Pillow Crying Quotes

In bed that night I invented a special drain that would be underneath every pillow in New York, and would connect to the reservoir. Whenever people cried themselves to sleep, the tears would all go to the same place, and in the morning the weatherman could report if the water level of the Reservoir of Tears had gone up or down, and you could know if New York is in heavy boots.

This is for girls who have the tendency to stay up at night listening to music that reminds them of their current situation. Who hide their fears, hurt, pain and tears under the smiles, laughs and giggles on a daily basis. The girls who wear their heart on their sleeve. The girls who pray that things will work out just once and they'll be satisfied. The girls who sceam and cry to their pillows because everyone else fails to listen. The girls who have so many secrets but wont tell a soul. The girls who have mistakes and regrets as a daily moral. The girls that never win. The girls that stay up all night thinking about that one boy and hoping that he'll notice her one day. The girls who take life as it comes, to the girls who are hoping that it'll get better somewhere down the road. For the girls who love with all their heart although it always gets broken. To girls who think it's over. To real girls, to all girls: You're beautiful.

I've always wanted not to give a fuck. While crying helplessly into my pillow for no good reason, I would often fantasize that maybe someday I could be one of those stoic badasses whose emotions are mostly comprised of rock music and not being afraid of things.

Put my head under my pillow, and let the quiet put things where they are supposed to be.

Don't be too hasty," she warned. "Conserve your strength. If you're too eager to fight the undead, you may find yourselves joining them. Then you'd never see us again, and we'd be very sad." "Yes," said Christian. "I'd cry into my pillow every night." I resisted the urge to kick him. "Well, I couldn't visit if I was Strigoi, yeah, but hopefully I'd just die a normal death. Then I could come see you as a ghost.

Then I went to bed and cried into my pillow. I wasn't sad, not at all. It was just so beautiful to have an intense feeling and the right words at the same time. What are we but our stories?

Get out!" He dodges the pillow I throw at him. "Go away! There's nothing left for you here!" I start to shake, furious with him. "She's not coming back! She's never ever coming back here again!" I grab another pillow and get to my feet to improve my aim. Out of nowhere, the tears begin to pour down my cheeks. "She's dead." I clutch my middle to dull the pain. Sink down on my heels, rocking the pillow, crying. "She's dead, you stupid cat. She's dead.

Before I leave the bathroom, I pinch my cheeks hard to bring blood to the surface of my skin. It’s stupid, but I don’t want to look weak and exhausted in front of everyone. When I walk back into Tobias’s room, Uriah is sprawled across the bed facedown; Christina is holding the blue sculpture above Tobias’s desk, examining it; and Lynn is poised above Uriah with a pillow, a wicked grin creeping across her face. Lynn smacks Uriah hard in the back of the head, Christina says, “Hey Tris!” and Uriah cries, “Ow! How on earth do you make a pillow hurt, Lynn?” “My exceptional strength,” she says. “Did you get smacked, Tris? One of your cheeks is bright red.” I must not have pinched the other one hard enough. “No, it’s just … my morning glow.

Crowns of flowers on our heads, shooting bows and arrows at the sky. Eating candied violets and falling asleep with our heads pillowed on logs. We were children. Children can laugh all day and still cry themselves to sleep at night.

So painting your nails tonight, desperately alone?" Lucky guess on his part? "Yes. Masturbating and crying into your pillow, Doctor Joshua?" He looks at the top button of my shirt. "Yes. And don't call me that.

I understand why people take flight from bridges, I understand why a girl holds a blade to her wrist, I understand why a grown man cries counting all his lists. What I wish for the world to understand is that in these fragile moments, patience and love are needed most.

Lynn smacks Uriah hard in the back of the head, Christina says, “Hey Tris!” and Uriah cries, “Ow! How on earth do you make a pillow hurt, Lynn?” “My exceptional strength,” she says.

How was it that he haunted her imagination so persistently? What could it be? Why did she care for what he thought, in spite of all her pride in spite of herself? She believed that she could have borne the sense of Almighty displeasure, because He knew all, and could read her penitence, and hear her cries for help in time to come. But Mr.Thornton-why did she tremble, and hide her face in the pillow? What strong feeling had overtaking her at last?

And now I may dismiss my heroine to the sleepless couch, which is the true heroine's portion - to a pillow strewed with thorns and wet with tears. And lucky may she think herself, if she get another good night's rest in the course of the next three months.

Defeat I can endure with cheerfulness, my lady. But betrayal is like taking the wind from my sails, or the earth from beneath my feet. It chills my spirits like a rainy day, and all I can do is draw the curtains and cry into my pillow.

Your mother says she will be brave and keep a stiff upper lip,” said Father. “Americans are heartless. I will cry into my pillow every night.

God, she had forced a married man, a father, to kiss her. Now people thought that he was having an affair. His wife was probably crying into her pillow. His kids would grow up with horrible daddy issues and become serial killers.

Is this the part where I get on my knees and beg?” “I’m afraid that won’t cut it.” “How about if I send flowers and a box of chocolates?” “Unoriginal. Try harder.” “If I cry into my pillow?” “Only if I get to witness it personally.” “So I have a shot. Fantastic.

Don't cry because it's over; smile because it happened. And if you can't do that, force a smile on your face and sob into your pillow later.

Her death would leave me scattered, talking to chairs and pillows. Don't let us die, I want to cry out to that fifth-century sky ablaze with mystery and spiral light. Let us both live forever, in sickness and health, feebleminded, doddering, toothless, liver-spotted, dim-sighted, hallucinating. Who decides these things? What is out there? Who are you?

I wanted you in fourth grade, when you launched me off that water pillow and broke two of my ribs,” he said, his eyes narrowed on me behind his glasses like he could still see us at the lake. “I wanted you in sixth grade, when I drove over your foot with my dad’s ATV. I wanted you when Mr. Pockets got hit by a car and you cried as hard as I did, I wanted you when you kissed the shit out of me in the shed, and now, God help me, I want you when you shattered my fucking heart to keep me from ruining my own future.

The baby closed its mouth, staring at him with hope and small hiccups. “Jesus,” he said. He lay down on the bed, pulling the pillow under his head, and drew the whole bundle of coat, shawl and infant up against his shirt. A tiny hand closed tight on the lace. One sob erupted, and then changed midbreath to a soft sigh. Women, he thought sardonically, sinking in the bedclothes, with sleep revolving and closing in his head. He moved one finger, feeling a cheek as soft as down. What’s your name? Ask the girl. Remember that… Maddy… It was wrong. I must leave thee now. Don’t cry. Don’t cry, little girl… I’m so tired. I never deserved you, did I? Maddy… but I loved you. I always loved you.

It's always the accent that drives you American women crazy. I'd no idea you fancied it, too…” he trailed off. “Oooh, fancied it. Say more like that,” I begged, smiling into the pillow. “Like what, Grace?” “Talk British to me,” I whispered, only half joking. “Dustbins.” “More,” I encouraged. “Crumpets.” “More!” I demanded. “Knickers.” If I could hear Jack Hamilton say a second word for the rest of my life, it would be knickers. “Say put another shrimp on the barbie!” I cried. “Grace, that's Australian,” he chided. “Say it!” “Fine. Put another shrimp on the barbie. Bloody hell,” he muttered. “Aaaahhhhhhh!” I screamed into the phone.

Holding my pendant, I lay on my side without moving, noiseless tears streaming down my face until the pillow grew damp beneath my cheek. I didn't want to die. I wanted to live, to be with Alex, to experience so much more than I had so far. But just then, it was Alex I was crying for. All that he'd gone through, all those deaths of people he loved--and now he was having to experience it again, with me. Thinking of what he was going through was like being beaten up inside; it was even worse than imagining whatever might happen the next day. Part of me hoped that he really did hate me now--maybe it would help; maybe it would make it not hurt so much. And more than that, I guess I was crying for both of us...that it hadn't turned out to be always, after all.

So, painting your nails tonight, desperately alone?” Lucky guess on his part? “Yes. Masturbating and crying into your pillow tonight, Doctor Josh?

and then, it's just me alone in bed with a man who can sleep with his back to me while I cry silent tears tha make the pillow wet around my head.

Under my pillow is an old scrap of paper, where Susannah has scribbled, I love you x The thrill of it makes me cry, because I'm not allowed to love her back.

We were sisters. We felt each other’s pain. We caused each other’s pain. We knew the smell of each other’s morning breath. We made each other cry. We made each other laugh. We got angry, pinched, kicked, screamed at each other. We kissed, on the forehead, nose on nose, butterfly eyelashes swept against cheeks. We wore each other’s clothes. We stole from each other, treasured objects hidden under pillows. We defended each other. We lied to each other. We pretended to be older people, other people. We played dress up. We spied on each other. We possessed each other like shiny things. We loved each other with potent, fervent fury. Animal fury. Monstrous fury.

Keefe gave her another reassuring shoulder pat—but when she flung the pillow aside and buried her face in her hands, she heard him growl something that sounded like “screw it.” Then his arms wrapped around her and she sank into the hug, not realizing she was crying until she felt her tears soak into his tunic.

It is weird to see how people sometimes doesn't value and ignore the love and effort of the people who love them and try to stay. They push them away only to realise everything they did after they leave and make their memories as pillows to sleep over and cry upon it later.

She did nothing to try to control the shakes that rattled her body,and didn't attempt to stop herself from crying. Tears left both of her eyes at the far corners,slipping out and flowing over her temples.Some landed in her ears. Some eased down her neck and were absorbed by the pillow.Others clouded her vision,as if they didn't want to leave home.

She remembered a story she had once heard: a woman had gossiped about her neighbors and later regretted what she said. She went to the rabbi and asked how she might take back her words. He instructed her to take a feather pillow to the top of the highest hill and tear it open, letting the feathers fly every which way. Then, the rabbi said, she should return to him and he would tell her what to do. She did as he said and when she returned, he told her to go outside and gather the feathers. But that's impossible, she cried. They're already scattered all over the village. He looked at her and smiled. The same is true of your words, he said.

Dad staggered in, eyes eerily lit. The corners of his mouth foaming spit. His demons planned an overnight stay. Mom motioned to take the girls away. hide them in their rooms, safe in their beds. We closed the doors, covered our heads, as if the blankets could mute the sounds of his blows or we could silence her screams behind out pillows. I hugged the littlest ones close to my chest, till the beat of my heart lulled them to rest. Only then did I let myself cry. Only then did I let myself wonder why Mom didn't fight back, didn't defend, didn't confess to family or friend. Had Dad's demons claimed her soul? Or was this, as well, a woman's role?

He's come on foot then, all the way from 13. Maybe they kicked him out or maybe he just couldn't stand it there without her, so he came looking. "It was the waste of a trip. She's not here," I tell him. Buttercup hisses again. "She's not here. You can hiss all you like. You won't find Prim." At her name, he perks up. Raises his flattened ears. Begins to meow hopefully. "Get out!" He dodges the pillow I throw at him. "Go away! There's nothing left for you here!" I start to shake, furious with him. "She's not coming back! She's never ever coming back here again!" I grab another pillow and get to my feet to improve my aim. Out of nowhere, the tears begin to pour down my cheeks. "She's dead." I clutch my middle to dull the pain. Sink down on my heels, rocking the pillow, crying. "She's dead, you stupid cat. She's dead.

In bed that night I invented a special drain that would be underneath every pillow in New York, and would connect to the reservoir. Whenever people cried themselves to sleep, the tears would all go to the same place, and in the morning the weathermen could report if the water level of the Reservoir of Tears had gone up or down, and you could know if New York was in heavy boots. And when something really terrible happened - like a nuclear bomb, or at least a biological weapons attack - an extremely loud siren would go off, telling everyone to get to Central Park to put sandbags around the reservoir.

The Detective was different. Not that he wasn't a good man; Willie had heard enough about him to understand that he was the kind who didn't like to turn away from another's pain, the kind who couldn't put a pillow over his ears to drown out the cries of strangers. Those scars he had were badges of courage, and Willie knew that there were others hidden beneath his clothes, and still more deep inside, right beneath the skin and down to the soul. No, it was just that whatever goodness was there coexisted with rage and grief and loss.

After Watson held a pillow so that I could punch it, after he'd cried in the bathroom where he thought I couldn't hear, we put on sweatpants and went down to the twenty-four-hour-off-license and bought as much ice-cream as we could carry.

Grow up with me,Let’s run in fields and through the dark together,Fall off swings and burn special things,And both play outside in bad weather,Let’s eat badly,Let’s watch adults drink wine and laugh at their idiocy,Let’s sit in the back of the car making eye contact with strangers driving past,Making them uncomfortable,Not caring, not swearing, don’t look,Let’s both reclaim our superpowers, The ones we all have and lose with our milk teeth,The ability not to fear social awkwardness,The panic when locked in the cellar, still sure there’s something down there,And while picking through pillows each feather,Let’s both stay away from the edge of the bed,Forcing us closer together,Let’s sit in public, with ice-cream all over both our faces,Sticking our tongues out at passers-by,Let’s cry, let’s swim, let’s everything,Let’s not find it funny, lest someone falls over,Classical music is boring,Poetry baffles us both,There’s nothing that’s said is what’s meant,Plays are long, tiresome, sullen and filled With hours that could be spent rolling down hills and grazing our knees on cement,Let’s hear stories and both lose our innocence,Learn about parents and forgiveness,Death and morality,Kindness and heart,Thus losing both of our innocent hearts,But at least we wont do it apart,Grow up with me.

I must have been in the car for a long time because eventually my sister found me there. I was chain-smoking cigarettes and crying still. My sister knocked on the window. I rolled it down. She looked at me with this curious expression. Then, her curiosity turned to anger. "Charlie, are you smoking?!" She was so mad. I can't tell you how mad she was. "I can't believe you're smoking!" That's when I stopped crying. And started laughing. Because of all the things she could have said right after she got out of there, she picked my smoking. And she got angry about it. And I knew if my sister was angry, then her face wouldn't be that different. And she would be okay. "I'm going to tell Mom and Dad, you know?" "No, you're not." God, I couldn't stop laughing. When my sister thought about it for a second, I think she figured out why she wouldn't tell Mom or Dad. It's like she suddenly remembered where we were and what had just happened and how crazy our whole conversation was considering at all. Then, she started laughing. But the laughing made her feel sick, so I had to get out of the car and help her into the backseat. I had already set up the pillow and the blanket for her because we figured it was probably best for her to sleep it off a little in the car before we went home. Just before she feel asleep, she said, "Well, it you're going to smoke, crack the window at least." Which made me start laughing again. "Charlie, smoking. I can't believe it." Which made me laugh harder, and I said, "I love you." And my sister said, "I love you too. Just stop it with the laughing already.

You can't skip chapters, that's not how life works. You have to read every line, meet every character. You won't enjoy all of it. Hell, some chapters will make you cry for weeks. You will read things you don't want to read, you will have moments when you don't want the pages to end. But you have to keep going. Stories keep the world revolving. Live yours, don't miss out.

She cried herself to sleep, and I held her until she stopped. I rolled over and pushed my face into the pillow. I figured if I could muffle my own crying, I would not wake her.

I want to lie down like a tired child and weep away this life - and my diary shall receive me on its downy pillow. Most children do not know what they cry for; nor do I altogether.

Home at last. Why was I not feeling relief? I turn in m bed thinking of the last time that I had laid my head on that pillow. Sadness took over me almost instantly. A pillow soaked in tears, the feeling of someone tearing a part of my chest out, it replayed in my head as if it had happened yesterday. I coculdn't believe that that girl was me. I was so much stronger than that, how had I allowed myself to become so vulnerable? I never thought that I would be the girl who'd get her heart broken. I never thought that he'd be the one to break it. But I was, and I know he did. I know, because, no one will ever know how much I cried that night.

And finally, my head pressed into the pillow, I cried, because my life suddenly seemed so much darker and more complicated than I could ever have imagined, and I wished I could go back...

i love good cries, loud sobs that soak your pillow that kind that come at the end of a perfect book you're gasping for air as droplets of salt water trickle down your cheeks into the corners of your mouth as your chest rises and falls and your vision is blurred by the tears but your mind is so clear and your every thought in that moment feels so meaningful and important and right it feels okay to just let it all out it makes you feel like you are free

I’m a firm believer that if a person needs a hug, you give that person a hug. So many times I’ve been in a situation where I needed a hug, and instead had to settle for a good cry on a pillow at the end of the day.

You’re beautiful without even trying but each time I bring you a flower it ends up dying and you don’t see how I look at you you just keep crying and the saddest part is that you’re so special but you think I’m lying

He lay in bed staring upward into the darkness. On the bunk above him, he could hear Peter turning and tossing restlessly. Then Peter slid off the bunk and walked out of the room. Ender heard the hushing sound of the toilet clearing; then Peter stood silhouetted in the doorway. He thinks I'm asleep. He's going to kill me. Peter walked to the bed, and sure enough, he did not lift himself up to his bed. Instead he came and stood by Ender's head. But he did not reach for a pillow to smother Ender. He did not have a weapon. He whispered, "Ender, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know how it feels, I'm sorry, I'm your brother, I love you." A long time later, Peter's even breathing said that he was asleep. Ender peeled the bandaid from his neck. And for the second time that day he cried.

As we made love, our scars met, grazing long enough for mine to say “He tries to hide me,” and for yours to reply “I know I embarrass her.” “He never learned how to swim,” whispered my scar. “She got picked last in gym class, then cried into her pillow,” replied yours. Just then, a huge wound opened in me. You touched it. It closed. I was filled, fully healed, and I knew I would never be able not to love you.

Everything has turned sour, I’ll never be carried away with joy again. There’s a terrible clarity dominating everything. As though the world were made of crystal so that you only have to flick part of it with your fingernail for a tiny shudder to run through it all.… And then the loneliness—it’s something that burns. Like hot thick soup you can’t bear inside your mouth unless you blow on it again and again. And there it is, always in front of me. In its heavy white bowl of thick china, dirty and dull as an old pillow. Who is it that keeps forcing it on me? “I’ve been left all alone. I’m burning with desire. I hate what’s happened to me. I’m lost and I don’t know where I’m going. What my heart wants it can’t have … my little private joys, rationalizations, self-deceptions—all gone! All I have left is a flame of longing for times gone by, for what I’ve lost. Growing old for nothing. I’m left with a terrible emptiness. What can life offer me but bitterness? Alone in my room … alone all through the nights … cut off from the world and from everyone in it by my own despair. And if I cry out, who is there to hear me?

She turned her face into the pillow and let her tears drain into it, and felt that yet more was lost, when there was no witness to her sorrow.

Hunter was bipolar, for crying out loud. He had checked into the nut house on more than one occasion and, honestly, I was already starting to feel the anxiety of living together. I would need to get my martial arts skills up to par to deal with this lunatic. I knew that I would also need to pick up a copy of Kill Bill at my next convenience and take notes as I watched, just in case a fight happened to break out in the kitchen. Also, at night, I had decided that I would need to sleep with either a small pistol or a flamboyant hunting knife under my pillow for a quick grab, in case he skipped his meds one night and decided to kill me. I needed to be prepared for the unthinkable.

She could not avoid a profound feeling of rancor toward her husband for having left her alone in the middle of the ocean. Everything of his made her cry: his pajamas under the pillow, his slippers that had always looked to her like an invalid’s, the memory of his image in the back of the mirror as he undressed while she combed her hair before bed, the odor of his skin, which was to linger on hers for a long time after his death. She would stop in the middle of whatever she was doing and slap herself on the forehead because she suddenly remembered something she had forgotten to tell him. At every moment countless ordinary questions would come to mind that he alone could answer for her. Once he had told her something that she could not imagine: that amputees suffer pains, cramps, itches, in the leg that is no longer there. That is how she felt without him, feeling his presence where he no longer was.

