Length Of Stay Quotes

Cognitive robotics can integrate information from pre-operation medical records with real-time operating metrics to guide and enhance the precision of physicians’ instruments. By processing data from genuine surgical experiences, they’re able to provide new and improved insights and techniques. These kinds of improvements can improve patient outcomes and boost trust in AI throughout the surgery. Robotics can lead to a 21% reduction in length of stay.

I like to get ten pages a day, which amounts to 2,000 words. That’s 180,000 words over a three-month span, a goodish length for a book — something in which the reader can get happily lost, if the tale is done well and stays fresh.

ethereal, adj. You leaned your head into mine, and I leaned my head into yours. Dancing cheek to cheek. Revolving slowly, eyes closed, heartbeat measure, nature’s hum. It lasted the length of an old song, and then we stopped, kissed, and my heart stayed there, just like that.

When you stay too long in a place, you forget just how big an expanse the world is. You get no sense of the length of those longitudes and latitudes. Just as, she supposed, it is hard to have a sense of the vastness inside any one person. But once you sense that vastness, once something reveals it, hope emerges, whether you want it to or not, and it clings to you as stubbornly as lichen clings to rock.

She stays lost in the middle of her own world somewhere. We can’t get in and she doesn’t come out. Not often anyway, and certainly not for any length of time. But her mind takes her to somewhere kind, I think, to judge by the peaceful, serene look on her face most of the time.

People stay together and stay true only as long as they both want to. And all the promises in the world don’t change the length of time. Nothing comes with a guarantee.

As a survival-happy species, our successes are calculated in the number of years we have extended our lives, with the reduction of suffering being only incidental to this aim. To stay alive under almost any circumstances is a sickness with us. Nothing could be more unhealthy than to “watch one’s health” as a means of stalling death. The lengths we will go as procrastinators of that last gasp only demonstrate a morbid dread of that event. By contrast, our fear of suffering is deficient.

When she leaned forward to mess with the AC vents, her hair brushed against my leg and it was really soft. It made remember all over again. It made it hard to stay pissed and keep her at arm's length the way I'd planned. It was pretty near damn impossible. When I was near her, I just wanted to grab her and hold her and kiss the shit out of her. Maybe then she'd forget about my asshole of a brother.

Just put one foot in front of the other and don't worry about the length of the path. Once you get on that path, and the longer you stay on it, there eventually will come a time when you will not turn back.

When you stay too long in one place, you forget just how big an expanse the world is. You get no sense of the length of those longitudes and latitudes. Just as, she supposed, it is hard to have a sense of the vastness inside any one person.

Russell Barkley similarly describes the primary problem in ADD as a deficit in the motivation system, which makes it impossible to stay on task for any length of time unless there is constant feedback, constant reward.

...if you stay in it for any length of time, like anyplace else, a cafe becomes a world.

Yes. They are the words that finally turned me into the hermit I have now become. It was quite sudden. I saw them, and I knew what I had to do." The sign read: "Hold stick near center of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space, blunt end next to gum. Use gentle in-out motion." "It seemed to me," said Wonko the Sane, "that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane.

No,” Max corrected. “You and I are friends. Grayson is the physical manifestation of your avoidant attachment style. He won’t let himself want you. You don’t want to want to be wanted. Everybody stays at arm’s length. Nobody gets hurt, and nobody gets any.

Eli’s your biological father, but I’m your dad. I’m not asking you to stay here forever. A week. Maybe two. You decide the length, no matter what Eli thinks. I’ll miss you every second you’re away and we’ll talk as often as you want. I want you to discover your biological family, but I’m your dad and you’re my little girl. Always.

That is the germ of my great discovery. But you are wrong to say that we cannot move about in Time. For instance, if I am recalling an incident very vividly I go back to the instant of its occurrence: I become absent-minded, as you say. I jump back for a moment. Of course we have no means of staying back for any length of Time, any more than a savage or an animal has of staying six feet above the ground. But a civilized man is better off than the savage in this respect. He can go up against gravitation in a balloon, and why should he not hope that ultimately he may be able to stop or accelerate his drift along the Time-Dimension, or even turn about and travel the other way?

I probably reread novels more often than I read new ones. The novel form is made for rereading. Novels are by their nature too long, too baggy, too full of things – you can't hold them completely in your mind. This isn't a flaw – it's part of the novel's richness: its length, multiplicity of aspects, and shapelessness resemble the length and shapelessness of life itself. By the time you reach the end of the novel you will have forgotten the beginning and much of what happens in between: not the main outlines but the fine work, the detail and the music of the sentences – the particular words, through which the novel has its life. You think you know a novel so well that there must be nothing left in it to discover but the last time I reread Emma I found a little shepherd boy, brought into the parlour to sing for Harriet when she's staying with the Martin family. I'm sure he was never in the book before.

To be part of nature was to be part of the will to live. When you stay too long in a place, you forget just how big an expanse the world is. You get no sense of the length of those longitudes and latitudes. Just as, she supposed, it is hard to have a sense of the vastness inside any one person. But once you sense that vastness, once something reveals it, hope emerges, whether you want it to or not, and it clings to you as stubbornly as lichen clings to rock.

What he'd do, he'd never go out to the length of the chain. He'd never even get out to where the chain got tight. Even if the mailman pulled up, or a salesman. Out of dignity, this dog pretended like he chose this one area to stay in that just happened to be inside the length of the chain. Nothing outside of that area right there interested him. He just had zero interest. So he never noticed the chain. He didn't hate it. The chain. He just up and made it not relevant. maybe he wasn't pretending--maybe he really up and chose that little circle for his own world. He had a power to him. All of his life on that chain.

The articles were extremely eye-opening. Not just in Teen Vogue but in Seventeen and CosmoGirl as well. They were all about being yourself, staying natural, loving your body as is, and going green! The messages were the exact opposite of Vik and Viv's. Hmmmmm. Frankie turned to face the full-length mirror that was up against the yellow wardrobe. She opened her robe and examined her body. Fit, muscular, and exquisitely proportioned, she agreed with the magazines. So what if her skin was mint? Or her limbs were attached with seams? According to the magazines, which were - no offense! - way more in touch with the times than her parents were, she was suppose to love her body just the way it was. And she did! Therefor if the normies read magazines (which obviously they did, because they were in them), then they would love her, too. Natural was in. Besides she was Daddy's perfect little girl. And who didn't love perfect?

We are all serving time on death row; only the length of our stay is indeterminate. Dead people, walking. If our lives are to be fulfilling, we must be grateful for the experience alone.

It is much, much worse to receive bad news through the written word than by somebody simply telling you, and I’m sure you understand why. When somebody simply tells you bad news, you hear it once, and that’s the end of it. But when bad news is written down, whether in a letter or a newspaper or on your arm in felt tip pen, each time you read it, you feel as if you are receiving the news again and again. For instance, I once loved a woman, who for various reasons could not marry me. If she had simply told me in person, I would have been very sad, of course, but eventually it might have passed. However, she chose instead to write a two-hundred-page book, explaining every single detail of the bad news at great length, and instead my sadness has been of impossible depth. When the book was first brought to me, by a flock of carrier pigeons, I stayed up all night reading it, and I read it still, over and over, and it is as if my darling Beatrice is bringing me bad news every day and every night of my life. The Baudelaire orphans

In hospital they ask you to rate your discomfort on a scale of ten. I guess it’s the best they can come up with, but it fails to capture the nature of the beast. Pain can stay the same while you change around it. And, like a thumb of constant size, what it blocks out depends on how close it gets to you. At arm’s length a thumb obscures a small fragment of the day. Held close enough to your eye it can blind you to everything that matters, relegating the world to a periphery.

Love Letter" Not easy to state the change you made. If I'm alive now, then I was dead, Though, like a stone, unbothered by it, Staying put according to habit. You didn't just tow me an inch, no- Nor leave me to set my small bald eye Skyward again, without hope, of course, Of apprehending blueness, or stars. That wasn't it. I slept, say: a snake Masked among black rocks as a black rock In the white hiatus of winter- Like my neighbors, taking no pleasure In the million perfectly-chisled Cheeks alighting each moment to melt My cheeks of basalt. They turned to tears, Angels weeping over dull natures, But didn't convince me. Those tears froze. Each dead head had a visor of ice. And I slept on like a bent finger. The first thing I was was sheer air And the locked drops rising in dew Limpid as spirits. Many stones lay Dense and expressionless round about. I didn't know what to make of it. I shone, mice-scaled, and unfolded To pour myself out like a fluid Among bird feet and the stems of plants. I wasn't fooled. I knew you at once. Tree and stone glittered, without shadows. My finger-length grew lucent as glass. I started to bud like a March twig: An arm and a leg, and arm, a leg. From stone to cloud, so I ascended. Now I resemble a sort of god Floating through the air in my soul-shift Pure as a pane of ice. It's a gift.

It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined Half of the night with our old friend Who’d showed us in the end To a bed I reached in one drunk stride. Already I lay snug, And drowsy with the wine dozed on one side. I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug, Suddenly, from behind, In which the full lengths of our bodies pressed: Your instep to my heel, My shoulder-blades against your chest. It was not sex, but I could feel The whole strength of your body set, Or braced, to mine, And locking me to you As if we were still twenty-two When our grand passion had not yet Become familial. My quick sleep had deleted all Of intervening time and place. I only knew The stay of your secure firm dry embrace.

Pain can stay the same while you change around it. And, like a thumb of constant size, what it blocks out depends on how close it gets to you. At arm’s length a thumb obscures a small fragment of the day. Held close enough to your eye it can blind you to everything that matters, relegating the world to a periphery.

When story and behavior are consistent, we relax; when story and behavior are inconsistent, we get tense. We have a deep psychological need for our stories and behaviors to be consistent. We need to be able to trust the story, because it's the lens through which we see reality. We will go to great lengths in the attempt to make a story that explains an action and supports or restores consistency. If we cannot make story and action fit, we either have to make a new story or change the action. ... [But] The drive for consistency and the ability to redefine abhorrent action so it fits the story are very complex issues. We have a huge ability to continue believing stories we are told are true in order to stay comfortable with actions we don't want to change, or don't feel capable of changing.

He was spilling out a year of his life blood with every convulsive painting that he tore from his vitals. It was not the length of his stay on earth that mattered to him ; it was what he did with the days of his life. For him time would have to be measured by the paintings he poured out, not by the fluttering leaves of a calendar.

There's a mathematics to nesting, I'm sure, that explains how length of stay + space available = accumulating way too much stuff.

