“
It’s like watching a James Bond movie. Morpheus—in a black trench-coat-style blazer that hangs to his thighs, gray tweed pants, a dark gray vest, skinny red tie, and black pin-striped dress shirt—could pass for a punk-fae secret agent who’s captured his villain. His thick blue waves touch his shoulders from under a gray tweed flat cap, and his wings drape down his back and across the floor, fluttering sporadically as he keeps his balance against Jeb’s resistance.
”
”
A.G. Howard (Unhinged (Splintered, #2))
“
Not being able to swipe into the subway when people are backing up behind you. Waiting for him at the bar. Leaving your purse open on a stool with a mess of bills visible. Mispronouncing the names while presenting French wines. Your clogs slipping on the waxed floors. The way your arms shoot out and you tense your face when you almost fall. Taking your job seriously. Watching the sex scene from Dirty Dancing on repeat and eating a box of gingersnaps for dinner on your day off. Forgetting your stripes, your work pants, your socks. Mentally mapping the bar for corners where you might catch him alone. Getting drunker faster than everyone else. Not knowing what foie gras is. Not knowing what you think about abortion. Not knowing what a feminist is. Not knowing who the mayor is. Throwing up between your feet on the subway stairs. On a Tuesday. Going back for thirds at family meal. Excruciating diarrhea in the employee bathroom. Hurting yourself when you hit your head on the low pipe. Refusing to leave the bar though it's over, completely over. Bleeding in every form. Beer stains on your shirt, grease stains on your jeans, stains in every form. Saying you know where something is when you have absolutely no idea where it is.
At some point, I leveled out. Everything stopped being embarrassing.
”
”
Stephanie Danler (Sweetbitter)
“
That’s the ceremonial uniform,” I said. “I mean a duty uniform. Light shirt, dark pants with a yellow stripe?” “Oh, Han Solo pants. Yeah, he had those on.” “Okay, thanks.” Pfft. Han Solo’s pants have a red stripe. And it’s not even a stripe—it’s a bunch of dashes. Some people have no education.
”
”
Andy Weir (Artemis)
“
I think bourgeois fathers – wing-collar workers in pencil-striped pants, dignified, office-tied fathers, so different from young American veterans of today or from a happy, jobless Russian-born expatriate of fifteen years ago – will not understand my attitude toward our child. Whenever you held him up, replete with his warm formula and grave as an idol, and waited for the postlactic all-clear signal before making a horizontal baby of the vertical one, I used to take part both in your wait and in the tightness of his surfeit, which I exaggerated, therefore rather resenting your cheerful faith in the speedy dissipation of what I felt to be a painful oppression; and when, at last, the blunt little bubble did rise and burst in his solemn mouth, I used to experience a lovely relief as you, with a congratulatory murmur, bent low to deposit him in the white-rimmed twilight of his crib.
”
”
Vladimir Nabokov (Speak, Memory)
“
On occasion we say to ourselves, panting, ‘Gosh, life is racing by.’ But that’s not it at all, it’s the contrary: life is still. It is we who are racing by.
”
”
Yann Martel (What is Stephen Harper Reading?: Yann Martel's Recommended Reading for a Prime Minister and Book Lovers of All Stripes)
“
Her laughter sounded like music. “What, you don’t hang out with missionaries in your downtime? When the rest of us go home and slip into sweatpants and T-shirts, you kick back in a polo shirt and khakis.”
No one but Isaiah and Beth teased me. People ran from me. Yet this little nymph thoroughly enjoyed this game. “Keep it up, Echo. I’m all about foreplay.”
She laughed so loudly, she slapped a hand over her mouth, yet the giggles escaped. “You are so full of yourself. You think because girls swoon over you and let you into their pants on the first try that I’ll follow suit. Think again. Besides, I have your number now. Every time you try to look all dark and dangerous, I’ll picture you wearing a pink striped polo, collar up, and a pair of pleated chinos.”
”
”
Katie McGarry (Pushing the Limits (Pushing the Limits, #1))
“
PANTS: DARK PURPLE WITH A gold stripe up either side. Pressed and creased sharply down the middle, of course. Subtly flared at the hems over shined and waxed narrow-tip dewback-skin boots, sloping inward and tight toward the top. Tight enough for a bulge and the insinuation of an ass.
”
”
Daniel José Older (Last Shot: A Han and Lando Novel (Star Wars))
“
The massage session ended with both of us soaked, covered in glittery dripping oil. I felt like a Greek salad sloppily drenched in extra virgin. But James was not going to stop. The kisses came thick and fast. And extra massages. “Lie back, wench,” he said.