The voice blurs and fades, like a faint cry riding on the tails of the wind. I yawn and stretch, rolling over. I fold my pillow under my head and wait for the voice to return. When I hear nothing but the sound of my own breathing I allow myself to drift back into a dreamless slumber.

Rejection hurts so much because we take it as a damning judgement passed not merely on our physical appeal but on our entire selves, and by extension (at this stage we’re crying into our pillow, as something by Bach or Leonard Cohen plays on the stereo) on our very right to exist. 2.

I lay down on the bed clasping the pictures and buried my face in the pillow in a vain attempt at silencing my sobs. But it was as if all my life's accumulated grief had finally found an outlet and was allowed to take its course. I screamed, I cried, until the grief became bearable. (174)

A Faint Music by Robert Hass Maybe you need to write a poem about grace. When everything broken is broken, and everything dead is dead, and the hero has looked into the mirror with complete contempt, and the heroine has studied her face and its defects remorselessly, and the pain they thought might, as a token of their earnestness, release them from themselves has lost its novelty and not released them, and they have begun to think, kindly and distantly, watching the others go about their days— likes and dislikes, reasons, habits, fears— that self-love is the one weedy stalk of every human blossoming, and understood, therefore, why they had been, all their lives, in such a fury to defend it, and that no one— except some almost inconceivable saint in his pool of poverty and silence—can escape this violent, automatic life’s companion ever, maybe then, ordinary light, faint music under things, a hovering like grace appears. As in the story a friend told once about the time he tried to kill himself. His girl had left him. Bees in the heart, then scorpions, maggots, and then ash. He climbed onto the jumping girder of the bridge, the bay side, a blue, lucid afternoon. And in the salt air he thought about the word “seafood,” that there was something faintly ridiculous about it. No one said “landfood.” He thought it was degrading to the rainbow perch he’d reeled in gleaming from the cliffs, the black rockbass, scales like polished carbon, in beds of kelp along the coast—and he realized that the reason for the word was crabs, or mussels, clams. Otherwise the restaurants could just put “fish” up on their signs, and when he woke—he’d slept for hours, curled up on the girder like a child—the sun was going down and he felt a little better, and afraid. He put on the jacket he’d used for a pillow, climbed over the railing carefully, and drove home to an empty house. There was a pair of her lemon yellow panties hanging on a doorknob. He studied them. Much-washed. A faint russet in the crotch that made him sick with rage and grief. He knew more or less where she was. A flat somewhere on Russian Hill. They’d have just finished making love. She’d have tears in her eyes and touch his jawbone gratefully. “God,” she’d say, “you are so good for me.” Winking lights, a foggy view downhill toward the harbor and the bay. “You’re sad,” he’d say. “Yes.” “Thinking about Nick?” “Yes,” she’d say and cry. “I tried so hard,” sobbing now, “I really tried so hard.” And then he’d hold her for a while— Guatemalan weavings from his fieldwork on the wall— and then they’d fuck again, and she would cry some more, and go to sleep. And he, he would play that scene once only, once and a half, and tell himself that he was going to carry it for a very long time and that there was nothing he could do but carry it. He went out onto the porch, and listened to the forest in the summer dark, madrone bark cracking and curling as the cold came up. It’s not the story though, not the friend leaning toward you, saying “And then I realized—,” which is the part of stories one never quite believes. I had the idea that the world’s so full of pain it must sometimes make a kind of singing. And that the sequence helps, as much as order helps— First an ego, and then pain, and then the singing

There was this verse, which I have seen countless times, before and since, the direct and unpolished cry of a marine’s sardonic heart: And when he gets to Heaven To St. Peter he will tell: One more Marine reporting, sir — I’ve served my time in Hell.

She choked on a sob. She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't. She refused to cry about Gifford. But then she did. She was a sixteen-year-old girl, after all, and sometimes a sixteen-year-old girl needs to throw herself into a pillow and let the tears come as they may.

As I walked, I pictured the salt air and the endless water stretching out, covering the houses, crashing over the freeways, drowning out the voices of men who wish for you not to love them and the sounds of girls crying into pillows, oceans dripping from their eyes.

Plato once said that pain restores order to the soul. Rumi said that it lops off the branches of indifference. “The throbbing vein / will take you further / than any thinking.”14 Whatever else it does, pain offers an experience of being human that is as elemental as birth, orgasm, love, and death. Because it is so real, pain is an available antidote to unreality—not the medicine you would have chosen, perhaps, but an effective one all the same. The next time you are in real pain, see how you feel about television shows, new appliances, a clean house, or your resumé. Chances are that none of these will do anything for you. All that will do anything for you is some cool water, held out by someone who has stopped everything else in order to look after you. An extra blanket might also help, a dry pillow, the simple knowledge that there is someone in the house who might hear you if you cried.

After he left, I spent half an hour crying into my pillow.

To the stars who hear me cry. To my pillows who have seen my tears. And to my heart who have been breaking for far to long.

Damn it, woman,” he snapped. “Stop crying. Are you hysterical?” “Maybe.” Her voice was muffled by the pillow and her hands. -Maxim & Airiana

Fate had dealt Mina two options – passing out drunk or crying into her pillow – and she’d never liked the taste of tears.

We fear losing friends. We fear losing a shoulder to cry on, someone to laugh with, someone who knows our secrets. Someone who has seen us at our best and worst. We fear losing a friend whom we once relied on. More than that, we fear the reason they left. What if it was our fault?

There was something terrible, but also something sad and melancholy in this long cry uttered by the Russian infantry as they staged an attack. As it crossed the cold water, it lost its fervour. Instead of valour or gallantry, you could hear the sadness of a soul parting with everything that it loved, calling on its nearest and dearest to wake up, to lift their head from their pillows and hear for the last time the voice of a father, a husband, a son or a brother...

Dammit that yodel of triumph of yours was the most beautiful thing I ever heard in my life. I wish I'd a had a tape recorder to take it down.' 'Those things aren't made to be heard by the people below,' says Japhy dead serious. 'By God you're right, all those sedentary bums sitting around on pillows hearing the cry of the triumphant mountain smasher, they don't deserve it. But when I looked up and saw you running down that mountain I suddenly understood everything.

Roth grinned then. Anyway, back to me. I'm all better and I am back. He slid me a sly look that made me want to punch him instead of cry into my pillow like a baby. I'm sure I was missed. He took a big bite of the hamburger and grinned around the mouthful. A lot. I didn't know what happened that switched my emotions so fast. The hurt his rejection had left behind exploded into rage- like the head-spinning, spraying-green-vomit kind of rage. My brain kicked off. I wasn't thinking as I reached over and plucked the hamburger right out of his hand. Twisting at the waist, I threw the hamburger on the floor behind Roth as hard as I could. The satisfactory splat it made as ketchup and mayo splattered like a gruesome burger massacre brought a wide smile to my face.

Is Etienene okay?" "Haven't seen him.He went to Ellie's last night." Just when I thought I couldn't feel any worse.I twist the corners of my pillow. "Did I,uh,say anything weird to him last night?" "Apart from acting like a jealous girlfriend and saying you never wanted to speak to him again? No. Nothing weird at all." I moan as she recounts the night for me blow by blow. "Listen," she says when she finishes, "what's the deal with you two?"" "What do you mean?" "You know what I mean.You two are inseparable." "Except when he's with his girlfriend." "Right.So what's the deal?" I groan again. "I don't know." "Have you guys...you know...done anything?" "No!" "But you like him.And he likes you, too." I stop choking my pillow. "You think?" "Please.The boy gets a boner every time you walk in the room." My eyes pop back open. Does she mean that figuratively or has she actually seen something? No. Focus, Anna. "So why-" "Why is he still with Ellie? He told you last night. He's lonely, or at least he's scared of being lonely. Josh says with all of this stuff with his mom, he's been too freaked out to change anything else in his life." So Meredith was right. Etienne is afraid of change. Why haven't I talked about this with Rashmi before? It seems obvious now.Of course she has inside information,because Etienne talks to Josh,and Josh talks to Rashmi. "You really think he likes me?" I can't help it. She sighs. "Anna.He teases you all the time. It's classic boy-pulling-girl's-pigtai-syndrome.And whenever anyone else even remotely does it,he always takes your side and tells them to shove it." "Huh." She pauses. "You really like him, don't you?" I'm struggling not to cry. "No.It's not like that." "Liar.So are you getting up today or what? You need sustenance.

We were sisters. We felt each other's pain. We caused each other's pain. We knew the smell of each other's morning breath. We made each other cry. We made each other laugh. We got angry, pinched, kicked, screamed at each other. We kissed, on the forehead, nose on nose, butterfly eyelashes swept against cheeks. We wore each other's clothes. We stole from each other, treasured objects hidden under pillows. We defended each other. We lied to each other. We pretended to be older people, other people. We played dress up. We spied on each other. We possessed each other like shiny things. We loved each other with potent, fervent fury. Animal fury. Monstrous fury. My sisters. My blood. My skin. What a gruesome bond we shared.

He clutched the harmonica to his chest and cried into his pillow. He could have sworn he heard music...the Brahms...first as a child's lullaby, then a mournful lament, and finally, a staccato march, accompanied by the ominous sound of jackboots.

He reaches forward slowly, to lift the pen from my lax grip. Wearily I regard the faltering trail of ink it has tracked down my page. I have seen that shape before, I think, but it was not ink then. A trickle of drying blood on the deck of a Red-Ship, and mine the hand that spilled it? Or was it a tendril of smoke rising black against a blue sky as I rode too late to warn a village of a Red-Ship raid? Or poison swirling and unfurling yellowly in a simple glass of water, poison I had handed someone, smiling all the while? The artless curl of a strand of woman's hair left upon my pillow? Or the trail of a man's heels left in the sand as we dragged the bodies from the smoldering tower at Sealbay? The track of a tear down a mother's cheek as she clutched her Forged infant to her despite his angry cries? Like Red-Ships, the memories come without warning, without mercy.

No need to be embarassed. After seeing you in my cousin's nightgown, you've got nothing to hide. But why were you crying in the shower?" he murmured into her hair. She could feel his lips moving against her scalp, and feel the press of his hips through the covers, but his arms were an unyielding cage. She tried to turn over to face him, to welcome him under the covers with her, but he wouldn't let her. "I was crying because I'm frustrated! Why are you doing this?" she whispered into her pillow. "We can't, Helen," was all he said. He kissed her neck and said he was sorry over and over, but try as she might, he wouldn't let her face him. She began to feel like she was being used. "Please be patient," he begged as he stopped her hand from reaching back to touch him. She tried to sit up, to push him out of her bed, anything but suffer lying next to someone who would play with her so terribly. They wrestled a bit, but he was much better at it than she was and felt even heavier than he looked. He easily blocked every attempt she made to wrap her arms or legs or lips around him. "Do you want me at all, or do you just think it's fun to tease me like this?" she asked, feeling rejected and humiliated. "Won't you even kiss me?" She finally struggled onto her back where she could at least see his face. "If I kiss you, I won't stop," he said in a desperate whisper as he propped himself up on his elbows to look her in the eye. She looked back at him, really seeing him for the first time that night. His expression was vulnerable and uncertain. His mouth was swollen with want. His body was shaking and there was a fine layer of anxious sweat wilting his clothes. Helen relaxed back into the bed with a sigh. For some reason that obviously had nothing to do with desire, he wouldn't allow himself to be with her. "You're not laughing at me, are you?" she asked warily, just as a precaution. "No. There's nothing funny about this," he answered. He shifted himself off her and lay back down alongside her, still breathing hard. "But for some reason, you and I will never happen," she said, feeling calm. "Never say never," he said urgently, rolling back on top of her and using all of his unusually heavy mass to press her deep into the cocoon of her little-girl bed. "The gods love to toy with people who use absolutes." Lucas ran his lips around her throat and let her put her arms around him, but that was all.

But on that night, Dad staggered in, eyes eerily lit. The corners of his mouth foaming spit. His demons planned an overnight stay. Mom motioned to take the girls away, hide them in their rooms, safe in their beds. We closed the doors, covered our heads, as if blankets could mute the sounds of his blows or we could silence her screams beneath her pillows. I hugged the littlest ones close to my chest, till the beat of my heart lulled them to rest. Only then did I let myself cry. Only then did I let myself wonder why Mom didn't fight back, didn't defend, didn't confess to family or friend. Had Dad's demons claimed her soul? Or was this, as well, another woman's role?

Scarlett had thrown herself on the bed and was sobbing at the top of her voice, sobbing for her lost youth and the pleasures of youth that were denied her, sobbing with the indignation and despair of a child who once could get anything she wanted by sobbing and now knows that sobbing can no longer help her. She burrowed her head in the pillow and cried and kicked with her feet at the tufted counterpane.

But all he had up Robert's perfect sleeve was two rubbishy songs that were more gimmick than the white-hot fire of real music, the sort of music people would play over and over in their bedrooms at night, the sort that scrambled up your senses so wonderfully that you laughed and cried into your pillow at the same time, the sort of music that felt like you'd always known it even though you'd never heard it before, the songs you'd put on a mixtape and press into someone else's hand saying, This, this says how I feel better than I ever could.

Oh, no, no, no," I repeated, shaking my head. The room started to spin, and I couldn't hold my head up any longer. I collapsed back against the pillow. That's when I saw his silhouette at the door. "I'm not supposed to be here," I cried. "I'm not supposed to be in yesterday.

Little tears had started slipping out of my eyes and down onto the pillow. I wasn’t sad, I didn’t know why I was crying. I’d had this problem before, with Bobbi, who believed it was an expression of my repressed feelings. I couldn’t stop the tears so I just laughed self-effacingly instead, to show that I wasn’t invested in the crying. I knew I was embarrassing myself badly, but there was nothing I could do about it.

Wild eyes were another sign. It is something I have seldom seen — the expression of an ecstatic state — though much is foolishly written of them, as if they grew like Jerusalem artichokes along the road. The eyes are black, right enough, whatever their normal color is; they are black because their perception is condensed to a coal, because the touch and taste and perfume of the lover, the outcry of a dirty word, a welcome river, have been reduced in the heat of passion to a black ash, and this unburnt residue of oxidation, this calyx, replaces the pupil so it no longer receives but sends, and every hair is on end, though perhaps only outspread on a pillow, and the nostrils are flared, mouth agape, cheeks sucked so the whole face seems as squeezed as a juiced fruit; I know, for once Lou went into that wildness while we were absorbing one another, trying to kiss, not merely forcefully, not the skull of our skeleton, but the skull and all the bones on which the essential self is hung, kiss so the shape of the soul is stirred too, that's what is called the ultimate French, the furtherest fuck, when a cock makes a concept cry out and climax; I know, for more than once, though not often, I shuddered into that other region, when a mouth drew me through its generosity into the realm of unravel, and every sensation lay extended as a lake, every tie was loosed, and the glue of things dissolved. I knew I wore the wild look then. The greatest gift you can give another human being is to let them warm you till, in passing beyond pleasure, your defenses fall, your ego surrenders, its structure melts, its towers topple, lies, fancies, vanities, blow away in no wind, and you return, not to the clay you came from — the unfired vessel — but to the original moment of inspiration, when you were the unabbreviated breath of God.

When girls like us fall, there’s no one to catch us. Least of all that boy for whom we’ve taken the fall. We’re the girls with secrets and witchy hearts. We’re the girls who listen to sad songs. Who slow dance to them with tears streaming down our faces, even as a smile lingers on our lips. Who cry in our pillows at night and who ride our sunshine-yellow bicycle along the empty, desolate, miserable places, where no one goes.

She blushed crimson and then almost died of shame, because— God, she had forced a married man, a father, to kiss her. Now people thought that he was having an affair. His wife was probably crying into her pillow. His kids would grow up with horrible daddy issues and become serial killers.

How to make a good cry a GREAT CRY. Make sure you have an abundance of good tissues (so you don't have to end up using toilet paper, or worse, paper towels!). Put on the most comfortable clothes you own. Important - Drink lots of water afterward so you don't get a post-crying dehydrating headache! Find something to squeeze or cuddle, like a squishy pillow, animal friend, or consenting human. Now get ready for those sweet, sweet endorphins!

Picture it. Nineteenth-century man with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations. Digests, Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending.” “Snap ending.” Mildred nodded. “Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column, winding up at last as a ten- or twelve-line dictionary resume. I exaggerate, of course. The dictionaries were for reference. But many were those whose sole knowledge of Hamlet (you know the title certainly, Montag; it is probably only a faint rumor of a title to you, Mrs. Montag), whose sole knowledge, as I say, of Hamlet was a one-page digest in a book that claimed: now at last you can read all the classics; keep up with your neighbors. Do you see? Out of the nursery into the college and back to the nursery; there’s your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries or more.” Mildred arose and began to move around the room, picking things up and putting them down. Beatty ignored her and continued: “Speed up the film, Montag, quick. Click, Pic, Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down, In, Out, Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom! Digest-digests, digest-digest-digests. Politics? One column, two sentences, a headline! Then, in mid-air, all vanishes! Whirl man’s mind around about so fast under the pumping hands of publishers, exploiters, broadcasters that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary, time-wasting thought!” Mildred smoothed the bedclothes. Montag felt his heart jump and jump again as she patted his pillow. Right now she was pulling at his shoulder to try to get him to move so she could take the pillow out and fix it nicely and put it back. And perhaps cry out and stare or simply reach down her hand and say, “What’s this?” and hold up the hidden book with touching innocence. “School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work. Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts?

When I was growing up, my mom always had a rule about crying. She’d give me ten minutes to cry, sob, yell into a pillow, do whatever I had to do. Ten minutes to feel sorry for myself and whine about how terrible whatever I was going on about was. But when those ten minutes were up, I had to pick myself up and move on.

A few minutes later, John got up, put his clothes back on, palmed his liquor bottle, and left. As the door clicked shut, Xhex pulled the duvet over herself. She did nothing to try to control the shakes that rattled her body, and didn't attempt to stop herself from crying. Tears left both of her eyes at the far corners, slipping out and flowing over her temples. Some landed in her ears. Some eased down her neck and were absorbed by the pillow. Others clouded her vision, as if they didn't want to leave home. Feeling ridiculous, she put her hands to her face and captured them as best she could, wiping them on the duvet. She cried for hours. Alone.

