Towel Dance Quotes

This," he said, "is a dance. We should savor every step. Think of all we have accomplished already, my friend, and here we've only begun!

Whenever I get dumped, I nail the door shut so that no one can come inside, get a towel and clip it around my neck so it's like a Superman cape, take off my shoes so I can slide across the room, and...get a fake mic, like a celery stick or a pen, and I play any record that features the vocalist Ronnie James Dio. And you can just pretend you're Dio, because on every album he does, he has minimum one, usually three, *EVIL WOMAN LOOK OUT!*- songs. And if you wanna point like Dio, it's a three-finger point. (heavy metal voice) 'The exit is that way. Evil LURKS! Evil lurks in twilight! Dances in the DARK! Evil woman! Just WALK AWAY!

Jen watched as Sally and Jacque's eyes got wider and wider. "Damn," Jen muttered under her breath just as strong arms came around her and she felt warm breath against her neck. "I believe this is our song," Decebel purred in her ear. Jen swore at any moment she was going to be a puddle on the floor and Jacque would have to sop her up with some Bounty paper towels. Why she thought specifically of Bounty paper towels, she had no idea. She was trying really hard to focus on anything but Decebel's warmth against her. To her complete mortification he began to move…with the beat. Sally and Jacque's jaws dropped. Jen mouthed, "Save me," to her two best friends, but evil traitors that they were, they both started dancing and completely ignored her plea. Oh, those two heifers are going down, she promised herself. After a few moments, Jen decided she could either look goofy standing stiff while Decebel danced or she could throw caution to the wind and bring it.

We got hungry around three in the morning, and ordered a ton of pizza from an all-night pizza place. Afterward, Blake talked a guy into letting him borrow his skateboard, and he once again entertained all of us. If it had wheels, Blake could work it. “Is he your boyfriend?” a girl behind me asked. I turned to the group of girls watching Blake. They were all coifed and beautiful in their bikinis, not having gone in the water. My wet hair was pulled back in a ponytail by this point and I was wrapped in a towel. “No, he’s my boyfriend’s best friend. We’re watching his place while he’s . . . out of town.” A pang of fear jabbed me when I thought about Kai. “What’s your name?” asked a brunette with glossy lips. “Anna.” I smiled. “Hey. I’m Jenny,” she said. “This is Daniela and Tara.” “Hey,” I said to them. “So, your boyfriend lives here?” asked the blonde, Daniela. She had a cool accent—something European. “Yes,” I answered, pointing up to his apartment. The girls all shared looks, raising their sculpted eyebrows. “Wait,” said Jenny. “Is he that guy in the band?” The third girl, named Tara, gasped. “The drummer?” When I nodded, they shared awed looks. “Oh my gawd, don’t get mad at me for saying this,” said Jenny, “but he’s a total piece of eye candy.” Her friends all laughed. “Yum drum,” whispered Tara, and Daniela playfully shoved her. Jenny got serious. “But don’t worry. He, like, never comes out or talks to anyone. Now we know why.” She winked at me. “You are so adorable. Where are you from?” “Georgia.” This was met with a round of awwws. “Hey, you’re a Southern girl,” said Tara. “You should like this.” She held out a bottle of bourbon and I felt a tug toward it. My fingers reached out. “Maybe just one drink,” I said. Daniela grinned and turned up the music. Fifteen minutes and three shots later I’d dropped my towel and was dancing with the girls and telling them how much I loved them, while they drunkenly swore to sabotage the efforts of any girl who tried to talk to my man.

