Suede Quotes

Because people should not be punished for loving and hoping and holding their hearts open.

It's a kilt, dumbass. It's only a skirt if I'm wearing underwear.

[...]Are both of you...?" "Manscaped?" Dante smiled. "I'm fucking Italian; I been mowing my lawn since I was thirteen.

If your heart is broken, do you have a phantom heart?

For the first time in his life he understood why the Bible called sex "knowing". Everything was different. Now he knew Dante. He'd known Dante. And wonder of wonders, Dante had known him right back.

You tell him for me: if he fucks with you, if he lays one Russian knuckle on you, your buddy is coming after him and someone's gonna need a screen door to fish out the pieces.

People need space; families need air; love needs light. Like Mrs. Anastagio always said, ―You need enough rooms to love someone properly.

You‘re my best friend. You‘re the only somebody I got.

Your life needs an airbag. I swear, Anastagio, you should have come equipped when you were born.

Just then Dante leaned against him, brow between his shoulder blades for a moment, so tentatively Griff held his breath. His voice was almost sheepish. “Nah. Everyone knows I was born defective. They didn’t instal you until later.

Hey, I like unicorns. Unicorns are just weaponized ponies.

Gotten butt-ass, bone-dog naked for your vadge-cam?" Dante offered with an angelic smile, standing close. "Fucking hell, D." Griff turned to Beth with an apology, but she spoke first. "Huh-yeah. Thanks, cockbreath.

Oh…man. She was dressed for love, as far as he was concerned: Flannel pajama bottoms with stars and moons on them. Little white T-shirt. Floppy suede moccasins.

Sometimes she wore Levi's with white-suede fringe sewn down the legs and a feathered Indian headdress, sometimes old fifties' taffeta dresses covered with poetry written in glitter, or dresses made of kids' sheets printed with pink piglets or Disney characters.

So damn jealous! Like I can see anyone but you.

Dante chuckled low. "There's my blush."

Everything was so nutty with Loretta, all her reactions. She used tantrums like most people used sedatives

Griff groaned and covered Dante's loose mouth with his own, driving his tongue in to steal the stars from his eyes, the fire from his mind.

I know the world hasn’t given you a lot of reasons to believe this, but just so you know, if you were mine, I’d never make you park the car because my shoes are suede. If you were mine, I’d carry you through the storm.

He knows everything.He's just so ridiculously well-read that it's ridiculous! You just sit there and you feel quite a worm in comparison.

A man is just a life support system for assumptions.

Some days you’re the cat. Some days you’re the brand-new, suede leather Barcalounger. —T-SHIRT

You can't lose what you never had, you cant keep what's not yours, and you can't hold on to something that doesn't want to stay.

It was the list of activities thing. Like the menu with price, only I'm not the restaurant; I'm the meal.

I'll take Classic 69 and semen-swapping for $300

No. Look, the mutual tug paid extra.” Dante mimed jerking and squirting without looking embarrassed, which only made Griff more embarrassed. “And the stuff you did at the end bumped our fee even—” “I know, man. Sorry about—” “—more. Bullshit, sorry! Blowing your jazz on me got us a three hundred dollar bonus. Didja know that?” Dante rolled his eyes and waved away the worry. “Dude, if I could get a fee every time you squirted on me, I’d camp under your bed and have you doing it three times a day.” Help me, Jesus. Griff’s eyes honest-to-God bugged at that.

Griff's pretty neat on his own. Scottish hedge!

Some guys just aren’t boyfriend material.” “Well, then, what kind of material are they? Suede?

He needed me to make it okay.

Trust this: drinking until you go away from the world only wastes moments of your life. All that time is lost. And time and love are incredibly precious. Yes? Don't waste either.

Evangeline's heart raced as she took her first step. During her search for the missing door, she'd read that the Prince of Hearts's church held a different aroma for everyone who visited. It was supposed to smell like a person's greatest heartbreak. But as Evangeline entered the cool cathedral, the air did not remind her of Luc - there were no hints of suede or vetiver. The dim mouth of the church was slightly sweet and metallic: apples and blood.

When I opened my case in the hotel, he gestured excitedly at my snakeskin sandals, turquoise suede wedges and silver-speckled jellies. “But you’ve loads of shoes,” he bellowed joyfully. I shook my head sadly. Men just don’t get it, do they? They’re definitely missing the shoe chromosome.

When I observe Gram, I see how fragile the notion of tradition can be. If I take my eyes off the way she kneads her Easter bread, or if I fail to study the way she sews a seam in suede, or if I lose the mental image I have of her when she negotiates a better deal with a button salesman, somehow, the very essence of her will be lost. When she goes, the responsibility for carrying on will fall to me. My mother says I’m the keeper of the flame, because I work here, and because I choose to live here. A flame is a very fragile thing, too, and there are times when I wonder if I’m the on who can keep it going.

Never make a permanent mistake to solve a temporary problem.

So tall and lithe in his suede and leather outfit. So utterly gorgeous it almost ached to look at him.

Pulling through is what people do around here. There is a kind of bravery in their lives that isn’t bravery at all. It is automatic, unflinching, a mix of man and machine, consuming and unquestionable obligation meeting illness move for move in a giant even-steven game of chess – an unending round of something that looks like shadowboxing, though between love and death, which is the shadow? “Everyone admires us for our courage,” says one man. “They have no idea what they’re talking about.” “Courage requires options,” the man adds. “There are options,” says a woman with a thick suede headband. “You could give up. You could fall apart.” “No you can’t. Nobody does. I’ve never seen it,” says the man. “Well, not really fall apart.

You entered, Abrupt like “Take it!”, Mauling suede gloves, you tarried, And said: “You know,- I’m soon getting married.” Get married then. It’s all right, I can handle it. You see - I’m calm, of course! Like the pulse Of a corpse. Remember? You used to say: “Jack London, Money, Love and ardour,”-- I saw one thing only: You were La Gioconda, Which had to be stolen! And someone stole you. Again in love, I shall start gambling, With fire illuminating the arch of my eyebrows. And why not? Sometimes, the homeless ramblers Will seek to find shelter in a burnt down house! You’re mocking me? “You’ve fewer emeralds of madness than a beggar kopecks, there’s no disproving this!” But remember Pompeii came to end thus When somebody teased Vesuvius! Hey! Gentlemen! You care for Sacrilege, Crime And war. But have you seen The frightening terror Of my face When It’s Perfectly calm? And I feel- “I” Is too small to fit me. Someone inside me is getting smothered.

The world is different, but folks are the same, huh?

The smile on her face was almost Dante's. Tears pricked his eyes, then hers, while all those impossible things passed between them. While the truth was sending down roots and throwing out branches until it filled the silent room with impossible blossoms. I love him.

The female guard in R&D explained that they had no women's street clothes, so she gave me the smallest pair of men's jeans they had, a green polo shirt, a windbreaker, and a cheap pair of fake-suede lace-up shoes with thin plastic soles. They also provided me with what she called "a gratuity": $28.30. I was ready for the outside world.

Culture has very much to do with the human spirit. What we find beautiful or entertaining or moving is rooted in our spiritual life.

There was a saying in Gilead: Let evil wait for the day on which it must fall.” “Uh-huh,” Eddie said. “There was a saying in Brooklyn: You can’t get snot off a suede jacket.

Because I love you!" There it was, out in the air. Griff's eyes got wide. The words had come out angry, but Dante had meant them. He couldn't open his perfect mouth and swallow them back. His face softened. "In love, I mean. With you. For so long.

Romance is the literature of hope.

In the convent, y'all, I tend the gardens, watch things grow, pray for the immortal soul of rock 'n' roll. They call me Sister Presley here, The Reverend Mother digs the way I move my hips just like my brother. Gregorian chant drifts out across the herbs Pascha nostrum immolatus est... I wear a simple habit, darkish hues, a wimple with a novice-sewn lace band, a rosary, a chain of keys, a pair of good and sturdy blue suede shoes. I think of it as Graceland here, a land of grace. It puts my trademark slow lopsided smile back on my face. Lawdy. I'm alive and well. Long time since I walked down Lonely Street towards Heartbreak Hotel. - Elvis's Twin Sister

Always be working on at least one thing you'd be jealous of.

I want you to move in with me, man." "Nah. I appreciate it, but I need to get a place of my own. I'm a grownup.

the runway style. With her short hair freshly died platinum blonde she had to slay the scene in a black Crooks and Castle snapback, diamond stud earrings, gold collar necklace, red Crooks and Castle sweatshirt, Cartier gold men’s watch, black leather leggings, Saint Laurent suede peep-toe lace-up booties and a extra sickening red $7750 VBH Brera ostrich satchel bag.

Griff held his breath while Dante's hand slid against the side of his soft bulge. He tried to remember that they were just two friends joking around on the corner in Brooklyn.(...) "Yeah. I coulda…you don't have to play undersea treasure hunt in my damn pants." "Gotta watch out for that electric eel." Dante closed his hand over the ring and winked and pulled his fist out.

glam rock and progressive pop, preferably British and often of the androgynous variety: David Bowie, Sparks, Mott the Hoople, Steve Harley, Marc Bolan, Small Faces, Roxy Music, with Suede as a contemporary bookend.

Strolling, keeping step, his stout polished well-made boots setting themselves down firmly beside her thin-soled black suede, they put off as long as they could the end of their moment together, and kept up as well as they could their small talk that flew back and forth over little grooves worn in the thin upper suface of the brain, things you could say and hear clink reassuringly at once without disturbing the radiance which played and darted about the simple and lovely miracle of being two persons named Adam and Miranda, twenty-four years old each, alive and on earth at the same moment: 'Are you in the mood for dancing, Miranda?' and 'I'm always in the mood for dancing, Adam!' but there were things in the way, the day that ended with dancing was a long way to go.

