, there was quite a lot left over. We took another break to drink and move about the room. Some of us took MDMA. Emmeline had brought a box of French macarons, tiny pastel-colored things, which we threw over the table, trying to get them into one another's mouth, invariably missing. For our proper dessert, we had a crepe cake: a stack of pancakes bound together with melted chocolate. We ate it with homemade ice cream, which was becoming a real staple.

Night falls And the sun rises, And I dig niggers, niggers, niggers of all shades and sizes And the sun, the sun it plays on my eyes And I hear the hungry cries Of black children Their stomachs turned inside out Their minds full of fear and doubt Being told lies Being watched by spies With loophole-proof alibis While another nigger, nigger, nigger in Vietnam dies But the sun still rises and the night still falls And junkies still O.D. in ghetto halls And Miles he still blows And the oppression still grows And where it stops, nobody knows And black people cry out in vain Against injustice and pain To one whose mind is insane... from "Surprises" by the Last Poets

We found out that Chris would be deploying very soon after Bubba was due. I was so thrilled about being a mother that doing it on my own for six months or so didn’t scare me. The fact that Chris wouldn’t be there to share his early days weighed on my heart, but otherwise I was confident and ready. Right? You may suspect where this is going. I planned to stay out on maternity leave as long as possible, then get some help once I had to go back to work. I remained on the job until a couple of weeks before my due date. I was as big as a house and twice as hungry. Bubba-Chris’s nickname for our son-would move around every so often. Like most moms-to-be, I wanted to share the sensation with my husband. And like many fathers-to-be, Chris was just a little nervous about that. “He’s moving,” I’d tell Chris. “Want to feel?” “No, no, I’m good.” Here’s a guy who is totally calm under fire, who can deal with all sorts of difficult physical situations, to say nothing of severe wounds-but put a pregnant belly in front of him and he turns to timid mush. Men. “I don’t know what that thing is,” he said, trying to explain his squeamishness. “When the baby’s born, that’s my baby.” There’s a reason women are the ones who have the babies. Though I will admit that seeing my stomach move and poke out on its own did remind me of the movie Alien.

His knee pressed between her legs then, rubbing against her and making her cry out into his mouth, and he did it again with the same result. Then his leg shifted and his hand replaced it, his fingers gliding through the folds to find her most sensitive spot. Claray stilled briefly, and then begun to suck frantically on his tongue as he began to rub his fingers gently over, then around, the treasure he'd found. Within moments she was panting, and writhing beneath him, some fine string inside her body tightening as taut as a bow. So caught up was she in that feeling that she hardly noticed when he broke their kiss and began sliding down her body, his mouth grazing over one breast and the other and then licking and nipping his way down across her stomach. She was vaguely aware of him urging her legs to open wider, so that he could settle between them. However, it wasn't until his fingers stopped their caressing and his head dipped down between her spread legs that she took notice. She was glancing down with confusion when he nuzzled his face between her thighs and lashed her most sensitive area with his tongue. When Claray gasped and bucked in shock, Conall grasped her upper thighs to hold her in place and pressed his mouth between her legs again. For one moment, she was too stunned to feel anything else as he began to caress the sensitive nub with his tongue, and then suckled at the lips around it. But that soon passed as her body responded to his hungry feasting. It was like nothing she'd ever experienced before, nothing she'd even imagined, It was all so raw and carnal and overwhelming and she didn't know what to do. Claray was quite sure this was not something the church would approve of. He could not give her his seed like this. This was--- "Oh God," she gasped, her thoughts scattering on the breeze as he began to suck on the most sensitive part of her. And then it became a mantra. "Oh God, oh God, oh God." She felt his finger push into her, and struggled against the hands holding her, wanting to move her hips, though she had no idea why, and couldn't with him holding her down. He was still caressing her with his mouth even as he withdrew the finger. He then pushed in again and again until something inside of Claray snapped and she cried out breathlessly, her body suddenly thrashing as pleasure overwhelmed her.