[Robert's eulogy at his brother, Ebon C. Ingersoll's grave. Even the great orator Robert Ingersoll was choked up with tears at the memory of his beloved brother] The record of a generous life runs like a vine around the memory of our dead, and every sweet, unselfish act is now a perfumed flower. Dear Friends: I am going to do that which the dead oft promised he would do for me. The loved and loving brother, husband, father, friend, died where manhood's morning almost touches noon, and while the shadows still were falling toward the west. He had not passed on life's highway the stone that marks the highest point; but, being weary for a moment, he lay down by the wayside, and, using his burden for a pillow, fell into that dreamless sleep that kisses down his eyelids still. While yet in love with life and raptured with the world, he passed to silence and pathetic dust. Yet, after all, it may be best, just in the happiest, sunniest hour of all the voyage, while eager winds are kissing every sail, to dash against the unseen rock, and in an instant hear the billows roar above a sunken ship. For whether in mid sea or 'mong the breakers of the farther shore, a wreck at last must mark the end of each and all. And every life, no matter if its every hour is rich with love and every moment jeweled with a joy, will, at its close, become a tragedy as sad and deep and dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death. This brave and tender man in every storm of life was oak and rock; but in the sunshine he was vine and flower. He was the friend of all heroic souls. He climbed the heights, and left all superstitions far below, while on his forehead fell the golden dawning, of the grander day. He loved the beautiful, and was with color, form, and music touched to tears. He sided with the weak, the poor, and wronged, and lovingly gave alms. With loyal heart and with the purest hands he faithfully discharged all public trusts. He was a worshipper of liberty, a friend of the oppressed. A thousand times I have heard him quote these words: 'For Justice all place a temple, and all season, summer!' He believed that happiness was the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest. He added to the sum of human joy; and were every one to whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave, he would sleep to-night beneath a wilderness of flowers. Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word; but in the night of death hope sees a star and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing. He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, whispered with his latest breath, 'I am better now.' Let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas, of fears and tears, that these dear words are true of all the countless dead. And now, to you, who have been chosen, from among the many men he loved, to do the last sad office for the dead, we give his sacred dust. Speech cannot contain our love. There was, there is, no gentler, stronger, manlier man.

If you’re having fun, you’re sinning” was the message my parents drilled into my head at a very young age. Taught that my natural behavior was somehow wrong, I learned to censor and repress myself, and cried myself to sleep nearly every single night during my tween and teen years, with my face jammed into a pillow so nobody would hear.

And yet I can't help myself. Because last time I broke, last time I cried and complained and made a fuss, I lost him. I will not let that happen again. So I shove my concerns down. And my disappointments. And my grievances. And everything that isn't my perky tits or my warm, wet vagina. Those are his. But everything else, everything that's unappealing to him, that's too needy and too emotional and too sensitive and too much, everything that might lead to another breakup, I keep to myself and I scream into a pillow later.

Then the time would come once more when I no longer listened for the steps on the stairs and felt lonely and cried into my pillow every night.

I know I cried that night, bitter youthful tears that could not come from me today. That kind of crying, deep into a pillow, does not happen after we are twenty-one.

It’s not until the tears flood my eyes and drench the pillow that I realize I’m crying. I don’t deserve this beautiful man. Because he has opened his soul to me and I’m lying to him.

You can’t skip chapters, that’s not how life works. You have to read every line, meet every character. You won’t enjoy all of it. Hell, some chapters will make you cry for weeks. You will read things you don’t want to read, you will have moments when you don’t want the pages to end. But you have to keep going. Stories keep the world revolving. Live yours, don’t miss out.

Sometimes, laughing like a lunatic can be the best solution. Or crying loudly into a pillow. But don't regret anything. Always tell yourself "I. Regret. Nothing." because really, no matter how sucky, or crappy your life gets, you really shouldn't regret it. Everything you do makes yourself up, and kid, just do the right thing every now and then, and you'll be good. We. Regret. Nothing.

Now the pillow’s Hot on both sides. A second candle Dies, the ravens cry Endlessly. No sleep all night, Too late to think of sleep… How unbearably white The blind’s white deep. Hello, Morning!

It’s not until the tears flood my eyes and drench the pillow that I realize I’m crying. I don’t deserve this beautiful man. Because he has opened his soul to me and I’m lying to him. It hurts imagining what it'll be like once he knows. He'll hate me. I never knew I could be devastated by something that hasn't even happened yet. But that's what this feels like. Devastation. Like I'm already in ruins.

I know I cried that night, bitter youthful tears that could not come from me today. That kind of crying, deep into a pillow, does not happen after we are twenty-one. The throbbing head, the swollen eyes, the tight, contracted throat. And the wild anxiety in the morning to hide all traces from the world, sponging with cold water, dabbing eau-de-Cologne, the furtive dash of powder that is significant in itself.

She threw herself across her bed, weeping into a pillow. She knew just what she wanted -- the desire was a fierce ache inside her. But fiercer still was the knowledge that it was beyond the reach of a female.

Screw Orion. He’s made himself clear. He’s done. And I’m not going to let it ruin my night – even if I do go home later and cry into a pillow until I choke. That’s later’s problem. Now, I’m gonna have a damn good time.

These things are natural. One has to accept them and by and by transcend them. If you feel too much anger, move into your room, beat the pillow, cry, weep, scream, but do it alone. Why show your ugly face to the other? What is the point? Just cathart. A wise person moves through his unhappiness alone, and whenever he is happy, comes and shares it with people. A fool shares his unhappiness with people, and when he is happy he sits alone.

Mexican Loneliness" And I am an unhappy stranger grooking in the streets of Mexico- My friends have died on me, my lovers disappeared, my whores banned, my bed rocked and heaved by earthquake - and no holy weed to get high by candlelight and dream - only fumes of buses, dust storms, and maids peeking at me thru a hole in the door secretly drilled to watch masturbators fuck pillows - I am the Gargoyle of Our Lady dreaming in space gray mist dreams -- My face is pointed towards Napoleon ------ I have no form ------ My address book is full of RIP's I have no value in the void, at home without honor, - My only friend is an old fag without a typewriter Who, if he's my friend, I'll be buggered. I have some mayonnaise left, a whole unwanted bottle of oil, peasants washing my sky light, a nut clearing his throat in the bathroom next to mine a hundred times a day sharing my common ceiling - If I get drunk I get thirsty - if I walk my foot breaks down - if I smile my mask's a farce - if I cry I'm just a child - - if I remember I'm a liar - if I write the writing's done - - if I die the dying's over - - if I live the dying's just begun - - if I wait the waiting's longer - if I go the going's gone if I sleep the bliss is heavy the bliss is heavy on my lids - if I go to cheap movies the bedbugs get me - Expensive movies I can't afford - if I do nothing nothing does

Tonight, I get to sleep in luxury at least. Come here, my pretty," I tell a pillow, and tuck it under my face. Oh man, this is heaven. "I'm going to be sad to leave you all behind tomorrow. Shhh, don't cry." I stroke a pillow. "I will remember you in my dreams."   Aron snorts.   "Oh, what's that?" I tell the pillow, still pretending to have a conversation. "Aron's a dick? I know, right? I'm not sure why he's so against you either, considering this is his tent. Well, not his tent, but Bad Aron's tent. It's okay, though." I pet the pillow one more time and fight a yawn. "If you love something, set it free and all that. You'll be free in the morning, pillow. Just right after I'm done with you.

I could feel almost my heart emptying into my pillow. Iguess the most amazing thing about crying though is that when you're in it, you think it'll go on forever but it never really lasts half what you think. Not in terms of real time.

Love is how the other person likes their coffee on a morning. How long they put their toast in the toaster for. How they like their throw pillows on the sofa to be arranged. How hot they have their shower water. How many bubbles in the bath. How they always leave empty glasses on the bar in the kitchen, and how they know exactly how you take your coffee. How they know how many candles to light around a bathtub before you get in, and how chilled your wine has to be before it’s an acceptable drinking temperature. We still have so much to learn about each other, and while I know there’s no rush, I want to know these things. I want to know if he prefers butter or jelly on his toast on a morning and if really he prefers tea over coffee, which I suspect he does. I want to know if he changes the temperature of the shower water to my preference of red hot instead of a normal hot. I want to know every little thing I don’t. Because at the end of the day, when it gets hard and you’re in the middle of the room shouting at each other over something trivial, you won’t remember the huge declarations of love. When you’re sitting against your bedroom door crying because you hate fighting, you’ll remember the way he smiles at you over breakfast and the way he trails his thumb down your spine to make you shiver. You’ll remember all the crazy little things that remind you that, no matter what, no matter how difficult or impossible it may seem, there’s no one else in this world more perfect for you than he is.

Heartbreak is very hard to live with. In the morning, it made me wish that I could just snooze my alarm and hide from the sunlight. In the afternoon, I cried at work silently, then I ran to the washroom so that nobody noticed. In the late afternoon, my brain would unsuccessfully try to take control for an hour after which I would be exhausted from the emotional roller coaster led by my heart. At night, I would squeeze my pillow, howling inside and yet not being able to scream, wishing that I could stop feeling the stinging pain.

Clowns.” Clowns? “Really?” I tried to imagine a tiny Aiden crying over men and women with overly painted faces and red noses, but I couldn’t. The big guy was still facing me. His expression clear and even, as he dipped his chin. “Eh.” God help me, he’d gone Canadian on me. I had to will my face not to react at the fact he’d gone with the one word he usually used only when he was super relaxed around other people. “I thought they were going to eat me.” Now imagining that had me cracking a little smile. I slid my palm under my cheek. “How old were you? Nineteen?” Those big chocolate-colored eyes blinked, slow, slow, slow. His dark pink lips parted just slightly. “Are you making fun of me?” he drawled. “Yes.” The fractures of my grin cracked into bigger pieces. “Because I was scared of clowns?” It was like he couldn’t understand why that was amusing. But it was. “I just can’t imagine you scared of anything, much less clowns. Come on. Even I’ve never been scared of clowns.” “I was four.” I couldn’t help but snicker. “Four… fourteen, same difference.” Based on the mule-ish expression on his face, he wasn’t amused. “This is the last time that I come over to save you from the boogeyman.” Shocked out of my mind for a split second, I tried to pretend like I wasn’t, but… I was. He was joking with me. Aiden was in bed joking around. With me. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I was just messing with you.” I scooted one more millimeter closer to him, drawing my knees up so that they hit his thighs. “Please don’t leave yet.” “I won’t,” he said, settling on his pillow with his hands under his cheek, his eyes already drifting to a close. I didn’t need to ask him to promise not to leave me; I knew he wouldn’t if he said so. That was just the kind of man he was. “Aiden?” I whispered. “Hmm?” he murmured. “Thank you for coming in here with me.” “Uh-huh.” That big body adjusted itself just slightly before he let out a long, deep exhale. Without turning around, I laid the flashlight down behind me and aimed the beam toward the wall. He didn’t ask if I was really going to leave the flashlight on all night—or at least however long the battery lasted—instead, I just smiled at him as I took my glasses off and set them on the unused nightstand behind me. Then I tucked my hands under my cheek and watched him. “Good night. Thank you again for staying with me.” Peeking one eye open, just a narrow slit, he hummed. “Shh.” That ‘shh’ was about as close to a ‘you’re welcome’ as I was going to get. I closed my eyes with a little grin on my face. Maybe five seconds later, Aiden’s spoke up. “Vanessa?” “Hmm?” “Why was I saved on your work phone as Miranda P.?” That had my eyes snapping open. I hadn’t deleted that entry off the contacts when I quit, had I? “It’s a long, boring story, and you should go to sleep. Okay?” The “uh-huh” out of him sounded as disbelieving as it should have. He knew I was full of shit, but somehow, knowing he knew, wasn’t enough to keep me from falling asleep soon after

I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root: It is what you fear. I do not fear it: I have been there. Is it the sea you hear in me, Its dissatisfactions? Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness? Love is a shadow. How you lie and cry after it Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse. All night I shall gallop thus, impetuously, Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf, Echoing, echoing. Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons? This is rain now, this big hush. And this is the fruit of it: tin-white, like arsenic.

The clocks were striking midnight and the rooms were very still as a figure glided quietly from bed to bed, smoothing a coverlet here, settling a pillow there, and pausing to look long and tenderly at each unconscious face, to kiss each with lips that mutely blessed, and to pray the fervent prayers which only mothers utter. As she lifted the curtains to look out into the dreary night, the moon broke suddenly from behind the clouds and shone upon her like a bright, benignant face, which seemed to whisper in the silence, 'Be comforted, dear soul! There is always light behind the clouds.

Keefe gave her another reassuring shoulder pat—but when she flung the pillow aside and buried her face in her hands, she heard him growl something that sounded like “screw it.” Then his arms wrapped around her and she sank into the hug, not realizing she was crying until she felt her tears soak into his tunic.

the old people told; and thus, for perhaps half an hour every night, this room would become a happy place, and the whole family would forget that it was hungry and poor. One evening, when Charlie went in to see his grandparents, he said to them, “Is it really true that Wonka’s Chocolate Factory is the biggest in the world?” “True?” cried all four of them at once. “Of course it’s true! Good heavens, didn’t you know that? It’s about fifty times as big as any other!” “And is Mr. Willy Wonka really the cleverest chocolate maker in the world?” “My dear boy,” said Grandpa Joe, raising himself up a little higher on his pillow, “Mr. Willy Wonka is the most

Billy tried to imagine the birth of Cyril's wife's baby. It would happen in grim lights violently. A dripping thing trying to clutch to its hole. Dredged up and beaten. Blood and drool and womb mud. How cute, this neon shrieker made to plunge upward, odd-headed blob, this marginal electric glow-thing. Dressed and powdered now. Engineered to abstract design. Cling, suck and cry. Follow with the eye. Gloom and drought of unprotected sleep. Had there been a light in her belly, dim briny light in that pillowing womb, dusk enough to light a page, bacterial smear of light, an amniotic gleam that I could taste, old, deep, wet and warm? Return, return to negative unity.

She begins to strip like a roommate and climb into bed. They have fallen asleep. Dean wakes first, in the early afternoon. He unfastens her stockings and slowly rolls them off. Her skirt is next and then her underpants. She opens her eyes. The garter belt he leaves on, to confirm her nakedness. He rests his head there. Her hand touches his chest and begins to fall in excruciating slow designs. He lies still as a dog beneath it, still as an idiot. The next morning she is recovered. His prick is hard. She takes it in her hand. They always sleep naked. Their flesh is innocent and warm. In the end she is arranged across the pillows, a ritual she accepts without a word. It is half an hour before they fall apart, spent, and call for breakfast. She eats both her rolls and one of his. “There was a lot,” she says. She glistens with it. The inside of her thighs is wet. “How long does it take to make again?” she asks. Dean tries to think. He is remembering biology. “Two or three days,” he guesses. “Non, non!” she cries. That is not what she meant. She begins to make him hard again. In a few minutes he rolls her over and puts it in as if the intermission were ended. This time she is wild. The great bed begins creaking. Her breath becomes short. Dean has to brace his hands on the wall. He hooks his knees outside her legs and drives himself deeper. “Oh,” she breathes, “that’s the best.

Awkward Things One has gone to a house and asked to see someone; but the wrong person appears, thinking that it is he who is wanted; this is especially awkward if one has brought a present. One has allowed oneself to speak badly about someone without really intending to do so; a young child who has overheard it all goes and repeats what one has said in front of the person in question. Someone sobs out a pathetic story. One is deeply moved; but it so happens that not a single tear comes to one’s eyes— most awkward. Though one makes one’s face look as if one is going to cry, it is no use: not a single tear will come. Yet there are times when, having heard something happy, one feels the tears streaming out.

I don’t think that anything fazes that woman. I woke up screaming my head off and she hit me with a pillow and told me to stop crying like a girl and go back to sleep. I tried to explain to her that I’d murdered her in my dreams and she snorted and said that was the only place I would ever be doing that. Then she cuddled against me and started snoring again.

We were sisters. We felt each other’s pain. We caused each other’s pain. We knew the smell of each other’s morning breath. We made each other cry. We made each other laugh. We got angry, pinched, kicked, screamed at each other. We kissed, on the forehead, nose on nose, butterfly eyelashes swept against cheeks. We wore each other’s clothes. We stole from each other, treasured objects hidden under pillows. We defended each other. We lied to each other. We pretended to be older people, other people. We played dress up. We spied on each other. We possessed each other like shiny things. We loved each other with potent, fervent fury. Animal fury. Monstrous fury. My sisters. My blood. My skin. What a gruesome bond we shared.

I pull my pillow over my head and I cry so hard I don't know how I'll ever stop. I cry for what feels like days. I cry until there are no more tears, like I have used them all up, like maybe I have broken my damn tear ducts. Then I just make the sounds: the gasping and sniffling. I feel like I might just fall asleep and not wake up—in fact, I almost hope I do.

Not always do those who dare such divine conflict prevail. Night after night the sweat of agony may burst dark on the forehead; the supplicant may cry for mercy with that soundless voice the soul utters when its appeal is to the Invisible. "Spare my beloved," it may implore. "Heal my life's life. Rend not from me what long affection entwines with my whole nature. God of heaven, bend, hear, be clement!" And after this cry and strife the sun may rise and see him worsted. That opening morn, which used to salute him with the whisper of zephyrs, the carol of skylarks, may breathe, as its first accents, from the dear lips which colour and heat have quitted, -- "Oh! I have had a suffering night. This morning I am worse. I have tried to rise. I cannot. Dreams I am unused to have troubled me." Then the watcher approaches the patient's pillow, and sees a new and strange moulding of the familiar features, feels at once that the insufferable moment draws nigh, knows that it is God's will his idol shall be broken, and bends his head, and subdues his soul to the sentence he cannot avert and scarce can bear.

As a teenager, he made screaming noises at night in his room, like a deranged person. He threw his electrical pencil sharpener at the walls. His mother was downstairs in bed, crying a little, mostly asleep. Brian, in his room, felt as if he might explode, might already—in a slow and minuscule and lingering way—be exploding. He needed to explode. He lay there motionless, but he also lay there exploding. He smooshed his head into his mattress, making sounds like, 'aaaghh,' and 'ngggg,' and then went downstairs. He stood in the doorway of his mother’s bedroom. He started yelling things. His mother woke, warm and puffy from sleep, and—after Brian finished yelling—whispered that she was sorry for being a bad mother. Her face, ensconced in hair and pillow, was dramatic and friendless as something cocooning. She looked like a little girl, and Brian stood there, taking this in—trying to get at the meaning of things, to fit at once into his mind all the false and watery moments of his life. He stood there, and he looked. He looked some more. And then he went back to his room. He wrote down on paper: 'Don’t hurt any­one again.

Oh, shit. Olive felt a wave of heat wash over her. She blushed crimson and then almost died of shame, because— God, she had forced a married man, a father, to kiss her. Now people thought that he was having an affair. His wife was probably crying into her pillow. His kids would grow up with horrible daddy issues and become serial killers. “I . . . Oh my God, I didn’t— I am so sorry—

In the center of a garden reared a tree, glinting golden in the darkness, peppered with flowers that smelled of blood. The great yawning hollows of the trunk invited her in, promising a snug sanctuary. "They will suffocate you like a pillow of sand and you will never emerge alive," a chittering voice cried out. The patterns engraved on the tree's bark dizzied her eyes. "If your finger brushes against them, you'll know true madness." She glanced away from the bark, her eyes caught by a movement in the branches. A squirrel scurried down the trunk towards her. It didn't seem to be bothered that its tail was swathed in flames, or that something had eaten away at half of its rot-black face and torso. Death's pet project bared its teeth at her. "Do you really want to be here?

My shoulders, broad and sculpted thick, were designed for two useful purposes. The one, to carry heavy loads like cedar logs and beams of steel and now and then the careful transfer of an injured friend to a bed of safety. The other purpose I consider superior, and that is to be, in all circumstances and forever, your headrest and cry pillow whereupon you may leave your heaviest burdens.

   She is aristocratic when she rides, jumping boldly over ditches and hedges, but who admires her? Certainly not her husband. He'd just despise her if she were cowardly. On the contrary: he reminds her to think of her children.    So she feels like an actor who is expected to act without an audience and ends up gnashing her teeth in rage and crying into her pillow during her sleepless nights.

