Soft Toys Quotes

A Woman's Question Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing Ever made by the Hand above? A woman's heart, and a woman's life--- And a woman's wonderful love. Do you know you have asked for this priceless thing As a child might ask for a toy? Demanding what others have died to win, With a reckless dash of boy. You have written my lesson of duty out, Manlike, you have questioned me. Now stand at the bars of my woman's soul Until I shall question thee. You require your mutton shall always be hot, Your socks and your shirt be whole; I require your heart be true as God's stars And as pure as His heaven your soul. You require a cook for your mutton and beef, I require a far greater thing; A seamstress you're wanting for socks and shirts--- I look for a man and a king. A king for the beautiful realm called Home, And a man that his Maker, God, Shall look upon as He did on the first And say: "It is very good." I am fair and young, but the rose may fade From this soft young cheek one day; Will you love me then 'mid the falling leaves, As you did 'mong the blossoms of May? Is your heart an ocean so strong and true, I may launch my all on its tide? A loving woman finds heaven or hell On the day she is made a bride. I require all things that are grand and true, All things that a man should be; If you give this all, I would stake my life To be all you demand of me. If you cannot be this, a laundress and cook You can hire and little to pay; But a woman's heart and a woman's life Are not to be won that way.

Other girls play with soft toys,” I said, “and you play with knives…

So. Avelaval. My leaves have drifted from me. All. But one clings still. I'll bear it on me. To remind me of. Lff! So soft this morning, ours. Yes. Carry me along, taddy, like you done through the toy fair! If I seen him bearing down on me now under whitespread wings like he'd come from Arkangels, I sink I'd die down over his feet, humbly dumbly, only to washup. Yes, tid. There's where. First. We pass through grass behush the bush to. Whish! A gull. Gulls. Far calls. Coming, far! End here. Us then. Finn, again! Take. Bussoftlhee, mememormee! Till thousendsthee. Lps. The keys to. Given! A way a lone a last a loved a long the—riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.

From space, astronauts can see people making love as a tiny speck of light. Not light, exactly, but a glow that could be mistaken for light--a coital radiance that takes generations to pour like honey through the darkness to the astronaut's eyes. In about one and a half centuries--after the lovers who made the glow will have long been laid permanently on their backs--metropolises will be seen from space. They will glow all year. Smaller cities will also be seen, but with great difficulty. Shtetls will be virtually impossible to spot. Individual couples, invisible. The glow is born from the sum of thousands of loves: newlyweds and teenagers who spark like lighters out of butane, pairs of men who burn fast and bright, pairs of women who illuminate for hours with soft multiple glows, orgies like rock and flint toys sold at festivals, couples trying unsuccessfully to have children who burn their frustrated image on the continent like the bloom a bright light leaves on the eye after you turn away from it. Some nights, some places are a little brighter. It's difficult to stare at New York City on Valentine's Day, or Dublin on St. Patrick's. The old walled city of Jerusalem lights up like a candle on each of Chanukah's eight nights...We're here, the glow...will say in one and a half centuries. We're here, and we're alive.

Before she could stop her hands, they reached for him, as though they existed for no other reason than to touch him. Her fingers brushed across his jaw with a feather's caress before pulling away, and he closed his eyes on a soft inhale. Like the poison toying with its remedy, Shahrzad's hands ignored her and took control, a mere taste of his skin not nearly enough. Never enough.

Here's what vampires shouldn't be: pallid detectives that drink Bloody Marys and work only at night; lovelorn southern gentlemen; anorexic teenage girls; boy-toys with big dewy eyes. What should they be? Killers, honey. Stone killers that can't get enough of that tasty Type-A. Bad boys and girls. Hunters. In other words, Midnight America. Red, white and blue, accent on the red. Those vamps got hijacked by a lot of soft-focus romance. ( American Vampire Vol. 1 : Introduction-"SUCK ON THIS" by Stephen King)

We were supposed to amount to something. Something was the same as someone, and even if nobody ever said so out loud, it was hardly left unspoken, either. It was just in the air, or in the time, or in fence surrounding the school, or in our pillows, or in the soft toys that after having served us so loyally had now been unjustly discarded and left to gather dust in attics or basements. I hadn't known.

It is, I suppose, the common grief of children at having to protect their parents from reality. It is bitter for the young to see what awful innocence adults grow into, that terrible vulnerability that must be sheltered from the rodent mire of childhood. Can we blame the child for resenting the fantasy of largeness? Big, soft arms and deep voices in the dark saying, "Tell Papa, tell Mama, and we'll make it right." The child, screaming for refuge, senses how feeble a shelter the twig hut of grown-up awareness is. They claim strength, these parents, and complete sanctuary. The weeping earth itself knows how desperate is the child's need for exactly that sanctuary. How deep and sticky is the darkness of childhood, how rigid the blades of infant evil, which is unadulterated, unrestrained by the convenient cushions of age and its civilizing anesthesia. Grownups can deal with scraped knees, dropped ice-cream cones, and lost dollies, but if they suspected the real reasons we cry they would fling us out of their arms in horrified revulsion. Yet we are small and as terrified as we are terrifying in our ferocious appetites. We need that warm adult stupidity. Even knowing the illusion, we cry and hide in their laps, speaking only of defiled lollipops or lost bears, and getting lollipop or a toy bear'd worth of comfort. We make do with it rather than face alone the cavernous reaches of our skull for which there is no remedy, no safety, no comfort at all. We survive until, by sheer stamina, we escape into the dim innocence of our own adulthood and its forgetfulness.

Past the flannel plains and blacktop graphs and skylines of canted rust, and past the tobacco-brown river overhung with weeping trees and coins of sunlight through them on the water downriver, to the place beyond the windbreak, where untilled fields simmer shrilly in the A.M. heat: shattercane, lambsquarter, cutgrass, saw brier, nutgrass, jimson-weed, wild mint, dandelion, foxtail, spinecabbage, goldenrod, creeping Charlie, butterprint, nightshade, ragweed, wild oat, vetch, butcher grass, invaginate volunteer beans, all heads nodding in a soft morning breeze like a mother’s hand on your check. An arrow of starlings fired from the windbreak’s thatch. The glitter of dew that stays where it is and steams all day. A Sunflower, four more one bowed, and horses in the distance standing rigid as toys. All nodding. Electric sounds of insects at their business. Ale-colored sunshine and pale sky and whorls of cirrus so high they cast no shadow. Insects all business all the time. Quartz and chert and schist and chondrite iron scabs in granite. Very old land. Look around you. The horizon trembling, shapeless. We are all of us brothers.

Liam’s bunny was one of those things Dragos didn’t understand. The stuffed toy was floppy, super soft and had big, dark eyes. Liam adored it, although Dragos wasn’t quite sure why. In real life, a bunny that size would barely make an appetizer.

The adult world may seem a cold and empty place, with no fairies and no Father Christmas, no Toyland or Narnia, no Happy Hunting Ground where mourned pets go, and no angels - guardian or garden variety. But there are also no devils, no hellfire, no wicked witches, no ghosts, no haunted houses, no daemonic possession, no bogeymen or ogres. Yes, Teddy and Dolly turn out not to be really alive. But there are warm, live, speaking, thinking, adult bedf ellows to hold, and many of us find it a more rewarding kind of love than the childish affection for stuffed toys, however soft and cuddly they may be.

Past the flannel plains and blacktop graphs and skylines of canted rust, and past the tobacco-brown river overhung with weeping trees and coins of sunlight through them on the water downriver, to the place beyond the windbreak, where untilled fields simmer shrilly in the A.M. heat: shattercane, lamb's-quarter, cutgrass, sawbrier, nutgrass, jimsonweed, wild mint, dandelion, foxtail, muscadine, spinecabbage, goldenrod, creeping charlie, butter-print, nightshade, ragweed, wild oat, vetch, butcher grass, invaginate volunteer beans, all heads gently nodding in a morning breeze like a mother's soft hand on your cheek. An arrow of starlings fired from the windbreak's thatch. The glitter of dew that stays where it is and steams all day. A sunflower, four more, one bowed, and horses in the distance standing rigid and still as toys. All nodding. Electric sounds of insects at their business. Ale-colored sunshine and pale sky and whorls of cirrus so high they cast no shadow. Insects all business all the time. Quartz and chert and schist and chondrite iron scabs in granite. Very old land. Look around you. The horizon trembling, shapeless. We are all of us brothers. Some crows come overhead then, three or four, not a murder, on the wing, silent with intent, corn-bound for the pasture's wire beyond which one horse smells at the other's behind, the lead horse's tail obligingly lifted. Your shoes' brand incised in the dew. An alfalfa breeze. Socks' burrs. Dry scratching inside a culvert. Rusted wire and tilted posts more a symbol of restraint than a fence per se. NO HUNTING. The shush of the interstate off past the windbreak. The pasture's crows standing at angles, turning up patties to get at the worms underneath, the shapes of the worms incised in the overturned dung and baked by the sun all day until hardened, there to stay, tiny vacant lines in rows and inset curls that do not close because head never quite touches tail. Read these.

Is it a toy?" asked Button-Bright softly. "No, dear," answered Dorothy; "it's better than that. It's the fairy dwelling of a fairy prince.

Forgive me, madam," he said lightly, amused, "but waiting to make love to you again is straining my nerves." She scoffed but she was quite shaken; he could see it in her expression, in the way she nervously toyed with the buttons on her pelisse. "How awfully presumptuous of you to think I'd let you." "You will," he insisted soothingly. She gaped at him. "Please continue," he urged. "I'm aching to hear the rest." "You're as arrogant as usual." "You missed it, though." "I absolutely did not," she asserted. He grinned. "You missed my arrogance almost as much as I missed your impudence, little one." "That's absurd." "I love you, Caroline," he softly, quickly replied, catching her off guard with such tenderness. "Move on before I decide I'm finished with this conversation, rip off your clothes, and show you how much.

I don't believe you know anything about a man like me or a country like this. It takes rough men, Miss Fair, to tame a rough country; rough men, but good men. Your father is in that class. As for you, I don't think you'd measure up, and you'll do well to leave it. You're a hothouse flower, very soft, very appealing and very useless...In the world you are going to, men want pretty useless women. They want toys for their lighte moments, and we have those women out here, too, only we have another name for them. We want women who can make a home, and if need be, handle a rifle.

He raised a hand to forestall her response. ‘Don’t bother denying it. We both know the PM’s a tormented creature [Theresa May]. Like one of those soft toys lorry drivers fix to their radiator grilles.That expression she wears, it’s terror at all the oncoming vehicles.

I’m not a toy, Ava,” Alex said, his voice lethally soft. “Don’t play with me unless you want to get hurt.

Grandma Fifi had two friends named Martin and Merlin who were afraid in a way Dirk didn't want to be. They were both very handsome and kind and always brought candies and toys when they came over for tea and Fifi's famous pastries. But as much as Dirk liked Martin and Merlin he knew he was different from them. They talked in voices as pale and soft as the shirts they wore and they moved as gracefully as Fifi did. Their eyes were startled and sad. They had been hurt because of who they were. Dirk didn't want to be hurt that way. He wanted to be strong and to love someone who was strong; he wanted to meet any gaze, to laugh under the brightest sunlight and never hide.

You've won," Jack said softly. He looked at Mimi with such fiery hatred that she almost cowered at his words. But she was no weakling. She was Azrael, and Azrael did not cower, not even to Abbadon. "I've won nothing," Mimi replied coldly. "Please remember that almost all of the Elders are dead, that the Dark Prince is ascendant, and what is left of the Conclave is being led by a broken man who used to be the strongest of us all. And yet all you seem to care about, my darling, is that you no longer get to play with your little love toy." Instead of answering her, Jack flew across the room and slapped her hard across the face, sending her crashing to the floor. But before he could wield another blow, Mimi leaped up and slammed him against the window, knocking him completely out of breath. "Is this what you want?" she hissed as she lifted him up by his shirt collar, his face turning a ghastly shade of red. "Don't let me destroy you," he sneered. "Just try, my sweet." Jack twisted out of her grasp and flipped her over, kicking her down the length of the room. She sprung up with her hands clenched, her nails sharp as claws, and fangs bared. They met halfway in the air, and Jack put a hand on her throat and began to squeeze. But she scratched at his eyes and wrenched her body so that she was rolling on top of him, her sword at his throat, with the upper hand. SUBMIT. Mimi sent. NEVER.

Murmuring soothing noises, Dallas settled himself between her thighs and pressed a soft kiss to her clit. "You're all right." He eased the second sphere out of her. "I've got you." She laughed and covered her face with her hands. "No, you don't. I can't stop spinning." He dropped another kiss, this time to her inner thigh. "Nothing wrong with spinning." One final tug and another full-body shudder from Lex, and he tossed the toy aside. "I'll catch you, love. I'll always catch you." "Will you?" She traced his jaw. "Even when you're spinning with me?" "Especially then.