A quiet but indomitable voice behind me said, “I believe this is my dance.” It was Ren. I could feel his presence. The warmth of him seeped into my back, and I quivered all over like spring leaves in a warm breeze. Kishan narrowed his eyes and said, “I believe it is the lady’s choice.” Kishan looked down at me. I didn’t want to cause a scene, so I simply nodded and removed my arms from his neck. Kishan glared at his replacement and stalked angrily off the dance floor. Ren stepped in front of me, took my hands gently in his, and placed them around his neck, bringing my face achingly close to his. Then he slid his hands slowly and deliberately over my bare arms and down my sides, until they encircled my waist. He traced little circles on my exposes lower back with his fingers, squeezed my waist, and drew my body up tightly against him. He guided me expertly through the slow dance. He didn’t say anything, at least not with words, but he was still sending lots of signals. He pressed his forehead against mine and leaned down to nuzzle my ear. He buried his face in my hair and lifted his hand to stroke down the length of it. His fingers played along my bare arm and at my waist. When the song ended, it took both of us a min to recover our senses and remember where we were. He traced the curve of my bottom lip with his finger then reached up to take my hand from around his neck and led me outside to the porch. I thought he would stop there, but he headed down the stairs and guided me to a wooded area with stone benches. The moon made his skin glow. He was wearing a white shirt with dark slacks. The white made me think of him as the tiger. He pulled me under the shadow of a tree. I stood very still and quiet, afraid that if I spoke I’d say something I’d regret. He cupped my chin and tilted my face up so he could look in my eyes. “Kelsey, there’s something I need to say to you, and I want you to be silent and listen.” I nodded my head hesitantly. “First, I want to let you know that I heard everything you said to me the other night, and I’ve been giving your words some very serious thought. It’s important for you to understand that.” He shifted and picked up a lock of hair, tucked it behind my ear, and trailed his fingers down my cheek to my lips. He smiled sweetly at me, and I felt the little love plant bask in his smile and turn toward it as if it contained the nourishing rays of the sun. “Kelsey,” he brushed a hand through his hair, and his smile turned into a lopsided grin, “the fact is…I’m in love with you, and I have been for some time.” I sucked in a deep breath. He picked up my hand and played with my fingers. “I don’t want you to leave.” He began kissing my fingers while looking directly into my eyes. It was hypnotic. He took something out of his pocket. “I want to give you something.” He held out a golden chain covered with small tinkling bell charms. “It’s an anklet. They’re very popular here, and I got this one so we’d never have to search for a bell again.” He crouched down, wrapping his hand around the back of my calf, and then slid his palm down to my ankle and attached the clasp. I swayed and barely stopped myself from falling over. He trailed his warm fingers lightly over the bells before standing up. Putting his hands on my shoulders, he squeezed, and pulled me closer. “Kells . . . please.” He kissed my temple, my forehead, and my cheek. Between each kiss, he sweetly begged, “Please. Please. Please. Tell me you’ll stay with me.” When his lips brushed lightly against mine, he said, “I need you,” then crushed his lips against mine.

God will not be tolerated. He instructs us to worship and fear Him. In our world, where hundreds of things distract us from God, we have to intentionally and consistently remind ourselves of Him. Because we don’t often think about the reality of who God is, we quickly forget that He is worthy to be worshiped and loved. We are to fear Him. The answer to each of these questions is simply this: because He’s God. He has more of a right to ask us why so many people are starving. As much as we want God to explain himself to us, His creation, we are in no place to demand that He give an account to us. Can you worship a God who isn’t obligated to explain His actions to you? Could it be your arrogance that makes you think God owes you an explanation? If God is truly the greatest good on this earth, would He be loving us if He didn’t draw us toward what is best for us (even if that happens to be Himself)? Doesn’t His courting, luring, pushing, calling, and even “threatening” demonstrate His love? If He didn’t do all of that, wouldn’t we accuse Him of being unloving in the end, when all things are revealed? Has your relationship with God actually changed the way you live? Do you see evidence of God’s kingdom in your life? Or are you choking it out slowly by spending too much time, energy, money, and thought on the things of this world? Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. Jesus’ call to commitment is clear: He wants all or nothing. Our greatest fear as individuals and as a church should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter. If life is a river, then pursuing Christ requires swimming upstream. When we stop swimming, or actively following Him, we automatically begin to be swept downstream. How could we think for even a second that something on this puny little earth compares to the Creator and Sustainer and Savior of it all? True faith means holding nothing back; it bets everything on the hope of eternity. When you are truly in love, you go to great lengths to be with the one you love. You’ll drive for hours to be together, even if it’s only for a short while. You don’t mind staying up late to talk. Walking in the rain is romantic, not annoying. You’ll willingly spend a small fortune on the one you’re crazy about. When you are apart from each other, it’s painful, even miserable. He or she is all you think about; you jump at any chance to be together. There is nothing better than giving up everything and stepping into a passionate love relationship with God, the God of the universe who made galaxies, leaves, laughter, and me and you. Do you recognize the foolishness of seeking fulfillment outside of Him? Are you ready and willing to make yourself nothing? To take the very nature of a servant? To be obedient unto death? True love requires sacrifice. What are you doing right now that requires faith? God doesn’t call us to be comfortable. If one person “wastes” away his day by spending hours connecting with God, and the other person believes he is too busy or has better things to do than worship the Creator and Sustainer, who is the crazy one? Am I loving my neighbor and my God by living where I live, by driving what I drive, by talking how I talk?” If I stop pursuing Christ, I am letting our relationship deteriorate. The way we live out our days is the way we will live our lives. What will people say about your life in heaven? Will people speak of God’s work and glory through you? And even more important, how will you answer the King when He says, “What did you do with what I gave you?

I’ll do whatever you want me to do. I’ll stay. I’ll move. We’ll work it out. I just want to be with you. If I’m scaring the shit out of you with all this, I don’t mean to. Just…please don’t keep me at arm’s length.

Be thou the first true merit to befriend; His praise is lost, who stays till all commend. Short is the date, alas, of modern rhymes, And 'tis but just to let 'em live betimes. No longer now that golden age appears, When patriarch wits surviv'd a thousand years: Now length of Fame (our second life) is lost, And bare threescore is all ev'n that can boast; Our sons their fathers' failing language see, And such as Chaucer is, shall Dryden be.

To be a part of nature was to be part of the will to live. When you stay too long in a place, you forget just how big an expanse the world is. You get no sense of the length of those longitudes and latitudes. Just as, she supposed, it is hard to have a sense of the vastness inside any one person. But once you sense that vastness, once something reveals it, hope emerges, whether you want it to or not, and it clings to you as stubbornly as lichen clings to rock.

Eh, she said once, what a fuss for a name: famous or not, it’s only a ribbon tied around a sack randomly filled with blood, flesh, words, shit, and petty thoughts. She mocked me at length on that point: I untie the ribbon—Elena Greco—and the sack stays there, it functions just the same, haphazardly, of course, without virtues or vices, until it breaks.

Every part of him wanted to stay with Jo. Make sure she was okay. Attend to her every need, bringing her the choicest food and cleanest drink, securing her a warm and dry shelter, along with clothes that were of fabrics and colors of her preference. He wanted to sleep with her up against his body, skin to skin, a dagger in his right hand, a gun under his pillow, a length of chain beneath the bed, to ensure her protection against anything and everybody that would hurt her.

He coiled himself neatly and waited without fidgeting, as was polite; but at length, when Majestatis showed no signs of waking—after ten minutes, or perhaps five—very nearly five—Temeraire coughed; then he coughed again, a little more emphatically, and Majestatis sighed and said, without opening his eyes, “So you are not leaving, I suppose?” “Oh,” Temeraire said, his ruff prickling, “I thought you were only sleeping, not ignoring me deliberately; I will go at once.” “Well, you might as well stay now,” Majestatis said, lifting his head and yawning himself away. “I don’t bother to wake up if it isn’t important enough to wait for, that’s all.

All he really knew was that if he stayed here he would soon be the property of things that buzzed and snorted and hissed, that gave off fumes or stenches. In six months, he would be the owner of a large pink, trained ulcer, a blood pressure of algebraic dimensions, a myopia this side of blindness, and nightmares as deep as oceans and infested with improbable lengths of dream intestines through which he must violently force his way each night.

Sirius, I need you to set off at once. You are to alert Remus Lupin, Arabella Figg, Mundungus Fletcher —the old crowd. Lie low at Lupin's for a while, I will contact you there." "But —" said Harry. He wanted Sirius to stay. He did not want to say goodbye again so quickly, "You'll see me very soon, Harry," said Sirius, turning to him. "I promise you. But I must do what I can, you understand, don't you?" "Yeah," said Harry.. "Yeah... of course I do." Sirius grasped his hand briefly, nodded to Dumbledore, transformed again into the black dog, and ran the length of the room to the door, whose handle he turned with a paw. Then he was gone.

it was brought to him, he drank slowly, like a connoisseur, lingering on the taste and still looking about him at the cliffs and up at our signboard. "This is a handy cove," says he at length; "and a pleasant sittyated grog-shop. Much company, mate?" My father told him no, very little company, the more was the pity. "Well, then," said he, "this is the berth for me. Here you, matey," he cried to the man who trundled the barrow; "bring up alongside and help up my chest. I'll stay here a bit," he continued. "I'm a plain man; rum

I invented an invisible machine to help you get to sleep. It only works after your eyes stay shut for a length of time. It’s also so quiet that you won’t hear it.

Our hearts determine our paths, the distances we’ll go, the direction, and the length of our stay,

Keep your hands on the break hoods or about a thumb's length from the stem on either side of the bar. You will have more control, breathe easier, and stay loose.

Not even Spock had stayed aboard for that—he found breathing vacuum for any length of time to be aesthetically unpleasant.

She had the same hair color as me. And wore it the same length. So it stays. It will always stay. Because she’s the reason I am what I am.

So what? You act all mysterious to seem more interesting?” “What’s that supposed to mean?” “You’re always wandering off or running away,” he said. “But you’re a lot more interesting when you’re just being yourself you know. When you’re actually here.” “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Emma said coldly. “Where else would I be?” “You know what I mean,” he said, a rough edge to his voice. “It’s like you’re so busy trying not to act like your family that you’ve never even stopped to consider that it might not be such a bad thing.” “Well what about you?” she shot back, aware of the bitterness in her words. “You complain about your dad not wanting you around, and then you complain when he wants you to stay home for school. You can’t have it both wars.” “Well neither can you,” he said. “ You can’t keep everyone at arms length and then expect them to be there for you when you need them.

I feel him beside me, hear the even sound of his breathing, smell the delicious saltiness of his skin. I have missed him. I move to face him, and that’s when the pain reminds me that I’ve recently been stabbed. I bury my face in the pillow, but it doesn’t quite muffle my yelp. “Emma?” Galen says groggily. I feel his hand in my hair, stroking the length of it. “Don’t move, angelfish. Stay on your stomach. I’ll go tell Rachel you’re ready for more pain medicine.” Immediately I disobey and turn my face up to him. He shakes his head. “I’ve recently learned where your stubbornness comes from.” I grimace/smile. “My mom?” “Worse. King Antonis. The resemblance is uncanny.” He leans down and presses his lips to mine and all too quickly springs back up. “Now, be a good little deviant and stay put while I go get more pain meds.” “Galen,” I say. “Hmmm?” “How bad am I hurt?” He caresses the outline of my cheek. His touch could disintegrate me. “Hurt at all is bad enough for me.” “Yeah, but you’ve always been a baby about this stuff.” I grin at his faux offense. “Your mother says it’s only a flesh wound. She’s been treating it.” “Mom is here?” “She’s downstairs. Uh…You should know that Grom is here, too.” Grom left the tribunal and headed for land? Did that mean it all ended badly? Well, even worse than my getting impaled? An urgent need to know everything about everything shimmies through me. “Whoa. Sit. Talk. Now.” He laughs. “I will, I promise. But I want to make you comfortable first.” “Well, then, you need to come over here and switch places with the bed.” A blush fills my cheeks, but I don’t care. I need him. All of him. It feels like forever since we’ve talked like this, just me and him. But talking usually doesn’t last long. Lips were made for other things, too. And Galen is especially good at the other things. He walks back and squats by the bed. “You have no idea how tempting that is.” It seems like the violet of his eyes gets darker. It’s the color they get when he has to pull away from me, when we’re about to violate a bunch of Syrena laws if we don’t stop. “But you’re not well enough to…” He runs a hand through his hair. “I’ll go get Rachel. Then we can talk.” I’m a little surprised that his argument didn’t begin with “But the law…” That is what has stopped us in the past. Now the only thing that appears to be stopping us is my stabby condition. What’s changed? And why am I not excited about it? I used to get so frustrated when he would pull away. But a small part of me loved that about him, his respect for the law and for the tradition of his people. His respect for me. Respect is a hard thing to come by when picking from among human boys. Is that respect gone? And is it my fault?

