Lick Boots Quotes

People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.

Dr. Pervy-Pants Dr. Depravity Dr. Ain't-Puttin'-Out Dr. Bossy-as-Fuck Dr. Obsessive-Compulsive Dr. Kinkybones Dr. Deviant Dr. Oh-So-Proper-I-Iron-My-Jeans Dr. Lick-My-Boots Dr. Smug-as-Shit Dr. Love-Me-Love-My-Butt-Nozzle Dr. Damn-Your-Dick-is-Motherfucking-Big Dr. Full-of-Shit Dr. Smack-a-Lot Dr. Ruined-Me-For-Anyone-Else

There was no boss-class, no menial-class, no beggars, no prostitutes, no lawyers, no priests, no boot-licking, no cap-touching.

* *Do remember that dishonesty and cowardice always have to be paid for.*Don’t imagine that for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking propagandist of the Soviet régime, or any other régime, and then suddenly return to mental decency. Once a whore, always a whore.

I want you to show him to Zeth and the rest of the Olympian dogs who fight for us. (Noir) Anything else, Master? Lick your boots? Wipe your ass? (Asmodeus)

I was on a mission. I had to learn to comfort myself, to see what others saw in me and believe it. I needed to discover what the hell made me happy other than being in love. Mission impossible. When did figuring out what makes you happy become work? How had I let myself get to this point, where I had to learn me..? It was embarrassing. In my college psychology class, I had studied theories of adult development and learned that our twenties are for experimenting, exploring different jobs, and discovering what fulfills us. My professor warned against graduate school, asserting, "You're not fully formed yet. You don't know if it's what you really want to do with your life because you haven't tried enough things." Oh, no, not me.." And if you rush into something you're unsure about, you might awake midlife with a crisis on your hands," he had lectured it. Hi. Try waking up a whole lot sooner with a pre-thirty predicament worm dangling from your early bird mouth. "Well to begin," Phone Therapist responded, "you have to learn to take care of yourself. To nurture and comfort that little girl inside you, to realize you are quite capable of relying on yourself. I want you to try to remember what brought you comfort when you were younger." Bowls of cereal after school, coated in a pool of orange-blossom honey. Dragging my finger along the edge of a plate of mashed potatoes. I knew I should have thought "tea" or "bath," but I didn't. Did she want me to answer aloud? "Grilled cheese?" I said hesitantly. "Okay, good. What else?" I thought of marionette shows where I'd held my mother's hand and looked at her after a funny part to see if she was delighted, of brisket sandwiches with ketchup, like my dad ordered. Sliding barn doors, baskets of brown eggs, steamed windows, doubled socks, cupcake paper, and rolled sweater collars. Cookouts where the fathers handled the meat, licking wobbly batter off wire beaters, Christmas ornaments in their boxes, peanut butter on apple slices, the sounds and light beneath an overturned canoe, the pine needle path to the ocean near my mother's house, the crunch of snow beneath my red winter boots, bedtime stories. "My parents," I said. Damn. I felt like she made me say the secret word and just won extra points on the Psychology Game Network. It always comes down to our parents in therapy.

In the time it takes for her to walk from the bathhouse at the seawall of Fortune's Rocks, where she has left her boots and has discreetly pulled off her stockings, to the waterline along which the sea continually licks the pink and silver sand, she learns about desire.

I know what you think of me, O Great Acheron. I know how much you pity me and I don’t need it. Do you honestly think I could ever forget the way you looked at me the first night we met? You stood there with horror in your eyes as you tried not to show it to me. Well, you achieved your good deed. You cleaned up your little foundling and made him all pretty and healthy. But don’t even think that means I have to lick your boots or kiss your ass for it. My days of subjugation are over. (Zarek)

People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.     142

I remained completely conscious of Jeremiah. He smelled good. He looked good. He sounded good. And when he ran his tongue across the salt on that place between his index finger and his thumb, I wanted to be that little spot. -from chapter Lick, Drink, Suck!, The Boots My Mother Gave Me

So, what do they pay you for...exactly?" "Slapped around. Tied up. Beaten. Given orders, made to do things." "What kind of things?" "You know." "No, I can't even begin to imagine." "Lick my boots, crawl on floor, eat like dog." "Nothing useful, then, like hoovering?

Jacks reclined in a throne of ice as he glared down at a fox that looked more corporeal than ghost- all fluffy white fur, save for a circle of tawny surrounding one of its coal-dark eyes. He appeared horrified by the animal, as if it's adorableness might somehow soften some of his nasty edges. Evangeline wished it would as she stood back a little to watch, enjoying that for once, Jacks was the one in the uncomfortable position. He flinched when the creature nuzzled his scuffed boots. She laughed, finally drawing his attention. 'I think it likes you.' 'I don't know why,' Jacks scowled at the beast. It responded by affectionately licking the buckle at his ankle. Evangeline continued to smile. 'You should name it.' 'If I do that, it will think it's a pet.' Jacks words dripped with disgust, which only further convinced Evangeline this fox might be the best thing that had ever happened to this Fate. 'How about I name her for you? What do you think of Princess of the Fluffikins?' 'Don't ever say that again.

What the hell are you doing?' Jacks growled. Evangeline turned toward his voice, sweat trickling down her cheek, as she found him standing in the doorway. A vein throbbed furiously along the line of his smooth, marble neck. His skin looked so cool, and she was so hot. All she wanted was to press her mouth to his throat and maybe lick it just once. Her blood rushed faster at the thought, and her fangs started to lengthen. 'Jacks, get out of here!' Chaos ordered. 'Unless you've changed your mind about her becoming a vampire.' Chaos gripped Evangeline's wrists tighter, pressing them- along with her- more firmly to the bed. She writhed against his grip; he was crushing her again with the full weight of his body. Something loud cracked in the doorway. Her eyes shot back to Jacks, who was fisting the now splintered edge of the door. Had he done that with his hands? He certainly looked livid enough. His silver-blue eyes turned midnight dark as he watched her struggling under Chaos. Evangeline dimly knew that she should stop her thrashing. If she broke free from Chaos and managed to bite Jacks, the life she had- the life she wanted to keep- would be over. But she also wanted this. She wanted Jacks to stop her struggling. She wanted him to rip Chaos off her chest so that he could pin her to the bed instead. Evangeline took a rasping breath, and her gaze collided with Jacks' once more. He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. With Evangeline's heightened senses, she could hear it clench under his palm. Then she heard the scrape of Jacks' boots as he sharply turned and disappeared down the hall.

Then act like men. Stop behaving like dogs crawling on their bellies to lick the boots of a cruel master.

it was preferable to stand tall in a mud puddle than lick boots in the parlor.

