Slender Sayings Quotes

... As Lorcan stared down at Lysandra, his blood-splattered face impassive. "Out of the way, shifter." Lysandra had held up a slender hand- and Lorcan paused. The shape-shifter pressed her other hand against her stomach, her face blanching. But then she smiled and said, "You forgot to say 'please.' " Lorcan's dark brows flattened. "I don't have time for this." He made to step around her, shove her aside. Lysandra vomited black blood all over him. Rowan didn't know whether to laught or cringe as Lysandra, panting, gaped at Lorcan, and at the blood on his neck and chest. Slowly, too slowly, Lorcan looked down at himself. She pressed a hand over her mouth. "I am-so sorry-" Lorcan didn't even step out of the way as Lysandra vomited on him again, black blood and bits of gore now on the warrior and on the marble floor.

Hello toes," I say. They're good toes. I like that they're long and slender and not the slightest bit stubby. I wiggle them, ten unstubby waves that say, "And hello to you, Human Host!" Except they're toes. I'm talking to my toes. Maybe I'm not bored... maybe I'm lonely?

It’s one thing to be young, cherub-faced, straight woman doing and saying things that make people uncomfortable. It’s quite another – and far riskier – to do those same things in a body that is not white, straight, not slender, not young, or not American.

Her religious poetry was surprisingly slender, and as I was eager to know more about her religion, I asked her about this aspect of her poetry. She replied with these lines from Keats' Ode to a Grecian Urn: 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty'--that is all Ye know on eath, and all ye need to know'. Do not ask me to immortalise the great Mystery of Life. I am just a humble worker. For beauty, look to the Pslams, to Isaiah, to St. John of the Cross. How could my poor pen scan such verse? For truth, look to the Gospels-- four short accounts of God made Man. There is nothing more to say.

Only people who've been discriminated against can really know how much it hurts. Each person feels the pain in his own way, each has his own scars. So I think I'm as concerned about fairness and justice as anybody. But what disgusts me even more are people who have no imagination. The kind T. S. Eliot calls hollow men. People who fill up that lack of imagination with heartless bits of straw, not even aware of what they're doing. Callous people who throw a lot of empty words at you, trying to force you to do what you don't want to. Like that lovely pair we just met.” He sighs and twirls the long slender pencil in his hand. “Gays, lesbians, straights, feminists, fascist pigs, communists, Hare Krishnas-- none of them bother me. I don't care what banner they raise. But what I can't stand are hollow people. When I'm with them I just can't bear it, and wind up saying things I shouldn't. With those women--I should've just let it slide, or else called Miss Saeki and let her handle it. She would have given them a smile and smoothed things over. But I just can't do “do that. I say things I shouldn't, do things I shouldn't do. I can't control myself. That's one of my weak points. Do you know why that's a weak point of mine?” “'Cause if you take every single person who lacks much imagination seriously, there's no end to it,” I say.

I will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp, and as a gasping person loves a glass of brandy to calm their nerves, and as a glass of brandy loves to shatter on the floor, and as the noise of glass shattering loves to make someone else gasp, and as someone else gasping loves a nearby desk to lean against, even if leaning against it presses a lever that loves to open a drawer and reveal a secret compartment. I will love you until all such compartments are discovered and opened, and until all the secrets have gone gasping into the world. I will love you until all the codes and hearts have been broken and until every anagram and egg has been unscrambled. I will love you until every fire is extinguished and until every home is rebuilt form the handsomest and most susceptible of woods, and until every criminal is handcuffed by the laziest of policemen. I will love you until M. hates snakes and J. hates grammar, and I will love you until C. realizes S. is not worthy of his love and N. realizes he is not worthy of the V. I will love you until the bird hates a nest and the worm hates an apple, and until the apple hates a tree and the tree hates a nest, and until a bird hates a tree and an apple hates a nest, although honestly I cannot imagine that last occurrence no matter how hard I try. I will love you as we grow older, which has just happened, and has happened again, and happened several days ago, continuously, and then several years before that, and will continue to happen as the spinning hands of every clock and the flipping pages of every calendar mark the passage of time, except for the clocks that people have forgotten to wind and the calendars that people have forgotten to place in a highly visible area. I will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where once we were so close that we could slip the curved straw, and the long, slender spoon, between our lips and fingers respectively. I will love you until the chances of us running into one another slip from skim to zero, and until your face is fogged by distant memory, and your memory faced by distant fog, and your fog memorized by a distant face, and your distance distanced by the memorized memory of a foggy fog. I will love you no matter where you go and who you see, no matter where you avoid and who you don’t see, and no matter who sees you avoiding where you go. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this, and no matter how I am discovered after what happens to me happens to me as I am discovering this. I will love you if you don’t marry me. I will love you if you marry someone else – your co-star, perhaps, or Y., or even O., or anyone Z. through A., even R. although sadly I believe it will be quite some time before two women can be allowed to marry – and I will love you if you have a child, and I will love you if you have two children, or three children, or even more, although I personally think three is plenty, and I will love you if you never marry at all, and never have children, and spend your years wishing you had married me after all, and I must say that on late, cold nights I prefer this scenario out of all the scenarios I have mentioned. That, Beatrice, is how I will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way.

Father, R.I.P., Sums Me Up at Twenty-Three She has no head for politics, craves good jewelry, trusts too readily, marries too early. Then one by one she sends away her friends and stands apart, smug sapphire, her answer to everything a slender zero, a silent shrug--and every day still hears me say she'll never be pretty. Instead she reads novels, instead her belt matches her shoes. She is master of the condolence letter, and knows how to please a man with her mouth: Good. Nose too large, eyes too closely set, hair not glorious blonde, not her mother's red, nor the glossy black her younger sister has, the little raven I loved best.

How pleasant is the day when we give up striving to be young or slender. ‘Thank God!’ we say,‘ those illusions are gone.’ Everything added to the self is a burden as well as a pride.

David sat in the teacher’s lounge. Two other shlemiels sat on the other side, getting coffee. Sports, movies, conversation. He would have to join the group. The new assistant principal was to join them this afternoon. Just say hello. He got up and got coffee. David held the hot coffee and pretended to drink it. Didn’t want to spill on his white shirt. Then a tall slender woman walked in with the main campus principal, Edmond, and she looked around. Now would come the meet and greet. Fresh meat. Edmond turned to him. “This is David Bar David, Doctor Bar David. Math.” The thin woman reached out her hand and David shook it. “My,” she said, “such a warm hand.” “But a cold heart,” he said.

The door to the cottage was open. She was standing there in her nightdress, breathing deeply of the daybreak air. She was tall and slender, with coppery hair that fell in curls around her shoulders. Hearing him, she turned to Jonas and smiled. He thought he heard her say, “I see the sun.” Indeed, the sky was pink with dawn light. Then Jonas looked past Claire and saw Gabe approaching on the path.   THE END

You’re so calm,” I said out loud. “It’s like you don’t need it.” Need me, I didn’t say. But I could tell by the way his delinquent smile softened that he knew what I meant. Noah moved forward, toward me, next to me then, the slender muscles in his arms flexing with the movement. “I’m not sure you can appreciate how much I want to lay you out before me and make you scream my name.

Across the street an addict was mumbling, his words, like Dan Smooth’s, reminiscent of the structure of graphite, which is to say comprised of slender hexagonal plates of atoms which slough off at a touch like the multitudinous crusts of a Turkish pastry.

My skin was as bumpy as a book in Braille, confessing all I could not say. And his long, slender fingers read every word. “I’ll take that as a positive sign.

The sight of a slender young woman sitting in the anaconda exhibit with a 13-foot-long, predatory reptile snuggling in her lap, the tip of a tail coiled lovingly around one leg, provided dramatic evidence of what Scott and Wilson already knew: “Just about every animal,” Scott says—not just mammals and birds—“can learn, recognize individuals, and respond to empathy.” Once

When my late father died — now I'm in mourning for my late mother — that sense of grief and bereavement suddenly taught me that so many things that I thought were important, externals, etc., all of that is irrelevant. You lose a parent, you suddenly realize what a slender thing life is, how easily you can lose those you love. Then out of that comes a new simplicity and that is why sometimes all the pain and the tears lift you to a much higher and deeper joy when you say to the bad times, "I will not let you go until you bless me.

But after all the years, her husband and children have come to accept that, once every few weeks, their usually warmhearted and approachable Camisha will get into her Honda Accord at the beginning of a seemingly random day, and disppear until well after supper, when she will return home and go directly to bed. Her family has learned never top ask her where she had been on such a day, because the most she will ever say is, "Out. I just went out for a bit." Also, they learned long ago never to express irritation or anger of any kind against Camisha, because when they do, her reaction is to become mute and exit to the garden, where for several hours she will sit cross-legged on a favourite flat stone, her back to the house. Slender, straight-backed, and unmoving, at these times she resembles nothing so much as an elegant ebony carving, exquisite but not quite alive. Watching her is almost unberable, and so is the guilt. Or if the weather is not suitable for the garden, she will simpily go to her bedroom and lock the door. Then as a matter of course, without comment during or after, her husband sleeps on the sofa in the den. In the morning, Camisha is usually her old self again, just as if nothing had happened.

You dont get your black ass away from this fire I’ll kill you graveyard dead. He looked to where Glanton sat. Glanton watched him. He put the pipe in his mouth and rose and took up the apishamore and folded it over his arm. Is that your final say? Final as the judgement of God. The black looked once more across the flames at Glanton and then he moved away in the dark. The white man uncocked the revolver and placed it on the ground before him. Two of the others came back to the fire and stood uneasily. Jackson sat with his legs crossed. One hand lay in his lap and the other was outstretched on his knee holding a slender black cigarillo. The nearest man to him was Tobin and when the black stepped out of the darkness bearing the bowieknife in both hands like some instrument of ceremony Tobin started to rise. The white man looked up drunkenly and the black stepped forward and with a single stroke swapt off his head.

There are two things to note about this: the first is that in every version of her story, Jocasta becomes a more complex, more rounded character with every word she says. In Oedipus Tyrannos, we get a fairly slender portrait of a woman whose life is entirely dictated by the decisions of men. In The Phoenician Women, we finally hear her talk about what that means and how it feels. And here, in the earlier fragment of the Lille Stesichorus, we have a strong political leader, negotiating with warring parties who happen to be her sons.

You didn’t miss much,’ a man – slender, dark red hair – swoops into the conversation. ‘Just a load of bitches burning their tits off and gossiping over bottles of Whispering Angel. Goodness,’ he says, giving me a once-over before bending in to kiss my cheek. ‘Don’t you scrub up well?’ ‘Er – thanks.

To me he seems equal to gods, the man who sits facing you and hears you near as you speak softly and laugh in a sweet echo that jolts the heart in my ribs. Now when I look at you a moment my voice is empty and can say nothing as my tongue cracks and slender fire races under my skin. My eyes are dead to light, my ears pound, and sweat pours over me. I convulse, greener than grass and feel my mind slip as I go close to death Yet I must suffer, even poor

-Let us celebrate the joy and sorrow, Sidip suddenly recited, -the wonder and mystery of all we see, so that we might live and learn as we were meant to. They say of stardust we are formed, that the ocean flows through our veins, and our thoughts are of quantum particles strung together by slender threads of charged ions. Therefore all things are connected, all things have spirit, you, me, the animals, plants, rocks, the oceans, planets, stars and the whole universe, these quantum particles are forming webs of awareness focusing at the centre where dwells the collective unconsciousness of all that has and ever will exist.

He was thoughtful, and dedicated, and precise, and Robin found it unspeakably comforting. His usual love of spontaneity was taking a serious battering, here and now, when it was his own well-being at stake. He managed a smile. “Who else am I going to entrust my good bowling arm to?” “You don’t have to be so—” said Edwin, and stopped. “Stubborn? Lost cause, I’m afraid.” “Oh?” Muscles worked under the skin of Edwin’s slender neck. “You say you don’t want to be protected. All right. I say you don’t have to be careful of my feelings.” Robin bit back the words Someone should be, because he could tell they were going to come out the wrong way.

The sight of a slender young woman sitting in the anaconda exhibit with a 13-foot-long, predatory reptile snuggling in her lap, the tip of a tail coiled lovingly around one leg, provided dramatic evidence of what Scott and Wilson already knew: “Just about every animal,” Scott says—not just mammals and birds—“can learn, recognize individuals, and respond to empathy.

Thus saying, I turned my full attention to the lock. Like a proper maiden, it resisted for a token moment. But, upon further adept agitation of its slender hole, it relinquished its charms with smooth, willing finesse.

He was a little shorter than Joe, not quite six feet, and his body was a work of art, lithe and slender. He wore black mid-thigh shorts that showed off his sculpted legs and a baggy red T-shirt that hung off one shoulder. His elegant feet were bare, and as he stooped to pick up a pair of black dance shoes, Joe didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone quite like him before. To say he was shocked at his reaction to this man would be an understatement.

Well", he drawled."You do know what they say about guitarrists. I think nimbleness beats ball grabbing and body tackling any day of the week." And then he flexed his long, slender fingers, and the implications sent my brain into overdrive.

I should have done it a long time ago. When there were three bullets in the gun instead of two. I was stupid. We’ve been over all of this. I didnt bring myself to this. I was brought. And now I’m done. I thought about not even telling you. That would probably have been best. You have two bullets and then what? You cant protect us. You say you would die for us but what good is that? I’d take him with me if it werent for you. You know I would. It’s the right thing to do. You’re talking crazy. No, I’m speaking the truth. Sooner or later they will catch us and they will kill us. They will rape me. They’ll rape him. They are going to rape us and kill us and eat us and you wont face it. You’d rather wait for it to happen. But I cant. I cant. She sat there smoking a slender length of dried grapevine as if it were some rare cheroot. Holding it with a certain elegance, her other hand across her knees where she’d drawn them up. She watched him across the small flame. We used to talk about death, she said. We dont any more. Why is that? I dont know. It’s because it’s here. There’s nothing left to talk about. I wouldnt leave you. I dont care. It’s meaningless. You can think of me as a faithless slut if you like. I’ve taken a new lover. He can give me what you cannot. Death is not a lover. Oh yes he is.