You know who used to scare me when I was a little kid? Snuggle the Bear." "Do I know Snuggle?" "In those TV ads for that fabric softener. Somebody would say how soft their robe was or their towels, and Snuggle the teddy bear would be hiding behind a pillow or creeping around under a chair, giggling." "He was just happy that people were pleased." "No, it was maniacal little giggle. And his eyes were glazed. And how did he get in all those houses to hide and giggle?" "You're saying Snuggle should've been charged with B and E?" "Absolutely. Most of the time when he giggled, he covered his mouth with one paw. I always thought he didn't want you to see his teeth." "Snuggle had bad teeth?" she asked. "I figured they were rows of tiny vicious fangs he was hiding. When I was maybe four or five, I used to have nightmares where I'd be in bed with a teddy bear, and it was Snuggle, and he was trying to chew open my jugular and suck the lifeblood out of me." She said, "So much about you suddenly makes more sense than it ever did before." "Maybe if we aren't cops someday, we can open a toy shop." "Can we run a toy shop and have guns?" "I don't see why not," he said.

He tucked a stuffed teddy bear under her arms, grinning as she instinctively nestled it to her body. It would be a surprise for her when she awoke. The manuals always referred to these soft stuffed toys, and he wanted to be certain that she would have one of her own.

Empirical evidence suggests that the relationship between the profitability of larger share and smaller share depends on the industry. Exhibit 7-1 compares the rate of return on equity of the largest firms accounting for at least 30 percent of industry sales (leaders) to the rate of return on equity of the medium-sized firms in the same industry (followers). In this calculation small firms with assets less than $500,000 were excluded. Although some of the industries in the sample are overly broad, it is striking that followers were noticeably more profitable than leaders in 15 of 38 industries. The industries in which the followers’ rates of return were higher appear generally to be those where economies of scale are either not great or absent (clothing, footwear, pottery, meat products, carpets) and/or those that are highly segmented (optical, medical and ophthalmic goods, liquor, periodicals, carpets, and toys and sporting goods). The industries in which leaders’ rates of return are higher seem to be generally those with heavy advertising (soap; perfumes; soft drinks; grain mill products, i.e., cereal; cutlery) and/or research outlays and production economies of scale (radio and television, drugs, photographic equipment). This outcome is as we would expect.

In the jumbled, fragmented memories I carry from my childhood there are probably nearly as many dreams as images from waking life. I thought of one which might have been my earliest remembered nightmare. I was probably about four years old - I don't think I'd started school yet - when I woke up screaming. The image I retained of the dream, the thing which had frightened me so, was an ugly, clown-like doll made of soft red and cream-coloured rubber. When you squeezed it, bulbous eyes popped out on stalks and the mouth opened in a gaping scream. As I recall it now, it was disturbingly ugly, not really an appropriate toy for a very young child, but it had been mine when I was younger, at least until I'd bitten its nose off, at which point it had been taken away from me. At the time when I had the dream I hadn't seen it for a year or more - I don't think I consciously remembered it until its sudden looming appearance in a dream had frightened me awake. When I told my mother about the dream, she was puzzled. 'But what's scary about that? You were never scared of that doll.' I shook my head, meaning that the doll I'd owned - and barely remembered - had never scared me. 'But it was very scary,' I said, meaning that the reappearance of it in my dream had been terrifying. My mother looked at me, baffled. 'But it's not scary,' she said gently. I'm sure she was trying to make me feel better, and thought this reasonable statement would help. She was absolutely amazed when it had the opposite result, and I burst into tears. Of course she had no idea why, and of course I couldn't explain. Now I think - and of course I could be wrong - that what upset me was that I'd just realized that my mother and I were separate people. We didn't share the same dreams or nightmares. I was alone in the universe, like everybody else. In some confused way, that was what the doll had been telling me. Once it had loved me enough to let me eat its nose; now it would make me wake up screaming. ("My Death")

His face twitched, as if he were in pain. He said softly, 'Don't say that. Don't you understand? The whole point is, it's all a lie. You're not a toy at all.

Don’t thank me yet, Bunny,” I tell her softly, despite knowing she’s already passed out. “I’m the hunter in this story and I’m hunting rabbit.

Soft brown eyes, curly dark hair, tanned complexion, chiselled features. Wow. Everything that could get me to bend over.

Night, my handsome little prince,’ she whispered and tiptoed out of the nursery she had so carefully prepared for the birth of her baby, with soft toys all lined up at the head of the cot and a large white toy box in the corner, Alfie’s name spelt out in large letters on it. The heartbeat continued, strong and comforting –a protective force like a mother’s love.

If I had a bad day, which, now that I ran my own life, was a helluva lot less than the old days, I sat on the floor with Houdini, placed a hand on his broad head, and soaked up endless doggy wonder. A full stomach, a well-chewed toy, a soft couch—through a dog’s eyes, that was a true glory that couldn’t be matched, the only heaven in existence. I missed the furball, missed him like crazy.

Only a fool will deny that an abundance of flowers can quicken a woman's blood, and that continuing sun can burn years off a man's back. The poverty of life here augments the power of those influences. We lose our vision, and move like wooden toys: one year we wash the curtains, the next we plant a row of cabbages behind the house; and then comes a summer like that one, with grass soft as rabbit fur, and flowers.

By the by …” He glances at Jeb’s back and leans closer, murmuring low. “Tumtum juice alters a person’s inhibitions, magnifies their hunger. But it’s not hunger for food. It’s experiences they crave. Had it been me instead of your toy soldier, I would’ve found a means to slake your ravenous hunger without resorting to berries.” His arrogance simmers my blood. “You don’t have the equipment to satisfy anything. Moth. Remember?” He laughs, dark and soft, under his breath. “I am a man in every way that counts. Just like you are a woman, even if some people believe you’re nothing more than a scared little girl in constant need of saving.

In The Garret Four little chests all in a row, Dim with dust, and worn by time, All fashioned and filled, long ago, By children now in their prime. Four little keys hung side by side, With faded ribbons, brave and gay When fastened there, with childish pride, Long ago, on a rainy day. Four little names, one on each lid, Carved out by a boyish hand, And underneath there lieth hid Histories of the happy band Once playing here, and pausing oft To hear the sweet refrain, That came and went on the roof aloft, In the falling summer rain. 'Meg' on the first lid, smooth and fair. I look in with loving eyes, For folded here, with well-known care, A goodly gathering lies, The record of a peaceful life-- Gifts to gentle child and girl, A bridal gown, lines to a wife, A tiny shoe, a baby curl. No toys in this first chest remain, For all are carried away, In their old age, to join again In another small Meg's play. Ah, happy mother! Well I know You hear, like a sweet refrain, Lullabies ever soft and low In the falling summer rain. 'Jo' on the next lid, scratched and worn, And within a motley store Of headless dolls, of schoolbooks torn, Birds and beasts that speak no more, Spoils brought home from the fairy ground Only trod by youthful feet, Dreams of a future never found, Memories of a past still sweet, Half-writ poems, stories wild, April letters, warm and cold, Diaries of a wilful child, Hints of a woman early old, A woman in a lonely home, Hearing, like a sad refrain-- 'Be worthy, love, and love will come,' In the falling summer rain. My Beth! the dust is always swept From the lid that bears your name, As if by loving eyes that wept, By careful hands that often came. Death canonized for us one saint, Ever less human than divine, And still we lay, with tender plaint, Relics in this household shrine-- The silver bell, so seldom rung, The little cap which last she wore, The fair, dead Catherine that hung By angels borne above her door. The songs she sang, without lament, In her prison-house of pain, Forever are they sweetly blent With the falling summer rain. Upon the last lid's polished field-- Legend now both fair and true A gallant knight bears on his shield, 'Amy' in letters gold and blue. Within lie snoods that bound her hair, Slippers that have danced their last, Faded flowers laid by with care, Fans whose airy toils are past, Gay valentines, all ardent flames, Trifles that have borne their part In girlish hopes and fears and shames, The record of a maiden heart Now learning fairer, truer spells, Hearing, like a blithe refrain, The silver sound of bridal bells In the falling summer rain. Four little chests all in a row, Dim with dust, and worn by time, Four women, taught by weal and woe To love and labor in their prime. Four sisters, parted for an hour, None lost, one only gone before, Made by love's immortal power, Nearest and dearest evermore. Oh, when these hidden stores of ours Lie open to the Father's sight, May they be rich in golden hours, Deeds that show fairer for the light, Lives whose brave music long shall ring, Like a spirit-stirring strain, Souls that shall gladly soar and sing In the long sunshine after rain

I yelped when he grabbed my arm and spun me around until I straddled one of his legs. My blood roared in my ears as he tightened his grip on my wrist—not enough to hurt, but enough to warn me he could easily break me if he wanted. Our eyes locked, and the roaring intensified. Beneath those jade pools of ice, I glimpsed a spark of something that sent heat curling through my stomach. “I’m not a toy, Ava,” Alex said, his voice lethally soft. “Don’t play with me unless you want to get hurt.

John?” came a small voice. There, standing in the doorway from the kitchen, was Chris with his favorite snuggly toy, the one with the blue-and-gray plaid flannel leg. “What’cha doing, John?” Preacher’s face melted into a soft smile and he went to the boy. He lifted him into his arms. “Huntin’,” he said. “Just a little huntin’.” “Where’s Mom?” Preacher kissed his pink cheek. “She’ll be back pretty soon. She’s off on errands. And you’re going to stay with Mel and Brie while we’re huntin’.” *

By that tomb grows Gibran's sorrow together with the cypress trees, and above the tomb his spirit flickers every night commemorating Selma, joining the branches of the trees in sorrowful wailing, mourning and lamenting the going of Selma, who, yesterday was a beautiful tune on the lips of life and today is a silent secret in the bosom of the earth. . Solitude has soft, silky hands, but with strong fingers it grasps the heart and makes it ache with sorrow. Solitude is the ally of sorrow as well as a companion of spiritual exaltation. . He lives spiritually in the past because the present passes swiftly, and the future seems to him an approach to the oblivion of the grave. . Now I know that there is something higher than heaven and deeper than the ocean and stranger than life and death and time. I know now what I did not know before. . When I walked in the fields, I saw the token of Eternity in the awakening of nature, and when I sat by the seashore I heard the waves singing the song of Eternity. . We were three people, gathered and crushed by the hands of destiny; and all of us were toys in the hands of fate. . Be happy because I shall live in you after my death. . This is the only friend I shall have after you are gone, but how can he console me when he is suffering also? How can a broken heart find consolation in a disappointed soul? A sorrowful woman cannot be comforted by her neighbour's sorrow, nor can a bird fly with broken wings. . It is hard to write down in words the memories of those hours when I met Selma −−those heavenly hours, filled with pain, happiness, sorrow, hope, and misery. . A bird with broken wings cannot fly in the spacious sky. . He was born like a thought and died like a sigh and disappeared like a shadow. . His life began at the end of the night and ended at the beginning of the day.

I encountered an army of mothers at pick-up outside the school that I was sussing out for you the other day. They appeared from several directions at once—around corners, down streets, out of cars. Like zombies, was my first thought as I watched them gravitate towards the school gates. Some of them were pushing buggies, others wheeled scooters, one woman carried a teddy bear. It would be a mistake to assume that because of the soft toy the woman herself was soft. The women carrying teddy bears are the most dangerous of them all. They would kill to protect the owners of those bears. Sailor, I have been that soldier. I stepped back to allow them to pass. These women were not zombies: they were warriors. Nothing would have stopped them. Nothing would get in their way. Marching to the summons of the school bell, catching the children who ran into their arms. Standing over their young until their young were ready to stand alone. Only then would the warriors stand down. The reason this work is considered unchallenging is that women mainly do it.

Pumpkin Bunny. Bridget's eyes drifted to the bookshelf where her favorite childhood toy sat propped up in the corner. It had been a gift from her dad from before she could remember, a soft, fluffy stuffed bunny popping out of a pumpkin like a stripper from a birthday cake.

Strawberry?” He kept his hand on the bear. “It’s silly. The bear’s name.” “Why is that?” I kept my voice low and calm. “All my bears are berries. So, like, there’s Blueberry and Boysenberry and Raspberry and Roddenberry.” “Roddenberry?” “Um, you know, the creator of Star Trek.

A stranger hurrying as fast as he could over the icy sidewalks looked in. He saw a circle of singing people bathed in the clean white light from a tree, and his heart did a somersault, and the image stayed with him; it merged with him even as he came home to his own children, who were already sleeping in their beds, to his wife crossly putting together the tricycle without the screwdriver that he’d run out to borrow. It remained long after his children ripped open their gifts and abandoned their toys in puddles of paper and grew too old for them and left their house and parents and childhoods, so that he and his wife gaped at each other in bewilderment as to how it had happened so terribly swiftly. All those years, the singers in the soft light in the basement apartment crystallized in his mind, became the very idea of what happiness should look like.