Man comes into the world a blind, groping mite. He knows hunger and the fear of noise and of falling. His life is spent in flight - flight from hunger and from the thunderbolt of destiny. From his moment of birth he begins to fall through the whistling air of Time: down, down into a chasm of darkness . . . we come like a breath of wind over the fields of morning. We go like a lamp flame caught by a blast from a darkened window. In between we journey from table to table, from battle to bottle, from bed to bed. We suck, we chew, we swallow, we lick, we try to mash life into us like an am-am-amoeba God damn it! Somebody lets us loose like a toad out of a matchbox and we jump and jump and jump and the guy always behind us, and when he gets tired he stomps us to death and our guts squirt out on each side of the boot of All Merciful Providence. The son-of-a-bitch!

Tenways showed his rotten teeth. ‘Fucking make me.’ ‘I’ll give it a try.’ A man came strolling out of the dark, just his sharp jaw showing in the shadows of his hood, boots crunching heedless through the corner of the fire and sending a flurry of sparks up around his legs. Very tall, very lean and he looked like he was carved out of wood. He was chewing meat from a chicken bone in one greasy hand and in the other, held loose under the crosspiece, he had the biggest sword Beck had ever seen, shoulder-high maybe from point to pommel, its sheath scuffed as a beggar’s boot but the wire on its hilt glinting with the colours of the fire-pit. He sucked the last shred of meat off his bone with a noisy slurp, and he poked at all the drawn steel with the pommel of his sword, long grip clattering against all those blades. ‘Tell me you lot weren’t working up to a fight without me. You know how much I love killing folk. I shouldn’t, but a man has to stick to what he’s good at. So how’s this for a recipe…’ He worked the bone around between finger and thumb, then flicked it at Tenways so it bounced off his chain mail coat. ‘You go back to fucking sheep and I’ll fill the graves.’ Tenways licked his bloody top lip. ‘My fight ain’t with you, Whirrun.’ And it all came together. Beck had heard songs enough about Whirrun of Bligh, and even hummed a few himself as he fought his way through the logpile. Cracknut Whirrun. How he’d been given the Father of Swords. How he’d killed his five brothers. How he’d hunted the Shimbul Wolf in the endless winter of the utmost North, held a pass against the countless Shanka with only two boys and a woman for company, bested the sorcerer Daroum-ap-Yaught in a battle of wits and bound him to a rock for the eagles. How he’d done all the tasks worthy of a hero in the valleys, and so come south to seek his destiny on the battlefield. Songs to make the blood run hot, and cold too. Might be his was the hardest name in the whole North these days, and standing right there in front of Beck, close enough to lay a hand on. Though that probably weren’t a good idea. ‘Your fight ain’t with me?’ Whirrun glanced about like he was looking for who it might be with. ‘You sure? Fights are twisty little bastards, you draw steel it’s always hard to say where they’ll lead you. You drew on Calder, but when you drew on Calder you drew on Curnden Craw, and when you drew on Craw you drew on me, and Jolly Yon Cumber, and Wonderful there, and Flood – though he’s gone for a wee, I think, and also this lad here whose name I’ve forgotten.’ Sticking his thumb over his shoulder at Beck. ‘You should’ve seen it coming. No excuse for it, a proper War Chief fumbling about in the dark like you’ve nothing in your head but shit. So my fight ain’t with you either, Brodd Tenways, but I’ll still kill you if it’s called for, and add your name to my songs, and I’ll still laugh afterwards. So?’ ‘So what?’ ‘So shall I draw?

They spoke one after the other in a despairing voice, giving expression to their complaints. The workers could not hold out; the Revolution had only aggravated their wretchedness; only the bourgeois had grown fat since ‘89, so greedily that they had not even left the bottom of the plates to lick. Who could say that the workers had had their reasonable share in the extraordinary increase of wealth and comfort during the last hundred years? They had made fun of them by declaring them free. Yes, free to starve, a freedom of which they fully availed themselves. It put no bread into your cupboard to go and vote for fine fellows who went away and enjoyed themselves, thinking no more of the wretched voters than of their old boots. No! one way or another it would have to come to an end, either quietly by laws, by an understanding in good fellowship, or like savages by burning everything and devouring one another. Even if they never saw it, their children would certainly see it, for the century could not come to an end without another revolution, that of the workers this time, a general hustling which would cleanse society from top to bottom, and rebuild it with more cleanliness and justice.

Dragons lick my boots, I don't want to bloody be he—

... only dogs and cowards licked the boot that kicked them.

You’re my bitch now, Souji. You do anything I ask without complaint. You’ll lick the dirt off my boots if I want. Is that clear?

Instead of licking the boots of the rich people and bowing before them daily—We can stop doing that by simply knowing our worth in life.

If I ever prayed, as a child, for everlasting union, these were its shoes: one dew-licked kicked-off slipper of a being now flying, one sunrise-milk-green boot of the dead, which I wore, as I dreamed.

You don’t know,” Anthony said, his voice low and nearly shaking with rage. “You don’t know what he has done.” “No more than what you have done, I’m sure,” Violet said slyly. “Precisely!” Anthony roared. “Good God, I know exactly what is going on in his brain right now, and it has nothing to do with poetry and roses.” Simon pictured laying Daphne down on a bed of rose petals. “Well, maybe roses,” he murmured. “I’m going to kill him,” Anthony announced. “These are tulips, anyway,” Violet said primly, “from Holland. And Anthony, you really must summon control of your emotions. This is most unseemly.” “He is not fit to lick Daphne’s boots.” Simon’s head filled with more erotic images, this time of himself licking her toes. He decided not to comment. Besides, he had already decided that he wasn’t going to allow his thoughts to wander in such directions. Daphne was Anthony’s sister, for God’s sake. He couldn’t seduce her. “I refuse to listen to another disparaging word about his grace,” Violet stated emphatically, “and that is the end of the subject.” “But—” “I don’t like your tone, Anthony Bridgerton!” Simon thought he heard Daphne choke on a chuckle, and he wondered what that was all about. “If it would please Your Motherhood,” Anthony said in excruciatingly even tones, “I would like a private word with his grace.” “This time I’m really going to get that vase,” Daphne announced, and dashed from the room. Violet crossed her arms, and said to Anthony, “I will not have you mistreat a guest in my home.” “I shan’t lay so much as a hand on him,” Anthony replied. “I give you my word.” Having never had a mother, Simon was finding this exchange fascinating. Bridgerton House was, after all, technically Anthony’s house, not his mother’s, and Simon was impressed that Anthony had refrained from pointing this out. “It’s quite all right, Lady Bridgerton,” he interjected. “I’m sure Anthony and I have much to discuss.” Anthony’s eyes narrowed. “Much.

