Suspicious Wife Quotes

So, what do you think, my dear, will it be a girl or a boy?” “It will be a soul-stealer, apparently.” “What!” The earl reared away from his wife and looked down at her suspiciously.

You want to see safe hands?' her dad asked. He went to the fruit bowl on the side of the table, took two apples and proceeded to juggle them. 'See? Safe as anything.' 'Are you proposing you juggle our newborn child?' 'Of course not,' he said. 'I'd only be able to juggle her if you'd had twins. Otherwise it would just be throwing.' (...) 'From this moment on, I will be the best father the world has ever seen. Wifey, may I please hold my child?' Valkyrie's mum looked at him suspiciously. 'When you hold a baby, what's the most important thing to remember?' 'Not to drop it,' he said proudly. 'Well, yes, well done dear, but I was thinking more about how you hold the baby.' 'Ah,' he said, 'Of course. The secret to holding a baby is to pick it up by the scruff of its neck.' 'You're thinking of kittens.' 'Pick it up by the ears, then.' 'You're thinking of nothing.' 'Can I please just hold her?' 'I don't think that's wise.' 'A lot of things aren't wise, Melissa. Is crossing the road with your eyes closed wise? No, but I do it anyway.' His wife nodded. 'Stephanie, you are in charge of teaching Alice how to cross the road.

It's most dangerous nowadays for a husband to pay any attention to his wife in public. It always makes people think that he beats her when they are alone. The world has grown so suspicious of anything that looks like a happy married life.

Gossip is tricky, slippery. Pretend to be too interested, and suddenly you look suspicious

Never trust a man with a lunatic wife in an attic," Richard told me. "And anyone named Heathcliff should make you suspicious.

There is nothing like a doorbell to precipitate the potential into the kinetic. When you stand outside a door and push the button, something has to happen. Someone must respond; whatever is inside must be revealed. Questions will be answered, uncertainties or mysteries dispelled. A situation will be started on its way through unknown complications to an unpredictable conclusion. The answer to your summons may be a rush of tearful welcome, a suspicious eye at the crack of the door, a shot through the hardwood, anything. Any pushing of any doorbell button is as rich in dramatic possibility as that scene in Chekhov when, just as the Zemstvo doctor's only child dies of diphtheria and the doctor's wife drops to her knees beside the bed and the doctor, smelling of carbolic, takes an uncertain step backward, the bell sounds sharply in the hall.

Liza had a finely developed sense of sin Idleness was a sin, and card playing, which was a kind of idleness to her. She was suspicious of fun whether it involved dancing or singing or even laughter. She felt that people having a good time were wide open to the devil. And this was a shame, for Samuel was a laughing man, but I guess Samuel was wide open to the devil. His wife protected him whenever she could.

For 'wellness', naturally is no cause of complaint--people relish it, they enjoy it, they are at the furthest pole from complaint. People complain of feeling ill--not well. Unless, as George Eliot does, they have some intimation of 'wrongness' or danger, either through knowledge or association, or the very excess of excess. Thus, though a patient will scarcely complain of being 'very well', they may become suspicious if they feel 'too well'.

It’s most dangerous nowadays for a husband to pay any attention to his wife in public.  It always makes people think that he beats her when they’re alone.  The world has grown so suspicious of anything that looks like a happy married life. 

On Friday night, you stole the life of an exceptional being, the love of my life, the mother of my son, but you will not have my hate. I don’t know who you are and I don’t want to know. You are dead souls. If that God for whom you blindly kill made us in his image, every bullet in my wife’s body will have been a wound in his heart. So, no, I will not give you the satisfaction of hating you. That is what you want, but to respond to your hate with anger would be to yield to the same ignorance that made you what you are. You want me to be scared, to see my fellow citizens through suspicious eyes, to sacrifice my freedom for security. You have failed. I will not change. I saw her this morning. At last, after days and nights of waiting. She was as beautiful as when she went out on Friday evening, as beautiful as when I fell madly in love with her more than twelve years ago. Of course I’m devastated by grief, I grant you that small victory, but it will be short-lived. I know that she will be with us every day and that we will see each other in the paradise of free souls to which you will never have access. There are only two of us – my son and myself – but we are stronger than all the armies of the world. Anyway, I don’t have any more time to waste on you, as I must go to see Melvil, who is waking up from his nap. He is only seventeen months old. He will eat his snack as he does every day, then we will play as we do every day, and all his life this little boy will defy you by being happy and free. Because you will not have his hate either.

My lord?” Nick turned at the tentative, feminine voice, to find two young women standing nearby, watching him eagerly. Nick spoke, wary. “Yes? ” “We—” one of them began to speak, then stopped, uncertain. The other nudged her toward him. “Yes?” “We are fans.” Nick blinked. “Of?” “Of yours.” “Of mine.” “Indeed!” The second girl smiled broadly and stepped closer, holding out what looked suspiciously like— Nick swore under his breath. “Would you be willing to autograph our magazine? ” Nick held up a hand. “I would, girls, but you’ve got the wrong brother.” He pointed to Gabriel. “That is Lord Nicholas.” Rock snorted as the two shifted their attention to the Marquess of Ralston, a dazzlingly handsome copy of their prey, and tittered their excitement. Gabriel instantly eased into his role, turning a brilliant smile on the girls. “I would be happy to autograph your magazine.” He took the journal and the pen they proffered and said, “You know, I must confess, this is the first time I’ve ever drawn the attention of ladies when in the company of my brother. Ralston has always been considered the more handsome of us.” “No!” the girls protested. Nick rolled his eyes. “Indeed. Ask anyone. They’ll tell you it’s the marquess who is the best specimen. Surely you’ve heard that.” He looked up at them with a winning smile. "You can admit it, girls. My feelings shan’t be hurt." Gabriel held up the magazine, displaying the cover, which boasted: Inside! London’s Lords to Land! “Yes … there’s no question that this is going to do wonders for my reputation. I’m so happy to see that it’s getting around that I’m on the hunt for a wife!” The girls nearly expired from delight.

Leonard is far and away my least favorite relative, and I have no clue why I call him one night, collect, very late, and give him an involved and scrupulously fair edition of the whole story. We end up arguing. Leonard maintains that I am just like our mother and suffer from an unhappy and basically silly desire to be perfect; I sat that this has nothing constructive to do with anything I've said, and furthermore I fail to see what's so bad about wishing to be perfect, since being perfect would be...well, perfect. Leonard invites me to think about how boring it would be to be perfect. I defer to Leonard's extensive and hard-earned knowledge about being boring, but do point out that since being boring is an imperfection, it would by definition be impossible for a perfect person to be boring. Leonard says I've always enjoyed playing games with words in order to dodge the real meanings of things; this segues with suspicious neatness into my intuitions about the impending death of lexical utterance, and I'm afraid I indulge myself for several minutes before I realize that one of us has severed the connection. I curse Leonard's pipe, and his wife with a face like the rind of a ham.

Of course George Orwell was not a saint—he could be unfaithful to his wife and suspicious of democracy, for starters—and it’s a good thing, too, because saints are always hard to take seriously.