She climbed down the cliffs after tying her sweater loosely around her waist. Down below she could see nothing but jagged rocks and waves. She was creful, but I watched her feet more than the view she saw- I worried about her slipping. My mother's desire to reach those waves, touch her feet to another ocean on the other side of the country, was all she was thinking of- the pure baptismal goal of it. Whoosh and you can start over again. Or was life more like the horrible game in gym that has you running from one side of an enclosed space to another, picking up and setting down wooden blocks without end? She was thinking reach the waves, the waves, the waves, and I was watching her navigate the rocks, and when we heard her we did so together- looking up in shock. It was a baby on the beach. In among the rocks was a sandy cove, my mother now saw, and crawling across the sand on a blanket was a baby in knitted pink cap and singlet and boots. She was alone on the blanket with a stuffed white toy- my mother thought a lamb. With their backs to my mother as she descended were a group of adults-very official and frantic-looking- wearing black and navy with cool slants to their hats and boots. Then my wildlife photographer's eye saw the tripods and silver circles rimmed by wire, which, when a young man moved them left or right, bounced light off or on the baby on her blanket. My mother started laughing, but only one assistant turned to notice her up among the rocks; everyone else was too busy. This was an ad for something. I imagined, but what? New fresh infant girls to replace your own? As my mother laughed and I watched her face light up, I also saw it fall into strange lines. She saw the waves behind the girl child and how both beautiful and intoxicating they were- they could sweep up so softly and remove this gril from the beach. All the stylish people could chase after her, but she would drown in a moment- no one, not even a mother who had every nerve attuned to anticipate disaster, could have saved her if the waves leapt up, if life went on as usual and freak accidents peppered a calm shore.

For the curvy gal, a wand like the Original Magic Wand, is essential because of its length and strength; it can navigate over a large stomach to reach the clit with ease. Another reason a wand is a fantastic tool to keep close is that girls with big tummies can tuck the handle of the wand under their soft belly to hold it in place during missionary-style sex.

Any idea what started it?” “No obvious point of origin, but Perry Horne will be out later and he can tell us more.” Joe unzipped his jacket a little way and palmed sweat from his throat. “I don’t need a fire marshal to tell you it wasn’t an accident, though.” Peck sighed and stiffened his jaw. The fire chief nodded, started toward the ruin. Peck followed. They skirted the yard where dry grass ticked, then crossed to the house’s eastern face, intact but damaged. The ground was soupy from the hoses’ spray. Peck stepped around the deeper puddles where the sky was reflected dull. A child’s soft toy stared at him with stitches for eyes. “You might want to ready yourself,” Joe said. Heat drove off the building and kinked the air and Peck felt his shirt latch to his back.

Adira squirmed in Leah’s arms, wanting down. Leah lowered her until her little sneaker-clad feet touched the floor. Adira toddled away, patting the garments that brushed her head and shoulders. Straightening, Leah watched her for a moment, then turned back to Seth. “I guess I’ll get back to work.” Was that disappointment he felt upon hearing her words? He really was enjoying her company. Adira turned around and toddled back. Grasping Leah’s fingers, she reached out, took Seth’s hand, and placed Leah’s in it. Seth instinctively curled his fingers around Leah’s. Satisfied, Adira turned and toddled off once more. “Oh,” Leah said with a surprised chuckle. “Well. Maybe not.” Seth was surprised, too. What was Adira thinking? He glanced at Leah. Should he apologize? “Sorry about that.” “No worries,” she said with another charming smile. Raising their clasped hands, she turned them so his was on top and slid her free hand over it. “Oooh. Look how big your hand is.” How many times had he heard Tracy or one of the other mortal women he frequently encountered think Oooh. Look how big his hands are. You know what they say: big hands, big feet, big package in much the same tone as Leah’s. Seth couldn’t help it. He barked out a laugh. Leah’s eyes widened. “Wait. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” “It sounded as if you like that my hands are so big.” She flushed. “I do, but I didn’t mean it like you think.” “How do I think you meant it?” he asked with exaggerated innocence. Face red, she laughed. “Stop making me blush. I just meant I like that you’re so big. Not just your hands. But all over.” Again her eyes widened. “I mean, not all over, but—” Laughing, he took pity on her. “It’s all right. I understood what you meant the first time.” Smiling, she squinted up at him. “You like to tease, don’t you?” “Guilty as charged.” Many immortals did. It helped lighten what could otherwise be a dark existence. She caressed his hand again, sending little tingles through it. “My hand actually looks small in yours. That’s so cool.” It did. And the sensations her soft touch inspired unnerved him a bit. His pulse even picked up. Seth eyed her curiously. “You really dislike your size so much?” He thought it a shame. She was a beautiful woman. Shrugging, she released his hand and let hers fall to her sides. “When someone gives you a complex in high school, it tends to stick with you.” Adira reappeared as if by magic. Taking Leah’s hand, she again placed it in Seth’s, then moved away. The two looked at each other and smiled. Leah nodded after Adira. “Maybe she’s hoping I’ll distract you so she can take her time looking over the toys she plans to coax you into buying before you leave.” Seth winked. “Or maybe she just heard you say you like my big hands.

It's weird not being in our subculture of two any more. There was Jen's culture, her little habits and ways of doing things; the collection of stuff she'd already learnt she loved before we met me. Chorizo and Jonathan Franken and long walks and the Eagles (her dad). Seeing the Christmas lights. Taylor Swift, frying pans in the dishwasher, the works absolutely, arsewipe, heaven. Tracy Chapman and prawn jalfrezi and Muriel Spark and HP sauce in bacon sandwiches. And then there was my culture. Steve Martin and Aston Villa and New York and E.T. Chicken bhuna, strange-looking cats and always having squash or cans of soft drinks in the house. The Cure. Pink Floyd. Kanye West, friend eggs, ten hours' sleep, ketchup in bacon sandwiches. Never missing dental check-ups. Sister Sledge (my mum). Watching TV even if the weather is nice. Cadbury's Caramel. John and Paul and George and Ringo. And then we met and fell in love and we introduced each other to all of it, like children showing each other their favourite toys. The instinct never goes - look at my fire engine, look at my vinyl collection. Look at all these things I've chosen to represent who I am. It was fun to find out about each other's self-made cultures and make our own hybrid in the years of eating, watching, reading, listening, sleeping and living together. Our culture was tea drink from very large mugs. And looking forward to the Glastonbury ticket day and the new season of Game of Thrones and taking the piss out of ourselves for being just like everyone else. Our culture was over-tipping in restaurants because we both used to work in the service industry, salty popcorn at the cinema and afternoon naps. Side-by-side morning sex. Home-made Manhattans. Barmade Manhattans (much better). Otis Redding's "Cigarettes and Coffee" (our song). Discovering a new song we both loved and listening to it over and over again until we couldn't listen to it any more. Period dramas on a Sunday night. That one perfect vibrator that finished her off in seconds when we were in a rush. Gravy. David Hockney. Truffle crisps. Can you believe it? I still can't believe it. A smell indisputably reminiscent of bums. On a crisp. And yet we couldn't get enough of them together - stuffing them in our gobs, her hand on my chest, me trying not to get crumbs in her hair as we watched Sense and Sensibility (1995). But I'm not a member of that club anymore. No one is. It's been disbanded, dissolved, the domain is no longer valid. So what do I do with all its stuff? Where so I put it all? Where do I take all my new discoveries now I'm no longer a tribe of two? And if I start a new sub-genre of love with someone else, am I allowed to bring in all the things I loved from the last one? Or would that be weird? Why do I find this so hard?

I began, I remember, because I felt I had to. I'd reached that modest height in my career, that gentle rise, from which I could coast out of gear to a soft stop. Now I wonder why not. Why not? But then duty drove me forward like a soldier. I said it was time for "the Big Book," the long monument to my mind I repeatedly dreamed I had to have: a pyramid, a column tall enough to satisfy the sky. Duty drove me the way it drives men into marriage. Begetting is expected of us, and in those days of heavy men in helmets the seed was certain, and wanted only the wind for a womb, or any slit; yet what sprang up out of those foxholes we fucked with our fists but our own frightened selves? with a shout of pure terror, too. That too—that too was expected; it was expected even of flabby maleless men like me. And now, here, where I am writing still, still in this chair, hammering type like tacks into the page, speaking without a listening ear, whose eye do I hope to catch and charm and fill with tears and understanding, if not my own, my own ordinary, unforgiving and unfeeling eye?...my eye. So sentences circle me like a toy train. What could I have said about the Boche, about bigotry, barbarism, butchery, Bach, that hasn't been said as repeatedly as I dreamed by dream of glory, unless it was what I've said? What could I have explained where no reason exists and no cause is adequate; what body burned to a crisp could I have rebelieved was bacon, if I had not taken the tack I took?

For all their faults. I am passing out. O bitter ending! I’ll slip away before they’re up. They’ll never see. Nor know. Nor miss me. And it’s old and old it’s sad and old it’s sad and weary I go back to you, my cold father, my cold mad father, my cold mad feary father, till the near sight of the mere size of him, the moyles and moyles of it, moananoaning, makes me seasilt saltsick and I rush, my only, into your arms. I see them rising! Save me from those therrble prongs! Two more. Onetwo moremens more. So. Avelaval. My leaves have drifted from me. All. But one clings still. I’ll bear it on me. To remind me of. Lff! So soft this morning, ours. Yes. Carry me along, taddy, like you done through the toy fair! If I seen him bearing down on me now under whitespread wings like he’d come from Arkangels, I sink I’d die down over his feet, humbly dumbly, only to washup. Yes, tid. There’s where. First. We pass through grass behush the bush to. Whish! A gull. Gulls. Far calls. Coming, far! End here. Us then. Finn, again! Take. Bussoftlhee, mememormee! Till thous-endsthee. Lps. The keys to. Given! A way a lone a last a loved a long the PARIS, 1922–1939.

When Sally stopped crying, she found herself alone, the cold draft of the window at her neck, and on both sides, the rows of doors went on and on, diminishing to nothing, the end. 'What fun it is to ride and sing a sleighing song tonight, oh.' What glories. Mathilde came. And though she appeared to be the... same sweet girl Sally had been afraid of, she was not. Sally saw the flint in her. Mathilde can save Lotto from his own laziness, Sally thought. But here they were, a year later, and he was still ordinary. The chorus caught in her throat. A stranger hurrying as fast as he could over the icy sidewalks looked in. He saw a circle of singing people bathed in the clean, white light from a tree, and his heart did a soumersault. And the image stayed with him, it merged with him even as he came home to his own children, who were already asleep in their beds, to his wife crossly putting together the tricycle without the screwdriver he'd run out to borrow. It remained long after his children ripped open their gifts and abandoned their toys and puddles of paper and grew too old for them and left their house and parents and childhoods, so that he and his wife gaped at each other in bewilderment as to how it had happened so terribly swiftly. All those years, the singers in the soft light in the basement apartment crystalized in his mind, became the very idea of what happiness should look like.

When we hang up, I sigh long and look out the window to the darkness over the ocean, no delineation between water and sky. It's always disorienting when I speak to my mother, that pull of her voice back into our old life even though both of us have tried to move beyond it. In her soft Caribbean accent I hear my brother's laughter, see us both as children playing together in the backyard when it was still covered in crunch green grass and our toys were new. Mami's voice was the song of our home, even with no father, even as we lived with that black mass of the unspoken, even with the marks on our bones we didn't know we carried. Through all life's uncertainty, we felt anchored by the love in her voice.

It is, I suppose, the common grief of children at having to protect their parents from reality. It is bitter for the young to see what awful innocence adults grow into, that terrible vulnerability that must be sheltered from the rodent mire of childhood. Can we blame the child for resenting the fantasy of largeness? Big, soft arms and deep voices in the dark saying, “Tell Papa, tell Mama, and we’ll make it right.” The child, screaming for refuge, senses how feeble a shelter the twig hut of grown-up awareness is. They claim strength, these parents, and complete sanctuary. The weeping earth itself knows how desperate is the child’s need for exactly that sanctuary. How deep and sticky is the darkness of childhood, how rigid the blades of infant evil, which is unadulterated, unrestrained by the convenient cushions of age and its civilizing anesthesia. Grownups can deal with scraped knees, dropped ice-cream cones, and lost dollies, but if they suspected the real reasons we cry they would fling us out of their arms in horrified revulsion. Yet we are small and as terrified as we are terrifying in our ferocious appetites. We need that warm adult stupidity. Even knowing the illusion, we cry and hide in their laps, speaking only of defiled lollipops or lost bears, and getting a lollipop or a toy bear’s worth of comfort. We make do with it rather than face alone the cavernous reaches of our skulls for which there is no remedy, no safety, no comfort at all. We survive until, by sheer stamina, we escape into the dim innocence of our own adulthood and its forgetfulness.