Come,” he said, holding out his hand for her. She shook her head. Richard paused, then frowned. “I said, come.” “And I said, no.” He frowned again. “The cold has numbed your thinking, lady. ’Tis your duty to obey me.” “I’m not your trained dog to come when you call.” “You forget your place.” “My place, buster, is not at your feet, licking your boots!” “There are many who would beg for the chance to do just that!

were spilt on his bib, Jane and Michael could tell that the substance in the spoon this time was milk. Then Barbara had her share, and she gurgled and licked the spoon twice. Mary Poppins then poured out another dose and solemnly took it herself. “Rum punch,” she said, smacking her lips and corking the bottle. Jane’s eyes and Michael’s popped with astonishment, but they were not given much time to wonder, for Mary Poppins, having put the miraculous bottle on the mantelpiece, turned to them. “Now,” she said, “spit-spot into bed.” And she began to undress them. They noticed that whereas buttons and hooks had needed all sorts of coaxing from Katie Nanna, for Mary Poppins they flew apart almost at a look. In less than a minute they found themselves in bed and watching, by the dim light from the night-light, the rest of Mary Poppins’s unpacking being performed. From the carpet bag she took out seven flannel nightgowns, four cotton ones, a pair of boots, a

And just as he had tried, on the southern beach, to find again that unique rounded black pebble with the regular little white belt, which she had happened to show him on the eve of their last ramble, so now he did his best to look up all the roadside items that retained her exclamation mark: the special profile of a cliff, a hut roofed with a layer of silvery-gray scales, a black fir tree and a footbridge over a white torrent, and something which one might be inclined to regard as a kind of fatidic prefiguration: the radial span of a spider’s web between two telegraph wires that were beaded with droplets of mist. She accompanied him: her little boots stepped rapidly, and her hands never stopped moving, moving—to pluck a leaf from a bush or stroke a rock wall in passing—light, laughing hands that knew no repose. He saw her small face with its dense dark freckles, and her wide eyes, whose pale greenish hue was that of the shards of glass licked smooth by the sea waves.

There are people, gentlemen, who dislike roundabout ways and only mask themselves at masquerades. There are people who do not see man’s highest avocation in polishing the floor with their boots. There are people, gentlemen, who refuse to say that they are happy and enjoying a full life when, for instance, their trousers set properly. There are people, finally, who dislike dashing and whirling about for no object, fawning, and licking the dust, and above all, gentlemen, poking their noses where they are not wanted. . . I’ve told you almost everything, gentlemen; now allow me to withdraw.

I'm a Kashmiri , I live in a rogue place. I'm surrounded by conformist , boot licking , people pleasing "herd"! People Safely cocooned in their stereotypical conformist lives, maintaining status quo , they make generic responses  expecting generic answers! 
For someone with an alien mentality like 'mine' , I am an out cast !  But it's 'them' who are the eerie one , like the deadly malignant tumour feeding on its own people ,  A parasite, growing inside the  system! Superficial faces , powdered with lies and deceit ;  people , like controlled robots, In love with their own ignorance !!

I Write to Destroy You (The Sonnet) I don’t write to pamper your ego, I don't write to give you comfort. I don't write to teach you self-love, I write to destroy all selfish thought. I don't write to inspire your pride, I don't write to cater to your insecurity. I don't write to entertain shallowness, I only write to abolish self-centricity. I don't write to tickle the instaslaves, I don't write to peddle false perfection. I don't write to lick the privileged boots, I write to make soldiers of self-annihilation. My science and my art were born on the street. That's where I learnt, all suffering is born of greed.

Now that is a sword,” Freddy said in awe as he went to look at an impressive saber hanging from the hat rack near the door. “Stay away from it,” she cautioned. “I’m sure it’s sharper than yours.” As usual, Freddy ignored her. “Just think what I could do with this,” he said as he lifted it off its hook. “So far I haven’t seen you do anything with a sword, my boy,” Oliver remarked dryly. “Though I shudder to think what your cousin would attempt.” Maria glared at Oliver, which only made him laugh. Meanwhile, Freddy unsheathed the saber with a flourish. “Curse it, Freddy, put it back,” Maria ordered. “What a fine piece of steel.” Freddy swished it through the air. “Even the one Uncle Adam gave me isn’t near so impressive.” Maria appealed to Oliver. “Do something, for pity’s sake. Make him stop.” “And get myself skewered for the effort? No, thank you. Let the pup have his fun.” Freddy cast him a belligerent glance. “You wouldn’t call me a pup if I came at you with this.” “No, I’d call you insane,” Oliver drawled. “But you’re welcome to try and see what happens.” Don’t encourage him,” Maria told Oliver. The door opened suddenly, and Freddy whirled with the sword in hand, knocking a lamp off the desk. As the glass chimney shattered, spilling oil in a wide arc, the wick lit the lot, and fire sprang to life. Maria jumped back with a cry of alarm while Oliver leaped out of his chair to stamp it out, first with his boots and then with his coat. A string of curses filled the air, most of them Oliver’s, though Freddy got in a few choice ones as the fire licked at his favorite trousers. When at last Oliver put the flames out and nothing was left but a charred circle on the wood floor, dotted with shards of glass, the three of them turned to the door to find a dark-haired man observing the scene with an expression that gave nothing away. “If you hoped to catch my attention,” he remarked, “you’ve succeeded.” “Mr. Pinter, I presume?” Oliver said, tossing his now ruined coat and singed gloves into a nearby rubbish pail. “I hope you’ll forgive us for the dramatic intrusion. I’m Stonevi-“ “I know who you are, my lord,” he interrupted. “It’s what you’re doing here setting fire to my office that I’m not certain of.

The slight pull was all it took to completely unbalance his precarious load and dump the manure - all atop her boots. "Bloody hell! Look what ye done!" the boy cried...If ye hadn't come along and pulled me o'er it ne'er would have happened.But now ye'd best clean it up afore Devington or Jeffries comes along." "Me?" she replied incredulously. "I'm not the clumsy oaf who dumped it. It's not my mess to clean." "Well, I ain't about to be the last to finish my chores. Devington will have me turning over the reeking dung pit instead of breaking me fast wi' the other chaps." "That's nothing compared to my boots, you ham-fisted lout!" "Tweren't me what pulled the wheelbarrow arse over tea kettle, ye wantwit! Go bugger yer mother and lick yer boots clean!" "I'll box your ears, you brazen-faced little jackanapes!...

You know, Micah, that first night, when I saw you on Bridge Street, I wanted to kill you. I wanted to cut your throat and watch your blood soak into the dirt. I wanted to wrap a strangle cord around your neck and throttle you while you kicked and messed yourself." "I'm shaking in my boots," Micah said, looking Han dead in the eyes. Han stood and took a step toward him. "I'm what's hiding in the side street when you walk home from The Four Horses," he said. "I'm the shadow in Greystone Alley when you go out to take a piss. I'm the foot pad in the corridor when you visit the girlie at Grievous Hall." Micah's eyes narrowed, his self-assurance wilting a bit. Han could tell he was going back over a hundred suspicious sights and sounds. "You've been following me?" "I can come and go from your room, any time I want," Han said. "I can tell you what you say when you talk in your sleep. I know what your down low girlie whispers in your ear." He laughed... Michah licked his lips. "Perhaps you take some kind of perverse pleasure in stalking me...