Lost in the stormy kiss, Elizabeth felt her legs gliding down his as he gently lowered her against him until her feet touched the floor. But when his fingers pulled at the ribbon that held her gown in place at her shoulder, she jerked free of his kiss, automatically clamping her hand over his. “What are you doing?” she asked in a quaking whisper. His fingers stilled, and Ian lifted his heavy-lidded gaze to hers. The question took him by surprise, but as he stared into her green eyes Ian saw her apprehension, and he had a good idea what was causing it. “What do you think I’m doing?” he countered cautiously. She hesitated, as if unwilling even to accuse him of such an unspeakable act, and then she admitted in a small, reluctant voice, “Disrobing me.” “And that surprises you?” “Surprises me? Of course it does. Why wouldn’t it?” Elizabeth asked, more suspicious than ever of what Lucinda had told her. Quietly he said, “What exactly do you know about what takes place between a husband and wife in bed?” “You-you mean ‘as it pertains to the creation of children’?” she said, quoting his words to her the day she agreed to become betrothed to him. He smiled with tender amusement at her phrasing. “I suppose you can call it that-for now.” “Only what Lucinda told me.” He waited to hear an explanation, and Elizabeth reluctantly added, “She said a husband kisses his wife in bed and that it hurts the first time, and that is how it is done.” Ian hesitated, angry with himself for not having followed his own instincts and questioned her further when she seemed fully informed and without maidenly qualms about lovemaking. As gently as he could, he said, “You’re a very intelligent young woman, love, not an overly fastidious spinster like your former duenna. Now, do you honestly believe the rules of nature would be completely set aside for people?

read an article about this once. A woman was injured in a car wreck and was in a coma. She lived in a nursing facility and her husband came to visit her every day. The staff became suspicious that he was having sex with her despite her being in a coma, so they set up hidden cameras. The man was arrested for rape because his wife was unable to give consent.

I don’t mind, because it reassures him that there’s nothing going on, that I’m not up to anything. And that’s good for me—it’s good for us—even if it isn’t true. And I can’t really be angry with him, because he has good reason to be suspicious. I’ve given him cause in the past and probably will again. I am not a model wife. I can’t be. No matter how much I love him, it won’t be enough.

George listened to the radio and wondered whether that dear child Nancy would allow him to give her a fur coat. She was very proud, he knew. He didn't want to offend her. Still, she had complained of the cold. That tweed coat of hers was a cheap affair; it didn't keep the cold out. He could put it so that she wouldn't mind, perhaps... They must have another evening out soon. It was a pleasure to take a girl like that to a smart restaurant. He could see several young fellows were envying him. She was uncommonly pretty. And she liked him. To her, as she had told him, he didn't seem a bit old. He looked up and caught his wife's eye. He felt suddenly guilty, which annoyed him. What a narrow-minded, suspicious woman Maria was! She grudged him any little bit of happiness. He switched off the radio and went to bed.

I fancy my father thought me an odd child, and had little fondness for me; though he was very careful in fulfilling what he regarded as a parent's duties. But he was already past the middle of life, and I was not his only son. My mother had been his second wife, and he was five-and-forty when he married her. He was a firm, unbending, intensely orderly man, in root and stem a banker, but with a flourishing graft of the active landholder, aspiring to county influence: one of those people who are always like themselves from day to day, who are uninfluenced by the weather, and neither know melancholy nor high spirits. I held him in great awe, and appeared more timid and sensitive in his presence than at other times; a circumstance which, perhaps, helped to confirm him in the intention to educate me on a different plan from the prescriptive one with which he had complied in the case of my elder brother, already a tall youth at Eton. My brother was to be his representative and successor; he must go to Eton and Oxford, for the sake of making connexions, of course: my father was not a man to underrate the bearing of Latin satirists or Greek dramatists on the attainment of an aristocratic position. But intrinsically, he had slight esteem for "those dead but sceptred spirits"; having qualified himself for forming an independent opinion by reading Potter's Aeschylus, and dipping into Francis's Horace. To this negative view he added a positive one, derived from a recent connexion with mining speculations; namely, that scientific education was the really useful training for a younger son. Moreover, it was clear that a shy, sensitive boy like me was not fit to encounter the rough experience of a public school. Mr. Letherall had said so very decidedly. Mr. Letherall was a large man in spectacles, who one day took my small head between his large hands, and pressed it here and there in an exploratory, suspicious manner - then placed each of his great thumbs on my temples, and pushed me a little way from him, and stared at me with glittering spectacles. The contemplation appeared to displease him, for he frowned sternly, and said to my father, drawing his thumbs across my eyebrows - 'The deficiency is there, sir-there; and here,' he added, touching the upper sides of my head, 'here is the excess. That must be brought out, sir, and this must be laid to sleep.' I was in a state of tremor, partly at the vague idea that I was the object of reprobation, partly in the agitation of my first hatred - hatred of this big, spectacled man, who pulled my head about as if he wanted to buy and cheapen it. ("The Lifted Veil")

Steve Harmon, thirty-six, had esophageal cancer growing at the inlet of his stomach. For six months, he had soldiered through chemotherapy as if caught in a mythical punishment cycle devised by the Greeks. He was debilitated by perhaps the severest forms of nausea that I had ever encountered in a patient, but he had to keep eating to avoid losing weight. As the tumor whittled him down week by week, he became fixated, absurdly, on the measurement of his weight down to a fraction of an ounce, as if gripped by the fear that he might vanish altogether by reaching zero. Meanwhile, a growing retinue of family members accompanied him to his clinic visits: three children who came with games and books and watched, unbearably, as their father shook with chills one morning; a brother who hovered suspiciously, then accusingly, as we shuffled and reshuffled medicines to keep Steve from throwing up; a wife who bravely shepherded the entire retinue through the whole affair as if it were a family trip gone horribly wrong. One morning, finding Steve alone on one of the reclining chairs of the infusion room, I asked him whether he would rather have the chemotherapy alone, in a private room. Was it, perhaps, too much for his family—for his children? He looked away with a flicker of irritation. “I know what the statistics are.” His voice was strained, as if tightening against a harness. “Left to myself, I would not even try. I’m doing this because of the kids.

Or when you keep a sex-addiction meeting under surveillance because they’re the best places to pick up chicks.” Serge looked around the room at suspicious eyes. “Okay, maybe that last one’s just me. But you should try it. They keep the men’s and women’s meetings separate for obvious reasons. And there are so many more opportunities today because the whole country’s wallowing in this whiny new sex-rehab craze after some golfer diddled every pancake waitress on the seaboard. That’s not a disease; that’s cheating. He should have been sent to confession or marriage counseling after his wife finished chasing him around Orlando with a pitching wedge. But today, the nation is into humiliation, tearing down a lifetime of achievement by labeling some guy a damaged little dick weasel. The upside is the meetings. So what you do is wait on the sidewalk for the women to get out, pretending like you’re loitering. And because of the nature of the sessions they just left, there’s no need for idle chatter or lame pickup lines. You get right to business: ‘What’s your hang-up?’ And she answers, and you say, ‘What a coincidence. Me, too.’ Then, hang on to your hat! It’s like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get. Most people are aware of the obvious, like foot fetish or leather. But there are more than five hundred lesser-known but clinically documented paraphilia that make no sexual sense. Those are my favorites . . .” Serge began counting off on his fingers. “This one woman had Ursusagalmatophilia, which meant she got off on teddy bears—that was easily my weirdest three-way. And nasophilia, which meant she was completely into my nose, and she phoned a friend with mucophilia, which is mucus. The details on that one are a little disgusting. And formicophilia, which is being crawled on by insects, so the babe bought an ant farm. And symphorophilia—that’s staging car accidents, which means you have to time the air bags perfectly

For members of a particular religious community, the sense of obligation takes a specific form when it comes to their commitment to each other. In the movie Shall We Dance?, Richard Gere plays a bored middle-aged attorney who surreptitiously takes up ballroom dancing. His wife, played by Susan Sarandon, becomes suspicious at his renewed energy and vitality. She hires a private detective, who discovers the dance studio and reports the news. She decides to let her husband continue dancing undisturbed. In the scene where she meets the private detective in a bar to pay his fee and end the investigation, they linger over a drink and discuss why people marry in the first place. The detective, whose countless investigations into infidelity have rendered him cynical about marriage, suggests that the desire to marry has something to do with hormones and passing fancy. She disagrees. The reason we marry, she insists, is that “we need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet. . . . I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things . . . all of it, all of the time, every day. You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness.’ ” The sacramental bond that unites two people in a marriage or committed relationship is known as a covenant. A covenant—the word means mutual agreement—is a promise to bear witness to the life of another: the good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things. At its heart, the relationship among members of a religious community is covenantal as well. As with marriage, the relationship also includes other dimensions, such as friendship and perhaps financial and/or legal partnership. But the defining commitment that members of a religious community make to each other arises from their calling—their covenantal duty—to bear witness to each other’s lives: the lives they now lead and the lives they hope to lead in the future, and the world they now occupy and the world they hope to occupy in the future.