Love hurts. Think back over romance novels you’ve loved or the genre-defining books that drive our industry. The most unforgettable stories and characters spring from crushing opposition. What we remember about romance novels is the darkness that drives them. Three hundred pages of folks being happy together makes for a hefty sleeping pill, but three hundred pages of a couple finding a way to be happy in the face of impossible odds makes our hearts soar. In darkness, we are all alone. So don’t just make love, make anguish for your characters. As you structure a story, don’t satisfy your hero’s desires, thwart them. Make sure your solutions create new problems. Nurture your characters doubts and despair. Make them earn the happy ending they want, even better…make them deserve it. Delay and disappointment charge situations and validate character growth. Misery accompanies love. It’s no accident that many of the stories we think of as timeless romances in Western Literature are fiercely tragic: Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Cupid and Psyche… the pain in them drags us back again and again, hoping that this time we’ll find a way out of the dark. Only if you let your characters get lost will we get lost in them. And that, more than anything else, is what romance can and should do for its protagonists and its readers: lead us through the labyrinth, skirt the monstrous despair roaming its halls, and find our way into daylight.

Griff held his breath, waiting for it, knowing the axe would fall and he‘d start dying as soon as he walked out the fucking door, and Dante would just grin and joke and try to forget what they had done together in this room.

Ugh!" Rina shook her head. "Men are so fucking stubborn." "Only when they're right...." He shrugged. "Or wrong.

Somewhere high overhead on the other side of the freighter, metal ground against metal making a sound like angry mechanical whales fucking.

...and because atoms are so small, and are constantly being recycled, every breath you take contains atoms that were once breathed by Julius Caesar and Elvis Presley. So a little bit of you formerly ruled Rome, and sang, "Blue Suede Shoes".

You realize that running is something I only do on the treadmill while wearing my sneaks and running gear, correct?” She trots next to me, trying to keep up on feet that are clad in expensive suede boots with a heel as tall as my hand. I walk even faster. “Can’t hear you. Embarrassment is short-circuiting my nervous system.” “If embarrassment is causing your malfunction now, I’d love to know what it was that caused you to run across the quad.” As if she doesn’t know. Before I can respond, though, Tucker shows up on my right. “Where’s the fire?” he drawls. Hope grinds to a halt. “Thank God you caught up with us.” She runs a hand across her forehead in an exaggerated motion. “I’m not cut out for outdoor exertions.

It struck me that his innate elegance, the product of his character & bearing much more than of the handsome suit and the suede shoes, had been paid for by the surviving of a thousand unimaginable difficulties, each painful to a varying degree. Then I realized that what I meant by elegance was really dignity, that for the first time I had recognized actual dignity in another human being, and that dignity was nothing like the self-congratulatory superiority people usually mistook for it.

Your life needs an airbag. I swear, Anastagio, you should have come equipped when you were born.” Just then Dante leaned against him, brow between his shoulder blades for a moment, so tentatively Griff held his breath. His voice was almost sheepish. “Nah. Everyone knows I was born defective. They didn’t instal you until later.

Christmas Eve, 1955, Benny Profane, wearing black levis, suede jacket, sneakers and big cowboy hat, happened to pass through Norfolk, Virginia. Given to sentimental impulses, he thought he'd look in on the Sailor's Grave, his old tin can's tavern on East Main Street.

In observing the Sabbath, man was culturally structuring his time in accordance with a holy pattern. This was part of his cultural commision, along with the task of being an architect of space by tending the Garden. Space and time were thus consecrated by man's original culture.

Hey, Alek, you want us to, you know, weed-whack at all?" Dante tugged at his pubic hair. "Clip the curlies." "Uh, no. Our members prefer natural hair. Are both of you...?" "Manscaped?" Dante smiled. "I'm fucking Italian; I been mowing my lawn since I was thirteen. My brother taught me." Jesus. "I'm not." Griff's eyes bulged. He'd never thought about trimming down there. Dante gave his crotch a once over. "Griff's pretty neat on his own. Scottish hedge!

But what the world remembered was her beauty. She was not just beautiful like some people think of beautiful, for her beauty was not just for herself. It was the kind of beauty that didn't kill or isolate. She made everything and everyone that saw her or that she saw, touched or walked over want to live a little longer just from the hope of seeing her again. The world flowered and grew wherever she passed. When she brushed by them, wild orchids and lilies mutated into forms and colors never seen before. Even rocks would sparkle, split and crumble into smaller chunks, then grow their ecstatic fragments back into cliffs, defying time and geology, and all because they felt her sueded feet step upon them.

S’important to have old friends.” Silas wagged a finger. “They remember who you were before you made yourself up.

And Lord knows there are more than enough rooms to love someone properly, even if they don't all have floors or ceilings.

No one becomes a bestseller by tossing every other potential blockbuster on a bonfire and assassinating other authors.

Watching his cofarmer return to the cove, Runt had the strangest sensation: a kind of foreknowing, as if he and Ox were immortal and ancient in this alien place.

Two men, two friends curled in bed. The next few minutes would decide everything.

[Charles XII] seldom took a more active part in the council than to cross his legs upon the table.

I love that she's tough as nails one moment and soft as suede the next.

I trust Steph Curry to destroy everyone on a basketball court. Off the court, I trust him to destroy a cashmere turtleneck or a suede long coat and that’s about it.

Bravery usually looked stupid from the outside.

Whatsamatter?" Dante scraped a hand over his abs, his neck, the side of his face--collecting his jizz. He sucked his pleasure off his lower lip. "I gave myself a fuckin' necklace.

She was wearing something in purple suede that was too short for a skirt and too long for a belt.

I have enough brains, courage, and heart to make it, and while I’m not wearing ruby slippers, I might have had the power of Elvis’s blue suede shoes to click together. “There’s no place like Hollywood. There’s no place like Hollywood.

I don't want to be afraid," I tell him. The sheep nuzzles his face against my leg. Despite being a cartoon, he feels like suede. "Not wanting to be afraid always makes me more afraid," he says. "The trick, I think, is not to not want it.

And because there was that night when you called me at three in the morning to come get you, and then you made me promise not to laugh or say anything when you came out of a club wearing only pink suede chaps and a black thong. That’s why.

One day we are looking at the Magnum photograph of Sophia Loren at the Christian Dior show in Paris in 1968 and thinking yes, it could be me, I could wear that dress, I was in Paris that year; a blink of the eye later we are in one or another doctor's office being told what has already gone wrong, why we will never again wear the red suede sandals with the four-inch heels, never again wear the gold hoop earrings, the enameled beads, never now wear the dress Sophia Loren is wearing.

When I’m not with Trish, I go to the stores in the neighborhood to steal cute clothes for her. A tank top with a bedazzled Playboy bunny, a Von Dutch hat, bell-bottom jeans with suede ties on the front. I teach her how to steal so she can be self-sufficient and take better care of herself. The goal is to blend in with the private school girls. If people assume we’re rich, they won’t suspect us of stealing. I understand the power of appearance, and I see how rich people are regarded.

Trip cackled. “That’s so wrong!” “You laughed. If you laugh, then you think it’s true.” “Who said that?” “Everyone.” He huffed. “People laugh at the truth because if they didn’t laugh, they’d… I dunno. Cry or vomit.” Trip laughed loud and long at that.

Pop culture. Nobody does bullshit better than us. Right? China took over manufacturing. And the Middle East has us on fossil fuels. That's just geography and politics. We're a nation of whacko immigrants. Scavengers and con men. We crossed the ocean on faith, stole some land and stone-cold made up a whole country out of nothing but balls and bullshit. Superhero comics got invented by crazy genius Jews who showed up and revamped the refugee experience into a Man of Steel sent from Krypton with a secret identity.

She explained that she’d felt herself to be a child, she was a child, she was naïve, so young. And Jerome, aged thirty-six, had been a full-fledged adult. Having married Jerome when he was thirty-nine, I can attest that he was still in most ways a child, as he continues to be. At thirty-nine, the only dinner he could make was eggplant parmesan. He would ruin suede sneakers in the washing machine. He’d never registered to vote. I’m wary of the narrative that suggests men mature so slowly that they pair best with younger women; I just mean that Jerome in particular was not terribly grown-up in his thirties.

I picked up the butter-soft suede shirt and slacks and held them toward Martucci, but he bent over, grabbing at his stomach, and made it into the dark little cubicle in time to vomit into the toilet. He ran the small trickle of water in the sink over his hands, dabbed water on his face, then blotted himself on the rough paper towels. Within the next five minutes, he was dressed and deposited in the rear seat of my car between Haley and Finn. Vito, who had scared the living hell out of the hustler before giving him a kick in the ass out the hotel's side door, sat next to me as I drove. Vito was breathing heavily; it was the only sound in the car.

They call each other ‘E.’ Elvis picks wildflowers near the river and brings them to Emily. She explains half-rhymes to him. In heaven Emily wears her hair long, sports Levis and western blouses with rhinestones. Elvis is lean again, wears baggy trousers and T-shirts, a letterman’s jacket from Tupelo High. They take long walks and often hold hands. She prefers they remain just friends. Forever. Emily’s poems now contain naugahyde, Cadillacs, Electricity, jets, TV, Little Richard and Richard Nixon. The rock-a-billy rhythm makes her smile. Elvis likes himself with style. This afternoon he will play guitar and sing “I Taste A Liquor Never Brewed” to the tune of “Love Me Tender.” Emily will clap and harmonize. Alone in their cabins later, they’ll listen to the river and nap. They will not think of Amherst or Las Vegas. They know why God made them roommates. It’s because America was their hometown. It’s because God is a thing without feathers. It’s because God wears blue suede shoes.

I’d thought the guy last Thursday was super cute in complimenting my shoes until he confessed he liked to dress up in women’s clothes at the weekend and would like to see if my pink suede five-inch heels came in his size. Maybe I was being too picky, but I just didn’t want to fight with my boyfriend over who wore what when we went for dinner.