One spring day, when the daffodils were blowing on the Ingleside lawn, and the banks of the brook in Rainbow Valley were sweet with white and purple violets, the little, lazy afternoon accommodation train pulled into the Glen station. It was very seldom that passengers for the Glen came by that train, so nobody was there to meet it except the new station agent and a small black-and-yellow dog, who for four and a half years had met every train that had steamed into Glen St. Mary. Thousands of trains had Dog Monday met and never had the boy he waited and watched for returned. Yet still Dog Monday watched on with eyes that never quite lost hope. Perhaps his dog-heart failed him at times; he was growing old and rheumatic; when he walked back to his kennel after each train had gone his gait was very sober now—he never trotted but went slowly with a drooping head and a depressed tail that had quite lost its old saucy uplift. One passenger stepped off the train—a tall fellow in a faded lieutenant’s uniform, who walked with a barely perceptible limp. He had a bronzed face and there were some grey hairs in the ruddy curls that clustered around his forehead. The new station agent looked at him anxiously. He was used to seeing the khaki-clad figures come off the train, some met by a tumultuous crowd, others, who had sent no word of their coming, stepping off quietly like this one. But there was a certain distinction of bearing and features in this soldier that caught his attention and made him wonder a little more interestedly who he was. A black-and-yellow streak shot past the station agent. Dog Monday stiff? Dog Monday rheumatic? Dog Monday old? Never believe it. Dog Monday was a young pup, gone clean mad with rejuvenating joy. He flung himself against the tall soldier, with a bark that choked in his throat from sheer rapture. He flung himself on the ground and writhed in a frenzy of welcome. He tried to climb the soldier’s khaki legs and slipped down and groveled in an ecstasy that seemed as if it must tear his little body in pieces. He licked his boots and when the lieutenant had, with laughter on his lips and tears in his eyes, succeeded in gathering the little creature up in his arms Dog Monday laid his head on the khaki shoulder and licked the sunburned neck, making queer sounds between barks and sobs. The station agent had heard the story of Dog Monday. He knew now who the returned soldier was. Dog Monday’s long vigil was ended. Jem Blythe had come home.

It got to the point where he didn’t even look up at the sky any more as he blundered back and forth. The human mind had evolved for just one universe, he thought. How much of this crap was he supposed to take? He felt exhausted, resentful, bewildered. “Wait.” He paused. He had loped out of the portal onto another stretch of scuffed, anonymous regolith. She was lying in his arms, her weight barely registering. He looked down into her face, and pushed up her gold sun visor. “Emma?” She licked her lips. “Look. Up there.” No Galaxy visible, but a starry sky. The stars looked, well, normal. But he’d learned that meant little. “So what?” Emma was lifting her arm, pointing. He saw three stars, dull white points, in a row. And there was a rough rectangle of stars around them—one of them a distinctive red—and what looked like a Galaxy disc, or maybe just a nebula, beneath … “Holy shit,” he said. She whispered, “There must be lots of universes like ours. But, surely to God, there is only one Orion.” And then light, dazzling, unbearably brilliant, came stabbing over the close horizon. It was a sunrise. He could actually feel its heat through the layers of his suit. He looked down at the ground at his feet. The rising light cast strong shadows, sharply illuminating the miniature crevices and craters there. And here was a “crater” that was elongated, and neatly ribbed. It was a footprint. He stepped forward, lifted his foot, and set it down in the print. It fit neatly. When he lifted his foot away the cleats of his boot hadn’t so much as disturbed a regolith grain. It was his own footprint. Good grief. After hundreds of universes of silence and remoteness and darkness, universes of dim light and shadows, he was right back where he started.

Which reminds me that you’ve never said how you dueled at Needles against the city’s finest fighter and won.” It would be a mistake to tell him. It would defy the simplest rule of warfare: to hide one’s strengths and weaknesses for as long as possible. Yet Kestrel told Arin the story of how she had beaten Irex. Arin covered his face with one floured hand and peeked at her between his fingers. “You are terrifying. Gods help me if I cross you, Kestrel.” “You already have,” she pointed out. “But am I your enemy?” Arin crossed the space between them. Softly, he repeated, “Am I?” She didn’t answer. She concentrated on the feel of the table’s edge pressing into the small of her back. The table was simple and real, joined wood and nails and right corners. No wobble. No give. “You’re not mine,” Arin said. And kissed her. Kestrel’s lips parted. This was real, yet not simple at all. He smelled of woodsmoke and sugar. Sweet beneath the burn. He tasted like the honey he’d licked off his fingers minutes before. Her heartbeat skidded, and it was she who leaned greedily into the kiss, she who slid one knee between his legs. Then his breath went ragged and the kiss grew dark and deep. He lifted her up onto the table so that her face was level with his, and as they kissed it seemed that words were hiding in the air around them, that they were invisible creatures that feathered against her and Arin, then nudged, and buzzed, and tugged. Speak, they said. Speak, the kiss answered. Love was on the tip of Kestrel’s tongue. But she couldn’t say that. How could she ever say that, after everything between them, after fifty keystones paid into the auctioneer's hand, after hours of Kestrel secretly wondering what it would sound like if Arin sang while she played, after wrists bound together and the crack of her knee under a boot and Arin confessing in the carriage on Firstwinter night. It had felt like a confession. But it wasn’t. He had said nothing of the plot. Even if he had, it still would have been too late, with everything to his advantage. Kestrel remembered again her promise to Jess. If she didn’t leave this house now, she would betray herself. She would give herself to someone whose Firstwinter kiss had led her to believe she was all that he wanted, when he had hoped to flip the world so that he was at its top and she was at its bottom. Kestrel pulled away. Arin was apologizing. He was asking what he had done wrong. His face was flushed, mouth swollen. He was saying something about how maybe it was too soon, but that they could have a life here. Together. “My soul is yours,” he said. “You know that it is.” She lifted a hand, as much to block his face from her sight as to stop those words. She walked out of the kitchen. It took all of her pride not to run.

With spring came heavy rain. It was in the muck and mud of six days of downpour while milking Li’l Belle that I heard him approach. I waited and listened to the rain hitting the tin roof of the lean-to and the sound of his boots. With each step his boots made an air-sucking sound as he pulled them free of the mud. I counted the sound of his footsteps one by one ’til I knew he was a few yards away. Only then did I rise from the milking stool and turn to him. He stood there outside smiling and pulled one boot free of the mud, his arms outstretched, balancing himself like a tightrope walker. “Hey, Larraine. Look what you made me do. Made me ruin my best shirt and good pair of boots trying to sneak up on you. I just want to ask you some questions. You know what I’m talking about, girl? That little queer, Johnny Redboots?” He took off his shirt, held it up, attempted to wring the rainwater from it then laughed and threw it in the mud near the lean-to. I stood quiet with one hand on the rope strap of the shotgun and the other hand resting on Li’l Belle’s back. Li’l Belle moved from side to side, restless and wanting free of the lean-to.

People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"---Eric Hoffer.

