Jab We Met Quotes

We got hungry around three in the morning, and ordered a ton of pizza from an all-night pizza place. Afterward, Blake talked a guy into letting him borrow his skateboard, and he once again entertained all of us. If it had wheels, Blake could work it. “Is he your boyfriend?” a girl behind me asked. I turned to the group of girls watching Blake. They were all coifed and beautiful in their bikinis, not having gone in the water. My wet hair was pulled back in a ponytail by this point and I was wrapped in a towel. “No, he’s my boyfriend’s best friend. We’re watching his place while he’s . . . out of town.” A pang of fear jabbed me when I thought about Kai. “What’s your name?” asked a brunette with glossy lips. “Anna.” I smiled. “Hey. I’m Jenny,” she said. “This is Daniela and Tara.” “Hey,” I said to them. “So, your boyfriend lives here?” asked the blonde, Daniela. She had a cool accent—something European. “Yes,” I answered, pointing up to his apartment. The girls all shared looks, raising their sculpted eyebrows. “Wait,” said Jenny. “Is he that guy in the band?” The third girl, named Tara, gasped. “The drummer?” When I nodded, they shared awed looks. “Oh my gawd, don’t get mad at me for saying this,” said Jenny, “but he’s a total piece of eye candy.” Her friends all laughed. “Yum drum,” whispered Tara, and Daniela playfully shoved her. Jenny got serious. “But don’t worry. He, like, never comes out or talks to anyone. Now we know why.” She winked at me. “You are so adorable. Where are you from?” “Georgia.” This was met with a round of awwws. “Hey, you’re a Southern girl,” said Tara. “You should like this.” She held out a bottle of bourbon and I felt a tug toward it. My fingers reached out. “Maybe just one drink,” I said. Daniela grinned and turned up the music. Fifteen minutes and three shots later I’d dropped my towel and was dancing with the girls and telling them how much I loved them, while they drunkenly swore to sabotage the efforts of any girl who tried to talk to my man.

As happens in dreams, when a perfectly harmless object inspires us with fear and thereafter is frightening every time we dream of it (and even in real life retains disquieting overtones), so Dreyer's presence became for Franz a refined torture, an implacable menace. [ ... H]e could not help cringing when, with a banging of doors in a dramatic draft, Martha and Dreyer entered simultaneously from two different rooms as if on a too harshly lit stage. Then he snapped to attention and in this attitude felt himself ascending through the ceiling, through the roof, into the black-brown sky, while, in reality, drained and empty, he was shaking hands with Martha, with Dreyer. He dropped back on his feet out of that dark nonexistence, from those unknown and rather silly heights, to land firmly in the middle of the room (safe, safe!) when hearty Dreyer described a circle with his index finger and jabbed him in the navel; Franz mimicked a gasp and giggled; and as usual Martha was coldly radiant. His fear did not pass but only subsided temporarily: one incautious glance, one eloquent smile, and all would be revealed, and a disaster beyond imagination would shatter his career. Thereafter whenever he entered this house, he imagined that the disaster had happened—that Martha had been found out, or had confessed everything in a fit of insanity or religious self-immolation to her husband; and the drawing room chandelier invariably met him with a sinister refulgence.

As with other childlike traits, human adults remain playful and trusting in a way that looks a lot more like Labradors than adult wolves or chimpanzees. When a grown wolf or a chimp bares its teeth, you’d better run. Humans, even adult humans, are by and large more into chasing balls than establishing dominance. The readiness with which we play with our friends and acquaintances and even strangers is remarkable, even though verbal banter or wordplay tends to gradually displace physical wrestling. When I joke with the hot dog vendor about his pathetic loyalty to the Mets, as evinced by the baseball cap he is wearing, we become very much like two dogs wrestling in a park: My verbal jabs are play-serious, not meant to genuinely wound, and the successful banter establishes an ephemeral but important trust connection in the midst of a busy metropolis. Insult a chimpanzee’s favorite baseball team, on the other hand, and you’re likely to lose an arm. The fact that humans retain into adulthood the complex and sophisticated cognitive machinery required to play, and in fact continue to enjoy playing with others, is a reflection of the profound importance of trust in human affairs.