Cam awakened slowly as he felt his wife’s voluptuous body snuggling close to his. She always slept in a nightgown made of modest white cambric, with infinite numbers of tucks and tiny ruffles. It never failed to stir him, knowing what splendid curves were concealed beneath the demure garment. The nightgown had ridden up to her knees during the night. One of her bare legs was hooked over his, her knee resting near his groin. The slight roundness of her stomach pressed against his side. Pregnancy had made her feminine form more ample and delicious. There was a glow about her these days, a burgeoning vulnerability that filled him with an overwhelming urge to protect her. And knowing that the changes in her were caused by his seed, a part of him growing inside her … that was undeniably arousing. He wouldn’t have expected to be this enthralled by Amelia’s condition. In the eyes of the Rom, childbirth and all related issues were considered mahrime, polluting events. And since the Irish were notoriously suspicious and prudish when it came to matters of reproduction, there wasn’t much on either side of his lineage to justify his delight in his wife’s pregnancy. But he couldn’t help it. She was the most beautiful and fascinating creature he had ever encountered.

Cohen continued to struggle with his own well-being. Even though he had achieved his life’s dream of running his own firm, he was still unhappy, and he had become dependent on a psychiatrist named Ari Kiev to help him manage his moods. In addition to treating depression, Kiev’s other area of expertise was success and how to achieve it. He had worked as a psychiatrist and coach with Olympic basketball players and rowers trying to improve their performance and overcome their fear of failure. His background building athletic champions appealed to Cohen’s unrelenting need to dominate in every transaction he entered into, and he started asking Kiev to spend entire days at SAC’s offices, tending to his staff. Kiev was tall, with a bushy mustache and a portly midsection, and he would often appear silently at a trader’s side and ask him how he was feeling. Sometimes the trader would be so startled to see Kiev there he’d practically jump out of his seat. Cohen asked Kiev to give motivational speeches to his employees, to help them get over their anxieties about losing money. Basically, Kiev was there to teach them to be ruthless. Once a week, after the market closed, Cohen’s traders would gather in a conference room and Kiev would lead them through group therapy sessions focused on how to make them more comfortable with risk. Kiev had them talk about their trades and try to understand why some had gone well and others hadn’t. “Are you really motivated to make as much money as you can? This guy’s going to help you become a real killer at it,” was how one skeptical staff member remembered Kiev being pitched to them. Kiev’s work with Olympians had led him to believe that the thing that blocked most people was fear. You might have two investors with the same amount of money: One was prepared to buy 250,000 shares of a stock they liked, while the other wasn’t. Why? Kiev believed that the reluctance was a form of anxiety—and that it could be overcome with proper treatment. Kiev would ask the traders to close their eyes and visualize themselves making trades and generating profits. “Surrendering to the moment” and “speaking the truth” were some of his favorite phrases. “Why weren’t you bigger in the trades that worked? What did you do right?” he’d ask. “Being preoccupied with not losing interferes with winning,” he would say. “Trading not to lose is not a good strategy. You need to trade to win.” Many of the traders hated the group therapy sessions. Some considered Kiev a fraud. “Ari was very aggressive,” said one. “He liked money.” Patricia, Cohen’s first wife, was suspicious of Kiev’s motives and believed that he was using his sessions with Cohen to find stock tips. From Kiev’s perspective, he found the perfect client in Cohen, a patient with unlimited resources who could pay enormous fees and whose reputation as one of the best traders on Wall Street could help Kiev realize his own goal of becoming a bestselling author. Being able to say that you were the

I’m going to sleep now,” she said in a strangled voice. “Alone,” she added, and his face whitened as if she had slapped him. During his entire adult life Ian had relied almost as much on his intuition as on his intellect, and at that moment he didn’t want to believe in the explanation they were both offering. His wife did not want him in her bed; she recoiled from his touch; she had been away for two consecutive nights; and-more alarming than any of that-guilt and fear were written all over her pale face. “Do you know what a man thinks,” he said in a calm voice that belied the pain streaking through him, “when his wife stays away at night and doesn’t want him in her bed when she does return?” Elizabeth shook her head. “He thinks,” Ian said dispassionately, “that perhaps someone else has been taking his place in it.” Fury sent bright flags of color to her pale cheeks. “You’re blushing, my dear,” Ian said in an awful voice. “I am furious!” she countered, momentarily forgetting that she was confronting a madman. His stunned look was replaced almost instantly by an expression of relief and then bafflement. “I apologize, Elizabeth.” “Would you p-lease get out of here!” Elizabeth burst out in a final explosion of strength. “Just go away and let me rest. I told you I was tired. And I don’t see what right you have to be so upset! We had a bargain before we married-I was to be allowed to live my life without interference, and quizzing me like this is interference!” Her voice broke, and after another narrowed look he strode out of the room. Numb with relief and pain, Elizabeth crawled back into bed and pulled the covers up under her chin, but not even their luxurious warmth could still the alternating chills and fever that quaked through her. Several minutes later a shadow crossed her bed, and she almost screamed with terror before she realized it was Ian, who had entered silently though the connecting door of their suite. Since she’d gasped aloud when she saw him, it was useless to pretend she was sleeping. In silent dread she watched him walking toward her bed. Wordlessly he sat down beside her, and she realized there was a glass in his hand. He put it on the bedside table, then he reached behind her to prop up her pillows, leaving Elizabeth no choice but to sit up and lean back against them. “Drink this,” he instructed in a calm tone. “What is it?” she asked suspiciously. “It’s brandy. It will help you sleep.” He watched while she sipped it, and when he spoke again there was a tender smile in his voice. “Since we’ve ruled out another man as the explanation for all this, I can only assume something has gone wrong at Havenhurst. Is that it?” Elizabeth seized on that excuse as if it were manna from heaven. “Yes,” she whispered, nodding vigorously. Leaning down, he pressed a kiss on her forehead and said teasingly, “Let me guess-you discovered the mill overcharged you?” Elizabeth thought she would die of the sweet torment when he continued tenderly teasing her about being thrifty. “Not the mill? Then it was the baker, and he refused to give you a better price for buying two loaves instead of one.” Tears swelled behind her eyes, treacherously close to the surface, and Ian saw them. “That bad?” he joked.

Weston, having been born in Chicago, was raised with typical, well-grounded, mid-western values. On his 16th birthday, his father gave him a Kodak camera with which he started what would become his lifetime vocation. During the summer of 1908, Weston met Flora May Chandler, a schoolteacher who was seven years older than he was. The following year the couple married and in time they had four sons. Weston and his family moved to Southern California and opened a portrait studio on Brand Boulevard, in the artsy section of Glendale, California, called Tropico. His artistic skills soon became apparent and he became well known for his portraits of famous people, such as Carl Sandburg and Max Eastman. In the autumn of 1913, hearing of his work, Margrethe Mather, a photographer from Los Angeles, came to his studio, where Weston asked her to be his studio assistant. It didn’t take long before the two developed a passionate, intimate relationship. Both Weston and Mather became active in the growing bohemian cultural scene in Los Angeles. She was extremely outgoing and artistic in a most flamboyant way. Her bohemian sexual values were new to Weston’s conventional thinking, but Mather excited him and presented him with a new outlook that he found enticing. Mather was beautiful, and being bisexual and having been a high-class prostitute, was delightfully worldly. Mather's uninhibited lifestyle became irresistible to Weston and her photography took him into a new and exciting art form. As Mather worked and overtly played with him, she presented a lifestyle that was in stark contrast to Weston’s conventional home life, and he soon came to see his wife Flora as a person with whom he had little in common. Weston expanded his horizons but tried to keep his affairs with other women a secret. As he immersed himself further into nude photography, it became more difficult to hide his new lifestyle from his wife. Flora became suspicious about this secret life, but apparently suffered in silence. One of the first of many women who agreed to model nude for Weston was Tina Modotti. Although Mather remained with Weston, Tina soon became his primary model and remained so for the next several years. There was an instant attraction between Tina Modotti, Mather and Edward Weston, and although he remained married, Tina became his student, model and lover. Richey soon became aware of the affair, but it didn’t seem to bother him, as they all continued to remain good friends. The relationship Tina had with Weston could definitely be considered “cheating,” since knowledge of the affair was withheld as much as possible from his wife Flora May. Perhaps his wife knew and condoned this new promiscuous relationship, since she had also endured the intense liaison with Margrethe Mather. Tina, Mather and Weston continued working together until Tina and Weston suddenly left for Mexico in 1923. As a group, they were all a part of the cozy, artsy, bohemian society of Los Angeles, which was where they were introduced to the then-fashionable, communistic philosophy.