As I tried to doze, the incident on the piazzetta, lost somewhere amid the Piave war memorial and our ride up the hill with fear and shame and who knows what else pressing on me, seemed to come back to me from summers and ages ago, as though I'd biked up to the piazzetta as a little boy before World War I and had returned a crippled ninety-year-old soldier confined to this bedroom that was not even my own, because mine had been given over to a young man who was the light of my eyes. The light of my eyes, I said, light of my eyes, light of the world, that's what you are, light of my life. I didn't know what light of my eyes meant, and part of me wondered where on earth had I fished out such claptrap, but it was nonsense like this that brought tears now, tears I wished to drown in his pillow, soak in his bathing suit, tears I wanted him to touch with the tip of his tongue and make sorrow go away.

Truth does not necessarily have to agree with facts. Otherwise, the Manhattan phone book would be The Book of Books. Four million entries, all factually correct, all subject to confirmation. But that doesn’t tell us anything about one of the dozens of James Millers in there. His number and address are indeed correct. But why does he cry into his pillow every night? It takes poetry; it takes the poetic imagination to make visible a deeper layer of truth.

She stands by the edge of the bed, baggy in nakedness, and goes off into the bathroom to do her duty. There’s that in women repels him: handle themselves like an old envelope. Tubes into tubes, wash away men’s dirt—insulting, really. Faucets cry. The more awake he gets the more depressed he is. From deep in the pillow he stares at the horizontal strip of stained-glass church window that shows beneath the window shade. Its childish brightness comes from years away.

Light flooded their senses; for a split second Olivia, blinking in its brilliance, thought the light was actually yellow. Then she blinked again, and the room itself was yellow: yellow roses climbing the walls, a white and yellow canopy- of course, a canopy- matching the wadded silk bedspread, braided yellow rugs strewn across the bare wooden floorboards. Abby gave a little cry and ran to the curved windows opposite, where a riot of yellow and pink throw pillows lined the window seat.

Poem for My Father You closed the door. I was on the other side, screaming. It was black in your mind. Blacker than burned-out fire. Blacker than poison. Outside everything looked the same. You looked the same. You walked in your body like a living man. But you were not. would you not speak to me for weeks would you hang your coat in the closet without saying hello would you find a shoe out of place and beat me would you come home late would i lose the key would you find my glasses in the garbage would you put me on your knee would you read the bible to me in your smoking jacket after your mother died would you come home drunk and snore would you beat me on the legs would you carry me up the stairs by my hair so that my feet never touch the bottom would you make everything worse to make everything better i believe in god, the father almighty, the maker of heaven, the maker of my heaven and my hell. would you beat my mother would you beat her till she cries like a rabbit would you beat her in a corner of the kitchen while i am in the bathroom trying to bury my head underwater would you carry her to the bed would you put cotton and alcohol on her swollen head would you make love to her hair would you caress her hair would you rub her breasts with ben gay until she stinks would you sleep in the other room in the bed next to me while she sleeps on the pull-out cot would you come on the sheet while i am sleeping. later i look for the spot would you go to embalming school with the last of my mother's money would i see your picture in the book with all the other black boys you were the handsomest would you make the dead look beautiful would the men at the elks club would the rich ladies at funerals would the ugly drunk winos on the street know ben pretty ben regular ben would your father leave you when you were three with a mother who threw butcher knives at you would he leave you with her screaming red hair would he leave you to be smothered by a pillow she put over your head would he send for you during the summer like a rich uncle would you come in pretty corduroys until you were nine and never heard from him again would you hate him would you hate him every time you dragged hundred pound cartons of soap down the stairs into white ladies' basements would you hate him for fucking the woman who gave birth to you hate him flying by her house in the red truck so that other father threw down his hat in the street and stomped on it angry like we never saw him (bye bye to the will of grandpa bye bye to the family fortune bye bye when he stompled that hat, to the gold watch, embalmer's palace, grandbaby's college) mother crying silently, making floating island sending it up to the old man's ulcer would grandmother's diamonds close their heartsparks in the corner of the closet yellow like the eyes of cockroaches? Old man whose sperm swims in my veins, come back in love, come back in pain.

Look you," Pandora told him in a businesslike tone, "marriage is not on the table." Look you? Look you? Gabriel was simultaneously amused and outraged. Was she really speaking to him as if he were an errand boy? "I've never wanted to marry," Pandora continued. "Anyone who knows me will tell you that. When I was little, I never liked the stories about princesses waiting to be rescued. I never wished on falling stars, or pulled the petals off daisies while reciting 'he loves me, he loves me not.' At my brother's wedding, they handed out slivers of wedding cake to all the unmarried girls and said if we put it under our pillows, we would dream of our future husbands. I ate my cake instead. Every crumb. I've made plans for my life that don't involve becoming anyone's wife." "What plans?" Gabriel asked. How could a girl of her position, with her looks, make plans that didn't include the possibility of marriage? "That's none of your business," she told him smartly. "Understood," Gabriel assured her. "There's just one thing I'd like to ask: What the bloody hell were you doing at the ball in the first place, if you don't want to marry?" "Because I thought it would be only slightly less boring than staying at home." "Anyone as opposed to marriage as you claim to be has no business taking part in the Season." "Not every girl who attends a ball wants to be Cinderella." "If it's grouse season," Gabriel pointed out acidly, "and you're keeping company with a flock of grouse on a grouse-moor, it's a bit disingenuous to ask a sportsman to pretend you're not a grouse." "Is that how men think of it? No wonder I hate balls." Pandora looked scornful. "I'm so sorry for intruding on your happy hunting grounds." "I wasn't wife-hunting," he snapped. "I'm no more interested in marrying than you are." "Then why were you at the ball?" "To see a fireworks display!" After a brief, electric silence, Pandora dropped her head swiftly. He saw her shoulders tremble, and for an alarming moment, he thought she had begun to cry. But then he heard a delicate snorting, snickering sound, and he realized she was... laughing? "Well," she muttered, "it seems you succeeded." Before Gabriel even realized what he was doing, he reached out to lift her chin with his fingers. She struggled to hold back her amusement, but it slipped out nonetheless. Droll, sneaky laughter, punctuated with vole-like squeaks, while sparks danced in her blue eyes like shy emerging stars. Her grin made him lightheaded. Damn it.

I wanted you in fourth grade, when you launched me off the water pillow and broke two of my ribs," he said, eyes narrowed on me behind his glasses like he could still see us at the lake. "I wanted you in sixth grade, when I drove over your foot with my dad's ATV. I wanted you when Mr. Pockets got hit by a car and you cried as hard as I did, I wanted you when you kissed the shit out of me in that shed, and now, God help me, I want you when you shattered my fucking heart to keep me from ruining my own future.

Slowly, his hands coasted down to my hips, tracing my panties before he tugged them down. He looked up at me, even as his hand eased between my thighs. Ice-green eyes burned bright. "I've never wanted anyone as much as I want you." The calloused tips of his fingers slid along my swollen, slick sex. "Now that I have you, I don't know where to start." My lids fluttered, hands clutching at his shoulders as he rubbed back and forth. "Right there works for me." His smile was sin and promise. "You like that, honey?" "Yes." He toyed with the entrance to my sex, pausing there to push just enough for me to feel it, to want it. "How about here?" "There is..." My breath caught. He pushed in, long strong fingers filling me. "Is what?" he murmured darkly, those talented fingers slowly fucking me, as though he had all the time in the world. The blunt end of his thumb found my puffy clit and circled it. I whimpered again, falling against him, my arms wrapping around his neck. "So fucking good." He made a noise, possessive and greedy, his mouth finding my nipple, his long fingers pushing up into me. "God, you're perfect. So perfect for me." The slight curl of his fingers hit a spot, and that was it. I came in waves, shaking with it, heat swamping me. His eyes held mine as he coaxed me along, drawing my pleasure out. With a groan that sounded almost pained, Lucian slid to the floor, his wide shoulders edging between my legs. He palmed my thighs in his big hands to hold me steady. And then, with an impatient grunt, he leaned in and kissed my throbbing clit. Kissed it like he kissed my mouth, greedy and deep, licking and sucking, nibbling with firm lips. I cried out again, my knees so weak he had to hold me up. He ate me like a dessert, lapping at my slit before thrusting his tongue inside me. I couldn't take it. It was too much. I came again, writhing against his mouth. "That's it," he said between frantic kisses. "That's it, Em. Work that sweet pussy on my mouth." Oh, hell. I crumpled, dislodging myself before falling onto his lap. I cupped the thick column of his nape and kissed him, drawing in his breath as he groaned and devoured me.

But the truth is that no one is innocent in love, and nobody forced me to love Kelly J. I don’t want to stop just because she laughs at me. I want to stay in love with her until she realizes I am a person. It is a complicated thing that a little kid, or even a fifth grader, can’t understand, that we are always choosing situations that hurt us. We choose them so deeply that we don’t know we chose them. We think we had to. We think the world did it to us. And then we think, what a horrible world that makes a weapon out of love. That stabs you with it, even when you can't defend yourself and the other person hates you and wants to see you cry. It's a miracle that anyone would ever fall in love with someone else and--of all the people in the world--that person loves them back. Like if you fell off a building and landed in a pillow truck, somehow. It doesn't happen, basically. Which means we end up with someone and there's a lot of choosing to do. Choosing to forgive strange smells or choosing that Gadzooks is not the only place that boyfriends can shop. This is the work of love.

It's all right, Adam," she murmured, stroking the damp hair that still adorned all but the back of his head.  "Just relax." Adam stared fixedly at the wall, his lips just grazing the bloodstained pillow.  "Not Adam . . . Charles." It came out Chaaahles, on a deep and startlingly elegant drawl that left the "r" from the name and marked him as anything but the rebel they'd all assumed him to be. Amy's jaw dropped open and horrified, she whirled to stare at her brother.  "He's a —" "Redcoat."  Will went green and shot a terrified glance at the door through which the doctor had just passed.  "An officer, if you must know."  He hugged his arms to himself and stared at Amy, his lower lip thrust out, his eyes both fearful and defiant.  He looked like the frightened child he was.  "What would you have me do, leave him out in a field to die?" Amy, paling, grabbed Will by the sleeve.  "Do you realize what you've done?" Will looked as though he were about to cry.  "Now you know why I was half-hoping he wouldn't make it." "Why on earth did you bring him home?" "I felt guilty." "For heaven's sake, Will!" Beneath

The day came: a Monday at the end of September. The night before he had realized that it was almost exactly a year since the beating, although he hadn’t planned it that way. He left work early that evening. He had spent the weekend organizing his projects; he had written Lucien a memo detailing the status of everything he had been working on. At home, he lined up his letters on the dining room table, and a copy of his will. He had left a message with Richard’s studio manager that the toilet in the master bathroom kept running and asked if Richard could let in the plumber the following day at nine – both Richard and Willem had a set of keys to his apartment – because he would be away on business. He took off his suit jacket and tie and shoes and watch and went to the bathroom. He sat in the shower area with his sleeves pushed up. He had a glass of scotch, which he sipped at to steady himself, and a box cutter, which he knew would be easier to hold than a razor. He knew what he needed to do: three straight vertical lines, as deep and long as he could make them, following the veins up both arms. And then he would lie down and wait. He waited for a while, crying a bit, because he was tired and frightened and because he was ready to go, he was ready to leave. Finally he rubbed his eyes and began. He started with his left arm. He made the first cut, which was more painful than he had thought it would be, and he cried out. Then he made the second. He took another drink of the scotch. The blood was viscous, more gelatinous than liquid, and a brilliant, shimmering oil-black. Already his pants were soaked with it, already his grip was loosening. He made the third. When he was done with both arms, he slumped against the back of the shower wall. He wished, absurdly, for a pillow. He was warm from the scotch, and from his own blood, which lapped at him as it pooled against his legs – his insides meeting his outsides, the inner bathing the outer. He closed his eyes. Behind him, the hyenas howled, furious at him. Before him stood the house with its open door. He wasn’t close yet, but he was closer than he’d been: close enough to see that inside, there was a bed where he could rest, where he could lie down and sleep after his long run, where he would, for the first time in his life, be safe.

He heard a faint cry from the area of the factories, a cry that was almost drowned by the shell-bursts and gunfire: ‘A-a-a-a-a-h!’ There was something terrible, but also something sad and melancholy in this long cry uttered by the Russian infantry as they staged an attack. As it crossed the cold water, it lost its fervour. Instead of valour or gallantry, you could hear the sadness of a soul parting with everything that it loved, calling on its nearest and dearest to wake up, to lift their heads from their pillows and hear for the last time the voice of a father, a husband, a son or a brother . . .

To The Woman Crying Uncontrollably In The Next Stall If you ever woke in your dress at 4 a.m. ever closed your legs to a man you loved opened them for one you didn't moved against a pillow in the dark stood miserably on a beach seaweed clinging to your ankles paid good money for a bad haircut backed away from a mirror that wanted to kill you bled into the back sear for lack of a tampon If you swam across a river under rain sang using a dildo for a microphone stayed up to watch the moon eat the sun entire ripped out the stitches in your heart because why not if you think nothing & no one can / listen I love you joy is coming

Very gently, he turned Avery’s face into the pillow again. This time when Avery struggled, Patrick did not let go. He pressed the baby’s face more firmly into the pillow. The baby was making steady muffled cries now, and Patrick knew it was awake. He had a vague idea that it might tell on him to his mother if he stopped. He held it down. The baby struggled. Patrick held it down. The baby farted. Its struggles weakened. Patrick still held it down. It eventually became totally still. Patrick held it down for another five minutes, feeling that excitement crest and then begin to ebb: the shot wearing off, turning the world gray again,

She had done worse, all right, lots worse. She had been a thief, a pimp, a blackmailer, a junkie, a liar and a cheat. She had pretended to love men she had despised. She had done it all, and none of it had worked. Every time she got into a place where she might have had a chance, something inside her had fired up and she ruined her chances. Always…Her whole life was a clutter of three-day jobs, punctured ambitions and drug-deadened hangovers. 'Oh Lindy,' she cried out. 'Help me! Help me!' She clenched her pillow and sobbed. It had been more than twenty years since she had shed any tears for anybody. Now these tears were for herself.

And here is the point in battle where one needs the rallying cry. Here where the banner must be unfurled or the song sung or the name of the cause flung at the enemy like a challenge. Here is mounted the charge, the thing as old as warfare itself, that either overwhelms the defense and wins the battle, or is broken and brings on defeat. How much less forbidding might have been that avenue of death that I was about to cross had there been some wholly irrational shout — like “Vive l’Empereur,” or “The Marine Corps Forever!” — rather than that educated voice which said in a sang-froid that was all at odds with the event, “Well, it’s our turn, now.

Venting’ does not solve emotional problems as the metaphor of pipes, valves and steam suggests. In the mid-twentieth century, the human-potential movement encouraged us to cry, scream and beat ‘boffers’ (cushioned pads) to release our pain. The therapy rooms and encounter groups of the 1970s reverberated with the thwump of fist meeting cushion. More recently, Brad Bushman and team at Iowa State University effectively demolished the myth that this kind of activity helps us to feel better. In fact, their research shows it actually tends to make us more aggressive. Beating a pillow might legitimise our feelings of anger, encouraging us to relive them

Has he invited you to dinner, dear? Gifts, flowers, the usual?” I had to put my cup down, because my hand was shaking too much. When I stopped laughing, I said, “Curran? He isn’t exactly Mr. Smooth. He handed me a bowl of soup, that’s as far as we got.” “He fed you?” Raphael stopped rubbing Andrea. “How did this happen?” Aunt B stared at me. “Be very specific, this is important.” “He didn’t actually feed me. I was injured and he handed me a bowl of chicken soup. Actually I think he handed me two or three. And he called me an idiot.” “Did you accept?” Aunt B asked. “Yes, I was starving. Why are the three of you looking at me like that?” “For crying out loud.” Andrea set her cup down, spilling some tea. “The Beast Lord’s feeding you soup. Think about that for a second.” Raphael coughed. Aunt B leaned forward. “Was there anybody else in the room?” “No. He chased everyone out.” Raphael nodded. “At least he hasn’t gone public yet.” “He might never,” Andrea said. “It would jeopardize her position with the Order.” Aunt B’s face was grave. “It doesn’t go past this room. You hear me, Raphael? No gossip, no pillow talk, not a word. We don’t want any trouble with Curran.” “If you don’t explain it all to me, I will strangle somebody.” Of course, Raphael might like that . . . “Food has a special significance,” Aunt D said. I nodded. “Food indicates hierarchy. Nobody eats before the alpha, unless permission is given, and no alpha eats in Curran’s presence until Curran takes a bite.” “There is more,” Aunt B said. “Animals express love through food. When a cat loves you, he’ll leave dead mice on your porch, because you’re a lousy hunter and he wants to take care of you. When a shapeshifter boy likes a girl, he’ll bring her food and if she likes him back, she might make him lunch. When Curran wants to show interest in a woman, he buys her dinner.” “In public,” Raphael added, “the shapeshifter fathers always put the first bite on the plates of their wives and children. It signals that if someone wants to challenge the wife or the child, they would have to challenge the male first.” “If you put all of Curran’s girls together, you could have a parade,” Aunt B said. “But I’ve never seen him physically put food into a woman’s hands. He’s a very private man, so he might have done it in an intimate moment, but I would’ve found out eventually. Something like that doesn’t stay hidden in the Keep. Do you understand now? That’s a sign of a very serious interest, dear.” “But I didn’t know what it meant!” Aunt B frowned. “Doesn’t matter. You need to be very careful right now. When Curran wants something, he doesn’t become distracted. He goes after it and he doesn’t stop until he obtains his goal no matter what it takes. That tenacity is what makes him an alpha.” “You’re scaring me.” “Scared might be too strong a word, but in your place, I would definitely be concerned.” I wished I were back home, where I could get to my bottle of sangria. This clearly counted as a dire emergency. As if reading my thoughts, Aunt B rose, took a small bottle from a cabinet, and poured me a shot. I took it, and drained it in one gulp, letting tequila slide down my throat like liquid fire. “Feel better?” “It helped.” Curran had driven me to drinking. At least I wasn’t contemplating suicide.

one day you will wake up and your mornings won't feel as heavy. the birds will sound beautiful again and the sun will rise as it always has, but this time you won't hide your face under the pillow and ask it to leave. you won't skip breakfast (or lunch or dinner) and you'll take a shower, brush your hair and get dressed because today isn't as hard as it was yesterday or the day before. time will pass by faster because you'll stop checking your phone for their name wondering if they miss you, too. then you will turn on music and instead of crying in the middle of the living room floor, you will dance your heart out and call it therapy. when healing finds you.

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.

Patrick, his moonface expressionless, turned Avery’s head so his face was pressed directly into the pillow. Avery made a snuffling noise and turned his head back to the side. Patrick observed this, and stood thinking about it while the snow melted off his yellow boots and puddled on the floor. Perhaps five minutes passed (quick thinking was not Patrick’s specialty), and then he turned Avery’s face into the pillow again and held it there for a moment. Avery stirred under his hand, struggling. But his struggles were weak. Patrick let go. Avery turned his head to the side again, made one snorting little cry, and then went on sleeping. The wind gusted, rattling the windows. Patrick waited to see if the one little cry would awaken his mother. It didn’t.