There's no way on God's green earth that I'm dressing up like Mr. Darcy." Brooks stretched out on Caroline's bed, hanging his suede wing tips off the edge and crossing his ankles. He laced his fingers behind his head and looked infuriatingly cool and relaxed. "Not Mr. Darcy. That's the guy from Pride and Prejudice. You're supposed to come as Mr. Knightley.

the challenge of living with popular culture may well be as serious for modern Christians as persecution and plagues were for the saints of earlier centuries.

When you can’t sleep, it’s because you’re awake in someone else’s dream.

Lord, what men don’t know is a lot.

LOVE IT! :) Yeah. They've been doing BIG billboards of this in the gayborhoods in NYC, LA and SanFran. Although I wouldn't fuck a Scientologist on a dare. 8|

SOMETIMES A plan is just a list of things that don’t happen. Ruben

Perhaps that was his way of punishing himself. Masochism. People torture themselves more terribly than anyone else could.

Dante climbed back on top of him, sitting on Griff's round butt to knead his shoulders. "I just wanna try. It'll be fine. No big deal. Maybe a massage first? Two dudes. That'd be okay right?" What was he asking? "And then, I want you" -Dante leaned forward, pressing his chest against Griff's muscular back, lips against his ear -"to fucking turn yourself loose on me.

Until our bodies are made new, like the body Jesus now enjoys, our calling is not to escape fleshly existence, nor to sanctify culture (since it is "common," shared by believer and unbeliever, and cannot be made holy), but to so influence our culture as to make it more consistent with the created nature of man, and to sanctify our own lives, because we are also living in the Spirit, with our minds set on things that are above.

And then, simply to humiliate me, the professor, a woman with longwaxy hair and crude silver jewelry, asked me how much I’d paid for myshoes. They were black suede stiletto boots, and they’d cost almost fivehundred dollars, one of many purchases I’d made to mitigate the pain ofhaving lost my parents, or whatever it was I was feeling. I could rememberall of this, each sniveling, pouty face in that classroom. One idiot said I was“broken by the male gaze.

Maybe a massage first? Two dudes. That’d be okay, right?” What was he asking? “And then, I want you”—Dante leaned forward, pressing his chest against Griff’s muscular back, lips against his ear—“to fucking turn yourself loose on me.

I missed you." A humorless laugh closed his eyes. When he opened them, the redness had turned them deep mossy green. "Sorry." Trip's own eyes welled up. "Not like, gosh-I-wonder-what-Trip-is-doing missed you. I meant I actually started to feel like I'd survived some horrible amputation and part of me had been hacked off and lost in a haunted warzone being gnawed by the walking dead. I missed you because you were missing. I actually spent weeks trying to imagine what you were doing at any given Moment... obsessing, really." He didn't wipe his wet cheeks. "Trip must be seeing the new Superman this weekend. I wonder if Trip's asleep. I wish I could swallow Trip's load right this second. Trip needs to stop and eat now, something not dyed or in plastic. I even went to watch the Big Dog office doors a couple of times, like the Little Match Queer, when I knew you had pages due, just to make sure, you were okay, but then you... I dunno: vanished.

But Walker, ah, there’s a very different kettle of shrimp. He’s high in the John Birch Society—” “Those Jew-hating fascists!” “—and I can see a day, not long hence, when he may run it. Once he has the confidence and approval of the other right-wing nut groups, he may even run for office again . . . but this time not for governor of Texas. I suspect he has his sights aimed higher. The Senate? Perhaps. Even the White House?” “That could never happen.” But Lee sounded unsure. “It’s unlikely to happen,” de Mohrenschildt corrected. “But never underestimate the American bourgeoisie’s capacity to embrace fascism under the name of populism. Or the power of television. Without TV, Kennedy would never have beaten Nixon.” “Kennedy and his iron fist,” Lee said. His approval of the current president seemed to have gone the way of blue suede shoes. “He won’t never rest as long as Fidel’s shitting in Batista’s commode.” “And never underestimate the terror white America feels at the idea of a society in which racial equality has become the law of the land.

After the first week, I worried that I would forget moments, and so I drew them. Everything I could think of, every angle. I dreamed about you. And I tried to capture you so I wouldn't lose a single second of a single moment, because what if I never got to have them again?

Alex took the train down from Boston on the appointed day. She wore a new navy blue dress and matching coat she had bought to wear to her graduation dinner in six weeks. And in case she was late and had to run through the station to make it in time, she had worn little flat black suede shoes, and she looked more than ever like a schoolgirl with her shining dark straight hair down her back, when she arrived at Rose’s office at two-thirty. She was very nervous and her eyes were huge, as she sat anxiously at the edge of a chair across from Rose’s desk.

But Emma resists all of Galen's reasonings, based on the fact that it doesn't "feel right." Speaking of things that don't feel right... He pulls his new SUV into her driveway, the excitement sloshing in his stomach like high tide. As he steps out, he notices how much he likes sliding down instead of hoisting himself up from a little compact death trap. He's almost glad Rayna tied the red car around a tree-except that she and Emma could have gotten hurt. He shakes his head, crunching across the gravel of Emma's driveway in his suede Timberlands. Even over that, he hears the thud of his heart. Is it faster than usual? He's never noticed it before, so he can't tell. Shrugging it off as paranoia, he knocks on the door then folds his hands in front of him. I shouldn't be doing this. This is wrong. She could still belong to Grom. But when Emma answers the door, everything seems right again. Her little purple dress makes the violet in her eyes jump out at him. "Sorry," she says. "Mom threw a fit when I tried to leave the house in jeans. She's old-school I guess. You know. 'Thou must dress up for the movies,' says the woman who doesn't even own a dress." "She did me a favor," he says, then shoves his hands in his pockets. More like she did me in.

She got out and shut the door without looking back, picking her way through the snow to the black wooden door in the college wall. At least she hadn’t told him not to follow. He watched as she carefully brushed the snow off the latch with her rolled umbrella before touching it with her suede gloves. She left the door half open behind her. He followed. When he reached the door he saw she had paused on the garden path leading to her hall and was doing something in the snow with the tip of her umbrella. Still not looking back, she moved on without waiting for him. When he reached the spot he saw that she had written ‘I love you’ in the snow. It was that night, he believed ever after, that she became pregnant.

All human creativity plays with patterns to create an emotional experience in its audience. We look for patterns and ascribe meaning because that is what we are wired to do. The inestimable Lisa Cron has written an entire book called Wired for Story that examines the direct link between brains and books, synapse and story—I cannot recommend it strenuously enough.

The sharpie uniform is perhaps the most unlikely fashion statement you will ever see, a Frankenstein’s monster of baby-doll plucked eyebrows, skinhead-meets-mullet hair, 1970s fat ties and just a hint of bovver boy. Clothes worn too tight and too small. Kerry had prepared a shopping list: • bluebird earrings • three-inch Mary Jane corkie platform shoes • treads (shoes made using recycled tyres for the sole with suede thonging for the upper) • Lee canvas jeans • beachcombers • short white bobby socks • ribbed tights • a short, flared, preferably panelled skirt • satin baggies • a striped Golden Breed t-shirt or a KrestKnit polo shirt • a tight coral necklace from the surf shop • a Conti brand striped cardigan • blue metallic eye shadow from a small pot or a crayon

She held up three hangers inside a vinyl garment bag and hooked them sideways on the coatrack to unzip. "Raw silk. Vintage. Sort of a purple-black." "Aubergine," he declared and cracked the opening wider. "I love a man who can make colors sound dirty." She grinned. "Cross-dyed." He wondered if Trip had helped pick this out, if he'd seen her model it and convinced her to splurge. "Great suit." "I gotta stand next to J.R. Ward. Feel me?" She fluttered her short nails at him. "Baby, I went and bought a pair of Givenchy boots I cannot even afford because the Warden is gonna be there in full effect, and you know what that means!" He didn't really, but he got the gist. "So you want nighttime for daytime." "Extra vampy, hold the trampy. Like, more Lust For Dracula than Breaking Dawn." Rina squeezed her shoulders together to amp her cleavage. "If I'm hauling the girls out, no way can I do sparkly anorexia.

When a brilliant critic and a beautiful woman (that’s my order of priorities, not necessarily those of the men who teach her) puts on black suede spike heels and a ruby mouth before asking an influential professor to be her thesis advisor, is she a slut? Or is she doing her duty to herself, in a clear-eyed appraisal of a hostile or indifferent milieu, by taking care to nourish her real gift under the protection of her incidental one? Does her hand shape the lipstick into a cupid’s bow in a gesture of free will? She doesn’t have to do it. That is the response the beauty myth would like a woman to have, because then the Other Woman is the enemy. Does she in fact have to do it? The aspiring woman does not have to do it if she has a choice. She will have a choice when a plethora of faculties in her field, headed by women and endowed by generations of female magnates and robber baronesses, open their gates to her; when multinational corporations led by women clamor for the skills of young female graduates; when there are other universities, with bronze busts of the heroines of half a millennium’s classical learning; when there are other research-funding boards maintained by the deep coffers provided by the revenues of female inventors, where half the chairs are held by women scientists. She’ll have a choice when her application is evaluated blind. Women will have the choice never to stoop, and will deserve the full censure for stooping, to consider what the demands on their “beauty” of a board of power might be, the minute they know they can count on their fair share: that 52 percent of the seats of the highest achievement are open to them. They will deserve the blame that they now get anyway only when they know that the best dream of their one life will not be forcibly compressed into an inverted pyramid, slammed up against a glass ceiling, shunted off into a stifling pink-collar ghetto, shoved back dead down a dead-end street.