Did you bring money with you, or shall we play for markers?" She flipped the stack of cards to the table with a professional twist of her wrist. "I don't play for less than a guinea a hand." His lips twitched. "The question is not if I have money. The question is, do you?" "I don't need funds, as I don't plan on losing," she said, her gaze mocking. For a moment, he thought he'd heard her incorrectly. Slowly, he said, "I beg your pardon, but are you saying you could beat me at a game of chance?" A dismissive smile rested on her lips. "Please, Dougal, let's speak frankly," she drawled softly. "Naturally, I expect to win; I was taught by a master." Dougal was entranced. He'd been challenged to many things before, but no one had so blatantly dismissed his chances of winning. "A giunea a hand?" "At least." "I didn't realize I'd need a note from my banker, or I'd have brought one with me." Her eyes sparkled with pure mischief, which inflamed him more. "If you've no money with you, then perhaps there are other things we can play for." The words hung in the room, as thick as the smoke that seeped from the fireplace. Like a blinding bolt of light from a storm-black sky, everything fell into place. This was why she and her minions had worked so hard to convince him that the house was worthless. If he thought it of low value, he'd be eager to wager the deed. Of all the devious plots! Yet Dougal found himself fighting a grin. He'd been feted and petted, fawned upon and sought out, but until now, no one had gone to such lengths to fleece him. Dugal couldn't look away from Sophia. He knew his own worth; women had paid attention to him for so long that he took it for granted. He'd dallied and toyed, taken and enjoyed. But never, in all of his years, had he so desired any woman as he did this one. The irony of it was that she desired him,too-but only for the contents of his pocket. Dougal didn't know whether to laugh or fume. He should be insulted, but instead he found himself watching her with new appreciation.

One young man asked how to behave should he encounter a homosexual. “Point out that this is a new experience for you,” Dr. Song said, “as there are no such individuals where you are from. Then treat him as you would any visiting Juche scholar from foreign lands like Burma or Ukraine or Cuba.” Dr. Song then got practical. He said it was okay to wear shoes indoors. Women were free to smoke in America and should not be confronted. Disciplining other people’s children in America was not okay. He drew for them on a piece of paper the shape of a football. With great discomfort, Dr. Song touched on American standards of personal hygiene, and then he delivered a mini-lecture on the subject of smiling. He concluded with dogs, noting how Americans were very sentimental, with a particular softness toward canines. You must never hurt a dog in America, he said. They are considered part of the family and are given names, just like people. Dogs also have their own beds and toys and doctors and houses, which should not be referred to as warrens.

Your Olympic medal.I went looking for you in your office." "The medal lures parents who can afford the tuition." "It's something to be proud of." "I am proud of it." With her free hand she brushed her hair as the breeze teased it. Her fingertips skimmed over the soft petals of the flower. "But it doesn't define me." "Not like,what was it? A British tie?" The laugh got away from her, and eased the odd tension that had been building inside her. "Here's a surprise. With a great deal of time and some effort, I might begin to like you." "I've plenty of time." He released her hand to toy with the ends of her hair. She jerked back. "You're a skittish one," he murmured. "No, not particularly." Usually, she thought. With most people. "The thing is, I like to touch," he told her and deliberately skimmed his fingers over her hair again. "It's that...connection.You learn by touching." "I don't..." She trailed off when those fingers ran firmly down the back of her neck. "I've learned you carry your worries right there, right at the base there. More worries than show on your face. It's a staggering face you have, Keeley. Throws a man off.

They made their way into the sleeping bag. It was crowded, and she was still naked, so it only took about three seconds flat for him to get hard again. She reached between them. “Are you sure there aren’t any more condoms?” He flexed at her words, then groaned softly. It was going to be a long night. “Positive.” He was torn between asking her to stop tormenting him and begging her to keep on doing it. The outcome of the latter as inevitable, and in a sleeping bag, more than a little messy. Just a few seconds more, he told himself as he closed his eyes and gave himself up to the steady stroking of her hand. He would stop her before things got out of control. But Phoebe being Phoebe and his attraction to her being what it was, that point of “out of control” arrived a lot faster than he would have realized. Painfully aroused and right on the edge, he grabbed her wrist. “You’re killing me.” “So not my purpose.” Then she stunned him by opening the sleeping bag, pushing it away and sliding down between his legs. As her fingers toyed with his testicles, her mouth settled on his erection. From there it was a thirty-seven-second journey to heaven.

His warm tickling fingers stroked against her like the idle sway of river reeds... cunning fingertips that quickly discovered where she most wanted them. He toyed with her, parting her, slowly investigating the cambered softness and the sensitive places within. Blindly she reached down to grip his stronger wrist, feeling the intricate movements of bone and tendon. He slid two fingers inside her, his thumb gliding over her sex in tender circles. The water sloshed in the tub as she began to push up rhythmically, urging herself into his hand. A third finger worked inside, and she tightened and gasped out a protest- it was too much, she couldn't- but he whispered that she could, she must, and he stretched her carefully and took her groans into his mouth. Splayed and floating, Win felt herself loosening, opening to the sensuality of the fingers reaching inside her. She felt greedy and wild, undulating to capture more of the obliterating pleasure. She actually clawed him a little, her hands scrabbling against his hard, bare skin, and he growled as if it pleased him. An abbreviated cry left her lips at the first shock of release. She tried to stifle it, but another was torn from her, and another, and the bathwater rippled as she shuddered, the climax lengthened by the delicately emphatic thrusting that continued until she was limp and panting.

For a second he thought she might chuckle, and honest to God he didn't know what he would do if she did. "Grey, society didn't give you that scar. A woman you treated with no more regard than your dirty stockings gave you that scar. You cannot blame the actions of one on so many." HIs fingers tightened into fists at his side. "I do not blame all of society for her actions, of course not." "How could you? You don't even know who it was, do you?" "No." But he had suspicions. He was almost completely certain it had been Maggie-Lady Devane. He'd broken her heart the worst of them all. "Of course you don't." Suddenly her eyes were very dark and hard. "I suspect it could be one of a large list of names, all women who you toyed with and cast aside." A heavy chill settled over Grey's chest at the note of censure, and disapproval in her tone. He had known this day would come, when she would see him for what he truly was. He just hadn't expected it quite so soon. "Yes," he whispered. "A long list indeed." "So it's no wonder you would rather avoid society. I would too if I had no idea who my enemies were. It's certainly preferable to apologizing to every conquest and hope that you got the right one." She didn't say it meanly, or even mockingly, but there was definitely an edge to her husky voice. "Is this what we've come to, Rose?" he demanded. "You've added your name to the list of the women I've wronged?" She laughed then, knocking him even more off guard. "Of course not. I knew what I was getting myself into when I hatched such a foolhardy plan. No, your conscience need not bear the weight of me, grey." When she moved to stand directly before him, just inches away, it was all he could do to stand his ground and not prove himself a coward. Her hand touched his face, the slick satin of her gloves soft against his cheek. "I wish you would stop living under all this regret and rejoin the world," she told him in a tone laden with sorrow. "You have so much to offer it. I'm sure society would agree with me if you took the chance." Before he could engineer a reply, there was another knock at the door. Rose dropped her hand just as her mother stuck her head into the room. "Ah, there you are. Good evening, Grey. Rose, Lord Archer is here." Rose smiled. "I'll be right there, Mama." When the door closed once more, she turned to Grey. "Let us put an end to this disagreeable conversation and put it in the past where it belongs. Friends?" Grey looked down at her hand, extended like a man's. He didn't want to take it. In fact, he wanted to tell her what she could do with her offer of friendship and barely veiled insults. He wanted to crush her against his chest and kiss her until her knees buckled and her superior attitude melted away to pleas of passion. That was what he wanted.

He got out a tube and since she’d yet to put the sweater on, squeezed ointment onto his fingers and began to gently rub it on her abraded skin. She recognized the scent. “That’s for horses.” “So?” She laughed and let him fuss. “Does this make me your mare now?” “No, you’re too young and delicate of bone for that. You’re still a filly.” “Are you going to train me, Donnelly?” “Oh, you’re out of my league, Miss Grant.” He glanced up, cocked a brow when he saw her grinning at him. “And what amuses you?” “You can’t help it can you? You have to tend.” “I put the marks on you,” he muttered as he smoothed on the ointment. “It follows I should see to them.” She lifted a hand to toy with the ends of his damp, gold-tipped hair. “I like being seen to by a man with a tough mind and a soft heart.” That soft heart sighed a little, ached a little. But he spoke lightly. “It’s no hardship running my fingers over skin like yours.” With his eyes on hers, he used the pad of his thumb to spread ointment over the gentle swell of her breast. “Particularly since you don’t seem to have a qualm about standing here half naked and letting me.” “Should I blush and flutter?” “You’re not the fluttering sort. I like that about you.” Satisified, he capped the tube, then tugged the sweater over her head himself. “But I can’t have such a fine piece of God’s work catching a chill. There you are.” He lifted her hair out of the neck. “You don’t have a hair dryer.” “There’s air everywhere in here.” She laughed and dragged her fingers through her damp curls. “It’ll have to do.

So what did you and Landon do this afternoon?” Minka asked, her soft voice dragging him back to the present. Angelo looked up to see that Minka had already polished off two fajitas. Damn, the girl could eat. “Landon gave me a tour of the DCO complex. I did some target shooting and blew up a few things. He even let me play with the expensive surveillance toys. I swear, it felt more like a recruiting pitch to get me to work there than anything.” Minka’s eyes flashed green, her full lips curving slightly. Damn, why the hell had he said it like that? Now she probably thought he was going to come work for the DCO. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t, not after just reenlisting for another five years. The army wasn’t the kind of job where you could walk into the boss’s office and say, “I quit.” Thinking it would be a good idea to steer the conversation back to safer ground, he reached for another fajita and asked Minka a question instead. “What do you think you’ll work on next with Ivy and Tanner? You going to practice with the claws for a while or move on to something else?” Angelo felt a little crappy about changing the subject, but if Minka noticed, she didn’t seem to mind. And it wasn’t like he had to fake interest in what she was saying. Anything that involved Minka was important to him. Besides, he didn’t know much about shifters or hybrids, so the whole thing was pretty damn fascinating. “What do you visualize when you see the beast in your mind?” he asked. “Before today, I thought of it as a giant, blurry monster. But after learning that the beast is a cat, that’s how I picture it now.” She smiled. “Not a little house cat, of course. They aren’t scary enough. More like a big cat that roams the mountains.” “Makes sense,” he said. Minka set the other half of her fourth fajita on her plate and gave him a curious look. “Would you mind if I ask you a personal question?” His mouth twitched as he prepared another fajita. He wasn’t used to Minka being so reserved. She usually said whatever was on her mind, regardless of whether it was personal or not. “Go ahead,” he said. “The first time we met, I had claws, fangs, glowing red eyes, and I tried to kill you. Since then, I’ve spent most of the time telling you about an imaginary creature that lives inside my head and makes me act like a monster. How are you so calm about that? Most people would have run away already.” Angelo chuckled. Not exactly the personal question he’d expected, but then again Minka rarely did the expected. “Well, my mom was full-blooded Cherokee, and I grew up around all kinds of Indian folktales and legends. My dad was in the army, and whenever he was deployed, Mom would take my sisters and me back to the reservation where she grew up in Oklahoma. I’d stay up half the night listening to the old men tell stories about shape-shifters, animal spirits, skin-walkers, and trickster spirits.” He grinned. “I’m not saying I necessarily believed in all that stuff back then, but after meeting Ivy, Tanner, and the other shifters at the DCO, it just didn’t faze me that much.” Minka looked at him with wide eyes. “You’re a real American Indian? Like in the movies? With horses and everything?” He laughed again. The expression of wonder on her face was adorable. “First, I’m only half-Indian. My dad is Mexican, so there’s that. And second, Native Americans are almost nothing like you see in the movies. We don’t all live in tepees and ride horses. In fact, I don’t even own a horse.” Minka was a little disappointed about the no-horse thing, but she was fascinated with what it was like growing up on an Indian reservation and being surrounded by all those legends. She immediately asked him to tell her some Indian stories. It had been a long time since he’d thought about them, but to make her happy, he dug through his head and tried to remember every tale he’d heard as a kid.