Love!” She threw the pillow aside and sat up, pulling the be clothes around her. “You hypocrite. ’Tis nothing to you to say that, is it? You prate about love and roses and devotion, but you don’t know the meaning of the word. You never have, and I doubt you ever will.” He let out a harsh breath. “I don’t understand you. How you can say that, after—” He spread his hands and made a baffled sound. “After this.” “This! This is fancy, ’tis infatuation, ’tis a dream. Maybe you love your horses, maybe you love Nemo—all you require of me is a reflection of yourself. You and your bloody mask!” She was crying openly now, her head tilted back, her eyes shut against the tears. “Don’t keep trying to dress it up as love, because I know what love is, and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts.

His tousled hair glittered like pagan gold as he pressed her to her back and dragged his open mouth over her flat stomach. Evie shook her head with groggy denial even as he bent her knees and pushed them upward. "Too tired," she said thickly, "I---wait, Sebastian---" His tongue searched her salty-damp flesh with assuaging licks, persisting until her protests died away. The gentle ministrations of his mouth lulled her into peace, her heartbeat slowing to measured beats. After long, patient minutes, he drew the swollen bud of her clitoris in his mouth and began to suckle and nibble. She jerked at the delicate aggression of his mouth. He drove her higher, his tongue flicking and swirling in a deliberate pattern, his arms clamping around her thighs. It seemed her body was no longer her own, that she existed only to receive this torment of pleasure. Sebastian... she could not voice his name, and yet he seemed to hear her silent plea, and in response he did something with his mouth that launched her into a series of incandescent climaxes. Every time she thought it was over, another ripple of sensation went through her until she was so exhausted that she begged him to stop. Sebastian rose over her, his eyes glittering in his shadowed face. She moved to welcome him, opening her legs, sliding her arms around the powerful length of his back. He nudged inside her swollen flesh, filling her completely. As his mouth came to her ear, she could hardly hear his whisper over the thumping of her heart. "Evie," came his dark voice, "I want something from you... I want you to come one more time." "No," she said weakly. "Yes. I need to feel you come around me." Her head rolled in a slow, negative shake across the pillow. "I can't... I can't..." "Yes, you can. I'll help you." His hand drifted along her body to the place where they were joined. "Let me deeper inside you... deeper..." She moaned helplessly as she felt his fingertips on her sex, skillfully manipulating her spent nerves. Suddenly she felt him sliding even farther as her excited body opened to accept him. "Mmm..." he crooned. "Yes, that's it... ah, love, you're so sweet..." He settled between her bent knees, into the cradle of her hips, driving hard and sure inside her. She encompassed him with her arms and legs, and buried her face in his hot throat, and cried out one last time, her flesh pulsing and tightening to bring him to shattering fulfillment. He shook in her arms, and clenched his hands into the warm spill of her hair as he gave himself over to her completely, worshipping her with every part of his body and spirit.

Suenos. Dulces Suenos. He must be painting upstairs. I can feel it. I remember when his father was just a baby and I called her Mama for the first time and she became Mama for all of us; Mama de la casa and his father would wake up in the middle of the night and scream in his crib and nothing would make him stop, nada, and Mama would get so exhausted she would turn her back to me and cry in her pillow. I would smooth her hair-it was black, Basilio, as black as an olive-and I would turn on the radio (electricity, Basilio, in the middle of the night), to maybe calm the baby and listen to something besides the screaming. Mama liked the radio, Basilio, and we listened while your father cried-cantante negra, cantante de almas azules-and it made us feel a little better, helped us make it through. I had to get up early to catch the streetcar to the shipyard, but when the crying finally stopped sometimes the sun would be ready to pop and Mama's breathing would slow down and her shoulders would move like gentle waves, sleeping but still listening, like I can hear her now on this good bed, and Basilio-Mira, hombre, I will not tell you this again-if I moved very close and kissed her shoulders, she would turn to face me and we would have to be quiet Basilio, under the music, very, very quiet.... So this I want to know, Basilio. This, if you want to live on Macon Street for another minute. Can you paint an apple baked soft in the oven, an apple filled with cinnamon and raisins? Can you paint such a woman? Are you good enough yet with those brushes so that she will step out of your pictures to turn on the radio in the middle of the night? Will she visit an old man on his death bed? If you cannot do that, Basilio, there is no need for you to live here anymore.

Since we’ve ruled out another man as the explanation for all this, I can only assume something has gone wrong at Havenhurst. Is that it?” Elizabeth seized on that excuse as if it were manna from heaven. “Yes,” she whispered, nodding vigorously. Leaning down, he pressed a kiss on her forehead and said teasingly, “Let me guess-you discovered the mill overcharged you?” Elizabeth thought she would die of the sweet torment when he continued tenderly teasing her about being thrifty. “Not the mill? Then it was the baker, and he refused to give you a better price for buying two loaves instead of one.” Tears swelled behind her eyes, treacherously close to the surface, and Ian saw them. “That bad?” he joked, looking at the suspicious sheen in her eyes. “Then it must be that you’ve overspent your allowance.” When she didn’t respond to his light probing, Ian smiled reassuringly and said, “Whatever it is, we’ll work it out together tomorrow.” It sounded as though he planned to stay, and that shook Elizabeth out of her mute misery enough to say chokingly, “No-it’s the-the masons. They’re costing much more than I-I expected. I’ve spent part of my personal allowance on them besides the loan you made me for Havenhurst.” “Oh, so it’s the masons,” he grinned, chuckling. “You have to keep your eye on them, to be sure. They’ll put you in the poorhouse if you don’t keep an eye on the mortar they charge you for. I’ll have to talk with them in the morning.” “No!” she burst out, fabricating wildly. “That’s just what has me so upset. I didn’t want you to have to intercede. I wanted to do it all myself. I have it all settled now, but it’s been exhausting. And so I went to the doctor to see why I felt so tired. He-he said there’s nothing in the world wrong with me. I’ll come home to Montmayne the day after tomorrow. Don’t wait here for me. I know how busy you are right now. Please,” she implored desperately, “let me do this, I beg you!” Ian straightened and shook his head in baffled disbelief, “I’d give you my life for the price of your smile, Elizabeth. You don’t have to beg me for anything. I do not want you spending your personal allowance on this place, however. If you do,” he lied teasingly, “I may be forced to cut it off.” Then, more seriously, he said, “If you need more money for Havenhurst, just tell me, but your allowance is to be spent exclusively on yourself. Finish your brandy,” he ordered gently, and when she had, he pressed another kiss on her forehead. “Stay here as long as you must. I have business in Devon that I’ve been putting off because I didn’t want to leave you. I’ll go there and return to London on Tuesday. Would you like to join me there instead of at Montmayne?” Elizabeth nodded. “There’s just one thing more,” he finished, studying her pale face and strained features. “Will you give me your word the doctor didn’t find anything at all to be alarmed about?” “Yes,” Elizabeth said. “I give you my word.” She watched him walk back into his own bed chamber. The moment his door clicked into its latch Elizabeth turned over and buried her face in the pillows. She wept until she thought there couldn’t possibly be any more tears left in her, and then she wept harder. Across the room the door leading out into the hall was opened a crack, and Berta peeked in, then quickly closed it. Turning to Bentner-who’d sought her counsel when Ian slammed the door in his face and ripped into Elizabeth-Berta said miserably, “She’s crying like her heart will break, but he’s not in there anymore.” “He ought to be shot!” Bentner said with blazing contempt. Berta nodded timidly and clutched her dressing robe closer about her. “He’s a frightening man, to be sure, Mr. Bentner.

10 August, 1939   Confession: I am nineteen years old, and I’ve been kissed many times. But I’ve never been kissed like that.   It felt like drowning but not needing to breathe. Like falling but never hitting the ground. Even now, my hands are shaking, and my heart is so swollen and fat it feels like it’s going to burst, or I’m going to burst. I want to cry. I want to laugh. I want to bury my head in my pillow and scream until I fall asleep, because maybe when I go to sleep I can relive it. I can’t believe it happened, yet I think I’ve been waiting for it to happen for the last seven years, ever since I conned Angelo into kissing me the first time. I’ve been waiting for him for so long, and for a couple of hours tonight, in a little world that was only big enough for the two of us, he was mine. But I don’t know if I will be able to keep him. I’m afraid when tomorrow comes, I’ll be waiting for him again. Eva Rosselli

Before I leave the bathroom, I pinch my cheeks hard to bring blood to the surface of my skin. It’s stupid, but I don’t want to look weak and exhausted in front of everyone. When I walk back into Tobias’s room, Uriah is sprawled across the bed facedown; Christina is holding the blue sculpture above Tobias’s desk, examining it; and Lynn is poised above Uriah with a pillow, a wicked grin creeping across her face. Lynn smacks Uriah hard in the back of the head, Christina says, “Hey Tris!” and Uriah cries, “Ow! How on earth do you make a pillow hurt, Lynn?” “My exceptional strength,” she says. “Did you get smacked, Tris? One of your cheeks is bright red.” I must not have pinched the other one hard enough. “No, it’s just…my morning glow.” I try the joke out on my tongue like it’s a new language. Christina laughs, maybe a little harder than my comment warrants, but I appreciate the effort. Uriah bounces on the bed a few times when he moves to the edge. “So, the thing we’re all not talking about,” he says. He gestures to me. “You almost died, a sadistic pansycake saved you, and now we’re all waging some serious war with the factionless as allies.” “Pansycake?” says Christina. “Dauntless slang.” Lynn smirks. “Supposed to be a huge insult, only no one uses it anymore.” “Because it’s so offensive,” says Uriah, noddng. “No. Because it’s so stupid no Dauntless with any sense would speak it, let alone think it. Pansycake. What are you, twelve?” “And a half,” he says. I get the feeling their banter is for my benefit, so that I don’t have to say anything; I can just laugh. And I do, enough to warm the stone that has formed in my stomach. “There’s food downstairs,” says Christina. “Tobias made scrambled eggs, which, as it turns out, is a disgusting food.” “Hey,” I say. “I like scrambled eggs.” “Must be a Stiff breakfast, then.” She grabs my arm. “C’mon.

Ethan sucked on Calvin’s neck, leaving his mark before moving his lips up to Calvin’s jaw. He nipped at his stubble, then Calvin’s ear. He fucked Calvin hard, the bed rocking beneath them and Calvin’s wrists tight in his grip. “Ethan, please. I need you to touch me.” Ethan obliged. He released Calvin’s wrists and took hold of his cock, his other hand buried in Calvin’s hair and holding on. Ethan’s stroke matched his pace as he fucked Calvin. Nothing had ever felt so damn good. He could feel himself tumbling down the abyss, falling into this addiction, and he welcomed it. He grabbed one of Calvin’s hands so he could take over the task of getting himself off. Ethan took a pillow and stuffed it under Calvin’s hips before pushing both of Calvin’s legs up against his chest. Calvin let out a soft cry as Ethan held his legs in place and pounded into him. He rotated his hips and changed his angle. Calvin cried out, ribbons of come shooting out onto his stomach. Damn,

Some people on bus seats shake at the shoulders, Stoned Elvises trying to dance after the gig. Some walk into the rain and look like they’re smiling, Running mascara writes sad bitter letters on their faces. Some drive their cars into lay-bys or park edges And cradle the steering-wheel looking like headless drivers. Some sink their open mouths into feather pillows And tremble on the bed like beached dolphins. Some people are bent as question marks when they weep And some are straight as exclamation marks. Some are soaking in emotional dew when they wake, Salt street maps etched into their faces. Some find rooms and fall to the floor as if praying to Allah. Noiseless Faces contorted in that silent scream that seems like laughter. Why is there not a tissue-giver? A man who looks for tears, Who makes the finest silk tissues and offers them for free? It seems to me that around each corner, beneath each stone, Are humans quietly looking for a place to cry on their own.

So the days passed into weeks and the weeks into months, and gradually she too faded until many years later when I came across a photograph of us together on a hillside in Greece, our only holiday. A photograph I'd long forgotten tumbled from its envelope carrying the perfume of her after all those years. That perfume! It would be on the pillow, on my shirt, in every room. Now I breathed it in and was back among the cypresses of a monastery in Greece. We had walked for hours to the garden above the sea. We were given minted honey and yogurt and cool retsina by a young monk. Evening came and it was time to return to the hotel. She asked if we could stay in the monastery and the young monk said yes. And in an ancient stone cell, she fell asleep. I lay awake listening to her soft breathing. A bone in her foot cracked. A tiny cry in the throat. Even the chanting of the monks in the early morning did not wake her. And now there was only this photograph, the ghost of her smiling at me in the shade of cypress trees.

He felt terrible. At first he thought he felt bad because he was afraid of leading an army, but it wasn’t true. He knew he’d make a good commander. He felt himself wanting to cry. He hadn’t cried since the first few days of homesickness after he got here. He tried to put a name on the feeling that put a lump in his throat and made him sob silently, however much he tried to hold it down. He bit down on his hand to stop the feeling, to replace it with pain. It didn’t help. He would never see Ender again. Once he named the feeling, he could control it. He lay back and forced himself to go through the relaxing routine until he didn’t feel like crying anymore. Then he drifted off to sleep. His hand was near his mouth. It lay on his pillow hesitantly, as if Bean couldn’t decide whether to bite his nails or suck on his fingertips. His forehead was creased and furrowed. His breathing was quick and light. He was a soldier, and if anyone had asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he wouldn’t have known what they meant.

Elsa walked to her desk and looked down at the small porcelain jar and candlestick. She had been using them as stand-ins for the orb and scepter she would have to hold, like her father did during his coronation. As she had many times before, Elsa closed her eyes and tried to imagine herself inside the chapel where the ceremony would take place. She thought of the choir that would be singing in the balcony, and she could see the pulpit she would be standing at in front of the priest and all her people, as well as nobles and visiting dignitaries. With no family, she'd be up there alone. Elsa tried not to think about that as she imagined the priest placing the jeweled tiara on her head. Then he'd hold out the pillow with the orb and scepter for her to take. She couldn't wear her teal gloves during that portion of the ceremony, so she removed them for practice. She wore gloves all the time these days. Perhaps it was silly, but she thought the gloves helped her conceal her magic. This was her battle cry: Conceal it. Don't feel it. Don't let it show.

He leaned down and kissed her stomach, her hip bones, while his big hands held her in place. Then his mouth was on her, covering her, licking over her clit. She arched up, crying out as his tongue slid over her folds, making her mindless and crazy. She clutched the pillow, burying her head into the softness as he sucked and licked, nipping over her skin. She clamped her thighs around his head. Whimpered. He was going to drive her right over the edge. His tongue lapped over her clit. "Jack, stop," she said, her voice harsh and panting. "I'm going to... God... No... I want..." He didn't stop. Didn't ease up. He just pushed her harder. His tongue. It was magic. The condom packet slid off her stomach as she planted her feet and rocked into him. Giving up, surrendering to his will and determination. Everything that made Jack, Jack. She coiled tight and then she exploded. She bit her lip, stifling her moans as she rode out wave after wave of delicious sensation. She couldn't think, couldn't put together a sentence, but then he was on her, over her. His palm on her neck, his fingers on her jaw, twisting her face to meet his. His mouth covered hers. He tasted like sex. And lust. His grasp was tight on her jaw, and the way he kissed her, devoured her, sucked her right back under. It was a raw, dirty kiss that consumed her. Her fingers came up to where he held her, and she dug her nails into his wrists. He growled against her lips, biting her, sucking. And the kiss went on and on and on. He finally pulled away, grabbed the condom, and tore open the package. He tossed it onto her body again, ridding himself of his sweats, and then he was naked. And she could only gape at him. Her gaze wide. He had the best cock she'd ever seen in her life. Long and thick. A work of goddamn art. She reached for him, but he grabbed her wrist, shaking his head. "I can't wait, Chlo." He picked up the condom, threw the packet on the floor somewhere and rolled the condom down his hard shaft. She breathed out his name. "Jack." He leaned down, kissing her again, soft and sweet. His erection nudged between her legs. "Just let me inside.

Hurling the box released some of his anger. It felt good so he swept his arm across the top of his dresser, knocking his pitiful possessions onto the floor, the ridiculous little carved animals, pathetic toiletries and useless old catalog he could never afford to order from. These paltry items were the sum of his entire dismal life. He kicked the frame of his bed, hurting his foot and knocking the light cot away from the wall. Heedless of Rasmussen hearing the noise, he cried out his rage and frustration, tore the covers off the bed, picked up the pillow and punched it. He hurled it across the room. Dragging the thin mattress from the metal mesh of the cot, he tossed it on the floor and looked around, but there was nothing else to tear apart since he owned so little. Laughing at the irony, he sank onto the mattress on the floor, his legs drawn to his chest, forehead bowed to his knees, and his hands cradling the back of his neck. Caught between harsh laughter and sobs, he breathed in hitching bursts. He had no future, definitely no girl, and soon, no home. What the hell was he going to do?

His nostrils flared and he couldn't wait any longer. He lifted her bodily, moving her farther up on the bed, placing her head and shoulders against the pillows, and then pushed up her chemise, crawling between her spread thighs and settling to enjoy what he'd found. There. There she was, her pretty, pretty pink cunny, all coral lips and wispy dark-blond curls. He hiked her trembling legs over his arms, ignoring her gasp of shocked surprise. He glanced up at once and saw wide, wondering eyes gazing back at him. Her gentlemanly first husband had evidently never done this to her. More fool he. Then he bent and feasted. His nose pressed into her mound, inhaling her woman's scent, his cock grinding hard into the bed, his tongue licking into tart and salt and her. Oh God, her. She squealed at his first touch and tried to squirm away, but he held her fast with his hands on her hips. He almost smiled against her tender flesh, his teeth scraping oh so gently. She might be startled, might be outraged and shocked, but she liked it. Perhaps even loved it- what he was doing to her. She was moaning now, low in her throat, making little mewling sounds, so erotic and sweet, her hips twitching against his lips, trying to get more. He opened his mouth, covering her, breathing over her. He stiffened his tongue and speared into her as far as he could reach, his jaw aching. She cried out at that and he felt fingers tangling in his hair. He withdrew his tongue and moved to her clitoris, taking the small bit of flesh gently between his teeth and pulling. She froze, trembling all over, and he could hear her gasping breaths. He opened his mouth and licked her. Softly. Tenderly. Thoroughly. And at the same time he shoved two fingers into her, feeling her wet walls contract against his knuckles, smelling the rise of her arousal. She arched under him, her soft thighs thrashing restlessly, making no sound, but he knew. He knew. He curled the fingers inside her and stroked her wet, silky inner walls as he pulled them back. Then he shoved them again into her, hard and firm, repeating the motion as he suckled her clitoris. She moaned- loud in the quiet room- and pushed against him, and he felt her tremble and suddenly grow wetter. She shuddered helplessly and he was drunk on her release, his cock a heavy, near-painful throb. He turned his head and kissed the inside of her soft thigh, listening to her pant.