You never told me your name," he says, his voice so hauntingly familiar it causes a rush of heat to blanket my skin. I sigh,staring blankly down the hall when I say, "Psycho Girl-Psycho Horseback Singing Girl..." I shrug. "I've heard it both ways." He squints.His hand reaching for my shoulder,then falling away the instant he catches the look of reproach on my face. "Look," I say,knowing I need to stop him before he can go any further.His kindness will only distract me at a time when I need to stay focused. "I've had a really bad day.And if my calculations are right,I have three hundred and eight more,give or take, before I get to graduate and get the heck out of this place. So,why don't you just call me whatever you want. Everyone else does.It's not like it matters..." My cheeks go hot,my eyes start to sting, and I know I'm rambling like a lunatic,but I cant seem to stop,can't seem to care.The world's most socially inept Seeker-that's me in a nutshell. "Don't let them reduce you to that," he says,his gaze instense, his voice surprising me with its sincerity, its urgency. "Don't let them define how you see yourself,or your place here. And if you ever need someone to talk to,I'm not hard to find.I'm either in class, reading in the library,or eating lunch in the North hallway." The second he says it,my gaze flies down the length of him.Slipping past a gray V-neck tee and dark denim jeans,not the least bit surprised when I land on the same heavy,black, thick-soled shoes I spied earlier. Then before he can say anything more, I'm gone. Trying to ignore the comforting stream of kindness and love that swarms all around me.

with you, the sense i have lost my place in a book or simply lost — misplaced the memory which isn't in the last place where I looked. a thought that the clouds don't move — that it is we who thunder past — there it is! an old vacation, a train ride — sense of immobility. as sky and forest scroll past in relation, we are not moved, pretend to love the view, resort at length to scripted conversation by a poet-turned-screenwriter who didn't want this job, career gone grossly wrong and now drafts action film scripts wholly two- dimensional unless you choose to don the 3d glasses that do not stay on —

Candlelight flickered in the adjacent bedroom. She followed the ambient warmth to the threshold and paused there, marveling at what she saw. Lucan’s austere bedroom had been transformed into something out of a dream. Four tall black pillar candles set into intricate silver sconces burned in each corner. Red silk draped the bed. On the floor before the fireplace was a cushioned next of fluffy pillows and even more crimson silk. It looked so romantic, so inviting. A room intended for lovemaking. She took a step farther inside. Behind her, the door closed softly on its own. No, not quite on its own. Lucan was there, standing on the other side of the room, watching her. His hair was damp from a shower. He wore a loosely tied, satiny red robe that skated around his bare calves, and there was a heated look in his eyes that melted her where she stood. “For you,” he said, indicating the romantic setting. “For us tonight. I want things to be special for you.” Gabrielle was moved, instantly aroused by the sight of him, but she couldn’t bear to make love the way things had been left between them. “When I left tonight, I wasn’t going to come back,” she told him from the safety of distance. If she went any closer, she didn’t think she’d have the strength to say what had to be said. “I can’t do this anymore, Lucan. I need things from you that you can’t give me.” “Name them.” It was a soft command, but still a command. He moved toward her with careful steps, as though he sensed she might bolt on him at any second. “Tell me what you need.” She shook her head. “What would be the use?” A few more slow steps. He paused just beyond an arm’s length. “I’d like to know. I’m curious what it would take to convince you to stay with me.” “For the night?” she asked quietly, hating herself for how badly she needed to feel his arms around her after what she’d been through these past several hours. “I want you, and I’m prepared to offer you anything, Gabrielle. So, tell me what you need.

I very specifically told you to stay away from Ned Blydon." "I chose not to follow your advice. Ned is a very nice person. Handsome, personable—a perfect escort." "That is precisely why I wanted you to keep him at arm's length.

Sweet pea, what did you expect?" "Something other than that." "Well, you shouldn't have. We human girls are a bit feistier than your Syrena females-Rayna being the exception of course." "But Emma's not human." Rachel shakes her head at him as if he's a child. "She's been human all her life. It's all she knows. The good news is, she can't date anyone right now." "Why's that?" Because to him, it sounded like maybe Emma thought she could. "Because she's supposed to be dating you. And if I were you, I'd mark my territory as soon as I got back to school-if you know what I mean." He scowls. He hadn't planned on staying in school after Emma learned the truth-the whole purpose for going was to eventually get Emma to the beach. He didn't anticipate having to teach her how to become Syrena. And he didn't anticipate that up until yesterday she actually thought she was human. In fact, there's a list the length of his fin of things he didn't anticipate. Like how thick the school books are.

He spread out his hood more than ever, and Rikki-tikki saw the spectacle-mark on the back of it that looks exactly like the eye part of a hook-and-eye fastening. He was afraid for the minute, but it is impossible for a mongoose to stay frightened for any length of time, and though Rikki-tikki had never met a live cobra before, his mother had fed him on dead ones, and he knew that all a grown mongoose’s business in life was to fight and eat snakes. Nag knew that too and, at the bottom of his cold heart, he was afraid.

Across the hall, the Millmoor kid was holding Crovan’s bag. Mother looked to be describing at great length where Lord Creepypants would be staying. Probably the boy had never been inside the house before. But then Sil came ambling out from under the west arch toward the trio, and to Mother’s evident disapproval he took Crovan’s bag and led their least welcome guest away. The kid watched them go, unimpressed. He actually rolled his eyes when he thought no one was looking. Good for him. Maybe the boy had been worth rescuing.

Evie stayed, however, the silence spinning out until it seemed that the pounding of his heart must be audible. “Do you want to know what I think, Sebastian?” she finally asked. It took every particle of his will to keep his voice controlled. “Not particularly.” “I think that if I leave this room, you’re going to ring that bell again. But no matter how many times you ring, or how often I come running, you’ll never bring yourself to tell me what you really want.” Sebastian slitted his eyes open…a mistake. Her face was very close, her soft mouth only inches from his. “At the moment, all I want is some peace,” he grumbled. “So if you don’t mind—” Her lips touched his, warm silk and sweetness, and he felt the dizzying brush of her tongue. A floodgate of desire opened, and he was drowning in undiluted pleasure, more powerful than anything he had known before. He lifted his hands as if to push her head away, but instead his trembling fingers curved around her skull, holding her to him. The fiery curls of her hair were compressed beneath his palms as he kissed her with ravenous urgency, his tongue searching the winsome delight of her mouth. Sebastian was mortified to discover that he was gasping like an untried boy when Evie ended the kiss. Her lips were rosy and damp, her freckles gleaming like gold dust against the deep pink of her cheeks. “I also think,” she said unevenly, “that you’re going to lose our bet.” Recalled to sanity by a flash of indignation, Sebastian scowled. “Do you think I’m in any condition to pursue other women? Unless you intend to bring someone to my bed, I’m hardly going to—” “You’re not going to lose the bet by sleeping with another woman,” Evie said. There was a glitter of deviltry in her eyes as she reached up to the neckline of her gown and deliberately began to unfasten the row of buttons. Her hands trembled just a little. “You’re going to lose it with me.” Sebastian watched incredulously as she stood and shed the dressing gown. She was naked, the tips of her breasts pointed and rosy in the cool air. She had lost weight, but her breasts were still round and lovely, and her hips still flared generously from the neat inward curves of her waist. As his gaze swept to the triangle of red hair between her thighs, a swell of acute lust rolled through him. He sounded shaken, even to his own ears. “You can’t make me lose the bet. That’s cheating.” “I never promised not to cheat,” Evie said cheerfully, shivering as she slipped beneath the covers with him. “Damn it, I’m not going to cooperate. I—” His breath hissed between his teeth as he felt the tender length of her body press against his side, the springy brush of her private curls on his hip as she slid one of her legs between his. He jerked his head away as she tried to kiss him. “I can’t…Evie…” His mind searched cagily for a way to dissuade her. “I’m too weak.” Ardent and determined, Evie grasped his head and turned his face to hers. “Poor darling,” she murmured, smiling. “Don’t worry. I’ll be gentle with you.” “Evie,” he said hoarsely, aroused and infuriated and pleading, “I have to prove that I can last three months without—no, don’t do that. Damn you, Evie—

Grandma Clara acted toward God the way we act toward people we're madly in love with. When you are truly in love, you go to great lengths to be with the one you love. You'll drive for hours to be together, even if it's only a short while. You don't mind staying up late to talk. Walking in the rains is romantic, not annoying. You'll willingly spend a small fortune on the one you're crazy about. When you are apart from each other, it's painful, even miserable. He or she is all you think about; you jump at any chance to be together.

In my kingdom,” as the Red Queen tells Alice in Wonderland, “you have to run as fast as you can just to stay in the same place.” No one standing still can triumph, no matter how well constituted. Nature is not simply dynamic, either. Some things change quickly, but they are nested within other things that change less quickly (music frequently models this, too). Leaves change more quickly than trees, and trees more quickly than forests. Weather changes faster than climate. If it wasn’t this way, then the conservatism of evolution would not work, as the basic morphology of arms and hands would have to change as fast as the length of arm bones and the function of fingers. It’s chaos, within order, within chaos, within higher order. The order that is most real is the order that is most unchanging—and that is not necessarily the order that is most easily seen. The leaf, when perceived, might blind the observer to the tree. The tree can blind him to the forest. And some things that are most real (such as the ever-present dominance hierarchy) cannot be “seen” at all.

And so Emma Morley walked home in the evening light, trailing her disappointment behind her. The day was cooling off now, and she shivered as she felt something in the air, an unexpected shudder of anxiety that ran the length of her spine, and was so intense as to make her stop walking for a moment. Fear of the future, she thought. She found herself at the imposing junction of George Street and Hanover Street as all around her people hurried home from work or out to meet friends or lovers, all with a sense of purpose and direction. And here she was, twenty-two and clueless and sloping back to a dingy flat, defeated once again. ‘What are you doing to do with your life?’ In one way or another it seemed that people had been asking her this forever, teachers. her parents, friends at three in the morning, but the question had never seemed this pressing and still she was no nearer an answer. The future rose up ahead of her, a succession of empty days, each more daunting and unknowable than the one before her. How would she ever fill them all? She began walking again, south towards The Mound. ‘Live each day as if it’s your last’, that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn’t practical. Better by far to simply try and be good and be courageous and bold and to make a difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Go out there with your passion and your electric typewriter and work hard at…something. Change lives through art maybe. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance.