Inej kept her eyes averted, shuffling a stack of papers into a pile on the desk as Kaz stripped out of his vest and shirt. She wasn’t sure if she was flattered or insulted that he didn’t seem to give a second thought to her presence. “How long will we be gone?” she asked, darting a glance at him through the open doorway. He was corded muscle, scars, but only two tattoos—the Dregs’ crow and cup on his forearm and, above it, a black R on his bicep. She’d never asked him what it meant. It was his hands that drew her attention as he shucked off his leather gloves and dipped a cloth in the washbasin. He only ever removed them in these chambers, and as far as she knew, only in front of her. Whatever affliction he might be hiding, she could see no sign of it, only slender lockpick’s fingers, and a shiny rope of scar tissue from some long ago street fight. “A few weeks, maybe a month,” he said as he ran the wet cloth under his arms and the hard planes of his chest, water trickling down his torso. For Saints’ sake, Inej thought as her cheeks heated. She’d lost most of her modesty during her time with the Menagerie, but really, there were limits. What would Kaz say if she suddenly stripped down and started washing herself in front of him? He’d probably tell me not to drip on the desk, she thought with a scowl.

They are pursued by a pair of hawk-faced men dressed in black and white: both forbidding, both hungry, but one tall and slender, the other short and fat. Two reflections of the same soul in the cosmic house of mirrors, or uncanny coincidence? It is impossible to say.

Last year I had a very unusual experience. I was awake, with my eyes closed, when I had a dream. It was a small dream about time. I was dead, I guess, in deep black space high up among many white stars. My own consciousness had been disclosed to me, and I was happy. Then I saw far below me a long, curved band of color. As I came closer, I saw that it stretched endlessly in either direction, and I understood that I was seeing all the time of the planet where I had lived. It looked like a woman’s tweed scarf; the longer I studied any one spot, the more dots of color I saw. There was no end to the deepness and variety of the dots. At length, I started to look for my time, but, although more and more specks of color and deeper and more intricate textures appeared in the fabric, I couldn’t find my time, or any time at all that I recognized as being near my time. I couldn’t make out so much as a pyramid. Yet as I looked at the band of time, all the individual people, I understood with special clarity, were living at the very moment with great emotion, in intricate detail, in their individual times and places, and they were dying and being replaced by ever more people, one by one, like stitches in which whole worlds of feeling and energy were wrapped, in a never-ending cloth. I remembered suddenly the color and texture of our life as we knew it- these things had been utterly forgotten- and I thought as I searched for it on the limitless band, “that was a good time then, a good time to be living.” And I began to remember our time. I recalled green fields with carrots growing, one by one, in slender rows. Men and women in bright vests and scarves came and pulled the carrots out of the soil and carried them in baskets to shaded kitchens, where they scrubbed them with yellow brushes under running water…I saw may apples in forest, erupting through leaf-strewn paths. Cells on the root hairs of sycamores split and divided and apples grew striped and spotted in the fall. Mountains kept their cool caves, and squirrels raced home to their nests through sunlight and shade. I remembered the ocean, and I seemed to be in the ocean myself, swimming over orange crabs that looked like coral, or off the deep Atlantic banks where whitefish school. Or again I saw the tops of poplars, and the whole sky brushed with clouds in pallid streaks, under which wilds ducks flew, and called, one by one, and flew on. All these things I saw. Scenes grew in depth and sunlit detail before my eyes, and were replaced by ever more scenes, as I remembered the life of my time with increasing feeling. At last I saw the earth as a globe in space, and I recalled the ocean’s shape and the form of continents, saying to myself with surprise as I looked at the planet, “Yes, that’s how it was then, that part there we called ‘France’”. I was filled with the deep affection of nostalgia- and then I opened my eyes.

Like just any woman across the world, Persephone knew of the importance of threads. It mattered not what it was made of – thick woolen yarn or leather cords to slender linen strings or thin, delicate strands of silk. One could even say that without these threads, civilization would not exist.

If you fall for a dark-eyed beauty, pretty as a picture, with lips as sweet as a luscious rasberry, and a gentle face, unrumpled by kisses, like an apple-blossom petal in May, and she becomes your love—then do not say that love is yours: even though you cannot tire of her rounded breasts, of her slender frame that melts in your embrace like wax before a flame. . . . The day will come, that cruel hour will come, the fatal moment will come, when he face will fade, rumpled by kisses, her breasts will no longer quiver at your touch: all this will come to pass; and you will be alone with your own shadow amidst the sunscorched deserts and the dried up springs, where flowers do not bloom and the sunlight plays on the dry skin of a lizard; and you might even see the hairy black tarantula’s lair, all enmeshed in the threads of its web . . . And then your thirsting voice will be raised from the sands, calling longingly to your homeland. --- But if your love is otherwise, if her browless face has once been touched by the black blemish of the pox, if her hair is red, her breasts sagging, her bare feet dirty, and to any extent at all her stomach protrudes, and still she is your love—then that which you have sought and found in her is the sacred homeland of your soul.

I am going to hate New Orleans," he whispered against her silken hair before she began lowering her head. Her breath warmed the velvet tip of him, sending fire racing through his blood. "Maybe we can think of something interesting to make it more enjoyable for you," she ventured. Her mouth was satin soft, moist and hot. Gregori pressed his hips forward, forcing her back on the bed, his knees on the thick blanket above her. She was so beautiful, her flawless skin like cream, her thick hair spilling around her slender shoulders. Sitting up, she slowly peeled off the cotton shirt, baring her full breasts to his silver gaze. She looked lush and sexy in the dark of the night, a mysterious,erotic gift to him. "You think you might make New Orleans more bearable for me then?" His eyes were saying more than his mouth, touching her here and there, dwelling on every curve of her body. Her hand spanned his flat stomach and lingered there. "I'm sure I can be inventive enough to make you forget your dread of crowds. Take off my jeans." "Your jeans?" he echoed. "You put them on me, and they're definitely in the way. Take them off." Her hand was wandering lower, her fingeres walking lightly over his clenching muscles, a deliberate persuasion. His hands made quick work of unfastening her jeans and tugging them down her legs. She kicked them aside and leaned forward to press a kiss onto his stomach. Her hair slid over his heavy fullness, a silken tangle that nearly drove him out of his mind. "Sometimes your orders are very easy to follow,ma cherie," he murmured, his eyes closing as her mouth wandered lower.

There seemed no sign of common bodily illness about him, nor of the recovery from any. He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness. His whole high, broad form, seemed made of solid bronze, and shaped in an unalterable mould, like Cellini’s cast Perseus. Threading its way out from among his grey hairs, and continuing right down one side of his tawny scorched face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing, you saw a slender rod-like mark, lividly whitish. It resembled that perpendicular seam sometimes made in the straight, lofty trunk of a great tree, when the upper lightning tearingly darts down it, and without wrenching a single twig, peels and grooves out the bark from top to bottom ere running off into the soil, leaving the tree still greenly alive, but branded. Whether that mark was born with him, or whether it was the scar left by some desperate wound, no one could certainly say.

I glance at my boots. They are big and clumsy, the breeches are tucked into them, and standing up one looks well-built and powerful in those great drainpipes. But when we go bathing and strip, suddenly we have slender legs again and slight shoulders. We are no longer soldiers but little more than boys; no one would believe that we could carry packs. It is a strange moment when we stand naked; then we become civilians, and almost feel ourselves to be so. When bathing Franz Kemmerich looked as slight and frail as a child. There he lies now -- buy why? The whole world ought to pass by this bed and say: "That is Franz Kemmerich, nineteen and a half years old, he doesn't want to die. Let him not die!

Finally, I say, “long dark hair, blue-violet eyes, slender, tall, she had a Liz Taylor in Black Beauty thing going on.” Reluctance sets in. Do I really want to put this together for him? “Like you,” he says. Pandora’s Box opens. Chocolate anyone? An abundance of heartbreak. Rare happiness. Plenty of self-destruction. Take your pick. Julia’s got everything in here.

If she’d known what a good shot you are,” he whispered past the unfamiliar tightness in his throat, “she’d never have dared.” His hand lifted to her wet cheek, holding it pressed against his chest. “You could always call her out, you know.” The spasmodic shaking in Elizabeth’s slender shoulders began to subside, and Ian added with forced tightness, “Better yet, Robert should stand in for you. He’s not as fine a shot as you are, but he’s a hell of a lot faster…” A teary giggle escaped the girl in his arms, and Ian continued, “On the other hand, if you’re holding the pistol, you’ll have some choices to make, and they’re not easy…” When he didn’t say more, Elizabeth drew a shaky breath. “What choices?” she finally whispered against his chest after a moment. “What to shoot, for one thing,” he joked, stroking her back. “Robert was wearing Hessians, so I had a tassel for a target. I suppose, though, you could always shoot the bow off Valerie’s gown.” Elizabeth’s shoulders gave a lurch, and a choked laugh escaped her. Overwhelmed with relief, Ian kept his left arm around her and gently took her chin between his forefinger and thumb, tipping her face up to his. Her magnificent eyes were still wet with tears, but a smile was trembling on her rosy lips. Teasingly, he continued, “A bow isn’t much of a challenge for an expert marksman like you. I suppose you could insist that she hold up an earring between her fingers so you could shoot that instead.” The image was so absurd that Elizabeth chuckled. Without being conscious of what he was doing, Ian moved his thumb from her chin to her lower lip, rubbing lightly against its inviting fullness. He finally realized what he was doing and stopped. Elizabeth saw his jaw tighten. She drew a shuddering breath, sensing he’d been on the verge of kissing her, and had just decided not to do it. After the last shattering minutes, Elizabeth no longer knew who was friend or foe, she only knew she’d felt safe and secure in his arms, and at that moment his arms were already beginning to loosen, and his expression was turning aloof. Not certain what she was going to say or even what she wanted, she whispered a single, shaky word, filled with confusion and a plea for understanding, her green eyes searching his: “Please-“ Ian realized what she was asking for, but he responded with a questioning lift of his brows. “I-“ she began, uncomfortably aware of the knowing look in his eyes. “Yes?” he prompted. “I don’t know-exactly,” she admitted. All she knew for certain was that, for just a few minutes more, she would have liked to be in his arms. “Elizabeth, if you want to be kissed, all you have to do is put your lips on mine.” “What!” “You heard me.” “Of all the arrogant-“ He shook his head in mild rebuke. “Spare me the maidenly protests. If you’re suddenly as curious as I am to find out if it was as good between us as it now seems in retrospect, then say so.” His own suggestion startled Ian, although having made it, he saw no great harm in exchanging a few kisses if that was what she wanted.

But if you could just pay her some small attention-or better yet, escort her yourself-it would be ever so helpful, and I would be grateful forever.” “Alex, if you were married to anyone but Jordan Townsende, I might consider asking you how you’d be willing to express your gratitude. However, since I haven’t any real wish to see my life brought to a premature end, I shall refrain from doing so and say instead that your smile is gratitude enough.” “Don’t joke, Roddy, I’m quite desperately in need of your help, and I would be eternally grateful for it.” “You are making me quake with trepidation, my sweet. Whoever she is, she must be in a deal of trouble if you need me.” “She’s lovely and spirited, and you will admire her tremendously.” “In that case, I shall deem it an embarrassing honor to lend my support to her. Who-“ His gaze flicked to a sudden movement in the doorway and riveted there, his eternally bland expression giving way to reverent admiration. “My God,” he whispered. Standing in the doorway like a vision from heaven was an unknown young woman clad in a shimmering silver-blue gown with a low, square neckline that offered a tantalizing view of smooth, voluptuous flesh, and a diagonally wrapped bodice that emphasized a tiny waist. Her glossy golden hair was swept back off her forehead and held in place with a sapphire clip, then left to fall artlessly about her shoulders and midway down her back, where it ended in luxurious waves and curls that gleamed brightly in the dancing candlelight. Beneath gracefully winged brows and long, curly lashes her glowing green eyes were neither jade nor emerald, but a startling color somewhere in between. In that moment of stunned silence Roddy observed her with the impartiality of a true connoisseur, looking for flaws that others would miss and finding only perfection in the delicately sculpted cheekbones, slender white throat, and soft mouth. The vision in the doorway moved imperceptibly. “Excuse me,” she said to Alexandra with a melting smile, her voice like wind chimes, “I didn’t realize you weren’t alone.” In a graceful swirl of silvery blue skirts she turned and vanished, and still Roddy stared at the empty doorway while Alexandra’s hopes soared. Never had she seen Roddy display the slightest genuine fascination for a feminine face and figure. His words sent her spirits even higher: “My God,” he said again in a reverent whisper. “Was she real?” “Very real,” Alex eagerly assured him, “and very desperately in need of your help, though she mustn’t know what I’ve asked of you. You will help, won’t you?” Dragging his gaze from the doorway, he shook his head as if to clear it. “Help?” he uttered dryly. “I’m tempted to offer her my very desirable hand in marriage!

I slowly wipe my bloody hand a crossed my jacket and draw my switch blade from my pocket. I show it to him. Mutt regards it with contempt. "How is it you're thinking you'll stop e with that wee thing?" The blade snaps out audibly. Mutt would not be the largest thing to die on the slender point of it. "I don't think I'll stop you," I say. "I think that you will cut my horse and then when you come out of that stall, I will use this to cut your heart out and hand it to you.

We take so much of the universe on trust. You tell me: “In 1950 I lived on the north side of Beacon Street in Somerville.” You tell me: “She and I were lovers, but for months now we have only been good friends.” You tell me: “It is seventy degrees outside and the sun is shining.” Because I love you, because there is not even a question of lying between us, I take these accounts of the universe on trust: your address twenty-five years ago, your relationship with someone I know only by sight, this morning’s weather. I fling unconscious tendrils of belief, like slender green threads, across statements such as these, statements made so unequivocally, which have no tone or shadow of tentativeness. I build them into the mosaic of my world. I allow my universe to change in minute, significant ways, on the basis of things you have said to me, of my trust in you. I also have faith that you are telling me things it is important I should know; that you do not conceal facts from me in an effort to spare me, or yourself, pain. Or, at the very least, that you will say, “There are things I am not telling you.” When we discover that someone we trusted can be trusted no longer, it forces us to reexamine the universe, to question the whole instinct and concept of trust. For a while, we are thrust back onto some bleak, jutting ledge, in a dark pierced by sheets of fire, swept by sheets of rain, in a world before kinship, or naming, or tenderness exist; we are brought close to formlessness.