Last Thoughts On Woody Guthrie When yer head gets twisted and yer mind grows numb When you think you're too old, too young, too smart or too dumb When yer laggin' behind an' losin' yer pace In a slow-motion crawl of life's busy race No matter what yer doing if you start givin' up If the wine don't come to the top of yer cup If the wind's got you sideways with with one hand holdin' on And the other starts slipping and the feeling is gone And yer train engine fire needs a new spark to catch it And the wood's easy findin' but yer lazy to fetch it And yer sidewalk starts curlin' and the street gets too long And you start walkin' backwards though you know its wrong And lonesome comes up as down goes the day And tomorrow's mornin' seems so far away And you feel the reins from yer pony are slippin' And yer rope is a-slidin' 'cause yer hands are a-drippin' And yer sun-decked desert and evergreen valleys Turn to broken down slums and trash-can alleys And yer sky cries water and yer drain pipe's a-pourin' And the lightnin's a-flashing and the thunder's a-crashin' And the windows are rattlin' and breakin' and the roof tops a-shakin' And yer whole world's a-slammin' and bangin' And yer minutes of sun turn to hours of storm And to yourself you sometimes say "I never knew it was gonna be this way Why didn't they tell me the day I was born" And you start gettin' chills and yer jumping from sweat And you're lookin' for somethin' you ain't quite found yet And yer knee-deep in the dark water with yer hands in the air And the whole world's a-watchin' with a window peek stare And yer good gal leaves and she's long gone a-flying And yer heart feels sick like fish when they're fryin' And yer jackhammer falls from yer hand to yer feet And you need it badly but it lays on the street And yer bell's bangin' loudly but you can't hear its beat And you think yer ears might a been hurt Or yer eyes've turned filthy from the sight-blindin' dirt And you figured you failed in yesterdays rush When you were faked out an' fooled white facing a four flush And all the time you were holdin' three queens And it's makin you mad, it's makin' you mean Like in the middle of Life magazine Bouncin' around a pinball machine And there's something on yer mind you wanna be saying That somebody someplace oughta be hearin' But it's trapped on yer tongue and sealed in yer head And it bothers you badly when your layin' in bed And no matter how you try you just can't say it And yer scared to yer soul you just might forget it And yer eyes get swimmy from the tears in yer head And yer pillows of feathers turn to blankets of lead And the lion's mouth opens and yer staring at his teeth And his jaws start closin with you underneath And yer flat on your belly with yer hands tied behind And you wish you'd never taken that last detour sign And you say to yourself just what am I doin' On this road I'm walkin', on this trail I'm turnin' On this curve I'm hanging On this pathway I'm strolling, in the space I'm taking In this air I'm inhaling Am I mixed up too much, am I mixed up too hard Why am I walking, where am I running What am I saying, what am I knowing On this guitar I'm playing, on this banjo I'm frailin' On this mandolin I'm strummin', in the song I'm singin' In the tune I'm hummin', in the words I'm writin' In the words that I'm thinkin' In this ocean of hours I'm all the time drinkin' Who am I helping, what am I breaking What am I giving, what am I taking But you try with your whole soul best Never to think these thoughts and never to let Them kind of thoughts gain ground Or make yer heart pound ...

Fuck," he whimpered, mouth at my ear. "You feel--- so --- fucking good." His hips were already picking up speed, his body pistoning into mine so insistently, so needfully, it obliterated all self-doubt. He grabbed both of my hands in one of his, pinning them above my head, and stared transfixed at the way my breasts bounced with his movements. The way he was looking at me--- and the way it felt, my cunt clenching around him as he thrust into me again, and again, and again--- His hands dropped down to grip my ass, lifting my hips and changing the angle of our connection. Something about the new positioning opened me up to him even further, allowed him to go deeper, harder, to brush up against parts of me no one had touched before. "Reggie," I gasped. "Oh, fuck." Something... something was different. I cried out again, helpless in the face of this delicious mounting pleasure, an ecstatic sort of pressure at the base of my spine that was threatening to pull me under. I felt drunk, wild, and burning hot, my body already racing towards another sharp crescendo as my hips sped up to match his movements. Without thinking, I flung my head back onto the pillow, the angle leaving my neck completely exposed. His hips stuttered to a stop, even as he remained fully seated inside me. He growled.

Dewey was wrong when he said that being noble enough is all we can ask for in this world, because we can ask for much more than that. We can ask for a second helping of pound cake even though someone has made it quite clear that we will not get any. We can ask for a new watercolor set, even though it will be pointed out that we never used the old one, and that all of the paints dried into a crumbly mess. We can ask for Japanese fighting fish, to keep us company in our bedroom, and we can ask for a special camera that will allow us to take photographs even in the dark, for obvious reasons, and we can ask for an extra sugar cube in our coffees in the morning and an extra pillow in our beds at night. We can ask for justice, and we can ask for a handkerchief and we can ask for cupcakes, and we can ask for all the soldiers in the world to lay down their weapons and join us in a rousing chorus of ‘Cry Me a River,’ if that happens to be our favorite song. But we can also ask for something we are much more likely to get, and that is to find a person or two, somewhere in our travels, who will tell us that we are noble enough, whether it is true or not. We can ask for someone who will say, ‘You are noble enough,’ and remind us of our good qualities when we have forgotten them, or cast them into doubt.

Dusk began to fall, I sank into myself more and more, grew tired and lay back on the bed. To warm my hands a bit, I pushed my fingers through my hair, back and forth, crossways and sideways; small handfuls came loose, tufts came away between my fingers and spread over the pillow. I didn't worry about that, it was as if it were not happening to me; I had plenty of hair anyway. After a while I attempted to rouse myself from this curious drowsiness which had floated into all my limbs like a fog; I sat up, coughed as hard as my chest would allow - and fell back once more. Nothing to do, I was dying with open eyes, helpless, staring up at the ceiling. Finally I put my forefinger in my mouth and started sucking on it. Something started to flicker in my brain, an idea that had gotten in there, a lunatic notion. Suppose I took a bite? Without a moment's hesitation I shut my eyes and clamped down hard with my teeth. I leaped up. Finally I was awake. A little blood trickled from the finger, and I licked it off. There wasn't much pain, the wound didn't amount to anything, but I was suddenly myself again. I shook my head, walked to the window, and found a rag for my finger. While I stood puttering about with that, my eyes suddenly filled, I cried softly to myself. The poor biten thin finger looked so pitiful. My God, I was a long way down.

Twenty-three One day you wake up and you’re twenty-three and you can’t remember what it feels like to be seventeen but you still cry to your mother after a bad day and you look a little older but you don’t really feel it. One day you’re twenty-three and your great-aunt is telling you how mature you look and how you grew a little taller but inside you still remember sitting under the oak tree reading with no meetings tomorrow and no rent to pay and the only thing you can think about is how at seventeen you thought at twenty-three you would know everything and now you can’t remember how you got from there to here. But seventeen-year-old you was wrong because you know only some things and not everything. You know that coffee tastes better in the mornings and your home isn’t your home anymore; it’s “Mum and Dad’s.” You know your car needs servicing every six months and groceries are harder to do after breakups. She liked cookie dough and walnuts and strawberry-flavored milk and now every time you go to the store you can’t buy spaghetti without remembering it was a Friday night and she kissed you for the first time and the heat from her skin could have set your entire place on fire. One day you’re twenty-three and you’re trying to explain to a seventeen-year-old all the mistakes you made so they won’t make them too, when all you really want is for someone to realize you still don’t have the first clue.

What did E.S. like about dreams? Their similarity to life and their dissimilarity; their salutary effect on body and soul; their unrestricted choice and arrangement of themes and contents; their bottomless depths and eerie heights; their eroticism; their freedom; their openness to guidance by will and suggestion (a perfumed handkerchief under one's pillow, soft music on the radio or gramophone, etc.); their resemblance to death and their power to confer intimations of eternity; their resemblance to madness without the consequences of madness; their cruelty and their gentleness; their power to pry the deepest secrets out of us; their blissful silence, to which cries are not unknown; their telepathic and spiritist faculty of communication with those dead or far away; their coded language, which we manage to understand and translate; their ability to condense the mythical figures of Icarus, Ahasuerus, Jonah, Noah, etc., into images; their monochrome and polychrome quality; their resemblance to the womb and to the jaws of a shark; their faculty of transforming unknown places, people, and landscapes into known ones, and vice versa; their power to diagnose certain ailments and traumas before it is too late; the difficulty of determining how long they last; the fact that they can be mistaken for reality; their power to preserve images and distant memories; their disrespect for chronology and the classical unities of time and action.

Strong, broad hands rubbed down my spine, and I opened my eyes to find the room wholly black, Rhysand perched on the mattress beside me. 'Do you want anything to eat?' His voice was soft- tentative. I didn't raise my head from the pillow. 'I feel... heavy again,' I breathed, voice breaking. Rhys said nothing as he gathered me up into his arms. He was still in his jacket, as if he'd just come in from wherever he'd been talking with Cassian. In the dark, I breathed in his scent, savoured his warmth. 'Are you all right?' Rhys was quiet for a long minute. 'No.' I slid my arms around him, holding him tightly. 'I should have found another way,' he said. I stroked my fingers through his silken hair. Rhys murmured, 'If she...' His swallow was audible. 'If she showed up at this house...' I knew who he meant. 'I would kill her. Without even letting her speak. I would kill her.' 'I know.' I would, too. 'You asked me at the library,' he whispered. 'Why I... Why I'd rather take all of this upon myself. Tonight is why. Seeing Mor cry is why. I made a bad call. Tried to find some other way around this shithole we're in.' And had lost something- Mor had lost something- in the process. We held each other in silence for minutes. Hours. Two souls, twining in the dark. I lowered my shields, let him in fully. His mind curled around mine. 'Would you risk looking into it- the Ouroboros?' I asked. 'Not yet,' was all Rhys said, holding me tighter. 'Not yet.

Will you be there waiting for me every night, in our cottage?" he murmured. She nodded, leaning against him. McKenna's bristly black lashes lowered until they cast shadows on his cheeks. "And you'll scrub my back when I'm tired and dusty from the field?" Aline pictured his large, powerful body lowering into a wooden tub... his pleasured sigh at the heat of the water... his bronzed back shining in the firelight. "Yes," she breathed. "And then you can soak while I hang the stew pot over the fire, and I'll tell you about the argument I had with the miller, who didn't give me enough flour because his scale was weighted." McKenna laughed softly while his fingertip skimmed lightly along her throat. "The cheat," he murmured, his eyes sparkling. "I'll speak with him tomorrow- no one tries to fleece my wife and gets away with it. In the meantime, let's go to bed. I want to hold you all night long." The thought of being tucked in a cozy bed with him, their naked bodies entwined, made Aline tremble with longing. "You'll probably fall asleep as soon as your head touches the pillow," she said. "Farming is hard work- you're exhausted." "Never too tired to love you." His arms slid around her, and he hunched over to nuzzle the curve of her cheek. His lips were like hot velvet as he whispered against her skin. "I'm going to kiss you from your head to your toes. And I won't stop until you're crying for me, and then I'll pleasure you until you're weak from my loving.

Are you chuckling yet? Because then along came you. A big, broad meat eater with brash blond hair and ruddy skin that burns at the beach. A bundle of appetites. A full, boisterous guffaw; a man who tells knock know jokes. Hot dogs - not even East 86th Street bratwurst but mealy, greasy big guts that terrifying pink. Baseball. Gimme caps. Puns and blockbuster movies, raw tap water and six-packs. A fearless, trusting consumer who only reads labels to make sure there are plenty of additives. A fan of the open road with a passion for his pickup who thinks bicycles are for nerds. Fucks hard and talks dirty; a private though unapologetic taste for porn. Mysteries, thrillers, and science fiction; a subscription to National Geographic. Barbecues on the Fourth of July and intentions, in the fullness of time, to take up golf. Delights in crappy snack foods of ever description: Burgles. Curlies. Cheesies. Squigglies - you're laughing - but I don't eat them - anything that looks less like food than packing material and at least six degrees of separation from the farm. Bruce Springsteen, the early albums, cranked up high with the truck window down and your hair flying. Sings along, off-key - how is it possible that I should be endeared by such a tin ear?Beach Boys. Elvis - never lose your roots, did you, loved plain old rock and roll. Bombast. Though not impossibly stodgy; I remember, you took a shine to Pearl Jam, which was exactly when Kevin went off them...(sorry). It just had to be noisy; you hadn't any time for my Elgar, my Leo Kottke, though you made an exception for Aaron Copeland. You wiped your eyes brusquely at Tanglewood, as if to clear gnats, hoping I didn't notice that "Quiet City" made you cry. And ordinary, obvious pleasure: the Bronx Zoo and the botanical gardens, the Coney Island roller coaster, the Staten Island ferry, the Empire State Building. You were the only New Yorker I'd ever met who'd actually taken the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. You dragged me along once, and we were the only tourists on the boat who spoke English. Representational art - Edward Hopper. And my lord, Franklin, a Republican. A belief in a strong defense but otherwise small government and low taxes. Physically, too, you were such a surprise - yourself a strong defense. There were times you were worried that I thought you too heavy, I made so much of your size, though you weighed in a t a pretty standard 165, 170, always battling those five pounds' worth of cheddar widgets that would settle over your belt. But to me you were enormous. So sturdy and solid, so wide, so thick, none of that delicate wristy business of my imaginings. Built like an oak tree, against which I could pitch my pillow and read; mornings, I could curl into the crook of your branches. How luck we are, when we've spared what we think we want! How weary I might have grown of all those silly pots and fussy diets, and how I detest the whine of sitar music!

Can't sleep so you put on his grey boots -- nothing else -- & step inside the rain. Even though he's gone, you think, I still want to be clean. If only the rain were gasoline, your tongue a lit match, & you can change without disappearing. If only he dies the second his name becomes a tooth in your mouth. But he doesn't. He dies when they wheel him away & the priest ushers you out the room, your palms two puddles of rain. He dies as your heart beats faster, as another war coppers the sky. He dies each night you close your eyes & hear his slow exhale. Your fist choking the dark. Your fist through the bathroom mirror. He dies at the party where everyone laughs & all you want is to go into the kitchen & make seven omelets before burning down the house. All you want is to run into the woods & beg the wolf to fuck you up. He dies when you wake & it's November forever. A Hendrix record melted on a rusted needle. He dies the morning he kisses you for two minutes too long, when he says Wait followed by I have something to say & you quickly grab your favorite pink pillow & smother him as he cries into the soft & darkening fabric. You hold still until he's very quiet, until the walls dissolve & you're both standing in the crowded train again. Look how it rocks you back & forth like a slow dance seen from the distance of years. You're still a freshman. You're still but he smiles anyway. His teeth reflected in the window reflecting your lips as you mouth Hello -- your tongue a lit match.

A long time ago, I collected the flower petals stained with my first blood; I thought there was something significant about that, there was importance in all the little moments of experience, because when you live forever, the first times matter. The first time you bleed, first time you cry — I don’t remember that — first time you see your wings, because new things defile you, purity chips away. your purity. nestled flowers in your belly, waiting to be picked. do you want innocence back? small and young smiles that make your eyes squint and cheeks flare the feeling of your face dripping down onto the grass, the painted walls you tore down, the roads you chipped away, they’ll eat away at you, the lingering feelings of a warm hand on your waist, the taps of your feet as you dance, the beats of your timbrel.’ ‘and now you are like Gods, sparkling brilliant with jewelry that worships you, and you’re splitting in order to create.’ ‘The tosses of your wet hair, the rushes of chariots speeding past, the holy, holy, holy lord god of hosts, the sweetness of a strawberry, knocks against the window by your head, the little tunes of your pipes, the cuts sliced into your fingers by uptight cacti fruits, the brisk scent of a sea crashing into the rocks, the sweat of wrestling, onions, cumin, parsley in a metal jug, mud clinging to your skin, a friendly mouth on your cheeks and forehead, chimes, chirps of chatter in the bazaar, amen, amen, amen, the plump fish rushing to take the bread you toss, scraping of a carpenter, the hiss of chalk, the wisps of clouds cradling you as you nap, the splashes of water in a hot pool, the picnic in a meadow, the pounding of feet that are chasing you, the velvet of petals rustling you awake, a giant water lily beneath you, the innocent kiss, the sprawl of the universe reflected in your eyes for the first time, the bloody wings that shred out of your back, the apples in orchards, a basket of stained flowers, excited chants of a colosseum audience, the heat of spinning and bouncing to drums and claps, the love braided into your hair, the trickles of a piano, smell of myrrh, the scratches of a spoon in a cup, the coarseness of a carpet, the stringed instruments and trumpets, the serene smile of not knowing, the sleeping angel, the delight of a creator, the amusement of gossip and rumors, the rumbling laughter between shy singing, the tangling of legs, squash, celery, carrot, and chayote, the swirled face paint, the warmth of honey in your tea, the timid face in the mirror, mahogany beams, the embrace of a bed of flowers, the taste of a grape as its fed to you, the lip smacks of an angel as you feed him a raspberry, the first dizziness of alcohol, the cool water and scent of natron and the scratch of the rock you beat your dirty clothes against, the strain of your arms, the columns of an entrance, the high ceilings of a dark cathedral, the boiling surface of bubbling stew, the burn of stained-glass, the little joyous jump you do seeing bread rise, the silky taste of olive oil, the lap of an angel humming as he embroiders a little fox into his tunic, the softness of browned feathers lulling you to sleep, the weight of a dozen blankets and pillows on your small bed, the proud smile on the other side of a window in a newly-finished building, the myrtle trees only you two know about, the palm of god as he fashions you from threads of copper, his praises, his love, his kiss to your hair, your father.

The blacksmith's boy went out with a rifle and a black dog running behind. Cobwebs snatched at his feet, rivers hindered him, thorn branches caught at his eyes to make him blind and the sky turned into an unlucky opal, but he didn't mind. I can break branches, I can swim rivers, I can stare out any spider I meet, said he to his dog and his rifle. The blacksmith's boy went over the paddocks with his old black hat on his head. Mountains jumped in his way, rocks rolled down on him, and the old crow cried, You'll soon be dead. And the rain came down like mattocks. But he only said, I can climb mountains, I can dodge rocks, I can shoot an old crow any day, and he went on over the paddocks. When he came to the end of the day, the sun began falling, Up came the night ready to swallow him, like the barrel of a gun, like an old black hat, like a black dog hungry to follow him. Then the pigeon, the magpie and the dove began wailing and the grass lay down to pillow him. His rifle broke, his hat blew away and his dog was gone and the sun was falling. But in front of the night, the rainbow stood on the mountain, just as his heart foretold. He ran like a hare, he climbed like a fox; he caught it in his hands, the colours and the cold - like a bar of ice, like the column of a fountain, like a ring of gold. The pigeon, the magpie and the dove flew up to stare, and the grass stood up again on the mountain. The blacksmith's boy hung the rainbow on his shoulder instead of his broken gun. Lizards ran out to see, snakes made way for him, and the rainbow shone as brightly as the sun. All the world said, Nobody is braver, nobody is bolder, nobody else has done anything equal to it. He went home as easy as could be with the swinging rainbow on his shoulder.

there was something else, something more complicated, more secret, and that is that girls in those days, even modern girls, like us, girls who went to school and then to university, were always taught that women are entitled to an education and a place outside the home—but only until the children are born. Your life is your own only for a short time: from when you leave your parents' home to your first pregnancy. From that moment, from the first pregnancy, we had to begin to live our lives only around the children. Just like our mothers. Even to sweep pavements for our children, because your child is the chick and you are—what? When it comes down to it, you are just the yolk of the egg, you are what the chick eats so as to grow big and strong. And when your child grows up—even then you can't go back to being yourself, you simply change from being a mother to being a grandmother, whose task is simply to help her children bring up their children. True, even then there were quite a few women who made careers for themselves and went out into the world. But everybody talked about them behind their backs: look at that selfish woman, she sits in meetings while her poor children grow up in the street and pay the price. Now it's a new world. Now at last women are given more opportunity to live lives of their own. Or is it just an illusion? Maybe in the younger generations too women still cry into their pillows at night, while their husbands are asleep, because they feel they have to make impossible choices? I don't want to be judgmental: it's not my world anymore. To make a comparison I'd have to go from door to door checking how many mothers' tears are wept every night into the pillow when husbands are asleep, and to compare the tears then with the tears now.