I lay back and stared up at him and above his head at the striped white and blue awning, which was rippling under the pounding impact of the rain. I’d almost forgotten about the rain, though it was coming down heavier than ever, a glittering silver wall, just a few feet away from us.
James had decided that the most intimate p[art of my delicate self needed a delicate multi-facetted many-sided feathery back and forth up and down and sideways type of ecstatic slow-and-fast motion massage and which involved his index finger and his little finger and the palm of his hand and then his tongue, so and it began to build, and build …
“You are being quite intimate, Master,” I gulped, trying to put on a dignified face and control my panting, the deepening huski¬ness of my voice, and the flood of saliva that had filled my mouth and was dribbling out of one corner. I think, given the circum¬stances, that I did quite a good job.
“Really?” he glanced up at me, and then disappeared between my legs, back to work, his tongue darting, hither and thither, truly a busy little bee, harvesting honey here, there, and everywhere.
“Really …” I sobbed, in a choked desperate voice, “Very ex¬tremely intimate, oh, oh, oh ... Master, Master, Pity, Master …
”
”
Gwendoline Clermont (Gwendoline Goes To School)
“
Martin got up and brushed off the seat of his pants with his hat. He put his hat on his head and started back toward the path. For when you woke from a long dream, into the new morning, then try as you might you couldn't not hear, beyond your door, the sounds of the new day, the drawer opening in your father's bureau, the bang of a pot, you couldn't not see, through your trembling lashes, the stripe of light on the bedroom wall. Boys shouted in the park, on a sunny tree-root he saw a cigar band, red and gold. One of these days he might find something to do in a cigar store, after all he still knew his tobacco, you never forgot a thing like that. But not just yet. Boats moved on the river, somewhere a car horn sounded, on the path a piece of broken glass glowed in a patch of sun as if at any second it would burst into flame. Everything stood out sharply: the red stem of a green leaf, horse clops and the distant clatter of a pneumatic drill, a smell of riverwater and asphalt. Martin felt hungry: chops and beer in a little he remembered on Columbus Avenue. But not yet. For the time being he would just walk along, keeping a little out of the way of things, admiring the view. It was a warm day. He was in no hurry.
”
”
Steven Millhauser (Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer)
“
The hip world, the vast majority of the acid heads, were still playing the eternal charade of the middle-class intellectuals—Behold my wings! Freedom! Flight!—but you don’t actually expect me to jump off that cliff, do you? It is the eternal game in which Clement Attlee, bald as Lenin, lively as a toy tank, yodels blood to the dockworkers of Liverpool—and dies buried in striped pants with a magenta sash across his chest and a coin with the Queen’s likeness upon each eyelid. In their heart of hearts, the heads of Haight-Ashbury could never stretch their fantasy as far out as the Hell’s Angels. Overtly, publicly, they included them in—suddenly, they were the Raw Vital Proles of this thing, the favorite minority, replacing the spades. Privately, the heads remained true to their class, and to its visceral panics … One trouble with this Kesey was, he really meant it.
”
”
Tom Wolfe (The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test)
“
I had opened the obvious drawer, the top drawer of the room's only dresser, and found myself gazing into a masculine cache of compressed, crumpled things. Wash-worn Brooks Brothers white cotton shorts now a pale shade of gray. Snake-tangled, unpaired argyle socks, all in bright Easter colors like clover ad mauve which still showed fairly crisp near the tops, but down toward the heels were marred by thread pills and snags, and at the toes by the outright abjection of holes. To see laid bare in their entirety those socks, of which I'd heretofore glimpsed only brief merry stripes, when a pant cuff rose up from the rim of a shoe, was like seeing the man himself fully exposed to me--naked.
”
”
Susan Choi (My Education)
“
now? When she looked at herself she saw her outside changing, growing older, while inside she still felt young. Aging was a strange thing—made you feel like you were wearing a striped shirt and plaid pants. Mismatched. Because you never felt as old inside as you looked on the outside.
”
”
Debbie Macomber (That Summer Place: Island TimeOld ThingsPrivate Paradise)
“
Nice bra.” “Israeli,” said Heidi. She looked around, taking in the contents of the room. “Jesus Christ,” she said. “The wallpaper’s like Hendrix’s pants.” “I think it’s satin.” Vertically striped, in green, burgundy, ecru, and black.