If I walked too far and wondered loud enough the fields would change. I could look down and see horse corn and I could hear it then- singing- a kind of low humming and moaning warning me back from the edge. My head would throb and the sky would darken and it would be that night again, that perpetual yesterday lived again. My soul solidifying, growing heavy. I came up to the lip of my grave this way many times but had yet to stare in. I did begin to wonder what the word heaven meant. I thought, if this were heaven, truly heaven, it would be where my grandparents lived. Where my father's father, my favorite of them all, would lift me up and dance with me. I would feel only joy and have no memory, no cornfield and no grave. You can have that,' Franny said to me. 'Plenty of people do.' How do you make the switch?' I asked. It's not as easy as you might think,' she said. 'You have to stop desiring certain answers.' I don't get it.' If you stop asking why you were killed instead of someone else, stop investigating the vaccum left by your loss, stop wondering what everyone left on Earth is feeling,' she said, 'you can be free. Simply put, you have to give up on Earth.' This seemed impossible to me. ... She used the bathroom, running the tap noisily and disturbing the towels. She knew immediately that her mother had bought these towels- cream, a ridiculous color for towels- and monogrammed- also ridiculous, my mother thought. But then, just as quickly, she laughed at herself. She was beginning to wonder how useful her scorched-earth policy had been to her all these years. Her mother was loving if she was drunk, solid if she was vain. When was it all right to let go not only of the dead but of the living- to learn to accept? I was not in the bathroom, in the tub, or in the spigot; I did not hold court in the mirror above her head or stand in miniature at the tip of every bristle on Lindsey's or Buckley's toothbrush. In some way I could not account for- had they reached a state of bliss? were my parents back together forever? had Buckley begun to tell someone his troubles? would my father's heart truly heal?- I was done yearning for them, needing them to yearn for me. Though I still would. Though they still would. Always.

If you never want to see the face of hell, when you come home from work every night, dance with your kitchen towel and, if you're worried about waking up your family, take off your shoes.

How to make a good cry a GREAT CRY. Make sure you have an abundance of good tissues (so you don't have to end up using toilet paper, or worse, paper towels!). Put on the most comfortable clothes you own. Important - Drink lots of water afterward so you don't get a post-crying dehydrating headache! Find something to squeeze or cuddle, like a squishy pillow, animal friend, or consenting human. Now get ready for those sweet, sweet endorphins!

1976. The Bicentennial. In the laundromat, you want for the time on your coins to run out. Through the porthole of the dryer, you watch your bedeviled towels and sheets leap and fall. The radio station piped in from the ceiling plays slow, sad Motown; it encircles you with the desperate hopefulness of a boy at a dance, and it makes you cry. When you get back to your apartment, dump everything on your bed. Your mother is knitting crookedly: red, white, and blue. Kiss her hello. Say: "Sure was warm in the place." She will seem not to hear you.

Peter smiled as Concheetah sashayed across the ballroom floor Concheetah sashayed towards him, wriggling her hips, full lips in a pout, followed obediently by the tentative, Tapping Ted dressed in tight shorts and singlet. Tapping? Tapping because he always wore conspicuous, tap-dancing shoes in the club. Was Ted going to rip up the stage as a mincing Irish dancer or maybe perform a Gene Kelly routine or the Swan Lake ballet in taps? It was terrible to imagine. Peter bit his lip at that thought, hoping he wouldn’t burst into howls of laughter. He had noted after coming to several shows, that Ted usually stood at the side of the stage ready with a drink of champagne and an encouraging word and a dry towel to mop Her Highness’s face. And he always cried during the show’s finale, Abba’s Dancing Queen. Poor Tapping Ted.

Luke appeared, a towel carelessly wrapped around his lower body, and Selena made that small, high-pitched sound again. Sweet tap-dancing Jesus, the man was nothing but hot, hard muscle and she was fighting like crazy to keep herself from throwing herself at him. But who’s to say that he’d mind if she did?