We reached the bushes beside the porch without being seen. Crouched in the dirt, we were so close I could have reached up and grabbed Hannah’s ankle. To keep from giggling, Theo pressed his hands over his mouth. Sick with jealousy, I watched John put his arm around Hannah and draw her close. As his lips met hers, I felt Theo jab my side. I teetered and lost my balance. The bushes swayed, the leaves rustled, a twig snapped under my feet. “Be quiet,” Theo hissed in my ear. “Do you want to get us killed?” We backed out of the bushes, hoping to escape, but it was too late. Leaving John in the swing, Hannah strode down the porch steps, grabbed us each by an ear, and shook us like rats. “Can’t a body have a second of privacy?” Theo and I begged her to forgive us, but Hannah’s dander was up. If she hadn’t noticed the fireflies under our shirts, I don’t know what she would’ve done to us. Snatching my jar, she gazed at my captives. The flickering glow lit her face. I wanted to tell her she was beautiful, I wanted to tell her I’d love her forever, but all I could say was “These are for you, I caught them just for you, Hannah.” “Poor things,” she said softly, her temper gone without a trace. “I’ll have to let them go, Andrew. They’ll die if I don’t.” Before I could stop her, she removed the lid and held the jar high over her head. “Fly away, fly away,” she cried. Like sparks from a bonfire, the fireflies escaped in a sparkling green mist. Theo handed his jar to Hannah. “Set mine free too.” In moments, Theo’s fireflies rose and scattered across the dark sky. “They’re going to the moon,” Theo shouted. “They’re going to the stars!” “I wish I could send the pair of you with them,” Hannah muttered. “Maybe I’d have some peace and quiet then.

You aren’t worried about tomorrow, are you?” “What do you think?” He propped himself up on his elbows and studied my face. “You told me last spring it was the easiest thing in the whole wide world. You could hardly wait to jump. Why, even when you got sick you worried you’d die without having a chance to do it.” “I must have been a raving lunatic,” I muttered. Theo scowled, but the sound of a Model T chugging up the driveway stopped him from saying more. Its headlamps lit the trees and washed across the house. “It’s John again,” Theo said. “Papa will start charging him room and board soon.” Hidden in the shadows, we watched John jump out of the car and run up the porch steps. Hannah met him at the door. From inside the house, their laughter floated toward us as silvery as moonlight, cutting into my heart like a knife. “Hannah has a beau.” Theo sounded as if he were trying out a new word, testing it for rightness. He giggled. “Do you think she lets him kiss her?” I spat in the grass, a trick I’d learned from Edward. “Don’t be silly.” “What’s silly about smooching? When I’m old enough, I plan to kiss Marie Jenkins till our lips melt.” Making loud smacking sounds with his mouth, Theo demonstrated. Pushing him away, I wrestled him to the ground and started tickling him. As he pleaded for mercy, we heard the screen door open. Thinking Mama was about to call us inside, we broke apart and lay still. It was Hannah and John. “They’re sitting in the swing,” Theo whispered. “Come on, let’s spy on them. I bet a million zillion dollars they start spooning.” Stuffing his jar of fireflies into his shirt, Theo dropped to his knees and crawled across the lawn toward the house. I followed him, sure he was wrong. Hannah wasn’t old enough for kissing. Or silly enough. We reached the bushes beside the porch without being seen. Crouched in the dirt, we were so close I could have reached up and grabbed Hannah’s ankle. To keep from giggling, Theo pressed his hands over his mouth. Sick with jealousy, I watched John put his arm around Hannah and draw her close. As his lips met hers, I felt Theo jab my side. I teetered and lost my balance. The bushes swayed, the leaves rustled, a twig snapped under my feet. “Be quiet,” Theo hissed in my ear. “Do you want to get us killed?” We backed out of the bushes, hoping to escape, but it was too late. Leaving John in the swing, Hannah strode down the porch steps, grabbed us each by an ear, and shook us like rats. “Can’t a body have a second of privacy?

