Wearing Skirt Quotes

If you wear a short enough skirt, the party will come to you.

That's beautiful,' Valkyrie said, looking at it. Isn't it? This necklace has cost two very fine men their lives. At times, I wear it in tribute to their sacrifice. Other times, I wear it because it goes with this skirt.

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

I forced myself to stop thinking about Daemon, about anything I didn’t want to share with Archer, which was pretty much everything right now. So I thought about belly dancing foxes wearing grass skirts. Archer snorted. “You’re weird.

She's wearing a tight red sweater and a red skirt and enough makeup to scare a hooker.

As far as I was concerned men were something you had around the place, not particularly interesting, but quite harmless. I had never shown the slightest feeling for them, and apart from my never wearing a skirt, saw nothing else in common between us.

He caught her wrist and pulled her until she was straddling him. His hand smoothed down the outside of her right thigh. "Thank you for wearing a skirt tonight. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

No wonder men did not want women to wear bloomers. What could women accomplish if they did not have to continually mind their skirts, keep them from dragging in the mud or getting trampled on the steps of an omnibus? If they had pockets! With pockets, women could conquer the world!

It’s only when you wear your skirt an inch below the knee," she says cooly, her eyes glued to mine.

I realized then that pants and skirts, like gender itself, were not seen as equal in our society. To wear pants was to be dressed for power. But to wear a skirt was to be dressed to wash the dishes.

If the justification for controlling women's bodies were about women themselves, then it would be understandable. If, for example, the reason was 'women should not wear short skirts because they can get cancer if they do.' Instead the reason is not about women, but about men. Women must be 'covered up' to protect men. I find this deeply dehumanizing because it reduces women to mere props used to manage the appetites of men.

Femininity is wearing shoes that make it difficult to run, skirts that inhibit movement, and underclothes that interfere with blood circulation. It can hardly be coincidental that the clothes men find most flattering on a woman are precisely those that make it most difficult for her to defend herself against aggression.

At one O'Clock, Miss Celia comes in the kitchen and says she's ready for her first cooking lesson. She settles on a stool. She's wearing a tight red sweater and a red skirt and enough makeup to scare a hooker.

Finally I grinned and said, "I won't eat meat if it's been overcooked." She (Amarinda) glanced up at me, confused, and I added, "I thought you should know that, since we're going to be friends now." Amarinda's smile widened. "I think it's unfair that women aren't allowed to wear trousers. They seem far more comfortable than dresses." I chuckled. "They're not. Every year I think fashion invents one more piece I have to add to my wardrobe." "And one more layer to my skirts." She thought for a moment, then said, "I think it's funny when you're rude to the cook. I shouldn't admit that, but his face turns all sorts of colors when you are and there's nothing he can do about it." "He can overcook my meat.

Wishes For Sons i wish them cramps. i wish them a strange town and the last tampon. I wish them no 7-11. i wish them one week early and wearing a white skirt. i wish them one week late. later i wish them hot flashes and clots like you wouldn't believe. let the flashes come when they meet someone special. let the clots come when they want to. let them think they have accepted arrogance in the universe, then bring them to gynecologists not unlike themselves.

It's such a little thing, this skirt. For other girls, maybe it's makeup or a sport or having sex or not having sex or writing or music or kicking ass in school or wearing your hair so it looks like the sun's unruly rays. I think every girl has a thing or two, tiny details in her life that say This is me. I'm done hiding. I'm done feeling ashamed.

Some of them are wearing skirts that I'm pretty sure are supposed to be belts.

They were not asked to adhere to the same rules. If there were countless guidelines women had to follow; cover your drink, stick close to others, don't wear short skirts. Their behaviour was the constant, while we were the variable expected to change. When did it become our job to do all the preventing and managing? And if houses existed where many girls got hurt, shouldn't we hold guys to a higher standard instead of reprimanding the girl? Why was passing out considered more reprehensible than fingering the passed out person?

living with a teenage daughter is like living with the Taliban a mum is not allowed to laugh, sing, dance or wear short skirts

Joseph Beringer...dances around behind me singing some poorly rhymed and slightly dirty song about my [racing] odds at my skirts. 'I don't even wear skirts,' I snap at him. 'Especially,' he says, 'in my daydreams.