Thomas heard the stamping of hooves of horses, a shout of warning, and the Institute carriage came crashing through the Portal barely remaining on all four of its wheels as it came. Balios and Xanthos looked very pleased with themselves as the carriage spun in midair and landed, with a jarring thud, at the foot of the steps. Magnus Bane was in the driver’s seat, wearing a dramatic white opera scarf and holding the reins in his right hand. He looked even more pleased with himself than the horses. “I wondered if it was possible to ride a carriage through a Portal,” he said, jumping down from the seat. “As it turns out, it is. Delightful.” The carriage doors opened, and rather unsteadily, Will, Lucie, and a boy Thomas didn’t know clambered out. Lucie waved at Thomas before leaning against the side of the carriage; she was looking rather green about the gills. Will went around the carriage to unstrap the luggage, while the unfamiliar boy—tall and slender, with straight black hair and a pretty face—put a hand on Lucie’s shoulder. Which was surprising—it was an intimate gesture, one that would be considered impolite unless the boy and girl in question were friends or relatives, or had an understanding between them. It seemed, however, unlikely that Lucie could have an understanding with someone Thomas had never seen before. He rather bristled at the thought, in an older-brother way—James didn’t seem to be here, so someone had to do the bristling for him. “I told you it would work!” Will cried in Magnus’s direction. Magnus was busy magicking the unfastened baggage to the top of the steps, blue sparks darting like fireflies from his gloved fingertips. “We should have done that on the way out!” “You did not say it would work,” Magnus said. “You said, as I recall, ‘By the Angel, he’s going to kill us all.’ “Never,” said Will. “My faith in you is unshakable, Magnus. Which is good,” he added, rocking back and forth a little, “because the rest of me feels quite shaken indeed.

Trembling, Phoebe turned her mouth from his. Her body didn't seem to belong to her. She could hardly stand on her own. She couldn't think. Her forehead leaned on his shoulder as she waited for the wild pumping of her heart to subside. West buried a quiet curse into the mass of her pinned-up hair. His arms relaxed gradually, one of his hands wandering over her slender back in an aimless, soothing pattern. When he'd managed to moderate his breathing, he said gruffly, "Don't say that was nice." Phoebe pressed a crooked smile against his shoulder before she replied, "It wasn't." It had been extraordinary. A revelation. One of her hands crept up to his lean cheek and shaped to it gently. "And it must never happen again." West was very still, considering that. He responded with a single nod of agreement and turned his lips to the center of her palm with urgent pressure. Impulsively she stood on her toes and whispered in his ear, "There's nothing wicked about you, except your kisses." And she fled the room while she was still able.

At one dinner, Peter was telling the company that in Vienna he had been getting fat, but on his return the nature of the fare in Poland had made him quite slender again. The Polish ambassador, a man of great girth, disputed this, saying that he had been brought up in Poland and owed amplitude to the Polish diet. Peter shot back, “It was not in Poland, but here in Moscow that you crammed yourself”—the Pole, like all ambassadors, was provided with his food and expenses by the host government. The Pole, wisely, let the matter drop.

Are you adopted?” Jason asked. “No,” Neil said. “Your parents are elves?” “Of course they are,” Neil said. “What are you getting at?” “Is your milkman a human?” “What in the world are you talking about?” Neil asked. “I’m just wondering why you aren’t an elf,” Jason said. “I am an elf.” “You’re an elf?” Annoyed, Neil brushed back his hair to reveal a tapered ear. “Wow,” Jason said, not hiding his surprise. “Why would you think I’m a human?” Neil asked. “Well, it’s just… look. Elves are a slender bunch. Except for Lucian Lamprey, who is probably on some kind of magical roids, but that’s beside the point. For a human, your proportions are completely healthy. For an elf, though, you’re bit of a chunker.” “Excuse me?” “You know, an extra bit of heft. Too much time at the sandwich shop. An overenthusiastic between-meal-snacker.” “Are you saying I’m fat?” “I’m not saying you’re fat,” Jason assured him. “I don’t think that’s even possible for essence users. I’m saying you look fat. For an elf.” “This is how you try and recruit someone?” Neil asked incredulously.

What did he tell you? Did he say anything about me?” Carys arched a slender brow. “You mean after he realized I wasn’t someone he needed to attack for coming in to harm his woman?” “Did he say that—those exact words?” Jordana’s heart skipped a beat. “How did he say it? Did he specifically call me his woman?” Laughing softly, Carys entered the room and took a seat on the edge of the bed. “I see this is even worse than I first suspected.” She leaned in and whispered, “If you want to write him a note, I’ll ask Rune to pass it to him after school.

Oh no,” she breathed. “Not the Highwoods.” She called after the coach as it rumbled off into the distance. “Mrs. Highwood, wait! Come back. I can explain everything. Don’t leave!” “They seem to have already left.” She turned on Bram, flashing him an angry blue glare. The force of it pushed against his sternum. Not nearly sufficient to move him, but enough to leave an impression. “I do hope you’re happy, sir. If tormenting innocent sheep and blowing ruts in our road weren’t enough mischief for you today, you’ve ruined a young woman’s future.” “Ruined?” Bram wasn’t in the habit of ruining young ladies-that was his cousin’s specialty-but if he ever decided to take up the sport, he’d employ a different technique. He edged closer, lowering his voice. “Really, it was just a little kiss. Or is this about your frock?” His gaze dipped. Her frock had caught the worst of their encounter. Grass and dirt streaked the yards of shell-pink muslin. A torn flounce drooped to the ground, limp as a forgotten handkerchief. Her neckline had likewise strayed. He wondered if she knew her left breast was one exhortation away from popping free of her bodice altogether. He wondered if he should stop staring at it. No, he decided. He would do her a favor by staring at it, calling her attention to what needed to be repaired. Indeed. Staring at her half-exposed, emotion-flushed breast was his solemn duty, and Bram was never one to shirk responsibility. “Ahem.” She crossed her arms over her chest, abruptly aborting his mission. “It’s not about me,” she said, “or my frock. The woman in that carriage was vulnerable and in need of help, and…” She blew out a breath, lifting the stray wisps of hair from her brow. “And now she’s gone. They’re all gone.” She looked him up and down. “So what is it you require? A wheelwright? Supplies? Directions to the main thoroughfare? Just tell me what you need to be on your way, and I will happily supply it.” “We won’t put you to any such trouble. So long as this is the road to Summerfield, we’ll-“ “Summerfield? You didn’t say Summerfield.” Vaguely, he understood that she was vexed with him, and that he probably deserved it. But damned if he could bring himself to feel sorry. Her fluster was fiercely attractive. The way her freckles bunched as she frowned at him. The elongation of her pale, slender neck as she stood straight in challenge. She was tall for a woman. He liked his women tall. “I did say Summerfield,” he replied. “That is the residence of Sir Lewis Finch, is it not?” Her brow creased. “What business do you have with Sir Lewis Finch?” “Men’s business, love. The specifics needn’t concern you.” “Summerfield is my home,” she said. “And Sir Lewis Finch is my father. So yes, Lieutenant Colonel Victor Bramwell”-she fired each word as a separate shot-“you concern me.

The formula which he wrote obediently on the sheet of paper, the coiling and uncoiling calculations of the professor, the spectrelike symbols of force and velocity fascinated and jaded Stephen’s mind. He had heard some say that the old professor was an atheist freemason. Oh, the grey dull day! It seemed a limbo of painless patient consciousness through which souls of mathematicians might wander, projecting long slender fabrics from plane to plane of ever rarer and paler twilight, radiating swift eddies to the last verges of a universe ever vaster, farther and more impalpable.

Lady Merritt Sterling was a vibrantly attractive woman with large, dark eyes, a wealth of lustrous sable hair, and a flawless porcelain complexion. Unlike her two sisters, she had inherited the shorter, stockier frame of the Marsden side instead of the slender build of her mother. Similarly, she had her father's square-shaped face and determined jaw instead of her mother's delicate oval one. However, Merritt possessed a charm so compelling that she eclipsed every other woman in the vicinity, no matter how beautiful. Merritt focused on whomever she was talking to with a wealth of sincere interest, as if she or he were the only person in the world. She asked questions and listened without ever seeming to wait for her turn to talk. She was the guest everyone invited when they needed to blend a group of disparate personalities, just as a roux would bind soap or sauce into velvety smoothness. It was no exaggeration to say that every man who met Merritt fell at least a little in love with her. When she had entered society, countless suitors had pursued her before she'd finally consented to marry Joshua Sterling, an American-born shipping magnate who had taken up residence in London.

The Dieter's Daughter Mom's got this taco guy's poem taped to the fridge, some ode to celery, which she is always eating. The celery, I mean, not the poem which talks about green angels and fragile corsets. I don't get it, but Mom says by the time she reads it she forgets she's hungry. One stalk for breakfast, along with half a grapefruit, or a glass of aloe vera juice, you know that stuff that comes from cactus, and one stalk for lunch with some protein drink that tastes like dried placenta, did you know that they put cow placenta in make-up, face cream, stuff like that? Yuck. Well, Mom says it's never too early to wish you looked different, which means I got to eat that crap too. Mom says: your body is a temple, not the place all good twinkies go to. Mom says: that boys remember girls that're slender. Mom says that underneath all this fat there's a whole new me, one I'd really like if only I gave myself the chance. Mom says: you are what you eat, which is why she eats celery, because she wants to be thin, not green or stringy, of course-- am I talking too fast?-- but thin as paper like the hearts we cut out and send to ourselves, don't tell anyone, like the hearts of gold melons we eat down to the bitter rind.

When she spun around to face Luce and the angels, Dee looked as if she were going to say something. Instead, she sank to her knees and lay down on her back at the foot of the Qayom Malak. Daniel lurched toward her, ready to help, but she waved him away. The toes of her shoes rested on the base of the Qayom Malak; her slender arms stretched over her head so that her fingertips grazed the Silver Pennon. Her body spanned the distance precisely. She closed her eyes and lay still for several minutes. Just when Luce was beginning to wonder whether Dee had fallen asleep, Dee said, “It’s a good thing I stopped growing two thousand years ago.

Especially not a commander like this one. Ser Waymar Royce was the youngest son of an ancient house with too many heirs. He was a handsome youth of eighteen, grey-eyed and graceful and slender as a knife. Mounted on his huge black destrier, the knight towered above Will and Gared on their smaller garrons. He wore black leather boots, black woolen pants, black moleskin gloves, and a fine supple coat of gleaming black ringmail over layers of black wool and boiled leather. Ser Waymar had been a Sworn Brother of the Night’s Watch for less than half a year, but no one could say he had not prepared for his vocation. At least insofar as his wardrobe

What is it?” Dragon asked. “There is a man, lord, just off a ship from Normandy. He’s in the tavern over there and he’s asking for the Lady Rycca.” “Is he? What manner of man?” “Tall, slender, actually he looks rather like her ladyship. He says she is his sister and he seeks word of her.” “Does Rycca have yet another brother?” Wolf asked. He was close to Dragon and had overheard the exchange. The news had him fingering the hilt of his sword. “Yes, she does, but I gather he’s an altogether different sort. Do you mind finishing up here?” “Not at all. Go ahead.” Scant minutes later, Dragon set a horn of ale in front of the visitor from Normandy. The young man looked up, startled. He was pale skinned, with eyes like honey and hair that held the promise of fire. Had Rycca been a man, she would have looked just like him. Happy, happy day that she was not. “What brings you to Hawkforte, friend?” Dragon asked as he took the seat opposite his new acquaintance. “I seek word of my sister, the Lady Rycca of Wolscroft. I have had troubling word of her in Normandy and wish to be assured of her safety.” Trouble involving Rycca? How astonishing. Dragon hid a grin and said, “You would be called—” “Thurlow. And you are—?” This time, Dragon’s smile would not be denied. “Ah, well, as to that, therein hangs a tale.

You asked for my favorite memory and it is this. A dying day’s light filling the impossibly large window behind you. And you — oh, my beautiful boy! —  you sitting on the sapphire sofa at 21C, with  shamelessly provocative dark stubble shadowing the  dimples twinned ‘round your velvet-ribbon mouth. I am  mesmerized, reduced to spinning atoms. We are six  feet and an eternity apart. Our eyes are founding constellations. I’ve never been more present than I  am in that moment. I am awake to the marrow. You  lift your slender fingers to your chest and look at me,  astounded, before saying “My heart is beating so fast.”  You are unfeigned, I am spinning atoms.

Closing the distance between them, he had savored the modest allure of her walk and felt his body respond to the graceful sway of her hips as they approached the pool. He had envisioned her taking off her robe and showing him her slender nakedness, but instead, she had just stood there, as though searching for someone. It skipped through his mind that when he caught up to the girl, he would either apprehend or ravish her. He still wasn't sure which it would be as he stood before her, blocking her escape with a dark, slight smile. As she peered up at him fearfully from the shadowed folds of her hood, he found himself staring into the bluest eyes he had ever seen. He had only encountered that deep, dream-spun shade of cobalt once in his life before, in the stained glass windows of Chartres Cathedral. His awareness of the crowd them dimmed in the ocean-blue depths of her eyes. 'Who are you?' He did not say a word nor ask her permission. With the smooth self-assurance of a man who has access to every woman in the room, he captured her chin in a firm but gentle grip. She jumped when he touched her, panic flashing in her eyes. His hard stare softened slightly in amusement at that, but then his faint smile faded, for her skin was silken beneath his fingertips. With one hand, he lifted her face toward the dim torchlight, while the other softly brushed back her hood. Then Lucien faltered, faced with a beauty the likes of which he had never seen. His very soul grew hushed with reverence as he gazed at her, holding his breath for fear the vision would dissolve, a figment of his overactive brain. With her bright tresses gleaming the flame-gold of dawn and her large, frightened eyes of that shining, ethereal blue, he was so sure for a moment that she was a lost angel that he half expected to see silvery, feathered wings folded demurely beneath her coarse brown robe. She appeared somewhere between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two- a wholesome, nay, a virginal beauty of trembling purity. He instantly 'knew' that she was utterly untouched, impossible as that seemed in this place. Her face was proud and weary. Her satiny skin glowed in the candlelight, pale and fine, but her soft, luscious lips shot off an effervescent champagne-pop of desire that fizzed more sweetly in his veins than anything he'd felt since his adolescence, which had taken place, if he recalled correctly, some time during the Dark Ages. There was intelligence and valor in her delicate face, courage, and a quivering vulnerability that made him ache with anguish for the doom of all innocent things. 'A noble youth, a questing youth,' he thought, and if she had come to slay dragons, she had already pierced him in his black, fiery heart with the lance of her heaven-blue gaze.