Listening to him, her stomach lifting and her expression properly rapt, Starling wondered how long Crawford had known he'd use her on this case, how hungry for a chance he had wanted her to be. He was a leader, with a leader's frank-and-open bullshit, all right. "You think about him enough, you see where he's been, you get a feel for him," Crawford went on. "You don't even dislike him all the time, hard as that is to believe. Then, if you're lucky, out of all the stuff you know, part of it plucks at you, tries to get your attention. Always tell me when something plucks, Starling. "Listen to me, a crime is confusing enough without the investigation mixing it up. Don't let a herd of policemen confuse you. Live right behind your eyes. Listen to yourself. Keep the crime separate from what's going on around you now. Don't try to impose any pattern or symmetry on this guy. Stay open and let him show you.

Or, stated in a familiar way, increasing cognitive load* should make people more conservative. This is precisely the case. The time pressure of snap judgments is a version of increased cognitive load. Likewise, people become more conservative when tired, in pain or distracted with a cognitive task, or when blood alcohol levels rise. Recall from chapter 3 that willpower takes metabolic power, thanks to the glucose demands of the frontal cortex. This was the finding that when people are hungry, they become less generous in economic games. A real-world example of this is startling (see graph on previous page)—in a study of more than 1,100 judicial rulings, prisoners were granted parole at about a 60 percent rate when judges had recently eaten, and at essentially a 0 percent rate just before judges ate (note also the overall decline over the course of a tiring day). Justice may be blind, but she’s sure sensitive to her stomach gurgling.

Cursing himself, he glided his fingertips from her shoulder inward along the elegant line of her collarbone. She responded to him with a sigh of intoxicated pleasure, arching her head back, lifting her breasts slightly as her body rose to his touch. His eyes glazed over as he realized then that she was awake enough to know what she wanted. He leaned down at once and kissed her shoulder softly, whispering her name. "Wake to me." She touched his head in answer, draping her arm weakly over his neck. He moved onto the bed with her, his heart pounding. He lay beside her, close enough to consume with his lips the small, heady sigh that escaped hers. He watched the dreamy smile that curved her lips as he began caressing her with seductive reassurance, letting her get accustomed to his touch. "That's right. You just relax," he breathed. He skimmed his palm down her arm, but at her elbow, he diverted his explorations to her slender waist. From there, he ran his hand down lower, to her hip. She stretched a little like a pampered cat under his patient stroking. He bent his head at length and pressed a kiss to the white line of her tender neck. He was rewarded with another enticing undulation of her body, drawing him closer. As his lips worked his way higher, Kate turned her mouth to his invitingly. She met his gaze for a fleeting instant before he kissed her; her glittering, heavy-lidded eyes teemed with feverish desire. "Hullo there," he whispered, then he bent his head and claimed her mouth. Her low moan passed from her lips to his. Rohan answered in kind as he deepened the kiss, capturing her chin between his finger and thumb. She clutched two fistfuls of his shirt for a passing instant. Her mouth tasted of red wine. He drank deeper. As she opened her mouth to his hungry kiss, he skimmed his fingertips down her throat to her chest. He slipped his hand into her gown and cupped her breast. With tingling hands, he took her nipple between his finger and thumb and held it lightly as he kissed her. Her approving groan asked wordlessly for more. She touched his shoulders, arms, and chest as he moved downward over her body to indulge himself in sampling her breasts. She made no move to stop him, no longer cold or shivering as she had been in the great hall, but panting, her skin aglow with newfound heat as he undid the bodice of her skimpy gown and bared her lovely breasts. Closing his eyes, he took her nipple into his mouth and sucked until it swelled to glorious fullness against his tongue. The kiss went on and on, for she was even sweeter than he had already fantasized in the great hall. Now that he had her nipple in his mouth, he could not get enough of her. But when she began to writhe hungrily beneath him, her moans climbing, he obliged her, taking his hand down slowly over her quivering stomach through her gown. She was wanton, but he stoked her fire by keeping a leisurely pace for now. He put his hand between her legs, giving her a taste of what she craved. She began rubbing restlessly against the snug hold of his hand cupping her mound. He was rock hard, and enjoyed pleasuring her for a while further, feeling the dampness of her core permeating the thin cloth of her gown