Your wife,” said Arthur, looking around, “mentioned some toothpicks.” He said it with a hunted look, as if he was worried that she might suddenly leap out from behind a door and mention them again. Wonko the Sane laughed. It was a light easy laugh, and sounded like one he had used a lot before and was happy with. “Ah yes,” he said, “that’s to do with the day I finally realized that the world had gone totally mad and built the Asylum to put it in, poor thing, and hoped it would get better.” This was the point at which Arthur began to feel a little nervous again. “Here,” said Wonko the Sane, “we are outside the Asylum.” He pointed again at the rough brickwork, the pointing, and the gutters. “Go through that door” — he pointed at the first door through which they had originally entered — “and you go into the Asylum. I’ve tried to decorate it nicely to keep the inmates happy, but there’s very little one can do. I never go in there myself. If I ever am tempted, which these days I rarely am, I simply look at the sign written over the door and I shy away.” “That one?” said Fenchurch, pointing, rather puzzled, at a blue plaque with some instructions written on it. “Yes. They are the words that finally turned me into the hermit I have now become. It was quite sudden. I saw them, and I knew what I had to do.” The sign read: “Hold stick near center of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space, blunt end next to gum. Use gentle in-out motion.” “It seemed to me,” said Wonko the Sane, “that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane.” He gazed out at the Pacific again, as if daring it to rave and gibber at him, but it lay there calmly and played with the sandpipers. “And in case it crossed your mind to wonder, as I can see how it possibly might, I am completely sane. Which is why I call myself Wonko the Sane, just to reassure people on this point. Wonko is what my mother called me when I was a kid and clumsy and knocked things over, and sane is what I am, and how,” he added, with one of his smiles that made you feel, Oh. Well that’s all right then. “I intend to remain.

Eating, drinking, and staying out of dangerous neighborhoods at night serve the higher goal of surviving long enough to mate. Playing nice with others and striving for their respect serve the higher goal of finding mates, and finding mates and trying to stay together with those mates serve the higher goal of having children. Taking care of the children serves the higher goal of increasing our inclusive fitness. Those connections are not conscious and they do not need to be, any more than the connections among day length, migration, and inclusive fitness are conscious in a scarlet tanager.

An amusing writer of the last century, justly complains of the want of definite words to express, distinctly and unmistakably, the different degrees of visits, with reference to their length. Whether the stay of the guest comprises ten minutes, an hour, an evening, a day, a week, or a month, still it goes under the vague and general term of a visit. We propose, humourously, that if the stay of the guest exceeds a week, it should be called a 'visitation.' If it includes a dining, or a tea-drinking, or evening-spending, it may be terms 'a visit;' while a mere call can be mentioned as 'a vis.

The library was a great sprawling complex with rolls and rolls of paper tucked into many shelves. Between the reading rooms were courtyards with living fountains and singing birds and butterflies that would transform into handsome young women to guide or entertain anyone who stayed there any length of time. I saw one among the stacks, explaining an older style of calligraphy to the newly appointed Heavenly Marine Official of the South China Sea. In another wing, a librarian stepped from her chrysalis for the first time, reciting T’ang Dynasty poetry to the flowers. That’s how I knew I was in the right section.

You mean Savi is on that plane by herself?” “Let it go,” Daniel warns. “No! Someone should be with her. She’s facing The American and Lynn! Cole, you should be there, not hiding behind your desk.” Cole drops the thick folder, making John jump. “You don’t think I want to be there, Mark? You don’t think it’s turning me inside out that my girl is a state away and only an arm’s length from the people who tried to kill her? I was ordered to stay behind and do my job. I was ordered to leave for Mexico when all I want to do is be in that courtroom with her. I’m not hiding. I’m following orders since I didn’t last time.

The Mad Gardener's Song He thought he saw an Elephant, That practised on a fife: He looked again, and found it was A letter from his wife. 'At length I realise,' he said, 'The bitterness of Life!' He thought he saw a Buffalo Upon the chimney-piece: He looked again, and found it was His Sister's Husband's Niece. 'Unless you leave this house,' he said, 'I'll send for the Police!' He thought he saw a Rattlesnake That questioned him in Greek: He looked again, and found it was The Middle of Next Week. 'The one thing I regret,' he said, 'Is that it cannot speak!' He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk Descending from the bus: He looked again, and found it was A Hippopotamus. 'If this should stay to dine,' he said, 'There won't be much for us!' He thought he saw a Kangaroo That worked a coffee-mill: He looked again, and found it was A Vegetable-Pill. 'Were I to swallow this,' he said, 'I should be very ill!' He thought he saw a Coach-and-Four That stood beside his bed: He looked again, and found it was A Bear without a Head. 'Poor thing,' he said, 'poor silly thing! It's waiting to be fed!' He thought he saw an Albatross That fluttered round the lamp: He looked again, and found it was A Penny-Postage Stamp. 'You'd best be getting home,' he said: 'The nights are very damp!' He thought he saw a Garden-Door That opened with a key: He looked again, and found it was A Double Rule of Three: 'And all its mystery,' he said, 'Is clear as day to me!' He thought he saw a Argument That proved he was the Pope: He looked again, and found it was A Bar of Mottled Soap. 'A fact so dread,' he faintly said, 'Extinguishes all hope!

I have heard them preach, when I sat in the pew and my feet did not touch the floor, about the final home of the unconverted. In order to impress upon the children the length of time they would probably stay if they settled in that country, the preacher would frequently give us the following illustration: 'Suppose that once in a billion years a bird should come from some far-distant planet, and carry off in its little bill a grain of sand, a time would finally come when the last atom composing this earth would be carried away; and when this last atom was taken, it would not even be sun up in hell.' Think of such an infamous doctrine being taught to children!

Last month, on a very windy day, I was returning from a lecture I had given to a group in Fort Washington. I was beginning to feel unwell. I was feeling increasing spasms in my legs and back and became anxious as I anticipated a difficult ride back to my office. Making matters worse, I knew I had to travel two of the most treacherous high-speed roads near Philadelphia – the four-lane Schuylkill Expressway and the six-lane Blue Route. You’ve been in my van, so you know how it’s been outfitted with everything I need to drive. But you probably don’t realize that I often drive more slowly than other people. That’s because I have difficulty with body control. I’m especially careful on windy days when the van can be buffeted by sudden gusts. And if I’m having problems with spasms or high blood pressure, I stay way over in the right hand lane and drive well below the speed limit. When I’m driving slowly, people behind me tend to get impatient. They speed up to my car, blow their horns, drive by, stare at me angrily, and show me how long their fingers can get. (I don't understand why some people are so proud of the length of their fingers, but there are many things I don't understand.) Those angry drivers add stress to what already is a stressful experience of driving. On this particular day, I was driving by myself. At first, I drove slowly along back roads. Whenever someone approached, I pulled over and let them pass. But as I neared the Blue Route, I became more frightened. I knew I would be hearing a lot of horns and seeing a lot of those long fingers. And then I did something I had never done in the twenty-four years that I have been driving my van. I decided to put on my flashers. I drove the Blue Route and the Schuylkyll Expressway at 35 miles per hour. Now…Guess what happened? Nothing! No horns and no fingers. But why? When I put on my flashers, I was saying to the other drivers, “I have a problem here – I am vulnerable and doing the best I can.” And everyone understood. Several times, in my rearview mirror I saw drivers who wanted to pass. They couldn’t get around me because of the stream of passing traffic. But instead of honking or tailgating, they waited for the other cars to pass, knowing the driver in front of them was in some way weak. Sam, there is something about vulnerability that elicits compassion. It is in our hard wiring. I see it every day when people help me by holding doors, pouring cream in my coffee, or assist me when I put on my coat. Sometimes I feel sad because from my wheelchair perspective, I see the best in people. But those who appear strong and invulnerably typically are not exposed to the kindness I see daily. Sometimes situations call for us to act strong and brave even when we don't feel that way. But those are a few and far between. More often, there is a better pay-off if you don't pretend you feel strong when you feel weak, or pretend that you are brave when you’re scared. I really believe the world might be a safer place if everyone who felt vulnerable wore flashers that said, “I have a problem and I’m doing the best I can. Please be patient!

Of all the social ties we have at work, the boss/employee relationship, what Daniel Goleman has cleverly termed a “vertical couple,” is the single most important social bond you can cultivate at work. Studies have found that the strength of the bond between manager and employee is the prime predictor of both daily productivity and the length of time people stay at their jobs.

I'm just asking you to accept that there are some people who will go to extraordinary lengths to cover up the facts that they are abusing children. What words are there to describe what happened to me, what was done to me? Some call it ritual abuse, others call it organised abuse. There are those that call it satanic. I've heard all the phrases, not just in relation to me, but also with regard to those I work with and try to help. Do you know what I think? It doesn't matter how you dress it up, it doesn't matter what label you put on it. It is abuse, pure and simple. It is adults abusing children. It is adults deciding - actually making a conscious decision, a conscious choices that what they want, what they convince themselves they need, is more important than anything else; certainly more important than the safety or feelings or sanity of a child. However, there can be differences which are layered on top of that abuse. I'm not saying that some abuse is worse than others, or that someone 'wins' the competition to have the worst abuse inflicted on them, but ritual and organised abuse is at the extreme end of the spectrum. If we try to think of a continuum where there are lots of different things imposed on children (or, for that matter, anyone who is forced into these things — and that force can take many forms, it can be threats and promises, as well as kicks and punches), then ritual and organised abuse is intense and complicated. It often involves multiple abusers of both sexes. There can be extreme violence, mind control, systematic torture and even, in some cases, a complex belief system which is sometimes described as religion. I say 'described as' religion because, to me, I think that when this aspect is involved, it is window dressing. I'm not religious. I cried many times for God to save me. I was always ignored — how could I believe? However, I think that ritual abusers who do use religious imagery or 'beliefs' are doing so to justify it all to themselves, or to confuse the victim, or to hide their activities. Ritual abuse is highly organised and, obviously, secretive. It is often linked with other major crimes such as child pornography, child prostitution, the drugs industry, trafficking, and many other illegal and heinous activities. Ritual abuse is organised sexual, physical and psychological abuse, which can be systematic and sustained over a long period of time. It involves the use of rituals - things which the abusers 'need' to do, or 'need' to have in place - but it doesn't have to have a belief system. There doesn't have to be God or the Devil, or any other deity for it to be considered 'ritual'. It involves using patterns of learning and development to keep the abuse going and to make sure the child stays quiet.

Hunting Song THE dusky night rides down the sky, And ushers in the morn; The hounds all join in glorious cry, The huntsman winds his horn: And a hunting we will go. The wife around her husband throws Her arms, and begs his stay; My dear, it rains, and hails, and snows, You will not hunt to-day. But a hunting we will go. A brushing fox in yonder wood, Secure to find we seek; For why, I carry'd sound and good A cartload there last week. And a hunting we will go. Away he goes, he flies the rout, Their steeds all spur and switch; Some are thrown in, and some thrown out, And some thrown in the ditch: But a hunting we will go. At length is strength to faintness worn, Poor Reynard ceases flight; Then hungry, homeward we return, To feast away the night: Then a drinking we will go.

Tell yourself that there are things you will never forget. Tell yourself that you will always remember what is important. Tell yourself that everything you love will stay with you, forever. Even though it won't. Not even a little. Nothing lasts. But unless you are strong, and careful, that will not be enough. I learned love form sacrifice. I learned love from living. And no matter where I've gone, or what I've done, all the dark things I do not regret, but will never speak of, that is the one part of me that I have always kept safe. But that's not enough. It's not the length of a life that matters, just the depth of it. The chances we take. The pathes we choose. How we go on after our hearts break. Hearts always break. And so we bend with our hearts. And we sway. But in the end, what matters is that we loved and lived.