”
”
William Gibson (Zero History (Blue Ant, #3))
“
As I’m walking back out to the living room, my bedroom door opens, and Logan steps out. I have to catch my breath at the sight of him. He’s wearing black trousers, a black turtleneck, and he has on a royal-blue button-down shirt with long sleeves that’s open at the throat. He’s not wearing a tie, and he doesn’t need one. Goodness, he looks like he just stepped off the cover of a magazine. He has a jacket thrown over his shoulder, hooked by his index finger. He lifts the edge of his pants for me. “Are these socks too much?” he asks. He has on socks with multi-colored stripes. He grins. I shake my head. “None of it’s too much.” I sweep my eyes from his head to his feet and back again. God, he’s handsome. “You look amazing.” “I guess I clean up okay, huh?” he asks. He looks unsure of himself. “Logan, you look fabulous,” my mom says. She claps her hands together like she’s at the theater.
”
”
Tammy Falkner (Smart, Sexy and Secretive (The Reed Brothers, #2))
“
her gentle but continuous harangue as she coaxed him into dressing and tried to teach him to match his shirt and pants. But sometimes an incipient tantrum she had no time for meant that checks and stripes were the order of the day. “Have fun at the circus,” she’d say to Sean’s back as he ran out the door to catch the bus. Rebecca
”
”
Dexter Palmer (Version Control)
“
Inside it looks like a nineteenth century palace, given the attention to detail and the elegance of the furniture: there are two carpets on the floor, more paintings in gilt frames, wooden furniture along the walls, and a large table with a flower arrangement in the center. All lit with spotlights. Andrea feels like he’s in another era and another season; it doesn’t look like a home in the mountains and there's no summer heat. He expects some nobility to appear. Indeed, standing next to the table is Ian. And he’s watching them. Andrea gasps silently. "Here we are," says Carlotta. "We’re very sorry for making you wait, Count." "Don’t worry, Carlotta," he says politely, moving closer. Ian’s wearing a white top with a black satin jacket and pants, also satin, with a stripe down the side. It creates a strange Casual Count effect that both stuns and disturbs Andrea. Always ambiguous, Ian doesn’t seem to want to adapt to anything. Not even a normal style. Was he not sure whether to go for a stroll or to a party? Andrea feels his brain smoking so much that it must be on fire. "These inconveniences can happen." He smiles at her and she blushes to the point of melting. Her knees buckle and she touches her face, embarrassed. Typical! Andrea grunts. "Can you introduce your friend to me?" says Ian. "Of course. He’s the guy.....," she stops. "Nearest to our Maicol." Ian looks at him and pretends not to know him. Andrea does the same. "Exactly," says Carlotta.
”
”
Key Genius (Heart of flesh)
“
One way to conceptualize antigen drift is to think of a football player wearing a uniform with white pants, a green shirt, and a white helmet with a green V emblazoned on it. The immune system can recognize this uniform instantly and attack it. If the uniform changes slightly—if, for example, a green stripe is added to the white pants while everything else remains the same—the immune system will continue to recognize the virus with little difficulty. But if the uniform goes from green shirt and white pants to white shirt with green pants, the immune system may not recognize the virus so easily.
”
”
John M. Barry (The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History)
“
You got panties with flowers on them,” Hayley says, as she eyes the hip of my undies. She looks up at her dad. “Can I have some panties with flowers on them?” She pulls her pajama pants down at the waist and shows me hers. “Mine just have stripes.” I pull my shirt down over my hips. “What did I tell you about showing your panties to people?” Paul asks. She rolls her eyes at him. “Friday’s a girl,” she says. I bite back my snort because Paul isn’t laughing. I look at him over my shoulder, his eyes meet mine, and they go hot. And so do I. “I know she’s a girl.” His eyes roam up and down my back. “Most definitely a girl.” “We need to get you some waffles,” Hayley says to Paul. “Because you look hungry.” She says it very matter-of-factly, and I can’t keep from laughing this time. Paul shoots me a look of warning, and I throw my hands up. “What?” I cry. “I can’t help it.
”
”
Tammy Falkner (Proving Paul's Promise (The Reed Brothers, #5))
“
Rahul had been underwhelmed by the New Year's rituals of the rich. "Moronic," he had concluded. "Just people drinking and dancing and standing around acting stupid, like people here do every night."
"The hotel people get strange when they drink," he told his friends. "Last night at the end of the party, there was one hero-good-looking, stripes on his suit, expensive cloth. He was drunk, full tight, and he started stuffing bread into his pants pockets, jacket pockets. Then he put more rolls straight into his pants! Rolls fell on the floor and he was crawling under the table to get them. This one waiter was saying the guy must have been hungry, earlier- that whiskey brought back the memory. But when I get rich enough to be a guest at a big hotel, I'm not going to act like such a loser.