Medicine once consisted of the knowledge of a few simples, to stop the flow of blood, or to heal wounds; then by degrees it reached its present stage of complicated variety. No wonder that in early days medicine had less to do! Men's bodies were still sound and strong; their food was light and not spoiled by art and luxury, whereas when they began to seek dishes not for the sake of removing, but of rousing, the appetite, and devised countless sauces to whet their gluttony, – then what before was nourishment to a hungry man became a burden to the full stomach. 16. Thence come paleness, and a trembling of wine-sodden muscles, and a repulsive thinness, due rather to indigestion than to hunger. Thence weak tottering steps, and a reeling gait just like that of drunkenness. Thence dropsy, spreading under the entire skin, and the belly growing to a paunch through an ill habit of taking more than it can hold. Thence yellow jaundice, discoloured countenances, and bodies that rot inwardly, and fingers that grow knotty when the joints stiffen, and muscles that are numbed and without power of feeling, and palpitation of the heart with its ceaseless pounding. 17. Why need I mention dizziness? Or speak of pain in the eye and in the ear, itching and aching[11] in the fevered brain, and internal ulcers throughout the digestive system? Besides these, there are countless kinds of fever, some acute in their malignity, others creeping upon us with subtle damage, and still others which approach us with chills and severe ague. 18. Why should I mention the other innumerable diseases, the tortures that result from high living?   Men used to be free from such ills, because they had not yet slackened their strength by indulgence, because they had control over themselves, and supplied their own needs.[12] They toughened their bodies by work and real toil, tiring themselves out by running or hunting or tilling the earth. They were refreshed by food in which only a hungry man could take pleasure. Hence, there was no need for all our mighty medical paraphernalia, for so many instruments and pill-boxes. For plain reasons they enjoyed plain health;

Do you have any ritual things you do before a race?” My dad did. He always had to wear black boxer shorts and socks. Before every race, he would also have a plain egg omelet for breakfast. I never did learn why. “Yep.” I wait, but he doesn’t expand. “Well…are you gonna tell me what it is?” Arms on the table, he leans forward. “Okay.” He lets out a breath. “I have to eat a bar of Galaxy chocolate before each race.” “Really?” I smile. “Why?” Eyes on me, he rests back in his seat, keeping his hands on the table. “After we first moved to England, I don’t know if it was the pressure or being in a different country or what, but I wasn’t winning races. I was coming in fourth at best. I was panicking because Dad had given up so much by moving us to England, and I was getting frustrated because I knew I was capable of more. “Anyway, on this particular day, I was hungry because I’d forgotten to eat, and my dad was all, ‘You will lose this race on an empty stomach.’ So, he went off to get me something to eat. Anyway, he came back, telling me there was only this shitty vending machine. Then, he held out a bar of Galaxy chocolate, and I was like, ‘What the hell is that? I’m not eating that. It’s women’s chocolate. Men don’t eat Galaxy. They eat Yorkie.’ You remember the adverts?” “I do.” I laugh, loving the way he’s telling the story. He’s so animated with his eyes all lit up. “So, my dad got pissed off and said, ‘Well, they haven’t got any men’s chocolate, so eat the bloody women’s chocolate, and shut the hell up!’” I snort out a laugh. “So, what did you do?” “Sulked for about a minute, and then I ate the fucking bar of Galaxy, and it was the best chocolate I’d ever tasted—not that I admitted that to my dad at the time. Then, I got in my kart and won my first ever race in England.” He smiles fondly, and I can see the memory in his eyes. “And since then, before every race, my dad buys me a bar of Galaxy from a vending machine, and I eat it. It’s my one weird thing.” “But what if there isn’t any Galaxy chocolate in a vending machine? Or worse, there isn’t a vending machine?” He leans forward, a sexy-arse smile on his face. “There’s always a vending machine, Andressa, and there’s always a bar of Galaxy in it.” “Ah.” The power of being Carrick Ryan.