On the way to the cake shop I kept stopping to shake the wet leaves off the soles of my brown suede Whistles boots. I bought them at Sue Ryder, the charity shop in Camden Town. [...] I know how to find good clothes in those places. First scan the rails for an awkward colour, anything that jumps out as being a bit ugly, like dirty mustard, salmon pink or olive green with a bit too much brown in it. A print with an unusual combination of colours – dark green and pink, bright orange and ultramarine – is also worth checking out. If the quality of the fabric is good, pull the garment out and check the label. Well-cut clothes can look misshapen on a hanger because they're cut to look good on the body. I'll buy a good piece if it fits, even if it doesn't sometimes. Even if it's not my style or has short sleeves, or I don't like the shape or the buttons. I learn to love it. I never tire of clothes I've bought that I've had to adjust to. It's the compromise, the awkward gap that has to be bridged that makes something, someone, lovable.

White was an old-style lawman. He had served in the Texas Rangers near the turn of the century, and he had spent much of his life roaming on horseback across the southwestern frontier, a Winchester rifle or a pearl-handled six-shooter in hand, tracking fugitives and murderers and stickup men. He was six feet four and had the sinewy limbs and the eerie composure of a gunslinger. Even when dressed in a stiff suit, like a door-to-door salesman, he seemed to have sprung from a mythic age. Years later, a bureau agent who had worked for White wrote that he was “as God-fearing as the mighty defenders of the Alamo,” adding, “He was an impressive sight in his large, suede Stetson, and a plumb-line running from head to heel would touch every part of the rear of his body. He had a majestic tread, as soft and silent as a cat. He talked like he looked and shot—right on target. He commanded the utmost in respect and scared the daylights out of young Easterners like me who looked upon him with a mixed feeling of reverence and fear, albeit if one looked intently enough into his steel-gray eyes he could see a kindly and understanding gleam.

Our first stop was London, where there were a few competitions leading up to Blackpool. I had never seen this level of competition before. I was so excited by the energy and the feeling of being around all these amazing dancers. I wasn’t overwhelmed, just a little embarrassed. Everyone looked so polished, and they all smelled like fancy cologne. Comparatively, I looked and felt like the poor kid on the block. I didn’t own the proper costume (white tie, black jacket, and black trousers), so I’d rented one from a wedding store before we left home. It was baggy in all the wrong places, and I didn’t have the right shoes. Watching the dancers get ready backstage, we realized we were also completely unprepared. They’d put water or castor oil on the floor and rub the soles of their shoes in it. Then they’d scratch the soles with a wire brush, roughening up the suede to prevent slipping. As we stepped out for the first round, Autumn spit in the middle of the dance floor and rubbed her feet in it. She encouraged me to do the same, so I did--hoping that not too many people were watching. I remember thinking, Yeah, we are definitely from out of town.

I landed on my side, my hip taking the brunt of the fall. It burned and stung from the hit, but I ignored it and struggled to sit up quickly. There really was no point in hurrying so no one would see. Everyone already saw A pair of jean-clad legs appeared before me, and my suitcase and all my other stuff was dropped nearby. "Whatcha doing down there?" Romeo drawled, his hands on his hips as he stared down at me with dancing blue eyes. "Making a snow angel," I quipped. I glanced down at my hands, which were covered with wet snow and bits of salt (to keep the pavement from getting icy). Clearly, ice wasn't required for me to fall. A small group of girls just "happened by", and by that I mean they'd been staring at Romeo with puppy dog eyes and giving me the stink eye. When I fell, they took it as an opportunity to descend like buzzards stalking the dead. Their leader was the girl who approached me the very first day I'd worn Romeo's hoodie around campus and told me he'd get bored. As they stalked closer, looking like clones from the movie Mean Girls, I caught the calculating look in her eyes. This wasn't going to be good. I pushed up off the ground so I wouldn't feel so vulnerable, but the new snow was slick and my hand slid right out from under me and I fell back again. Romeo was there immediately, the teasing light in his eyes gone as he slid his hand around my back and started to pull me up. "Careful, babe." he said gently. The girls were behind him so I knew he hadn't seen them approach. They stopped as one unit, and I braced myself for whatever their leader was about to say. She was wearing painted-on skinny jeans (I mean, really, how did she sit down and still breathe?) and some designer coat with a monogrammed scarf draped fashionably around her neck. Her boots were high-heeled, made of suede and laced up the back with contrasting ribbon. "Wow," she said, opening her perfectly painted pink lips. "I saw that from way over there. That sure looked like it hurt." She said it fairly amicably, but anyone who could see the twist to her mouth as she said it would know better. Romeo paused in lifting me to my feet. I felt his eyes on me. Then his lips thinned as he turned and looked over his shoulder. "Ladies," he said like he was greeting a group of welcomed friends. Annoyance prickled my stomach like tiny needles stabbing me. It's not that I wanted him to be rude, but did he have to sound so welcoming? "Romeo," Cruella DeBarbie (I don't know her real name, but this one fit) purred. "Haven't you grown bored of this clumsy mule yet?" Unable to stop myself, I gasped and jumped up to my feet. If she wanted to call me a mule, I'd show her just how much of an ass I could be. Romeo brought his arm out and stopped me from marching past. I collided into him, and if his fingers hadn't knowingly grabbed hold to steady me, I'd have fallen again. "Actually," Romeo said, his voice calm, "I am pretty bored." Three smirks were sent my way. What a bunch of idiots. "The view from where I'm standing sure leaves a lot to be desired." One by one, their eyes rounded when they realized the view he referenced was them. Without another word, he pivoted around and looked down at me, his gaze going soft. "No need to make snow angels, baby," he said loud enough for the slack-jawed buzzards to hear. "You already look like one standing here with all that snow in your hair." Before I could say a word, he picked me up and fastened his mouth to mine. My legs wound around his waist without thought, and I kissed him back as gentle snow fell against our faces.

This is weird for me, too, you know. It’s like, ever since I got that letter…” He hesitates. “Forget it.” “Just say it,” I say. “Ever since I got that letter, things have been messed up between us. It’s not fair. You got to say everything you wanted to say, and I’m the one who has to rearrange the way I think about you; I have to make sense of it in my head. You totally blindsided me, and then you just shut me out. You start dating Kavinsky, you stop being my friend.” He exhales. “Ever since I got your letter…I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.” Whatever I was expecting him to say, it wasn’t that. It definitely wasn’t that. “Josh…” “I know you don’t want to hear it, but just let me say what I need to say, okay?” I nod. “I hate that you’re with Kavinsky. I hate it. He’s not good enough for you. I’m sorry to say it, but he’s just not. In my opinion, no guy will ever be good enough for you. Least of all me.” Josh ducks his head, and then suddenly he looks up at me and says, “There was this one time, I guess it was a couple of summers ago. We were walking home from somebody’s house--I think it was Mike’s.” It was hot, around dusk. I was mad because Mike’s older brother Jimmy had said he’d give us a ride home, and then he went somewhere and didn’t come back, so we had to walk. I was wearing espadrilles and my feet were hurting something terrible. Josh kept telling me to keep up with him. Quietly he says, “It was just me and you. You had on that tan suede shirt you used to wear, with the straps, and it showed your belly button.” “My Pocahontas-meets-seventies-Cher-style shirt.” Oh, how I loved that shirt. “I almost kissed you that day. I thought about it. It was this weird impulse I had. I just wanted to see what it would be like.” My heart stops. “And then?” “And then I don’t know. I guess I forgot about it.” I let out a sigh. “I’m sorry you got that letter. You were never supposed to see that. It wasn’t meant for you to ever read. It was just for me.” “Maybe it was fate. Maybe this was all supposed to happen just like this, because…because it was always gonna be you and me.” I say the first thing that comes to mind. “No, it wasn’t.” And I realize it’s true. This is the moment I realize I don’t love him, that I haven’t for a while. That maybe I never did. Because he’s right there for the taking: I could kiss him again; I could make him mine. But I don’t want him. I want someone else. It feels strange to have spent so much time wishing for something, for someone, and then one day, suddenly, to just stop.

If our cultural lives are sick, it is likely to be an impediment to our spiritual lives. Much popular culture promotes a spirit of restlessness. That is likely to be an obstacle to prayer, to concerned reflection, and to attentiveness to the needs of others. Popular culture also has an extremely limited range of sensibilities. I have never heard a work of popular music that has the depth of poignancy of the opening bars of Brahms's 'German Requiem,' for example, with its text, 'Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.' I learn something about mourning when I hear Brahms; I know of no similar lessons in popular music.

I remember, one week, we all started playing strip poker. This is more like it, I thought. It wasn’t really even poker, but was more like: pick an ace and lose an item of clothing. I tried one night to rig the cards so that I could end up naked with Stephie, this girl I really fancied. I carefully counted out the cards and the aces, and rather unsubtly made sure I was sitting next to her, when we started playing. Annoyingly, she then swapped places when someone else came to join us and I ended naked next to Mick, embarrassed and self-conscious. (That will teach me to cheat.) Most of the time my attempts to get a girl fell pretty flat. In fact, whenever I really liked a girl I would always end up losing her to someone else, mainly because I found it so hard to make my feelings known and to pluck up the courage just to ask her out. I remember a friend coming down to the island to stay at the end of one summer, and within twenty-four hours he was in bed with the girl I had been chasing all holidays! I couldn’t believe it. What the hell did he have that I didn’t? I noticed that he wore these brown suede cowboy boots, so I went out and bought a secondhand pair, but I just looked stupid in them. To make matters worse, this friend then went on to describe to me in great detail what they had got up to in that bed. Aarrgh. It kind of summed up my attempts at womanizing.