You do that a great deal, don’t you?” He swallowed the rest of his wine. “What?” “Close up into yourself whenever someone tries to peer into your soul. Make a joke of it.” “If you came out here to lecture me,” he snapped, “don’t bother. Gran has perfected that talent. You can’t possibly compete.” “I only want to understand.” “I want to be consumed by a star, but we don’t all get what we want.” “What?” “Never mind.” Turning for the nearest door into the house, he started to stalk off, but she caught his arm. “Why are you so angry at your grandmother?” Maria asked. “I told you-she’s trying to ruin the lives of me and my siblings.” “By requiring you to marry so you can have children? I thought all lords and ladies were expected to do that. And the five of you are certainly old enough.” Her tone turned teasing. “Some of you are beyond being old enough.” “Watch it, minx,” he clipped out. “I’m not in the mood for having my nose tweaked tonight.” “Because of your grandmother, you mean. It’s not just her demand that has you angry, is it? It goes back longer than that.” Oliver glared at her. “Why do you care? Has she got you fighting her battles for her now?” “Hardly. She just informed me that I was, and I quote, ‘exactly the sort of woman who would not meet my requirements of a wife.’” A smile touched his lips at her accurate mimicking of Gran at her most haughty. “I told you she would think that.” “Yes,” she said dryly. “You both excel at insulting people.” “One of my many talents.” “There you go again. Making a joke to avoid talking about what makes you uncomfortable.” “And what is that?” “What did your grandmother do, besides giving you an ultimatum about marriage, that has you at daggers drawn?” Blast it all, would she not leave off? “How do you know she did anything? Perhaps I’m just contrary.” “You are. But that’s not what has you so angry at her.” “If you plan to spend the next two weeks asking ridiculous questions that have no answers, then I will pay you to return to London.” She smiled. “No, you won’t. You need me.” “True. But since I’m paying for the service you’re providing, I get some say in how it’s rendered. Bedeviling me with questions isn’t part of our bargain.” “You haven’t paid me anything yet,” she said lightly, “so I should think there’s some leeway in the terms. Especially since I’ve been working hard all evening furthering your cause. I just finished telling your grandmother that I have ‘feelings’ for you, and that I know you have ‘feelings’ for me.” “You didn’t choke on that lie?” he quipped. “I do have feelings for you-probably not the sort she meant, though apparently she believed me. But she was suspicious. She’s more astute than you give her credit for. First she accused us of acting a farce, and then, when I denied that, she accused me of thinking to marry you so I could gain a fortune from her down the line.” “And what did you say to that?” “I told her she could keep her precious fortune.” “Did you, indeed? I would have given my right arm to see that.” Maria was proving to be an endless source of amazement. No one ever stood up to Gran-except this American chit, with her naïve beliefs in justice and right and morality. It amazed him that she’d done it, considering how he’d treated her. No one, not even his siblings, had ever defended him with so little reason. It stirred something that had long lain dead inside him. His conscience? No, that wasn’t dead; it was nonexistent.

Josephine!" A stentorian bellow shook the candles in their sconces. Unconsciously, Amy grabbed Richard’s arm, looking about anxiously for the source of the roar. About the room, people went on chatting as before. "Steady there." Richard patted the delicate hand clutching the material of his coat. "It’s just the First Consul." Snatching her hand away as though his coat were made of live coals, Amy snapped, "You would know." "Josephine!" The dreadful noise repeated itself, cutting off any further remarks. Out of an adjoining room charged a blur of red velvet, closely followed by the scurrying form of a young man. Amy sidestepped just in time, swaying on her slippers to avoid toppling into Lord Richard. The red velvet came to an abrupt stop beside Mme Bonaparte’s chair. "Oh. Visitors." Once still, the red velvet resolved into a man of slightly less than medium height, clad in a long red velvet coat with breeches that must once have been white, but which now bore assorted stains that proclaimed as clearly as a menu what the wearer had eaten for supper. "I do wish you wouldn’t shout so, Bonaparte." Mme Bonaparte lifted one white hand and touched him gently on the cheek. Bonaparte grabbed her hand and planted a resounding kiss on the palm. "How else am I to make myself heard?" Affectionately tweaking one of her curls, he demanded, "Well? Who is it tonight?" "We have some visitors from England, sir,"his stepdaughter responded. "I should like to present…" Hortense began listing their names. Bonaparte stood, legs slightly apart, eyes hooded with apparent boredom, and one arm thrust into the opposite side of his jacket, as though in a sling. Bonaparte inclined his head, looked down at his wife, and demanded, "Are we done yet?" Thwap! Everyone within earshot jumped at the sound of Miss Gwen’s reticule connecting with Bonaparte’s arm. "Sir! Take that hand out of your jacket! It is rude and it ruins your posture. A man of your diminutive stature needs to stand up straight." Something suspiciously like a chuckle emerged from Lord Richard’s lips, but when Amy glanced sharply up at him, his expression was studiedly bland. A dangerous hush fell over the room. Flirtations in the far corners of the room were abandoned. Business deals were dropped. The non-English speakers among the assemblage tugged at the sleeves of those who had the language, and instant translations began to be whispered about the room – suitably embellished, of course. "It’s an assassination attempt!" a woman next to Amy cried dramatically, swooning back into the arms of an officer who looked as though he didn’t quite know what to do with her, but would really be happiest just dropping her. "No, it’s not, it’s just Miss Gwen," Amy tried to explain. Meanwhile, Miss Gwen was advancing on Bonaparte, backing him up so that he was nearly sitting on Josephine’s lap. "While we are speaking, sir, this habit you have of barging into other people’s countries without invitation – it is most rude. I will not have it! You should apologise to the Italians and the Dutch at the first opportunity!" "Mais zee Italians, zey invited me!" Bonaparte exclaimed indignantly. Miss Gwen cast Bonaparte the severe look of a governess listening to substandard excuses from a wayward child. "That may well be," she pronounced in a tone that implied she thought it highly unlikely. "But your behaviour upon entering their country was inexcusable! If you were to be invited to someone’s home for a weekend, sirrah, would you reorganise their domestic arrangements and seize the artwork from their walls? Would you countenance any guest who behaved so? I thought not." Amy wondered if Bonaparte could declare war on Miss Gwen alone without breaking his peace with England. "So much for the Peace of Amiens!" she started to whisper to Jane, but Jane was no longer beside her.

She'd voiced the unspoken question that had plagued him and tormented him earlier that morning, a question that had weighted his body down almost as it was a poison, a question without an answer ad it completely eluded his mind, much like an unfaithful husband avoids a questioning, nagging, suspicious wife.

