“
Words are things. You must be careful, careful about calling people out of their names, using racial pejoratives and sexual pejoratives and all that ignorance. Don’t do that. Some day we’ll be able to measure the power of words. I think they are things. They get on the walls. They get in your wallpaper. They get in your rugs, in your upholstery, and your clothes, and finally in to you.
”
”
Maya Angelou
“
She was clean": no piercings, tattoos, or scarifications. All the kids were now. And who could blame them, Alex thought, after watching three generations of flaccid tattoos droop like moth-eaten upholstery over poorly stuffed biceps and saggy asses?
”
”
Jennifer Egan (A Visit from the Goon Squad)
“
By the way, don’t breathe on the upholstery or I may have to gut you. (Nick)
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Infinity (Chronicles of Nick, #1))
“
Come on, Megeara. Walk on the wild side with me. Let’s get naked and ruin Solin’s upholstery. It serves two purposes. We’re happy and he’s pissed. (Arik)
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (The Dream-Hunter (Dark-Hunter, #10; Dream-Hunter, #1))
“
I glanced at Robert, who looked at Rose, who looked back at Robert. Well, odd one out, then. Maybe he would propose if I disappeared.
"Oh look! Upholstery," I declared, feigning fascination with a side chair in the corner of the room.
”
”
Tarun Shanker (These Vicious Masks (These Vicious Masks, #1))
“
There is a fertile stretch of flat lands in Indiana where unagarian Eastern travelers, glancing from car windows, shudder and return their eyes to interior upholstery, preferring even the swaying comparisons of a Pullman to the monotony without.
”
”
Booth Tarkington (The Gentleman from Indiana)
“
Death was an existential catastrophe, a rip in the soft upholstery with which humanity padded over a hard uncaring universe, but it turned out there were an amazing number of people whose job it was to deal with it for you, and all they asked in return were huge quantities of time and money.
”
”
Lev Grossman (The Magician's Land (The Magicians, #3))
“
I owned a Ferrari, a Range Rover, a Mercedes 560SL convertible, a Jeep Cherokee and a Nissan 300ZX. I can't remember the intricate decision tree I had to climb in order to determine which one to drive to work on any given day - it probably had something to do with the weather, or which car had more gas in the tank, or upholstery that best matched whatever shirt I happened to throw on that morning.
”
”
Michael J. Fox (Lucky Man)
“
For five minutes, neither of us spoke. I stared ahead and watched the seat upholstery go blurry from my tears.
”
”
Wally Lamb (She's Come Undone)
“
The girl slid into the back seat of the town car, tugging at the hem of her dress like she was afraid she might leave a stain on the upholstery.
”
”
John McNee (Grudge Punk)
“
I want a ride that’s comfy and fast. And you just can’t beat the gas mileage or upholstery of a horse.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (Seriously delirious, but not at all serious)
“
Thoreau has been my companion for some days past, it having struck me as
more appropriate to bring him out to a pond than to read him, as was
hitherto my habit, on Sunday mornings in the garden. He is a person who
loves the open air, and will refuse to give you much pleasure if you try
to read him amid the pomp and circumstance of upholstery; but out in the
sun, and especially by this pond, he is delightful, and we spend the
happiest hours together, he making statements, and I either agreeing
heartily, or just laughing and reserving my opinion till I shall have
more ripely considered the thing.
”
”
Elizabeth von Arnim (The Solitary Summer (Elizabeth))
“
Hold fast! then you too will see the unchangeable dark distance, out of which nothing can come except one day the chariot; it rolls up, gets bigger and bigger, fills the whole world at the moment it reaches you - and you sink into it like a child sinking into the upholstery of a carriage that drives through the storm and night.
”
”
Franz Kafka
“
The taxi driver dropped them off back at the Wabasha Street Caves and drove off clutching a huge tip and muttering under his breath about dog drool on his upholstery. In return, Chudo-Yudo muttered something about taxi drivers tasting good with ketchup.
”
”
Deborah Blake (Dangerously Divine (Broken Riders, #2))
“
Other women – women in the past, tougher women – have dealt with babies in confined spaces, such as ocean ships and covered wagons. But maybe not cars. It’s hard to get smells out of car upholstery, so you’d have to be extra careful about the spitting up and so forth. —
”
”
Margaret Atwood (The Heart Goes Last)
“
I'll drive. But don't you be turning into a dragon while you're in the car. I don't want those claws poking holes in my nice upholstery.
”
”
Katie MacAlister (Dragon Fall (Dragon Falls, #1))
“
As two-seaters go, I had always found mine fairly comfortable, but then I had never before tried to get the eight hours in it, and you would be surprised at the number of knobs and protuberances which seem suddenly to sprout out of a car's upholstery when you seek to convert it into a bed.
”
”
P.G. Wodehouse (Thank You, Jeeves (Jeeves, #5))
“
I wanted to give up the fear that you fell in love with the car of me at the showroom only to find out that the breaks were worn and a spring was coming through the upholstery. That I tricked you into wanting me, but now you were stuck.
”
”
Anne Lamott (Somehow: Thoughts on Love)
“
Now the road was crossing orange groves in flower, and the nuptial scent of the blossoms absorbed the rest as a full moon does a landscape; the smell of sweating horses, the smell of leather from the carriage upholstery, the smell of Prince and the smell of Jesuit, were all cancelled out by that Islamic perfume evoking houris and fleshly joys beyond the grave.
”
”
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (The Leopard)
“
I thought maybe Against Nature would be a book about someone who viewed things the way I did—someone trying to live a life unmarred by laziness, cowardice, and conformity. I was wrong; it was more a book about interior decoration. In his free moments from plumbing the subrational depths of upholstery, the main character devoted himself to the preparation of all-black meals, to hanging out with a jewel-encrusted tortoise, and thinking thoughts like, “All is syphilis.” How was that an aesthetic life?
”
”
Elif Batuman (The Idiot)
“
After lunch, he rose and gave me the tips of his fingers, saying he would like to show me over his flat; but I snatched away my hand and gave a cry. What I had touched was cold and, at the same time, bony; and I remembered that his hands smelt of death. ‘Oh, forgive me!’ he moaned. And he opened a door before me. ‘This is my bedroom, if you care to see it. It is rather curious.’ His manners, his words, his attitude gave me confidence and I went in without hesitation. I felt as if I were entering the room of a dead person. The walls were all hung with black, but, instead of the white trimmings that usually set off that funereal upholstery, there was an enormous stave of music with the notes of the DIES IRAE, many times repeated. In the middle of the room was a canopy, from which hung curtains of red brocaded stuff, and, under the canopy, an open coffin. 'That is where I sleep,’ said Erik. 'One has to get used to everything in life, even to eternity.’ The sight upset me so much that I turned away my head”
- Chapter 12: Apollo’s Lyre
”
”
Gaston Leroux (The Phantom of the Opera)
“
The Widow Russell apparently took her at-home retirement so far as the abstain from receiving guests in the formal parlors: Theo was shown to a pink-papered upstairs room where she sat in an armchair whose chintz upholstery featured roses twining daintily on a white ground. She was head-to-toe in black, of course, and for a moment he had the very odd impression of a spider lurking in a rose bouquet.