God, but he was beautiful. After a time, Jackson lifted his free hand and slowly ran a finger under the length of her scar—from the space between her right eyebrow and nose, up her forehead, then repeating the path from under her right ear, up to the outside corner of her right eye. She didn’t speak, her breath unsteady from watching him, from feeling the gentle weight of his finger against her face. The circuit complete, he gently rested his palm on her cheek and began tracing the scar once more—this time with his thumb on the new skin. Under the gentle weight of his thumb, her skin felt tingly. Like a foot that had fallen asleep and was 90 percent awake again. Oh. Oh. She could feel it. She could feel it. Her whole body tensed at the sensation. His gaze moved from her skin to her eyes. His palm still rested on her cheek, and his thumb rubbed lightly back and forth against the actual scar line. “Go out with me,” he said. “We are out.” Her voice came out as husky as his, like they were in a crowded library, not alone on the beach. “Out out. Friday night, after you play.” He smiled, leaning in a little closer. “We’ll toast the standing ovation.” She frowned at this reminder. “More like drink away my sorrows.” “Or that.” He leaned closer and said again, “Go out with me.

The alternative to soul-acceptance is soul-fatigue. There is a kind of fatigue that attacks the body. When we stay up too late and rise too early; when we try to fuel ourselves for the day with coffee and a donut in the morning and Red Bull in the afternoon; when we refuse to take the time to exercise and we eat foods that clog our brains and arteries; when we constantly try to guess which line at the grocery store will move faster and which car in which lane at the stoplight will move faster and which parking space is closest to the mall, our bodies grow weary. There is a kind of fatigue that attacks the mind. When we are bombarded by information all day at work . . . When multiple screens are always clamoring for our attention . . . When we carry around mental lists of errands not yet done and bills not yet paid and emails not yet replied to . . . When we try to push unpleasant emotions under the surface like holding beach balls under the water at a swimming pool . . . our minds grow weary. There is a kind of fatigue that attacks the will. We have so many decisions to make. When we are trying to decide what clothes will create the best possible impression, which foods will bring us the most pleasure, which tasks at work will bring us the most success, which entertainment options will make us the most happy, which people we dare to disappoint, which events we must attend, even what vacation destination will be most enjoyable, the need to make decisions overwhelms us. The sheer length of the menu at Cheesecake Factory oppresses us. Sometimes college students choose double majors, not because they want to study two fields, but simply because they cannot make the decision to say “no” to either one. Our wills grow weary with so many choices.

A major defining factor was my wanting him to be part of the DC Universe. Because if someone as powerful as the Sandman was running all the dreams in the world, a natural question would be “Why haven’t we heard about him by now?” The answer I came up with was “He’s been locked away.” And that solution formed an image in my head of a naked man in a glass cell. My next question was “How long had he been trapped there?” The movie Awakenings hadn’t been made yet, but I’d read Oliver Sacks’s book a few months earlier, so I knew about the encephalitis lethargica, or “sleepy sickness,” that had swept Europe in 1916. Scientists to this day don’t understand what caused it, and I loved the idea of blaming it on the Sandman’s imprisonment, so I determined the length of his stay to be seventy-two years—ending in late 1988, when the series debuted. And so on; each plot point just seemed to naturally lead to the next one.

What did you think when I first told you about the animals I found?” He seemed confused. It obviously wasn’t what he’d expected. “Violet, I was seven years old. I thought it was badass. I think I was probably even jealous.” She made a face at him. “Didn’t you think it was creepy? Or that I was weird?” “Yeah,” he agreed enthusiastically. “That’s why I was so jealous. I wanted to be the one finding dead bodies. You were like an animal detective or something. You were only weird ‘cause you were a girl.” He grinned. “But I learned to overlook that since you always took me on such cool adventures.” Violet released a breath, smiling. She knew he was telling the truth, which only made it funnier to hear him saying the words out loud. Of course, what little boy didn’t want to go scavenging through the woods and digging in the dirt? She tried again. “Did you ever tell anyone? Does your mom know?” He lifted her hand to his mouth and rubbed her knuckles across his lower lip, his gaze locked with hers. “No,” he promised. “I swore I wouldn’t, not even her. I think she knows something, or at least she thinks you have the worst luck ever, since you found all those dead girls.” He lowered his voice. “She was really worried about you after the shooting last year. You’re like a daughter to her.” He leaned close. “Of course, that makes it kind of creepy when I do things like this.” He kissed her. It was intimate. Not soft or sweet this time, it was deep and passionate, stealing Violet’s breath. She laid her hand against his chest, savoring the feel of his heartbeat beneath her palm, and then traced her fingertips up to his neck, into his hair. He pulled her over the console that separated them, dragging her onto his lap. He ran his hands up her back restlessly, drawing her as close as he could. It was nearly impossible for her to pull herself away. “Wait,” she insisted breathlessly. “Please, wait.” She had her hands braced against his shoulders, struggling more against herself than him. His glazed eyes teased her. “I thought I was the one who was supposed to say no. I’m the girl, right?” She sighed heavily, leaning her head against his shoulder and trying to recapture her runaway thoughts. She still wanted to talk. She wanted the other things, too, but she needed to sort through her thoughts first. “Sorry, it’s just…I have a lot of…” She shrugged against him. His damp T-shirt was warm and practically paper-thin, tempting her to touch him. She ran her finger down the length of his stomach. She knew it wasn’t fair to tease him, but she couldn’t help herself. He was too enticing. “…I have some stuff I need to work through.” It was the best she could do for an explanation. He caught her hand before she’d reached his waistline, and he held it tightly in his grip. “I’m trying to be patient, Violet, I really am. If there’s something you want to tell me…Well, I just wish you’d trust me.” “I’ll get there,” she explained. “I’ll figure it all out. I’m just a little confused right now.” He let out a shaky breath and then he kissed the top of her head, still not releasing her hand. “So, when you do, we’ll pick up where we left off.” She nodded against him. She thought she would keep talking; she still had so many doubts about what she should, and shouldn’t, be doing. But instead she just stayed there, curled up on his lap, absorbing him, taking relief from his touch…and strength from his presence.

She was swamped by a feeling of utter hopelessness as she waited for him to destroy her with a few caustic words. But he continued to watch her silently, his face unreadable. It seemed almost as if he were waiting for some cue from her. The dilemma lasted for several seconds, until Sara solved it by bursting into tears. She jerked her hands up to her face, blotting her streaming eyes. "I'm so sorry," she gasped. Suddenly he was next to her, touching her shoulders and arms lightly and then jerking his hands back as if burned. "No, don't. Don't. You're all right now." Gingerly he reached out to pat her back. "Don'y cry. Everything's fine. Bloody hell. Don't do that." As she continued to weep, Derek hovered over her in baffled dismay. He excelled at seducing women, charming and deceiving them, breaking down their defenses... everything but comforting them. No one had ever required it of him. "There, now," he muttered, as he had heard Lily Raiford say a thousand times to her crying children. "There, now." Suddenly she was leaning on him, her small head testing at the center of his chest. The long skeins of her hair draped everywhere, entangling him in a fine russet web. Alarmed, he lifted his hands to ease her away. Instead his arms slid around her until she was pressed against him length to length. "Miss Fielding," he said with great effort. "Sara..." She nestled deeper against him, muffling her gulping sobs in his shirtfront. Derek swore and furtively pressed his lips to the top of her head. He concentrated on the chilly night air, but his loins began to throb with an all-too-familiar pain. It was impossible to stay indifferent to the feel of her body molded to his. He was a bloody charlatan... no gentleman, no chivalrous comforter of women, only a scoundrel filled with raw desire. He smoothed his hand over her hair and urged her head into his shoulder until she was in danger of being smothered. "It's all right," he said gruffly. "Everything's fine now. Don't cry anymore.

You were burning in the middle of the worst solar storm our records can remember. (...) Everyone else fled. All your companions and crew left you alone to wrestle with the storm. “You did not blame them. In a moment of crystal insight, you realized that they were cowards beyond mere cowardice: their dependence on their immortality circuits had made it so that they could not even imagine risking their lives. They were all alike in this respect. They did not know they were not brave; they could not even think of dying as possible; how could they think of facing it, unflinching? “You did not flinch. You knew you were going to die; you knew it when the Sophotechs, who are immune to pain and fear, all screamed and failed and vanished. “And you knew, in that moment of approaching death, with all your life laid out like a single image for you to examine in a frozen moment of time, that no one was immortal, not ultimately, not really. The day may be far away, it may be further away than the dying of the sun, or the extinction of the stars, but the day will come when all our noumenal systems fail, our brilliant machines all pass away, and our records of ourselves and memories shall be lost. “If all life is finite, only the grace and virtue with which it is lived matters, not the length. So you decided to stay another moment, and erect magnetic shields, one by one; to discharge interruption masses into the current, to break up the reinforcement patterns in the storm. Not life but honor mattered to you, Helion: so you stayed a moment after that moment, and then another. (...) “You saw the plasma erupting through shield after shield (...) Chaos was attempting to destroy your life’s work, and major sections of the Solar Array were evaporated. Chaos was attempting to destroy your son’s lifework, and since he was aboard that ship, outside the range of any noumenal circuit, it would have destroyed your son as well. “The Array was safe, but you stayed another moment, to try to deflect the stream of particles and shield your son; circuit after circuit failed, and still you stayed, playing the emergency like a raging orchestra. “When the peak of the storm was passed, it was too late for you: you had stayed too long; the flames were coming. But the radio-static cleared long enough for you to have last words with your son, whom you discovered, to your surprise, you loved better than life itself. In your mind, he was the living image of the best thing in you, the ideal you always wanted to achieve. “ ‘Chaos has killed me, son,’ you said. ‘But the victory of unpredictability is hollow. Men imagine, in their pride, that they can predict life’s each event, and govern nature and govern each other with rules of unyielding iron. Not so. There will always be men like you, my son, who will do the things no one else predicts or can control. I tried to tame the sun and failed; no one knows what is at its fiery heart; but you will tame a thousand suns, and spread mankind so wide in space that no one single chance, no flux of chaos, no unexpected misfortune, will ever have power enough to harm us all. For men to be civilized, they must be unlike each other, so that when chaos comes to claim them, no two will use what strategy the other does, and thus, even in the middle of blind chaos, some men, by sheer blind chance, if nothing else, will conquer. “ ‘The way to conquer the chaos which underlies all the illusionary stable things in life, is to be so free, and tolerant, and so much in love with liberty, that chaos itself becomes our ally; we shall become what no one can foresee; and courage and inventiveness will be the names we call our fearless unpredictability…’ “And you vowed to support Phaethon’s effort, and you died in order that his dream might live.