It’s dark as a tomb in here,” she said, unable to see more than shadows. “Will you light the candles, please,” she asked, “assuming there are candles in here?” “Aye, milady, right there, next to the bed.” His shadow crossed before her, and Elizabeth focused on a large, oddly shaped object that she supposed could be a bed, given its size. “Will you light them, please?” she urged. “I-I can’t see a thing in here.” “His lordship don’t like more’n one candle lit in the bedchambers,” the footman said. “He says it’s a waste of beeswax.” Elizabeth blinked in the darkness, torn somewhere between laughter and tears at her plight. “Oh,” she said, nonplussed. The footman lit a small candle at the far end of the room and left, closing the door behind him. “Milady?” Berta whispered, peering through the dark, impenetrable gloom. “Where are you?” “I’m over here,” Elizabeth replied, walking cautiously forward, her arms outstretched, her hands groping about for possible obstructions in her path as she headed for what she hoped was the outside wall of the bedchamber, where there was bound to be a window with draperies hiding its light. “Where?” Berta asked in a frightened whisper, and Elizabeth could hear the maid’s teeth chattering halfway across the room. “Here-on your left.” Berta followed the sound of her mistress’s voice and let out a terrified gasp at the sight of the ghostlike figure moving eerily through the darkness, arms outstretched. “Raise your arm,” she said urgently, “so I’ll know ‘tis you.” Elizabeth, knowing Berta’s timid nature, complied immediately. She raised her arm, which, while calming poor Berta, unfortunately caused Elizabeth to walk straight into a slender, fluted pillar with a marble bust upon it, and they both began to topple. “Good God!” Elizabeth burst out, wrapping her arms protectively around the pillar and the marble object upon it. “Berta!” she said urgently. “This is no time to be afraid of the dark. Help me, please. I’ve bumped into something-a bust and its stand, I think-and I daren’t let go of them until I can see how to set them upright. There are draperies over here, right in front of me. All you have to do is follow my voice and open them. Once we do, ‘twill be bright as day in here.” “I’m coming, milady,” Berta said bravely, and Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ve found them!” Berta cried softly a few minutes later. “They’re heavy-velvet they are, with another panel behind them.” Berta pulled one heavy panel back across the wall, and then, with renewed urgency and vigor, she yanked back the other and turned around to survey the room. “Light as last!” Elizabeth said with relief. Dazzling late-afternoon sunlight poured into the windows directly in front of her, blinding her momentarily. “That’s much better,” she said, blinking. Satisfied that the pillar was quite sturdy enough to stand without her aid, Elizabeth was about to place the bust back upon it, but Berta’s cry stopped her. “Saints preserve us!” With the fragile bust clutched protectively to her chest Elizabeth swung sharply around. There, spread out before her, furnished entirely in red and gold, was the most shocking room Elizabeth had ever beheld: Six enormous gold cupids seemed to hover in thin air above a gigantic bed clutching crimson velvet bed draperies in one pudgy fist and holding bows and arrows in the other; more cupids adorned the headboard. Elizabeth’s eyes widened, first in disbelief, and a moment later in mirth. “Berta,” she breathed on a smothered giggle, “will you look at this place!

I twirled in front of the mirror slowly, wanting to see the full effect of my new dress front and back. It was a daring little thing made of black silk, its front held by thin strings tied behind my neck and completely backless.  I did another twirl, asking out loud, “Do you think this looks good on me?” I wanted my friends’ opinions before they left to have dinner with their families and I had to leave for my second date with my week-old boyfriend. “Everything looks good on you,” Alyx said, rolling her eyes. She was on the armchair in the corner, one leg tossed carelessly over the side. Slender with boyishly cut hair, she could always be counted on to say the truth, no matter how harsh it was. Even so, I still felt insecure. I always was when it came to the boy I loved. Glancing at the other girl who made up our close-knit trio, I asked Yanna, “What do you think?” “It’s what I always think,” Yanna said simply. Petite and curvy, she was lying on her stomach on the floor, flipping through the latest issue of Teen Vogue. Seeing that I was waiting for an explanation, she laughed and elaborated obediently, “You look drop dead gorgeous.”  The words should have comforted me, but it didn’t. I knew Yanna meant what she said, and not just because she happened to be the nicest and most polite person I knew. She was also hopeless when it came to lying, and that was probably why I felt worse now. Doubt had shadowed her gaze as she uttered the compliment, and the sight made it harder for me to stay deaf to the warning inside my head.

I will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where once we were so close that we could slip the curved straw, and the long, slender spoon, between our lips and fingers respectively. I will love you until the chances of us running into one another slip from skim to zero, and until your face is fogged by distant memory, and your memory faced by distant fog, and your fog memorized by a distant face, and your distance distanced by the memorized memory of a foggy fog. I will love you no matter where you go and who you see, no matter where you avoid and who you don’t see, and no matter who sees you avoiding where you go. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this, and no matter how I am discovered after what happens to me happens to me as I am discovering this. I will love you if you don’t marry me. I will love you if you marry someone else – your co-star, perhaps, or Y., or even O., or anyone Z. through A., even R. although sadly I believe it will be quite some time before two women can be allowed to marry – and I will love you if you have a child, and I will love you if you have two children, or three children, or even more, although I personally think three is plenty, and I will love you if you never marry at all, and never have children, and spend your years wishing you had married me after all, and I must say that on late, cold nights I prefer this scenario out of all the scenarios I have mentioned. That, Beatrice, is how I will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way.

As their conversation turned philosophical, Oppenheimer stressed the word 'responsibility'. And when Morgan suggested he was using the word almost in a religious sense Oppenheimer agreed it was a 'secular devise for using a religious notion without attaching it to a transcendent being. I like to use the word 'ethical' here. I am more explicit about ethical questions now than ever before although these were very strong with me when I was working on the bomb. Now I don't know how to describe my life without using some word like responsibility to characterize it. A word that has to do with choice and action and the tension in which choices can be resolved. I'm not talking about knowledge but about being limited by what you can do. There is no meaningful responsibility without power. It may be only power over what you do yourself but increased knowledge, increased wealth... leisure are all increasing the domain in which responsibility is conceivable. After this soliloquy Morgan wrote "Oppenheimer turned his palms up, the long slender fingers including his listener in his conclusion 'You and I' he said 'Neither of us is rich but as far as responsibility goes both of us are in a position right now to alleviate the most awful agony in people at the starvation level.' This was only a different way of saying what he had learned from reading Proust forty years earlier in Corsica... that indifference to the sufferings one causes is the terrible and permanent form of cruelty. Far from being indifferent, Robert was acutely aware of the suffering he had caused others in his life and yet he would not allow himself to succumb to guilt. He would accept responsibility. He had never tried to deny his responsibility but since the security hearing he nevertheless no longer seemed to have the capacity or motivation to fight against the cruelty of indifference. and in that sense, Robby had been right- they achieved their goal, they killed him.

He concluded the speech with an irritated motion of his hands. Unfortunately, Evie had been conditioned by too many encounters with Uncle Peregrine to discern between angry gestures and the beginnings of a physical attack. She flinched instinctively, her own arms flying up to shield her head. When the expected pain of a blow did not come, she let out a breath and tentatively lowered her arms to find Sebastian staring at her with blank astonishment. Then his face went dark. “Evie,” he said, his voice containing a bladelike ferocity that frightened her. “Did you think I was about to…Christ. Someone hit you. Someone hit you in the past—who the hell was it?” He reached for her suddenly—too suddenly—and she stumbled backward, coming up hard against the wall. Sebastian went very still. “Goddamn,” he whispered. Appearing to struggle with some powerful emotion, he stared at her intently. After a long moment, he spoke softly. “I would never strike a woman. I would never harm you. You know that, don’t you?” Transfixed by the light, glittering eyes that held hers with such intensity, Evie couldn’t move or make a sound. She started as he approached her slowly. “It’s all right,” he murmured. “Let me come to you. It’s all right. Easy.” One of his arms slid around her, while he used his free hand to smooth her hair, and then she was breathing, sighing, as relief flowed through her. Sebastian brought her closer against him, his mouth brushing her temple. “Who was it?” he asked. “M-my uncle,” she managed to say. The motion of his hand on her back paused as he heard her stammer. “Maybrick?” he asked patiently. “No, th-the other one.” “Stubbins.” “Yes.” Evie closed her eyes in pleasure as his other arm slid around her. Clasped against Sebastian’s hard chest, with her cheek tucked against his shoulder, she inhaled the scent of clean male skin, and the subtle touch of sandalwood cologne. “How often?” she heard him ask. “More than once?” “I…i-it’s not important now.” “How often, Evie?” Realizing that he was going to persist until she answered, Evie muttered, “Not t-terribly often, but…sometimes when I displeased him, or Aunt Fl-Florence, he would lose his temper. The l-last time I tr-tried to run away, he blackened my eye and spl-split my lip.” “Did he?” Sebastian was silent for a long moment, and then he spoke with chilling softness. “I’m going to tear him limb from limb.” “I don’t want that,” Evie said earnestly. “I-I just want to be safe from him. From all of them.” Sebastian drew his head back to look down into her flushed face. “You are safe,” he said in a low voice. He lifted one of his hands to her face, caressing the plane of her cheekbone, letting his fingertip follow the trail of pale golden freckles across the bridge of her nose. As her lashes fluttered downward, he stroked the slender arcs of her brows, and cradled the side of her face in his palm. “Evie,” he murmured. “I swear on my life, you will never feel pain from my hands. I may prove a devil of a husband in every other regard…but I wouldn’t hurt you that way. You must believe that.

His slender hands curled into fists. “You don’t want to change? Do you have any idea what I’ve been through for you? Why do you think I keep coming back to that horrid, dirty, decaying world of yours? Because you changed me! It makes me sick to think of how I have shifted away from what I should be!” I leaned back, terrified of the pure fury in his face. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes and releasing all the tension from his facial muscles, returning them back to the mask of perfection. “But this is irrelevant. When I get back to where I am supposed to be, my connection to eternity will be restored and flawless. I will be restored. And you will be connected, too, and we have forever to—” “Whoa, whoa, stop right there, psycho. I’m not coming with you.” He got that infuriating smile, that one that all faeries have that says they know more than you ever will and you can’t even begin to function on the same plane as them but isn’t it cute that you think you have any right to consider yourself a rational creature. It was a condescending head pat in smile form. “Evelyn,” he said, his golden voice trying to pull me in closer. “I love you.

I’ve experienced all kinds of discrimination,” Oshima says. “Only people who’ve been discriminated against can really know how much it hurts. Each person feels the pain in his own way, each has his own scars. So I think I’m as concerned about fairness and justice as anybody. But what disgusts me even more are people who have no imagination. The kind T. S. Eliot calls hollow men. People who fill up that lack of imagination with heartless bits of straw, not even aware of what they’re doing. Callous people who throw a lot of empty words at you, trying to force you to do what you don’t want to. Like that lovely pair we just met.” He sighs and twirls the long slender pencil in his hand. “Gays, lesbians, straights, feminists, fascist pigs, communists, Hare Krishnas—none of them bother me. I don’t care what banner they raise. But what I can’t stand are hollow people. When I’m with them I just can’t bear it, and wind up saying things I shouldn’t. With those women—I should’ve just let it slide, or else called Miss Saeki and let her handle it. She would have given them a smile and smoothed things over. But I just can’t do that. I say things I shouldn’t, do things I shouldn’t do. I can’t control myself. That’s one of my weak points. Do you know why that’s a weak point of mine?” “’Cause if you take every single person who lacks much imagination seriously, there’s no end to it,” I say. “That’s it,” Oshima says. He taps his temple lightly with the eraser end of the pencil. “But there’s one thing I want you to remember, Kafka. Those are exactly the kind of people who murdered Miss Saeki’s childhood sweetheart. Narrow minds devoid of imagination. Intolerance, theories cut off from reality, empty terminology, usurped ideals, inflexible systems. Those are the things that really frighten me. What I absolutely fear and loathe. Of course it’s important to know what’s right and what’s wrong. Individual errors in judgment can usually be corrected. As long as you have the courage to admit mistakes, things can be turned around. But intolerant, narrow minds with no imagination are like parasites that transform the host, change form, and continue to thrive. They’re a lost cause, and I don’t want anyone like that coming in here.” Oshima points at the stacks with the tip of his pencil. What he means, of course, is the entire library. “I wish I could just laugh off people like that, but I can’t.