So you think this treasure is here in one of Bissel’s hiding places. And all this time you’ve been trying to find it. Your offer of friendship—your regret for having abandoned me—that was all a sham! For the sake of some wild-goose chase.” “It wasn’t all a sham.” Christopher gave her a scornful, vaguely pitying glance. “My interest in renewing our relationship was genuine, until I realized you had taken up with a Gypsy. I don’t accept soiled goods.” Infuriated, Amelia started for him with her fingers curled into claws. “You aren’t fit to lick his boots!” she cried, struggling as Cam hauled her backward. “Don’t,” Cam muttered, his hands like iron clamps on her body. “It’s not worth it. Calm yourself.

It got to the point where he didn’t even look up at the sky any more as he blundered back and forth. The human mind had evolved for just one universe, he thought. How much of this crap was he supposed to take? He felt exhausted, resentful, bewildered. “Wait.” He paused. He had loped out of the portal onto another stretch of scuffed, anonymous regolith. She was lying in his arms, her weight barely registering. He looked down into her face, and pushed up her gold sun visor. “Emma?” She licked her lips. “Look. Up there.” No Galaxy visible, but a starry sky. The stars looked, well, normal. But he’d learned that meant little. “So what?” Emma was lifting her arm, pointing. He saw three stars, dull white points, in a row. And there was a rough rectangle of stars around them—one of them a distinctive red—and what looked like a Galaxy disc, or maybe just a nebula, beneath … “Holy shit,” he said. She whispered, “There must be lots of universes like ours. But, surely to God, there is only one Orion.” And then light, dazzling, unbearably brilliant, came stabbing over the close horizon. It was a sunrise. He could actually feel its heat through the layers of his suit. He looked down at the ground at his feet. The rising light cast strong shadows, sharply illuminating the miniature crevices and craters there. And here was a “crater” that was elongated, and neatly ribbed. It was a footprint. He stepped forward, lifted his foot, and set it down in the print. It fit neatly. When he lifted his foot away the cleats of his boot hadn’t so much as disturbed a regolith grain. It was his own footprint. Good grief. After hundreds of universes of silence and remoteness and darkness, universes of dim light and shadows, he was right back where he started.

One day a greasy landowner will drag the peasants before the Zembro Court for trespass, and the next, if it's a holiday, he will give them a bucket of vodka, and they drink and shout Hooray! and lick his boots in their drunkenness. A change to good eating and idleness always fills a Russian with the most preposterous self-conceit.

Farli. I look over at her. She’s wearing Niri’s jumper again today, her own furry boots covering her feet. Her hair is loose around her shoulders, and her face is wreathed in smiles as her ugly, smelly pet licks her face happily. She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,

He knew there was no one to restrain him now, and he knew that he was beaten. But an animal will always fight for its life to the bitter end; no animal ever licks the boots of his executioner.

I stare at the woman in question and wonder what happened to the concept of sisterhood. If women stopped doing this kind of thing to other women, there would be a lot less pain in this world. Men, I'll admit, are probably a lost cause, but we could stop cheating on other women with their husbands, boyfriends, fiancés. Jo props herself up on her elbows and gives me a defiant look which, frankly, I'd like to wipe off her face---preferably with a cricket bat. "Who'd have thought that I'd be seeing so much of you," I say. "And so soon." Marcus's breakfast dish looks rather rattled. "I can explain," Marcus says as he tries to dismount from the table with some dignity. Difficult to pull off. "I'm all ears." "This was the last time," he says earnestly. There are raspberries crushed on his knees. "The last time ever. I was having one last fling before settling down. As soon as you moved in, I was going to be completely and utterly faithful." Jo doesn't look as if she knows about this particular part of the arrangement and she glares darkly at my fiancé. Perhaps she'll be sneaking into his flat and filling his clothes and his shoes with leftovers and leaving stinking prawns in his soft furnishings. Because, for sure, I won't be troubling myself to do it again. "You called to tell me you love me while she was here?" Jo clearly doesn't know about that bit either. Marcus chews his lip. I stare at Marcus as if I'm seeing him for the first time. He looks ridiculous---yogurt on his knob, smears of berry juice all over his chest and legs, breakfast cereal in his hair. I burst out laughing. Marcus laughs too---nervously. "Oh, Marcus," I say, clutching at my sides. "I can't believe you've done this again." I double over and belly laugh right the way up from my boots. "I love you," he says bleakly, and then he continues to laugh along with me, although it sounds forced. When I finally wrest control of my voice once more, I say softly, "I'm not laughing with you, Marcus. I'm laughing at you." Slipping my engagement ring from my finger, I put it delicately into the bowl of yogurt that's lying by Jo's feet. Then, picking it up, I tip the bowl upside down on Marcus's head. Yogurt drips slowly down his face. He licks it from his lips. Perhaps he can get Jo to do it for him when I'm gone. "This really is the very last time you do this to me, Marcus.

Getting It Right" Your ankles make me want to party, want to sit and beg and roll over under a pair of riding boots with your ankles hidden inside, sweating beneath the black tooled leather; they make me wish it was my birthday so I could blow out their candles, have them hung over my shoulders like two bags full of money. Your ankles are two monster-truck engines but smaller and lighter and sexier than a saucer with warm milk licking the outside edge; they make me want to sing, make me want to take them home and feed them pasta, I want to punish them for being bad and then hold them all night long and say I’m sorry, sugar, darling, it will never happen again, not in a million years. Your thighs make me quiet. Make me want to be hurled into the air like a cannonball and pulled down again like someone being pulled into a van. Your thighs are two boats burned out of redwood trees. I want to go sailing. Your thighs, the long breath of them under the blue denim of your high-end jeans, could starve me to death, could make me cry and cry. Your ass is a shopping mall at Christmas, a holy place, a hill I fell in love with once when I was falling in love with hills. Your ass is a string quartet, the northern lights tucked tightly into bed between a high-count-of-cotton sheets. Your back is the back of a river full of fish; I have my tackle and tackle box. You only have to say the word. Your back, a letter I have been writing for fifteen years, a smooth stone, a moan someone makes when his hair is pulled, your back like a warm tongue at rest, a tongue with a tab of acid on top; your spine is an alphabet, a ladder of celestial proportions. I am navigating the North and South of it. Your armpits are beehives, they make me want to spin wool, want to pour a glass of whiskey, your armpits dripping their honey, their heat, their inexhaustible love-making dark. I am bright yellow for them. I am always thinking about them, resting at your side or high in the air when I’m pulling off your shirt. Your arms of blue and ice with the blood running to make them believe in God. Your shoulders make me want to raise an arm and burn down the Capitol. They sing to each other underneath your turquoise slope-neck blouse. Each is a separate bowl of rice steaming and covered in soy sauce. Your neck is a skyscraper of erotic adult videos, a swan and a ballet and a throaty elevator made of light. Your neck is a scrim of wet silk that guides the dead into the hours of Heaven. It makes me want to die, your mouth, which is the mouth of everything worth saying. It’s abalone and coral reef. Your mouth, which opens like the legs of astronauts who disconnect their safety lines and ride their stars into the billion and one voting districts of the Milky Way. Darling, you’re my President; I want to get this right! Matthew Dickman, The New Yorker: Poems | August 29, 2011 Issue

He is not fit to lick Daphne’s boots.” Simon’s head filled with more erotic images, this time of himself licking her toes. He decided not to comment.