Madam, My sincere thanks for your offer to speak to the tenants regarding the drainage issues. However, since you are already burdened with many demands, I have sent my brother, Weston, to handle the problem. He will arrive at Eversby Priory on Wednesday, and stay for a fortnight. I have lectured him at length about gentlemanly conduct. If he causes you a moment’s distress, wire me and it will be resolved immediately. My brother will arrive at the Alton rail station at noon on Saturday. I do hope you’ll send someone to collect him, since I feel certain no one else will want him. Trenear P.S. Did you really dye the shawl black? My Lord, Amid the daily tumult of construction, which is louder than an army corps of drums, your brother’s presence will likely go unnoticed. We will fetch him on Wednesday. Lady Trenear P.S. Why did you send me a shawl so obviously unsuitable for mourning? In response to Kathleen’s letter, a telegram was delivered from the village post office on the morning of West’s scheduled arrival. Madam, You won’t be in mourning forever. Trenear

God is alive; Magic is afoot God is alive; Magic is afoot God is afoot; Magic is alive Alive is afoot..... Magic never died. God never sickened; Many poor men lied Many sick men lied Magic never weakened Magic never hid Magic always ruled God is afoot God never died. God was ruler Though his funeral lengthened Though his mourners thickened Magic never fled Though his shrouds were hoisted The naked God did live Though his words were twisted The naked Magic thrived Though his death was published Round and round the world The heart did not believe Many hurt men wondered Many struck men bled Magic never faltered Magic always led. Many stones were rolled But God would not lie down Many wild men lied Many fat men listened Though they offered stones Magic still was fed Though they locked their coffers God was always served. Magic is afoot. God rules. Alive is afoot. Alive is in command. Many weak men hungered Many strong men thrived Though they boasted solitude God was at their side Nor the dreamer in his cell Nor the captain on the hill Magic is alive Though his death was pardoned Round and round the world The heart did not believe. Though laws were carved in marble They could not shelter men Though altars built in parliaments They could not order men Police arrested Magic And Magic went with them, For Magic loves the hungry. But Magic would not tarry It moves from arm to arm It would not stay with them Magic is afoot It cannot come to harm It rests in an empty palm It spawns in an empty mind But Magic is no instrument Magic is the end. Many men drove Magic But Magic stayed behind Many strong men lied They only passed through Magic And out the other side Many weak men lied They came to God in secret And though they left him nourished They would not say who healed Though mountains danced before them They said that God was dead Though his shrouds were hoisted The naked God did live This I mean to whisper to my mind This I mean to laugh with in my mind This I mean my mind to serve 'til Service is but Magic Moving through the world And mind itself is Magic Coursing through the flesh And flesh itself is Magic Dancing on a clock And time itself the magic length of God.

Mountaineering, she understood, was an essential expression of some odd, immutable aspect of my personality that I could no sooner alter than change the color of my eyes. Then, in the midst of this delicate rapprochement, Outside magazine confirmed it was sending me to Everest. At first I pretended that I’d be going as a journalist more than a climber—that I’d accepted the assignment because the commercialization of Everest was an interesting subject and the money was pretty good. I explained to Linda and anyone else who expressed skepticism about my Himalayan qualifications that I didn’t expect to ascend very high on the mountain. “I’ll probably climb only a little way above Base Camp,” I insisted. “Just to get a taste of what high altitude is about.” This was bullshit, of course. Given the length of the trip and the time I’d have to spend training for it, I stood to make a lot more money staying home and taking other writing jobs. I accepted the assignment because I was in the grip of the Everest mystique. In truth, I wanted to climb the mountain as badly as I’d ever wanted anything in my life.

Many ways she tried, of escape. She became an assiduous church-goer. But the language meant nothing to her: it seemed false. She hated to hear things expressed, put into words. Whilst the religious feelings were inside her they were passionately moving. In the mouth of the clergyman, they were false, indecent. She tried to read. But again the tedium and the sense of falsity of the spoken word put her off. She went to stay with girl friends. At first she thought it splendid. But then the inner boredom came on, it seemed to her all nothingness. And she felt always belittled, as if never, never could she stretch her length and stride her stride.

Fine." My fingers felt cold and clumsy as I fumbled to untie the straps that held my sword to the side of the pack. Suddenly I felt something harshly cold against my neck. I turned my head in slow motion and looked up the length of a very sharp blade. "Lovely." Kieran's voice dripped with sarcasm. "I'm sure an enemy would have too much honor to attack you until you're ready. That must be why you're completely unprotected and paying no attention whatsoever." He glared at me for a long punishing moment. Then he eased the sword back and inch. "Lesson one. Stay on guard." Reaching past me, he flicked the tip of his sword and easily sliced the ties on my pack.

Chase grunts at that, shoving himself up and away. For a moment he looks down at me, flushed and open mouthed. “Suck me.” It’s a demand. “I want to feel your tongue on my cock.” He isn’t gentle. Once I take him in my mouth he twists his fingers in my hair, the hold burning as I tilt my face to see the drop of his head, his eyes closed, his mouth parted to an O. “Fuck.” He shudders, the word hardly a shaping of his heavy breath. “Like that.” He feels so good in my mouth. Hot and hard, too much for me to take into my throat without gagging a little over his length. That makes him grunt, the hard planes of his belly tensing. I can feel his twitching indecision in the movements of his fingers through my hair, torn between the need to hold me close and the need to be inside another part of me. He doesn’t stay indecisive for long. “You want me to fuck you?” His voice is ragged. Yes, yes. I try to tell him with the sweep of my tongue and the hollow of my cheeks, the enthusiastic bob of my head. When Chase grabs me he’s rough. His hands hold tight at my shoulders as he shoves me over, face down on the bed. One fist tugs my hip up as the other braces low over my spine. “Wait,” is a rasped order. I can feel the mattress move as he leans to the bedside drawer, and then there’s the ripping sound of a foil packet torn on his teeth. There’s no warning after that. Only his cock, buried inside of me in one savage thrust. I cry out his name, and everything splinters with too much and yes and the good-ache pain of being opened by him. “Brooke.” It’s grunted at my ear as Chase begins a slow, solid pound into me, each thrust shoving to full sink. It hurts a little. He’s too big. It’s too quick. But god, it’s amazing. “Your pussy feels so good wrapped around my cock. So fucking good.” His fingers find my clit, and it’s all I can do not to cry out with how good it feels. His hips slam against my raised ass as he pounds into me, all that muscle riding me as expertly as he rode the mountains today. “Come.” He bites it at my ear, grinding his cock into me, holding the deepest penetration all the way into my aching core. “Come for me.” He’s starting to pound me again, and where my face is smashed against the pillow I whimper out the too-much-good of it, each slam of his body into mine forcing the breath from my lungs and spiking pleasure along my spine. “Please—please—please—” “Beg me,” Chase growls. “Say you want me. Say you need me inside of you.” “Please. Make me come. Chase. Please. Fuck me.” It’s so much I’m almost sobbing with it. Chase pounds on, relentless, until as I begin to spasm with my orgasm he grunts out his own. My hips pinned in his fingers. His body slammed into mine. Both of us, breaking apart together.

There was once a people in some land—and they may be still there for what I know—who thought it sacrilegious to stay the course of a raging fire. If a house were being burned, burn it must, even though there were facilities for saving it. For who would dare to interfere with the course of the god? Our idea of sorrow is much the same. We think it wicked, or at any rate heartless, to put it out. If a man’s wife be dead, he should go about lugubrious, with long face, for at least two years, or perhaps with full length for eighteen months, decreasing gradually during the other six. If he be a man who can quench his sorrow—put out his fire as it were—in less time than that, let him at any rate not show his power!

I pulled Slayer from its sheath and pushed the door open with my fingertips. It swung soundlessly on well-greased hinges. Through the hallway, I saw the living room lamp glowing with soothing yellow light. I smelled coffee. Who breaks into a house, turns on the lights, and makes coffee? I padded into the living room on soft feet, Slayer ready. “Loud and clumsy, like a baby rhino,” said a familiar voice. I stepped into the living room. Curran sat on my couch, reading my favorite paperback. His hair was back to its normal short length. His face was clean shaven. He looked nothing like the dark, demonic figure who shook a would-be god’s head on a field a month ago. I thought he had forgotten about me. I had been quite happy to stay forgotten. “The Princess Bride?” he said, flipping the book over. “What are you doing in my house?” Let himself in, had he? Made himself comfortable, as if he owned the place. “Did everything go well with Julie?” “Yes. She didn’t want to stay, but she’ll make friends quickly, and the staff seems sensible.” I watched him, not quite sure where we stood. “I meant to tell you but haven’t gotten a chance. Sorry about Bran. I didn’t like him, but he died well.” “Yes, he did. I’m sorry about your people. Many losses?” A shadow darkened his face. “A third.” He had taken a hundred with him. At least thirty people had never come back. The weight of their deaths pressed on both of us. Curran turned the book over in his hands. “You own words of power.” He knew what a word of power was. Lovely. I shrugged. “Picked up a couple here and there. What happened in the Gap was a one shot deal. I won’t be that powerful again.” At least not until the next flare. “You’re an interesting woman,” he said. “Your interest has been duly noted.” I pointed to the door. He put the book down. “As you wish.” He rose and walked past me. I lowered my sword, expecting him to pass, but suddenly he stepped in dangerously close. “Welcome home. I’m glad you made it. There is coffee in the kitchen for you.” My mouth gaped open. He inhaled my scent, bent close, about to kiss me . . . I just stood there like an idiot. Curran smirked and whispered in my ear instead. “Psych.” And just like that, he was out the door and gone. Oh boy.

Needless to say, elderly people taking steroids may also experience the same side effects as younger persons. So, if you are a senior and need to be on a long course of steroids, what should you do? We would suggest a practical approach—which could apply to anyone on steroids, regardless of age, but may be particularly relevant for seniors because they are particularly vulnerable to side effects: • Understand and verify the need for steroids in your own situation, weighing the anticipated benefit with the possible risks. This means that you should explore the range of other treatments that may be available for your particular condition. You need to learn about the benefits and risks of any other treatment suggested. In other words, get all the information you can prior to going on treatment, be it with steroids or other medications. • Be sure that your health is well-assessed before or at the start of therapy. If you have underlying, separate health conditions, those should be noted and followed while you are on steroids. • Assess bodily systems that might particularly be affected by being on steroids. This means an assessment of your skeletal health, your eyes, your teeth, and your internal organs. • Request guidance about staying active. Physical therapy should be planned, to minimize the chances that your muscles and joints will be overtaxed or that any existing damage might get worse. • Ask to reassess the length and dose of your medication course at various intervals. A reasonable interval is every couple of months, if you are on a long course of steroids.

Whatever emotional distance she might have been able to maintain was lost the second Zane lightly squeezed her hand and smiled. She’d never seen him smile before. If she’d been able to breathe, he would have taken her breath away. “I think you’ll live,” he said. “Just stay away from the goats.” “Okay.” The single word was the best she could do under the circumstances. Zane continued to look at her. Even better, he kept her hand in his, his thumb rubbing up and down the length of her fingers. Over and over. Up and down. It was very rhythmic. And sexual. Her thighs took on a life of their own, getting all hot and shaking slightly. Her mouth went dry, her breasts were jealous of the attention her hand was getting and her hormones were singing the “Hallelujah Chorus.” Obviously she needed intensive therapy…or maybe just sex.