A cell phone rang from the end table to my right and Kristen bolted up straight. She put her beer on the coffee table and dove across my lap for her phone, sprawling over me. My eyes flew wide. I’d never been that close to her before. I’d only ever touched her hand. If I pushed her down across my knees, I could spank her ass. She grabbed her phone and whirled off my lap. “It’s Sloan. I’ve been waiting for this call all day.” She put a finger to her lips for me to be quiet, hit the Talk button, and put her on speaker. “Hey, Sloan, what’s up?” “Did you send me a potato?” Kristen covered her mouth with her hand and I had to stifle a snort. “Why? Did you get an anonymous potato in the mail?” “Something is seriously wrong with you,” Sloan said. “Congratulations, he put a ring on it. PotatoParcel.com.” She seemed to be reading a message. “You found a company that mails potatoes with messages on them? Where do you find this stuff?” Kristen’s eyes danced. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Do you have the other thing though?” “Yeeeess. The note says to call you before I open it. Why am I afraid?” Kristen giggled. “Open it now. Is Brandon with you?” “Yes, he’s with me. He’s shaking his head.” I could picture his face, that easy smile on his lips. “Okay, I’m opening it. It looks like a paper towel tube. There’s tape on the—AHHHHHH! Are you kidding me, Kristen?! What the hell!” Kristen rolled forward, putting her forehead to my shoulder in laughter. “I’m covered in glitter! You sent me a glitter bomb? Brandon has it all over him! It’s all over the sofa!” Now I was dying. I covered my mouth, trying to keep quiet, and I leaned into Kristen, who was howling, our bodies shaking with laughter. I must not have been quiet enough though. “Wait, who’s with you?” Sloan asked. Kristen wiped at her eyes. “Josh is here.” “Didn’t he have a date tonight? Brandon told me he had a date.” “He did, but he came back over after.” “He came back over?” Her voice changed instantly. “And what are you two doing? Remember what we talked about, Kristen…” Her tone was taunting. Kristen glanced at me. Sloan didn’t seem to realize she was on speaker. Kristen hit the Talk button and pressed the phone to her ear. “I’ll call you tomorrow. I love you!” She hung up on her and set her phone down on the coffee table, still tittering. “And what did you two talk about?” I asked, arching an eyebrow. I liked that she’d talked about me. Liked it a lot. “Just sexually objectifying you. The usual,” she said, shrugging. “Nothing a hot fireman like you can’t handle.” A hot fireman like you.I did my best to hide my smirk. “So do you do this to Sloan a lot?” I asked. “All the time. I love messing with her. She’s so easily worked up.” She reached for her beer. I chuckled. “How do you sleep at night knowing she’ll be finding glitter in her couch for the next month?” She took a swig of her beer. “With the fan on medium.” My laugh came so hard Stuntman Mike looked up and cocked his head at me. She changed the channel and stopped on HBO. Some show. There was a scene with rose petals down a hallway into a bedroom full of candles. She shook her head at the TV. “See, I just don’t get why that’s romantic. You want flower petals stuck to your ass? And who’s gonna clean all that shit up? Me? Like, thanks for the flower sex, let’s spend the next half an hour sweeping?” “Those candles are a huge fire hazard.” I tipped my beer toward the screen. “Right? And try getting wax out of the carpet. Good luck with that.” I looked at the side of her face. “So what do you think is romantic?” “Common sense,” she answered without thinking about it. “My wedding wouldn’t be romantic. It would be entertaining. You know what I want at my wedding?” she said, looking at me. “I want the priest from The Princess Bride. The mawage guy.

One morning Profane woke up early, couldn't get back to sleep and decided on a whim to spend the day like a yo-yo, shuttling on the subway back and forth underneath 42nd Street, from Times Square to Grand Central and vice versa. He made his way to the washroom of Our Home, tripping over two empty mattresses on route. Cut himself shaving, had trouble extracting the blade and gashed a finger. He took a shower to get rid of the blood. The handles wouldn't turn. When he finally found a shower that worked, the water came out hot and cold in random patterns. He danced around, yowling and shivering, slipped on a bar of soap and nearly broke his neck. Drying off, he ripped a frayed towel in half, rendering it useless. He put on his skivvy shirt backwards, took ten minutes getting his fly zipped and another fifteen repairing a shoelace which had broken as he was tying it. All the rests of his morning songs were silent cuss words. It wasn't that he was tired or even notably uncoordinated. Only something that, being a schlemihl, he'd known for years: inanimate objects and he could not live in peace.