Tal told me he loved me, and told me and told me, but you don't tell someone that and then tell them they're not experienced enough in bed and should read a book or something to learn, or they should try wearing deep-red lipstick and tight skirts to look hot like their best friend once in a while. If Tal hadn't lied to me when he said he loved me, I might not be without a future right now, a sucker who was so chickenshit she allowed herself to believe a false dream from a false god. I'm not sure I ever even liked Tal, much less loved him.

Now I had babies confuse before. John Green Dudley, first word out a that boy's mouth was Mama and he was looking straight at me. But then pretty soon he calling everybody including hisself Mama and calling his daddy Mama too... Nobody worry bout it. Course when he start playing dress-up in his sister's Jewel Taylor twirl skirts and wearing Chanel No. 5, we all get a little concern.

Crazy isn´t always what they say it is. It´s not always the old woman wearing sneakers and a skirt and a scarf, wandering around with a shopping cart, hollering at no one, nothing, tumbling through years in her head. No. Sometimes it is a girl wearing boots and jeans and a sweater, arms crossed in front of her, shivering, wandering through the streets at night, all night, murmuring to no one, nothing, tumbling through the strange unreal dimensions in her head.

My lower lip trembled as I climbed into the passenger seat and buckled myself in with shaky hands. Archer passed me a quick glance, and I forced myself to stop thinking about Daemon, about anything I didn’t want to share with Archer, which was pretty much everything right now. So I thought about belly dancing foxes wearing grass skirts.

LINA's RULES OF SCOOTER RIDING: 1. Never ride a scooter sopping wet. 2. Never ride a scooter wearing a short skirt. 3. Try to pay attention to the light signals. Otherwise, every time the driver accelerates you'll smash into him and you'll have this awkward untangling moment and then you'll worry he's thinking you're doing it on purpose. 4. If by chance you aren't abiding by rule number two, be sure to avoid eye contact with male drivers. Otherwise they'll honk enthusiastically every time your skirt flies up.

This is the best thing to wear for today, you understand. Because I don't like women in skirts and the best thing is to wear pantyhose or some pants under a short skirt, I think. Then you have the pants under the skirt and then you can pull the stockings up over the pants underneath the skirt. And you can always take off the skirt and use it as a cape. So I think this is the best costume for today.

She looked for the deposition transcript she had dropped, she turned around and— —the entire audience in the galley cried out in shock. Unbeknownst to Payton, when she had fallen her skirt—those damn slim-fit skirts she liked so much—had torn at the seam and now gaped open, and sweet Jesus, she was wearing a thong and two tiny white butt cheeks peeked out from between the folds of her skirt— J.D.’s jaw nearly hit the floor.

women who miraculously spend their working day wearing bondage-tight skirts and vertiginous, destabilizing heels which make their feet look bound the erogenous zones of crushed muscles and cramped bones, encased in upmarket strippers’ heels and if she has to cripple herself to signal her education, talent, intellect, skills and leadership potential then so be it

You give thanks for small things. I gave thanks that I was wearing jeans, not a skirt. People start trying to kill you, you stop wearing skirts.

Archer passed me a quick glance, and I forced myself to stop think about Daemon, about anything I didn't want to share with Archer, which was pretty much everything right now. So I thought about belly dancing foxes wearing grass skirts.

The first time I taught a writing class in graduate school, I was worried. Not about the teaching material, because I was well prepared and I was teaching what I enjoyed. Instead I was worried about what to wear. I wanted to be taken seriously. I knew that because I was female, I would automatically have to prove my worth. And I was worried that if I looked too feminine, I would not be taken seriously. I really wanted to wear my shiny lip gloss and my girly skirt, but I decided not to. I wore a very serious, very manly, and very ugly suit. The sad truth of the matter is that when it comes to appearance, we start off with men as the standard, as the norm. Many of us think that the less feminine a woman appears, the more likely she is to be taken seriously. A man going to a business meeting doesn’t wonder about being taken seriously based on what he is wearing—but a woman does.