Knew you'd come around," he mumbles into my mouth as I work my hand into his pants and grip his shaft until it's straining to be freed. Putting enough space between us for Riley to see me lick my lips seductively, he allows me to guide him towards the four-poster bed in the centre of the room. Before he sits, I wiggle his trousers down until I'm crouching before his dick. It's a pretty nice dick actually, girthy with a network of ribbed veins running along the length of it. Oh well. Whipping the specialised hunting pocket knife out of my boot, I grab the end of Riley's dick firmly and make a clean slice all the way through the base before his eyes are able to focus. The scream that leaves him is so high-pitched, it could have been mine and I panic at the noise. Someone is surely going to hear him so I shoot up, fumbling with his severed dick before stuffing it into his mouth. He sputters and gags on himself, which gives me a strange sense of satisfaction, until he passes out and flops onto the bed. Well, that stopped the noise issue but now I'm looking at a gaping, bleeding hole where Riley's dick should be and a body I can't just leave here.

Tribal Chairman Yazzie look horrified. “Are you crazy? What do you think you’re doing, Sheriff?” “Nope, not crazy, just getting rid of some potential problems,” “You can’t do that! Do you know what’ll happen when the federal government sends more federal agents out here to look for these agents? They’ll tear our towns apart looking for them. I can’t have that,” “What do you care more about, Chairman, money from the government or helping out people who are trying to remain free?” “I…. but…. but you can’t do this!” stammered Yazzie. “I am doing this, because it’s more important to protect whatever freedoms our fellow Americans have left than to lick the boot heel of our potential oppressors. Have you not learned from Native history?” “Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. I’ll stay out of your way for now, but if the federal government demands someone’s head, they’ll be directed to you. Got it?” “I hear you.” Tribal Chairman Yazzie walked out of the station and drove away.

It happened as it always did, swallowing her swiftly and completely. Intense. Painful. Quick, vivid colors spun beneath her eyelids. Sounds were sharp inside her skull. Fire shot up through her bones. She may have been screaming and she wouldn’t have known. There was smoke in her nose, thick and black, and she couldn’t breathe. It stung her eyes and licked at her skin. Wood and metal crashed down as skin blistered and popped and she knew this wasn’t her, knew it was someone else, someone with a bigger body, bigger boots and darker jeans, and big ol’ hands with scars on the fingers. Men’s hands. Nails blunt and dirty with oil and grease and burning and- The cars were on fire. Paper burned and curled and rags ignited, the cement floor pockmarked by flash fires. Meat withered in her nose and she realized it was her. Him. Dancing embers blackened and burned bone. He screamed and she hoped she was not. He writhed and she really hoped she was not. He was dying, dead, and-

You promise food and horses and nonresistance and when they invade, you do or don’t lick their boots according to the thickness of your walls and the kind of conscience you have.

Justus emerged from the thick shadows and I could almost see the heat licking off him. This was a man built for battle, whose strong arms could wield swords, whose hands could expunge life from an enemy’s throat. He was bigger than life as he strode forward, carrying an air of authority that made the trees quake. Those glittering cobalt eyes promised pain and punishment. Justus threw back his broad shoulders as if he were leading an army. The teeth of his boots bit into the earth as he neared the driveway.

Princess?” He nods, his gaze lingering on my eyes, then my lips. He licks his and draws his lip ring into his mouth to play with it with his tongue. “Princess,” he says slowly. “You couldn’t be further from the truth,” I say. He has me pegged all wrong. “I doubt it.” He looks at me for a minute too long. My stomach flips. Suddenly, I hear the crash of boots stomping through the woods. I look up and see my dad walking toward us, a scowl on his face, and he has the hatchet in his hand. Pete immediately crosses his hands in front of his lap and steps away from me. “Go help with dinner,” Dad snaps at me. He glares at Pete. “Yes, sir,” I say. I take the sticks Pete has in his arms and smile at him. “See you later,” I whisper. “Don’t go,” he whispers back. “Who’s going to protect my nuts?” “Princesses don’t do that.” I grin at him and walk away.

Wiping his mouth and tossing the napkin on the table, Wake leaned on his elbow and studied Kabe, long and hard. Long and hard enough that Kabe started to stare back. Finally, Wake blurted out, "So have you found God?" I thought Kabe was going to swallow his straw. Kabe licked his lips. "Joe's been talking to me about religion." I had no idea what was about to come out of his mouth. "Out alone, having some real deep, personal conversations. I think Joe has figured out how to get right inside me and know what I need." "We all need to hear it." "Touched me real far inside," My chest tightened up. I twisted my ankle and dropped my boot heel onto the arch of his foot. He yanked it back and leaned over the table a little. "All burning with it." My chair scraped the floor as I stood. "Know what, we need to be heading out.

Over a thousand years ago the Christians came, with their Jewish god and their arrogant priests, their masochist saints and boot-licking apostles. They promised and threatened, with a child’s vision of heaven and hell. Seduced us with the promise of a god’s love for mere men. Over centuries, the people, weak and stupid, forgot their old beliefs and knelt before the cross. Old names and old ways were put aside. How much easier to bless yourself, and pray to heaven, than to tremble with fear before the Black God—Czernobog!

So, what do they pay you for...exactly?" Slapped around. Tied up. Beaten. Given orders, made to do things." "What kind of things?" "You know." No, I can't even begin to imagine." "Lick my boots, crawl on floor, eat like dog." "Nothing useful, then, like hoovering?

it is not impossible that I could become Governor of this state. Or even President. I would not mind having a horde of sycophants licking my boots. Actually, that is quite an attractive notion. Thank you, Jacky, I had not thought of that.” Amy

I don’t think I’m what you need, boy. I’d let you lick my boots and maybe even my pussy if you’re lucky, but I wouldn’t do anything to help you with that sizable package trying to burst through your trousers right now.

The Scriptures say that there is no greater love than to lay down your life for your friends. This is what Calvin Bouknight did in that fire-filled jungle. He sheltered the wounded he was treating with his own body, his back to the enemy guns, completely vulnerable. Up on the line canteens had run dry. Rudyard Kipling, in his poem “Gunga Din,” writes: But if it comes to slaughter You will do your work on water, An’ you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ’im that’s got it.

Dante’s lips twisted. “Tristan Caine.” Morana could hear the same awe she felt in Dante’s voice, the fact that a fourteen-year-old boy had told that boss of an entire mob that he wouldn’t yield… “I’ve seen men, grown men, lick my father’s boot to remain in his favor, Morana. By the time I was eighteen, I thought there was not a single soul on this earth who could stand up to him. And then Tristan happened.

W. E. B. Du Bois was right when he said it was preferable to stand tall in a mud puddle than lick boots in the parlor.

They think boot polish gives you magical powers and the more you lick the closer you come to god.

Craig licks his lips like he’d dieì> to suck one of Scorpio Wyvern’s combat-booted toes. I wish Scorpio would turn and give the guy the attention he’s panting for, but Scorpio’s too busy watching me with an alpha intensity that makes me want to fold myself into origami.