”
”
Cecilia Grant (A Lady Awakened (Blackshear Family, #1))
“
The car, one of those coachbuilt delicacies named after some French province or variety of grape, practically shouted at Nick that he was far too vulgar and ignoble to even stand beside it, let alone debase its flawless leather upholstery with the seat of his plebeian trousers.
”
”
Nate Granzow (Get Idiota)
“
Deliberately, she visualized the living room of their Flynders farmhouse, then, blurring that bright familiar place, another room began to form: the skimpy parlor of her childhood, her father and a friend speaking late into the evening while she lay drowsily on the Victorian sofa, listening to the drone of the men's low voices, feeling on her cheek the sting of a horsehair which had worked its way up through the black upholstery, safe and dreaming of the brilliance of her own true grown-up life to come.
She put her hand on her cheek and touched the place where the horsehair had pricked, and she gasped at the force of a memory that could, in the space of a breath taken and released, expunge the distance between sleepy child and exhausted adult, as though, she thought, it had taken all these years to climb the stairs to bed.
”
”
Paula Fox (Desperate Characters)
“
But the more the Tesla guys researched the industry, the more they realized that the big automakers don’t even really build their cars anymore. The days of Henry Ford having raw materials delivered to one end of his Michigan factory and then sending cars out the other end had long passed. “BMW didn’t make its windshields or upholstery or rearview mirrors,” Tarpenning said. “The only thing the big car companies had kept was internal combustion research, sales and marketing, and the final assembly. We thought naïvely that we could access all the same suppliers for our parts.
”
”
Ashlee Vance (Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future)
“
Was it wrong, wanting to sleep late with the covers over my head and wander around a peaceful house with old seashells in drawers and wicker baskets of folded upholstery fabric stored under the parlor secretary, sunset falling in drastic coral spokes through the fanlight over the front door?
”
”
Donna Tartt (The Goldfinch)
“
There she sits in the corner of the carriage—that carriage which is travelling, not from Richmond to Waterloo, but from one age of English literature to the next, for Mrs. Brown is eternal, Mrs. Brown is human nature, Mrs. Brown changes only on the surface, it is the novelists who get in and out—there she sits and not one of the Edwardian writers has so much as looked at her. They have looked very powerfully, searchingly, and sympathetically out of the window ; at factories, at Utopias, even at the decoration and upholstery of the carriage ; but never at her, never at life, never at human nature.
”
”
Virginia Woolf (Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown)
“
The car boosted up and presumably out because I heard the drumming of rain against the bodywork. There was a faint smell of leather from the upholstery, which beat the odour of faeces on the inbound journey, and the seat I was in moulded itself supportively to my form. I seemed to have moved up in the order of things.
”
”
Richard K. Morgan (Altered Carbon (Takeshi Kovacs, #1))
“
The part of his mind that considered odds and consequences had shut down entirely, snuffed by the sheer adrenal rush of holding her, falling together into the Impala's sunken upholstery. He took her face in his hands as he kissed her, wanting to just get it right, to stamp the moment, to blunt the thunder of fear pounding in his skull as the rest of him succumbed to a sensation beyond pleasure, a kind of twisted relief that he'd macheted all his moorings, that whatever happened now would happen because he'd said 'Fuck It!' to everything that had rendered him, for more years than he could count, a soul-dead, heart-numbed misfit staggering from pill to pill just to get through the dull risk of his own existence.
”
”
Jerry Stahl (Plainclothes Naked)
“
Ella was suddenly and vastly interested in the weave of the upholstery on the armchair in which she was seated. Vivi could have been searching for treasure in her tiny reticule for the amount of attention she was giving to the contents of the bag, likely a handkerchief, some lip rouge, and a traveling comb. Neither girl wanted to be the next recipient of the duchess’s wrath.
”
”
Sarah MacLean (The Season)
“
You could hate a sofa, of course—that is, if you could hate a sofa. But it didn't matter. You still had to get together $4.80 a month. If you had to pay $4.80 a month for a sofa that started off split, no good, and humiliating—you couldn't take any joy in owning it. And the joylessness stank, pervading everything. The stink of it kept you from painting the beaverboard walls; from getting a matching piece of material for the chair; even from sewing up the split, which became a gash, which became a gaping chasm that exposed the cheap frame and the cheaper upholstery. It withheld the refreshment in a sleep slept on it. It imposed a furtiveness on the loving done on it. Like a sore tooth that is not content to throb in isolation, but must diffuse its own pain to other parts of the body—making breathing difficult, vision limited, nerves unsettled, so a hated piece of furniture produces a fretful malaise that asserts itself throughout the house and limits the delight of things not related to it.
”
”
Toni Morrison (The Bluest Eye)
“
Leonide sank back in her seat and let out a long breath of relief. I was almost relaxed, too; ART has nice shuttles and I liked this one. The upholstery was in good shape and it didn’t smell like human feet.
”
”
Martha Wells (System Collapse (The Murderbot Diaries, #7))
“
Gruesome as it was, I had to admit the head was easier to pack into the Jetta than a whole body would have been, especially since there was no upholstery or carpet in the space where (hopefully) someday a backseat would reside.
”
”
Patricia Briggs (Storm Cursed (Mercy Thompson, #11))
“
Our lives are spent plopped on the gluteal upholstery for eight hours a day with only imaginary friends for company, spinning lies, marinating in envy, and wondering when the Pulitzer committee is going to twig to our brilliance.
”
”
Sarah Bird (Recent Studies Indicate: The Best of Sarah Bird)
“
As they passed through the exit, Indrani pulled Zarina’s stole over her head, covering half of her face. The two words—not guilty—had changed Zarina’s stature in minutes, from a relentless human rights activist to someone running for cover. They climbed down the stairs and rushed to the parking lot. Zarina’s car was in a pathetic condition—smashed windscreen, deflated tyres, broken rear view mirrors and torn upholstery. An exasperated Zarina raised her hands in utter disgust. Mob fury. Idiots, if they have won the case, let them celebrate their victory; why smash my car? The fighter in her forced Zarina to take out her cell phone and click pictures of her car from different angles.