Halt?" he said diffidently. He heard a deep sigh from the short, slightly built man riding beside him. Mentally he kicked himself. I thought you must be coming down with some illness for a moment there," Halt said straight faced. "It must be two or three minutes since you've asked a question." Commited now, Horace continued. One of those girls," he began, and immediately felt the Ranger's eyes on him. "She was wearing a very short skirt." There was the slightest pause. Yes?" Halt prompted, not sure where this conversation was leading. Horace shrugged uncomfortably. The memory of the girl, and her shapely legs, was causing his cheeks to burn with embarrassment again. Well," he said uncertainly, "I just wondered if that was normal over, that's all." Halt considered the serious young face beside him. He cleared his throat several times. I believe that sometimes Gallican girls take jobs as couriers. he said. Couriers. They carry messages from one person to another. Or from one buisness to another, in towns and cities." Halt checked to see if Horace seemed to believe him so far. There seemed no reason to think otherwise, so he added: "Urgent messages." Urgent messages," Horace replied, still not seeing the connection. But he seemed inclined to believe what Halt was saying, so the older man continued. And I suppose for a really urgent message, one would have to run." Now he saw a glimmer of understanding in the boy's eyes. Horace nodded several times as he made the connection. So, the short skirts...they'd be to help them run more easily?" he suggested. Halt nodded in his turn. It would be more sensible for of dress than long skirts, if you wanted to do a lot of runnig." He shot a quick look at Horace to see if his gentle teasing was not being turned back on himself-to see if, in fact, the boy realized Halt was talking nosense and was simply leading him on. Horace's face, however, was open and believing. I suppose so," Horace replied finally, then added in a softer voice, "They certainly look a lot better that way too.

I can’t cut back. I’ve turned into a sex addict. I get within a foot of Ranger or Morelli and I’m ready to go … and go, and go, and go, and go.” “That’s a lot of going. I’m a retired professional, and it’d be a lot of going even for me. What you need are granny panties. You put on a big ol’ pair of ugly granny panties and you won’t be dropping your drawers no more. And even if you forget in the heat of the moment, and you pull your skirt up over your head, you’re not gonna see no action on account granny panties have a deflating effect on a man. Your man’s gonna be going unh ah, no way am I getting busy with a woman wearing granny panties.

It is quite certain that the skirt means female dignity, not female submission; it can be proved by the simplest of all tests. No ruler would deliberately dress up in the recognized fetters of a slave; no judge would would appear covered with broad arrows. But when men wish to be safely impressive, as judges, priests or kings, they do wear skirts, the long, trailing robes of female dignity. The whole world is under petticoat government; for even men wear petticoats when they wish to govern.

Women were more concerned about their skirts getting caught up in the wheels, and sat astride wearing Bloomers which turned them into Lesbians.

Men are all the same. Novelty amongst themselves displeases and upsets them – but if the novelty is wearing a skirt, they go crazy for it. (Les hommes sont tous les mêmes. L'étrangeté leur déplaît, d'homme à homme, et les blesse ; mais si l'étrangeté porte des jupes, ils en raffolent.)

You'll want all your strength for the wedding night." I cannot think why I should need strength," she said, ignoring a host of spine-tingling images rising in her mind's eye. "All I have to do is lie there." "Naked," he said grimly. "Truly?" She shot him a glance from under her lashes. "Well, if I must, I must, for you have the advantage of experience in these matters. Still, I do wish you'd told me sooner. I should not have put the modiste to so much trouble about the negligee." "The what?" "It was ghastly expensive," she said, "but the silk is as fine as gossamer, and the eyelet work about the neckline is exquisite. Aunt Louisa was horrified. She said only Cyprians wear such things, and it leaves nothing to the imagination." Jessica heard him suck in his breath, felt the muscular thigh tense against hers. "But if it were left to Aunt Louisa," she went on,"I should be covered from my chin to my toes in thick cotton ruffled with monstrosities with little bows and rosebuds. Which is absurd, when an evening gown reveals far more, not to mention--" "What color?" he asked. His low voice had roughened. "Wine red," she said, "With narrow black ribbons threaded through the neckline. Here." She traced a plunging U over her bosom. "And there's the loveliest openwork over my...well, here." She drew her finger over the curve of her breast a bare inch above the nipple. "And openwork on the right side of the skirt. From here" --she pointed to her hip--"down to the hem. And I bought---" "Jess." Her name was a strangled whisper. "--slippers to match," she continued." Black mules with--" "Jess." In one furious flurry of motion he threw down the reins and hauled her into his lap.

How do I look at her?" Mason laughs. "Like you're a starving dog and she's wearing a skirt made of meat.