Not long after my video deposition, I was talking to a Secret Service colleague who worked the West Wing Lobby. He had just resumed his shift after returning from his own testimony. The president had just visited him. That was extremely suspicious—my associate was spooked. “He just came out and came straight up to me like—like he was looking for me. Yeah, and he asked how I was by name. We chatted—like small talk—like normal. And then he asked how my wife and kids were.… We’ve never actually talked before.” Nothing about that was normal. It was obviously a subtle form of intimidation. The president was sending a message that he knew of the officer’s recent testimony—and perhaps was sending an even more sinister message. I certainly was glad to be at JJRTC, away from them. It was all so wild, so bizarre. Prior to that, the president didn’t seem to know my fellow officer by name. Someone—most likely the president’s attorneys—advised him to make small talk immediately after the officer testified. The president’s little “hint” spooked both of us. It confirmed to me what I suspected: That was indeed how they operated. It was reminiscent of the stories we had heard of some of the women who alleged that the president, while governor, had either raped or sexually assaulted them. In one of the stories Mrs. Clinton had homed in on the alleged victim, despite having never met her beforehand, just as the president zeroed in on the West Wing Lobby officer. I was glad to be at JJRTC, but I feared that I was not far enough away.

No Black Robe, no marriage for your God. I am sure enough happy with a marriage my way.” With a determined glint in his eyes, he turned toward the crowd, raising his arms, and shouted something. Then he shrugged. “There. Suvate, it is finished. I have said my words. We are married.” Seizing her by the arm, he growled, “Keemah, come, wife.” Loretta dug in with her heels. “No! Wait!” He looked down at her, his vexation evident. “You will say the God words?” Loretta didn’t see as how she had any choice. At least this way her marriage would be blessed by a priest, and she wouldn’t be living with Hunter in sin. “Y-yes, I’ll say the words.” Casting him a sideways glance, she said, “Can I have just a moment with the priest?” “For why?” “Just to ask him something.” Hunter’s grip on her arm relaxed. “Namiso, hurry.” Loretta cupped a hand over the priest’s ear and quickly whispered her request, then stepped back to Hunter’s side. The priest considered what she had said, then nodded. A moment later he blessed the young couple before him, and the ceremony began. The words bounced off the walls of Loretta’s mind, making no sense. Numbly she made her responses when she was instructed to. Then it came Hunter’s turn. The priest asked the usual question, adding at the end, “Forsaking all others, taking one wife and only one wife, forever with no horizon?” Hunter, eyes narrowed suspiciously, shot Loretta a knowing look. For several long seconds he made no response, and she held her breath, her gaze locked with his. Then, with solemn sincerity, he inclined his head and replied, “I have spoken it.” The priest, momentarily confused by the unusual response when he had expected an “I do,” sputtered a moment, seemed to consider, then nodded his assent and finished the ceremony. Loretta and Hunter were married, according to his beliefs and hers.

Can I have just a moment with the priest?” “For why?” “Just to ask him something.” Hunter’s grip on her arm relaxed. “Namiso, hurry.” Loretta cupped a hand over the priest’s ear and quickly whispered her request, then stepped back to Hunter’s side. The priest considered what she had said, then nodded. A moment later he blessed the young couple before him, and the ceremony began. The words bounced off the walls of Loretta’s mind, making no sense. Numbly she made her responses when she was instructed to. Then it came Hunter’s turn. The priest asked the usual question, adding at the end, “Forsaking all others, taking one wife and only one wife, forever with no horizon?” Hunter, eyes narrowed suspiciously, shot Loretta a knowing look. For several long seconds he made no response, and she held her breath, her gaze locked with his. Then, with solemn sincerity, he inclined his head and replied, “I have spoken it.” The priest, momentarily confused by the unusual response when he had expected an “I do,” sputtered a moment, seemed to consider, then nodded his assent and finished the ceremony. Loretta and Hunter were married, according to his beliefs and hers. Hunter instructed his friends to return the priest to his mission, stressing that he would have their heads if the man didn’t arrive there unharmed. Then he sent Amy to his mother’s lodge. When everyone had been dispatched, he turned to Loretta, one dark eyebrow cocked, his indigo eyes twinkling with laughter. “One wife and only one wife, forever with no horizon?” Loretta’s gaze chased off, and her cheeks went scarlet. Clasping her hands behind her, she rocked back on her heels, then forward onto her toes, pursing her lips. “I told you, Hunter, I refuse to play second fiddle.” He smiled--a slow, dangerous smile that made her nerves leap. His heated gaze drifted slowly down the length of her. He grasped her arm and led her toward his lodge. “Now you will show this Comanche how good you play number one fiddle, yes?

Lovey immediately straightened next to her, his ears pulling back as he squinted at him, and then going straight up when Conall continued forward. When he then bared his teeth and growled low in his throat, Claray tightened her fingers in the fur at the back of his neck in warning, then turned to bare her teeth and growl at the wolf in return. Lovey didn't look happy, but he did relax a little. Though she noticed he stood a little taller, puffed out his chest and went back to squinting suspiciously at Conall too. "Wife?" Claray turned to him in question. "Aye, husband?" "Ye just growled at the wolf," he pointed out. "Aye," she agreed, and smiled at him. " 'Tis what he understands.

A man was once told by an astrologer that his wife would leave him for someone else and that would lead to his death. As a result of that prediction the man became increasingly fearful. He became extremely suspicious towards his wife even though she was devoted towards him. He also started hating her and hitting because he believed she would not be loyal towards him and leave him. After ten years of constant physical and emotional abuse the wife had enough and became attracted to another man, she felt was much kinder. One day after yet another violent episode from the suspicious husband, she decided that she would leave him for the other man and ran away that evening! Shocked, the man committed suicide. The man made that very thing happen that he feared! His own fear led him to commit actions that ultimately made his wife desert him. He made his life a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you are going to make your life a self-fulfilling prophecy, might as well make it a constructive one, not a destructive one fueled by endless fear! On a lighter note, if you are the impressionable kind, which many of us are, this is why sometimes it is best to not try and know your future!

May I tell you a secret?” she asked. He nudged farther. “Of course,” he murmured. “When I first saw you . . . tonight, I mean . . .” “In all my glory?” he teased, lifting his brows into an arrogant arch. She shot him a rather enchanting scowl. “I didn’t think this could possibly work.” He moved forward. He was close, so close to embedding himself fully within her. “May I tell you a secret?” he returned. “Of course.” “Your secret”— one more little thrust and he was resting against her maidenhead—” wasn’t very much of a secret.” Her brows drew together in question. He grinned. “It was written all over your face.” She scowled again, and it made him want to explode in laughter. “But now,” he said, keeping a scrupulously straight face, “I have a question for you.” She gazed at him in response, clearly waiting for him to elucidate further. He leaned down, brushed his lips against her ear, and whispered, “What do you think now?” For a moment she didn’t respond in any way, then he felt her start in surprise when she finally figured out what he was asking. “Are we done?” she asked in clear disbelief. This time he did burst out in laughter. “Far from it, my dear wife,” he gasped, wiping his eyes with one hand as he tried to hold himself up with the other. “Far, far from it." His eyes growing serious, he added, “This is where it might hurt a little, Kate. But I promise you, the pain will never be repeated.” She nodded, but he could feel her body tense up, which he knew would only make it worse. “Shhh,” he crooned. “Relax.” She nodded, her eyes shut. “I am relaxed.” He was glad she couldn’t see him smile. “You are most definitely not relaxed.” Her eyes flew open. “Yes, I am.” “I can’t believe this,” Anthony said, as if there were someone else in the room to hear him. “She’s arguing with me on our wedding night.” “I’m—” He cut her off with a finger to her lips. “Are you ticklish?” “Am I ticklish?” He nodded. “Ticklish.” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why?” “That sounds like a yes to me,” he said with a grin. “Not at— Oooohhh!” She let out a squeal as one of his hands found a particularly sensitive spot under arm. “Anthony, stop!” she gasped, squirming desperately beneath him. “I can’t bear it! I—” He plunged forward. “Oh,” she breathed. “Oh, my.” He groaned, barely able to believe just how good it felt to be buried completely within her. “Oh, my, indeed.” “We’re not done now, are we?” He shook his head slowly as his body began to move in an ancient rhythm. “Not even close,” he murmured. -Kate & Anthony