”
”
Hariharan Iyer (Surpanakha)
“
And here were the lions now, fifteen feet away, so real, so feverishly and startlingly real that you could feel the prickling fur on your hand, and your mouth was stuffed with the dusty upholstery smell of their heated pelts, and the yellow of them was in your eyes like the yellow of an exquisite French tapestry, the yellows of lions and summer grass, and the sound of the matted lion lungs exhaling on the silent noontide, and the smell of meat from the panting, dripping mouths.
”
”
Ray Bradbury (The Veldt)
“
I got out of my car, locked it tight as a virgin, and entered his back seat, where a Milky Way wrapper greeted me on the floor, a burnt cigarette mark greeted me on the seat, and the overpowering scent of upholstery cleaner nearly did me in.
”
”
Robert Downs (Falling Immortality (Casey Holden, Private Investigator #1))
“
There is a fertile stretch of flat lands in Indiana where unagrarian Eastern travellers, glancing from car-windows, shudder and return their eyes to interior upholstery, preferring even the swaying caparisons of a Pullman to the monotony without.
”
”
Booth Tarkington (The Gentleman from Indiana)
“
He opened the back of the Polaroid and slid in the roll of film while his family arranged themselves on the Argent sofa. The upholstery was the color of faded mint, a fine setting for their brown skin, but the camera only took black-and-white photos. John on Elizabeth’s lap, May beside them. May didn’t know how to smile yet—all instructions to do so summoned an unsettling, gum-heavy display that would not have been out of place on a Bowery bum sleeping it off in a vestibule. “Sit still,” Elizabeth said.
”
”
Colson Whitehead (Harlem Shuffle)
“
Reacher knocked on the door, and the voices fell silent. He opened the door, and saw a break room, very municipal, full of inoffensive colors and low chairs with fabric upholstery. In the chairs were five people, two men, three women, different ages, different types.
”
”
Lee Child (Make Me (Jack Reacher, #20))
“
I had never been in a car by myself, at night. New York flowed and ebbed in perfect silence outside the thick windows. If I leaned back, the city disappeared behind the tasseled velvet curtains. Pedestrians, curious about the limousine’s passenger, peered in at every traffic light. This accentuated the oddity of the situation. I was out in the street while being, at the same time, in a secluded space. More than the mahogany panels, the cut-glass decanters, the embroidered upholstery and the capped, white-gloved driver on the other side of the partition, it was this strange paradox of being in private in public that felt so opulent—a feeling that was one with the illusion of suddenly having become untouchable and invulnerable, with the fantasy of being in total control of myself, of others and of the city as a whole.
”
”
Hernan Diaz (Trust)
“
the large wood-paneled restaurant. The place has a classic old-fashioned feel: brass lamps, dark green leather upholstery, crisp white linen, and sparkling crystal glasses. The atmosphere buzzes with the chatter of businessmen and -women and the clatter of cutlery on fine china.
”
”
E.L. James (The Mister (Mister & Missus, #1))
“
She never gave up adoring our father, but he ceased to be, for her, the larger-than-life hero I continued to make him into. For Patty, he was more like a deeply lovable spaniel who keeps peeing on the rug and chewing on the upholstery, no matter how many times you tell him not to.
”
”
Joyce Maynard (After Her)
“
And those who will carefully study the so-called 'Mosaic code' contained in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, will see that, though Jahveh's prohibitions of certain forms of immorality are strict and sweeping, his wrath is quite as strongly kindled against infractions of ritual ordinances. Accidental homicide may go unpunished, and reparation may be made for wilful theft. On the other hand, Nadab and Abihu, who 'offered strange fire before Jahveh, which he had not commanded them,' were swiftly devoured by Jahveh's fire; he who sacrificed anywhere except at the allotted place was to be 'cut off from his people'; so was he who ate blood; and the details of the upholstery of the Tabernacle, of the millinery of the priests' vestments, and of the cabinet work of the ark, can plead direct authority from Jahveh, no less than moral commands.
”
”
Thomas Henry Huxley (The Evolution Of Theology: An Anthropological Study)
“
It was the gift that every girl dreams of, to be dead long enough for your parents to realize how meaningless their lives were without you, how they were suddenly and at once deeply sorrowed at all of the horrible injustices they caused you, how they had truly never appreciated your natural gifts of beauty and grace, being that their beautiful angel would have such a short time on earth and should have spent that time driving the restored 1965 convertible Mustang she had openly AND PUBLICLY desired. But nope, she spent her last, short, fleeting moments driving a 1980 Chevy Citation, every so clearly a GRANDMA car, with fake red-velvet upholstery, a hatchback, and an interior that smelled like spoiled milk and sometimes meat. Being temporarily run over by a car was the best present I had ever received, and I didn't even have to do anything dramatic to get it, like write a note or buy some rope.
”
”
Laurie Notaro (An Idiot Girl's Christmas: True Tales from the Top of the Naughty List)
“
That chair -shall I ever forget it? Where the shadows fell on the canvas upholstery, stripes of a deep but glowing indigo alternated with stripes of an incandescence so intensely bright that it was hard to believe that they could be made of anything but blue fire. For what seemed an immensely long time I gazed without knowing, even without wishing to know, what it was that confronted me. At any other time I would have seen a chair barred with alternate light and shade. Today the percept had swallowed up the concept. I was so completely absorbed in looking, so thunderstruck by what I actually saw, that I could not be aware of anything else. Garden furniture, laths, sunlight, shadow - these were no more than names and notions, mere verbalizations, for utilitarian or scientific purposes, after the event. The event was this succession of azure furnace doors separated by gulfs of unfathomable gentian. It was inexpressibly wonderful, wonderful to the point, almost, of being terrifying.
”
”
Aldous Huxley (The Doors of Perception & Heaven and Hell)
“
Gamache loved to see inside the homes of people involved in a case. To look at the choices they made for their most intimate space. The colors, the decorations. The aromas. Were there books? What sort?
How did it feel?
He'd been in shacks in the middle of nowhere, carpets worn, upholstery torn, wallpaper peeling off. But stepping in he'd also noticed the smell of fresh coffee and bread. Walls were taken up with immense smiling graduation photos and on rusty pocked TV trays stood modest chipped vases with cheery daffodils or pussy willows or some tiny wild flower picked by worn hands for eyes that would adore it.
And he'd been in mansions that felt like mausoleums.
”
”
Louise Penny (The Cruelest Month (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #3))
“
His feet went banging down some stairs. He closed his eyes. They went through cinders and dirt, his heels gathering small windrows of trash. A dim world receded above his upturned toes, shapes of skewed shacks erupted bluely in the niggard lamplight. The rusting carcass of an automobile passed slowly on his right. Dim scenes pooling in the summer night, wan ink wash of junks tilting against a paper sky, rorschach boatmen poling mutely over a mooncobbled sea. He lay with his head on the moldy upholstery of an old car seat among packingcrates and broken shoes and suncrazed rubber toys in the dark. Something warm was running on his chest. He put up a hand. I am bleeding. Unto my death.