”
”
Katherine Boo (Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity)
“
Your heart holds great love for her.”
“Yes. Those terrible men-- She’s just a little girl. They’ve already had her for eight days. I can think of nothing else. Even in my sleep I dream about what could be happening to her, hear her calling for me. I try to find her, and I can’t.”
He grasped her chin, his touch deceptively gentle, as it had always been. “This night, you will sleep without dreams. I have said I will find her. Suvate, it is finished.”
With that, he left the lodge.
A few minutes later he returned. After donning a pair of buckskin pants, which he pulled on while still wearing his breechcloth, he gathered his weapons, making several trips outside to his horse. When he had collected everything he needed, he sat on a fur pallet, propped a small shaving mirror on his knees, and painted his face, outlining his eyes with black graphite and striping his chin thrice with crimson.
Loretta sat on the edge of the bed watching him. When he finished he glanced over at her. She was seeing Hunter the killer for the first time. On the one hand, he looked so fierce that he terrified her; on the other, she felt strangely reassured. Such a brutal, grimly determined man would be able to find and rescue Amy when another might fail.
“What does the paint say?” she asked.
“That this Comanche rides for war.”
“War?” she whispered.
“Santos will know by the paint that I come in anger.”
“Will there be a fight? Amy might get hurt.”
“Your Aye-mee will suffer no harm.” He rose and put away his paints, cleaning his hands on a swatch of cloth. Turning to face her, he said, “My brother, Warrior, and my good friend Swift Antelope will remain beside you. Their strong arms are yours.” He motioned for her to stand. “I take you to Warrior now. You will sleep in his lodge circle. No harm, eh?
”
”
Catherine Anderson (Comanche Moon (Comanche, #1))
“
I ran with him through the dark sweet-smelling cedars to the stripe of white road, and paused, panting, letting him soak up the light of the moon, letting him inflate with the excitement I felt at being alive.
”
”
Rick Bass (The Sky, The Stars, The Wilderness)
“
The next morning everybody was wearing the official school uniform. The boys had on light blue shirts, blue pants, and blue ties. The girls had on blue skirts with stripes on them. I looked like a dork. But everybody looked like a dork, so I didn’t feel so bad.
”
”
Dan Gutman (Dr. Carbles Is Losing His Marbles! (My Weird School, #19))
“
My personal hell is a place filled with loud, cocky, inked hipster—millennials. It’s a place where every guy looks like a member of Mumford & Sons, and all the women shun makeup. No, it isn’t Lollapalooza, nor an Arcade Fire concert. No, it isn’t some hipster independent coffee shop serving the latest trend in cold brewed coffee and a donut. No, not a craft cocktail lounge playing Daft Punk on vinyl while everyone sits on low striped cushions and corduroy couches wearing color schemes of pants and tops that make no sense.
I’ll give you a hint. A woman walked around wearing a t-shirt stating, “Data is the new bacon.” Excuse me, but fuck you, it is not!
Okay, fine. Last hint. All the Mumford & Sons dudes and non-makeup wearing inked millennials are wearing the exact same shirt.
Slap yourself if you get this wrong. My hell is the APPLE STORE!
”
”
Shelley Brown-Weird Girl Adventures from A to Z
“
My personal hell is a place filled with loud, cocky, inked hipster—millennials. It’s a place where every guy looks like a member of Mumford & Sons, and all the women shun makeup. No, it isn’t Lollapalooza, nor an Arcade Fire concert. No, it isn’t some hipster independent coffee shop serving the latest trend in cold brewed coffee and a donut. No, not a craft cocktail lounge playing Daft Punk on vinyl while everyone sits on low striped cushions and corduroy couches wearing color schemes of pants and tops that make no sense.