But wait, stop, it’s not supposed to end this way! You’re the fantasy, you’re what I’m leaving behind. I can’t pack you up and take you with me.” “That was the most self-centered thing I’ve ever heard you say.” Jane blinked. “It was?” “Miss Hayes, have you stopped to consider that you might have this all backward? That in fact you are my fantasy?” The jet engines began to whir, the pressure of the cabin stuck invisible fingers into her ears. Henry gripped his armrest and stared ahead as though trying to steady the machine by force of will. Jane laughed at him and settled into her seat. It was a long flight. There would be time to get more answers, and she thought she could wait. Then in that moment when the plane rushed forward as though for its life, and gravity pushed down, and the plane lifted up, and Jane was breathless inside those two forces, she needed to know now. “Henry, tell me which parts were true.” “All of it. Especially this part where I’m going to die…” His knuckles were literally turning white as he held tighter to the armrests, his eyes staring straight ahead. The light gushing through the window was just right, afternoon coming at them with the perfect slant, the sun grazing the horizon of her window, yellow light spilling in. She saw Henry clearly, noticed a chicken pox scar on his forehead, read in the turn down of his upper lip how he must have looked as a pouty little boy and in the faint lines tracing away from the corners of his eyes the old man he’d one day become. Her imagination expanded. She had seen her life like an intricate puzzle, all the boyfriends like dominoes, knocking the next one and the next, an endless succession of falling down. But maybe that wasn’t it at all. She’d been thinking so much about endings, she’d forgotten to allow for the possibility of a last one, one that might stay standing. Jane pried his right hand off the armrest, placed it on the back of her neck and held it there. She lifted the armrest so nothing was between them and held his face with her other hand. It was a fine face, a jaw that fit in her palm. She could feel the whiskers growing back that he’d shaved that morning. He was looking at her again, though his expression couldn’t shake off the terror, which made Jane laugh. “How can you be so cavalier?” he asked. “Tens of thousands of pounds expected to just float in the air?” She kissed him, and he tasted so yummy, not like food or mouthwash or chapstick, but like a man. He moaned once in surrender, his muscles relaxing. “I knew I really liked you,” he said against her lips. His fingers pulled her closer, his other hand reached for her waist. His kisses became hungry, and she guessed that he hadn’t been kissed, not for real, for a long time. Neither had she, as a matter of fact. Maybe this was the very first time. There was little similarity to the empty, lusty making out she’d played at with Martin. Kissing Henry was more than just plain fun. Later, when they would spend straight hours conversing in the dark, Jane would realize that Henry kissed the way he talked--his entire attention taut, focused, intensely hers. His touch was a conversation, telling her again and again that only she in the whole world really mattered. His lips only drifted from hers to touch her face, her hands, her neck. And when he spoke, he called her Jane. Her stomach dropped as they fled higher into the sky, and they kissed recklessly for hundreds of miles, until Henry was no longer afraid of flying.

Keep a clear conscience. Contentment is the manna that is laid up in the ark of a good conscience: O take heed of indulging any sin! it is as natural for guilt to breed disquiet, as for putrid matter to breed vermin. Sin lies as Jonah in the ship, it raiseth a tempest. If dust or motes be gotten into the eye, they make the eye water, and cause a soreness in it; if the eye be clear, then it is free from that soreness; if sin be gotten into the conscience, which is as the eye of the soul, then grief and disquiet breed there; but keep the eye of conscience clear, and all is well. What Solomon saith of a good stomach, I may say of a good conscience, "to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet:"Pr. 27. 7 so to a good conscience every bitter thing is sweet; it can pick contentment out of the cross. A good conscience turns the waters of Marah into wine. Would you have a quiet heart? Get a smiling conscience. I wonder not to hear Paul say he was in every state content, when he could make that triumph, "I have lived in all good conscience to this day." When once a man's reckonings are clear, it must needs let in abundance of contentment into the heart. Good conscience can suck contentment out of the bitterest drug, under slanders; "our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience."2 Cor. 1. 12 In case of imprisonment, Paul had his prison songs, and could play the sweet lessons of contentment, when his feet were in the stocks.Ac. 16. 25 Augustine calls it "the paradise of a good conscience;" and if it be so, then in prison we may be in paradise. When the times are troublesome, a good conscience makes a calm. If conscience be clear, what though the days be cloudy? is it not a contentment to have a friend always by to speak a good word for us? Such a friend is conscience. A good conscience, as David's harp, drives away the evil spirit of discontent. When thoughts begin to arise, and the heart is disquieted, conscience saith to a man, as the king did to Nehemiah, "why is thy countenance sad?" so saith conscience, hast not thou the seed of God in thee? art not thou an heir of the promise? hast not thou a treasure that thou canst never be plundered of? why is thy countenance sad? O keep conscience clear, and you shall never want contentment! For a man to keep the pipes of his body, the veins and arteries, free from colds and obstructions, is the best way to maintain health: so, to keep conscience clear, and to preserve it from the obstructions of guilt, is the best way to maintain contentment. First, conscience is pure, and then peaceable.