”
”
Cormac McCarthy (Suttree)
“
But for now, it even has a Gandhian approach to sabotage; before a police vehicle is burnt for example, it is stripped down and every part is cannibalized. The steering wheel is straightened out and made into a bharmaar barrel, the rexine upholstery stripped and used for ammunition pouches, the battery for solar charging. Should I write a play I wonder- Gandhi Get Your Gun. Or will I be lynched?
”
”
Arundhati Roy (Walking With The Comrades)
“
There's nothing like the scent of your own home, is there? I don't mean how it ordinarily smells, when you're living in it- that smell you don't even notice, because it's always there, and so are you. I mean the peculiar perfume that greets you when you've been away, the delicate balance of wood and paint and plaster and upholstery, stripped of your own living essence: just the substance of the house and nothing else.
”
”
Beatriz Williams (A Certain Age (A Certain Age, #1))
“
The room was large and faultless. A psychologist, hired from Cambridge, had planned the decorations—magenta and gamboge; colors which—it had been demonstrated by experiments on poultry and mice—conduce to a mood of dignified gaiety. Every day carpet, curtains and upholstery were inspected for signs of disrepair. A gentle whining note filled the apartment, emanating from a plant which was thought to “condition” the atmosphere.
”
”
Evelyn Waugh (Scoop)
“
The world around her, the straight world, the mundane world, had become to her a blowing wasteland. It was empty, a postapocalyptic world: empty stores, empty houses, stalled cars with the upholstery burned out of them, dead traffic lights swaying above empty streets. That missing afternoon in November had become a black hole that had sucked the entire rest of her life into it. And once you’d fallen past that Schwarzschild radius, it was pretty damn hard to claw your way back out again.
”
”
Lev Grossman (The Magician King (The Magicians, #2))
“
The Lowe manor resembled a home plucked out of a haunting fairy tale. Each hearth crackled with fire, making each piece of upholstery, every room, and every Lowe smell of smoke. Full of dark-stained pine wood and iron candelabras, it was where maidens pricked their fingers on spinning wheels, where every fruit tasted of poison and vice. The boys grew up acting out these stories. Hendry played both the princess and the knight; Alistair was always and only the dragon.
Glowering family portraits adorned every wall in the sitting room.
”
”
Amanda Foody, christine lynn Herman (All of Us Villains (All of Us Villains, #1))
“
There is no sense of ease like the ease we felt in those scenes where we were born, where objects became dear to us before we had known the labour of choice, and where the outer world seemed only an extension of our own personality: we accepted and loved it as we accepted our own sense of existence and our own limbs. Very commonplace, even ugly, that furniture of our early home might look if it were put up to auction; an improved taste in upholstery scorns it; and is not the striving after something better and better in our surrounding, the grand characteristic that distinguishes man from the brute - or, to satisfy a scrupulous accuracy of definition, that distinguishes the British man from the foreign brute? But heaven knows where that striving might lead us, if our affections had not a trick of twining round those old inferior things - if the loves and sanctities of our life had no deep immovable roots in memory. One's delight in an elderberry bush overhanging the confused lea age of a hedgerow bank, as a more gladdening sight than the finest cistus or fuchsia spreading itself on the softest undulating turf, is an entirely unjustifiable preference to a nursery-gardener, or to any of those severely regulated minds who are free from the weakness of any attachment that does not rest on a demonstrable superiority of qualities. And there is no better reason for preferring this elderberry bush than that it stirs an early memory - that it is no novelty in my life, speaking to me merely through my present sensibilities to form and colour, but the long companion of my existence, that wove itself into my joys when joys were vivid.
”
”
George Eliot (The Mill on the Floss)
“
somewhere along the dust-chocked Guatemalan road between...and ...was where I confirmed that I preferred traveling around the slow, bone-rattling way: by bus,with ordinary people. The bus we were riding in had been repainted in bright reds. The inside was colorful too: the seats had springs popping out of the upholstery, and the floor was caked with dirt and garbage. Chickens, some tied in bunches and others wandering loose, squawked noisily. Bouncing along a road to a place I had never been, and would never go back to, suddenly felt exciting, liberating even
”
”
Chesa Boudin (Gringo)
“
You’re too goddamned fat,” he said. I took a defiant drag on my cigarette and willed myself not to cry. The remark made me dizzy. For the past four years, Ma and Grandma had played by the rule: never to mention my weight. Now my jeans and sweatshirt were folded in a helpless pile beside me and there was only a thin sheet of paper between my rolls of dimply flesh and this detestable old man. My heart raced with fear and nicotine and Pepsi. My whole body shook, dripped sweat. “Any trouble with your period?” he asked. “No.” “What?” “No trouble,” I managed, louder. He nodded in the direction of his stand-up scale. The backs of my legs made little sucking sounds as they unglued themselves from the plastic upholstery. He brought the sliding metal bar down tight against my scalp and fiddled with the cylinder in front of my face. “Five-five and a half,” he said. “Two hundred . . . fifty-seven.” The tears leaking from my eyes made stains on the paper gown. I nodded or shook my head abruptly at each of his questions, coughed on command for his stethoscope, and took his pamphlets on diet, smoking, heart murmur. He signed the form. At the door, his hand on the knob, he turned back and waited until I met his eye. “Let me tell you something,” he said. “My wife died four Tuesdays ago. Cancer of the colon. We were married forty-one years. Now you stop feeling sorry for yourself and lose some of that pork of yours. Pretty girl like you—you don’t want to do this to yourself.” “Eat shit,” I said. He paused for a moment, as if considering my comment. Then he opened the door to the waiting room and announced to my mother and someone else who’d arrived that at the rate I was going, I could expect to die before I was forty years old. “She’s too fat and she smokes,” I heard him say just before the hall rang out with the sound of my slamming his office door. I was wheezing wildly by the time I reached the final landing. On the turnpike on the way home, Ma said, “I could stand to cut down, too, you know. It wouldn’t hurt me one bit. We could go on a diet together? Do they still sell that Metrecal stuff?” “I’ve been humiliated enough for one fucking decade,” I said. “You say one more thing to me and I’ll jump out of this car and smash my head under someone’s wheels.