It’s all my fault,” Ashley sobbed. “What if she’s dead?” The four of them were squeezed tightly into Etienne’s truck. With every shift of the clutch and each turn of the wheel, Etienne’s right arm jabbed sharply into Miranda’s side, and Ashley bounced back and forth between Miranda’s lap and Parker’s. The old Chevy truck, way past its prime, rattled and clanked and groaned at every pothole and puddle, but it hugged the roads like glue. “It’s not your fault,” Parker reassured Ashley for the dozenth time. “You didn’t know what she was planning to do. How could it be your fault?” “The water always gets so deep at the Falls. The bayou always floods. If she’s dead--” “She’s not dead.” He paused, then mumbled, “I couldn’t be that lucky.” “Parker Wilmington, I can’t even believe you said--” “I was kidding, Ash. Okay, sorry, bad timing, but I was kidding, okay? Roo’s fine. And none of this is your fault.” Gulping down a hiccup, Ashley glared at him. “You’re right. It’s your fault.” “My fault?” “You know she caught you drinking in the parking lot!” “Just a little! I swear, I only had one sip--” “You’re heartless and insensitive, and you hate my sister.” “Christ, Ashley, I don’t hate your sister--” “You told her I care more about you than I do about her, and that’s not true!” “I know it’s not--and Roo knows it’s not. It was a joke! I wasn’t serious!” “I’m always defending you, and Roo’s always been smarter than me. Roo would never get involved with somebody like you.” Parker shot Etienne another helpless glance. “Is that good or bad?” “I wouldn’t be doing any more talking right now, if I were you,” Etienne advised him. “Roo looks out for me. Roo has better sense than I do,” Ashley went on miserably. “It’s always been that way, ever since we were little. She’s always had the brains. And I’ve always had…not the brains.” Etienne’s eyes and Parker’s eyes met behind Ashley’s back. “Not going there,” Etienne mumbled.

I am not super-attached to my career,' Audrey Tautou says in that sultry, Gallic voice of hers, a glint of recklessness in her big brown eyes. 'I have several plan Bs: I want to become a sailor; I like to draw; I would love to learn many things, but I don’t have time…' She trails off, leaving an uncertain silence hanging over the Kensington hotel room where we’ve met to discuss her latest film, a delightful comic confection called Beautiful Lies. 'That is the problem, you know,' she continues, more carefully. 'That is the reason why I will quit acting very soon.' She lets out a strange little laugh, a creaky exhalation, as if her own admission has taken her by surprise... 'I didn’t want to have this power,' she says, with a shrug. 'I would rather have freedom; and to find that you have to stop being in big, exposed movies. I don’t surf on the big waves. When I see them coming, I take my board and go straight back to the beach.'... 'I am always surprised to be chosen by a director for a role because I never understand why they like me,' she says. Surely, I suggest, that is false modesty, coming from one of Europe’s most bankable stars. 'Oh no, really, I am serious,' she says, leaning forward and planting her feet back on the carpet. 'I am always surprised to be cast.' Does her track record – in Jeunet’s hits; or in Stephen Frears’s acclaimed Dirty Pretty Things, or as a compellingly self-possessed Coco Chanel in Anne Fontaine’s 2009 biopic – not give her at least a little confidence? 'No,' she says with a scowl, 'pas du tout.' 'A few months ago, I watched one of my old movies and I thought to myself, 'Oh, Jesus!’ Thank God that at the point I made that film I didn’t realise the extent to which I was terrible. Oh, mon dieu! Mon dieu!' But surely, I say, she can take from that the reassurance that she has only improved as an actress. 'Or,' she says, jabbing a finger in the air, 'I say to myself, does it simply mean that if in another 10 years I rewatch the films I am making today I will say, 'Oh mon dieu, how terrible I was then.’ She laughs that odd, breathy laugh again and then looks me dead in the eye. 'You have to be very careful in this life.