I understand, intellectually, that the death of a parent is a natural, acceptable part of life. Nobody would call the death of a very sick eighty-year-old woman a tragedy. There was soft weeping at her funeral and red watery eyes. No wrenching sobs. Now I think that I should have let myself sob. I should have wailed and beaten my chest and thrown myself over her coffin. I read a poem. A pretty, touching poem I thought she would have liked. I should have used my own words. I should have said: No one will ever love me as fiercely as my mother did. I should have said: You all think you’re at the funeral of a sweet little old lady, but you’re at the funeral of a girl called Clara, who had long blond hair in a heavy thick plait down to her waist, who fell in love with a shy man who worked on the railways, and they spent years and years trying to have a baby, and when Clara finally got pregnant, they danced around the living room but very slowly, so as not to hurt the baby, and the first two years of her little girl’s life were the happiest of Clara’s life, except then her husband died, and she had to bring up the little girl on her own, before there was a single mother’s pension, before the words “single mother” even existed. I should have told them about how when I was at school, if the day became unexpectedly cold, Mum would turn up in the school yard with a jacket for me. I should have told them that she hated broccoli with such a passion she couldn’t even look at it, and that she was in love with the main character on the English television series Judge John Deed. I should have told them that she loved to read and she was a terrible cook, because she’d try to cook and read her latest library book at the same time, and the dinner always got burned and the library book always got food spatters on it, and then she’d spend ages trying to dab them away with the wet corner of a tea towel. I should have told them that my mum thought of Jack as her own grandchild, and how she made him a special racing car quilt he adored. I should have talked and talked and grabbed both sides of the lectern and said: She was not just a little old lady. She was Clara. She was my mother. She was wonderful.

Shit. I’d danced right through the broken glass, in my bare feet too. Some butterfly. I limped into the main room, trailing bloody footprints and looking for a towel. I washed my feet in the bathtub; the soles looked as if they’d been minced. The real red shoes, the feet punished for dancing. You could dance, or you could have the love of a good man. But you were afraid to dance, because you had this unnatural fear that if you danced they’d cut your feet off so you wouldn’t be able to dance. Finally you overcame your fear and danced, and they cut your feet off. The good man went away too, because you wanted to dance.

But you cannot preserve the memory of applause; it is too volatile, too perishable. Later it would astonish me that I could not satisfactorily summon back that moment[...]No, I would remember the towel...Bo Maybank's towel. Precisely and completely and for the rest of my life. I do not know how he got to know me, but I felt his light leaps up to my face and felt the towel warm against my brow. And his face, I would remember his face as he wiped the sweat from mine, transfigured with joy for me - his face vulnerable and febrile and anonymous - as he danced on the floor below me, as he tried to reach me, as he tried to be a part of the finest moment of my life.

So there’s this annual dance in a couple of weeks.” “The Winter Ball,” I interrupt. “There have been signs up everywhere.” “You want to go?” I think about it for a half second. “Will you dress up?” He nods. I move forward so my hands are flat on the towel and my face is much closer to his face. Something inside my chest warms up like a nice kind of heartburn and I say, “And will we slow dance?” He nods again. His bottom lip turns in toward his mouth for a second, just disappears and then comes back. Stretching out my spine so my lips are nearly touching his I say, “And will you press yourself against me and we’ll move really close together and then your hand will stretch out across the back of my head and your fingers will wrap into my hair and then . . .” He doesn’t nod. He just tilts his head down, moves his fingers into my hair, and his lips touch mine in a forever kiss. His lips are soft and hard all at once. His breath mixes with my breath. Everything inside of me whooshes out.

Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul. Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen, Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn. Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age, Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself. Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean, Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be less familiar than the rest. I am satisfied—I see, dance, laugh, sing; As the hugging and loving bed-fellow sleeps at my side through the night, and withdraws at the peep of the day with stealthy tread, Leaving me baskets cover’d with white towels swelling the house with their plenty, Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my eyes, That they turn from gazing after and down the road, And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent, Exactly the value of one and exactly the value of two, and which is ahead?

So Beaujolais is like this hybrid---a red that drinks like a white, we even put a chill on it. Maybe that's why it has trouble, it doesn't quite fit. No one takes Gamay seriously---too light, too simple, lacks structure. But..." I swirled the glass and it was so... optimistic. "I like to think it's pure. Fleurie sound like flowers doesn't it?" "Girls love flowers," she said judiciously. "They do." I put her wine down, then moved it two inches closer to her, where I knew the field of her focus began. "None of that means anything. It just speaks to me. I feel invited to enjoy it. I get roses." "Child, what is wrong with you? There's no roses in the damn wine. Wine is wine and it makes you loose and helps you dance. That's it. The way you kids talk, like everything is life or death." "It's not?" "You ain't even learned about living yet!" I thought about buying wine. About how I would scan the different Beaujolais crus at the liquor store---the Morgan, the Côte de Brouilly, the Fleurie would be telling me a story. I would see different flowers when I looked at the labels. I thought about the wild strawberries dropped off from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm just that afternoon and how the cooks laid out paper towels and sheet trays in the kitchen, none of them touching, as if they would disintegrate, their fragrance euphoric.

You’re holding a challenge in a fencing club?” “Yes. Is there something wrong with that?” He pulled on his black pants and the heavy silk green shirt I loved for him to wear because the material seemed to caress hisskin. No, it’s just kind of an incongruous place to hold something so serious as a challenge, isn’t it?” He finished with his shoes, grabbed another towel, and shook it out for me. I made sure Pal still had his back to me, hurrying out of the pool to clasp the towel around me. “It is no less incongruous than holding a challenge in a bar.” I smiled. “Yes, but my challenge to you wasn’t serious. I hope you’ll notice that I’m not freaking out about this at all. I haven’t even asked you how good you are with asword.” “I noticed.” His mouth burned on mine for a moment, his fire being shared between us as his tongue twined around mine in a fiery—albeit brief—dance. “You are learning to have faith in me as is proper between a mateand her wyvern.” “No, I am learning to ask around. Pal told me earlier today that Dmitri had picked swords and that you were pleased because you were some sort of master swordsman a few centuries ago. You’d better not have forgotten anything.” Pal peeked at me out of the corner of his eye, his grin not too obvious. Drake pinched my bare behind as punishment for my saucy tone. “I never forget. Istvan will drive you when you are ready. The challenge is not for an hour. Do not be late.” “Happy chevauchee-ing,” I called, feeling remarkably happy.

This neighborhood was mine first. I walked each block twice: drunk, then sober. I lived every day with legs and headphones. It had snowed the night I ran down Lorimer and swore I’d stop at nothing. My love, he had died. What was I supposed to do? I regret nothing. Sometimes I feel washed up as paper. You’re three years away. But then I dance down Graham and the trees are the color of champagne and I remember— There are things I like about heartbreak, too, how it needs a good soundtrack. The way I catch a man’s gaze on the L and don’t look away first. Losing something is just revising it. After this love there will be more love. My body rising from a nest of sheets to pick up a stranger’s MetroCard. I regret nothing. Not the bar across the street from my apartment; I was still late. Not the shared bathroom in Barcelona, not the red-eyes, not the songs about black coats and Omaha. I lie about everything but not this. You were every streetlamp that winter. You held the crown of my head and for once I won’t show you what I’ve made. I regret nothing. Your mother and your Maine. Your wet hair in my lap after that first shower. The clinic and how I cried for a week afterwards. How we never chose the language we spoke. You wrote me a single poem and in it you were the dog and I the fire. Remember the courthouse? The anniversary song. Those goddamn Kmart towels. I loved them, when did we throw them away? Tomorrow I’ll write down everything we’ve done to each other and fill the bathtub with water. I’ll burn each piece of paper down to silt. And if it doesn’t work, I’ll do it again. And again and again and— — Hala Alyan, “Object Permanence