Yes, I want you.” Payne stopped, and then looked over her shoulder again. After a moment, she said, “You are a fine healer and you have done your job, as you so aptly pointed out. We have no further cause to speak.” When she resumed walking, his footsteps approached fast and he caught her, wheeling her around. “If I didn’t keep my pants on, I couldn’t have kept myself out of you.” “Really.” “Give me your hand.” Without looking, she held one unto him. “Why ever for—” He moved fast, putting her palm between his legs, and pressing her into the hot, hard length at his hips. “You’re right.” He moved against her, his pelvis undulating, the arousal pushing against her palm as he started to breathe deeply. “Even as I tried to tell myself otherwise, I knew that if I got naked, you were going to stay a virgin only long enough for me to get you on your back. Not romantic, but really, totally fucking true.” As her lips parted, his eyes dropped to her mouth and he growled, “You can feel the truth, can’t you. It’s in your g**damn hand.” -Manny & Payne

So she decided to walk toward him, slowly, very slowly. You’d almost have had the time to read a novel while she made her approach. She seemed not to want to stop, so much so that she found herself nose to nose with Markus, so close that their noses really did touch. The Swede had stopped breathing. What did she want? He didn’t have the time to formulate that question in his mind at greater length, because she’d begun to kiss him for all she was worth. It was a long, intense kiss, the intensely adolescent kind. Then suddenly she pulled away. “We’ll see about file 114 later.” She opened the door and suggested Markus leave. Which he did with difficulty. He was Armstrong on the moon. That kiss was one giant leap for mankind—for him. He stayed there at the door to her office for a moment, without moving. Natalie herself had already completely forgotten what had just happened. What she’d just done had no connection to the series of other actions in her life. This kiss was the expression of a sudden insurrection among her neurons, what could be called a gratuitous act.

Ben stands just behind me, and we begin to wedge out a fresh piece of clay. I try my best to concentrate, to ignore the fact that my heart is beating at five times its normal speed. I watch his arms as he kneads the clay—almost a little too hard—and as the muscles in his forearms flex. “That’s good,” I say, in an effort to stay focused. I dip a sponge into a bowl of water and squeeze the droplets down over his hands to keep things moist. After several minutes, Ben lets me take the lead. I place my palms over the clay mound and close my eyes. Meanwhile, Ben’s chest grazes my shoulders, and his clay-soaked fingers stroke the length of my arms. “You’re doing great,” he whispers in my ear. We continue to sculpt for another hour, working the mound down into a flattened surface—until we have a total of four tiles. And until I can no longer hold myself back. I turn around to face him. “Camelia?” He squints slightly. I bite my lip, wishing that he could read my mind, and that he would kiss me until my lips ache. “What are you thinking?” I ask, slipping my hand inside the waistband of his jeans and pulling him closer.

Is it as bad out there as they say it is?” he asked. “From my six-inch window, it looks like we got hit with one hell of a storm.” “It took me nearly an hour to shovel the sidewalk this morning,” Jordan said. Kyle brushed his neck-length dark blond hair off his face. “See? That’s one of the positives of being in prison. No shoveling.” Her brother had long ago set the rules regarding their visits. Jokes about being in prison were expected and encouraged, sympathy was not. Which was good for both of them, considering her family had never done particularly well with the mushy and sentimental stuff. “You live in a penthouse condo and haven’t shoveled snow for years,” she pointed out. “A deliberate choice I made because of the trauma of my youth,” Kyle said. “Remember how Dad used to make me shovel the whole block every time it snowed? I was eight when he came up with that plan—barely taller than the shovel.” “And I got to stay inside making hot chocolate with Mom.” Jordan waved off the retort she saw coming. “Hey, it was good for you—it built character.” She paused for a moment, taking in their steel-barred surroundings. “Maybe Dad should’ve made you shovel the next block over, too.” “That’s cute.” “I thought so.

Another way to picture this is to use Galileo’s ship. Imagine a light beam being shot down from the top of the mast to the deck. To an observer on the ship, the light beam will travel the exact length of the mast. To an observer on land, however, the light beam will travel a diagonal formed by the length of the mast plus the distance (it’s a fast ship) that the ship has traveled forward during the time it took the light to get from the top to the bottom of the mast. To both observers, the speed of light is the same. To the observer on land, it traveled farther before it reached the deck. In other words, the exact same event (a light beam sent from the top of the mast hitting the deck) took longer when viewed by a person on land than by a person on the ship.59 This phenomenon, called time dilation, leads to what is known as the twin paradox. If a man stays on the platform while his twin sister takes off in a spaceship that travels long distances at nearly the speed of light, when she returns she would be younger than he is. But because motion is relative, this seems to present a paradox. The sister on the spaceship might think it’s her brother on earth who is doing the fast traveling, and when they are rejoined she would expect to observe that it was he who did not age much.

Who can ignore that the Olympians of the new bourgeois aristocracy no longer inhabit. They go from grand hotel to grand hotel, or from castle to castle, commanding a fleet or a country from a yacht. They are everywhere and nowhere. That is how they fascinate people immersed into everyday life. They transcend everyday life, possess nature and leave it up to the cops to contrive culture. Is it essential to describe at length, besides the condition of youth, students and intellectuals, armies of workers with or without white collars, people from the provinces, the colonized and semi-colonized of all sorts, all those who endure a well-organized daily life, is it here necessary to exhibit the derisory and untragic misery of the inhabitant, of the suburban dweller and of the people who stay in residential ghettoes, in the mouldering centres of old cities and in the proliferations lost beyond them? One only has to open one's eyes to understand the daily life of the one who runs from his dwelling to the station, near or far away, to the packed underground train, the office or the factory, to return the same way in the evening and come home to recuperate enough to start again the next day. The picture of this generalized misery would not go without a picture of 'satisfactions' which hides it and becomes the means to elude it and break free from it.

You’re the one who didn’t keep his word. And speaking of your word and its dubious worth, don’t change the subject. I saw the looks you and Miss Turner were exchanging. The lady goes bright pink every time you speak to her. For God’s sake, you put food on her plate without even asking.” “And where’s the crime in that?” Gray was genuinely curious to hear the answer. He hadn’t forgotten that shocked look she’d given him. “Come on, Gray. You know very well one doesn’t take such a liberty with a mere acquaintance. It’s…it’s intimate. The two of you are intimate. Don’t deny it.” “I do deny it. It isn’t true.” Gray took another swig from his flask and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Damn it, Joss. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to trust me. I gave you my word. I’ve kept it.” And it was the truth, Gray told himself. Yes, he’d touched her tonight, but he’d never pledged not to touch her. He had kept his word. He hadn’t bedded her. He hadn’t kissed her. God, what he wouldn’t give just to kiss her… He rubbed the heel of his hand against his chest. That same ache lingered there-the same sharp tug he’d felt when she’d brought her foot down on his and pursed her lips into a silent plea. Please, she’d said. Don’t. As if she appealed to his conscience. His conscience. Where would the girl have gathered such a notion, that he possessed a conscience? Certainly not form his treatment of her. A bitter laugh rumbled through his chest, and Joss shot him a skeptical look. “Believe me, I’ve scarcely spoken to the girl in weeks. You can’t know the lengths I’ve gone to, avoiding her. And it isn’t easy, because she won’t stay put in her cabin, now will she? No, she has to go all over the ship, flirting with the crew, tacking her little pictures in every corner of the boat, taking tea in the galley with Gabriel. I can’t help but see her. And I can see she’s too damn thin. She needs to eat; I put food on her plate. There’s nothing more to it than that.” Joss said nothing, just stared at him as though he’d grown a second head. “Damn it, what now? Don’t you believe me?” “I believe what you’re saying,” his brother said slowly. “I just can’t believe what I’m hearing.” Gray folded his arms and leaned against the wall. “And what are you hearing?” “I wondered why you’d done all this…the dinner. Now I know.” “You know what?” Gray was growing exasperated. Most of all, because he didn’t know. “You care for this girl.” Joss cocked his head. “You care for her. Don’t you?” “Care for her.” Joss’s expression was smug. “Don’t you?” The idea was too preposterous to entertain, but Gray perked with inspiration. “Say I did care for her. Would you release me from that promise? If my answer is yes, can I pursue her?” Joss shook his head. “If the answer is yes, you can-and should-wait one more week. It’s not as though she’ll vanish the moment we make harbor. If the answer is yes, you’ll agree she deserves that much.” Wrong, Gray thought, sinking back into a chair.

Lillian’s lashes lowered as she let him ease her closer, his hand sliding over the length of her spine. Her breasts and waist felt swollen within the insulating grip of her corset, and she suddenly longed to be rid of it. Taking as deep a breath as the stays would allow, she became aware of a sweetly spicy scent in the air. “What is that?” she murmured, drawing in the fragrance. “Cinnamon and wine…” Turning in the circle of his arms, she looked around the spacious bedroom, past the poster bed to the small table that had been set near the window. There was a covered silver dish on the table, from which a few traces of sweet-scented steam were still visible. Perplexed, she twisted back to look at Marcus. “Go and find out,” he said. Curiously Lillian went to investigate. Taking hold of the cover’s handle, which had been wrapped with a linen napkin, she lifted the lid, letting a soft burst of intoxicating fragrance into the air. Momentarily puzzled, Lillian stared at the dish, and then burst out laughing. The white porcelain dish was filled with five perfect pears, all standing on end, their skin gleaming and ruby-red from having been poached in wine. They sat in a pool of clear amber sauce that was redolent of cinnamon and honey. “Since I couldn’t obtain a pear from a bottle for you,” came Marcus’s voice from behind her, “this was the next best alternative.” Lillian picked up a spoon and dug into one of the melting-soft pears, lifting it to her lips with relish. The bite of warm, wine-soaked fruit seemed to dissolve in her mouth, the spiced honey sauce causing a tingle in the back of her throat. “Mmmm…” She closed her eyes in ecstasy. Looking amused, Marcus turned her to face him. His gaze fell to the corner of her lips, where a stray drop of honey sauce glittered. Ducking his head, he kissed and licked away the sticky drop, the caress of his mouth causing a new pleasurable ache deep inside her. “Delicious,” he whispered, his lips settling more firmly, until she felt as if her blood were flowing in streams of white-hot sparks. She dared to share the taste of wine and cinnamon with him, tentatively exploring his mouth with her tongue, and his response was so encouraging that she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed herself closer. He was delicious, the taste of his mouth clean and sweet, the feel of his lean, solid body immeasurably exciting. Her lungs expanded with shaky-hot breaths, restrained by the clench of her corset stays, and she broke the kiss with a gasp. “I can’t breathe.” Wordlessly Marcus turned her around and unfastened the gown. Reaching her corset, he untied the laces and loosened them with a series of expert tugs, until the stays expanded and Lillian gulped in relief. “Why did you lace so tightly?” she heard him ask. “Because the dress wouldn’t fasten otherwise. And because, according to my mother, Englishmen prefer their women to be narrow-waisted.” Marcus snorted as he eased her back to face him. “Englishmen prefer women to have larger waists in lieu of fainting from lack of oxygen. We’re rather practical that way.” Noticing that the sleeve of her unfastened gown had slipped over her white shoulder, he lowered his mouth to the smooth curve.

He leaned over toward me, putting his fingers under my chin. He grazed my lips with his nose and then with his own lips, first gently, and then taking them into his mouth and biting them one at a time. He put his big hand around my neck, covering my throat, terrifying me with the power he had to wrap those fingers tight and suffocate me, but exciting me because I knew that he would not do it. There was too much that he wanted from me, and I did not know yet exactly what it was. He kissed me with an open mouth, my lips subsumed by his. His tongue found mine, and he pulled it into his mouth. As soon as he felt my enthrallment, he pulled away from me so that I was looking into his eyes, and I understood in that moment why he called himself my master. His eyes were intense and fathomless, an eternity of deep blue, like the sea at twilight, and they left me without a will of my own. "I want you to suck my tongue," he said. "Taste me." He put the length of it into my mouth, and I obeyed him, latching on to it. I was surprised how much it thrilled me, and for a long time, I nursed at his tongue as if I expected it to feed me. His lips and his tongue- and his entire being- hummed with a subtle but indelible current. I felt that I could stay there forever, feeding on his tongue, but he broke it off, pulling back, his hand still on my throat. "Does that feel familiar?" he asked. "No, I have never felt anything like that before," I said, disappointed that he had stopped and wanting more. I was still catching my breath, yet wanting him back inside my mouth where I could taste him again. What had he tasted like? Salt, iron, spice- like nature itself.