The other evening, in that cafe-cabaret in the Rue de la Fontaine, where I had run aground with Tramsel and Jocard, who had taken me there to see that supposedly-fashionable singer... how could they fail to see that she was nothing but a corpse? Yes, beneath the sumptuous and heavy ballgown, which swaddled her and held her upright like a sentry-box of pink velvet trimmed and embroidered with gold - a coffin befitting the queen of Spain - there was a corpse! But the others, amused by her wan voice and her emaciated frame, found her quaint - more than that, quite 'droll'... Droll! that drab, soft and inconsistent epithet that everyone uses nowadays! The woman had, to be sure, a tiny carven head, and a kind of macabre prettiness within the furry heap of her opera-cloak. They studied her minutely, interested by the romance of her story: a petite bourgeoise thrown into the high life following the fad which had caught her up - and neither of them, nor anyone else besides in the whole of that room, had perceived what was immediately evident to my eyes. Placed flat on the white satin of her dress, the two hands of that singer were the two hands of a skeleton: two sets of knuckle-bones gloved in white suede. They might have been drawn by Albrecht Durer: the ten fingers of an evil dead woman, fitted at the ends of the two overlong and excessively thin arms of a mannequin... And while that room convulsed with laughter and thrilled with pleasure, greeting her buffoonery and her animal cries with a dolorous ovation, I became convinced that her hands no more belonged to her body than her body, with its excessively high shoulders, belonged to her head... The conviction filled me with such fear and sickness that I did not hear the singing of a living woman, but of some automaton pieced together from disparate odds and ends - or perhaps even worse, some dead woman hastily reconstructed from hospital remains: the macabre fantasy of some medical student, dreamed up on the benches of the lecture-hall... and that evening began, like some tale of Hoffmann, to turn into a vision of the lunatic asylum. Oh, how that Olympia of the concert-hall has hastened the progress of my malady!

But before you do that, inform your master that we have arrived.” “His master,” said a biting voice from a rear doorway, “is aware of that.” Elizabeth swung around at the scathing tone of Ian’s voice, and her fantasy of seeing him fall to his knees in remorse the moment he set eyes on her collapsed the instant she saw his face; it was as hard and forbidding as a granite sculpture. He did not bother to come forward but instead remained where he was, his shoulder propped negligently against the door frame, his arms folded across his chest, watching her through narrowed eyes. Until then Elizabeth had thought she remembered exactly what he looked like, but she hadn’t. Not really. His suede jacket clung to wide shoulders that were broader and more muscular than she’d remembered, and his thick hair was almost black. His face was one of leashed sensuality and arrogant handsomeness with its sculpted mouth and striking eyes, but now she noticed the cynicism in those golden eyes and the ruthless set of his jaw-things she’d obviously been too young and naïve to see before. Everything about him exuded brute strength, and that in turn made her feel even more helpless as she searched his features for some sign that this aloof, forbidding man had actually held and kissed her with seductive tenderness. “Have you had an edifying look at me, Countess?” he snapped, and before she could recover from the shock of that rude greeting his next words rendered her nearly speechless. “You are a remarkable young woman, Lady Cameron-you must possess the instincts of a bloodhound to track me here. Now that you’ve succeeded, there is the door. Use it.” Elizabeth’s momentary shock gave way to a sudden, almost uncontrollable burst of wrath. “I beg your pardon?” she said tightly. “You heard me.” “I was invited here.” “Of course you were,” Ian mocked, realizing in a flash of surprise that the letter he’d had from her uncle must not have been a prank, and that Julius Cameron had obviously decided to regard Ian’s lack of reply as willingness, which was nothing less than absurd and obnoxious. In the last months, since news of his wealth and his possible connection to the Duke of Stanhope had been made public, he’d become accustomed to being pursued by the same socialites who had once cut him. Normally he found it annoying; from Elizabeth Cameron he found it revolting.

The whole set of stylizations that are known as 'camp' (a word that I was hearing then for the first time) was, in 1926, self-explanatory. Women moved and gesticulated in this way. Homosexuals wished for obvious reasons to copy them. The strange thing about 'camp' is that it has become fossilized. The mannerisms have never changed. If I were now to see a woman sitting with her knees clamped together, one hand on her hip and the other lightly touching her back hair, I should think, 'Either she scored her last social triumph in 1926 or it is a man in drag.' Perhaps 'camp' is set in the 'twenties because after that differences between the sexes—especially visible differences—began to fade. This, of course, has never mattered to women in the least. They know they are women. To homosexuals, who must, with every breath they draw, with every step they take, demonstrate that they are feminine, it is frustrating. They look back in sorrow to that more formal era and try to re-live it. The whole structure of society was at that time much more rigid than it has ever been since, and in two main ways. The first of these was sexual. The short skirts, bobbed hair and flat chests that were in fashion were in fact symbols of immaturity. No one ever drew attention to this, presumably out of politeness. The word 'boyish' was used to describe the girls of that era. This epithet they accepted graciously. They knew that they looked nothing like boys. They also realized that it was meant to be a compliment. Manliness was all the rage. The men of the 'twenties searched themselves for vestiges of effeminacy as though for lice. They did not worry about their characters but about their hair and their clothes. Their predicament was that they must never be caught worrying about either. I once heard a slightly dandified friend of my brother say, 'People are always accusing me of taking care over my appearance.' The sexual meaning of behaviour was only sketchily understood, but the symbolism of clothes was recognized by everyone. To wear suede shoes was to be under suspicion. Anyone who had hair rather than bristle at the back of his neck was thought to be an artist, a foreigner or worse. A friend of mine who was young in the same decade as I says that, when he was introduced to an elderly gentleman as an artist, the gentleman said, 'Oh, I know this young man is an artist. The other day I saw him in the street in a brown jacket.' The other way in which society in the 'twenties was rigid was in its class distinctions. Doubtless to a sociologist there were many different strata merging here and there but, among the people that I was now getting to know, there were only two classes. They never mingled except in bed. There was 'them', who acted refined and spoke nice and whose people had pots of money, and there was 'us', who were the salt of the earth.

Some part of me still can’t quite believe I sleep here, wear £400 suede trainers, drive a James Bond car – a birthday present from Francesca. That I wake up every morning in this place, like some latter-day Lord of the Manor. I’m such a fucking fraud.

Evangeline’s heart raced as she took her first step. During her search for the missing door, she’d read that the Prince of Hearts’ church held a different aroma for everyone who visited. It was supposed to smell like a person’s greatest heartbreak. But as Evangeline entered the cool cathedral, the air did not remind her of Luc—there were no hints of suede or vetiver. The dim mouth of the church was slightly sweet and metallic: apples and blood.

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His first pair of shoes was a tiny pair of suede moccasins that his mother had bought for him; she wanted him to feel the earth under his feet. He collected rocks in an old fishing tackle box. His mother called him “Bear.

I’ve been trying to figure out what this disease is teaching me,” she says slowly. “About death?” “No. About life.” Win runs her hand over the couch, making the nap of the suede stand on end. “I mean, life is supposed to make us grow, right? To become better? If that’s the case, what is death going to do to me?

banned or unsellable anywhere else: cigars, suede shoes, peanuts, Barbies, bison jerky, busts of Lincoln and Churchill, sheepskin condoms, books by Garrison Keillor.

They just let silence dance her to the grave, But now, in the midst of those voices, I needed to have my own interpretation of the story. I need that something to make the picture really whole.

Trust this: drinking until you go away from the world only wastes moments of your life. All that time is lost. And time and love are incredibly precious. Yes? Don’t waste either.” “I know. IknowIknowIknowIknow….

I just get hammered every once in a while so I don’t have to feel anything. I’d rather be numb than feel everything all the time. Ache for him.” He fiddled with the pleats of his kilt and strangled on his cowardice. “A dangerous habit for someone so often in danger. What do they say on pills? Do not operate heavy machinery? Life is heavy machinery.

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With a pair of scissors in my pocket, a bottle of rum in my hand, and Martina, we walked towards Plaza Trippy to go to the alley behind it called Carrer de la Rosa. Martina didn't know what this was all about; I tried to make it a surprise. At the gate, I asked Martina to hold the scissors until I climbed up the wall of the building and cut off the sign. I never had the chance to tell her that I used to do indoor climbing. Just like Adam. It was so dusty and rusty, abandoned and old, that I got dirty. The sign was quite new, or at least it looked new, but it was dustier than I had thought - it must have been up there for years. I cut the zip ties on the four corners, holding the sign to the old metal railings and then I jumped down from the wall to jump into Martina's arms in the tight alley. We were laughing. We went up and left, and up and right a few blocks until we crossed Ferran Street, I think, and finally, I thought we were safe: let's take a picture of the sign and get rid of it. I didn’t want anyone to see us in front of the place or on the busy Carrer Escudellers taking a picture of the 'For Sale' sign. Only Martina knew that we were going to have a club and that it would be right there. I gave my iPhone to Martina to take a picture of me holding the sign. I was so happy. I had my new girlfriend, suddenly from the sky, and she seemed to be “The One”. Celestial. I was wearing my beige suede Adidas shoes with white sole which Sabrina had surprised me with a year earlier on my birthday, my dark green Globe pants, and my black Breach jacket, a black hoodie, smiling ear to ear while holding a dirty sign in front of a store's closed metal shutter decorated with graffiti. After throwing out the sign in the trash can with Martina, I sent Adam the picture. He replied late at night: „:DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD” Finally, it took a year to make Adam happy, even though Sabrina wouldn't let me make her happy. I got the place to make 'Aso Golan', the only place it could ever take place; to be one of the largest coffeeshops in Barcelona. I knew it would take another year to quickly fix up the place and pass the inspection before we could open it. I knew that in few years, we would be rich, looking back to the day I made my first order at the Sagrada Familia. Or the night we took off the FOR SALE sign with Martina.

A loud smack startles me and I pull back, but it doesn’t phase him. It was the book. He cast it to the floor so he could grasp my waist with firm fingers. He dives for my neck, layering searing kisses to my surging pulse. “I feel compelled to tell you that I hate you,” I breathe as he bites and sucks on my skin. I start tugging the collar of his jacket off. “Just like I hate your leather satchel and your hideous tweed jacket that looks like it came from the hipster reject pile. If I could feel secondhand embarrassment for anyone, I would feel it for you.” Kaplan’s dark laugh heats my skin as he nips my earlobe and a moan escapes my lips. “Good. I’ll wear it every fucking day. I’ll even sew suede patches on the elbows.