I don’t believe in love that never ends,” said Aiden, his whisper clear and distinct. “I don’t believe in being true until death or finding the other half of your soul.” Harvard raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. Privately, he considered that it might be good that Aiden hadn’t delivered this speech to this guy he apparently liked so much—whom Aiden had never even mentioned to his best friend before now. This speech was not romantic. Once again, Harvard had to wonder if what he’d been assuming was Aiden’s romantic prowess had actually been many guys letting Aiden get away with murder because he was awfully cute. But Aiden sounded upset, and that spoke to an instinct in Harvard natural as breath. He put his arm around Aiden, and drew his best friend close against him, warm skin and soft hair and barely there shirt and all, and tried to make a sound that was more soothing than fraught. “I don’t believe in songs or promises. I don’t believe in hearts or flowers or lightning strikes.” Aiden snatched a breath as though it was his last before drowning. “I never believed in anything but you.” “Aiden,” said Harvard, bewildered and on the verge of distress. He felt as if there was something he wasn’t getting here. Even more urgently, he felt he should cut off Aiden. It had been a mistake to ask. This wasn’t meant for Harvard, but for someone else, and worse than anything, there was pain in Aiden’s voice. That must be stopped now. Aiden kissed him, startling and fierce, and said against Harvard’s mouth, “Shut up. Let me… let me.” Harvard nodded involuntarily, because of the way Aiden had asked, unable to deny Aiden even things Harvard should refuse to give. Aiden’s warm breath was running down into the small shivery space between the fabric of Harvard’s shirt and his skin. It was panic-inducing, feeling all the impulses of Harvard’s body and his heart like wires that were not only crossed but also impossibly tangled. Disentangling them felt potentially deadly. Everything inside him was in electric knots. “I’ll let you do anything you want,” Harvard told him, “but don’t—don’t—” Hurt yourself. Seeing Aiden sad was unbearable. Harvard didn’t know what to do to fix it. The kiss had turned the air between them into dry grass or kindling, a space where there might be smoke or fire at any moment. Aiden was focused on toying with the collar of Harvard’s shirt, Aiden’s brows drawn together in concentration. Aiden’s fingertips glancing against his skin burned. “You’re so warm,” Aiden said. “Nothing else ever was. I only knew goodness existed because you were the best. You’re the best of everything to me.” Harvard made a wretched sound, leaning in to press his forehead against Aiden’s. He’d known Aiden was lonely, that the long line of guys wasn’t just to have fun but tied up in the cold, huge manor where Aiden had spent his whole childhood, in Aiden’s father with his flat shark eyes and sharp shark smile, and in the long line of stepmothers who Aiden’s father chose because he had no use for people with hearts. Harvard had always known Aiden’s father wanted to crush the heart out of Aiden. He’d always worried Aiden’s father would succeed. Aiden said, his voice distant even though he was so close, “I always knew all of you was too much to ask for.” Harvard didn’t know what to say, so he obeyed a wild foolish impulse, turned his face the crucial fraction toward Aiden’s, and kissed him. Aiden sank into the kiss with a faint sweet noise, as though he’d finally heard Harvard’s wordless cry of distress and was answering it with belated reassurance: No, I’ll be all right. We’re not lost. The idea of anyone not loving Aiden back was unimaginable, but it had clearly happened. Harvard couldn’t think of how to say it, so he tried to make the kiss say it. I’m so sorry you were in pain. I never guessed. I’m sorry I can’t fix this, but I would if I could. He didn’t love you, but I do.

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

Go on, ask me another question. I’m rather enjoying this game.” He cocked an eyebrow at her and, although he was certain it was pointless, he said, “Cheep cheep?” The herbalist brayed with laughter, and some of the werecats opened their mouths in what appeared to be toothy smiles. However, Shadowhunter seemed displeased, for she dug her claws into Eragon’s legs, making him wince. “Well,” said Angela, still laughing, “if you must have answers, that’s as good a story as any. Let’s see…Several years ago, when I was traveling along the edge of Du Weldenvarden, way out to the west, miles and miles from any city, town, or village, I happened upon Grimrr. At the time, he was only the leader of a small tribe of werecats, and he still had full use of both his paws. Anyway, I found him toying with a fledgling robin that had fallen out of its nest in a nearby tree. I wouldn’t have minded if he had just killed the bird and eaten it--that’s what cats are supposed to do, after all--but he was torturing the poor thing: pulling on its wings; nibbling its tail; letting it hop away, then knocking it over.” Angela wrinkled her nose with distaste. “I told him that he ought to stop, but he only growled and ignored me.” She fixed Eragon with a stern gaze. “I don’t like it when people ignore me. So, I took the bird away from him, and I wiggled my fingers and cast a spell, and for the next week, whenever he opened his mouth, he chirped like a songbird.” “He chirped?” Angela nodded, beaming with suppressed mirth. “I’ve never laughed so hard in my life. None of the other werecats would go anywhere near him for the whole week.” “No wonder he hates you.” “What of it? If you don’t make a few enemies every now and then, you’re a coward--or worse. Besides, it was worth it to see his reaction. Oh, he was angry!” Shadowhunter uttered a soft warning growl and tightened her claws again. Grimacing, Eragon said, “Maybe it would be best to change the subject?” “Mmm.” Before he could suggest a new topic, a loud scream rang out from somewhere in the middle of the camp. The cry echoed three times over the rows of tents before fading into silence. Eragon looked at Angela, and she at him, and then they both began to laugh.

Just above Tommy’s face were the Maiden and the Troll, two of his oldest wall people. The troll lived in a cave deep in the woods. He was big (Tommy knew the troll was even bigger than his daddy, and if the troll told his daddy to sit down and shut up, he would in a second), and he looked scary, with his little eyes and crooked teeth like fangs, but he had a secret. The secret was that he wasn’t scary at all. He liked to read, and play chess by mail with a gnome from over by the closet wall, and he never killed anything. The troll was a good troll, but everyone judged him by his looks. And that, Tommy knew, was a mean thing to do, though everyone did it. The maiden was very beautiful. Even more beautiful than Tommy’s mommy. She had long blonde hair that fell in heavy curls to her waist, and big blue eyes, and she always smiled even though her family was poor. She came into the woods near the troll’s cave to get water from a spring, for her family. The spring bubbled out of Tommy’s wall right next to where his hand lay when he was asleep. Sometimes she only came and filled her jug and left. But other times she would sit awhile, and sing songs of love lost, and sailing ships, and the kings and queens of Elfland. And the troll, so hideous and so kind, would listen to her soft voice from the shadows just inside the entrance of his cave, which sat just below the shelf where Tommy kept his favorite toys and books. Tommy felt bad for the troll. He loved the maiden who came to his spring, but she would never love him. He knew from listening to his parents and the stuff they watched on television when he was supposed to be asleep that beautiful people didn’t love ugly people. Ugly people were either to laugh at or to be frightened of. That was how the whole world worked. Tommy rolled over on his side, just a small seven year old boy in tan cargo shorts and a plain white T-shirt. He let his eyes drift over the bedroom wall, which was lumpy in some places and just gone in others. There was a part of the wall down near the floor where he could see the yellow light of the naked bulb down in the basement, and sometimes he wondered what might live down there. Nothing good, of that he was sure.

After Marcus had wiped her perspiring body with a cool, damp cloth, he dressed her in his discarded shirt, which held the scent of his skin. He brought her a plate containing a poached pear, and a glass of sweet wine, and even allowed her to feed him a few bites of the silky-soft fruit. When her appetite was sated, Lillian set aside the empty plate and spoon, and turned to snuggle against him. He rose on one elbow and looked down at her, his fingers playing idly in her hair. “Are you sorry that I wouldn’t let St. Vincent have you?” She gave him a puzzled smile. “Why would you ask such a thing? Surely you’re not having pangs of conscience.” Marcus shook his head. “I am merely wondering if you had any regrets.” Surprised and touched by his need for reassurance, Lillian toyed with the dark curls on his chest. “No,” she said frankly. “He is attractive, and I do like him… but I didn’t want him.” “You did consider marrying him, however.” “Well,” she admitted, “it did cross my mind that I would like to be a duchess— but only to spite you.” A smile flashed across his face. He retaliated with a punishing nip at her breast, causing her to yelp. “I couldn’t have borne it,” he admitted, “seeing you married to anyone but me.” “I don’t think Lord St. Vincent will have any difficulty finding another heiress to suit his purposes.” “Perhaps. But there aren’t many women with fortunes comparable to yours… and none with your beauty.” Smiling at the compliment, Lillian crawled halfway over him and hitched one leg over his. “Tell me more. I want to hear you wax lyrical about my charms.” Levering himself to a sitting position, Marcus lifted her with an ease that made her gasp, and settled her until she straddled his hips. He stroked a fingertip along the pale skin that was exposed at the open vee of the shirt. “I never wax lyrical,” he said. “Marsdens are not a poetic sort. However…” He paused to admire the sight of the long-limbed young woman who sat astride him while her hair trailed to her waist in tangled streamers. “I could at least tell you that you look like a pagan princess, with your tangled black hair and your bright, dark eyes.” “And?” Lillian encouraged, linking her arms loosely around his neck. He set his hands at her slender waist and moved them down to grasp her strong, sleek thighs. “And that every erotic dream I’ve ever had about your magnificent legs pales in comparison to the reality.” “You’ve dreamed about my legs?” Lillian wriggled as she felt his palms slide up her inner thighs in a lazy, teasing path. “Oh yes.

Tell me, Princess Olivia... why do you have to stay in your tower?" The soft entreaty made Livia feel as if she were melting inside. She laughed unsteadily, wishing for a moment that she dared to trust him. But the habit of independence was too strong. Shaking her head, Livia approached him, expecting him to back away from the doorway. He retreated half a step, his hands still grasping the edges of the doorway, so that she couldn't help but walk into an open-armed embrace. The bonnet ribbons slipped from her fingers. "Mr. Shaw-" she began, making the mistake of looking up at him. "Gideon," he whispered. "I want to know your secrets, Olivia." A bitter half smile touched her lips. "You'll hear them sooner or later from other people." "I want to hear them from you." As Livia began to retreat into the glasshouse, Shaw deftly caught the little cloth belt of her walking dress. His long fingers hooked beneath the reinforced fabric. Unable to back away from him, Livia clamped her hand over his, while a hectic blush flooded her face. She knew that he was toying with her, and that she once might have been able to manage this situation with relative ease. But not now. When she spoke, her voice was husky. "I can't do this, Mr. Shaw." To her amazement, he seemed to understand exactly what she meant. "You don't have to do anything," he said softly. "Just let me come closer... and stay right there..." His head bent, and he found her mouth easily. The coaxing pressure of his lips made Livia sway dizzily, and he caught her firmly against him. She was being kissed by Gideon Shaw, the self-indulgent, debauched scoundrel her brother had warned her about. And oh, he was good at it. She had thought nothing would ever be as pleasurable as Amberley's kisses... but this man's mouth was warm and patient, and there was something wickedly erotic about his complete lack of urgency. He teased her gently, nudging her lips apart, the tip of his tongue barely brushing hers before it withdrew. Wanting more of those silken strokes, Livia began to strain against him, her breath quickening. He nurtured her excitement with such subtle skill that she was utterly helpless to defend against it. To her astonishment, she found herself winding her arms around his neck and pressing her breasts against the hard plane of his chest. His hand slid behind her neck, tilting her head back to expose her throat more fully. Still gentle and controlled, he kissed the fragile skin, working his way down to the hollow at the base of her throat. She felt his tongue swirl in the warm depression, and a moan of pleasure escaped her. Shaw lifted his head to nuzzle the side of her cheek, while his hand smoothed over her back. Their breaths mingled in swift puffs of heat, his hard chest moving against hers in an erratic rhythm.

Christine's heart is thumping wildly. She lets herself be led (her aunt means her nothing but good) into a tiled and mirrored room full of warmth and sweetly scented with mild floral soap and sprayed perfumes; an electrical apparatus roars like a mountain storm in the adjoining room. The hairdresser, a brisk, snub-nosed Frenchwoman, is given all sorts of instructions, little of which Christine understands or cares to. A new desire has come over her to give herself up, to submit and let herself be surprised. She allows herself to be seated in the comfortable barber's chair and her aunt disappears. She leans back gently, and, eyes closed in a luxurious stupor, senses a mechanical clattering, cold steel on her neck, and the easy incomprehensible chatter of the cheerful hairdresser; she breathes in clouds of fragrance and lets aromatic balms and clever fingers run over her hair and neck. Just don't open your eyes, she thinks. If you do, it might go away. Don't question anything, just savor this Sundayish feeling of sitting back for once, of being waited on instead of waiting on other people. Just let our hands fall into your lap, let good things happen to you, let it come, savor it, this rare swoon of lying back and being ministered to, this strange voluptuous feeling you haven't experienced in years, in decades. Eyes closed, feeling the fragrant warmth enveloping her, she remembers the last time: she's a child, in bed, she had a fever for days, but now it's over and her mother brings some sweet white almond milk, her father and her brother are sitting by her bed, everyone's taking care of her, everyone's doing things for her, they're all gentle and nice. In the next room the canary is singing mischievously, the bed is soft and warm, there's no need to go to school, everything's being done for her, there are toys on the bed, though she's too pleasantly lulled to play with them; no, it's better to close her eyes and really feel, deep down, the idleness, the being waited on. It's been decades since she thought of this lovely languor from her childhood, but suddenly it's back: her skin, her temples bathed in warmth are doing the remembering. A few times the brisk salonist asks some question like, 'Would you like it shorter?' But she answers only, 'Whatever you think,' and deliberately avoids the mirror held up to her. Best not to disturb the wonderful irresponsibility of letting things happen to you, this detachment from doing or wanting anything. Though it would be tempting to give someone an order just once, for the first time in your life, to make some imperious demand, to call for such and such. Now fragrance from a shiny bottle streams over her hair, a razor blade tickles her gently and delicately, her head feels suddenly strangely light and the skin of her neck cool and bare. She wants to look in the mirror, but keeping her eyes closed in prolonging the numb dreamy feeling so pleasantly. Meanwhile a second young woman has slipped beside her like a sylph to do her nails while the other is waving her hair. She submits to it all without resistance, almost without surprise, and makes no protest when, after an introductory 'Vous etes un peu pale, Mademoiselle,' the busy salonist, employing all manner of pencils and crayons, reddens her lips, reinforces the arches of her eyebrows, and touches up the color of her cheeks. She's aware of it all and, in her pleasant detached stupor, unaware of it too: drugged by the humid, fragrance-laden air, she hardly knows if all this happening to her or to some other, brand-new self. It's all dreamily disjointed, not quite real, and she's a little afraid of suddenly falling out of the dream.