How goes the investigation into Lady Lynden?" Hughe asked. "We saw her yesterday in the village." "She saw you too," Orlando said. "She thought your hat was ridiculous by the way." She'd said no such thing, but Orlando knew the sort of hat Hughe usually wore when he was playing the part of the fop and they were always elaborate and impractical. "That was my best hat." "She's very beautiful," Cole said, unexpectedly. He never noticed beautiful things, not even women. Or if he did, he never commented. For him to say Susanna was a beauty meant he'd certainly noticed. "So?" Orlando snapped. "So I was expecting a murderess to look more...bitter. Shrew-ish." Orlando's head began to pound inside his skull. "Perhaps she's not a murderess then," he heard himself say. "If she isn't," Hughe said lightly, "I wonder if she'd agree to become the next Lady Oxley. I wouldn't mind that slender body wrapped around my-" He slammed back into a tree trunk and his muttered oomph echoed through the woods. Orlando shook out his hand. It hurt, but it felt bloody good shutting Hughe up. It wasn't often he caught him unawares like that. "I win," Cole said. Hughe rubbed his jaw and grunted. "That wasn't a wager I wanted to lose." -Hughe, Orlando and Cole. (The Charmer)

We are all poor; but there is a difference between what Mrs. Spark intends by speaking of 'slender means', and what Stevens called our poverty or Sartre our need, besoin. The poet finds his brief, fortuitous concords, it is true: not merely 'what will suffice,' but 'the freshness of transformation,' the 'reality of decreation,' the 'gaiety of language.' The novelist accepts need, the difficulty of relating one's fictions to what one knows about the nature of reality, as his donnée. It is because no one has said more about this situation, or given such an idea of its complexity, that I want to devote most of this talk to Sartre and the most relevant of his novels, La Nausée. As things go now it isn't of course very modern; Robbe-Grillet treats it with amused reverence as a valuable antique. But it will still serve for my purposes. This book is doubtless very well known to you; I can't undertake to tell you much about it, especially as it has often been regarded as standing in an unusually close relation to a body of philosophy which I am incompetent to expound. Perhaps you will be charitable if I explain that I shall be using it and other works of Sartre merely as examples. What I have to do is simply to show that La Nausée represents, in the work of one extremely important and representative figure, a kind of crisis in the relation between fiction and reality, the tension or dissonance between paradigmatic form and contingent reality. That the mood of Sartre has sometimes been appropriate to the modern demythologized apocalypse is something I shall take for granted; his is a philosophy of crisis, but his world has no beginning and no end. The absurd dishonesty of all prefabricated patterns is cardinal to his beliefs; to cover reality over with eidetic images--illusions persisting from past acts of perception, as some abnormal children 'see' the page or object that is no longer before them --to do this is to sink into mauvaise foi. This expression covers all comfortable denials of the undeniable--freedom --by myths of necessity, nature, or things as they are. Are all the paradigms of fiction eidetic? Is the unavoidable, insidious, comfortable enemy of all novelists mauvaise foi? Sartre has recently, in his first instalment of autobiography, talked with extraordinary vivacity about the roleplaying of his youth, of the falsities imposed upon him by the fictive power of words. At the beginning of the Great War he began a novel about a French private who captured the Kaiser, defeated him in single combat, and so ended the war and recovered Alsace. But everything went wrong. The Kaiser, hissed by the poilus, no match for the superbly fit Private Perrin, spat upon and insulted, became 'somehow heroic.' Worse still, the peace, which should instantly have followed in the real world if this fiction had a genuine correspondence with reality, failed to occur. 'I very nearly renounced literature,' says Sartre. Roquentin, in a subtler but basically similar situation, has the same reaction. Later Sartre would find again that the hero, however assiduously you use the pitchfork, will recur, and that gaps, less gross perhaps, between fiction and reality will open in the most close-knit pattern of words. Again, the young Sartre would sometimes, when most identified with his friends at the lycée, feel himself to be 'freed at last from the sin of existing'--this is also an expression of Roquentin's, but Roquentin says it feels like being a character in a novel. How can novels, by telling lies, convert existence into being? We see Roquentin waver between the horror of contingency and the fiction of aventures. In Les Mots Sartre very engagingly tells us that he was Roquentin, certainly, but that he was Sartre also, 'the elect, the chronicler of hells' to whom the whole novel of which he now speaks so derisively was a sort of aventure, though what was represented within it was 'the unjustified, brackish existence of my fellow-creatures.

So you saved the Bureau,” Cara says, turning to me. “You seem to get involved in a lot of conflict. I suppose we should all be grateful that you are steady in a crisis.” “I didn’t save the Bureau. I have no interest in saving the Bureau,” I retort. “I kept a weapon out of some dangerous hands, that’s all.” I wait a beat. “Did you just compliment me?” “I am capable of recognizing another person’s strengths,” Cara replies, and she smiles. “Additionally, I think our issues are now resolved, both on a logical and an emotional level.” She clears her throat a little, and I wonder if it’s finally acknowledging that she has emotions that makes her uncomfortable, or something else. “It sounds like you know something about the Bureau that has made you angry. I wonder if you could tell me what it is.” Christina rests her head on the edge of Uriah’s mattress, her slender body collapsing sideways. I say wryly, “I wonder. We may never know.” “Hmm.” The crease between Cara’s eyebrows appears when she frowns, making her look so much like Will that I have to look away. “Maybe I should say please.” “Fine. You know Jeanine’s simulation serum? Well, it wasn’t hers.” I sigh. “Come on. I’ll show you. It’ll be easier that way.” It would be just as easy to tell her what I saw in that old storage room, nestled deep in the Bureau laboratories. But the truth is, I just want to keep myself busy, so I don’t think about Uriah. Or Tobias.

Come here, little one.” “I want to go back.” He hoped she stood there arguing for a time. “Obey your husband.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s broad daylight.” “Keemah, come.” Growing tired of just looking when he could be touching, Hunter cocked his head and let her see him leering. He was awarded a fetching glimpse of slender, creamy thighs and honey gold. She gasped and dropped to her knees as if someone had dealt a blow to the backs of her legs. Tucking her skirt under her knees, she cried, “Have you no shame?” His answer was a slow grin. Seizing her wrist, he drew her toward him. “There is no shame. You are my woman.” Pulled off balance, she fell across his chest. Squirming, but halfheartedly, she said, “There’s a time and a place for everything, and this isn’t it.” “No?” He ran a hand under her blouse. “I say it is a very good time.” She jerked when his fingers scaled her ribs. “That tickles.” Without warning he rolled with her, coming out on top. He kissed her lightly on the lips while he moved his hand from her ribs to her breast. The small mound of warm flesh fit perfectly in his hand, the crest springing taut against his palm. Scarlet flamed on her cheeks. Unable to resist, Hunter lifted her blouse and moved off her to look, one thigh slanted across both of hers to keep her still. He had guessed right; when she was shy, she grew pink all over. “Hunter!” She tried to shove the leather down. “Someone might come!” “No one comes.

I could look at you forever,” he admitted roughly as the gown joined her wrapper on the floor. “Looking is very good,” she replied, kicking the garments aside with a flick of a slender foot. “But I would much rather you touch.” There was no artifice in her tone, no knowingly seductive tones-only an honesty that shook him to his soul. He picked her up and carried her the few steps to his bed. He placed her naked body on the sheets and stood back. He took his time studying the lush splendor of her as he opened his trousers and pushed them over his hips and thighs. When he straightened, the full length of his arousal jutted in front of him, revealed to her bright gaze as her nakedness was to his. “Are all men as beautiful as you are naked?” she asked with a hint of a smile. Grey grinned back. “No,” he replied. “I am an exceptional specimen of manly perfection-how the hell should i know what other men look like naked?” Rose shrugged as she chuckled. “You stand a better chance of knowing than I would.” He climbed on the bed, easing his body onto the sheets beside her. “I cannot tell you. All I know is that I’ve never seen a woman as beautiful as you.” He kissed the tip of her adorable nose as he placed his palm on the gentle curve of her stomach. Soft pink suffused her cheeks. “You lie.” He shook his head, solemn as the grave. “Not about this.” And then he kissed her again, because he didn’t want to risk ruining the moment with silly chatter. Or risk saying something better left unsaid.

The evening was a string of miserable minutes strung together in tiny clusters. Three minutes for a man shot through the shoulder; Ellis put first a finger in the entry wound and then another in the exit and when his fingers touched, he decided the man was only lightly injured and didn’t need a surgeon. Three minutes to set a broken wrist and splint it with a strip of cowhide and a piece of wood from a sycamore tree. Two minutes to tourniquet a leg, then extract a piece of wire deep in the meat of it. A minute to peek under a pink, saturated bandage several inches below a slender belly button; he saw thin, red water leaking from a hole and smelled urine, knew the ball had breached the bladder. It would either heal or it wouldn’t, but nothing to do about it so he set the soul aside, a case not to be operated upon. He turned a man’s head looking for the source of a trickle of blood and had ten terrible minutes trying to stop torrential bleeding from under his clavicle; frantic moments during which he could get neither a finger nor a clamp around the pulsating source. All bleeding stops eventually though, and the case did not violate the rule. He took two minutes to settle his own breathing, then four minutes sewing a torn scalp, and half a minute saying a prayer over a fat, cigar-shaped dead man. After awhile, he had the impression he wasn’t seeing men, but parts—an exploded chest, a blood swolled thigh, a busted jaw with its teeth spat to the wind or swallowed. It was more than a man could take and a lot less than there was to be seen.

Although Bryce’s body still buzzed with all she and Hunt had done, seeing that slender female body on the table, the prince kneeling, head bowed…Her eyes stung. Hunt’s fingers found hers and squeezed. “I knew,” Cormac said roughly. His first words in minutes. “I think I always knew, but…” Ruhn stepped to his cousin’s side. Put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.” Cormac leaned his brow against the rim of the examination table. His voice shook. “She was good, and brave, and kind. I never deserved her, not for one minute.” Bryce’s throat ached. She let go of Hunt’s hand to approach Cormac, touching his other shoulder. Where would Sofie’s soul go? Did it linger near her body until they could give her a proper Sailing? If she went to one of the resting places, they’d be dooming her to a terrible fate. But Bryce didn’t say any of that. Not as Cormac slid his fingers beneath the black cloth and pulled out a blue-tinged, stiff hand. He clasped it in his own, kissing the dead fingers. His shoulders began to shake as his tears flowed. “We met during a recon report to Command,” Cormac said, voice breaking. “And I knew it was foolish, and reckless, but I had to speak to her after the meeting was over.” He kissed Sofie’s hand again, closing his eyes. “I should have gone back for her that night.” Tharion, who’d been poring over the corner’s files on Sofie at the desk by the far wall, said gently, “I’m sorry if I gave you false hope.” “It kept her alive in my heart a little longer,” Cormac said, swallowing back his tears. He pressed her stiff hand against his brow. “My Sofie.

Legs? Check. I am five foot seven, after all. They’re slender but not too skinny. I run every morning, so my legs have always been slightly muscled, but in a feminine way — at least I hope they look feminine; bulky is not a word I’d want someone to use. I think the not too short, but short enough to still be very stylish, pleated and thickly cuffed navy blue shorts show my legs off nicely. My cork and white wedges with a cute little bow at each ankle are the perfect finishing touch. A simple dove-gray ribbed tank completes the outfit and hugs my curves. Maybe there is something to Mel’s theory after all.  My golden-blonde hair is sun-kissed in the summer, and its soft waves cascade to the middle of my back. I usually have it up, but tonight Melanie insisted that I leave it down and wavy. I let her play Barbie, and I can’t say I hate it. The real show-stopper, though, is my eyes. They’re a bright, vibrant green. They look almost fake, but as I lean into the mirror to get a closer look, I catch small little flecks of gold around the outside that I know no contact lens could replicate. I have always loved my eyes. I have my mother’s eyes. I’ve seen them in the few pictures I have from my childhood. Even if my eyes were the murkiest, dingiest, dullest brown, I still would have loved them, as long as they were my mother’s. It’s really the only thing I have left of her.  I gave in on the hair and let Melanie have a field day, but I insisted on keeping my makeup simple — a soft pale pink blush, clear lip gloss, and a light dusting of gold eye shadow is all I need. A quick swipe of some mascara, and the look is complete.

I did not come here to tell you about Sphinx. Yes, I am looking for a way to your heart, I freely admit that. I am looking for it day and night, here and yon… Can I kiss you? Just as I thought. No one is ever allowed to do what they want most in the world. In heaven, maybe. Or is it that in heaven you stop wanting for anything? “I am not a maniac. I simply love you. I want to be with you, always and forever, I want to feel you next to me when I sleep, I want to kiss your mouth and your forehead and your fingers, and the patches on your jeans, and that silly print on your shirt. I want to always carry you in my arms and make love to you everywhere I could, I want a dozen kids with you, all of them gingers, wild and free, with scraped knees and snubbed noses, with the souls that no one would ever be allowed to drive spikes through. Except none of this will happen, so why are you so mad at me for saying it? “Did you know that your ears are almost transparently red when you stand in front of a window? No, I told you, I am serious, I’ve never been more serious in my life. What do you mean, ugly? You’re ugly? You’ve got to be kidding. You have the blackest eyes in the world, your eyelashes could burn, your hair shines like a small sun. You are a flaming flower on a slender stalk, you… “Sorry. Sorry. I’m not shouting, I’m whispering, I’m barely audible. And I’m not leaning, I am simply drawn forward. It is unbearably hot in here. It’s not? Well, it definitely is warm. I’m fine, I’m not ill, it’s just this place is hot. Or warm, whatever. And the sweater is scratchy. Does this mean I can’t come anymore? Yes, I’ve ruined everything myself, I understand. I’m sorry. So when can I come again?

But then, as I’m leaving school, I see John parked out front. He’s standing in front of his car; he hasn’t seen me yet. In this bright afternoon light, the sun warms John’s blond head like a halo, and suddenly I’m struck with the visceral memory of loving him from afar, studiously, ardently. I so admired his slender hands, the slope of his cheekbones. Once upon a time I knew his face by heart. I had him memorized. My steps quicken. “Hi!” I say, waving. “How are you here right now? Don’t you have school today?” “I left early,” he says. “You? John Ambrose McClaren cut school?” He laughs. “I brought you something.” John pulls a box out of his coat pocket and thrusts it at me. “Here.” I take it from him, it’s heavy and substantial in my palm. “Should I…should I open it right now?” “If you want.” I can feel his eyes on me as I rip off the paper, open the white box. He’s anxious. I ready a smile on my face so he’ll know I like it, no matter what it is. Just the fact that he thought to buy me a present is so…dear. Nestled in white tissue paper is a snow globe the size of an orange, with a brass bottom. A boy and girl are ice-skating inside. She’s wearing a red sweater; she has on earmuffs. She’s making a figure eight, and he’s admiring her. It’s a moment caught in amber. One perfect moment, preserved under glass. Just like that night it snowed in April. “I love it,” I say, and I do, so much. Only a person who really knew me could give me this gift. To feel so known, so understood. It’s such a wonderful feeling, I could cry. It’s something I’ll keep forever. This moment, and this snow globe. I get on my tiptoes and hug him, and he wraps his arms around me tight and then tighter. “Happy birthday, Lara Jean.