Goaded on by climbing lust, he laid her on her back again and maneuvered himself gently atop her, taking care not to crush her with his weight. He slid his arm around her, cradled her lovely head in his hands, and gazed at her for a heartbeat. "I'm going to take you now." "Mm, yes, Rohan, please." She writhed beneath him. He lowered his head and consumed her mouth with kisses as he entered her. Inch by inch, pressing in, he gave her what they so desperately yearned for. She welcomed him, though he could feel her feverish uncertainty. He moved slowly, throbbing inside her. He was only about halfway in, pleasuring her with small motions, caressing her tight inner walls. Her breasts heaved against his chest as she grew accustomed to his incursion, warily accepting it; he sensed the moment she had need of more. He gave it to her, riding in more deeply, resolute in his taking. She licked her lips, opening to him, but still he held himself back. He moved slowly until her head thrashed back and forth on his pillow and her body squirmed beneath him in quivering frustration. He drove in harder, quickened his pace. She arched, clawing at his trembling hips, a whispered curse torn wildly from her. He could bear no more self-denial. As she lay trembling beneath him, he braced himself on his hands above her, gazed fiercely into her eyes, and thrust again, taking her completely. This time he drove in to the hilt, and a small cry of pain escaped her; he instantly regretted it. But when he started to pull back, she clung to him, her arms around his sweat-dampened waist. He swallowed hard, for a quick glance down at the juncture of their joined bodies had revealed a scarlet streak of her blood. Dear God. He had not expected the rush of emotion he now felt as it truly struck him that he had just deflowered her. She was the most beautiful, most astonishing creature he had ever met. And she had willingly given him her virginity.

My head snaps around at the hiss, but it takes awhile to believe he’s real. How could he have gotten here? I take in the claw marks from some wild animal, the back paw he holds slightly above the ground, the prominent bones in his face. He’s come on foot, then, all the way from 13. Maybe they kicked him out or maybe he just couldn’t stand it there without her, so he came looking. “It was the waste of a trip. She’s not here,” I tell him. Buttercup hisses again. “She’s not here. You can hiss all you like. You won’t find Prim.” At her name, he perks up. Raises his flattened ears. Begins to meow hopefully. “Get out!” He dodges the pillow I throw at him. “Go away! There’s nothing left for you here!” I start to shake, furious with him. “She’s not coming back! She’s never ever coming back here again!” I grab another pillow and get to my feet to improve my aim. Out of nowhere, the tears begin to pour down my cheeks. “She’s dead.” I clutch my middle to dull the pain. Sink down on my heels, rocking the pillow, crying. “She’s dead, you stupid cat. She’s dead.” A new sound, part crying, part singing, comes out of my body, giving voice to my despair. Buttercup begins to wail as well. No matter what I do, he won’t go. He circles me, just out of reach, as wave after wave of sobs racks my body, until eventually I fall unconscious. But he must understand. He must know that the unthinkable has happened and to survive will require previously unthinkable acts. Because hours later, when I come to in my bed, he’s there in the moonlight. Crouched beside me, yellow eyes alert, guarding me from the night. In the morning, he sits stoically as I clean the cuts, but digging the thorn from his paw brings on a round of those kitten mews. We both end up crying again, only this time we comfort each other. On the strength of this, I open the letter Haymitch gave me from my mother, dial the phone number, and weep with her as well. Peeta, bearing a warm loaf of bread, shows up with Greasy Sae. She makes us breakfast and I feed all my bacon to Buttercup.

Why did you come back to Salt Lake?" I knew the answer before I asked the question and he knew I knew, and it was like you could see the shadow of it hanging there between us. "I needed to see you," he finally said. "It's hard to explain." "You don't have to." "I tried telling my mom once what happed that day. Showed her the hole in the window screen and Moe and even after that she said it was complicated, that my dad's a complicated man and we all needed to try harder to understand him." His voice was shaking now. "And I thought, hey, maybe she's right. Maybe he was just playing around, you know. Maybe we didn't need to run." "We did," I whispered. "That's why I had to come, see?" He didn't move and I didn't move, but in a few seconds I heard him sniffling and he couldn't stop and I knew he was crying. "Cameron." I propped myself up, reached out my arm. "Come here." He got up and came to me, dragging his blanket behind him like a child. I scooted over in my bed to make room. "Come on." He positioned himself beside me-I stayed under the covers, he was on top of them, his head next to mine on the pillow. I stroked his hair and thought of the week he'd lived at our house, the way we slept shoulder to shoulder in our sleeping bags in the living room and I got another good memory. Jennifer, Cameron had said. You awake? His voice was coming from across the room. I sat up. Yeah. Look. He was standing by the living room window. The blinds were closed, but he had his hands on the cord, a big smile on his face. Ready? I nodded, starting to smile myself. One, two, three, Cameron said, then pulled the blind up, hand over hand on the cord like someone on TV. His smile got even bigger as he watched my face. Snow. Giant flakes of it falling in front of the window even though it was only September. Now, I fell asleep with my arm over Cameron's chest, thinking of how the flakes had been slow and white in the glow of the streetlights that lined the apartment walkways, and the smile on his face and on mine, like the snow was personal, a gift he'd given me himself.

I pushed forward suddenly, the head of his cock teasing my entrance open in bliss. But a sudden jerk from Ryker left me painfully empty once more, and I whined in frustration. "Just say it," he teased. "Do you like it a little rough? All you have to do is say yes." Fine. Ass. "Yes," I hissed. "Yes, I do." Instant pressure hit me as he slid his length into me in one go. I was so wet, there was no friction stopping him as he filled me completely. Tight, hot, hard. I took in a sharp breath and he gave me a satisfied hum. "There now, that wasn't so hard," he mused. Smack. Ryker shoved into me just a little harder at the same time he smacked me right on the mark, and I screamed. I was so hot, and wet, and full of him that I could hardly keep myself from unraveling. Thankfully, his hands stayed firmly in place, helping to hold me still as he slid out again, only to thrust inside once more. "Fuck, Danica," Ryker rumbled. "Your pretty little ass is turning the hottest shade of pink." I was breathless as Ryker thrust again and again, pushing me higher and higher. Sometimes he would smack the mark again, and I was sure I would be feeling it in the morning but I couldn't bring myself to care. All I could care about was Ryker and what he did to me. I felt wholly and truly right with him, and my head was in a fog as the orgasm hit me hard. "Ryker!" I shouted as he thrust at just the right moment and all the tight muscles in my body came loose. Floating, floating and falling and clenching and dropping into a boneless heap. I was still reeling from the high he had started in me when I felt his hot release as well. Ryker came hard, gripping my hip as he shoved in as deep as he could. The hot, burning stretch of him shoving so hard coupled with the intensity of my own postorgasm shaking pulled another cry from me. When we were both spent and he was still over me, staring down in satisfied confidence, he leaned in with a light kiss. "Good girl, you take me so fucking well." My ass stung, I was filled to the brim, and I liked it. Releasing my hip, he slid out of me and I groaned at the fleeting feeling of fullness. When wetness trickled out of me, more than just my own arousal, I pressed my thighs together.

Then she cried quickly, "Stay, brother, stay! do not drink, or you will become a wild beast, and tear me to pieces." Thirsty as he was, the brother conquered his desire to drink at her words, and said, "Dear sister, I will wait till we come to a spring." So they wandered farther, but as they approached, she heard in the bubbling spring the words— "Who drinks of me, a wolf will be." "Brother, I pray you, do not drink of this brook; you will be changed into a wolf, and devour me." Again the brother denied himself and promised to wait; but he said, "At the next stream I must drink, say what you will, my thirst is so great." Not far off ran a pretty streamlet, looking clear and bright; but here also in its murmuring waters, the sister heard the words— "Who dares to drink of me, Turned to a stag will be." "Dear brother, do not drink," she began; but she was too late, for her brother had already knelt by the stream to drink, and as the first drop of water touched his lips he became a fawn. How the little sister wept over the enchanted brother, and the fawn wept also. He did not run away, but stayed close to her; and at last she said, "Stand still, dear fawn; don't fear, I must take care of you, but I will never leave you." So she untied her little golden garter and fastened it round the neck of the fawn; then she gathered some soft green rushes, and braided them into a soft string, which she fastened to the fawn's golden collar, and then led him away into the depths of the forest. After wandering about for some time, they at last found a little deserted hut, and the sister was overjoyed, for she thought it would form a nice shelter for them both. So she led the fawn in, and then went out alone, to gather moss and dried leaves, to make him a soft bed. Every morning she went out to gather dried roots, nuts, and berries, for her own food, and sweet fresh grass for the fawn, which he ate out of her hand, and the poor little animal went out with her, and played about as happy as the day was long. When evening came, and the poor sister felt tired, she would kneel down and say her prayers, and then lay her delicate head on the fawn's back, which was a soft warm pillow, on which she could sleep peacefully. Had this dear

I hold my breath while he hooks his hands under my thighs. When he resumes, it's faster, harder, and a whole new level of euphoria. I press my eyes shut just as they start to roll back. That spot. That elusive spot every man had such a hard time locating is front and center now. I silently dub him the G-spot whisperer. Another deep thrust hits it again. Good thing I'm not trying to speak anymore, because I've lost all my words. All I have to offer are huffs of hot air and whimpering. Lots and lots of whimpering. The edge of Callum's mouth turns up, and I have to swallow to keep from choking at the divine sight. He looks like a god in this moment. His skin is a golden glow, painted in specks of sweat, highlighting every single cut muscle he possesses. And his expression---a cross between concentration and satisfaction. It's hard physical work he's doing, but he relishes it. I can tell by the glimmer in his eyes, the way his hands cradle my legs so I'm comfortably supported. I can tell by the pinch of his jaw, those soft grunts he let loose, that this is blowing his mind too. For the second time in one night, pressure builds inside me. The feeling is almost too much, but all I want is more. These long, deliberate thrusts are the greatest physical sensations my body has ever experienced. I could explode at any moment, but I want this to last. Forever, if possible. Arching my back, I press my head against the pillow. I cry out, sounding like a rabid banshee. A muttered curse falls from his lips. "That's it. Don't hold back." Pressure and heat collide, and I couldn't hold back if I tried. The deep thrusts keep coming like an endless loop of crashing waves. Callum and my G-spot are new best friends, it seems. Over and over, he hits it. Over and over, the sensations build to an overwhelming peak. His pace shifts from impressive to phenomenal. If Callum were a sex doll, I'd buy a dozen. His stamina, his technique, his adoration of me and my body, it's all perfection. When I burst, I'm even louder than before. And just like before, I'm ablaze from the inside out. Ecstasy pulses through every inch of skin and bone. My blood pumps hot, like lava flowing through my veins. Every muscle tightens, then loosens. Panting, I clutch Callum's forearms and watch his face as he hits his own peak.

As we pulled up at the big school gates, I saw tears rolling down my dad’s face. I felt confused as to what part of nature or love thought this was a good idea. My instinct certainly didn’t; but what did I know? I was only eight. So I embarked on this mission called boarding school. And how do you prepare for that one? In truth, I found it really hard; there were some great moments like building dens in the snow in winter, or getting chosen for the tennis team, or earning a naval button, but on the whole it was a survival exercise in learning to cope. Coping with fear was the big one. The fear of being left and the fear of being bullied--both of which were very real. What I learned was that I couldn’t manage either of those things very well on my own. It wasn’t anything to do with the school itself, in fact the headmaster and teachers were almost invariably kind, well-meaning and good people, but that sadly didn’t make surviving it much easier. I was learning very young that if I were to survive this place then I had to find some coping mechanisms. My way was to behave badly, and learn to scrap, as a way to avoid bullies wanting to target me. It was also a way to avoid thinking about home. But not thinking about home is hard when all you want is to be at home. I missed my mum and dad terribly, and on the occasional night where I felt this worst, I remember trying to muffle my tears in my pillow while the rest of the dormitory slept. In fact I was not alone in doing this. Almost everyone cried, but we all learned to hide it, and those who didn’t were the ones who got bullied. As a kid, you can only cry so much before you run out of tears and learn to get tough. I meet lots of folks nowadays who say how great boarding school is as a way of toughening kids up. That feels a bit back-to-front to me. I was much tougher before school. I had learned to love the outdoors and to understand the wild, and how to push myself. When I hit school, suddenly all I felt was fear. Fear forces you to look tough on the outside but makes you weak on the inside. This was the opposite of all I had ever known as a kid growing up. I had been shown by my dad that it was good to be fun, cozy, homely--but then as tough as boots when needed. At prep school I was unlearning this lesson and adopting new ways to survive. And age eight, I didn’t always pick them so well.

I need you to say it." Ryker's hot breath was on my neck, his hand on my hip, and he was ready to sink into me the second he got his answer. All I had to do was admit it. Or I could try to take matters into my own hands just to fuck with him. I pushed forward suddenly, the head of his cock teasing my entrance open in bliss. But a sudden jerk from Ryker left me painfully empty once more, and I whined in frustration. "Just say it," he teased. "Do you like it a little rough? All you have to do is say yes." Fine. Ass. "Yes," I hissed. "Yes, I do." Instant pressure hit me as he slid his length into me in one go. I was so wet, there was no friction stopping him as he filled me completely. Tight, hot, hard. I took in a sharp breath and he gave me a satisfied hum. "There now, that wasn't so hard," he mused. Smack. Ryker shoved into me just a little harder at the same time he smacked me right on the mark, and I screamed. I was so hot, and wet, and full of him that I could hardly keep myself from unraveling. Thankfully, his hands stayed firmly in place, helping to hold me still as he slid out again, only to thrust inside once more. "Fuck, Danica," Ryker rumbled. "Your pretty little ass is turning the hottest shade of pink." I was breathless as Ryker thrust again and again, pushing me higher and higher. Sometimes he would smack the mark again, and I was sure I would be feeling it in the morning but I couldn't bring myself to care. All I could care about was Ryker and what he did to me. I felt wholly and truly right with him, and my head was in a fog as the orgasm hit me hard. "Ryker!" I shouted as he thrust at just the right moment and all the tight muscles in my body came loose. Floating, floating and falling and clenching and dropping into a boneless heap. I was still reeling from the high he had started in me when I felt his hot release as well. Ryker came hard, gripping my hip as he shoved in as deep as he could. The hot, burning stretch of him shoving so hard coupled with the intensity of my own postorgasm shaking pulled another cry from me. When we were both spent and he was still over me, staring down in satisfied confidence, he leaned in with a light kiss. "Good girl, you take me so fucking well." My ass stung, I was filled to the brim, and I liked it. Releasing my hip, he slid out of me and I groaned at the fleeting feeling of fullness. When wetness trickled out of me, more than just my own arousal, I pressed my thighs together.

We went away, leaving Dan sitting on the door-sill reading his book, and Jimmy P. snoozing blissfully on the sofa. When we returned—Felix and the girls and I were ahead of the others—Dan was still sitting in precisely the same place and attitude; but there was no Jimmy in sight. "Dan, where's the baby?" cried Felicity. Dan looked around. His jaw fell in blank amazement. I never say any one look as foolish as Dan at that moment. "Good gracious, I don't know," he said helplessly. "You've been so deep in that wretched book that he's got out, and dear knows where he is," cried Felicity distractedly. "I wasn't," cried Dan. "He MUST be in the house. I've been sitting right across the door ever since you left, and he couldn't have got out unless he crawled right over me. He must be in the house." "He isn't in the kitchen," said Felicity rushing about wildly, "and he couldn't get into the other part of the house, for I shut the hall door tight, and no baby could open it—and it's shut tight yet. So are all the windows. He MUST have gone out of that door, Dan King, and it's your fault." "He DIDN'T go out of this door," reiterated Dan stubbornly. "I know that." "Well, where is he, then? He isn't here. Did he melt into air?" demanded Felicity. "Oh, come and look for him, all of you. Don't stand round like ninnies. We MUST find him before his mother gets here. Dan King, you're an idiot!" Dan was too frightened to resent this, at the time. However and wherever Jimmy had gone, he WAS gone, so much was certain. We tore about the house and yard like maniacs; we looked into every likely and unlikely place. But Jimmy we could not find, anymore than if he had indeed melted into air. Mrs. Patterson came, and we had not found him. Things were getting serious. Uncle Roger and Peter were summoned from the field. Mrs. Patterson became hysterical, and was taken into the spare room with such remedies as could be suggested. Everybody blamed poor Dan. Cecily asked him what he would feel like if Jimmy was never, never found. The Story Girl had a gruesome recollection of some baby at Markdale who had wandered away like that— "And they never found him till the next spring, and all they found was—HIS SKELETON, with the grass growing through it," she whispered. "This beats me," said Uncle Roger, when a fruitless hour had elapsed. "I do hope that baby hasn't wandered down to the swamp. It seems impossible he could walk so far; but I must go and see. Felicity, hand me my high boots out from under the sofa, there's a girl." Felicity, pale and tearful, dropped on her knees and lifted the cretonne frill of the sofa. There, his head pillowed hardly on Uncle Roger's boots, lay Jimmy Patterson, still sound asleep!

A whimper escaped her as he slid low between her thighs, his head bending to the swollen place he had been tormenting with his fingers. He put his mouth on her, licking along the delicate, salty strait, spreading her with his thumbs. She tried to sit bolt-upright, but fell back against the pillows as he found what he wanted, his tongue strong and wet. She was spread beneath him like a pagan sacrifice, illuminated by the daylight that now flooded the room. Merripen worshipped her with hot, glassy licks, savoring the taste of her pleasured flesh. Moaning, she closed her legs around his head, and he turned deliberately to nibble and lick at one pale inner thigh, then the other. Feasting on her. Wanting everything. Win curled her fingers desperately in his hair, lost to shame as she guided him back, her body arching wordlessly...here, please, more, more, now...and she groaned as he fastened his mouth over her with a fast, flicking rhythm. Pleasure seized her, wrenching an astonished cry from her, holding her stiff and paralyzed for excruciating seconds. Every movement and measure and pulse of the universe had distilled to the compelling, slippery heat, riveted there on that crucial place, and then it all released, the feeling and tension shattering exquisitely, and she was racked with hard, blissful shudders. Win relaxed helplessly as the spasms faded. She was filled with glowing weariness, a sense of peace too pervasive to allow movement. Merripen let go of her just long enough to undress completely. Naked and aroused, he came back to her. He gathered her up with brute, masculine need, settling over her. She lifted her arms to him with a drowsy murmur. His back was tough and sleek beneath her fingers, the muscles twitching eagerly at her touch. His head descended, his shaven cheek rasping against hers. She met his power with utter surrender, flexing her knees and tilting her hips to cradle him. He pushed gently at first. The innocent flesh resisted, smarting at the intrusion. He thrust more strongly and Win caught her breath at the burning pain of his entrance. Too much of him, too hard, too deep. She writhed in reaction, and he buried himself heavily and pinned her down, gasping for her to be still, telling her to wait, he wouldn't move, it would be better. They both stilled, breathing hard. "Should I stop?" Merripen whispered raggedly, his face taut. Even now in this flash point of need, he was concerned for her. Understanding what it had cost him to ask, how much he needed her, Win was overwhelmed with love. "Don't even think of stopping now," she whispered back. Reaching down his lean flanks, she stroked him in shy encouragement. He groaned and began to move, his entire body trembling as he pressed within her. Although every thrust caused a sharp burn where they were joined, Win tried to pull him even deeper. The feeling of having him inside her went far beyond the pain or pleasure. It was necessary.