Took your time, eh?” Old Noreen swipes her forehead with a dish towel. “Come on then. This isn’t that movie with the hot beast in highwater pants. The dishes aren’t gonna dance themselves out.

In 1997, teen Melissa Drexler gave birth in a school bathroom during her prom, used the edge of a paper towel dispenser to cut the cord, then left the baby in a Dumpster and returned to the dance.

It all started with that damn fall. My mother pressed a full roll of paper towels against her head to stop the bleeding and drove to church. Her fall and bloody eye would have been a poor excuse to the Gods who appreciated the sacrifices of a good martyr.

Lily smiled and stroked the aquiline jut of his arrogant nose. "I have married a monster. I suppose hard work is one way of preventing all the children we are likely to have if left to idleness." "Or of supporting them when they inevitably arrive. We will have to beware of planting seeds under the new moon in the future, or we will have a lively crop spilling out the walls." Cade swung from the bed and splashed in the pan that had replaced the porcelain washbowl. Amused, Lily levered herself up from the bed. "Is that how you succeeded in getting me pregnant with just one try? You planted me under a new moon?" Cade dried his face in a linen towel and came up grinning. He watched admiringly as the golden sun played across his wife's proud figure and danced through the silken strands of hair tumbling down her back. "Plowed and seeded, querida." He stopped smiling and reached to pull a stray strand of her hair over her shoulder. "Do you still regret it?" Lily tilted her head and studied his face. "I don't think I ever regretted it. I want this child, Cade. Does that seem strange?" "No." Because he wanted it too, but it was a concept Cade couldn't explain. He didn't want just any child, but he wanted this one—carried by a woman alien to anything he had ever known in his past but similar to him in so many ways. He kissed her then, not the usual kiss of lust that they shared, but a gentle kiss of understanding—and something else, but neither of them was ready to recognize it. Lily

I’m trying to make a profit. I’m using batteries, toilet paper, and paper towels as currency. Each is something that will eventually be in short supply.” “You’re trying to get all the toilet paper in town?” Astrid shrilled. “Are you kidding?” “No, Astrid, I’m not kidding,” Albert said. “Look, right now, kids are playing with the stuff. I saw little kids throwing rolls of it around on their lawns like it was a toy. So—” “So your solution is to try and take it all away from people?” “You’d rather see it wasted?” “Yeah, actually,” Astrid huffed. “Rather than you getting it all for yourself. You’re acting like a jerk.” Albert’s eyes flared. “Look, Astrid, now kids know they can buy their way into the club with it. So they’re not going to waste it anymore.” “No, they’re going to give it all to you,” she shot back. “And what happens when they need some?” “Then there will still be some left because I made it valuable.” “Valuable to you.” “Valuable to everyone, Astrid.” “It’s you taking advantage of kids dumb enough not to know any better. Sam, you have to put a stop to this.” Sam had drifted away from the conversation, his head full of the music. He snapped back. “She’s right, Albert, this isn’t okay. You didn’t get permission—” “I didn’t think I needed permission to give kids what they want. I mean, I’m not threatening anyone, saying, ‘Give me your toilet paper, give me your batteries.’ I’m just playing some music and saying, ‘If you want to come in and dance, then it’ll cost you.’” “Dude, I respect you being ambitious and all,” Sam said. “But I have to shut this down. You never got permission, even, let alone asked us if it was okay to charge people.” Albert said, “Sam, I respect you more than I can even say. And Astrid, you are way smarter than me. But I don’t see how you have the right to shut me down.” That was it for Sam. “Okay, I tried to be nice. But I am the mayor. I was elected, as you probably remember, since I think you voted for me.” “I did. I’d do it again, man. But Sam, Astrid, you guys are wrong here. This club is about all these kids have that can get them together for a good time. They’re sitting in their homes starving and feeling sad and scared. When they’re dancing, they forget how hungry and sad they are. This is a good thing I’m doing.” Sam stared hard at Albert, a stare that kids in Perdido Beach took seriously. But Albert did not back down. “Sam, how many cantaloupes did Edilio manage to bring back with kids who were rounded up and forced to work?” Albert asked. “Not many,” Sam admitted. “Orc picked a whole truckload of cabbage. Before the zekes figured out how to get at him. Because we paid Orc to work.” “He did it because he’s the world’s youngest alcoholic and you paid him with beer,” Astrid snapped. “I know what you want, Albert. You want to get everything for yourself and be this big, important guy. But you know what? This is a whole new world. We have a chance to make it a better world. It doesn’t have to be about some people getting over on everyone else. It can be fair to everyone.” Albert laughed. “Everyone can be equally hungry. In a week or so, everyone can starve.