We returned to Eugene, and I showed him where I worked part-time at an emergency veterinary hospital. He was particularly impressed with an injured porcupine that had come in, shedding some quills. Instead of just looking at them, Steve, with his usual enthusiasm, jabbed one into his arm. “What are you doing?” I asked, even though it was obvious. “I just wanted to see what it would feel like,” he said. “So how does it feel?” “Really painful,” he said. He sounded impressed. I couldn’t help laughing. He felt the reverse barbs on the quill work themselves into his skin. It was quite a flesh-ripping experience to pull the quill back out. Then, too soon, our time was over. I felt the familiar ache, the pressure in the middle of my chest. Ever since I’d met Steve, I had experienced the same ache whenever I left him. It was a very real pain, one I’d never felt before. “I have to see you again,” I said. For the first time, I was very open about my feelings for him. As he was leaving, I was already making plans to see him again in Australia.

I’ve never said anything bad about your books.” She’s eyeing me with blatant confusion, like she can’t figure me out. Join the club. It has many members, and I don’t care. “Doesn’t mean you haven’t ruined other writers’ careers.” A tiny dent appears between her brows. “It’s my job to review books and I’m as objective as I can be. It’s a simple fact that not every book published is good. And I owe it to the New York Press readers to give my honest opinion.” It sounds like a spiel she’s recited many times before. Which means I’m not the first author to bail her up. “I’m in publishing. I know how reviews work.” I stalk to the fire and grab a poker. Her logic merely accentuates how unreasonable I’m being, and I need something to jab at, so I start prodding at the smoldering logs. “But your words hold more sway than most. Books you pump up go gangbusters, books you trash end up languishing. Surely you know that?” For the first time since we met, I glimpse an angry spark in her eyes. She’s obviously trying to impress me, to stay calm, probably with the aim to suck up. But I’ve hit a nerve and her eyes drift to the poker in my hand for a moment, like she’s imagining skewering me with it.

Besides, we’ve yet to rule out the murder bit. Perhaps I merely like to play with my victims first,” Cade whispered ominously in her ear. His mockery was met with a hard jab in the ribs as Kara punched him with all her might. “Ow!” he exclaimed in surprise, rubbing at the tender spot where her fist made contact. It was probably the first time he had received a bruise in the Hideaway rather than delivered it. The thought amused him; she clearly had no idea who she was playing with.

How did you two meet?” she asks. She tilts her head to the side. Something tells me that she already knows the story, but her husband has set aside his Blackberry and is listening now. Emily looks up at me and blinks her pretty brown eyes. “I went into his tattoo shop to get a tattoo.” She grins. “And he put the moves on me.” She nudges me in the side. “Can I tell them what happened next?” I can feel her laughter against my side. “She punched me in the face, Mrs. Madison.” I reach up and absently stroke across my nose. “He tried to put the moves on me, and I was angry.” She shrugs, but she’s still laughing. “I’ll never forget the look on his face.” “One minute I think I’m going to get to spend some time with a pretty girl,” I say. Emily squeezes my hand when I say “spend some time” because we both know I tried to lay her, just like I used to do with every woman I met. “And the next, she breaks my nose.” Emily laughs. She tugs my sleeve until I look down at her. “You never tried that move on anyone else, did you? After that?” “You cured me of that particular move,” I say. I laugh because it’s funny now. It wasn’t nearly as funny then. It fucking hurt. “Was it love at first sight?” her mom asks. I look down into Emily’s eyes. I was intrigued by her the moment I saw that tattoo she wanted. There was so much in that drawing that made me want to get to know her. But she wouldn’t let me. “It was almost instantaneous for me,” I admit. Trip jabs a finger toward his throat like he wants to make himself throw up, but I think I’m the only one who sees it. “It took me a little longer,” she says.