”
”
Wally Lamb (She's Come Undone)
“
Jesus it’s clean in here,” Theo said, glancing around the spotless leather interior. “Just the way I like it.” Leone chuckled. “Don’t let Theo eat in the car, then. There’ll be crumbs in places in the upholstery you didn’t even know about.” Jamie leaned an elbow on the middle armrest and glanced at him. “That so?” Theo pressed his finger to the condensation on the front window and started writing. “I like my cars with personality.” “That means he cherishes the smell of stale crackers.” “Leone!” She laughed. “Hey, I like it. All I have to do is feel the grains and I know I’m home.
”
”
Anyta Sunday (Leo Loves Aries (Signs of Love, #1))
“
two Florida Highway Patrol cars and a third, black car pulled up in front of the house, and several white men emerged, among them the deputies Campbell and Yates. “Where is the guy that was with you last night?” Yates asked Shepherd, and what began with that question led to the beatings he and Irvin endured on the deserted clay road outside of Groveland. “They must have beat us about a half hour,” Shepherd told the lawyers, who were at once riveted and appalled by his testimony. After the beating, he and Irvin were shoved back into the patrol car. Irvin’s shirt was drenched in blood, and when he reached his hand up to his head he felt “a big chunk knocked out of it.” A patrolman told them to scoot up to the edge of the seat so their blood wouldn’t drip onto the upholstery.
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Gilbert King (Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America)
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I began the process of cutting up my random fabrics into strips. Of course, I chose easy things first, items that didn't' hurt me very much to cut up: torn sheets. A flannel nightgown so tattered it could never be worn again, one of Steve's worn-out t-shirts, couch upholstery.
The resulting balls of fabric yarn that I wound together after cutting astounded me. They were gorgeous--each one prettier than the last, which made me braver.
I took some photographs. And I heaved a sigh. Things in me were changing, I could feel it...so many months focusing on Stuff, Stuff, STUFF had made me bolder. What's the worst that could happen? I thought to myself. It reminded me of the day I finally, after ten years of kicking and screaming, took that first half pill [for OCD]. To someone else it might be no big deal, but to me? It felt like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute.
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Eve O. Schaub (Year of No Clutter)
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There is no sense of ease like the ease we felt in those scenes where we were born, where objects became dear to us before we had known the labor of choice, and where the outer world seemed only an extension of our own personality; we accepted and loved it as we accepted our own sense of existence and our own limbs. Very commonplace, even ugly, that furniture of our early home might look if it were put up to auction; an improved taste in upholstery scorns it; and is not the striving after something better and better in our surroundings the grand characteristic that distinguishes man from the brute, or, to satisfy a scrupulous accuracy of definition, that distinguishes the British man from the foreign brute? But heaven knows where that striving might lead us, if our affections had not a trick of twining round those old inferior things; if the loves and sanctities of our life had no deep immovable roots in memory. One's delight in an elderberry bush overhanging the confused leafage of a hedgerow bank, as a more gladdening sight than the finest cistus or fuchsia spreading itself on the softest undulating turf, is an entirely unjustifiable preference to a nursery-gardener, or to any of those regulated minds who are free from the weakness of any attachment that does not rest on a demonstrable superiority of qualities. And there is no better reason for preferring this elderberry bush than that it stirs an early memory; that it is no novelty in my life, speaking to me merely through my present sensibilities to form and color, but the long companion of my existence, that wove itself into my joys when joys were vivid.
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George Eliot (The Mill on the Floss [with Biographical Introduction])
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One day, at a quiet hour, I found myself alone in a certain gallery, wherein one particular picture of pretentious size set up in the best light, having a cordon of protection stretched before it, and a cushioned bench duly set in front for the accommodation of worshipping connoisseurs, who, having gazed themselves off their feet, might be fain to complete the business sitting. This picture, I say, seemed to consider itself the queen of the collection.
It represented a woman, considerably larger, I thought, than the life. I calculated that this lady, put into a scale of magnitude suitable for the reception of a commodity of bulk, would infallibly turn from fourteen to sixteen stone. She was indeed extremely well fed, very much butcher's meat, to say nothing of bread, vegetables, and liquids must she have consumed to attain that breadth and height, that wealth of muscle, that affluence of flesh. She lay half reclined on a couch – why, it would be difficult to say. Broad daylight blazed round her. She appeared in hearty health, strong enough to do the work of two plain cooks. She could not plead a weak spine. She ought to have been standing, or at least sitting bolt upright. She had no business to lounge away the noon on a sofa. She ought likewise to have worn decent garments – a gown covering her properly, which was not the case. Out of abundance of material, seven and twenty yards I should say, of drapery, she managed to make inefficient raiment. Then, for the wretched untidiness surrounding her, there could be no excuse. Pots and pans – or perhaps I ought to say, vases and goblets – were rolled here and there on the foreground, a perfect rubbish of flowers was mixed amongst them, and an absurd and disorderly mass of curtain upholstery smothered the couch and cumbered the floor. On referring to the catalog, I found that this this notable production bore name: 'Cleopatra.
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Charlotte Brontë (Villette)
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Two nights after the Chaworth ball, Gabriel practiced at the billiards table in the private apartments above Jenner's. The luxurious rooms, which had once been occupied by his parents in the earlier days of their marriage, were now reserved for the convenience of the Challon family. Raphael, one of his younger brothers, usually lived at the club, but at the moment was on an overseas trip to America. He'd gone to source and purchase a large quantity of dressed pine timber on behalf of a Challon-owned railway construction company. American pine, for its toughness and elasticity, was used as transom ties for railways, and it was in high demand now that native British timber was in scarce supply.
The club wasn't the same without Raphael's carefree presence, but spending time alone here was better than the well-ordered quietness of his terrace at Queen's Gate. Gabriel relished the comfortably masculine atmosphere, spiced with scents of expensive liquor, pipe smoke, oiled Morocco leather upholstery, and the acrid pungency of green baize cloth. The fragrance never failed to remind him of the occasions in his youth when he had accompanied his father to the club.
For years, the duke had gone almost weekly to Jenner's to meet with managers and look over the account ledgers. His wife Evie had inherited it from her father, Ivo Jenner, a former professional boxer. The club was an inexhaustible financial engine, its vast profits having enabled the duke to improve his agricultural estates and properties, and accumulate a sprawling empire of investments. Gaming was against the law, of course, but half of Parliament were members of Jenner's, which had made it virtually exempt from prosecution.
Visiting Jenner's with his father had been exciting for a sheltered boy. There had always been new things to see and learn, and the men Gabriel had encountered were very different from the respectable servants and tenants on the estate. The patrons and staff at the club had used coarse language and told bawdy jokes, and taught him card tricks and flourishes. Sometimes Gabriel had perched on a tall stool at a circular hazard table to watch high-stakes play, with his father's arm draped casually across his shoulders. Tucked safely against the duke's side, Gabriel had seen men win or lose entire fortunes in a single night, all on the tumble of dice.