Come here, you flea-ridden hair wad. You’ll have all the sugar biscuits you want, if you’ll give your new toy to me.” He whistled softly and clicked. But the blandishments did not work. Dodger merely regarded him with bright eyes and stayed at the threshold, clutching the vial in his tiny paws. “Give him one of your garters,” Leo said, still staring at the ferret. “I beg your pardon?” Miss Marks asked frostily. “You heard me. Take off a garter and offer it to him as a trade. Otherwise we’ll be chasing this damned animal all through the house. And I doubt Rohan will appreciate the delay.” The governess gave Leo a long-suffering glance. “Only for Mr. Rohan’s sake would I consent to this. Turn your back.” “For God’s sake, Marks, do you think anyone really wants a glance at those dried-up matchsticks you call legs?” But Leo complied, facing the opposite direction. He heard a great deal of rustling as Miss Marks sat on a bedroom chair and lifted her skirts. It just so happened that Leo was positioned near a full-length looking glass, the oval cheval style that tilted up or down to adjust one’s reflection. And he had an excellent view of Miss Marks in the chair. And the oddest thing happened—he got a flash of an astonishingly pretty leg. He blinked in bemusement, and then the skirts were dropped. “Here,” Miss Marks said gruffly, and tossed it in Leo’s direction. Turning, he managed to catch it in midair. Dodger surveyed them both with beady-eyed interest. Leo twirled the garter enticingly on his finger. “Have a look, Dodger. Blue silk with lace trim. Do all governesses anchor their stockings in such a delightful fashion? Perhaps those rumors about your unseemly past are true, Marks.” “I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head, my lord.” Dodger’s little head bobbed as it followed every movement of the garter. Fitting the vial in his mouth, the ferret carried it like a miniature dog, loping up to Leo with maddening slowness. “This is a trade, old fellow,” Leo told him. “You can’t have something for nothing.” Carefully Dodger set down the vial and reached for the garter. Leo simultaneously gave him the frilly circlet and snatched the vial.

Silvanus, the camp prefect, took a step forward. I heard his voice every morning after parade, but had never listened to the tones of it as I did now. He was not afraid, that much was clear; he was angry. "Pathetic. I should cashier you all now and destroy your Eagles." Silvanus spoke quietly; we had to strain to hear his voice. You could have heard the stars slide across the sky, we were so still and so silent. "If General Corbulo were here, he would destroy you. He dismissed half of the Fifth and the Tenth and sent them home. The rest are billeted in tents in the Armenian highlands with barley meal for fodder. He intends to make an army of them, to meet Vologases when he comes. I intend the same and therefore you will be treated the same as your betters in better legions. You will be proficient by the spring, or you will be dead." His gaze raked us, and we wondered which of us might die that night for the crime of being ineffectual. His voice rocked us. "To that end, you will spend the next three months in tents in the Mountains of the Hawk that lie between us and the sea. One hundred paces above the snow line, each century will determine an area suitable for three months’ stay and build its own base camp. You will alternate along the mountains’ length so that each century of the Fourth has a century of the Twelfth to either side, and vice versa. Each century will defend and maintain its own stocks against the men of the opposing legion; you are encouraged to avail yourselves of what you can. You may not remove stocks from camps belonging to other centuries of your own legion, and equally you may not aid in defending them against raiding parties from the opposing men. So that you may tell each other apart, the Twelfth legion will wear" – did I hear a note of distaste there? – "red cloth tied about their left arms at all times. The Fourth will wear blue. You will be provided with raw fleece with which to wrap your weapons that they might strike but not bite. A man who is careless enough to be captured by the other side will be flogged and returned to his unit. Any man who kills another will be flogged until dead and any man who wounds another will be staked out beyond the boundary of his camp for two days and nights; if he lives, he will be returned to his unit. Any man who dies of hunger, cold or fright, or who falls off the mountain, will be deemed to have died by his own hand. You have until the next watch to make ready. You are dismissed.

I stepped back suddenly, snapping the band of energy that had seemed to be drawing me closer to her as I unbuckled my belt and unbuttoned my fly. “What are you doing?” she gasped, staring at me as I dropped my jeans, knocking my boxers off with them and letting her get a good eyeful of the full length of my cock. Her gaze stayed glued on it and blood began to rush that way at the feeling of her attention, like that part of me still hadn't agreed to my decision to have nothing more to do with her beyond making sure she left this place. I gritted my teeth as my dick continued to get all kinds of ideas about the things it could do with her if I just made her bow for me now and I tried not to let my gaze linger on her mouth while I considered how much I'd like to fuck it. “When you stop eye-fucking me I’ll show you what you’re so desperate to know,” I mocked, forcing her attention back up to my face and earning myself a scowl. “People don’t tend to whip their junk out in the middle of a conversation,” she snapped like she was pissed at me for it. “So if you didn’t want me catching an eyeful of little Darius then you shouldn’t have brought him into our discussion.” I released a breath of laughter before I could help myself, my mind and dick wandering down all kinds of out of bounds roads as I gave myself two seconds to consider whether or not I could convince her to bow for me after all. I leaned closer to her as she scowled back, but her breaths were speeding up and her pupils were wide with what I could have sworn was desire of her own. I wanted that. I wanted it more than I could say and it was so fucking tempting to just step forward, catch her by the back of the neck and kiss her roughly until she gave in and bowed to me the way I ached for her to. I could see it in her eyes. The temptation despite the hatred and I wanted to hate fuck her so much that I almost took that final step. But as my own pulse thundered like a war drum in my ears, I knew it wouldn't be so simple. One taste of her and I'd be addicted. And I couldn't afford that no matter how tempting a sin she might have been. “If you come to my room uninvited again then it had better be because you’re ready to bow to us or to beg me to bend you over that headboard and make you scream my name,” I said with all the confidence I felt in knowing that she was getting as wet for me as I was getting hard for her. She pressed herself back against my door, her thighs clenching together like she was trying to fight her reaction, but I felt it humming in the air between us no matter how deeply she scowled. (Darius POV)

Matthew knew it was wrong the instant their lips met. Because nothing would ever equal the perfection of Daisy in his arms. He was ruined for life. God help him, he didn’t care. Her mouth was soft and hot, like sunshine, like the white blaze of a heartwood fire. She gasped as he touched her lower lip with the tip of his tongue. Slowly her hands came to his shoulders, and then he felt her fingers at the back of his head, sliding into his hair to keep him from pulling away. There wasn’t a chance in hell of that happening. Nothing could have made him stop. A tremor shook his fingers as he bracketed the exquisite line of her jaw in the open framework of his hand, gently angling her face upward. The flavor of her mouth, sweet and elusive, fueled a hunger that threatened to rage out of control… he searched the damp silk beyond her lips, deeper, harder, until she began to breathe in long sighs, her body molding against his. He let her feel how much stronger he was, how much heavier, one muscular arm clamped along her back, his feet spread to hold her between the powerful length of his thighs. Her upper half was bound in a laced and padded corset. He was almost overcome by a savage desire to tear away the stays and quilting and find the tender flesh beneath. Instead he sank his fingers into her pinned-up hair and tugged it backward until the weight of her head was cradled in his hand, and her pale throat was exposed. He searched for the pulse he had seen earlier, his lips dragging softly along the secret pathway of nerves beneath her skin. When he reached a senstive spot, he felt the vibration of her suppressed moan against his mouth. This was what it would be like to make love to her, he thought dazedly… the sweet shivering of her flesh as he entered her, the delicate chaos of her breath, the helpless sounds that rustled in her throat. Her skin, warm and female, scented like tea and talcum and a trace of salt. He found her mouth again, opened it, delving into wet silk, heat, and an intimate flavor that drove him mad. She should have struggled, but there was only yielding and more softness, driving him past all limits. He began to ravish her mouth with deep, twisting kisses, bringing her body rhythmically against his. He felt her legs part beneath her gown, his thigh fitting neatly between them. She squirmed with innocent desire, her face blooming with the color of late summer poppies. Had she understood exactly what he wanted from her, she would have done more than blush. She would have fainted on the spot. Lifting his mouth from hers, Matthew pressed his jaw against the side of her head. “I think,” he said raggedly, “this puts to rest any question of whether I find you desirable or not.

PATTERNS OF THE “SHY” What else is common among people who identify themselves as “shy?” Below are the results of a survey that was administered to 150 of my program’s participants. The results of this informal survey reveal certain facts and attitudes common among the socially anxious. Let me point out that these are the subjective answers of the clients themselves—not the professional opinions of the therapists. The average length of time in the program for all who responded was eight months. The average age was twenty-eight. (Some of the answers are based on a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being the lowest.) -Most clients considered shyness to be a serious problem at some point in their lives. Almost everyone rated the seriousness of their problem at level 5, which makes sense, considering that all who responded were seeking help for their problem. -60 percent of the respondents said that “shyness” first became enough of a problem that it held them back from things they wanted during adolescence; 35 percent reported the problem began in childhood; and 5 percent said not until adulthood. This answer reveals when clients were first aware of social anxiety as an inhibiting force. -The respondents perceived the average degree of “sociability” of their parents was a 2.7, which translates to “fair”; 60 percent of the respondents reported that no other member of the family had a problem with “shyness”; and 40 percent said there was at least one other family member who had a problem with “shyness.” -50 percent were aware of rejection by their peers during childhood. -66 percent had physical symptoms of discomfort during social interaction that they believed were related to social anxiety. -55 percent reported that they had experienced panic attacks. -85 percent do not use any medication for anxiety; 15 percent do. -90 percent said they avoid opportunities to meet new people; 75 percent acknowledged that they often stay home because of social fears, rather than going out. -80 percent identified feelings of depression that they connected to social fears. -70 percent said they had difficulty with social skills. -75 percent felt that before they started the program it was impossible to control their social fears; 80 percent said they now believed it was possible to control their fears. -50 percent said they believed they might have a learning disability. -70 percent felt that they were “too dependent on their parents”; 75 percent felt their parents were overprotective; 50 percent reported that they would not have sought professional help if not for their parents’ urging. -10 percent of respondents were the only child in their families; 40 percent had one sibling; 30 percent had two siblings; 10 percent had three; and 10 percent had four or more. Experts can play many games with statistics. Of importance here are the general attitudes and patterns of a population of socially anxious individuals who were in a therapy program designed to combat their problem. Of primary significance is the high percentage of people who first thought that “shyness” was uncontrollable, but then later changed their minds, once they realized that anxiety is a habit that can be broken—without medication. Also significant is that 50 percent of the participants recognized that their parents were the catalyst for their seeking help. Consider these statistics and think about where you fit into them. Do you identify with this profile? Look back on it in the coming months and examine the ways in which your sociability changes. Give yourself credit for successful breakthroughs, and keep in mind that you are not alone!