”
”
Shelley Brown (Weird Girl Adventures from A to Z)
“
Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. The cool kids of the 1960s invited the old man who had been cool before they knew cool was cool to join them in a musical romp that nobody took particularly seriously. Crosby enjoys himself. He has nothing at stake, since he’s not the star who has to carry the film. He’s very casual, and appears to be ad-libbing all his lines in the old Road tradition with a touch of W. C. Fields’s colorful vocabulary thrown in: “You gentlemen find my raiment repulsive?” he asks Sinatra and Martin when they object to his character’s lack of chic flash in clothing. Crosby plays a clever con man who disguises himself as square, and his outfits reflect a conservative vibe in the eyes of the cats who are looking him over. The inquiry leads into a number, “Style,” in which Sinatra and Martin put Crosby behind closet doors for a series of humorous outfit changes, to try to spruce him up. Crosby comes out in a plaid suit with knickers and then in yellow pants and an orange-striped shirt. Martin and Sinatra keep on singing—and hoping—while Crosby models a fez. He finally emerges with a straw hat, a cane, and a boutonniere in his tuxedo lapel, looking like a dude. In his own low-key way, taking his spot in the center, right between the other two, Crosby joins in the song and begins to take musical charge. Sinatra is clearly digging Crosby, the older man he always wanted to emulate.*17 Both Sinatra and Martin are perfectly willing to let Crosby be the focus. He’s earned it. He’s the original that the other two wanted to become. He was there when Sinatra and Martin were still kids. He’s Bing Crosby! The three men begin to do a kind of old man’s strut, singing and dancing perfectly together (“…his hat got a little more shiny…”). The audience is looking at the three dominant male singers of the era from 1940 to 1977. They’re having fun, showing everyone exactly not only what makes a pro, not only what makes a star, but what makes a legend. Three great talents, singing and dancing about style, which they’ve all clearly got plenty of: Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Dean Martin in Robin and the 7 Hoods
”
”
Jeanine Basinger (The Movie Musical!)
“
Slowly, Kate ran her hand up his bare chest and felt the thunder of his heart. He closed his eyes, visibly savoring her touch.
Her mesmerized gaze followed her hand as she inched a caress over the muscled swells of his chest, and lower, to his chiseled abdomen.
She heard his ragged exhalation. Then he gripped her forearm with a touch that would brook no denial and drew her silently into his cabin.
She thought again of refusing as he closed the door, but when she saw his thoroughly determined stare, she knew there was no point. She knew that look. The warrior. He was going to have her, and heaven help her, she wanted wholeheartedly to give in.
God, had she no pride? She was wet for him before he even touched her, lifting her chin softly with his fingertips. She closed her eyes, parted her lips, and surrendered in his feverish seduction.
The next thing she knew, she was in his arms, pinned against the wall. They were kissing roughly. She raked him with her nails, he nipped her with his teeth. She clutched his hair as he left her lips to ravish the curve of her neck, his hands working feverishly to wrench aside the bodice of her gown.
He dropped to his knees with an animal moan and proceeded to suck on her nipples like he would pleasure her for an eternity. Kate thrust the tip of her pinky between her teeth to keep from crying out.
Rohan was shaking as he rose again, freeing his rigid member from the placket of his black trousers. She skimmed her fingertips along his silken length, but his need overtook him. In no mood to play, he lifted her striped satin skirts. His breath was harsh and rasping by her ear, panting in the darkness.
He picked her up and leaned her back against the wall; she wrapped her arms and legs around him and buried her blushing face against his neck as he penetrated her.
The soft groan of sheer relief that escaped him once he was buried to the hilt inside her was the stuff of a harlot's dreams. Oh, to have the power to make him moan like that. It was beyond intoxicating. Perhaps he could corrupt her so she would just take his gold and his body and be content without his love. She caressed his powerful arms, and whispered, "Yes, I know what you need."
There was barely room to move, but the cabin was just large enough for what they had to accomplish. His athletic body grew damp with sweat as he made glorious use of her, heaving her up and down as if she weighed nothing, impaling her fast and vigorously on his mighty shaft.
The second she whimpered in pain when he went too deep and hurt her, he instantly slowed and withdrew a little, letting her set her feet on the wooden rail of the cot built into the opposite bulkhead.
Kate shivered, poised between pleasure and pain.
"Better?"
She nodded, her eyes closed, all of her awareness absorbed in him completely.
”
”
Gaelen Foley (My Dangerous Duke (Inferno Club, #2))
“
A hunting rifle had been leaning against the wall on the other side of their room and Alora already had the rifle expertly armed and pointed at the door. She fired. The man on her left wearing a dark, grey-striped suit fell to the floor. A second shot rang out, from behind the intruders, and the other business-suited man collapsed in the hallway. Both were dead. Now, other men in suit pants and dress shirts were suddenly all over the hallway and crowding into the bedroom which smelled of cordite. ‘You killed that guy,’ said Sinatra, lighting a cigarette. Her voice shaking Alora protested: ‘But they had guns. ‘They were coming to kill us.’ ‘Those weren’t guns,’ added Sinatra. ‘They were walkie-talkies.
”
”
Mike Rothmiller (Frank Sinatra and the Mafia Murders)