You’ll have to have a sponge bath before we go on, Mr. Fairfax. There’s a question of infection here.” To her surprise, the recalcitrant visitor was looking at her in a different way—his hazel eyes were twinkling with weary mischief, and his voice was lower. Smoother. “How much does that cost? A sponge bath, I mean?” Emma frowned, puzzled. “Cost?” Fairfax smiled at her, showing that fine set of teeth Emma remembered from their earlier encounter. He looked rather like a gentleman when he did that, instead of a trail bum down on his luck. “You know.” Emma had no time to debate. “I’m sorry,” she said, on her way out the door. “I’m afraid I don’t.” She left the room again and came back soon after with a basin of hot water, soap, a washcloth and a towel. “You really are a great deal of trouble, Mr. Fairfax.” “Steven,” he corrected. Emma looked at him in confusion. “Steven.” “May I call you Emma?” “No,” Emma replied, uncomfortable with his familiarity. “You certainly may not. It wouldn’t be proper.” He grinned as though she’d said something funny. “Proper?” he repeated, and he chuckled. Emma lathered up the washcloth and set about cleaning him up as best she could. Of course, she wasn’t about to deal with any part of his anatomy besides his arms and chest. “There’s money over there, in the pocket of my coat,” he said, when Emma was rinsing away the soap. “Good,” Emma said disinterestedly. “You’ll want to buy yourself another set of clothes. I’d be glad to do that for you on my way home from the library tomorrow.” He watched her, his eyes dancing in his wan face. “How long have you been working here?” She wrung out the washcloth. “Working here? I don’t work here—I’m the town librarian. This is my home.” At that Steven gave a hoarse cough of laughter. “You’re a librarian? That’s a new one.” Emma was cutting a sheet into strips. “A new what?” “Listen, when you’re through with these bandages, I could use a little comforting.” She

list of yours,” he said with a smile. “That’s private.” I was seriously annoyed now. “Absolutely not—no deal,” I said, walking away. Max reached out and snatched the paper towel from my hand. When I felt it go, I gasped.  “Max!” I screamed and backed

Take a deep breath," he says. "It makes it easier the longer you can hold it. Don't worry, no need for you to count—I’ll do it.” I bare my teeth as he tosses the towel over my face and reaches into my hair with his now free hand, yanking my head back. I don't even have time to take the breath he suggested when cold-ass water hits the towel over my face and quickly seeps through. It hits my mouth, and as I gasp and struggle against my bindings, I choke. Dark gray fabric covers my eyes. The fibers of the towel suck into my mouth as I try to catch my breath, but nothing. No air comes. Just water. Gushes and gushes of water. In my mouth. Over my eyes. Up my nose. Until black dots dance in front of my vision. Until I swear to God, I can taste the ocean in my nostrils.