The date rape drug he’d intended to give me has knocked him out so hard he’s barely even flinched, despite being dragged to the top of a twelve-storey building, stripped naked and bound to a post. His head lolls towards his chest. I stand back to admire him, taking in his slumped frame as he wilts against the pressure of his rope bindings. He looks Christ-like, vulnerable. His skin is grey in the murky moonlight. His body is incredible. Hardly surprising, since he seems to spend half his life at the gym. His stomach is taut, rippled with abs. His pecs are straight from a swimwear ad, his broad shoulders and ripped arms are built like a boxer’s. His biceps are strong, lined with veins that will soon cease to pump blood. He has the kind of arms that could pin you down so tightly you wouldn’t be able to move a muscle. His hands are large – the least attractive part of him: dry, thick, stubby. They’re the type of hands that could grip your wrists and stifle screams. Hands that could have killed me tonight. Hands that would have hurt me. Hands that would have held me in place while he raped me. I let my eyes wander down to his cock, which would probably have been pounding away inside me around now if things had gone his way. I could tell pretty early into our date that he was a predator. Perhaps it takes one to know one, but I could see it in his dark eyes and sly glances, the hungry way he took in my body, the type of questions he asked, his eagerness to buy me drinks. He probably didn’t think I had it in me to notice. Of course he didn’t. He just saw my shiny, sweeping hair, my lashes, my clothes, my smile. He saw what everybody else sees: my mask.

When everyone is seated, Galen uses a pot holder to remove the lid from the huge speckled pan in the center of the table. And I almost upchuck. Fish. Crabs. And...is that squid hair? Before I can think of a polite version of the truth-I'd rather eat my own pinky finger than seafood-Galen plops the biggest piece of fish on my plate, then scoops a mixture of crabmeat and scallops on top of it. As the steam wafts its way to my nose, my chances of staying polite dwindle. The only think I can think of is to make it look like I'm hiccupping instead of gagging. What did I smell earlier that almost had me salivating? It couldn't have been this. I fork the fillet and twist, but it feels like twisting my own gut. Mush it, dice it, mix it all up. No matter what I do, how it looks, I can't bring it near my mouth. A promise is a promise, dream or no dream. Even if real fish didn't save me in Granny's pond, the fake ones my imagination conjured up sure comforted me until help arrived. And now I'm expected to eat their cousins? No can do. I set the fork down and sip some water. I sense Galen is watching. Out of my peripheral, I see the others shoveling the chum into their faces. But not Galen. He sits still, head tilted, waiting for me to take a bite first. Of all the times to be a gentleman! What happened to the guy who sprawled me over his lap like a three-year-old just a few minutes ago? Still, I can't do it. And they don't even have a dog for me to feed under the table, which used to be my go-to plan at Chloe's grandmother's house. One time Chloe even started a food fight to get me out of it. I glance around the table, but Rayna's the only person I'd aim this slop at. Plus, I'd risk getting the stuff on me, which is almost as bad as in me. Galen nudges me with his elbow. "Aren't you hungry? You're not feeling bad again, are you?" This gets the others' attention. The commotion of eating stops. Everyone stares. Rayna, irritated that her gluttony has been interrupted. Toraf smirking like I've done something funny. Galen's mom wearing the same concerned look he is. Can I lie? Should I lie? What if I'm invited over again, and they fix seafood because I lied about it just this once? Telling Galen my head hurts doesn't get me out of future seafood buffets. And telling him I'm not hungry would be pointless since my stomach keeps gurgling like an emptying drain. No, I can't lie. Not if I ever want to come back here. Which I do. I sigh and set the fork down. "I hate seafood," I tell him. Toraf's sudden cough startles me. The sound of him choking reminds me of a cat struggling with a hair ball. I train my eyes on Galen, who has stiffened to a near statue. Jeez, is this all his mom knows how to make? Or have I just shunned the Forza family's prize-winning recipe for grouper? "You...you mean you don't like this kind of fish, Emma?" Galen says diplomatically. I desperately want to nod, to say, "Yes, that's it, not this kind of fish"-but that doesn't get me out of eating the crabmeat-and-scallop mountain on my plate. I shake my head. "No. Not just this kind of fish. I hate it all. I can't eat any of it. Can hardly stand to smell it." Way to go for the jugular there, stupid! Couldn't I just say I don't care for it? Did I have to say I hate it? Hate even the smell of it? And why am I blushing? It's not a crime to gag on seafood. And for God's sakes, I won't eat anything that still has its eyeballs.