Kate’s mind was obviously not lodged as firmly in the gutter as his, since she chose to sit in the chair opposite him, even though there was plenty of room in his chair, provided they didn’t mind squeezing next to each other. Even the chair kitty-corner to his would have been better; at least then he could have yanked her up and hauled her onto his lap. If he tried that maneuver where she was seated across the table, he’d have to drag her through the middle of the tea service. Anthony narrowed his eyes as he assessed the situation, trying to guess exactly how much tea would spill on the rug, and then how much it would cost to replace the rug, and then whether he really cared about such a piddling amount of money, anyway . . . “Anthony? Are you listening to me?” He looked up. Kate was resting her arms on her knees as she leaned forward to talk with him. She looked very intent and just a little bit irritated. “Were you?” she persisted. He blinked. “Listening to me?” she ground out. “Oh.” He grinned. “No.” She rolled her eyes but didn’t bother to scold him any further than that. “I was saying that we should have Edwina and her young man over for dinner one night. To see if we think they suit. I have never before seen her so interested in a gentleman, and I do so want her to be happy.” Anthony reached for a biscuit. He was hungry, and he’d pretty much given up on the prospect of getting his wife into his lap. On the other hand, if he managed to clear off the cups and saucers, yanking her across the table might not have such messy consequences . . . He surreptitiously pushed the tray bearing the tea service to the side. “Hmmm?” he grunted, chewing on the biscuit. “Oh, yes, of course. Edwina should be happy.” Kate eyed him suspiciously. “Are you certain you don’t want some tea with that biscuit? I’m not a great aficionado of brandy, but I would imagine that tea would taste better with shortbread.” Actually, Anthony thought, the brandy did quite well with shortbread, but it certainly couldn’t hurt to empty out the teapot a bit, just in case he toppled it over. “Capital idea,” he said, grabbing a teacup and thrusting it toward her. “Tea’s just the thing. Can’t imagine why I didn’t think of it earlier.” “I can’t imagine, either,” she murmured acerbically— if one could murmur in an acerbic manner, and after hearing Kate’s low sarcasm, Anthony rather thought one could. But he just gave her a jovial smile as he reached out and took his teacup from her outstretched hand.

In her growing years, Ammu had watched her father weave his hideous web. He was charming and urbane with visitors...He donated money to orphanages and leprosy clinics. He worked hard on his public profile as a sophisticated, generous, moral man. But alone with his wife and children he turned into a monstrous, suspicious bully, with a steak of vicious cunning. They were beaten, humiliated, and then made to suffer the envy of friends and relations for having such a wonderful husband and father.

For years, Crittenden County had opted not to participate in the state’s network of county drug task forces, which shared all drug monies seized. Sullivan reported that, in 2000, Crittenden County’s independent drug task force had seized $5.43 million on the highways that passed through West Memphis and Marion. That constituted more than half the total amount of drug money seized during that year in the entire state. In 2001, FBI agents conducted at least two sting operations. Those led to indictments the following year.121 As Sullivan reported, “It may have been the recent, sudden improvement in the livelihoods of some of the officers—fancy motorcycles, big houses—that made neighbors and fellow officers suspicious.” Some of the flash points that caught investigators’ attention were a sheriff ’s deputy who lived with his schoolteacher wife in a quarter-million-dollar house, two deputies who flew private airplanes, one who’d reportedly paid $18,953 in cash for a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, and another who was said to have paid for a $26,500 ski boat with $100 bills.

A sudden insight teased him. What if she didn’t want to leave? What if she was just angry with him and acting impulsively? He left Rand to kneel at her feet. She eyed him suspiciously. He hated that he’d given her cause to look at him that way. “I will ask ye this but once. Do ye wish to forsake our bond and my offered protection? Do ye truly wish to return to your life of providing for yourself and working and raising your bairn alone? I would have ye stay here with me, and I would care for you your whole life. I would treat your bairn as my own. I have means, and I am a good man, though I ken I havena given ye cause to believe it. “Stay with me, Malina. Let me prove to you the man I am. I wouldna expect your love, and I dinna expect you to share my bed. But I wish ye to stay and be my wife. I wish to be your husband. Will you release me from the vow I made to help ye return home?” He made himself stop blathering and waited for her answer, drowning in the emerald pools of her eyes. Closing his hands around hers, around the box, he found some solace in the fact that she didn’t pull away. She appraised him with liquid eyes. Could that be tenderness he glimpsed? But it was gone too soon, replaced with suspicion. Och, he’d been so dishonest with her she likely would never be able to trust him. Mayhap it was for the best she was leaving. If she couldn’t trust him, he’d nay be able to make her happy. At last, she shook her head. “I suspect you’re a good man, even though you lied to me. I see goodness in you, and honor. Any woman would be lucky to have you as her husband.” His heart lifted with hope. “Any woman from your time,” she added gently. “I don’t belong here. I need to go back to my time. My being here is a mistake. This is all a huge mistake.” His heart crumbled as he released her hands and pulled the heavy velvet pouch from his sporran. “Then, take this. ’Tis my wedding gift to you. If I canna be with you to keep my marriage vows, I pray this will clear my name before the Lord.” She took the pouch and looked inside. Her eyes grew wide. “It’s gold. I can’t take this.” She tried to push it back into his hands, but he refused it. “You must. ’Tis the best I can do for you, Malina mine. I hope ye will remember me well when you use it. I hope this will provide for you and your bairn for many years.” Not giving her a chance to reject his gift as she’d rejected him, he rose and blew out the lantern. He led Rand from the stables, and said, “Come, Malina. ’Tis time to send you home.

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

anyway, encouraging her daughter in breaking up another man’s family, having the baby of a married man? Some help and example she must have been to Bernadette if this is the way things turned out. But then Ria realized that it could not have been what that woman wanted for her daughter either. Possibly she had been horrified by it all as Ria would be horrified if her own Annie were to get involved with a middle-aged married man. Possibly the mother hadn’t been told that Danny was married at the start. And had then become suspicious. Suddenly Ria remembered the woman who had telephoned her, the voice demanding to know if she was Mrs. Danny Lynch. This was the woman. Danny had concocted some cock-and-bull story at the time, but had later admitted it. Ria would have done the same if Annie were to be involved with a married man. She would have called the house to check if his wife really existed. To speak to the enemy. This woman probably loved her daughter too. She would have wished for a boyfriend who was young and single. But who could know what a daughter was going to do? Was seeing Bernadette better than not seeing her? She sat in the car biting her lip and wondering. Possibly better. It meant that now there was no more imagining. It had cleared that area of speculation from her mind. It didn’t make it any more bearable that she was so young. Or forgivable. There was a knock on the car window and Ria jumped. For a mad moment she thought Bernadette and her mother were about to confront her. But it was the anxious face of a traffic warden. “You were not even thinking about

Rama looks on as Lakshmana disfigures Surpanakha but then, he is maryada purushottam. The ideal man allows other women to be disfigured and, constantly suspicious of her chastity, neglects his own wife!

I didn’t need Natalia getting suspicious of Skylar and I. Unlike most niggas, I was actually scared of losing my wife.

Then it came Hunter’s turn. The priest asked the usual question, adding at the end, “Forsaking all others, taking one wife and only one wife, forever with no horizon?” Hunter, eyes narrowed suspiciously, shot Loretta a knowing look. For several long seconds he made no response, and she held her breath, her gaze locked with his. Then, with solemn sincerity, he inclined his head and replied, “I have spoken it.” The priest, momentarily confused by the unusual response when he had expected an “I do,” sputtered a moment, seemed to consider, then nodded his assent and finished the ceremony. Loretta and Hunter were married, according to his beliefs and hers.