[I]n America, wrongs can be righted, warriors can wear skirts and blouses, and the bravest hearts may beat in girls only five feet tall.

Wearing a skirt would be so impractical if I needed to bury bodies in the woods when people got in my way.

I am the happiest man in the world and here's why: I walk down a street and I see a woman, not tall but well-proportioned, very dark-haired, very neat in her dress, wearing a dark skirt with deep pleats that swing with the rhythm of her rather quick steps; her stockings, of dark color, are carefully, impeccably smooth; her face is not smiling, this woman walks down the street without trying to please, as if she were unconscious of what she represented: a good carnal image of woman, a physical image, more than a sexy image, a sexual image. --Francois Truffaut, "Is Truffaut the Happiest Man on Earth? Yes," 1970

When someone dies they can be any age you remember can't they ' she asked. As I tried to think of a reply she continued 'You probably think about the grown-up Tess because you were still close to her. But when I woke up I thought of her when she was three wearing a fairy skirt I'd got her in the Woolworth's and a policeman's helmet. Her wand was a wooden spoon. On the bus yesterday I imagined holding her when she was two days old. I felt the warmth of her. I remembered all her fingers clasped around my finger so tiny they didn't even meet. I remembered the shape of her head and stroking the nape of her neck till she slept. I remembered her smell. She smelled of innocence. Other times she's thirteen and so pretty that I worry for her everytime I see a man look at her. All of those Tesses is my daughter.

Well, this is a nice surprise," he said. He looked us over. Jill had changed into her normal clothes during her isolation today, but I still had on the Amberwood blouse and skirt. "Sage, aren't you guys supposed to have uniforms? This looks like what you usually wear." "Cute," I said, suppressing an eye roll. Adrian gave me a mock bow. "Careful. You almost smiled.

Parents always think they have to talk to their daughters about guys. We shouldn’t wear short skirts and shouldn’t go out alone and shouldn’t get drunk and shouldn’t let guys like us too much. But you don’t have to talk to us about guys because we already know all that, for fuck’s sake, because we’re the ones they rape!! Talk to your damn sons instead!!! Teach them to talk to one another and teach them to stop one another. Raise just one fucking boy somewhere who can become a head teacher who understands that when boys pull girls by the hair, it’s the fucking boys there’s something wrong with. Tell your sons that if they have to THINK about whether or not they’ve had sex with a girl who didn’t want it, then they HAVE!!! If you can’t understand if the girl you’re having sex with wants it or not, then you’ve never had fucking sex with a girl who wants it. Stop telling your daughters. We already know it all.

The suspense is killin’ me, Pigeon!” Travis called. I walked out, fidgeting with my dress while Travis stood in front of me, blank-faced. America elbowed him and he blinked. “Holy shit.” “Are you ready to be freaked out?” America asked. “I’m not freaked out, she looks amazing,” Travis said. I smiled and then slowly turned around to show him the steep dip of the fabric in the back of the dress. “Okay, now I’m freakin’ out,” he said, walking over to me “Okay, now I’m freakin’ out,” he said, walking over to me and turning me around. “You don’t like it?” I asked. “You need a jacket.” He jogged to the rack and then hastily draped my coat over my shoulders. “She can’t wear that all night, Trav,” America chuckled. “You look beautiful, Abby,” Shepley said as an apology for Travis’ behavior. Travis’ expression was pained as he spoke. “You do. You look incredible…but you can’t wear that. Your skirt is…wow, your legs are…your skirt is too short and it’s only half a dress! It doesn’t even have a back on it!” I couldn’t help but smile. “That’s the way it’s made, Travis.” “Do you two live to torture each other?” Shepley frowned. “Do you have a longer dress?” Travis asked. I looked down. “It’s actually pretty modest in the front. It’s just the back that shows off a lot of skin.” “Pigeon,” he winced with his next words, “I don’t want you to be mad, but I can’t take you to my frat house looking like that. I’ll get in a fight the first five minutes we’re there, Baby.

It's the strange thing about you mystics, how often your little ecstasies wear a skirt.

I avoided any theme parks or museums where the employees dressed true to period. Complete nightmare. I also spent a lot of time trying not to touch people.Unless they were wearing a hoop skirt. And they were standing in my way.