I gave the man a comely smile before inquiring, “What’s hard-a-lee?” Instead of responding, he tapped my erection, which bounced uncontrollably. His hardness had grown during our flirtatious intercourse, its bulbaceous size stirring my concupiscence to flutter as his sturdy hand stroked me into a dizzying spell. He pulled me to him, French kissing me passionately. Spellbound by his erotic expertise, I lost all sense of propriety. The feel of his bearded chin and hairy chest spawned my stiffness to drum incessantly against his furry torso. I had desired this sinewy helmsman from the moment we met. When he gave me the traditional nose-to-nose greeting, he’d stared at me unflinchingly. He had claimed my person with his assertive eyes then; now, thrills of chilling excitement coursed through my body as he cupped and squeezed my buttocks, teasing my tenderness with his manly hands. He inserted his fingers into my opening, claiming my cloven his. As we continued our alluring foreplay, the boat had drifted into an aquiline cove. It was then that I noticed my beloved Andy observing us by the doorway. My Valet gave me his approval to continue appeasing the beguiling athlete as he stared, mesmerized, at our erotic performance. He, like me, was entranced by Tad’s virility. He was witnessing a reflective manifestation of our intimate moments together in which I had surrendered myself fully to his maleness, as I did now to the helmsman. My chaperone needed no invitation. He knelt to suckle our thumping palpitations simultaneously as we jabbed into his craving throat. This hallowed ecstasy intensified my hunger for both men. Just then, I felt a pair of hairy arms pinching my bristled nipples from behind. The sheik’s sultry lips caressed my tender neck, seducing me into his web of libidinous captivity. While his jouncing member knocked at my doorway to paradise, I couldn’t help but succumb to this jubilant exultation, when another stimulation seized my searing soul, propelling me into an inferno of pleasurable jouissance.

Here in Texas, that’s not how it works. When we threw ourselves on Slip’N Slides, we were met with a bone-crushingly hard ground that was sparsely covered by grass that had the consistency of old hay. As we slid down the yellow tarp for our three seconds of fun, we’d experience the familiar explosions of pain when previously undiscovered rocks or sticks jabbed into our internal organs. Then we’d slide off the end into fire ants.

You don’t remember me, I’m not – I’m Lou, we met at Army Cadets, ten years ago – you don’t remember, that’s fine – I don’t cry, uh. Ever. Doctor said I was hard as fuck, so – as a baby – so, yeah, don’t feel anything, at all, never have, ’cept this one night, with you. You don’t remember, that’s – It was last night of cadets. Camp. The boys sneak into our dorm, cos the girls want to play this game thing, where you have to guess where our nipples are. Guess our nipples and belly buttons. With our pyjamas on. Which is erotic, and challenging, cos we’re all different aren’t we? Some people have really, like, low, nipples, or whatever – And anyway, you’re paired with me, cos no one else – I guess maybe we’re getting bullied, you seem upset, you don’t want to do it, you look at the floor, and you just sort of jab your finger at me, and turn to go, but you… You get it. You get me. Bang on. My left one. I think you feel it. And I say ‘wowza’. Like that. Breathy. ‘Wowza.’ And people cheer, cos – Maybe they’re bullying still, but I don’t care cos it feels real, like in a romcom, and you have this. Smile. I notice it. And then you guess my right one. And you get that too and – I s’pose that’s easier after the first, cos you sort of line ’em up, don’t you, I wouldn’t know – and then I nod, and then your hand moves down, to my stomach. And you look me in the eye, for the first time… and I didn’t mind looking in yours, uh… sorry… hang on… Uh… ‘Bomb… sound effect…’ No, that’s not yet, sorry. Sorry. Uh… So… She looks back to her notes. Oh yeah… so… Then, really gently this time, your hand reaches – Your finger just (moves), like that, and, like, slowly dis-disappears into me, into my stomach, my belly. Only up to about there, and with a pyjama. Sheath. Over it – shouldn’t – don’t say sheath – but, it feels like you’ve reached right in. Your whole hand. And touched something, right in the core of – Freezing cold in the core of me… and, just for a second… lit it up. And, it’s like…