I am constantly surprised and disturbed at how frequently people worship the police. I browsed the NYPD’s Facebook page just to get a glimpse of the insanity, and there are hundreds if not thousands of comments with people giving thanks and licking the boot.

She tried the front door and it was unlocked, which actually surprised her. “Not open,” Mac’s deep, rumbly voice called out from the back about a second before he stepped out from his workshop. His eyes widened when he saw her. And he stood there looking like deer in headlights. Good. “Adeline,” he began. “A text? Seriously? You blow me off with a freaking text,” she snapped out, her boots stomping forward of their own volition. That burning fire that had spent days kindling was licking up her spine now as she worked up a good head of anger. He closed his eyes briefly as he moved toward her. “Look, it’s not what you think.” “Really? It’s not what I think? You didn’t send me a dismissive, crappy text about an hour before our date? After spending all that time together and becoming…friends.” Or she’d thought they had. Obviously she was wrong. “So you didn’t blow me off after all that? And then ignore me right in front of people on Main Street?” It was quite literally possible there was actual steam coming out of her ears right now. Guilt flickered across his expression for a moment but then his face went carefully neutral. “Look, I didn’t know how else to handle it. I just don’t think we should see each other. I shouldn’t have ignored you and I should have called, but—” She’d took another step forward, hands on hips, when the front door behind her swung open with a bang. She jumped and turned to find some guy stalking in. He had on heavy-looking boots, jeans, a short-sleeved T-shirt, and there was a chain hanging from his back pocket attached to his belt. And he had some ugly-looking tattoos on his arms. Prison tats.

Petipa responds with vigor equal to Ralph's robust song and flamboyant gestures. Once the energy level is raised, Ralph feels that his postures become imbued with an unconscious spiritual significance which Petipa affirms by countering with her own complementary moves. A hopping arabesque from Ralph may provoke a series of elegant stalking leaps from Petipa, while a fluttering of fingers may be countered with tiny aerial flurries. Poignant moments of unconcerned fur licking punctuate the patterns of the dance. Dancing with a tail of his own attached, Fred becomes a psychic extension of the cat. 'I share its grace, power, and oneness with the universe. I relate to Fluff and the whole spectrum of feline physicality on a profound level--I even regard birds differently.' Cat dancing is likely a complex vocabulary of gestures that we have yet to recognize and fully understand. Helen, along with others who share her covenant, has come to feel that Boot's studied poses communicate his inner thoughts and embody his souls unexpressed desires. But you have to be careful; sometimes the energy is so powerful I worry about overstimulating my aura. At those levels, an unstable etheric oscillation could collapse into an astral vortex and suck my spiritual reserves into a sate of negative sub-matter.

Jacks reclined in a throne of ice as he glared down at a fox that looked more corporeal than ghost—all fluffy white fir, save for a circle of tawny surrounding on of its coal-dark eyes. He appeared horrified by the animal, as if its adorableness might somehow soften some of his nasty edges. Evangeline wished it would as she stood back a little to watch, enjoying that, for once, Jacks was the one in the uncomfortable position. He flinched when the creature nuzzled his scuffed boots. She laughed, finally drawing his attention. “I think it likes you.” “I don’t know why.” Jacks scowled down at the beast. It responded by affectionately licking the buckle at hos angle. Evangeline continued to smile. “You should name it.” “If I do that, it will think it’s a pet.” Jacks words dripped with disgust, which only further convinced Evangeline this fox might be the best thing that had ever happened to this Fate. “How about I name her for you? What do you think of Princess of the Fluffikins?” “Don’t ever say that again.

Solanice stiffened. “Even your family name can only protect so much.” “True,” Bloodheart said. “They might grow mad with me and cast me out to find a Lord’s boots to lick. If they do, I know who I can ask for recommendations.” Face growing hot, Solanice’s nostrils flared. “I shall not forget this slight.” “I will,” Bloodheart shrugged. “After all, you’ve hurt a Dame I call a friend. I had been about to forgive that, but then you taunted her where I could hear you. Just say the word and we can have a duel. I know you won’t accept it, though... You’ve never been any good with a blade.

One spring day, when the daffodils were blowing on the Ingleside lawn, and the banks of the brook in Rainbow Valley were sweet with white and purple violets, the little, lazy afternoon accommodation train pulled into the Glen station. It was very seldom that passengers for the Glen came by that train, so nobody was there to meet it except the new station agent and a small black and yellow dog, who for four and a half long years had met every train that had steamed into Glen St. Mary. Thousands of trains had Dog Monday met and never had the boy he waited and watched for returned. Yet still Dog Monday watched on with eyes that never quite lost hope. Perhaps his dog-heart failed him at times; he was growing old and rheumatic; when he walked back to his kennel after each train had gone his gait was very sober now—he never trotted but went slowly with a drooping head and a depressed tail that had quite lost its old saucy uplift. One passenger stepped off the train—a tall fellow in a faded lieutenant’s uniform, who walked with a barely perceptible limp. He had a bronzed face and there were some grey hairs in the ruddy curls that clustered around his forehead. The new station agent looked at him anxiously. He was used to seeing the khaki-clad figures come off the train, some met by a tumultuous crowd, others, who had sent no word of their coming, stepping off quietly like this one. But there was a certain distinction of bearing and features in this soldier that caught his attention and made him wonder a little more interestedly who he was. A black and yellow streak shot past the station agent. Dog Monday stiff? Dog Monday rheumatic? Dog Monday old? Never believe it. Dog Monday was a young pup, gone clean mad with rejuvenating joy. He flung himself against the tall soldier, with a bark that choked in his throat from sheer rapture. He flung himself on the ground and writhed in a frenzy of welcome. He tried to climb the soldier’s khaki legs and slipped down and grovelled in an ecstasy that seemed as if it must tear his little body in pieces. He licked his boots and when the lieutenant had, with laughter on his lips and tears in his eyes, succeeded in gathering the little creature up in his arms Dog Monday laid his head on the khaki shoulder and licked the sunburned neck, making queer sounds between barks and sobs. The station agent had heard the story of Dog Monday. He knew now who the returned soldier was. Dog Monday’s long vigil was ended. Jem Blythe had come home.

He was gorgeous but in a devilish way." "Gorgeous but devilish?" He heaved a sigh. "Can you be more descriptive? Hair and eye color. Weight. Height. Clothes." "Leather jacket. Very worn. Boots. Also worn. His hair was tousled like he'd just got out of bed. It looked good on him. Sexy." I licked my lips, imagining Oliver in place of Garcia in my tropical island fantasy. "He was about the same height and build as you, but leaner. I don't think he spends as much time in the gym as you probably do..." I trailed off when Riswan shook his head. "Or not. It's nothing to do with me how much time you spend in the gym. Or don't. Or whether you even like gyms. Maybe you were born with biceps the size of watermelons---

The era is over when men would trample on us and still have us licking their boots.