It has become socially acceptable for a baby to suck anything, be it bottle, dummy, soft toy, blanket or the nearest adult finger, while the ideal object, a breast, is denied.

Feelie Box—Cut a hole in a shoebox lid. Place spools, buttons, blocks, coins, marbles, animals, and cars in the box. The child inserts a hand through the hole and tells you what toy she is touching. Or, ask her to reach in and feel for a button or car. Or, show her a toy and ask her to find one in the box that matches. These activities improve the child’s ability to discriminate objects without the use of vision. “Can You Describe It?”—Provide objects with different textures, temperatures, and weights. Ask her to tell you about an object she is touching. (If you can persuade her not to look at it, the game is more challenging.) Is the object round? Cool? Smooth? Soft? Heavy? Oral-Motor Activities—Licking stickers and pasting them down, blowing whistles and kazoos, blowing bubbles, drinking through straws or sports bottles, and chewing gum or rubber tubing may provide oral satisfaction. Hands-on Cooking—Have the child mix cookie dough, bread dough, or meat loaf in a shallow roasting pan (not a high-sided bowl). Science Activities—Touching worms and egg yolks, catching fireflies, collecting acorns and chestnuts, planting seeds, and digging in the garden provide interesting tactile experiences. Handling Pets—What could be more satisfying than stroking a cat, dog or rabbit? People Sandwich—Have the “salami” or “cheese” (your child) lie facedown on the “bread” (gym mat or couch cushion) with her head extended beyond the edge. With a “spreader” (sponge, pot scrubber, basting or vegetable brush, paintbrush, or washcloth) smear her arms, legs, and torso with pretend mustard, mayonnaise, relish, ketchup, etc. Use firm, downward strokes. Cover the child, from neck to toe, with another piece of “bread” (folded mat or second cushion). Now press firmly on the mat to squish out the excess mustard, so the child feels the deep, soothing pressure. You can even roll or crawl across your child; the mat will distribute your weight. Your child will be in heaven.

But Tokyo offers cat cafes, a commercial solution to the problem of wanting to commune with cats but being unwilling or unable to have one at home. Iris's favorite cat cafe is Nekorobi, in the Ikebukuro neighborhood. When I first heard about cat cafes, I imagined something like Starbucks with a cat on your lap. Wrong. Nekorobi is what you'd get if you asked a cat-obsessed kid to draw a floorplan of her dream apartment: a bathroom, a drink vending machine(free with admission), a snack table, video games, and about ten cats and their attendant toys, scratching posts, beds, and climbing structures. Oh, and the furniture is in the beanbag chic style. Considering all the attention they get, the cats were amazingly friendly, and I'd never seen such a variety of cat breeds up close. (Nor have I ever spent more than ten seconds thinking about cat breeds.) My favorite was a light gray cat with soft fur, which curled up and slept near me while I sat on a beanbag and read a book. Iris made the rounds, drinking a bottomless cup of the vitamin-fortified soda C.C. Lemon and making sure to give equal time to each cat, including the flat-faced feline that looked like it had beaned with a skillet in old-timey cartoon fashion.

Typically only the incivility of the less powerful toward the more powerful can be widely understood as such, and thus be subject to such intense censure. Which is what made #metoo so fraught and revolutionary. It was a period during which some of the most powerful faced repercussion. The experience of having patriarchal control compromised felt, perhaps ironically, like a violation, a diminishment, a threat to professional standing—all the things that sexual harassment feels like to those who’ve experienced it. Frequently, in those months, I was asked about how to address men’s confusion and again, their discomfort: How were they supposed to flirt? What if their respectful and professional gestures of affiliation had been misunderstood? Mothers told me of sons worried about being misinterpreted, that expression of their affections might be heard as coercion, their words or intentions read incorrectly, that they would face unjust consequences that would damage their prospects. The amazing thing was the lack of acknowledgment that these anxieties are the normal state for just about everyone who is not a white man: that black mothers reasonably worry every day that a toy or a phone or a pack of Skittles might be seen as a gun, that their children’s very presence—sleeping in a dorm room, sitting at a Starbucks, barbecuing by a river, selling lemonade on the street—might be understood as a threat, and that the repercussions might extend far beyond a dismissal from a high-paying job or expulsion from a high-profile university, and instead might result in arrest, imprisonment, or execution at the hands of police or a concerned neighbor. Women enter young adulthood constantly aware that their inebriation might be taken for consent, or their consent for sluttiness, or that an understanding of them as having been either drunk or slutty might one day undercut any claim they might make about having been violently aggressed upon. Women enter the workforce understanding from the start the need to work around and accommodate the leering advances and bad jokes of their colleagues, aware that the wrong response might change the course of their professional lives. We had been told that our failures to extend sympathy to the white working class—their well-being diminished by unemployment and drug addictions—had cost us an election; now we were being told that a failure to feel for the men whose lives were being ruined by harassment charges would provoke an angry antifeminist backlash. But with these calls came no acknowledgment of sympathies that we have never before been asked to extend: to black men who have always lived with higher rates of unemployment and who have faced systemically higher prison sentences and social disapprobation for their drug use; to the women whose careers and lives had been ruined by ubiquitous and often violent harassment. Now the call was to consider the underlying pain of those facing repercussions. Rose McGowan, one of Weinstein’s earliest and most vociferous accusers, recalled being asked “in a soft NPR voice, ‘What if what you’re saying makes men uncomfortable?’ Good. I’ve been uncomfortable my whole life. Welcome to our world of discomfort.”34 Suddenly, men were living with the fear of consequences, and it turned out that it was not fun. And they very badly wanted it to stop. One of the lessons many men would take from #metoo was not about the threat they had posed to women, but about the threat that women pose to them.

You said you wouldn't bed me tonight." Her voice sounded small, fearful. She hated it. "I'm not. I'm merely going to help you to your feet." She placed her hand in his. Hers seemed so tiny, and when he closed his fingers around it, she was incredibly aware that he could easily break her with very little effort. She was surprised by the coarseness of his flesh. These were not the hands of a gentleman. He drew her up, then expertly moved her arm behind her back, somehow snagging her other wrist until both were held within his firm grasp. With his free hand, he cradled her face, stroked her cheek with his thumb. "You will learn to do things as I like them done," he said softly, in a voice that promised pleasures. His eyes captured and held hers, and she thought that even if he wasn't holding her, she'd not have been able to break away. "I have particular needs. The first is that you are never to wrap your arms around me." "Why not?" she whispered. "Because it's what I require." He lowered his lips to hers, and she realized that if he hadn't manacled her wrists that her arms would have twined about him of their own accord, simply to ensure that she remained standing when her knees grew so weak. His tongue toyed with her mouth, painting it, outlining it as though he wanted to be intimately familiar with it. Then he was urging her lips apart and delving into the depths of her mouth with an urgency that astounded her. He might not like her, but it was becoming plain enough rather quickly that he was quite fond of her mouth. He explored every inch of it, every nook, every cranny, every hidden corner. When she dared to meet the thrust of his tongue with a thrust of her own, he groaned low and pressed her against his broad chest. Through the thin linen of his shirt and the maid's well-worn nightly attire, she could feel the thudding of his heart, sense its increase in tempo. When she tried to break free of his hold, his hand clamped harder on her wrists, just shy of causing pain.

After lunch, they all went through to the study. Sunshine was desperate to show Freddy Anthony’s museum of missing things, and Laura was toying with the idea of asking if he had any bright ideas about returning them to their rightful owners. Each time she came into the study it seemed to Laura that the room was filling up; less space, more things. And she felt smaller; shrinking, sinking. The shelves seemed to groan, threatening collapse, and the drawers creak, dovetails about to fly open and burst. She feared she would be buried under an avalanche of lost property. For Sunshine it was a treasure trove. She stroked and held and hugged the things, talking softly to herself – or perhaps to the things themselves – and reading their labels with obvious enchantment. Freddy was appropriately astonished

Dr. Weeks said you’re supposed to refrain from movements that put pressure on your ribs. No pulling or lifting anything. You have to rest.” “I’ll rest as long as you stay with me.” The feel of him was so clean and warm and inviting that she felt herself weakening. Carefully she eased into the crook of his arm. “Is this hurting you?” “I’m feeling better by the minute.” He pulled the covers over them both, enclosing her in a cocoon of white sheets and soft wool blankets. She lay against him front to front, shivering with pleasure as she felt how perfectly the hard, warm contours of his body fit against hers. “Someone will see.” “The door’s closed.” Devon reached up to toy with the delicate curve of her ear. “You’re not afraid of me, are you?” She shook her head, even though her pulse was racing. Devon nuzzled against her hair. “I worried that I might have hurt or frightened you yesterday, in my…” He paused, searching for a word. “…enthusiasm,” he finished dryly. “You…you didn’t know what you were doing.” Self-mockery thickened his voice. “I knew exactly what I was doing. I just wasn’t able to do it well.” His thumb grazed the edge of her lower lip, teasing the full shape. She caught her breath as his fingers slid across her jaw, nudging the angle upward, stroking the soft skin beneath her chin. “I meant to kiss you more like…this.” His mouth covered hers with tantalizing pressure. So hot and slow, his lips coaxing a helpless response before she could think of withholding it.

I think,” he said slowly, “that you should marry a man who would appreciate you.” She made a face. “Those are in short supply.” He smiled. “You don’t need a supply. You just need one.” He grasped Poppy’s shoulder, his hand curving over the illusion-trimmed sleeve of her gown until she felt its warmth through the fragile gauze. His thumb toyed with the filmy edge of fabric, brushing her skin in a way that made her stomach tighten. “Poppy,” he said gently, “what if I asked for permission to court you?” She went blank as astonishment swept through her. Finally, someone had asked to court her. And it wasn’t Michael, or any of the diffident, superior aristocrats she had met during three failed seasons. It was Harry Rutledge, an elusive and enigmatic man she had known only a matter of days. “Why me?” was all she could manage. “Because you’re interesting and beautiful. Because saying your name makes me smile. Most of all because this may be my only hope of ever having hotchpotch.” “I’m sorry, but . . . no. It wouldn’t be a good idea at all.” “I think it’s the best idea I’ve ever had. Why can’t we?” Poppy’s mind was spinning. She could hardly stammer out a reply. “I-I don’t like courtship. It’s very stressful. And disappointing.” His thumb found the soft ridge of her collarbone and traced it slowly. “It’s arguable that you’ve ever had a real courtship. But if it pleases you, we’ll dispense with it altogether. That would save time.” “I don’t want to dispense with it,” Poppy said, increasingly flustered. She trembled as she felt his fingertips glide along the side of her neck. “What I mean is . . . Mr. Rutledge, I’ve just been through a very difficult experience. This is too soon.” “You were courted by a boy, who had to do as he was told.” His hot breath feathered against her lips as he whispered, “You should try it with a man, who needs no one’s permission.” A man. Well, he certainly was that. “I don’t have the luxury of waiting,” Harry continued. “Not when you’re so hell-bent on going back to Hampshire. You’re the reason I’m here tonight, Poppy. Believe me, I wouldn’t have come otherwise.” “You don’t like balls?” “I do. But the ones I attend are given by a far different crowd.” Poppy couldn’t imagine what crowd he was referring to, or what kind of people he usually associated with. Harry Rutledge was too much of a mystery. Too experienced, too overwhelming in every way. He could never offer the quiet, ordinary, sane life she longed for. “Mr. Rutledge, please don’t take this as an affront, but you don’t have the qualities I seek in a husband.” “How do you know? I have some excellent qualities you haven’t even seen yet.

I would change for you, if you could make me believe, if you could show me the reason why to be good at all." He pressed her hand to his clean-shaved cheek. "Teach me, Alice. I have an open mind. Do you?" She held his stare, wavering dangerously. "You are cruel to toy with me so," she forced out. "I am in earnest." The intensity in his gaze was beginning to frighten her. She tried to pull her hand away, but his grip turned implacable. He turned his face just enough to press a kiss into her palm, closing his long-lashed eyes for a moment. "Do not think I come to you empty-handed. I so want to help you, Alice." He opened his eyes and gazed tenderly at her. "You're too young to realize it yet, but I know what is going to happen to you." "You do?" she whispered, staring uneasily into his deep, crystalline eyes. "I've seen it a thousand times. They're going to make you just like everybody else, but I can protect you, your bright, beautiful soul. You're in a cage and you don't even know it, but I can free you. Let me take you under my wing. I can teach you how to outwit them if you'll let me. I won't let them turn you into another pretty, empty shell in ribbons and French silk. You are too good for that fate." His softly uttered words staggered her. It was as though he had looked into her soul and read her very heart. She stared at him, mesmerized. "What do you want of me?" "The same thing you want, sweet," he said as he stroked her hand in gentle reassurance. "Both of us, we just want someone to accept us for who we really are." "Who 'are' you, Lucien?" she asked in a trembling voice. "Stay with me and find out.