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Lisa Kleypas (Devil in Spring (The Ravenels, #3))
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Starr Cleaning Services
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Death was an existential catastrophe, a rip in the soft upholstery with which humanity padded over a hard uncaring universe, but it turned out there were an amazing number of people whose job it was to deal with it for you, and all they ask in return are huge quantities of time and money.
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Lev Grossman (The Magician's Land (The Magicians, #3))
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Out of luck Even this bold idea failed to work. At first the batteries were too heavy for the trio to carry. Then when they brought the radio from the crash site to the tail, they found that the electrical systems were incompatible: the plane used AC, the batteries supplied DC. Sewing for survival It was now apparent that the only way out was to climb over the mountains to the west. They also realized that unless they found a way to survive the freezing nights, they would die attempting the journey. So the survivors came up with an ingenious solution. They tore out large sections of fabric from clothing, gathered padding from the plane’s upholstery and got to work with a needle and thread from an emergency pack. Eventually they created a passable sleeping bag. It would fit three men inside, but would carry the lives of all sixteen of the remaining survivors. Hiking with hope On 12 December 1972, Parrado, Canessa and Vizintín set out to climb the mountain to the west. It was two months since the crash. As they climbed over the first peak their bodies struggled in the thinning oxygen. It was savagely cold at night, but the homemade sleeping bag kept them alive. After three days of trekking they met with a major disappointment. Cresting the shoulder of the mountain they expected to see the green countryside of Chile. Instead there was a sea of snow-bound peaks stretching out to the horizon. They were deeper in the mountains than they thought. They had tens of kilometres of high altitude hiking still to go. After the initial rush of despair the men again found hope, and through that, a positive plan of action. They had further to go, so they must be stricter with their
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Collins Maps (Extreme Survivors: 60 of the World’s Most Extreme Survival Stories)
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looms, bringing an extraordinary degree of dexterity and skill to his weaving and increasing the output of the mill by 50 percent over his first three years. He made garments for Civil War reenactors and upholstery fabric and period drapery for historic residences; the mill produced materials that would be used in the restored houses of nine former presidents. When the movie Cold Mountain needed hundreds of authentic-looking costumes and uniforms from the American Civil War era, it was Yang You Yi who produced the fabric. Yang called David Kline “Dad-Boss,” and Kline credited him with turning the business around. Kline decided that when he retired, he would sell Yang half the company.
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Patrick Radden Keefe (The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream)
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A fast but skillful driver, Peter guided his Jaguar onto the M6 Highway, then accelerated to a dizzying speed. Thank goodness she'd seen something of the scenery on her way to Scotland, Toni reflected, as the landscape passed in a blur of greens and blues and tans. She managed to stay alert until they passed York, at which point her eyelids refused to stay open. She felt her body sinking lower and lower into the leather upholstery until finally she could fight the drowsiness no longer.
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Jessica Eliot (Home to the Highlands (A Candlelight Intrigue, 550))
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The pub off George Square is a tourist trap. Inside it’s all tartan upholstery and claymores on the walls. Soft rock music is playing slightly too loud from tiny white speakers screwed into the ceiling. Giant blackboards show the menu of steak and chips, haggis and whisky-flavoured ice cream. It seems very expensive to Margo but that’s probably because it serves visitors to the city who don’t know that better food is available two streets away for half the price. It’s quiet. The five o’clock rush is over but the evening hasn’t begun. There are only two other customers: men sitting away from each other in the far corners of the L-shaped room, pretending to read newspapers but really just killing themselves with drink.
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Denise Mina (The Less Dead)
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Carters Carpet Restoration
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This here is a Trachycarpus fortunei. A Chinese windmill palm."
The fans bounced up and down as they were released from the burlap, cooling Exley and me like we were on a veranda in South China.
"Sugar comes from the sap of this plant," he said. "And upholstery stuffing, too. Hairbrushes, paint varnish, rosary beads, chess pieces, hats, dress buttons, hot-water bottles, margarine, cooking oils, shampoos, conditioners, cosmetics, moisturizers, doormats, soap, tin cans, and starch for Laundromats. It all comes from the palm tree.
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Margot Berwin (Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire)
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Normally Mina’s constant complaining would bother me more than the temperature, but my arms are practically sticking to the upholstery on the back of the seat. I carefully peel myself off as I sit up. “It is a bit hot.
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Jessica Jung (Shine (Shine, #1))
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But in his excitement and having eaten too fast, Henri gave himself away in an all too familiar fashion. In the front seat, both the Chief Inspector and Isabelle Lacoste cracked open their windows, preferring the bitter cold outside to what threatened to melt the upholstery inside.
'Does he do that often,' she gasped.
'It's a sign of affection, I'm told,' said the Chief, not meeting her eyes, 'a compliment.' Gamache paused, turning his head to window. 'A great compliment.'
Isabelle Lacoste smiled. She was used to similar compliments from her husband and now their young son. She wondered why the Y chromosome was so smelly.
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Louise Penny (How the Light Gets In (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #9))
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areeba
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He was there with us in the cabin. I couldn’t see him, but a vision of him appeared in my mind. He was standing between the aisles, and with his million blind eyes he could see our souls. His countless claws were painted with the dried blood of newborns; flesh-eating worms wriggled in his thoughts. His horns scraped the plane’s green upholstery. He walked between the rows, looking for his victim. ‘Ar’gtatoth,
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Attila Veres (The Black Maybe: Liminal Tales)
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As far back as I can remember, my father ran a prosperous interior decorating business, with many people working for him making drapes and lace curtains, as well as hanging wallpaper and doing upholstery. He did a good deal of contract work for wealthy and important people in the Dutch city of The Hague.
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Diet Eman (Things We Couldn't Say)
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Sorry, I didn't check the forecast. This flier isn't the most stable."
Ethan patted the upholstery. "Don't listen to him, it's not your fault that you were build for speed and not a hurricane.
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Frances Wren (Earthflown (The Anatomy of Water, #1))
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Vision Leisure Upholstery
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she added, gesturing to me, as if my ability to avoid vomiting on her upholstery should be a bullet on my résumé. My dark laugh brought tears to my eyes, and I wiped them with my sleeve.
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Elle Cosimano (Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead (Finlay Donovan, #2))
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At We Clean Your Carpets, we take pride in our meticulous and efficient carpet and upholstery cleaning in London. Our method involves distinct steps that synergise for a profound and enduring clean. Committed to outstanding results, we prioritise personalised customer service.
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We Clean Your Carpets
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Dr. Chem-Dry has been servicing Phoenix Arizona since 1978. We clean carpet, tile, upholstery, rugs, & VCT. With over 45 years of cleaning experience you know you can trust us in your home or business.