Orlando curtseyed; she complied; she flattered the good man's humours as she would not have done had his neat breeches been a woman's skirts, and his braided coat a woman's satin bodice. Thus, there is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us and not we them' we may make them take the mould of arm or breast, but they mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking.

Then, as the priest was emerging somewhat uneasily from his lair, he went straight up to him, looked deep into his eyes, and growled into his face: 'If you weren't wearing skirts, what a punch I'd give you right on your ugly snout, wouldn't I just!

The heavy black she had worn for years was gone; her dress was of turquoise-colored silk, bright and soft as the evening sky. It belled out full from her hips, and all the skirt was embroidered with thin silver threads and seed pearls and tiny crumbs of crystal, so that it glittered softly, like rain in April. She looked at the magician, speechless. “Do you like it?” “Where—” “It’s like a gown I saw a princess wear once, at the Feast of Sun-return in the New Palace in Havnor,” he said, looking at it with satisfaction. “You told me to show you something worth seeing. I show you yourself.

My ears hear what others cannot hear; small faraway things people cannot normally see are visible to me. These senses are the fruits of a lifetime of longing, longing to be rescued, to be completed. Just as the skirt needs the wind to billow, I'm not formed by things that are of myself alone. I wear my father's belt tied around my mother's blouse, and shoes which are from my uncle. This is me. Just as a flower does not choose its color, we are not responsible for what we have come to be. Only once you realize this do you become free, and to become adult is to become free.

Never, ever link Chizalum’s appearance with morality. Never tell her that a short skirt is “immoral.” Make dressing a question of taste and attractiveness instead of a question of morality. If you clash over what she wants to wear, never say things like “You look like a prostitute,” as I know your mother once told you. Instead, say, “That dress doesn’t flatter you like this other one.” Or doesn’t fit as well. Or doesn’t look as attractive. Or is simply ugly. But never “immoral.” Because clothes have absolutely nothing to do with morality. Try

They wear their secrets like glittering diamonds, embroidery woven through their lavish buba tops and wrapped iro skirts. Their lies and lily-scented perfumes taint the honeyed aroma of sweet cakes I am no longer allowed to eat.

I push my body off the ground, blood seeping between my toes. For the first time in over a century I stand on my own two feet. The gown I wear drapes off my shoulders, and my drenched skirts stick to my legs. I am a thing made of lace and blood. Swathed in silk and dripping with the dark deeds of men. I suppose I’m finally clothed accordingly.

Ah, the Devil Herself. We really do not know whether the Devil wears breeches or a skirt, now do we?

Next time she flew off a cliff, she would try to remember to wear her worsted skirts. Perhaps then, ouch, she would not have to suffer additional bruising.

The moment Brooklyn Walsh walked into my office I wanted her. No, scratch that, I wanted to fuck her. To pull up that tight little skirt she was wearing and drive myself balls deep into what would no doubt be the sweetest pussy I’ve ever had. But

Wear what you want. You're the ONLY person on the planet who can pull Excalibur. Wearing a skirt while you do it not gonna change that... You're welcome! Have a great ancient blood ceremony!

Until the sixteenth century, men—priests, academics, judges, merchants, princes, and many others—wore skirts, or robes. For men, the skirt was a 'sign of leisure and a symbol of dignity,' writes Quentin Bell. This is still true for men in high positions. After all, can you imagine the Pope, or Professor Dumbledore, wearing trousers? Have you ever seen a depiction of God wearing pants?

Wind whips under my skirt. My tights are no protection against the frigid air, so I burrow deeper into my new velvet jacket, slightly remorseful for not wearing something more substantial. If I freeze to death, I just have to remember it's for the sake of fashion.

Unlike her parents, and her other relatives, her grandmother had not admonished Ashima not to eat beef or wear skirts or cut off her hair or forget her family the moment she landed in Boston. Her grandmother had not been fearful of such signs of betrayal; she was the only person to predict, rightly, that Ashima would never change.

What were you doing to that cat, boy?” Myrcella asked again, sternly. To her brother she said, “He’s a ragged boy, isn’t he? Look at him.” She giggled. “A ragged dirty smelly boy,” Tommen agreed. They don’t know me, Arya realized. They don’t even know I’m a girl. Small wonder; she was barefoot and dirty, her hair tangled from the long run through the castle, clad in a jerkin ripped by cat claws and brown roughspun pants hacked off above her scabby knees. You don’t wear skirts and silks when you’re catching cats. Quickly she lowered her head and dropped to one knee. Maybe they wouldn’t recognize her. If they did, she would never hear the end of it. Septa Mordane would be mortified, and Sansa would never speak to her again from the shame.