Soon after I arrived on the island I had a run-in with my son’s first grade teacher due to my irreverent PJ sense of humor. When Billy lost a baby tooth I arranged the traditional parentchild Tooth Fairy ritual. Only six years old, Billy already suspected I was really the Tooth Fairy and schemed to catch me in the act. With each lost tooth, he was getting harder and harder to trick. To defeat my precocious youngster I decided on a bold plan of action. When I tucked him in I made an exaggerated show of placing the tooth under his pillow. I conspicuously displayed his tooth between my thumb and forefinger and slid my hand slowly beneath his pillow. Unbeknownst to him, I hid a crumpled dollar bill in the palm of my hand. With a flourish I pretended to place the tooth under Billy’s pillow, but with expert parental sleight of hand, I kept the tooth and deposited the dollar bill instead. I issued a stern warning not to try and stay awake to see the fairy and left Billy’s room grinning slyly. I assured him I would guard against the tricky fairy creature. I knew Billy would not be able to resist checking under his pillow. Sure enough, only a few minutes later he burst from his room wide-eyed with excitement. He clutched a dollar bill tightly in his fist and bounced around the room, “Dad! Dad! The fairy took my tooth and left a dollar!” I said, “I know son. I used my ninja skills and caught that thieving fairy leaving your room. I trapped her in a plastic bag and put her in the freezer.” Billy was even more excited and begged to see the captured fairy. I opened the freezer and gave him a quick glimpse of a large shrimp I had wrapped in plastic. Viewed through multiple layers of wrap, the shrimp kind of looked like a frozen fairy. I stressed the magnitude of the occasion, “Tooth fairies are magical, elusive little things with their wings and all. I think we are the first family ever to capture one!” Billy was hopping all over the house and it took me quite awhile to finally calm him down and get him to sleep. The next day I got an unexpected phone call at work. My son’s teacher wanted to talk to me about Billy, “Now what?” I thought. When I arrived at the school, Billy’s teacher met me at the door. Once we settled into her office, she explained she was worried about him. Earlier that day, Billy told his first grade class his father had killed the tooth fairy and had her in a plastic bag in the freezer. He was very convincing. Some little kids started to cry. I explained the previous night’s fairy drama to the teacher. I was chuckling—she was not. She looked at me as if I had a giant booger hanging out of a nostril. Despite the look, I could tell she was attracted to me so I told her no thanks, I already had a girlfriend. Her sputtering red face made me uncomfortable and I quickly left. Later I swore Billy to secrecy about our fairy hunting activities. For dinner that evening, we breaded and fried up a couple dozen fairies and ate them with cocktail sauce and fava beans.

The door was still open, so I shut it and was returning to my desk when I braked. There was a backpack resting on the other side of my desk chair. It wasn’t mine. It wasn’t Missy’s. I was pretty sure it wasn’t Holly’s or the cousin’s. “Shit,” I muttered under my breath. “Huh?” she barked, her head swinging around to me. A quick glance confirmed what I already knew. She was drunk. “Nothing.” She pulled out one of her shirts, but it wasn’t her normal pajama top. She was really drunk. I picked up Shay’s bag and checked the contents to make sure it was his. It was. I saw his planner with his name scrawled at the top, so I zipped that bag and put it in the back of my closet. No one needed to go through it. I didn’t think Missy would, but I just never knew. Dropping into my chair, I picked up my phone to text Shay as Missy fell to the floor. I looked up to watch. I couldn’t not see this. I was tempted to video it, but I was being nice. For once. As Missy wrestled with her jeans and lifted them over her head to throw into her closet, I texted Shay. Me: You left your bag here. Missy let out a half-gurgled moan and a cry of frustration at the same time. She didn’t stand, instead crawling to the closet. She grabbed another pair of pants. Those weren’t her pajamas, either. As she pulled them on—or tried since her feet kept eluding the pants’ hole—my phone buzzed back. Coleman: Can I pick it up in the morning? I texted back. Me: When? Missy got one leg in. Success. I wanted to thrust my fist in the air for her. My phone buzzed again. Coleman: Early. My playbook is in there. I groaned. Me: When is early? I’m in college, Coleman. Sleeping in is mandatory. Coleman: Nine too early for you? I can come back to get it now. Nine was doable. Me: Let’s do an exchange. You bring me coffee, and I’ll meet you at the parking lot curb with your bag. Coleman: Done. Decaf okay? I glared at my phone. Me: Back to hating you. Coleman: Never stop that. The world’s equilibrium will be fucked up. I have to know what’s right and wrong. Don’t screw with my moral compass, Cute Ass. Oh, no! No way. Me: Third rule of what we don’t talk about. No nicknames unless they reconfirm our mutual dislike for each other. No Cute Ass. His response was immediate. Coleman: Cunt Ass? A second squeak from me. Me: NO! I could almost hear him laughing. Coleman: Relax. I know. Clarke’s Ass. That’s how you are in my phone. The tension left my shoulders. Me: See you in the morning. 9 sharp. Coleman: Night. I put my phone down, but then it buzzed once again. Coleman: Ass. I was struggling to wipe this stupid grin off my face. All was right again. I plugged my phone in, pulled my laptop back toward me, and sent a response to Gage’s email. I’ll sit with you, but only if we’re in the opposing team’s section. He’d be pissed, but that was the only way. I turned the computer off, and by then Missy was climbing up the ladder in a bright pink silk shirt. The buttons were left buttoned, and her pajama bottoms were a pair of corduroy khakis. I was pretty sure she didn’t brush her teeth, but before my head even hit the pillow, she was snoring

Olive,’ Mum said, stroking my fringe. ‘I need you to listen to me, and I need you to be brave.’ Opening my eyes again, I swallowed nervously. ‘What’s happened?’ ‘Your sister didn’t arrive at work today.’ Sukie was a typist for an insurance company in Clerkenwell. She said it was the dullest job ever. ‘Isn’t today Saturday, though?’ I asked. ‘She was due in to do overtime. No one’s seen her since she was with you and Cliff last night. She’s missing.’ ‘Missing?’ I didn’t understand. Mum nodded. The nurse added rather unhelpfully: ‘We’ve had casualties from all over London. It’s been chaos. All you can do is keep hoping for the best.’ It was obvious what she meant. I glanced at Mum, who always took the opposite view in any argument. But she stayed silent. Her hands, though, were trembling. ‘Missing isn’t the same as dead,’ I pointed out. Mum grimaced. ‘That’s true, and I’ve spoken to the War Office: Sukie’s name isn’t on their list of dead or injured but-’ ‘So she’s alive, then. She must be. I saw her in the street talking to a man,’ I said. ‘When she realised I’d followed her she was really furious about it.’ Mum looked at me, at the nurse, at the bump on my head. ‘Darling, you’re concussed. Don’t get overexcited now.’ ‘But you can’t think she’s dead.’ I insisted. ‘There’s no proof, is ther?’ ‘Sometimes it’s difficult to identify someone after…’ Mum faltered. I knew what she couldn’t say: sometimes if a body got blown apart there’d be nothing left to tie a name tag to. It was why we’d never buried Dad. Perhaps if there’d been a coffin and a headstone and a vicar saying nice things, it would’ve seemed more real. This felt different, though. After a big air raid the telephones were often down, letters got delayed, roads blocked. It might be a day or two before we heard from Sukie, and worried though I was, I knew she could look after herself. I wondered if it was part of Mum being ill, this painting the world black when it was grey. My head was hurting again so I lay back against the pillows. I was fed up with this stupid, horrid war. Eighteen months ago when it started, everyone said it’d be over before Christmas, but they were wrong. It was still going on, tearing great holes in people’s lives. We’d already lost Dad, and half the time these days it felt like Mum wasn’t quite here. And now Sukie – who knew where she was? I didn’t realise I was crying again until Mum touched my cheek. ‘It’s not fair,’ I said weakly. ‘War isn’t fair, I’m afraid,’ Mum replied. ‘You only have to walk through this hospital to see we’re not the only ones suffering. Though that’s just the top of the iceberg, believe me. There’s plenty worse going on in Europe.’ I remembered Sukie mentioning this too. She’d got really upset when she told me about the awful things happening to people Hitler didn’t like. She was in the kitchen chopping onions at the time so I wasn’t aware she was crying properly. ‘What sort of awful things?’ I’d asked her. ‘Food shortages, people being driven from their homes.’ Sukie took a deep breath, as if the list was really long. ‘People being attacked for no reason or sent no one knows where – Jewish people in particular. They’re made to wear yellow stars so everyone knows they’re Jews, and then barred from shops and schools and even parts of the towns where they live. It’s heartbreaking to think we can’t do anything about it.’ People threatened by soldiers. People queuing for food with stars on their coats. It was what I’d seen on last night’s newsreel at the cinema. My murky brain could just about remember those dismal scenes, and it made me even more angry. How I hated this lousy war. I didn’t know what I could do about it, a thirteen-year-old girl with a bump on her head. Yet thinking there might be something made me feel a tiny bit better.

She was eased upright and Dr. Baker began to touch her scalp. "Tell me if anything hurts." When his fingers grazed just above the nape of her neck she choked back a cry and he went still. "Ah, there is a definite swelling here, about the size of a hen's egg. You probably hit your head a second time after you collapsed." "No, I didn't. Someone hit me." "I beg your pardon?" "I didn't fall and hurt myself. I was already kneeling down. Someone came up behind me and hit me. I must have banged my face when I fell forward, not the other way round." She was laid back against her pillows and Anna was instructed to continue cleaning her face and to give her willow bark tea for the pain. Dr. Baker withdrew to the other side of the room and spoke to her father, his expression concerned. The odd phrase floated back to her, "Hysterical...overactive imagination...damage to the already frail female brain...not like her at all." "Why won't they listen to me?"Lucy whispered as Anna came to kneel beside her.

Stop," she cried, trying desperately to twist away from him. The exertion caused her flush to darken. "This is madness… Oh, you stubborn wretch, let me go!" "Never." Kev smoothed her wild, fine hair, the strands darkening where her tears had tracked. "Easy," he murmured. "Don't exhaust yourself. Rest." Win's struggles slowed as she recognized the futility of resisting him. "You're so strong," she said faintly, the words born not of praise, but damnation. "You're so strong…" "Yes," Kev said, gently using a corner of the bed linens to dry her face. "I'm a brute, and you've always known it, haven't you?" "Yes," she whispered. "And you're going to do as I say." He cradled her against his chest and gave her some water. She took a few painful sips. "Can't," she managed, turning her face away. "More," he insisted, bringing the cup back to her lips. "Let me sleep, please-" "After you drink more." Kev wouldn't relent until she obeyed with a moan. Settling her back into the pillows, he let her drowse for a few minutes, then returned with some toast softened in broth. He bullied her into taking a few spoonfuls. By that time Amelia had awakened, and she came into Win's room. A quick double blink was Amelia's only reaction to the sight of Win leaning back against Kev's arm while he fed her. "Get rid of him," Win told her sister hoarsely, her head resting on Kev's shoulder. "He's torturing me." "Well, we've always known he was a fiend," Amelia said in a reasonable tone, coming to stand at the bedside. "How dare you, Merripen?… Coming into an unsuspecting girl's room and feeding her toast.

I saw a little child throwing pillows on the floor and screaming, and soon later picking up those same pillows to listen to a story her mother was reading in a coffee shop. However, after a few minutes, the child started crying again, this time, not throwing any pillows on the floor, but simply demanding to go somewhere else, leading her mother to promptly obey. And that's when I realized, there was nothing wrong with that child, but with the culture. For the adults of this country behave in the same way. They complain when they can't get what they want, and once they do, they manipulate others to get more. It is not a cultural trait as much as it is not an educational issue. It's, pretty much, a problem of mass imbecility. You cannot expect an adult, that never grew up, to educate a child or provide her with a culture in which she can, herself, mature. And that's why in certain countries, there is the illusion that you are dealing with adults and children, when in fact you are only dealing with children. When these children become fed up of crying and demanding, and throwing pillows on the floor, they commit suicide, simply because they are fed up of being irresponsible and unaccountable for their actions. They don't need psychologists, but violence. And the violence they get, in many forms, from neighboring nations wanting to destroy them; for nobody wants to deal with adults behaving like immature children. The infantilization of a nation is only one of the traits contributing to its downfall, but probably one of the most important.

When I see that it's my mother, I press my face into the couch and fake cry into a throw pillow." -pg 28

Catharsis: i love good cries, loud sobs that soak your pillow the kinds that come at the end of a perfect book you’re gasping for air as droplets of salt water trickle down your cheeks into the corners of your mouth as your chest raises and falls and your vision is blurred by the tears but your mind is so clear and your every thought in that moment feels so meaningful and important and right it feels okay to just let it all out it makes you feel like you are free

She wishes that she could go out and pay soccer with Gideon and not feel other people's pain. She wishes that she were twelve years old again, and that men didn't shout out their car windows whenever she walks along the Turnpike about how much they'd like to fuck her. She wishes she had a sister who acted like a human being, and an aunt who didn't cry herself to sleep so often that her pillow has to be wrung out each morning.

Nikki started screaming for her mother, and suddenly—as in that very instant—Shelly appeared. “What is it?” she asked. “Baby, what’s wrong?” Nikki, crying, said someone had put a pillow over her face. “It was a bad dream,” Shelly said. Even then, Nikki knew better. “It wasn’t a dream, Mommy.

She grabbed at the edge of her pillow, trying to pull it out from under AJ’s head. I listened to them tussle for a moment, then Katy shrieked. “Ow! Did you just bite me?” “You don’t grow up with two older brothers without learning to defend yourself,” AJ told her as the door opened and the light came on. We all cried out and covered our eyes, blinded by the sudden brightness. Katy’s mum stood in the doorway, glaring at us. “Would you lot shut up and go to sleep?” “AJ bit me!” Katy told her mother, holding her wrist out for inspection. “Good for her. Go to sleep,” Deb said unsympathetically.

Sometimes it’s fun to just hit things. Therapists call the process of hitting a pillow and primal screaming “catharsis.” I say, why punch a pillow when you can punch a bag?

To the stars who hear me cry. To my pillows who have seen my tears. And to my heart who have been breaking for far too long.

She heard the door shut and then he was kneeling before her, pushing her dress up to the top of her thighs. In one movement it seemed, he slipped off his jacket, pried open her legs, and lifted her thighs over his shoulders so that she fell back onto her elbows. She gripped the bed linens as his tongue shot into her and rolled expertly about, and when he drew it out to flick at her like butterfly wings while his fingers pressed down inside her, and orgasm climbed within her. He felt it, pushed her farther up the bed, and stood up, looking down with an expression of simple intent at her womanhood. "Not yet," he told her, dropping his clothes to the floor. His body was toned, hard, perfect; she longed to run her tongue over his washboard stomach, the gentle mounds of his pectoral muscles. "Please." The pulsing between her legs was turning to a pounding. He smiled down at her then. He was making her wait of course. He climbed up onto the bed and knelt between her thighs, teasing her with the tip of his manhood. Circling her waist with his arm, he flipped her onto her stomach. He pulled a pillow under her hips and drew her apart. And then... and then nothing. Only the creak of the bed. She expected his touch, but it didn't come. She felt his breath all over her excitement. His chest was obviously flat to the bed, his face almost touching her. He was looking at her, really looking at her, her hairless smoothness, engorged, trembling, and the thrill of it, of knowing he was looking, but not being able to see him looking, the anticipation of being touched, made her body burn and quiver. She felt him breathing against her. She lost track of how long, how long she lay there in a frenzy of anticipation, not knowing would he touch her, would he plunge right into her. She felt her dampness spreading across the pillow beneath her hips. When he did finally touch her, so lightly, just a finger, exploring her, she cried out. It was almost unbearable. And then the creak of the bed again and he filled her. She lifted her hips higher to meet him, and he pushed her dress up higher to take her hips bare in his hands and pull her closer. He ground into her desire like the base of a palm kneading dough, pressing, lifting, pressing, smoothing her with the perfectly timed and pressured movement of a master into something light and delicate and trusting and pliable. He bent one of her legs and lifted the spiked heel of her stiletto so that it dug into his chest, turning in the movement onto her side. Then he slipped her lower leg around his hips without her heel in that foot even touching him and twisted her. Without his having withdrawn even once, she was on her back looking up at him, knees pressed back to her breasts still scooped in her dress. She reached for him, but he shook his head. He wanted to control this. He lifted her stilettoed feet onto his shoulders, and with two parted fingers closed her eyes. He spread her arms. And then he drove himself into her with such force that it hurt. And then again, and again. She could have opened her eyes, pushed him back, regained some control, but something in her wanted this. She had needed for so long to be so strong, so impervious, it felt an incredible relief to have her vulnerable femininity driven home.

If I had a list of all the things that still make me cry, some days you would be at the end and others the very start.

Create a cozy resting place with a blanket and pillow. Dim the lights or turn them off, and unplug any phones or devices that could disturb the peace. Turn on soft music or white noise. Sprinkle lavender scents and then bring your child to this restful room. Get your child settled and give him a massage or read a book, sing, or tell a story.

On us, babe.” He told her, looking as genuine as possible. “I swear I wasn’t doing shit.” Ivy stared at him a little longer and then dropped her head back on the pillow, crying. Vant felt like shit.

I put my arm around her.  You put your arm around her.  She leans against you. And a long spell of time passes.  "Did you know that I did this exact same thing a long time ago? Right in this same spot?"  "I know," you tell her.  "How do you know that?' Miss Saeki asks, and looks you in the eyes.  "I was there then."  "Blowing up bridges?"  "Yes, I was there, blowing up bridges."  "Metaphorically."  "Of course."  You hold her in your arms, draw her close, kiss her. You can feel the strength deserting her body.  "We're all dreaming, aren't we?" she says.  All of us are dreaming.  "Why did you have to die?"  "I couldn't help it," you reply.  Together you walk along the beach back to the library. You turn off the light in your room, draw the curtains, and without another word climb into bed and make love.   Pretty much the same sort of lovemaking as the night before. But with two differences.   After sex, she starts to cry. That's one. She buries her face in the pillow and silently weeps. You don't know what to do. You gently lay a hand on her bare shoulder. You know you should say something, but don't have any idea what. Words have all died in the hollow of time, piling up soundlessly at the dark bottom of a volcanic lake. And this time as she leaves you can hear the engine of her car. That's number two. She starts the engine, turns it off for a time, like she's thinking about something, then turns the key again and drives out of the parking lot. That blank, silent interval between leaves you sad, so terribly sad. Like fog from the sea, that blankness wends its way into your heart and remains there for a long, long time. Finally it's a part of you.  She leaves behind a damp pillow, wet with her tears. You touch the warmth with your hand and watch the sky outside gradually lighten. Far away a crow caws. The Earth slowly keeps on turning. But beyond any of those details of the real, there are dreams.   And everyone's living in them.

Don't try to bottle up your emotions. Let yourself grieve the loss of the relationship. Cry, scream into a pillow, write in a journal - whatever helps you process your feelings in a healthy way.

Don't try to bottle up your emotions. Let yourself grieve the loss of the relationship. Cry, scream into a pillow, write in a journal—whatever helps you process your feelings in a healthy way.