I’m scared, but also debating whether to try and whack her with my Chloé Paddington bag – thank goodness for the heavy padlock – and try to make a run for it in my gorgeous but impractical brown suede, five-inch Marc by Marc Jacobs boots. Luckily, I spy Obélix – lucky because my boots were made more for display purposes than running footwear. Obviously the crazy woman is wearing flat, sensible, Clarks-looking shoes in dependable black. Yuck. That’s not the point though. The point is she’d catch me in seconds and I’d probably damage my boots in the process.

You have a gift. Not just your talent, or smarts, or luck, or— He paused and closed his mouth, as if trying to slow his breathing. He poked Trip’s chest. Looks. You, Mr. Spector, have the cultural DNA and magical zip code to weave beautiful bullshit, and you’re a fool to waste it.

Trip Spector, don’t you put words in my mouth. You’re not a freak. You are a-lone. You been by yourself for so long, you expect everyone to play by rules you made up in your head and wrote in invisible ink.

Some stories don’t make movies. I mean superheroes, spies, serial killers… sure. But there’s some feelings you can’t put on a screen.

They aren’t heroes because you wave your big veiny wand. They’re heroes when they save the world from itself

Roppongi is an interzone, the land of gaijin bars, always up late. I’m waiting at a pedestrian crossing when I see her. She’s probably Australian, young and quite serviceably beautiful. She wears very expensive, very sheer black undergarments, and little else, save for some black outer layer—equally sheer, skintight, and micro-short—and some gold and diamonds to give potential clients the right idea. She steps past me, into four lanes of traffic, conversing on her phone in urgent Japanese. Traffic halts obediently for this triumphantly jaywalking gaijin in her black suede spikes. I watch her make the opposite curb, the brain-cancer deflector on her slender little phone swaying in counterpoint to her hips. When the light changes, I cross, and watch her high-five a bouncer who looks like Oddjob in a Paul Smith suit, his skinny lip beard razored with micrometer precision. There’s a flash of white as their palms meet. Folded paper. Junkie origami.

That's one of the most bewitching things about romance for me, as a reader and writer. Romances harbor hope for the reader. They create a direct emotional experience of certainty and potential to bridge the dark moments and help lead us into the light. No small wonder that romance is the source of all fictional genres and that romance continues to outsell every other form of human literary output. Hope is a magical thing, hard-won and easily snuffed. Anyone can point out ways for us to stay disappointed, compromised, and anxious, but opening anyone's eyes to possibilities helps them dream harder and reach further. Any book that can do that deserves a place on my shelves.

Ken Wharfe In 1987, Ken Wharfe was appointed a personal protection officer to Diana. In charge of the Princess’s around-the-clock security at home and abroad, in public and in private, Ken Wharfe became a close friend and loyal confidant who shared her most private moments. After Diana’s death, Inspector Wharfe was honored by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace and made a Member of the Victorian Order, a personal gift of the sovereign for his loyal service to her family. His book, Diana: Closely Guarded Secret, is a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller. He is a regular contributor with the BBC, ITN, Sky News, NBC, CBS, and CNN, participating in numerous outside broadcasts and documentaries for BBC--Newsnight, Channel 4 News, Channel 5 News, News 24, and GMTV. And so, early one morning less than a week later, we left Kensington Palace and drove to the Sandbanks ferry at Poole in an ordinary saloon car. As we gazed at the coastline from the shabby viewing deck of the vintage chain ferry, Diana’s excitement was obvious, yet not one of the other passengers recognized her. But then, no one would have expected the most photographed woman in the world to be aboard the Studland chain ferry on a sunny spring morning in May. As the ferry docked after its short journey, we climbed back into the car and then, once the ramp had been lowered, drove off in a line of cars and service trucks heading for Studland and Swanage. Diana was driving, and I asked her to stop in a sand-covered area about half a mile from the ferry landing point. We left the car and walked a short distance across a wooded bridge that spanned a reed bed to the deserted beach of Shell Bay. Her simple pleasure at being somewhere with no one, apart from me, knowing her whereabouts was touching to see. Diana looked out toward the Isle of Wight, anxious by now to set off on her walk to the Old Harry Rocks at the western extremity of Studland Bay. I gave her a personal two-way radio and a sketch map of the shoreline she could expect to see, indicating a landmark near some beach huts at the far end of the bay, a tavern or pub, called the Bankes Arms, where I would meet her. She set off at once, a tall figure clad in a pair of blue denim jeans, a dark-blue suede jacket, and a soft scarf wrapped loosely around her face to protect her from the chilling, easterly spring wind. I stood and watched as she slowly dwindled in the distance, her head held high, alone apart from busy oyster catchers that followed her along the water’s edge. It was a strange sensation watching her walking away by herself, with no bodyguards following at a discreet distance. What were my responsibilities here? I kept thinking. Yet I knew this area well, and not once did I feel uneasy. I had made this decision--not one of my colleagues knew. Senior officers at Scotland Yard would most certainly have boycotted the idea had I been foolish enough to give them advance notice of what the Princess and I were up to.

Ken Wharfe In 1987, Ken Wharfe was appointed a personal protection officer to Diana. In charge of the Princess’s around-the-clock security at home and abroad, in public and in private, Ken Wharfe became a close friend and loyal confidant who shared her most private moments. After Diana’s death, Inspector Wharfe was honored by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace and made a Member of the Victorian Order, a personal gift of the sovereign for his loyal service to her family. His book, Diana: Closely Guarded Secret, is a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller. He is a regular contributor with the BBC, ITN, Sky News, NBC, CBS, and CNN, participating in numerous outside broadcasts and documentaries for BBC--Newsnight, Channel 4 News, Channel 5 News, News 24, and GMTV. Diana looked out toward the Isle of Wight, anxious by now to set off on her walk to the Old Harry Rocks at the western extremity of Studland Bay. I gave her a personal two-way radio and a sketch map of the shoreline she could expect to see, indicating a landmark near some beach huts at the far end of the bay, a tavern or pub, called the Bankes Arms, where I would meet her. She set off at once, a tall figure clad in a pair of blue denim jeans, a dark-blue suede jacket, and a soft scarf wrapped loosely around her face to protect her from the chilling, easterly spring wind. I stood and watched as she slowly dwindled in the distance, her head held high, alone apart from busy oyster catchers that followed her along the water’s edge.

What’s the opposite of homesick? Whatever it was, he was.

Oz had arranged rows of folding chairs for the women facing one of the soft suede couches where he had placed himself and Kermit. “Big mistake,” Oz later told me. “The sofa was about a foot and a half lower than the chairs and now Kermit and I are looking up at forty-seven women—our knees under our chins.

How does he even want me? Ruben

But first a description: Clara Bowden was beautiful in all senses except maybe, by virtue of being black, the classical. Clara Bowden was magnificently tall, black as ebony and crushed sable, with hair plaited in a horseshoe which pointed up when she felt lucky, down when she didn’t. At this moment it was up. It is hard to know whether that was significant. She needed no bra – she was independent, even of gravity – she wore a red halterneck which stopped below her bust, underneath which she wore her belly button (beautifully) and underneath that some very tight yellow jeans. At the end of it all were some strappy heels of a light brown suede, and she came striding down the stairs on them like some kind of vision or, as it seemed to Archie as he turned to observe her, like a reared-up thoroughbred. Now, as Archie understood it, in movies and the like it is common for someone to be so striking that when they walk down the stairs the crowd goes silent. In life he had never seen it. But it happened with Clara Bowden. She walked down the stairs in slow motion, surrounded by afterglow and fuzzy lighting. And not only was she the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, she was also the most comforting woman he had ever met. Her beauty was not a sharp, cold commodity. She smelt musty, womanly, like a bundle of your favorite clothes. Though she was disorganized physically – legs and arms speaking a slightly different dialect from her central nervous system – even her gangly demeanour seemed to Archie exceptionally elegant. She wore her sexuality with an older woman’s ease, and not (as with most of the girls Archie had run with in the past) like an awkward purse, never knowing how to hold it, where to hang it or when to just put it down. ‘Cheer up, bwoy,’ she said in a lilting Caribbean accent that reminded Archie of That Jamaican Cricketer, ‘it might never happen.’ ‘I think it already has.’ Archie, who had just dropped a fag from his mouth which has been burning itself to death anyway, saw Clara quickly tread it underfoot. She gave him a wide grin that revealed possibly her one imperfection. A complete lack of teeth in the top of her mouth. ‘Man…dey get knock out,’ she lisped, seeing his surprise. ‘But I tink to myself: come de end of de world, d’Lord won’t mind if I have no toofs.’ She laughed softly.

He didn’t know what to do with his hands as he looked down at the sleeping general. Arin thrust them into his pockets before they went for the throat. He reminded himself why he had come. He ripped open the man’s jacket. Arin reached for the inside breast pocket, located exactly where the man had tried to touch his chest as he had lain bleeding on the road. Arin’s fingers met paper. He pulled it out, its texture suede-soft from having been handled so much. It had been unfolded and folded many times. It was sheet music. At first, Arin didn’t understand what he looked at. Kestrel’s handwriting. Herrani script. Musical notation in crisp black. His own name leaped off the page. Dear Arin. Then he recognized the music as the sonata Kestrel had been studying when he’d entered her music room at the imperial palace in late spring. It had been the last time he’d seen her before the tundra. He had thought it would be the last time he would ever see her. Arin hastened from the tent. He couldn’t read the letter here. But he didn’t know if he could read it anywhere, if any place would be private enough, because being alone meant he’d still be with himself, and he hated to remember how he’d left Kestrel that day, and what had befallen her after. He was desperate to read it. He couldn’t bear to read it. He resented that her father had kept it. He wondered what it meant that her father had kept it. Arin was only vaguely aware of having stumbled through the noisy camp and into the woods. The thought of reading the letter felt like a violation, like he’d be reading a letter meant for someone else. Yet it had been addressed to him. Dear Arin. Arin read.