Truth or dare,” I ask, my voice edgy with anticipation and yearning. I know he’ll answer dare – and it will be the last one I give him. “Dare.” “Fuck me,” I beg. He immediately rolls over, gently resting his body on top of mine. I spread my legs, positioning his trim waist and hips in between my thighs. The hard outline of his cock grazes the front of my panties, sending my eyes rolling into the back of my head. He slides his hands under the covers. His fingers sneak under the waistband of my panties. He sits up to slowly glide them down my legs, revealing body in the moonlight. He tosses them, dripping wet, by the side of the bed and the then slides off his tight briefs. His erect cock stands at attention once removed from its fabric confines, pulsing up and down in rhythm with Cole’s racing heartbeat. With the covers now cast to the side, Cole leans over me, devouring my lips. My lips open and I yield him my tongue, which he handles adroitly, flicking it with his own and sucking it with his lips. He leans over to the side of the bed and bends down, picking up his shorts. The movement of his body over mine sends the peaks of his deeply sculpted abs gliding across my soft skin, generating a shiver that trembles through my body. He pulls out his wallet from his shorts pocket and extracts a condom. He kneels on the bed and works the condom down the expansive length of his solid shaft. He imposes his body back over mine, covering me with his huge torso. The length of his cock rests against my warm pussy, throbbing against it. I wrap my legs around his waist and lock my ankles together, pulling him closer toward me. His rough, masculine scent fills my nostrils. He kisses my neck, the light stubble on the side of his check rubbing against my skin. I buck my hips toward him, pressing his cock against me. The bottom of his shaft rests on my warm opening, the tip extends up to my belly button. A delicious anxiousness overtakes me. Will I really be able to fit all of him inside me? “Fuck, Emma, you’re so sexy,” he moans while raking his lips and tongue up and down my neck. He nibbles lightly on my earlobe, his hot, staggered breath brushing against the side of my face. “I want you inside me,” I pant to him. He lifts his hips up and steadies his cock at the precipice of my slick center. He looks me in the eye, and I nod, imploring him to plunge inside me. He does. I shut my eyes as a brief wave of pain washes over me, the shock of accommodating his massive size inside. It soon subsides and my body comfortably accustomed itself to his presence. He slowly pumps in and out of me. I bite down on my bottom lip, waves of pleasure erupting from my center and traversing every inch of my body. My stomach is in knots and my breath is quick and sharp. Every time he lifts his hips to thrust out, my wet cavern craves for him to come back – and he immediately does, pushing himself back in, the length of his shaft rubbing against my insides, the friction driving me wild with ecstasy. I lose track of time as he continues to thrust in and out. I buck my hips against him, hungry for his full length. I tighten my grip with my legs around his waist, greedy for his body to press against mine. “Fuck, Emma, shit,” he moans. I can only respond with unarticulated moans of pleasure and gasps for breath. “Oh, fuck, Cole, I’m gonna come,” I announce. I shut my eyes tight and wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him into me. He thrusts one more time, strongly, and my orgasm erupts. Pulses of pleasure shoot up and down my spine and turn my insides, my chest beats and my heartrate booms against my eardrums. The outside world disappears as I feel my body melting into Cole’s. Cole collapses next to me, a sheen of sweat glistening over his body in the moonlight, highlighting the twists and turns of his musculature. Slowly the world comes back into focus and a blissful