Before he could explain further, however, Rhys happened to catch sight of a slim, dark shape walking past the doorway. It was only a fleeting glimpse... but it was enough to send a jolt of awareness through him. "You," he said in a voice that carried out into the hallway. "Whoever just passed by the door. Come here." In the riveting silence, a young woman appeared at the threshold. Her features were delicately angular, her silver blue eyes round and wide-set. As she stood at the edge of the lamplight, her fair skin and pale blond hair seemed to hold their own radiance, an effect he'd seen in paintings of Old Testament angels. "There's a grain about it," Rhys's father had always said when he'd wanted to describe something fine and polished and perfect, something of the highest quality. Oh, there was a grain about this woman. She was only medium height, but her extreme slenderness gave her the illusion of being taller. Her breasts were high and gently rounded beneath the high-necked dress, and for a pleasurable, disorienting moment Rhys remembered resting his head there as she had given him sips of orchid tea. "Say something," he commanded gruffly. The shy glow of her smile gilded the air. "I'm glad to see you in better health, Mr. Winterborne." Helen's voice. She was more beautiful than starlight, and just as unattainable. As he stared at her, Rhys was bitterly reminded of the upper-class ladies who had looked at him with contempt when he was a shop boy, holding their skirts back if he passed near them on the street, the way they would seek to avoid a filthy stray dog. "Is there something I can do for you?" she asked. Rhys shook his head, still unable to take his gaze from her. "I only wanted a face to go with the voice.

Will she survive it? I told his lordship she would. I didn’t want to give him an excuse not to help her. Methinks that if he suspected she was near death, he would turn her out.” “I don’t know. Methinks it depends on her will to live. If she doesn’t want life, she’ll die.” Haldana sighed. “I’ll stay with her and watch over her. Please, direct the girls to take over my duties.” “Yea. ‘Tis already done.” Ulric narrowed his eyes in heavy contemplation, drawing back the coverlet at the girl’s bruised throat. His frown deepened. It looked as if she’d been strangled. “M’lord has put her in my charge until she awakens. He wishes to speak to her then.” “Methinks that m’lord is more frightened of her being here because she is a woman and a woman of his class.” “Yea, methought it also. He didn’t think much of me saying she was a beauty.” In truth, Ulric only saw the line of the lady’s slender body outlined by the coverlet and the fullness of her lips, but he’d mainly called her beautiful just to aggravate his lordship. He let go of the coverlet, letting the old material fall once more to cover the noblewoman’s neck. He moved his fingers to stroke the wiry hairs of his mustache. “Wouldn’t it be nice if she was sent here to melt the curse from his lordship’s heart?” Haldana sighed, wistful. “Yea, even the curse from this castle. Then the Monster of Lakeshire would leave us be once and fer all.” “You are a romantic dreamer, dear girl.” Ulric kissed Haldana briefly on her forehead and turned to leave. “Let me know at once when she awakens.” “Yea, Ulric, I will.” Haldana let her girlish giggle echo in the chamber as he shut the door. From outside the chamber, he heard her say, “Poor child. You don’t know what you have gotten yerself into coming here.

After I left Uriah’s side last night, I wandered the compound without any sense of direction. I should have been thinking of my friend, teetering between this world and whatever comes next, but instead I thought of what I said to Tobias. And how I felt when I looked at him, like something was breaking. I didn’t tell him it was the end of our relationship. I meant to, but when I was looking at him, the words were impossible to say. I feel tears welling up again, as they have every hour or so since yesterday, and I push them away, swallow them down. “So you saved the Bureau,” Cara says, turning to me. “You seem to get involved in a lot of conflict. I suppose we should all be grateful that you are steady in a crisis.” “I didn’t save the Bureau. I have no interest in saving the Bureau,” I retort. “I kept a weapon out of some dangerous hands, that’s all.” I wait a beat. “Did you just compliment me?” “I am capable of recognizing another person’s strengths,” Cara replies, and she smiles. “Additionally, I think our issues are now resolved, both on a logical and an emotional level.” She clears her throat a little, and I wonder if it’s finally acknowledging that she has emotions that makes her uncomfortable, or something else. “It sounds like you know something about the Bureau that has made you angry. I wonder if you could tell me what it is.” Christina rests her head on the edge of Uriah’s mattress, her slender body collapsing sideways. I say wryly, “I wonder. We may never know.” “Hmm.” The crease between Cara’s eyebrows appears when she frowns, making her look so much like Will that I have to look away. “Maybe I should say please.” “Fine. You know Jeanine’s simulation serum? Well, it wasn’t hers.” I sigh. “Come on. I’ll show you. It’ll be easier that way.” It would be just as easy to tell her what I saw in that old storage room, nestled deep in the Bureau laboratories. But the truth is, I just want to keep myself busy, so I don’t think about Uriah. Or Tobias.

When the bullhorn signaled that he'd met the qualifying time,he struggled to gather his wits,waiting until Devil was right alongside the gate before he freed his hand,cutting himself loose. He flew through the air and over the corral fence,landing in the dirt at Marilee Trainor's feet. "My God! Don't move." She was beside him in the blink of an eye,kneeling in the dirt,probing for broken bones. Wyatt lay perfectly still,enjoying the feel of those clever, practiced hands moving over him.When she moved from his legs to his torso and arms,he opened his eyes to narrow slits and watched her from beneath lowered lids. She was the perfect combination of beauty and brains.He could see the wheels turning as she did a thorough exam.Even her brow,furrowed in concentration,couldn't mar that flawless complexion. Her eyes, the color of the palest milk chocolate, were narrowed in thought.Strands of red hair dipped over one cheek, giving her a sultry look. Satisfied that nothing was broken, she sat back on her heels,feeling a moment of giddy relief. That was when she realized that he was staring. She waved a hand before his eyes. "How many fingers can you see?" "Four fingers and a thumb. Or should I say four beautiful,long,slender fingers and one perfect thumb,connected to one perfect arm of one perfectly gorgeous female? And,I'm happy to add,there's no ring on the third finger of that hand." She caught the smug little grin on his lips. Her tone hardened. "I get it. A showboat.I should have known.I don't have time to waste on some silver-tongued actor." "Why,thank you.I had no idea you'd examined my tongue.Mind if I examine yours?" She started to stand,but his hand shot out,catching her by the wrist. "Sorry.That was really cheesy, but I couldn't resist teasing you." His tone altered,deepened,just enough to have her glancing over to see if he was still teasing. He met her look. "Are you always this serious?" Despite his apology,she wasn't about to let him off the hook,or change her mind about him.

Catherine broke off as she saw something among the drafts of structures and landscapes and the pages of notes. A pencil sketch of a woman … a naked woman reclining on her side, light hair flowing everywhere. One slender thigh rested coyly over the other, partially concealing the delicate shadow of a feminine triangle. And there was an all-too-familiar pair of spectacles balanced on her nose. Catherine picked up the sketch with a trembling hand, while her heart lurched in hard strikes against her ribs. It took several attempts before she could speak, her voice high and airless. “That’s me.” Leo had lowered to the carpeted floor beside her. He nodded, looking rueful. His own color heightened until his eyes were startlingly blue in contrast. “Why?” she whispered. “It wasn’t meant to be demeaning,” he said. “It was for my own eyes, no one else’s.” She forced herself to look at the sketch again, feeling horribly exposed. In fact, she couldn’t have been more embarrassed had he actually been viewing her naked. And yet the rendering was far from crude or debasing. The woman had been drawn with long, graceful lines, the pose artistic. Sensuous. “You … you’ve never seen me like this,” she managed to say, before adding weakly, “Have you?” A self-deprecating smile touched his lips. “No, I haven’t yet descended to voyeurism.” He paused. “Did I get it right? It’s not easy, guessing what you look like beneath all those layers.” A nervous giggle struggled through her mortification. “If you did, I certainly wouldn’t admit it.” She put the sketch onto the pile, facedown. Her hand was shaking. “Do you draw other women this way?” she asked timidly. Leo shook his head. “I started with you, and so far I haven’t moved on.” Her flush deepened. “You’ve done other sketches like this? Of me unclothed?” “One or two.” He tried to look repentant. “Oh, please, please destroy them.” “Certainly. But honesty compels me to tell you that I’ll probably only do more. It’s my favorite hobby, drawing you naked.” Catherine moaned and buried her face in her hands. Her voice slipped out between the tense filter of her fingers. “I wish you would take up collecting something instead.

Thus I was sick and tormented, reproaching myself more bitterly than ever, rolling and writhing in my chain till it should be utterly broken. By now I was held but slightly, but still was held. And thou, O Lord, didst press upon me in my inmost heart with a severe mercy, redoubling the lashes of fear and shame; lest I should again give way and that same slender remaining tie not be broken off, but recover strength and enchain me yet more securely. I kept saying to myself, "See, let it be done now; let it be done now." And as I said this I all but came to a firm decision. I all but did it -- yet I did not quite. Still I did not fall back to my old condition, but stood aside for a moment and drew breath. And I tried again, and lacked only a very little of reaching the resolve -- and then somewhat less, and then all but touched and grasped it. Yet I still did not quite reach or touch or grasp the goal, because I hesitated to die to death and to live to life. And the worse way, to which I was habituated, was stronger in me than the better, which I had not tried. And up to the very moment in which I was to become another man, the nearer the moment approached, the greater horror did it strike in me. But it did not strike me back, nor turn me aside, but held me in suspense. It was, in fact, my old mistresses, trifles of trifles and vanities of vanities, who still enthralled me. They tugged at my fleshly garments and softly whispered: "Are you going to part with us? And from that moment will we never be with you any more? And from that moment will not this and that be forbidden you forever?" What were they suggesting to me in those words "this or that"? What is it they suggested, O my God? Let thy mercy guard the soul of thy servant from the vileness and the shame they did suggest! And now I scarcely heard them, for they were not openly showing themselves and opposing me face to face; but muttering, as it were, behind my back; and furtively plucking at me as I was leaving, trying to make me look back at them. Still they delayed me, so that I hesitated to break loose and shake myself free of them and leap over to the place to which I was being called -- for unruly habit kept saying to me, "Do you think you can live without them?" But now it said this very faintly; for in the direction I had set my face, and yet toward which I still trembled to go ... for I still heard the muttering of those "trifles" and hung suspended ... This struggle raging in my heart was nothing but the contest of self against self.

Lights like stars whirled past me from out of the darkness, and when I opened my eyes, I was lying on a bed covered in rich tapestry and piled high with pillows. The room was lit by candles in colossal iron holders that flickered on the walls. A great fire was ablaze in the hearth. I recognized the triptych of slender, arched windows, though I was seeing them for the first time from the inside. No longer empty, they were fitted with glass through which I could make out some of the stars that hovered over Whitby on a clear night. We were inside the abbey, though apparently outside time. The room was warm and the roof intact, and he was lying beside me. 'Every moment that has ever existed in time is still here, Mina- every thought, every memory, and every experience.' Now that I saw him in the candlelight, he was more beautiful than I had imagined. Skin marble white, paler than mine and glowing, and hair like the night sea's glossy waves. His face was long and angular with a strong brow, like the artist's renderings I had of the Arthurian knights. With his midnight blue wolf eyes, he stared at me, taking me in. "Who are you?" I asked, my voice timid and feeble. 'You and I have gone by many names. It does not matter what we call each other. What matters is that you remember. Do you remember, Mina?' His lips did not move, and yet I heard every word that he said, I wanted to ask a thousand questions, but one long and slender finger reached out and touched my lips. Locking eyes with me, he slid my nightdress from my shoulder. Shock waves rippled through my body as his finger followed the curve under my neck, dusting my chin, and slowly sliding to the other ear. Surely just one finger could not create this bedlam inside me. 'Ah, so you do remember.' My heart palpitated wildly, but I was not afraid. Something familiar about him prevented me from fearing him, though I had witnessed how dangerous he could be on the banks of the Thames when he had thrashed my attacker. "Yes, yes, I remember," I said. I would have said anything to keep his hand on me, to wallow in the wild energy he brought to my body, and to stare into the infinite violet blue of his eyes. Though I said nothing else, every nerve in my body begged him to keep touching me. 'What is your desire?' I did not have the audacity to say the words aloud, but this being knew me and knew my thoughts. Our eyes were locked, and our minds were linked. I felt connected to him in a way that I had not known with another person. We were not one, but we were in harmony, as if we were both parts of the same symphony.

Elephanta caves, Mumbai-- I entered a world made of shadows and sudden brightness. The play of the light, the vastness of the space and its irregular form, the figures carved on the walls: all of it gave the place a sacred character, sacred in the deepest meaning of the word. In the shadows were the powerful reliefs and statues, many of them mutilated by the fanaticism of the Portuguese and the Muslims, but all of them majestic, solid, made of a solar material. Corporeal beauty, turned into living stone. Divinities of the earth, sexual incarnations of the most abstract thought, gods that were simultaneously intellectual and carnal, terrible and peaceful. ............................................................................ Gothic architecture is the music turned to stone; one could say that Hindu architecture is sculpted dance. The Absolute, the principle in whose matrix all contradictions dissolve (Brahma), is “neither this nor this nor this.” It is the way in which the great temples at Ellora, Ajanta, Karli, and other sites were built, carved out of mountains. In Islamic architecture, nothing is sculptural—exactly the opposite of the Hindu. The Red Fort, on the bank of the wide Jamuna River, is as powerful as a fort and as graceful as a palace. It is difficult to think of another tower that combines the height, solidity, and slender elegance of the Qutab Minar. The reddish stone, contrasting with the transparency of the air and the blue of the sky, gives the monument a vertical dynamism, like a huge rocket aimed at the stars. The mausoleum is like a poem made not of words but of trees, pools, avenues of sand and flowers: strict meters that cross and recross in angles that are obvious but no less surprising rhymes. Everything has been transformed into a construction made of cubes, hemispheres, and arcs: the universe reduced to its essential geometric elements. The abolition of time turned into space, space turned into a collection of shapes that are simultaneously solid and light, creations of another space, made of air. There is nothing terrifying in these tombs: they give the sensation of infinity and pacify the soul. The simplicity and harmony of their forms satisfy one of the most profound necessities of the spirit: the longing for order, the love of proportion. At the same time they arouse our fantasies. These monuments and gardens incite us to dream and to fly. They are magic carpets. Compare Ellora with the Taj Mahal, or the frescoes of Ajanta with Mughal miniatures. These are not distinct artistic styles, but rather two different visions of the world.