I want to protest against the mean and cowardly attitude adopted by the British press towards the recent rising in Warsaw. ... One was left with the general impression that the Poles deserved to have their bottoms smacked for doing what all the Allied wirelesses had been urging them to do for years past,. ... First of all, a message to English left-wing journalists and intellectuals generally: 'Do remember that dishonesty and cowardice always have to be paid for. Don't imagine that for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking propagandist of the Soviet régime, or any other régime, and then suddenly return to mental decency. Once a whore, always a whore. 1 Sept 1944

If I think you’re popular, I’m happy to lick your boot, regardless of your gender or sexual-orientation.

A kiss,” he said. “Kiss!” The idea of it bounced around in her brain and grabbed on to parts of her she didn’t want to acknowledge. He shoveled the bite into his mouth, leaving a pitiable amount in the bowl. One bite to be exact. Her bite. He licked his lips and she stifled a whimper. “Just let me have it.” She tried giving him her best Puss in Boots expression. “I’m the one fearing for my life, here.” He remained unfazed. “Sorry, Cupcake. Kiss for the rest.” He tipped the bowl slightly. “That’s the deal.

They may have been the same rank, but he was still technically her senior — in both age and experience — and sometimes he liked to flex. Make himself look like he gave a damn. She leaned forward, hit the keyboard shortcut to minimise the windows, and got up. ‘Nothing,’ she said, pulling her jacket on. ‘That’s helpful.’ She ignored the comment, downed half her now-tepid coffee and bit lightly into her bagel, holding it between straight white teeth as she powered off her monitor and tucked her chair in.  ‘I don’t know why you bother,’ Roper said, flicking a hand at the now-black screen. ‘Not while all this is burning.’ He gestured around the room at the other desks and detectives working away. Dozens of screens were lit, the photocopier was buzzing, the lights were humming, and phones and devices were charging on every surface.  She shrugged. ‘If you leave a monitor on standby overnight it wastes enough energy to—’ ‘Yeah, yeah,’ he said, dismissing her with his hand. ‘And the polar ice caps are melting and penguins are getting sunburn. Come on, we’ve got a murder to solve.’ He walked forward, draining what was left in his coffee cup, and put it down on a random desk — much to the disgust of the guy sitting behind it. Roper swaggered towards the lifts, finally shrugging off the hangover, his caffeine quota for the next hour filled. Once his nicotine level had been topped off, he might actually be capable of some decent police work. Jamie fell in behind him, trying to get her mind off the other missing kids and back on Grace Melver. Whatever the hell was going on, Jamie had a feeling that Grace Melver knew something about it. Whether she realised or not.  Chapter 7 She walked with Roper without thinking about it.  Jamie had dropped him back at the crime scene after the shelter so he could pick his car up. The medical examiner was there and the scene of the crime officers, or SOCOs, were crawling all over in their plastic-covered boots, snapping photos and putting things in evidence bags.  They hadn’t stuck around.  It was best to leave the SOCOs do their jobs, and anyway Jamie and Roper had paperwork that needed to be done.  Her fingers typed on autopilot now. She’d had her prelim licked before she’d finished her first cup of coffee. Roper headed for his Volvo without asking and got into the driver’s seat.  Jamie pulled the door open and got in, closing the door only when he’d cranked the ignition so she could crack the window. The seats were covered

I had dropped more or less by chance into the only community of any size in Western Europe where political consciousness and disbelief in capitalism were more normal than their opposites. Up here in Aragon one was among tens of thousands of people, mainly though not entirely of working-class origin, all living at the same level and mingling on terms of equality. In theory it was perfect equality, and even in practice it was not far from it. There is a sense in which it would be true to say that one was experiencing a foretaste of Socialism, by which I mean that the prevailing mental atmosphere was that of Socialism. Many of the normal motives of civilized life — snobbishness, money-grubbing, fear of the boss, etc. — had simply ceased to exist. The ordinary class-division of society had disappeared to an extent that is almost unthinkable in the money — tainted air of England; there was no one there except the peasants and ourselves, and no one owned anyone else as his master. Of course such a state of affairs could not last. It was simply a temporary and local phase in an enormous game that is being played over the whole surface of the earth. But it lasted long enough to have its effect upon anyone who experienced it. However much one cursed at the time, one realized afterwards that one had been in contact with something strange and valuable. One had been in a community where hope was more normal than apathy or cynicism, where the word ‘comrade’ stood for comradeship and not, as in most countries, for humbug. One had breathed the air of equality. I am well aware that it is now the fashion to deny that Socialism has anything to do with equality. In every country in the world a huge tribe of party-hacks and sleek little professors are busy ‘proving’ that Socialism means no more than a planned state-capitalism with the grab-motive left intact. But fortunately there also exists a vision of Socialism quite different from this. The thing that attracts ordinary men to Socialism and makes them willing to risk their skins for it, the ‘mystique’ of Socialism, is the idea of equality; to the vast majority of people Socialism means a classless society, or it means nothing at all. And it was here that those few months in the militia were valuable to me. For the Spanish militias, while they lasted, were a sort of microcosm of a classless society. In that community where no one was on the make, where there was a shortage of everything but no privilege and no boot-licking, one got, perhaps, a crude forecast of what the opening stages of Socialism might be like. And, after all, instead of disillusioning me it deeply attracted me. The effect was to make my desire to see Socialism established much more actual than it had been before. Partly, perhaps, this was due to the good luck of being among Spaniards, who, with their innate decency and their ever-present Anarchist tinge, would make even the opening stages of Socialism tolerable if they had the chance.

Listen, my son", said Chumra, "I have not come here to plead my defense. But all the same, I will tell you this: the Polish peasant is on my side, not on yours. What have you done for him? Nothing. The value of your prowess to him is that he has been shot, his harvest has been confiscated, his village burned to the ground. What corn and potatoes he has managed to keep, he owes not to you, but to me. Myself, I don't blow up bridges: I simply see to it that my peasants do not die of hunger. I stand between them and the Germans: I prevent them from being starved or driven like lousy cattle to the West. The Polish state will cease to exist? So what? That's better than a Polish state peopled with corpses where every inhabitant looks like a survivor. It's very nice, a hopeless struggle — but the destiny of a race is to survive, and not to die beautifully..." He tapped his foot. "If you were to show me ten Polish children, and if I could save them by licking the boots of ten German soldiers, I should say: 'Your servant'...

So tell me, Bull, do the Owl’s boots taste good? You certainly spend a lot of time licking them.

Fuck my life, I want her.” The way her lips look puffy and pouty. Like she’s not getting her way after just finishing sucking on a cherry popsicle. The way I want to see how she’d take me. If she whines or moans when she feels good. The way it would feel to tuck my cock between her tits and then paint them when I’m ready. Make her lick me clean. Fuck it. I can hate myself later. I unbuckle my belt, flip open the button of my jeans, and let them drop. Once I kick off my boots, I step out of my pants. Then I’m spitting on my hand and gripping my cock. She’s not dainty or fragile.