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Chem-Dry Draz
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Don’t settle for mass-produced furniture that lacks character. Invest in custom chair upholstery and transform your space into a reflection of your unique taste and personality. Contact us today at +971 50 716 8667 to schedule a consultation with our design experts and take the first step towards creating your dream interior.
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areebarazaq
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She was a being who needed joy. Having joy, she could triumph over the most desperate physical ills. But when joy flickered and went out, then she remembered the grave. Now, as she went softly over the bridge and began to climb the woods, joy seemed fled forever.
“She looked round her in a kind of terror, for she had come to the moment, which all sensitive people must reach at some time, when the soul perceives simultaneously the life of man—its small comforts, its upholstery of everyday—and the infinite; when it asks, bemused and anxious, ‘Which is the dream?’ They cannot both be true, it seems, for they are in flat contradiction. Yet daily life is true. There it is, with its duties and meals and wordy meetings; with its sweetness of affectionate glances and homely jests. That is no dream. Yet, when the beloved is dead, the daily life shrinks and withers; the infinite presses in. There it is, with all its indifferent stars, fearfully real, utterly unknown. With this intrusion of the infinite there come all the strange instincts of the spirit that have no part in daily life. These also are no dream. So there the soul stands, browbeaten and stunned by antithesis, murmuring, ‘Which is true? Is anything true?
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Mary Webb (The House in Dormer Forest)
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Ouch! Son of a gu—” I scrambled to get up. My hands hit rough upholstery and the edge of a table. Okay, now I was lost. Prying open my bleary eyes, I peered around. “What the . . .
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Anonymous
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Immaculate Carpet Cleaning offers a full range of cleaning services to Utah County residents and businesses. Services include carpet and upholstery cleaning, pet stain and odor removal, tile and grout cleaning, and carpet protectant application.
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Jamie Palmer
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Precisely three days after Christopher and Audrey had left for London, Beatrix went to the Phelans’ house to ask after Albert. As she had expected, the dog had set the household into chaos, having barked and howled incessantly, ripped carpeting and upholstery to shreds, and bitten footman’s hand.
“And in addition,” the housekeeper, Mrs. Clocker, told Beatrix, “he won’t eat. One can already see his ribs. And the master will be furious if we let anything happen to him. Oh, this is the most trying dog, the most detestable creature I’ve ever encountered.”
A housemaid who was busy polishing the banister couldn’t seem to resist commenting, “He scares me witless. I can’t sleep at night, because he howls fit to wake the dead.”
The housekeeper looked aggrieved. “So he does. However, the master said we mustn’t let anyone take Albert. And as much as I long to be rid of the vicious beast, I fear the master’s displeasure even more.”
“I can help him,” Beatrix said softly. “I know I can.”
“The master or the dog?” Mrs. Clocker asked, as if she couldn’t help herself. Her tone was wry and despairing.
“I can start with the dog,” Beatrix said in a low undertone.
They exchanged a glance.
“I wish you could be given the chance,” Mrs. Clocker murmured. “This household doesn’t seem like a place where anyone could get better. It feels like a place where things wane and are extinguished.”
This, more than anything, spurred Beatrix into a decision. “Mrs. Clocker, I would never ask you to disobey Captain Phelan’s instructions. However…if I were to overhear you telling one of the housemaids where Albert is being kept at the moment, that’s hardly your fault, is it? And if Albert manages to escape and run off…and if some unknown person were to take Albert in and care for him but did not tell you about it immediately, you could not be blamed, could you?”
Mrs. Clocker beamed at her. “You are devious, Miss Hathaway.”
Beatrix smiled. “Yes, I know.”
The housekeeper turned to the housemaid. “Nellie,” she said clearly and distinctly. “I want to remind you that we’re keeping Albert in the little blue shed next to the kitchen garden.”
“Yes, mum.” The housemaid didn’t even glance at Beatrix. “And I should remind you, mum, that his leash is on the half-moon table in the entrance hall.”
“Very good, Nellie. Perhaps you should run and tell the other servants and the gardener not to notice if anyone goes out to visit the blue shed.”
“Yes, mum.”
As the housemaid hurried away, Mrs. Clocker gave Beatrix a grateful glance. “I’ve heard that you work miracles with animals, Miss Hathaway. And that’s indeed what it will take, to tame that flea-ridden fiend.”
“I offer no miracles,” Beatrix said with a smile. “Merely persistence.”
“God bless you, miss. He’s a savage creature. If dog is man’s best friend, I worry for Captain Phelan.”
“So do I,” Beatrix said sincerely.
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Lisa Kleypas (Love in the Afternoon (The Hathaways, #5))
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Dream House Interiors
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leaning over her stomach, over the baby’s feet that were now—little acrobat—pressing themselves up against her breasts. She leaned over the curve of its back and spine as they pressed themselves into her stomach and bladder, leaned over the head that was now pressing itself down toward the worn upholstery of the old car, sensing, perhaps, that its watery world was a tributary after all, not a pool. She
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Alice McDermott (After This)
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He lurched forward to correct the slant of her glass. She seemed unaware of anything beyond the sexual energy blazing between them.
She blushed at his action and straightened against the gold upholstery. He was a cad to delight in her confusion, but she had him in such a maelstrom, he was devilish tickled not to suffer alone. Her eyes were glazed, her cheeks flushed. She licked her lips, leaving them glistening and, oh, so kissable.
Her voice was husky. "Sir, I..."
Damn this. He stood and prowled across to retrieve her glass before she spilled brandy over her pretty dress. Her fingers trembled as she pulled free.
"Shh." He placed the glass on the side table. Ignoring her discouraging posture, he started to take down her hair.
She batted at his hands. "Merrick! Stop it."
"Calm, bella." He stood before her, blocking any escape.
"I won't be calm," she snapped, trying ineffectually to stop him spreading the mane of hair over her shoulders. It crinkled after its confinement and caught the firelight, shining gold and brown and red, the rich colors of autumn.