Patch, we only fall in love to find out just exactly how much we can tolerate.” Patch

It was Evan. He leaned against the door frame, his hands in his pockets. He was wearing distressed khakis, a white T-shirt, and a perfectly broken-in brown suede car coat. “Hey,” he said. Holy Abercrombie catalog, Megan thought.

He shimmered in the mirrors. An infinite number of Adrians in beige corduroy trousers and plum-colored turtlenecks and brown suede jackets. An infinite number of dirty toenails in an infinite number of Indian sandals. An infinite number of meerschaum pipes between his beautiful curling lips. My zipless fuck? My man under the bed! Multiplied like the lovers in Last Year at Marienbad. Multiplied like Andy Warhol’s self-portraits. Multiplied like the Thousand and One Buddhas in the Temple at Kyoto. (Each Buddha has six arms, each arm has an extra eye … how many pricks did these millions of Adrians have? And each prick symbolizing the infinite wisdom and infinite compassion of God?)

sinking ankle deep in something cold and wet. Thinking of the five-hundred-dollar cinnamon suede boots she had lusted after for months and finally bought with a gift card from her dad, she whimpered.

There were crooked photos on the wall of Della Lee as a child, with dark hair and eyes. Josey wondered when she started dyeing her hair blond. In one photo she was standing on top of a jungle gym. In another she was diving into the public pool from the high dive. She looked like she was daring the world to hurt her. Della Lee's bedroom at the end of the hall looked like something out of Josey's teenage dreams. Back then Josey had politely asked her mother if she could hang a poster or two, if she could have some colorful curtains or a bedspread with hearts on it. Her mother had responded with disappointment. Why would Josey ask for something else, as if what she had wasn't good enough? The heavy oak bed, the antique desk and the sueded chaise in Josey's room were all Very Nice Things. Josey obviously did not appreciate Very Nice Things. The walls in Della Lee's room were painted purple and there were sheet lavender curtains on the single window. A poster of a white Himalayan cat was taped on one wall, along with some pages torn out of fashion magazines. There was a white mirrored dresser that had makeup tubes and bottles littered across the surface. Some tote bags with names of cosmetic companies, like department store gifts with purchase, were stashed in the corner near the dresser.

Her legs didn’t want to cooperate as she forced herself out of the car, sinking ankle deep in something cold and wet. Thinking of the five-hundred-dollar cinnamon suede boots she had lusted after for months and finally bought with a gift card from her dad, she whimpered.

I smashed into the town moose, my whole face is swollen, I lost my suede boots and the car is demolished.

I bent over to give my hair another shake, and glanced at my boots, along with the several dozen roaches climbing up them. Then I felt them inside the boots, between the suede and the naked skin of my calves. I

Michael Caine once told me that John Wayne had advised him never to wear suede shoes. Apparently Wayne once did and was standing in a pissoir when someone next to him looked over and said, ‘My God! It’s John Wayne!’ and, as he turned to face the Duke, peed all over his suedes.

His brown toes sank into the sixteen thousand dollar Agra rug. His jeans hung like seaweed from the Philippe Starck valet. His stubble scraped the eight-hundred-dollar pillowcase.

like a schizophrenic with an MBA.

She felt in need of protection. She pictured the suits of armour in the Castle, and thought: my armour is of the twenty-first century variety. Claudia Sträter silk jacket and skirt, Kyrie Eleison suede boots.

Her outfit must have penetrated his unconscious. She wore a shirt of softly fringed suede that clung to her breasts like an unforgiven sin.

I have to leave or I’ll cry or I’ll hit him or I’ll lose control and he’ll see exactly what I am: an open drain that leads into a sewer.

is this the roleplay where you sit around a table pretending to be an elf, or the roleplay where you go to the woods and actually dress up like an elf?” Terry balked at the oversimplification. “Actually, it’s a lot more nuanced than that.” Nat swivelled in her chair to find him wearing cotton stockings, a suede harlequin patch tunic and a pair of pointy rubber ear tips poking from his mess of curly brown hair. “Jesus wept,” she responded, understandably. “What’s the matter? Is it my bow?” He unhooked a plastic shortbow from his shoulder and drew back the string. “It might not look like much but let me tell you, I’ve cut down armies with this bad boy.” “Is that right?” “Yeah, I call him Widowmaker.” “And how did your wife die exactly? From shame?” “That’s not why it’s called—” Terry started, then sagged his shoulders. “You’re mean.” Nat

Trust this: drinking until you go away from the world only wastes moments of your life. All that time is lost. And time and love are incredibly precious. Yes? Don’t waste either.” “I

Somewhere else they'd have been in college, but out here they probably had grandkids.

She decided to start them off with a Sweet Corn Bisque with Crab "Souffle." The pureed texture of this deeply penetrating soup gave it a rich, suede-smooth mouth-feel, and the stack of jumbo lump crabmeat mounded in the center, warm and bound together with a whisper of mayonnaise and coriander, told someone immediately that you were excited they came. The main course would be center-cut Filet Mignon in a Grand Marnier Reduction, with Chestnut Mashed Potatoes and Green Beans Amandine. Romantic encounters had been preceded by bold yet classically inspired meals like this since Casanova's day. She advised Pettibone in no uncertain terms that the steaks needed to be done just to the brink of medium-rare, then finished with butter and allowed to carry-over cook their last five minutes for the best results. Dessert would be a delicate Flan with Sauternes Caramel, a velvety, infused custard that finished with a rapturous, dulcet swirl of caramel on the tongue.

intrinsically vulgar, depraved, or morbid. That’s as may be. “Using” is inferior to “reception” because art, if used rather than received, merely facilitates, brightens, relieves or palliates our life, and does not add to it.7

Characters are not people or things, they are forces…arcs of transformation caused by high-stakes choices.

You've the beat of a dancer to a measure or harmonious rush of a porpoise at the prow where the racers all win easily— like centaurs' legs in tune, as when kettledrums compete; nose rigid and suede nostrils spread, a light left hand on the rein, till well—this is a rhapsody.

blue suede shoes

We dance. Sweet, downcast, through-the-lashes-glances bely every beating she got at thirteen, every lash of the tongue from her dad at fourteen, every heroin high that let her out for awhile, every hour and day she had to be tough. She is so natural and soft. Her shoulders are down, hips loose and swinging as we close together. I swear I'm growing chest hair just looking at her. I've been a boy in public before, but I've never seen her like this. That's it exactly; I haven't seen her at all, except in glimpses, in half-confessional role-play sex. And here she is - pressed tight against my chest, hips grinding against my crotch to the bass bump of the music. Her thigh along mine is electric heaven. Two drag queens cannot decide whether we are breeders or in drag. I stroke my mascara-made mustache at them - but none of it matters with hands in suede and the way she smiles.

As the gay friend in these situations, he always ended up in the corner holding someone’s purse.

Griff kept walking, keeping his damp ramrod aimed away.

Since when do you wear the clothes from the wrong side of your closet to work? If you’ve told me once, you’ve told me a million times,” and she air quotes, “‘My work clothes are on the left and my play clothes are on the right.’ And, Aerie, I know that purple suede dress is from the right side.

Positivity" You say what you want to say Your diamonds are drops of rain Your smile is your credit card And your currency is your love [Chorus] And the morning is for you And the air is free And the birds sing for you And your positivity So you play where you want to play On the main streets where the creeps all pray And you can feel like you're in dynasty And you can be what you want to be [Chorus] And the car crash for you And the sunshine is free And the sirens call you Yes the morning is for you Yes the air is free And yes the world spins for you And your positivity

All the colours in the rainbow don't compare, With one look in your impossible eyes, And I walked into the trap with my eyes wide shut, But I never knew what it would be like. All the plans were made, In the wooded glade, Where your body was split wide open, And I count to ten, As the race begins, Round your hairpin bends. Sometimes I feel I'll float away, Sometimes I feel I'll float away, Sometimes I feel I'll float away, Without you to hold me. I can't count the times I forgot my lines, And you pretended that you didn't know, Let me take you through each stage of the male mistake, And we'll adopt our natural roles. And I need you more, Than you need to be needed, So I sign my will one stab at a time, And I count to ten, As the race begins, Round your hairpin bends. Sometimes I feel I'll float away, Sometimes I feel I'll float away, Sometimes I feel I'll float away, Without you to hold me. Sometimes I feel I'll float away, Sometimes I feel I'll float away, Sometimes I feel I'll float away, Without you to hold me. Away, away, away, away ".

of my jacket pocket. By this point, with my full workday and tonight’s party of all parties to plan, I was more surprised when it wasn’t going off. A sound, deafening even by midtown Manhattan standards, hammered into my ears as I made the corner. Was it a jackhammer? A construction pile driver? Of course not, I thought, as I spotted a black kid squatting on the sidewalk, playing drums on an empty Spackle bucket. Luckily, I also spotted my lunch appointment, Aidan Beck, at the edge of the crowded street performance. Without preamble, I hooked elbows with the fair, scruffily handsome young man and pulled him into the chic Hudson. At the top of the neon-lit escalator, a concierge who looked like one of the happy, shiny cast members of High School Musical smiled from behind the Carrara marble check-in desk. “Hi. I called twenty minutes ago,” I said. “I’m Mrs. Smith. This is Mr. Smith. We’d like a room with a large double bed. The floor or view doesn’t matter. I’m paying cash. I’m really in a rush.” The clerk took in my sweating face and the contrast between my sexy office attire and my much younger companion’s faded jeans and suede jacket with seeming approval. “Let’s get you to your room, then,” the über-happy concierge said without missing a beat.

Awww, G….