She hurried out into the hall to greet the wanderers. Max looked as if he was in much better spirits; he was smiling for one thing, the smile getting wider as he caught sight of Neve. ‘You look so sweet,’ he said in what sounded suspiciously like the male version of her Keith-inspired coo. ‘No, I don’t,’ Neve protested. Sweet was not what she’d been aiming for. She tugged at the lace-edged cuffs of her long-sleeved thermal vest, then reached down to pat Keith. ‘Where’s Keith going to sleep? With us?’ ‘In the hall. He’s not allowed to sleep in the bedroom. He’ll spend all night trying to get on the bed.’ ‘But what’s wrong with that?’ Neve had been looking forward to Keith sleeping at the bottom of the bed, preferably on her feet because they got very cold at night. Max shook his head. ‘I’ve spent a long time establishing some boundaries with him. Don’t undo all my good work.’ She watched Max settle Keith down in his dog bed with a ragged blanket over him and a threadbare soft toy tucked between his front paws. Then there was the water bowl and a plug-in nightlight because Keith didn’t like the dark, and Neve began to wonder just where Keith’s boundaries were. ‘I’m going to bed,’ she said, when it became obvious that Max intended to stay with Keith until he was asleep.

That small flock of mergansers was so special to me because we didn’t have any pets. They knew me, they would come up to me when I called, and they would nuzzle me with their tiny beaks. I wanted to keep them forever. But I had to learn an important lesson about wildlife. My dad used my room as an example. “Look around,” he said. In my bedroom was everything that I loved--my nice soft bed, my favorite toys, and great big sunny windows. I loved my room. “I want you to imagine something,” said my dad. “Imagine if you could never leave this room. We’d bring in all your favorite food, and maybe you could have a TV and radio in here, but you still couldn’t ever leave. Would you be happy?” I knew what he was getting at. “Maybe for a little while,” I replied. “For a little while,” he repeated. We introduced the ducks back in the wild. Afterward, I thought about how it all made sense to me. No matter how nice the place is where you live, you need to experience life and the world.

But instead of the electronics, he found lube, condoms, and a modest dildo, all neatly side-by-side, no clutter for Maddox’s toy drawer. Images skittered through his brain—Maddox jacking off, eyes closed, moaning softly...Maddox getting fucked. Would he moan for it? Want it hard or slow and gentle? Or—stop it. He shut the drawer fast.

To her further surprise, she found a breakfast tray waiting for her on the table with bagels, cheese and an assortment of fruit. But what caught her eye was the tiny pair of yellow baby booties. She picked up the soft, fuzzy little booties, her throat knotting as she read the accompanying card. Because you said you didn’t have a pair yet. Love, Ryan. She sank into the seat, her eyes stinging with tears. She held the booties to her cheek and then touched the card, tracing the scrawl of his signature. “I shouldn’t love you this much,” she whispered. God, but she couldn’t help herself. She craved him. He was her other half. She didn’t feel whole without him. And so began a courting ritual that tugged on her heartstrings. Every morning when she crawled out of bed, there was a new present waiting for her from Ryan. There was a baby book that outlined everything she could expect from birth through the first year of life. One morning he left her two outfits. One for a boy and one for a girl. Just in case, he had written. On the fifth morning, he simply left her a note that told her a gift was waiting in the extra bedroom. Excited, she hurried toward the bedroom she’d once occupied and threw open the door to see not one present but a room full of baby things. A stroller. A crib that was already put together. A little bouncy thing. An assortment of toys. A changing table. She couldn’t take in all the stuff that was there. She didn’t even know what all of it was for. How on earth had he managed to sneak this in without her hearing? And there by the window was a rocking chair with a yellow afghan lying over the arm. She walked over and reverently touched the wood, giving the chair an experimental push. It creaked once and then swayed gently back and forth.

Sister, why do you think the stars in the sky don’t fall down?” Ye examined Feng. The kerosene lamp was a wonderful artist and created a classical painting with dignified colors and bright strokes: Feng had her coat draped over her shoulders, exposing her red belly-band, and a strong, graceful arm. The glow from the kerosene lamp painted her figure with vivid, warm colors, while the rest of the room dissolved into a gentle darkness. Close attention revealed a dim red glow, which didn’t come from the kerosene lamp, but the heating charcoal on the ground. The cold air outside sculpted beautiful ice patterns on the windowpanes with the room’s warm, humid air. “You’re afraid of the stars falling down?” Ye asked softly. Feng laughed and shook her head. “What’s there to be afraid of? They’re so tiny.” Ye did not give her the answer of an astrophysicist. She only said, “They’re very, very far away. They can’t fall.” Feng was satisfied with this answer, and went back to her needlework. But Ye could no longer be at peace. She put down her book and lay down on the warm surface of the kang, closing her eyes. In her imagination, the rest of the universe around their tiny cottage disappeared, just the way the kerosene lamp hid most of the room in darkness. Then she substituted the universe in Feng’s heart for the real one. The night sky was a black dome that was just large enough to cover the entirety of the world. The surface of the dome was inlaid with countless stars shining with a crystalline silver light, none of which was bigger than the mirror on the old wooden table next to the bed. The world was flat and extended very far in each direction, but ultimately there was an edge where it met the sky. The flat surface was covered with mountain ranges like the Greater Khingan Mountains, and with forests dotted with tiny villages, just like Qijiatun.… This toy-box-like universe comforted Ye, and gradually it shifted from her imagination into her dreams. In this tiny mountain hamlet deep in the Greater Khingan Mountains, something finally thawed in Ye Wenjie’s heart. In the frozen tundra of her soul, a tiny, clear lake of meltwater appeared.

But he didn’t have any toys,” she said softly.

The chief engineer shook his head slowly, in the manner of an adult who is reluctant to frighten a child. “It’s not this station, Mr. Thompson,” he said softly. “It’s every station in the country, as far as we’ve been able to check. And there is no mechanical trouble. Neither here nor elsewhere. The equipment is in order, in perfect order, and they all report the same, but . . . but all radio stations went off the air at seven-fifty-one, and . . . and nobody can discover why.” “But—” cried Mr. Thompson, stopped, glanced about him and screamed, “Not tonight! You can’t let it happen tonight! You’ve got to get me on the air!” “Mr. Thompson,” the man said slowly, “we’ve called the electronic laboratory of the State Science Institute. They . . . they’ve never seen anything like it. They said it might be a natural phenomenon, some sort of cosmic disturbance of an unprecedented kind, only—” “Well?” “Only they don’t think it is. We don’t, either. They said it looks like radio waves, but of a frequency never produced before, never observed anywhere, never discovered by anybody.” No one answered him. In a moment, he went on, his voice oddly solemn: “It looks like a wall of radio waves jamming the air, and we can’t get through it, we can’t touch it, we can’t break it. . . . What’s more, we can’t locate its source, not by any of our usual methods. . . . Those waves seem to come from a transmitter that . . . that makes any known to us look like a child’s toy!

I'm not a toy, Ava," Alex said, his voice lethally soft. "Don't play with me unless you want to get hurt.

I have this brilliant plan.” I slid my hand up her bare thigh and under the hem of her skirt, finding all soft skin, lacy panties, and enticing heat. “I’m going to bury my tongue in your pussy while you give your speech. If you get it right, I’ll make you come. If you don’t, we start all over.” I toyed with the elastic of her panties, waiting for her answer. The apples of her cheeks flushed, and her eyes brightened with interest. “You believe it’ll work?” “There’s a chance it will.” I worked my hand between her thighs and cupped her heated pussy. “Sit on my face, baby girl.” She stilled. “What? No. I’ll suffocate you.” I wiggled my eyebrows. “That’s the point. If I’m not short of breath, I’m not doing my job.

Bending, I kiss the top of her shoulder then the soft skin of her neck as my hands wrap around her, fingers tempting and toying with the material of her pants just above her ass.  “You still doing okay?” I whisper. She nods against me. “I like touching you.” “Yeah?” I let my hands drop a bit further south.  “And I’d like it if you touched me too, Isaiah.”  Fuck. Me.

The absence of life in that familiar body, the rigid and rectified features of the face he had known before he even knew his own, made all the difference. Here was a transitional object for the far end of life. Instead of the soft toy or raggie that a child uses to cope with its mother’s absence, he was being offered a corpse, its scrawny fingers clutching an artificial white rose whose stiff silk petals were twisted into position over an unbeating heart. It had the sarcasm of a relic, as well as the prestige of a metonym. It stood for his mother and for her absence with equal authority. In either case, it was her final appearance before she retired into other people’s memory.

Conservative elites first turned to populism as a political strategy thanks to Richard Nixon. His festering resentment of the Establishment’s clubby exclusivity prepared him emotionally to reach out to the “silent majority,” with whom he shared that hostility. Nixon excoriated “our leadership class, the ministers, the college professors, and other teachers… the business leadership class… they have all really let down and become soft.” He looked forward to a new party of independent conservatism resting on a defense of traditional cultural and social norms governing race and religion and the family. It would include elements of blue-collar America estranged from their customary home in the Democratic Party. Proceeding in fits and starts, this strategic experiment proved its viability during the Reagan era, just when the businessman as populist hero was first flexing his spiritual muscles. Claiming common ground with the folkways of the “good ole boy” working class fell within the comfort zone of a rising milieu of movers and shakers and their political enablers. It was a “politics of recognition”—a rediscovery of the “forgotten man”—or what might be termed identity politics from above. Soon enough, Bill Clinton perfected the art of the faux Bubba. By that time we were living in the age of the Bubba wannabe—Ross Perot as the “simple country billionaire.” The most improbable members of the “new tycoonery” by then had mastered the art of pandering to populist sentiment. Citibank’s chairman Walter Wriston, who did yeoman work to eviscerate public oversight of the financial sector, proclaimed, “Markets are voting machines; they function by taking referenda” and gave “power to the people.” His bank plastered New York City with clever broadsides linking finance to every material craving, while simultaneously implying that such seductions were unworthy of the people and that the bank knew it. Its $1 billion “Live Richly” ad campaign included folksy homilies: what was then the world’s largest bank invited us to “open a craving account” and pointed out that “money can’t buy you happiness. But it can buy you marshmallows, which are kinda the same thing.” Cuter still and brimming with down-home family values, Citibank’s ads also reminded everybody, “He who dies with the most toys is still dead,” and that “the best table in the city is still the one with your family around it.” Yale preppie George W. Bush, in real life a man with distinctly subpar instincts for the life of the daredevil businessman, was “eating pork rinds and playing horseshoes.” His friends, maverick capitalists all, drove Range Rovers and pickup trucks, donning bib overalls as a kind of political camouflage.

The decision stood: the borders were closed to dead lions. Wood and Hunt were asked to speak at a ceremony celebrating the decision held at Federation Square in central Melbourne. An international conservationist appeared by video link from South Africa. As a semi-affectionate joke, Canavan bought a soft toy lion, ripped the head off, mounted it on a piece of wood and offered it to Hunt’s office, which declined the gift. The lion now sits in the National Party’s whip’s office, where it is named ‘Cecil’, in honour of a famous lion killed in Zimbabwe by an American hunter with a bow and arrow in July 2015.

Perhaps you should go back out.” “You’re worried about Major Johnston?” Peyton laughed softly before kissing the side of Carrie’s head. “Vern’s a big boy.” Hands on her shoulders, he turned Carrie so she faced him. “You should have seen him repelling the enemy today. Most men surrendered before he could even raise his saber.” Peyton gathered her in his arms. “And you?” Carrie toyed with the gold trim on his shell jacket before looking up into his face. “I’m sure you fought bravely.” “Amazingly so, thank God, and with such ease. The cavalry as a whole performed well, but my regiment in particular. Carrie, if you had witnessed it, you’d be in awe of their skill and dash.” “I’m sure I would have been very proud to see them … and you. I’m proud of you, and so very relieved that you’re alive and uninjured.” Looking pleased, he touched the tip of his nose to hers. “I hope I didn’t cause you embarrassment by my rather enthusiastic greeting. When I saw you I lost all sense of dignity.” “Hardly.” His eyes smoldered, and his hold around her tightened. “Carrie, I am now the envy of an entire brigade.” On that pronouncement, he kissed her soundly.