Closing the distance between them, he had saved the modest allure of her walk and felt his body respond to the graceful sway of her hips as they approached the pool. He had envisioned her taking off her robe and showing him her slender nakedness, but instead, she had just stood there, as though searching for someone. It skipped through his mind that when he caught up to the girl, he would either apprehend or ravish her. He still wasn't sure which it would be as he stood before her, blocking her escape with a dark, slight smile. As she peered up at him fearfully from the shadowed folds of her hood, he found himself staring into the bluest eyes he had ever seen. He had only encountered that deep, dream-spun shade of cobalt once in his life before, in the stained glass windows of Chartres Cathedral. His awareness of the crowd them dimmed in the ocean-blue depths of her eyes. 'Who are you?' He did not say a word nor ask her permission. With the smooth self-assurance of a man who has access to every woman in the room, he captured her chin in a firm but gentle grip. She jumped when he touched her, panic flashing in her eyes. His hard stare softened slightly in amusement at that, but then his faint smile faded, for her skin was silken beneath his fingertips. With one hand, he lifted her face toward the dim torchlight, while the other softly brushed back her hood. Then Lucien faltered, faced with a beauty the likes of which he had never seen. His very soul grew hushed with reverence as he gazed at her, holding his breath for fear the vision would dissolve, a figment of his overactive brain. With her bright tresses gleaming the flame-gold of dawn and her large, frightened eyes of that shining, ethereal blue, he was so sure for a moment that she was a lost angel that he half expected to see silvery, feathered wings folded demurely beneath her coarse brown robe. She appeared somewhere between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two- a wholesome, nay, a virginal beauty of trembling purity. He instantly 'knew' that she was utterly untouched, impossible as that seemed in this place. Her face was proud and weary. Her satiny skin glowed in the candlelight, pale and fine, but her soft, luscious lips shot off an effervescent champagne-pop of desire that fizzed more sweetly in his veins than anything he'd felt since his adolescence, which had taken place, if he recalled correctly, some time during the Dark Ages. There was intelligence and valor in her delicate face, courage, and a quivering vulnerability that made him ache with anguish for the doom of all innocent things. 'A noble youth, a questing youth,' he thought, and if she had come to slay dragons, she had already pierced him in his black, fiery heart with the lance of her heaven-blue gaze.

Last year I had a very unusual experience. I was awake, with my eyes closed, when I had a dream. It was a small dream about time. I was dead, I guess, in deep blank space high up above many white stars. My own consciousness had been disclosed to me, and I was happy. Then I saw far below me a long, curved band of color. As I came closer, I saw that it stretched endlessly in either direction, and I understood that I was seeing all the time of the planet where I had lived. It looked like a woman’s tweed scarf; the longer I studied any one spot, the more dots of color I saw. There was no end to the deepness and variety of dots. At length I started to look for my time, but, although more and more specks of color and deeper and more intricate textures appeared in the fabric, I couldn’t find my time, or any time at all that I recognized as being near my time. I couldn’t make out so much as a pyramid. Yet as I looked at the band of time, all the individual people, I understood with special clarity, were living at that very moment with great emotion, in intricate, detail, in their individual times and places, and they were dying and being replaced by ever more people, one by one, like stitches in which wholly worlds of feeling and energy were wrapped in a never-ending cloth. I remembered suddenly the color and texture of our life as we knew it- these things had been utterly forgotten- and I thought as I searched for it on the limitless band, “that was a good time then, a good time to be living.” And I began to remember our time. I recalled green fields with carrots growing, one by one, in slender rows. Men and women in bright vests and scarves came and pulled the carrots out of the soil and carried them in baskets to shaded kitchens, where they scrubbed them with yellow brushes under running water. I saw white-faced cattle lowing and wading in creeks. I saw May apples in forests, erupting through leaf-strewn paths. Cells on the root hairs of sycamores split and divided, and apples grew spotted and striped in the fall. Mountains kept their cool caves and squirrels raced home to their nests through sunlight and shade. I remembered the ocean, and I seemed to be in the ocean myself, swimming over orange crabs that looked like coral, or off the deep Atlantic banks where whitefish school. Or again I saw the tops of poplars, and the whole sky brushed with clouds in pallid streaks, under which wild ducks flew with outstretched necks, and called, one by one, and flew on. All these things I saw. Scenes grew in depth and sunlit detail before my eyes, and were replaced by ever more scenes, as I remember the life of my time with increasing feeling. At last I saw the earth as a globe in space, and I recalled the ocean’s shape and the form of continents, saying to myself with surprise as I looked at the planet, “yes, that’s how it was then, that part there was called France.” I was filled with the deep affection of nostalgia- and then I opened my eyes. We all ought to be able to conjure up sights like these at will, so that we can keep in mind the scope of texture’s motion in time.

He concluded the speech with an irritated motion of his hands. Unfortunately, Evie had been conditioned by too many encounters with Uncle Peregrine to discern between angry gestures and the beginnings of a physical attack. She flinched instinctively, her own arms flying up to shield her head. When the expected pain of a blow did not come, she let out a breath and tentatively lowered her arms to find Sebastian staring at her with blank astonishment. Then his face went dark. "Evie," he said, his voice containing a bladelike ferocity that frightened her. "Did you think I was about to... Christ. Someone hit you. Someone hit you in the past---who the hell was it?" He reached for her suddenly---too suddenly---and she stumbled backward, coming up hard against the wall. Sebastian went very still. "Goddamn," he whispered. Appearing to struggle with some powerful emotion, he stared at her intently. After a long moment, he spoke softly. "I would never strike a woman. I would never harm you. You know that, don't you?" Transfixed by the light, glittering eyes that held hers with such intensity, Evie couldn't move or make a sound. She started as he approached her slowly. "It's all right," he murmured. "Let me come to you. It's all right. Easy." One of his arms slid around her, while he used his free hand to smooth her hair, and then she was breathing, sighing, as relief flowed through her. Sebastian brought her closer against him, his mouth brushing her temple. "Who was it?" he asked. "M-my uncle," she managed to say. The motion of his hand on her back paused as he heard her stammer. "Maybrick?" he asked patiently. "No, th-the other one." "Stubbins." "Yes." Evie closed her eyes in pleasure as his other arm slid around her. Clasped against Sebastian's hard chest, with her cheek tucked against his shoulder, she inhaled the scent of clean male skin, and the subtle touch of sandalwood cologne. "How often?" she heard him ask. "More than once?" "I... i-it's not important now." "How often, Evie?" Realizing that he was going to persist until she answered, Evie muttered, "Not t-terribly often, but... sometimes when I displeased him, or Aunt Fl-Florence, he would lose his temper. The l-last time I tr-tried to run away, he blackened my eye and spl-split my lip." "Did he?" Sebastian was silent for a long moment, and then he spoke with chilling softness. "I'm going to tear him limb from limb." "I don't want that," Evie said earnestly. "I-I just want to be safe from him. From all of them." Sebastian drew his head back to look down into her flushed face. "You are safe," he said in a low voice. He lifted one of his hands to her face, caressing the plane of her cheekbone, letting his fingertip follow the trail of pale golden freckles across the bridge of her nose. As her lashes fluttered downward, he stroked the slender arcs of her brows, and cradled the side of her face with his palm. "Evie," he murmured. "I swear on my life, you will never feel pain from my hands. I may prove a devil of a husband in every other regard... but I wouldn't hurt you that way. You must believe that." The delicate nerves of her skin drank in sensations thirstily... his touch, the erotic waft of his breath against her lips. Evie was afraid to open her eyes, or to do anything that might interrupt the moment. "Yes," she managed to whisper. "Yes... I---" There was the sweet shock of a probing kiss against her lips... another... She opened to him with a slight gasp. His mouth was hot silk and tender fire, invading her with gently questing pressure. His fingertips traced over her face, tenderly adjusting the angle between them.

If anything's to be praised, it's most likely how the west wind becomes the east wind, when a frozen bough sways leftward, voicing its creaking protests, and your cough flies across the Great Plains to Dakota's forests. At noon, shouldering a shotgun, fire at what may well be a rabbit in snowfields, so that a shell widens the breach between the pen that puts up these limping awkward lines and the creature leaving real tracks in the white. On occasion the head combines its existence with that of a hand, not to fetch more lines but to cup an ear under the pouring slur of their common voice. Like a new centaur. There is always a possibility left to let yourself out to the street whose brown length will soothe the eye with doorways, the slender forking of willows, the patchwork puddles, with simply walking. The hair on my gourd is stirred by a breeze and the street, in distance, tapering to a V, is like a face to a chin; and a barking puppy flies out of a gateway like crumpled paper. A street. Some houses, let's say, are better than others. To take one item, some have richer windows. What's more, if you go insane, it won't happen, at least, inside them. ... and when 'the future' is uttered, swarms of mice rush out of the Russian language and gnaw a piece of ripened memory which is twice as hole-ridden as real cheese. After all these years it hardly matters who or what stands in the corner, hidden by heavy drapes, and your mind resounds not with a seraphic 'do', only their rustle. Life, that no one dares to appraise, like that gift horse's mouth, bares its teeth in a grin at each encounter. What gets left of a man amounts to a part. To his spoken part. To a part of speech. Not that I am losing my grip; I am just tired of summer. You reach for a shirt in a drawer and the day is wasted. If only winter were here for snow to smother all these streets, these humans; but first, the blasted green. I would sleep in my clothes or just pluck a borrowed book, while what's left of the year's slack rhythm, like a dog abandoning its blind owner, crosses the road at the usual zebra. Freedom is when you forget the spelling of the tyrant's name and your mouth's saliva is sweeter than Persian pie, and though your brain is wrung tight as the horn of a ram nothing drops from your pale-blue eye.

Ser Waymar Royce was the youngest son of an ancient house with too many heirs. He was a handsome youth of eighteen, grey-eyed and graceful and slender as a knife. Mounted on his huge black destrier, the knight towered above Will and Gared on their smaller garrons. He wore black leather boots, black woolen pants, black moleskin gloves, and a fine supple coat of gleaming black ringmail over layers of black wool and boiled leather. Ser Waymar had been a Sworn Brother of the Night’s Watch for less than half a year, but no one could say he had not prepared for his vocation. At least insofar as his wardrobe was concerned.

We’ve got art class coming up, Violet.” “Really?” I glance up at the sun, still high in the sky; art class doesn’t start till five-thirty, and it can’t even be near five yet. “I’m going in to change,” Kendra says, pulling her sarong around her, tying it at her slender waist. Slipping her feet into her flip-flops, she pads back to the house, watched by the three of us girls; none of us say a word until she’s well out of earshot. Then Paige turns back to me and Kelly and says: “Riiiiight. Because it takes nearly an hour to get ready for art class.” “It does if you have a crush the size of Big Ben on the art teacher,” Kelly zings back. “She isn’t even any good at art!” Paige giggles. “I mean, not like Violet!” “Violet’s brilliant,” Kelly says, very pleased to have found an opportunity to both praise me, her friend and ally, and get in a dig at Kendra, her rival for Brainiest Girl in Villa Barbiano. “Her paintings are gorgeous.” “Oh yeah?” Evan says to me. He’s very good at tuning out girl talk and focusing only on the important information--a skill doubtless acquired from a lifetime of living with Paige. “What do you paint?” “Still lifes, at the moment,” I say, feeling self-conscious. “But I’d really like to do portraits. We need a life model, though, and Kelly won’t do it and Paige can’t stay still for long enough.” “I fidget,” Paige says cheerfully.

She gave in, pulling him close, tangling her hands in his hair, tasting his skin and his lips and his tongue. She expected him to taste like ale, but he just tasted warm, like summer and sunrise. And happiness. Happiness Cass hadn’t felt in weeks. And in that moment she knew that she would go home with him, that she would give in. She would let him return her to his meager lodgings and undress her, and their bodies would flow together like rivers. But then, out of nowhere, an image flashed: Hortensa Zanotta and the blond man circling each other. Hortensa’s knees going weak, her slender frame crumpling to the floor. Cass pulled away. Her mouth, her whole body, was still on fire. “Stop.” The word came out choked, like a whisper. “We can’t.” Cass felt suddenly, inexplicably, like she was going to cry. “I know,” Falco said. “I’m sorry.” He raked both hands through his hair in frustration. Cass shook her head. “I don’t understand how you can affect me in such a way.” If she hadn’t pulled away when she had, she might have let him lay her down right there on the stone walkway. It was madness. Falco’s eyes softened. “I don’t understand it either.” He shook his head. “Sometimes I think nature is more powerful than I give her credit for. Perhaps the stars brought us back together after we went our separate ways. Like maybe the world has plans for us.” He looked down at the ground for a moment. Cass didn’t speak. She was afraid of what she might say. Falco leaned in and brushed his lips across her cheek. “Go on.” He pointed to a glimmer of gold low on the horizon. “The sun will be rising soon.

glory.” “Use me?” The memory returned to him of thinking that, but about Rand, that the Aes Sedai meant to use Rand, not him. They’ve no bloody use for me. Light, they can’t have! “What do you mean? I’m no one important. I am no use to anyone but myself. What kind of glory?” “I knew that would pull you. You, above all.” Her smile made his head spin. He scrubbed a hand through his hair. The blanket slipped, and he caught it hastily before it could fall. “Now listen, they are not interested in me.” What about me sounding the Horn? “I am just a farmer.” Maybe they think I’m tied to Rand in some way. No, Verin said. . . . He was not sure what Verin had said, or Moiraine, but he thought most Aes Sedai knew nothing at all about Rand. He wanted to keep it that way, at least until he was a long way gone. “Just a simple country man. I only want to see a little of the world and go back to my da’s farm.” What does she mean, glory? Selene shook her head as if she had heard his thoughts. “You are more important than you yet know. Certainly more important than these so-called Aes Sedai know. You can have glory, if you know enough not to trust them.” “You certainly sound as if you don’t trust them.” So-called? A thought came to him, but he could not manage to say it. “Are you a . . . ? Are you . . . ?” It was not the kind of thing you accused someone of. “A Darkfriend?” Selene said mockingly. She sounded amused, not angered. She sounded contemptuous. “One of those pathetic followers of Ba’alzamon who think he will give them immortality and power? I follow no one. There is one man I could stand beside, but I do not follow.” Mat laughed nervously. “Of course not.” Blood and ashes, a Darkfriend wouldn’t name herself Darkfriend. Probably has a poisoned knife, if she is. He had a vague memory of a woman dressed as one nobly born, a Darkfriend with a deadly dagger in her slender hand. “That wasn’t what I meant at all. You look. . . . You look like a queen. That’s what I meant. Are you a Lady?” “Mat, Mat, you must learn to trust me. Oh, I will use you, too—you have too suspicious a nature, especially since carrying that dagger, for me to deny it—but my use will gain you wealth, and power, and glory. I will not compel you. I have always believed men perform better if convinced rather than forced.