By the authority of God Almighty, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and of the holy canons, and of the undefiled Virgin Mary, mother and patroness of our Saviour, and of all the celestial virtues, angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, powers, cherubins and seraphins, and of all the holy patriarchs, prophets, and of all the apostles and evangelists, and of the holy innocents, who in the sight of the Holy Lamb, are found worthy to sing the new song of the holy martyrs and holy confessors, and of the holy virgins, and of all the saints together, with the holy and elect of God, may he be damn'd. We excommunicate, and anathematize him, and from the thresholds of the holy church of God Almighty we sequester him, that he may be tormented, disposed, and delivered over with Dathan and Abiram, and with those who say unto the Lord God, Depart from us, we desire none of thy ways. And as fire is quenched with water, so let the light of him be put out for evermore, unless it shall repent him' and make satisfaction. Amen. May the Father who created man, curse him. May the Son who suffered for us curse him. May the Holy Ghost, who was given to us in baptism, curse him May the holy cross which Christ, for our salvation triumphing over his enemies, ascended, curse him. May the holy and eternal Virgin Mary, mother of God, curse him. May St. Michael, the advocate of holy souls, curse him. May all the angels and archangels, principalities and powers, and all the heavenly armies, curse him. [Our armies swore terribly in Flanders, cried my uncle Toby,---but nothing to this.---For my own part I could not have a heart to curse my dog so.] May St. John the Pre-cursor, and St. John the Baptist, and St. Peter and St. Paul, and St. Andrew, and all other Christ's apostles, together curse him. And may the rest of his disciples and four evangelists, who by their preaching converted the universal world, and may the holy and wonderful company of martyrs and confessors who by their holy works are found pleasing to God Almighty, curse him. May the holy choir of the holy virgins, who for the honor of Christ have despised the things of the world, damn him May all the saints, who from the beginning of the world to everlasting ages are found to be beloved of God, damn him May the heavens and earth, and all the holy things remaining therein, damn him. May he be damn'd wherever he be---whether in the house or the stables, the garden or the field, or the highway, or in the path, or in the wood, or in the water, or in the church. May he be cursed in living, in dying. May he be cursed in eating and drinking, in being hungry, in being thirsty, in fasting, in sleeping, in slumbering, in walking, in standing, in sitting, in lying, in working, in resting, in pissing, in shitting, and in blood-letting! May he be cursed in all the faculties of his body! May he be cursed inwardly and outwardly! May he be cursed in the hair of his head! May he be cursed in his brains, and in his vertex, in his temples, in his forehead, in his ears, in his eye-brows, in his cheeks, in his jaw-bones, in his nostrils, in his fore-teeth and grinders, in his lips, in his throat, in his shoulders, in his wrists, in his arms, in his hands, in his fingers! May he be damn'd in his mouth, in his breast, in his heart and purtenance, down to the very stomach! May he be cursed in his reins, and in his groin, in his thighs, in his genitals, and in his hips, and in his knees, his legs, and feet, and toe-nails! May he be cursed in all the joints and articulations of the members, from the top of his head to the sole of his foot! May there be no soundness in him! May the son of the living God, with all the glory of his Majesty and may heaven, with all the powers which move therein, rise up against him, curse and damn him, unless he repent and make satisfaction! Amen. I declare, quoth my uncle Toby, my heart would not let me curse the devil himself with so much bitterness!