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Anna Campbell (Seven Nights in a Rogue's Bed (Sons of Sin, #1))
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him?” “Not me. Not Calvin. I just have to wait. Maybe he’ll come over or something.” She sighed. “I wish life didn’t have to be so complicated. Do you suppose I’ll ever be a double Ph.D. like you, Mother?” Mrs. Murry looked up from slicing peppers, and laughed. “It’s really not the answer to all problems. There are other solutions. At this point I’m more interested in knowing whether or not I’ve put too many red peppers in the spaghetti sauce; I’ve lost count.” They had just sat down to dinner when Mr. Murry phoned to tell them that he was going directly from Washington to Brookhaven for a week. Such trips were not unusual for either of their parents, but right now anything that took either her father or mother away struck Meg as sinister. Without much conviction she said, “I hope he has fun. He likes lots of the people there.” But she felt a panicky dependence on having both her parents home at night. It wasn’t only because of her fears for Charles Wallace; it was that suddenly the whole world was unsafe and uncertain. Several houses nearby had been broken into that autumn, and while nothing of great value had been taken, drawers had been emptied with casual maliciousness, food dumped on living-room floors, upholstery slashed. Even their safe little village was revealing itself to be unpredictable and irrational and precarious, and while Meg had already begun to understand this with her mind, she had never before felt it with the whole of herself. Now a cold awareness of the uncertainty of all life, no matter how careful the planning, hollowed
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Madeleine L'Engle (A Wind in the Door (Time Quintet, #2))
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Andrea’s unlocked the back door, and Kendra and I push and shove Paige in. She flops down inside with a long sigh of relief, collapsing on the backseat.
“It wasn’t a pretty pony,” she says, desolate now. “It was all gray. My Little Pony should be pink and shiny.”
“O-kay,” Kendra says. “Can you shift up, Paige? ’Cause we all need to get in.”
“You sit here, Kaiindra,” Andrea says eagerly, leaning over the front passenger seat and patting the upholstery with his hand.
“Subtle,” Kelly mutters to me.
“Italians don’t seem to be subtle,” I mutter back.
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Lauren Henderson (Flirting in Italian (Flirting in Italian #1))
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with this house. Placing his hand on the cool metal handle on the door of his black Bentley, he barely heard the familiar click as the catch released. And as he climbed into the seat, he was oblivious to the fresh, pungent smell of the smooth leather upholstery. Pulling quickly out of the driveway, Rafe began heading the short distance to the city, where he had a condo a couple of blocks from his office building. Luckily, Sharron had refused to live in San Francisco, causing him to sleep there on the many late nights he’d worked. The apartment was his — his
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Melody Anne (Surrender (Surrender, #1))
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It's a solid hit, as solid as you can get on this
nebula of air, upholstery, paint, and marketing known as the family minivan.
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Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash)
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closet serial-killer.” “No way! He’s a total sweetheart. You’re going to love him. In addition to being Grayson’s best man, he’s also so sexy...” “No,” I say firmly. “Carmen, do you hear me? I swear to God. If you set me up with someone, I’m not coming. I am not in the mood for this garbage.” “But... Helen. You have to come. I told Daddy that you were coming, and he already bought your favorite red velvet cupcakes.” Carmen sighs. “I didn’t want to tell you this, but Dad hasn’t been doing so well lately. He had a minor heart attack...” “A heart attack?” I repeat dumbly. Remembering my mother’s death, my entire body is seized by a panic. “Is he... is he okay?” “Sure. He’s fine, but he’ll be better if you get your cute butt down here!” I shove my forehead into the upholstery of the backseat. “Carm, are you lying to manipulate me?” “No way, honey. I’m just reminding you of your responsibility to your family,” Carmen says innocently. “And part of that responsibility is to date Brad!” I gnash my teeth together angrily. An idea suddenly strikes me. It’s horrible, but it just might work. I glance toward the front seats where the two doctors are sitting, and I bite my lip as a smile begins to transform my features. “No,” Liam whispers. “Whatever you’re planning, don’t do it!” I have to ignore him for the sake of self-preservation.
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Loretta Lost (Clarity (Clarity, #1))
“
To peruse Larry Flynt's flagship is to encounter laughable facets of necrophilia, dildo-strapped nuns, ambulatory turds, walking anuses, the perceived discrepancy in penis size between black and white males, vaginas large enough to envelop an entire man, physical intimacies with anthropomorphic pets, lesbian love rituals, the ills and quirks of male homosexuality, the corrosive effect of vaginal discharge upon automobile upholstery, the danger that freshly licked African-american lips will accidentally adhere to some glasslike surface, bar sluts, gang-bangs, wastebasket fetuses, flatulence anal and vaginal, the handicapped, Ku Klux Klansmen, lynching, anal sex, prison romance, naked females whose faces are covered by paper bags, sex crimes of the rich and famous, sex in full-body traction, retards as playthings, practical jokes committed by Saint Peter, suicide, consanguinity, animal husbandry in the connubial sense, erectile dysfunction, voyeurs, panty-sniffewrs, menstruation, STDs and philosopher houseflies delivering piquant sophistries while nibbling on corn-studded nuggets of shit.
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Allan MacDonell (Prisoner of X: 20 Years in the Hole at Hustler Magazine)
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The fork stabbed down into the upholstery, about an inch from my head. I was afraid she was going to hurt someone with that knife, so I wrestled her into the closet and locked the door. She thumped about and hollered in there, but I’ve learned over the years that you have to be firm with women. They respect that in a man.
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Christopher Bunn (The Mike Murphy Files and Other Stories)
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The car stank like old taxis do, sweet cloying air freshener and upholstery cleaner. There were a million miles on the clock and it rode like a boat on a swell
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Lee Child (Tripwire (Jack Reacher, #3))
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people. When choosing upholstery, your primary concern should be maintenance. Always use commercial-grade upholstery that has been treated with stain-resistant chemicals to maximize its useful life. Commercial-grade vinyl comes in many colors, patterns, and textures and is durable and easy to clean. Some of the higher grades are indistinguishable from leather and could easily
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Roger Fields (Restaurant Success by the Numbers: A Money-Guy's Guide to Opening the Next New Hot Spot)
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smell its acrid horsehair upholstery and stale flour,
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Richard Flanagan (The Narrow Road to the Deep North)
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I remember my first date, aged fifteen, with a girl called Hilary Gidding. A coin fell down the back of the cinema seats and we both slipped our hands into the tight fuzzy gap of the chairs past popcorn kernels and sticky ticket stubs and our hands met, stroking the carpet feeling for the coin, and it was electric. The wrist being clamped by upholstery, the darkness, the accident, the lovely dirt of public spaces.
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Max Porter (Grief Is the Thing with Feathers)
“
I suppose it shouldn't have surprised me that Kat wound up with another Russian emigre. Her Russianness could not be eradicated no matter how long she spent here. She was the only person our age I knew who brewed coffee in a percolator. But then, it wasn't really about Russia, it was about Russianness. It was about ways of making tea, raising children, the importance of piano lessons, the incompleteness of a home without nice rugs. I wondered if Misha minded the way she kept the original plastic on the seats of the dining-room chairs. It made a small hissing noise whenever you sat down. But maybe his mother had done the same, maybe he found it comforting, maybe together they recoiled at the sight of naked upholstery in other people's homes.
”
”
Rufi Thorpe (Dear Fang, With Love)