How do you feel, sw—Sarah?” He’d been about to call her sweetheart. The thought sent hot color racing up into her cheeks and her gaze dropped shyly into her lap against the earnest intensity of his blue gaze. “Like a butterfly left out in the desert after it’s been trampled by a maddened bull,” she confessed, smiling and raising her eyes to him again. “I hurt everywhere, Nolan, but not as bad as I did yesterday. And I can’t seem to get enough to drink,” she added, glancing longingly at the water pitcher on her bedside stand. He took the hint, and poured her a glass of water, sitting down in the nearby chair as if his knees were suddenly wobbly. “Thank God,” he breathed, his eyes suspiciously wet.

Let there be light. Gen. 1:3 Let there be enlightenment; let there be understanding. Darkness. Gen. 1:4 Ignorance; lack of enlightenment and understanding. Eden. Gen. 2:8 A delightful place; temporal life. Garden. Gen. 2:8 Metaphorically—a wife; a family. Tree of life in the midst of the garden. Gen. 2:9 Sex; posterity, progeny. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Gen. 2:9 Moral law; the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life. Gen. 2:9 Eternal life. The tree of good and evil. Gen. 2:17 Metaphorically—sexual relationship. Good. Gen. 2:17 Anything perfect. Evil. Gen. 2:17 Anything imperfect; contrary to good; immature. Naked. Gen. 2:25 Exposed; ashamed. Serpent. Gen. 3:1 An enemy; deception. Thorns and thistles. Gen. 3:18 Grievances and difficulties. Sent forth from the garden. Gen. 3:23 A loss of harmony; a lost paradise. God took him away. Gen. 5:24 He died painlessly. He had a heart attack. Sons of God. Gen. 6:2 Good men; the descendants of Seth. My spirit shall not dwell in man forever. Gen. 6:3 I have become weary and impatient. (A scribal note.) The Lord was sorry that He made man. Gen. 6:6 (A scribal note. See Old Testament Light—Lamsa.) I set my bow in the clouds. Gen. 9:13 I set the rainbow in the sky. I have lifted up my hands. Gen. 14:22 I am taking a solemn oath. Thy seed. Gen. 17:7 Your offspring; your teaching. Angels. Gen. 19:1 God’s counsel; spirits; God’s thoughts. Looking behind. Gen. 19:17 Regretting; wasting time. A pillar of salt. Gen. 19:26 Lifeless; stricken dead. As the stars of heaven. Gen. 22:17 Many in number; a great multitude. Went in at the gate. Gen. 23:18 Mature men who sat at the counsel. Hand under thigh. Gen. 24:2 Hand under girdle; a solemn oath. Tender eyed. Gen. 29:17 Attractive eyes. He hath sold us. Gen. 31:15 He has devoured our dowry. Wrestling with an angel. Gen. 32:24 Being suspicious of a pious man. Coat of many colors. Gen. 37:23 A coat with long sleeves meaning learning, honor and a high position. Spilling seed on the ground. Gen. 38:9 Spilling semen on the ground. (An ancient practice of birth control.) No man shall lift up his hand or foot. Gen. 41:44 No man shall do anything without your approval. Put his hand upon thine eyes. Gen. 46:4 Shall close your eyes upon your death bed. Laying on of hands. Gen. 48:14 Blessing and approving a person. His right hand upon the head. Gen. 48:17 A sincere blessing. Unstable as water. Gen. 49:4 Undecided; in a dilemma. The sceptre shall not depart from Judah. Gen. 49:10 There shall always be a king from the lineage of Judah. Washed his garments in wine. Gen. 49:11 He will become an owner of many vineyards. His teeth white with milk. Gen. 49:12 He will have abundant flocks of sheep. His bow abode in strength. Gen. 49:24 He will become a valiant warrior. The stone of Israel. Gen. 49:24 The strong race of Israel. He gathered up his feet. Gen. 49:33 He stretched out his feet—He breathed his last breathe; he died.

They’re not exactly the most physically imposing people in the world (that’s what happens when you live on nothing but soy lattes and veggie burgers), but the sheer force of their numbers is shocking. They have allowed hate to spread at a rate we haven’t seen since the era of civil rights, when Democrats—the party that founded the KKK, in case you’ve forgotten—would organize lynch mobs and counterprotests all across the South, most of which ended in horrific violence. These people are irrational, hysterical, upset, and out looking for enemies. I should know. As of November 16, 2016, I became one of their top targets. Before the election, I was just a guy who appeared on television every once in a while, went to work, and went home at the end of the day and played with my kids. There were probably a few people who thought I was an asshole because I was blessed to have been born into a wealthy family. But no one was mailing suspicious powder to my home or screaming at me in a restaurant where I was celebrating my brother’s birthday. No one was threatening my life. After the election, I became the guy who receives the second highest number of death threats in the country (according to the Secret Service, second only to my father). And that’s a list that includes senators, former presidents, and ambassadors to several war-torn countries. Here’s what the exploding letter filled with powder that sent my then wife and a member of my Secret Service detail to the hospital said: “You are an awful person. This is why people hate you. You are getting what you deserve. So shut the f—k up.

And really, what has stayed with me from that vacation as much as my own suspicious, petty agonizing is my father on the esplanade just after our arrival. The wind blew his hair, and he was fidgety with delight, straining to explain to my mother and me exactly why the Mighty Mac was so impressive. I wondered at the time—I wonder still—if that was the happiest my father had ever been.

Professor Warren Hosta, a tall, thin, fifty-something man with narrow, suspicious eyes and a lone, sad tuft of grayish-black hair on top of his head,

So a peasant, having bought a mirror for the first time, thought that he recognized in it the face of his dead father; he hid it as a great treasure, but so often consulted it that his suspicious wife ferreted it out, and was horrified to find in it the picture of a woman about her own age, who was apparently her husband’s mistress.

Marcus located the other volumes and piled them on the table, then began to skim through the text. From the sternly moralistic Augustus, power had passed to the dour Tiberius, who had ended in utter debauchery and left the world at the mercy of the monstrous Caligula, whose bloody death had led to the reign of the hapless Claudius, cuckolded by one wife, Messalina, and probably murdered by another, Agrippina, who had put her son Nero on the throne and been rewarded with death. After Nero had come four emperors in quick succession: Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and then Vespasian, the bland but competent general who had left the empire to his sons, first the popular Titus, then the suspicious and cruel Domitian. There Suetonius’s account ended, but Marcus needed no historian to tell him about the reigns of Nerva, Trajan, and Hadrian.

I look at Ryan again. “Remind me why I like your wife?” He smiles at her. “Because she’s beautiful and funny.” “No, that’s why you like her. I think she’s about as funny as a suspicious rash.

How’d it go?” I asked as I quickly closed the gap between us, and I knelt in front of her to rub her arms since they were covered in goosebumps. “Is everything alright?” “Yeah.” I nodded. “Okay … did you see anything suspicious?” “No.” Now, I cocked a brow and straightened up a bit. “Are you still Deya?” “Uh-huh,” the elf replied, and she forced a smile. “Just … it was fine. All fine. Nothing important. I’m fine.” “Are you sure? Because you seem kind of--” “I saw my brother having sex, and I can’t unsee it,” Deya blurted out, and my brows shot up. “Oh! That’s … shit,” I managed. “Yeahhh,” she sang, and her voice went up several uncomfortable octaves. “I think it was with Rhys’ wife, too, so … there’s that.” “With Aliasa?” I chuckled. “Damn! Dragir, you dog.” Deya furrowed her brows, though, and I immediately sobered as best as I could. “I mean damn, what a dog. That’s … rude.” “Let’s just move on,” Deya suggested. I nodded. “Definitely.