What about now, Cassandra?” he asked, touching his hand to her left cheek, his other hand coming to rest on her slender waist. “Are you ready now? I must return to France to study. Come back with me. I can protect you. I will protect you. And I will try--I will do everything I can to make you happy.” Cass didn’t know what to say. She stared into Luca’s eyes--patient, warm, kind. He would be an excellent husband. An almost-perfect husband. But would he be the perfect husband for her? Cass didn’t know. Just then, something moved in the shadows. Instinctively, Cass tensed up. Her head whipped around as a figure emerged from the taverna behind them. It was Falco, holding a canvas sack over his shoulder. He froze, watching her and Luca, and Cass saw them as he must: standing close like lovers, their arms intertwined. He was still at a distance, but his stare radiated heat. Not anger, just his own peculiar energy. Luca did not appear to notice her attention had been distracted. “Will you go with me?” he prompted. “As my wife?” “I--” Cass looked up into Luca’s face. Her fiancé would love her and protect her. He understood pain and loyalty. He would die to keep her safe. Falco was moving now, walking toward the shoreline. Cass’s heart rose into her throat. Her first love. Falco understood her desire to be free from expectations. The man who would support her in living the life she wanted to live. But what life was that? Cass stood frozen, unable to decide. Luca was still staring at her expectantly. Falco reached the two of them, raising his blue eyes just long enough to give her a single soft look as he passed by. As Falco waved an arm to signal a passing fisherman, the sun dipped completely below the horizon.

Let me go, I say!" He let out a lusty laugh as her hip chafed his groin. "Mm, I like that," he purred, holding her slender body against him. "You, horrible- stop it!" she yelled. "You're hurting me!" "Good." He lowered his face toward hers and looked into her eyes with a menacing glower. "Now, then, my beauty, why don't you and I go somewhere private?" She stopped fighting suddenly, her blue eyes widening, her lovely face going from flushed to pale.

Thomas glanced back at the stairs, excited nerves leaping in his stomach. “Is Eliza coming?” After the words escaped his mouth he realized how comical he sounded. Of course she was coming. “I mean to say, is Eliza ready?” A wide grin washed over Kitty’s face, as if she were hiding something. “She’ll be down shortly.” Thomas nodded and rested his fidgety hands on the back of the embroidered chair. Nathaniel led Kitty to the other seat and helped her to sit. At that moment, the dainty tap of Eliza’s shoes on the stairs forced Thomas to whirl around. Nathaniel came up behind him. “Steady, boy.” Thomas clenched his jaw to keep it from gaping and dropped his hands to his sides. His eyes traced Eliza’s dainty form. She was even more radiant in that gown than he’d imagined and her face glittered with the most magnificent smile he’d ever seen. The fitted gown accentuated her perfect curves and impossibly tiny waist. The white lace around the neckline tickled her creamy skin, while the dusty-pink color drew out the rosy nature of her cheeks and lips. He tried, but he couldn’t stop staring. Her hair was curled like Kitty’s and wrapped with a delicate ribbon that matched the color of her gown. Her creamy complexion and the velvety look of her long neck were so enticing he had to fight the sudden urge to taste it. Eliza curtsied low and dipped her head. Upon rising she lifted her lashes and spoke to him in a tantalizing timbre. “Good evening, Thomas.” Thomas’s heart beat with such profound strength, it ripped every word from his mind. He wanted to say how beautiful she was. He wanted to tell her he was sorry for keeping his distance when she needed him. Even more than that, he wanted to move his face near hers, and inhale her graceful rose scent deep into his lungs before tasting her lips once again. Every appropriate response fled his mind as his blood raced around his body. He bowed. “Good evening, Eliza.” “Do my eyes deceive me?” Nathaniel, back to his charismatic self, pushed Thomas aside and kissed Eliza’s hand as he bowed with dramatic flare. “You are even more alluring than Aphrodite herself, my dear.” Eliza smiled again and giggled low in her throat. “You are too generous, Doctor.” “I am too enamored. You and your sister shine like the stars themselves.” A hearty grin flashed across his proud face. “Shall we go in to dinner?” He took his place beside Kitty and sent a flashing glance to Thomas, no doubt intended to instruct him to make the most of the moment. Thomas could kill himself. Good evening? That’s all he could say? Eliza’s body faced away from him, but she turned in his direction and the rest of her followed, her gown sweeping across the floor. Thomas closed the space between them, offering his arm. “Shall we go in?” Her slender hand grasped his arm. “You look very nice this evening, Thomas.” Thomas’s tongue dried up in his mouth, shriveling his ability to speak. He could never compete with Nathaniel’s theatrical praises. He’d have to just say what he thought. “You’re a vision, Eliza.” Her

Why did you stop?” Her innocence humbled him, and despite the danger, he pulled her to him, resting her head against his chest. He remained quiet, unable to answer as he tried to force his surging emotions to settle. But such a task was impossible. “What do my actions tell you now?” he whispered. She made no sound, only looked up and stroked his face with her delicate fingers. Her endless eyes shimmering back with such love, his heart swelled until it nearly stopped his lungs. “Eliza?” “Yes?” she answered, a husky sound to her voice. “I want you to be my wife.” The words toppled out of his mouth and he bit his tongue. He hadn’t intended to ask her, but apparently his inner desires, no matter how suppressed, could no longer be ignored. She pushed away and looked up at him, disbelief painting her face. “Your wife?” He tucked a long strand of hair behind her ear. “What do you say?” The muscles in his shoulders tensed. Maybe she did truly love Samuel. “Will you accept me?” She must have seen the emotions he attempted to disguise. Her slender fingers moved over his dipping eyebrows and the sweetest of smiles graced her enticing mouth. “There’s no need for your brow to furrow so. Of course I accept you.” Joy rose in his heart like a surging sea. Thomas moved his hands further around her waist, hoping such closeness would erase all other men from her mind. “You’re not wishing you would have accepted the man who asked before me?” An impish grin chased across her mouth. “Never. You’ve surprised me, that is all. I couldn’t be happier.” “So you do accept me?” he asked. A petite laugh escaped her. “Have I not already answered? What do my actions tell you, Thomas?

You are lucky in your looks,” she says. “Your mother was always a beauty and you are very like her: fair, slender, skin like a rose petal and that wonderful hair, gold and bronze all at once. Undoubtedly you will have beautiful children. I suppose you are still proud of your looks? I suppose you are still vain?” I

Now let me begin by sketching for you a very agreeable picture. You are still, I should say, a youngish man by the world’s standards; your life, as people say, lies ahead of you; in the normal course you might expect twenty or thirty years of only slightly and gradually diminishing activity. By no means a cheerless prospect, and I can hardly expect you to see it as I do—as a slender, breathless, and far too frantic interlude. The first quarter-century of your life was doubtless lived under the cloud of being too young for things, while the last quarter-century would normally be shadowed by the still darker cloud of being too old for them; and between those two clouds, what small and narrow sunlight illumines a human lifetime! But you, it may be, are destined to be more fortunate, since by the standards of Shangri-La your sunlit years have scarcely yet begun. It will happen, perhaps, that decades hence you will feel no older than you are to-day—you may preserve, as Henschell did, a long and wondrous youth. But that, believe me, is only an early and superficial phase. There will come a time when you will age like others, though far more slowly, and into a condition infinitely nobler; at eighty you may still climb to the pass with a young man’s gait, but at twice that age you must not expect the whole marvel to have persisted. We are not workers of miracles; we have made no conquest of death or even of decay. All we have done and can sometimes do is to slacken the tempo of this brief interval that is called life. We do this by methods which are as simple here as they are impossible elsewhere; but make no mistake; the end awaits us all.

Lysandra had held up a slender hand—and Lorcan paused. The shape-shifter pressed her other hand against her stomach, her face blanching. But then she smiled and said, “You forgot to say ‘please.’” Lorcan’s dark brows flattened. “I don’t have time for this.” He made to step around her, shove her aside. Lysandra vomited black blood all over him. Rowan didn’t know whether to laugh or cringe as Lysandra, panting, gaped at Lorcan, and at the blood on his neck and chest. Slowly, too slowly, Lorcan looked down at himself. She pressed a hand over her mouth. “I am—so sorry—” Lorcan didn’t even step out of the way as Lysandra vomited on him again, black blood and bits of gore now on the warrior and on the marble floor. Lorcan’s dark eyes flickered. Rowan decided to do them both a favor and joined them in the antechamber, shutting the queen’s bedroom door behind him as he stepped around the puddle of blood, bile, and gore. Lysandra gagged again, and wisely darted to what looked to be a bathing room off the foyer. All of the men and demons she’d wasted, it seemed, did not sit well in her human stomach. The sounds of her purging leaked out from beneath the bathing room door. “You deserved that,” Rowan said.

Come here, little one.” “I want to go back.” He hoped she stood there arguing for a time. “Obey your husband.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s broad daylight.” “Keemah, come.” Growing tired of just looking when he could be touching, Hunter cocked his head and let her see him leering. He was awarded a fetching glimpse of slender, creamy thighs and honey gold. She gasped and dropped to her knees as if someone had dealt a blow to the backs of her legs. Tucking her skirt under her knees, she cried, “Have you no shame?” His answer was a slow grin. Seizing her wrist, he drew her toward him. “There is no shame. You are my woman.” Pulled off balance, she fell across his chest. Squirming, but halfheartedly, she said, “There’s a time and a place for everything, and this isn’t it.” “No?” He ran a hand under her blouse. “I say it is a very good time.

My dog had made a point on a piece of fallow-ground, and led the curate and me two or three hundred yards over that and some stubble adjoining, in a breathless state of expectation, on a burning first of September. it was a false point, and our labour was in vain: yet, to do Rover justice, (for he's an excellent dog, though I have lost his pedigree0 the fault was none of his, the birds were gone; the curate shewed me the spot where they had lain basking, at the root of an old hedge. I stopped and cried Hem! The curate is fatter than I; he wiped the sweat from his brow. There is no state where one is apter to pause and look round one, than after such a disappointment. It is even so in life. When we have been hurrying on, impelled by some warm wish or other, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left - we find of a sudden that all our gay hopes are flown; and the only slender consolation that some friend can give us, is to point where they were once to be found. And lo! if we are not of that combustible race, who will rather beat their heads in spite, than wipe their brows with the curate, we look around and say, with the nauseated listlessness of the king of Israel, 'All is vanity and vexation of spirit.

And that's when the doorbell rings. Marcus freezes. As do I. "That must be your friend," I somehow manage to say, even though my throat is trying to close. Marcus is clearly torn between remaining immobile and opening the door. The bell rings again. "Want me to get it?" "No," he says. "No." I stand, not knowing what to do while he slowly springs open the door. Not surprisingly, Marcus's old schoolfriend is a petite and extraordinarily pretty brunette. She steps into the apartment and kisses Marcus full on the lips. "Hello, darling," she says. Marcus recoils slightly and casts a worried glance in my direction which his friend follows. "Hi," I say, extending my hand as I try to force my face into a smile. She takes it. Her hand is cool and delicate, as slender as the rest of her. "I'm Lucy," I continue brightly. "Marcus's girlfriend." Now it's her turn to recoil. "This is my friend, Joanne," Marcus says tightly. I look at my lover. "An old schoolfriend. That's what you said, isn't it?" I turn back to Joanne. "Which school did you go to with Marcus? Primary? Grammar? Or maybe it was the harsh school of life?" His old schoolfriend looks at him blankly. "I don't know quite what's going on here, Marcus," she says. "But I don't think that I want to be a part of it." She turns away from him, spinning on her heel toward the door. "Jo," Marcus pleads as he catches her sleeve. "Don't go." And I think that's my cue to leave. "Oh, Marcus," I say sadly. "Do you have so little respect for me?" "I can explain," he says, and I notice that he's still looking at Jo rather than at me. "You're welcome to stay and listen to it," I say to Jo. "I'll be the one to leave." Marcus does nothing to stop me, so I hitch up my gym bag once more and move toward the door. "It's been nice meeting you," I say to Marcus's new love. "You'll enjoy your dinner. It smells wonderful. It even covers the smell of a rat. The chocolates are great, by the way. I hope you both choke on them.

a slender vinyl attaché case; the kind carried by State Department clerks, computer salesmen, and executive trainees. This, which she opened on her lap, had proved to contain such serious businesslike material as yellow-lined legal pads, ballpoint pens, graph paper, loose-leaf filler books, a cassette recorder, sharpened yellow pencils, and a slide rule. (I have always envied people who know what a slide rule is for. It’s not even the question of how you use it, it’s more basic than that; I am convinced there have been moments in my life which would have been made easier if I had been equipped with a handy slide rule and the mastery of its operation, but I’m so ignorant I don’t even know which moments those were. Never have I said, “Oh, if only I had a slide rule!” though surely there have been times when it was the appropriate thing to say.) But not at the moment for Ms. Scott. She’d taken from the attaché case only one legal pad and one ballpoint pen, then closed

All there really is to do in New Orleans, it seems, is walk, eat, drink, look, and listen. This is basically what we do on every trip, but the fact is underscored here by the hundreds of restaurants and bars sitting shoulder to shoulder on every slender street. And the thousands of people milling through the city with tall neon novelty cups and mismatched straws. Every block or so the smells of the city switch from fried and delicious to stinking and rotten, the humidity trapping the sewage and putting it on display. Compared to most American cities, everything looks so old that I imagine we’re smelling waste from the 1700s, which miraculously makes it more bearable. “It feels like we’re walking around inside someone’s mouth,” Alex says more than once about the humidity, and from then on, whenever the smell hits, I think of food trapped between molars. But the thing is, it never lasts. A breeze sweeps through to clear it out, or we wander past another restaurant with all its doors propped open, or we round the corner and stumble onto some beautiful side street where every balcony overhead is dripping with purple flowers.

The Lectern Some rise on eagles wings, this one is plain, Plain English workmanship in solid oak; Age gracefully it says, go with the grain. You walk towards an always open book, Open as every life to every light, Open to shade and shadow, day and night, The changeless witness of your changing pain. Be still the lectern says, stand here and read Here are your mysteries, your love and fear, And running through them all, the slender thread Of God's strange grace red as these ribbons, red As your own blood when reading reads you here And pierces joint and marrow ... So you stand The lectern still beneath your trembling hand.