Whatsamatter?” Dante scraped a hand over his abs, his neck, the side of his face—collecting his jizz. He sucked his pleasure off his lower lip. “I gave myself a fuckin’ necklace.

Paulie’s sock….” Dante shrugged one shoulder, his mouth hooked in confusion. “Hell, I just ate mine.

Eating it’s way easier. Good for you.” Man down! Man down!

Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease….

Somewhere down below their waists, Dante was fumbling with his jeans, unzipping them and jamming them down to his knees.

Trouble is, finding a girl is still a tricky situation, like choosing a hat." He flips off his hat and sweeps a finger along the edge of the brim. "Like, maybe you've had your eye on a fine-looking French number, but when it finally falls onto your head, it loses its appeal... Or maybe you've been told all your life that bison felts are the only hats worth wearing. And when something different comes along, say alligator suede, even though it's the most worthy thing you've seen in your life, you might leave it in the window"--he taps his chin--"until you realize no other hat will fit just right.

You can't lose what you never had, you can't keep what's not yours, and you can't hold on to something that doesn't want to stay

Dante would show up in church wearing a suit with no underwear, nudging Griff in the ribs and pointing to the little sprouts poking through the ashes of his shitty life. He

Griff felt like he was going to die of blushing.

Elvis starts to sing “Viva Las Vegas” as Sam and I walk side by side down the aisle. I cover my mouth and laugh. “I want you to repeat after me, Sam,” Elvis says. He lifts one corner of his lip in that classic snarl. “I, Sam, promise you, Peck, never to step on your blue suede shoes. I promise never to leave you at Heartbreak Hotel. I promise to be your hunka-hunka burning love, forever and ever, amen.” “Wait,” Sam says. “That’s Randy Travis. Not Elvis.” “Close enough,” Elvis says. Sam rolls his hips like Elvis did when he repeats the words. I can’t stop laughing. I laugh so hard that I have to wipe tears from my eyes. But I don’t feel bad, because Emily is doing the same thing. And the rest of the brothers and their wives are laughing it up too. “Now you, Peck,” Elvis says. He swivels his hips and someone does a rim shot on a set of drums. “I, Peck, solemnly swear to love you tender for the rest of my life, and never leave you with a suspicious mind.” I

Elvis starts to sing “Viva Las Vegas” as Sam and I walk side by side down the aisle. I cover my mouth and laugh. “I want you to repeat after me, Sam,” Elvis says. He lifts one corner of his lip in that classic snarl. “I, Sam, promise you, Peck, never to step on your blue suede shoes. I promise never to leave you at Heartbreak Hotel. I promise to be your hunka-hunka burning love, forever and ever, amen.” “Wait,” Sam says. “That’s Randy Travis. Not Elvis.” “Close enough,” Elvis says. Sam rolls his hips like Elvis did when he repeats the words. I can’t stop laughing. I laugh so hard that I have to wipe tears from my eyes. But I don’t feel bad, because Emily is doing the same thing. And the rest of the brothers and their wives are laughing it up too. “Now you, Peck,” Elvis says. He swivels his hips and someone does a rim shot on a set of drums. “I, Peck, solemnly swear to love you tender for the rest of my life, and never leave you with a suspicious mind.” I repeat the words. I barely stutter, and it warms my heart when I realize that. Suddenly, Elvis gets serious. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today…” Sam’s eyes meet mine, and he takes my hands. I pass my flowers to one of my sisters and look up at him. We recite the official vows, and I have to blink hard to get through them, particularly when I look at the TV screen and see Marta crying into her handkerchief. “Who gives this woman to be married?” Elvis asks. Emilio’s voice rings out. “Her mother and I.” This time, a hot tear tracks down my cheek and Sam very gently wipes it away. “You okay?” he whispers. “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” Elvis declares. “Now let’s have a little less conversation and a really big kiss.” He swivels his hips again and I laugh through my tears. Sam

I show two drawings, of eyes open and then eyes closed, you may think, “She fell asleep.” If I reverse the order, you could say, “She woke up.” The drawings didn’t change, but the context did. Most action in a comic page takes place in its gutters, between the panels. Given a context and a set of criteria, our minds fill in the gaps. Film uses similar gaps, using individual frames to trick our minds into seeing the illusion of movement by splicing a series of stills together or cutting from scene to scene to get to the action. Our imaginations fill in the missing bits.

paradox of human evolution in a nutshell: risk-takers who need certainty.

A story only succeeds to the extent that internal conflict becomes external action and external conflict creates internal action

In the words of acting teacher Sanford Meisner, “That which hinders your task is your task.

this sequence is most likely the root of the Rule of Threes in rhetoric and narratives. Feel that fact.

Koster argues that all entertainment identifies and explores patterns to attract and reward attention.

Her suede jacket was unbuttoned to reveal a pair of grimy breasts, but her hair was elaborately wound into a mass of rollers, as if she were preparing parts of her body for some formal gala to which the rest of herself had not been invited.

George Orwell argued that there are many prejudices we can get over, but smell repulsion is one of the most difficult. By turns frisky and indolent, Jicky by Guerlain has the personality of a cat. Mitsouko by Guerlain is as delicate as spiced tea with a drop of milk. Habanita by Molinard signifies comfort - like being stuck in a cafe in Paris on a cold day, comfortably trapped in a room filled with cigarette smoke, an old lady violet-scented dusting powder and the aroma of buttery baked goods. L'Aimant by Coty is warm and sweet, like cut plums sauteed in butter and brandy and sprinkled with candied violets. Femme by Rochas smells like the inside of a woman's butter-soft suede purse that has accumulated the feminine smells of perfume, lipstick and other womanly objects. This classic fruit chypre smells like softness. Caleche by Hermes is like red lipstick for the outdoorsy aristocrat who can't otherwise be bothered to wear makeup. Caleche is a perfume for the woman who doesn't have to try too hard. It's the epitome of Parisian chic, reserved, elegant and well thought out without being fussy.

I can’t believe this day is still happening,” Gabriel murmured, sinking further into the suede couch. “I keep thinking it’s finally over...then we end up driving someplace else.

It was supposed to smell like a person’s greatest heartbreak. But as Evangeline entered the cool cathedral, the air did not remind her of Luc—there were no hints of suede or vetiver. The dim mouth of the church was slightly sweet and metallic: apples and blood.

I saw, not so much a culture of pathology, as a culture fitted for a pathological world. To fight, stab, or shoot over respect seemed ridiculous to those who already had the society's respect. But all the boys and young men of my youth were keenly aware of how little they owned, how little of their lives they actually controlled. And so some of them made their stand on the scuff mark on their suede Pumas, on the trespassing of some corner, on the hard looks of strangers. "I ain't no punk," was the motto then, and the motto was adopted by those who knew what they were not but had no power to declare what they were.

Now personalized your suede slippers with your logo, name or date and many more ways. We make suede slippers in all sizes or in any customize size as per requirement. We also embroidered logo for a premium look!

His black chino pants were tight and pegged so small at the bottom he must have had zippers inside the little cuffs that hugged his black suede desert boots. The

Oh yeah, and how do I know that? Because from where I stand, if you hadn’t stepped in, I think he might have.” He laughed. “Damien doesn’t even know what he’s doing. He spiked your drink because he was nervous—why do you think he backed down so easily?” “So that makes it all okay, does it?” I snapped. “Because he was too nervous to get laid for the first time the simple, safe way? That’s petty and sick...” Then something occurred to me. “But why me?” Brett dropped his gaze to his tan suede hiking boots. He paused and tapped a toe against the linoleum. “Brett?” I snapped, knowing he was keeping something from me. “I may have suggested he talk to you,” he murmured. “What? Oh for fuck’s sake!” “Damien wouldn’t have hurt you, Colt.

They took they hit the cobblestone streets to look at churches, with Isabella wearing suede Manolos. "She's breaking her legs and I tell her it's just ridiculous and that she had to get some proper shoes." She bought and put on a pair of espadrilles and promptly broke into tears. "I can't. I can't. Everytime I look down on my feet I feel so depressed." Roberts said, "Well, are you going to be depressed or are you going to have a broken ankle?" "I am going to have a broken ankle" she said and she threw the shoes away.

Delicious” might sound excessive, but it was the only word that properly described how he looked in worn blue jeans and chaps. Since she’d started coming down to the barns, she’d seen the other hands wearing chaps, but those cowboys hadn’t made her heart thump painfully or feel as if she should suddenly start fanning her face. Ward wore the kind that zippered down his long muscular legs, hugging them. Made of dark tan suede, they didn’t have the fringes or ornamentation that she’d noticed on some of the ones worn by the wranglers. There was nothing to distract her eyes or to keep her gaze from zeroing in on where the chaps buckled, framing the bulge of his sex. Her internal thermostat soared just from not looking at that particular spot. But the brim of his hat was angled downward—the better to study her new boots, she assumed. With his gaze shielded, she found the temptation impossible to resist. Yup, his crotch was truly the finest eye candy: yummy and calorie free.

Who's Vanessa?" "I don't believe you. She's only the most popular girl in the whole school." She pointed a finger at the girl in the middle of the three who were still watching Tianna closely. "Everyone knows Vanessa." Vanessa had perfect skin, large blue eyes, and luxurious blond hair that curled over her shoulders. "Are those extensions?" Tianna asked. "All hers." Corrine sighed. Vanessa was dressed in a funky white coat of fake fur that went down to her brown suede boots; underneath was a low-hanging party-girl skirt with two gold belts draped around her tan waist. "Where'd she get the clothes? They're so cool." Tianna glanced self-consciously at her own jeans. The knees were soiled, and there was a long black mark on the side, as if she had skidded in dirt or oil. "Her mom's a costume designer for the movies," Corrine confided. Tianna felt a pang of jealousy- not for the clothes, but from the mention of Vanessa's mother. She wondered where hers was. Why hadn't she been with her this morning?