PARTY POOPER I, Theresa Marie “Tessie” Finley, hereby confess that on the night of October 17th, 1959, instead of keeping my ears to the ground and my eyes peeled for suspicious goings-on in our neighborhood, the way I swore to do on the Holy Bible, I screwed up really bad. For cripessakes, any president of a blackmail and detecting society worth their salt would’ve at least poked their head outta their bedroom window at 12: 07 a.m. to see who was hollering their head off in the cemetery behind their house, “I’m warning you! Watch yourself! You’re treading on dangerous ground!” But what did I do? I acted like some dumb schmoe who doesn’t know the score. According to Chapter One in what has to be the best book ever written on the subject, Modern Detection, a private investigator is never supposed to “assume” they know something without having proof and they’re also never supposed to “let emotions cloud their judgment.” But the minute I heard that hollering over at Holy Cross, I’m ashamed to say, instead of really listening to the voice barging through our bedroom window so I could figure out who it was—I am an ace at that sort of thing—I right away “assumed” that it was Mr. Howard Howard, because every once in a while (mostly after he’s been hitting the schnapps bottle), he staggers over to the cemetery in the wee hours to collapse in a heap on his wife’s grave to bawl his eyes out and threaten God that He better give his Mrs. back ASAP or else. And if that wasn’t bad enough, I also let my emotions cloud my judgment, because Mr. Howard Howard and me, we have that in common. I could be an expert witness on sad

paranoid so much as “suspiciously inquisitive,” as one professor had called her.

For ‘wellness’, naturally, is no cause for complaint – people relish it, they enjoy it, they are at the furthest pole from complaint. People complain of feeling ill – not well. Unless, as George Eliot does, they have some intimation of ‘wrongness’, or danger, either through knowledge or association, or the very excess of excess. Thus, though a patient will scarcely complain of being ‘very well’, they may become suspicious if they feel ‘too well’.

Mr. Van Koeren learned with fury that he had become a father two months before the allotted time. During his first paroxysm of rage, on the receipt of intelligence which seemed to confirm all his previous suspicious, it was, I believe, with difficulty that he was prevented from slaying both the innocent causes of his resentment. The caution of his race and the presence of the physicians induced him, however, to put a curb upon his furious will until reflection suggested quite as criminal, if not as dangerous, a vengeance. As soon as his poor wife had recovered from her illness, unnaturally prolonged by the delicacy of constitution induced by previous mental suffering, she was astonished to find, instead of increasing his persecutions, that her husband had changed his tactics and treated her with studied neglect.

What a beautifully whorish name I have—Feng Yue—Phoenix Moon. Can’t say my mother lacked foresight when she named me. Unfortunately, Xiao Feng Xian was the last celebrity prostitute. This is the 1970s, the modern world. They even made polygamy illegal a few years ago, after so many thousand of years. Can you believe that? What man would be happy with just one wife if they could afford more? Some girls thought it might bring us more business, but we have seen no evidence of that so far. The law has simply driven junior wives underground. They’ve become secret mistresses—less accepted, less recognized, less protected, children relegated to the shadows. The senior wives are now more suspicious of their men than ever, wondering what their mistresses are like, feeling more insecure. Nobody gains. Stupid. In any case, we don’t have the same good karma as our sisters from the dynasties. Phoenix is now a euphemism for chicken, which means hookers in Cantonese slang. Poets are extinct. We have become just chickens.

she touched David’s shoulder as she walked past him out of the room. “You okay, Dad?” That was what you got when you were the only man in the house: his wife and daughters sniffed out potential weaknesses with acute drug-dog noses, suspicious, nurturing German shepherds who could spot his oncoming head colds or emotional fragility in a way that seemed almost superhuman. Or perhaps this was what happened when you became an adult orphan: the slippage started, the shift where your children began to parent you.

One day, out of the blue, they just became too much. The faces of people who thought nothing of making endless demands, of being constantly given things. The way they sat at the table simply waiting to be served, not lifting a finger. Their certainty that they would be taken care of, without even having to try. I began, in an instant, to hate them. I couldn't be bothered to buy seasonal ingredients, prepare them, cook, choose the plates, serve up the food, then clear away the dishes and wash up for people like that. When I stopped being in touch, when I stopped doing the housework and the cooking, they panicked. Some of them became hyper-suspicious and their behavior took on a stalkerish air. Some of them, after returning to life alone, began neglecting themselves, and suffered physically as a result. Like babies, all of them, whose mother had ceased looking after them. It's odd, isn't it? Once I had found their incompetence, their reliance on me adorable. I believed, up until that point, that I liked pleasing them. Yet I suddenly saw that it was always just me, working away frenziedly, all alone." Rika didn't fail to notice the slightest change in Kajii's expression, the note of sorrow that went sliding across her peach-hued face. "Don't get the wrong idea. I like serving men and giving them pleasure. Women who don't don't deserve the name. But being with just one man, a changeable woman like me gets bored." "And yet you haven't given up looking for a marriage partner?" "It's just that I haven't met the right person yet." "I feel like what you're saying isn't---" "Cooking is enjoyable, but the moment it becomes a duty, it grows boring. The same is true of sex, and fashion, and beauty. When you're forced to do something, it becomes a chore, and the pleasure disappears." Rick's body felt heavy. She knew this was important, and yet she couldn't bring herself to ask a question. "The kind of wife that the men on those sites are looking for is, at base, a woman with no sense of life about her. Their ideal partner would be a kind of ghost." It wasn't at all hot in the room, and yet Rika's armpits were slick with lukewarm sweat. Even the gap between her sleeves and her wrists felt clammy. "The quickest way for a modern Japanese woman to gain the love of a man is to become corpse-like. The kind of men who want those women dead are dead themselves. Indeed, it's because they're dead that they're so terrified of anyone with a sense of life about them. If those men hadn't met me, if I hadn't rejected them, they'd quite probably have died anyway. They were never really here to begin with.

IS IT YOU, OR IS IT ME? For the last six months, Ricky has avoided discussing a potential problem with his wife, Elena, because he’s worried that he may be at fault. His first wife had cheated on him for a full year before he figured out what was going on. That had rocked him to the core. Not only was he devastated by her infidelity; he reeled at his own inability to spot the early-warning signs of something as serious as adultery. Ricky was slow to enter another long-term relationship: once bitten, twice shy. That explains why he dated Elena, a friend from church, for four years before convincing himself that his first marriage was a fluke and that Elena was unlike his first wife. Then he took the plunge. After three years of marriage to Elena, Ricky fell into a running debate, constantly bickering—with himself. He began to see signs that maybe something bad, even hideous, was going on behind his back, but he wasn’t sure if Elena was acting inappropriately or if he was being unnecessarily suspicious. Thus, Ricky remained silent. Clearly, Elena had changed. She appeared to be more secretive about her e-mail, quickly exiting from it when he entered their home office. She took more phone calls out of the room than ever before. As Elena successfully explained those behaviors (it was job related and thus uninteresting), a third issue drove Ricky’s internal debate to new heights. Elena had begun working a great deal more overtime. This had happened off and on throughout their relationship. But what made extended hours more troubling lately was that her new supervisor was an ex-boyfriend, and some of the late-night work was with him.

But as to what I was leaving behind, I cannot imagine any alteration. The immense and magnanimous Doramin and his little motherly witch of a wife, gazing together upon the land and nursing secretly their dreams of parental ambition; Tunku Allang, wizened and greatly perplexed; Dain Waris, intelligent and brave, with his faith in Jim, with his firm glance and his ironic friendliness; the girl, absorbed in her frightened, suspicious adoration; Tamb' Itam, surly and faithful; Cornelius, leaning his forehead against the fence under the moonlight—I am certain of them. They exist as if under an enchanter's wand. But the figure round which all these are grouped—that one lives, and I am not certain of him. No magician's wand can immobilise him under my eyes. He is one of us.