Ah, listen, I was just getting her up. You mind?” Wrath dragged a hand through his hair. “No, no, yeah, it’s cool.” “You want me to come to your office afterward?” He wondered what the room looked like, and painted the space according to what his Beth had said was in it. Cluttered, he thought. Homey. Cheerful. Pink. Nothing that Z would have been caught dead in before he’d met Bella. “Wrath? What’s going on here?” “You mind if I come in?” “Ah . . . sure. Yeah, I mean, Bella’s working out so we’ve got some privacy. But you’re going to want to—” Chhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep! “—watch where you step.” Wrath lifted up his shitkicker and whatever toy he’d crushed reinflated with a wheeze. “Fuck, did I break it?” “I think it’s a dog toy, actually. Yeah, I’m pretty sure she picked it up from George downstairs. You want it back?” “He’s got plenty. She can have it.” As he shut the door, he was painfully aware that they were each talking about their young—only Wrath’s had four paws and a tail. Least he didn’t have to worry about George succeeding him or being blind. Z’s voice came from deeper in the room. “You can sit on the foot of the bed if you go fifteen feet straight ahead of you.” “Thanks.” He didn’t particularly want to park it, but if he stayed standing, he was going to want to pace and it wouldn’t be long before he tripped over something that wasn’t a toy. Over in the corner, Z spoke softly to his daughter, the words rolling into some kind of rhythm like he was talking through a song. In reply, there were all kinds of cooing. And then came something that sounded terrifyingly clear: “Dada.

Furi wasn’t aware that he’d drifted into a shallow slumber right where he lay until he felt Syn shift beneath him. Furi moaned and raised his head from Syn’s hipbone and stared into dark eyes. Syn’s look revealed nothing. “Hey you.” “Hey back.” Syn’s voice was deep and groggy. “Ready for me to get off you?” Furi chuckled softly, hoping to lighten up Syn's mood. He forced himself up. “I’ll get something to wipe you off.” Furi went to the bathroom and slowly cleaned himself off, almost dreading going back into the bedroom. Don’t flip out, don’t flip out, Syn. It’s okay, babe. Wanting to by some time, Furi washed his face and brushed his teeth. He took a warm cloth back into the bedroom and began to clean Syn’s leg and stomach. He wanted to know how the man felt, but he was too nervous to ask. Furi wiped off the toys and set them back on the nightstand. Syn turned and pulled the comforter up to his hip, covering himself. Furi couldn’t describe the pain that shot through his chest at the sight of Syn’s back turned to him. He sincerely hoped it was just Syn processing his first homosexual experience. Furi couldn’t fathom how the man could have screamed in ecstasy the entire time but feel bad now. Furi shut off the lamp, and crawled under the covers, curling himself around Syn’s hard body. He felt Syn tense against him. Fuck. Oh come on, this can’t be happening. There was no way that Syn was going to flip out on him just like Patrick had, Furi's luck couldn’t be that bad. Light seeped under the door from the hall, so Furi could see Syn’s eyes were open and alert.

Papa actually looked somewhat cool. He wore a leather jacket, sunglasses pushed up on his forehead, and an expensive cotton dress shirt untucked over jeans. Behind him was the palest non-albino human being I had ever seen. A shock of orangey blond stuck straight up from his ovoid head like a toy troll. His head was cocked upward; his smile seemed like a plastic snap-on attachment, and his features were flattened as if pressed back by an invisible stocking. Though he claimed online to be an avid weight-lifter, his body and face were doughy. Technically, he was a small person. He just had a certain genetic softness. This

Footsteps sounded on the porch, and she felt a twitter of excitement as Wyatt walked in, hat in hand. He stopped and stared. First at the table, then at her. “Well . . . this is sure a nice welcome.” She grew warm beneath his attention, and warmer still as he crossed the room toward her. He lifted a curl from her bodice and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. “It smells good in here.” He smelled good too. She caught a whiff of fresh soap and sunshine, and his hair was still damp. “You bathed in the creek,” she said softly. “Yes, ma’am, I did.” “Well . . .” She gave a breathless laugh. “Breakfast is ready. I hope you’re hungry.” “Yes, ma’am.” His gaze captured hers and held. “I am.” If not for his self-declared patience, she might have been unnerved by the transparency of desire in his eyes. But Wyatt Caradon was her husband. She could stand on tiptoe right now and kiss him full on the mouth if she wanted to. That was her right. And the thing was—she slowly realized—she wanted to. Even more, he wanted her to. Yet he didn’t move. However, he did smile, ever so slightly, and it gave her the encouragement she needed. She rose on tiptoe, and could all but reach him. “You might want to meet me halfway, Mr. Caradon.” Wordless, he did, but stopped just short of completing the journey. Their breaths mingling, she sensed his growing lack of patience, which, oddly enough, only increased hers. She ran a finger along his stubbled jawline and saw his eyes narrow ever so slightly. She’d never been one to toy with a man, but then she’d never been married to one with whom she could toy. She kissed him on one corner of his mouth, then the other. On his cheek, and then gently on the lips, like he’d done with her yesterday at the ceremony. His arms didn’t come around her like she half expected, but not for a moment did she question his response. He was letting her take the lead . . . and she liked it.

Charles, what are you saying?" "It doesn't matter what I'm saying, Amy, sweet Jesus, forget I said anything and please —" he plunged his hand into his pocket, found the letter from Juliet, and held it out to her — "please, just read this before any more time passes, I beg of you, please read it and show me that someone in my life still cares for me and that this world has not been turned completely upside down, I beg of you Amy, read it and read it now!" He drew back, trembling, hands pressed against his sightless eyes as he tried to get himself under control.  He felt her hands against his shoulders, heard her soft voice only inches away. "Charles, please, it's all right —" "It's not all right, can you not see?  My army has rejected me, my own brother toys with me in the name of discipline, and here I am in my darkest hour and who is it that I want to reach for, who is it that I want to hold, who is it that I need more than any other person on earth?" "Charles —" "It's you, Amy, can't you see it, can't you feel it, can't you understand that you are the very center of my existence?!  You, not Juliet.  You.  God damn it, I need you." He pushed away from her and bent his head to his balled fist, his mouth twisted in pain and self-loathing for these needs he could not control, these feelings he should never have. "I'm sorry," Amy whispered, reeling with shock at what he'd just confessed.  "I didn't know . . ." "Juliet is the one I should want right now, not you," he was saying, hoarsely.  "It is she who holds my heart, who wears my ring, who carries my unborn baby . . . Oh, God help me, Amy, read the letter.  Read the damned letter now, so that I may be reminded where my heart lies, so that I may be reminded of my promise to the woman who loves me, so that I may be reminded of who I was and who I seek to remain.  Read it so that I may know that she, at least, is still there for me when everyone on whom I thought I could depend, has abandoned me . . ." Amy,

What do you think I need?” she whispers. I swallow past the lump in my throat and flex my fingers, making fists over and over. “You need to be loved calmly and carefully. And I can’t do either tonight. You need to go.” I can’t even look at her. I can’t. “You think I need to be loved calmly and carefully,” she says slowly. I nod, sucking my piercing into my mouth to toy with it. “You want to know what I think?” she asks. “What?” I grunt. Apparently, I’ve turned into a caveman who can only speak in monosyllables. “I think I need to be loved…completely.” My gaze jerks to hers. Her eyes are soft, and a smile plays around her mouth. She walks to me and takes my face in her hands. “I do love you completely,” I say. “But…” She shakes her head. “No, you don’t. You hold back because you’re afraid to hurt me.” She wraps her arms around my neck, and her lips hover an inch from mine. She whispers. “Love me completely, Pete.

Be careful with him, okay?” he says. His voice is soft but strong, and I can tell he means it. “What?” I ask. I force myself out of my haze and focus on him. “I don’t know what you mean.” He starts to clean up toys, throwing them into a nearby toy bin. “He’s been through a lot,” Paul says. “I’m not sure he could survive another heartbreak. Not and stay the same, easygoing guy he is now. Don’t wreck him, okay?” he asks. He sighs out a breath. “I won’t,” I say. No one ever means to do that, do they? “He’s special,” Paul says. “Even before he got sick, he was different from the rest of us. He’s good and kind, and he still believes in the goodness of the heart. He needs to stay that way. So, don’t hurt him.” He says the last part quietly, so the kids can’t hear him. “I won’t,” I whisper. I want to challenge him and ask how dare he. But I can see the vulnerability in his eyes. I can see that it was hard for him to have this conversation with me.

He has given Caspar flowers, has given him soft toys (however ridiculous that might be as a gesture.) Has written real actual poems, with fountain pen ink on nice expensive paper. (Ridiculous also. But everyone deserves a few ridiculous romantic gestures in life, Caspar feels. Including him. Especially him. He hasn’t had an over-abundance of them up until this point.) He likes Mack. Mack likes him. It’s so simple, really, although they have perhaps enjoyed complicating it more than strictly necessary.

We should wait for the moon to rise,” she said, “before we go down to the camp.” “And what,” he murmured, “will we do while we wait?” She brought his fingers to her lips so that he could feel her smile. His hand traveled the length of her braid and toyed with the leather string that bound it. He untied the knot. The sound of it coming undone was as soft as a breath. He unraveled her hair, and brought her close.

Hospitals have heard more genuine prayers than temples ever would. Pillows have felt much more emotions than lovers ever could. Bathrooms have heard more new songs than studios ever would. And soft toys know much more about children than their parents ever could.

is not a hopeless place to be. It is a place of patience, of waiting. Lost does not mean gone for ever. Lost is a bridge between worlds, where the pain of our past can be transformed into power. You have always held the key to this special place, but now you are ready to unlock the door. Each person who finds themselves here brings a special gift that if you use it, you can transcend your fears. A story handed down through memory, lives that reveal themselves to you without words, books that breathe their knowledge softly in your ear, mechanical toys that spring to life under kind hands, nostalgia rescued and reborn into a new life – all of

So Stephen’s pain is over. He is no longer trapped in the static of his mind. Tormented by stabs of clarity, like a drowning man surfacing above the waves before being engulfed again. There will be no further decline. From here on the decline will be all hers. The pain all hers. She is glad of it, deserves to endure it. It feels like penance. Penance for helping to kill Stephen? Is that right? No. Elizabeth doesn’t feel guilt at the act. She knows in her heart that it was an act of love. Joyce will know it was an act of love. Why does she worry what Joyce will think? It is penance for everything else she has done in her life. Everything that she did in her long career, without question. Everything she signed off, everything she nodded through. She is paying a tax on her sins. Stephen was sent to her, and then taken away, as a punishment. She will speak to Viktor about it; he will feel the same. However noble the causes of her career were, they weren’t noble enough to excuse the disregard for life. Day after day, mission after mission, ridding the world of evil? Waiting for the last devil to die? What a joke. New devils will always spring up, like daffodils in springtime. So what was it all for? All that blood? Stephen was too good for her tainted soul, and the world knew it, so the world took him away. But Stephen had known her, hadn’t he? Had seen her for what she was and who she was? And Stephen had still chosen her? Stephen had made her, that was the truth. Had glued her together. And here she lies. Unmade. Unglued. How will life go on now? How is that possible? She hears a car on a distant road. Why on earth is anybody driving? Where is there to go now? Why is the clock in the hall still ticking? Doesn’t it know it stopped days ago? On the way to the funeral, Joyce had sat with her in the car. They didn’t speak because there was too much to say. Elizabeth looked out of the window of the car at one point, and saw a mother pick up a soft toy her child had dropped out of its pram. Elizabeth almost burst into laughter, that life was daring to continue. Didn’t they know? Hadn’t they heard? Everything has changed, everything. And yet nothing has changed. Nothing. The day carries on as it would. An old man at a traffic light takes off his hat as the hearse passes, but, other than that, the high street is the same. How can these two realities possibly coexist? Perhaps Stephen was right about time? Outside the car window, it moved forward, marching, marching, never missing a step. But inside the car, time was already moving backward, already folding in. The life she had with Stephen will always mean more to her than the life she will now have going forward. She will spend more time there, in that past, she knows that. And, as the world races forward, she will fall further and further back. There comes a point when you look at your photograph albums more often than you watch the news. When you opt out of time, and let it carry on doing its thing while you get on with yours. You simply stop dancing to the beat of the drum. She sees it in Joyce. For all her bustle, for all her spark, there is a part of her, the most important part, locked away. There’s a part of Joyce that will always be in a tidy living room, Gerry with his feet up, and a young Joanna, face beaming as she opens presents. Living in the past. Elizabeth had never understood it, but, with intense clarity, she understands it now. Elizabeth’s past was always too dark, too unhappy. Family, school, the dangerous, compromising work, the divorces. But, as of three days ago, Stephen is her past, and that is where she will choose to live.

gaze down at my little doll still in her pristine uniformed shirt and plaid skirt with the mask in place, on her knees before her God, ready to confess all her sins with her throat. “Take it out,” I demand, widening my stance. She grips the button of my jeans, popping them open before practically ripping the zipper open to release her favorite toy. Her eyes light up with fascination, as they always do when she sees my length, and her thumb immediately flicks the stud of my piercing as her soft fingers wrap around me. A deviant growl leaves my throat and my cock pulses in her soft palm, feeling the sensation travel across my body as blood floods the region to harden me like steel.