I see you, Tess,” he says, dropping his end of the towel to cup my cheek. “I see you. I can’t stop seeing you—your wit, your beauty, your grace. You’re so goddamn graceful. These fingers,” he adds, reaching down to take my hand. “I watch the way they dance through your hair, taming your curls away from your face.” Lifting my hand to his lips, he kisses each of my fingertips, his lips soft. Each kiss lights me up inside, fanning the flames of my desire for him.

The treat you gave your dog this morning for doing his little dance in the kitchen had good associations for him as he gobbled it up. That same treat caused him to run away from you when you offered it later to try to lure him into the bathtub. He's no fool. He can see the towel and shampoo bottle in your other hand and he knows what that means. Suddenly that chicken jerky you are holding reeks of a mean trick. The circumstances around a stimulus changed, so the meaning of that stimulus in the moment changed for him as well.

And so they ride through the city, father and child, seeing, each, a different place. Jane, with the liberation of childhood, without rationality or expectations, sees an anarchic landscape in which anything is possible and many things are provocative. She wrestles with language, scans advertisements, shop-signs, logos on vans and trucks. She pays professional attention to other children, in the way that animals are most sensitive to their own species. She searches out the things that tether her to a known world — a bus with a familiar destination, a hoarding that proclaims her favourite brand of chocolate, Volkswagen cars that are like her father’s. Hers is a heliocentric universe, and she is the sun. She is fettered by a child’s careless egotism, but freed from adult preconceptions. She does not know what to expect, and can therefore assess what she sees in its own terms. She does not interpret, and therefore can construct her own system of references. The Arabic script on the windows of the Bank of Kuwait becomes little dancing figures. The caryatids outside the church in Euston Road are ladies wearing bath towels with books on their heads. For her, the city is alternately mysterious and familiar, baffling and instructive. She tests her own capacities against the view from the window of the bus; she rhymes and puns, she counts, she classifies. She plays games with words and sounds, she flexes her imagination, she takes the place as she sees it and twists it to her own ends.

Well, I like you in either form,” she said, giving me a shy smile. “In fact, sometimes I like your wolf form better. He’s more cuddly.” “Oh, too bad about that.” I shook my head. “I can change right now for you but I’m afraid it might ruin our plans for the evening.” “Plans?” She looked at me doubtfully. “We have plans?” “Uh-huh. How do you feel about salsa dancing?” She bit her lip. “Um… it sounds great but… you dance? Really?” I gave her my best mock offended look. “I’m not as much of a Neanderthal as you want to believe. Yeah, I dance. I’m pretty fucking good at it, if I say so myself.” “Well, I’m not any good at it but I’m willing to give it a try.” Her face fell. “Only I don’t have anything to wear.” “Yes, you do.” I went back out to the porch and picked up the package I’d left outside earlier. “Hope you like it,” I said as she ripped into it eagerly. “My sister picked it out. She owns a boutique in Tallahassee.” “Oh!” she exclaimed as the dress my big sister had picked came into view. It was a short, shimmery thing with a draped top and a low cut back. There were shoes to match too—strappy little heels that would make her long, lovely legs look like they went on forever. I couldn’t wait to see her in them. That is, if she would wear the clothes and shoes my sister had picked—I wasn’t so sure because suddenly Taylor had tears in her eyes. “You don’t like the outfit?” I asked anxiously. “I can send it back. I—” “No, no—I love it.” She sniffed and blotted her eyes with a paper towel from the holder. “It’s just… so sweet. And it’s the first time someone else has picked my clothes in years and got me something I really wanted to wear. Thank you, Victor.” She put the box with the clothes and shoes on the counter and stood on tiptoe to put her arms around my neck. “You’re so sweet to me,” she whispered in my ear. “So sweet and kind and generous.” “You deserve it,” I said gruffly, hugging her back.