Onua smiled. She knew an old grievance when she heard one. “Then why wear ’em? Get yourself breeches and a shirt like me.” Daine gaped at her. “Men’s gear? With folk talking about me all the time as is?” Onua shook her head. “You’re not home now. The rules have changed.” Daine opened her mouth to object—then closed it. She looked at her skirts. To be rid of them, and the petticoats . . . it hit her, really hit her, that she was free of Snowsdale. What could they do to her now?

Then Cheery Littlebottom had arrived in Ankh-Morpork and had seen that there were men out there who did not wear chain mail or leather underwear, but did wear interesting colors and exciting makeup, and these men were called "women." And in the little bullet head the thought had arisen: "Why not me?" Now she was being denounced in cellars and dwarf bars across the city as the first dwarf in Ankh-Morpork to wear a skirt. It was hard-wearing brown leather and as objectively erotic as a piece of wood but, as some older dwarfs would point out, somewhere under there were his knees* *They couldn't bring themselves to utter the word "her.

Her skirt was nice, but she was wearing a dull-colored blouse that wasn't at all attractive. I'd have to remember to tell her not to wear it when she was with me if the two of us were going to get together, I thought

Excuse me while I throw this down, I’m old and cranky and tired of hearing the idiocy repeated by people who ought to know better. Real women do not have curves. Real women do not look like just one thing. Real women have curves, and not. They are tall, and not. They are brown-skinned, and olive-skinned, and not. They have small breasts, and big ones, and no breasts whatsoever. Real women start their lives as baby girls. And as baby boys. And as babies of indeterminate biological sex whose bodies terrify their doctors and families into making all kinds of very sudden decisions. Real women have big hands and small hands and long elegant fingers and short stubby fingers and manicures and broken nails with dirt under them. Real women have armpit hair and leg hair and pubic hair and facial hair and chest hair and sexy moustaches and full, luxuriant beards. Real women have none of these things, spontaneously or as the result of intentional change. Real women are bald as eggs, by chance and by choice and by chemo. Real women have hair so long they can sit on it. Real women wear wigs and weaves and extensions and kufi and do-rags and hairnets and hijab and headscarves and hats and yarmulkes and textured rubber swim caps with the plastic flowers on the sides. Real women wear high heels and skirts. Or not. Real women are feminine and smell good and they are masculine and smell good and they are androgynous and smell good, except when they don’t smell so good, but that can be changed if desired because real women change stuff when they want to. Real women have ovaries. Unless they don’t, and sometimes they don’t because they were born that way and sometimes they don’t because they had to have their ovaries removed. Real women have uteruses, unless they don’t, see above. Real women have vaginas and clitorises and XX sex chromosomes and high estrogen levels, they ovulate and menstruate and can get pregnant and have babies. Except sometimes not, for a rather spectacular array of reasons both spontaneous and induced. Real women are fat. And thin. And both, and neither, and otherwise. Doesn’t make them any less real. There is a phrase I wish I could engrave upon the hearts of every single person, everywhere in the world, and it is this sentence which comes from the genius lips of the grand and eloquent Mr. Glenn Marla: There is no wrong way to have a body. I’m going to say it again because it’s important: There is no wrong way to have a body. And if your moral compass points in any way, shape, or form to equality, you need to get this through your thick skull and stop with the “real women are like such-and-so” crap. You are not the authority on what “real” human beings are, and who qualifies as “real” and on what basis. All human beings are real. Yes, I know you’re tired of feeling disenfranchised. It is a tiresome and loathsome thing to be and to feel. But the tit-for-tat disenfranchisement of others is not going to solve that problem. Solidarity has to start somewhere and it might as well be with you and me

When I meet a pretty girl and beg her: "Be so good as to come with me," and she walks past without a word, this is what she means to say: "You are no Duke with a famous name, no broad American with Red Indian figure, level, brooding eyes and a skin tempered by the air of the prairies and the rivers that flow through them, you have never journeyed to the seven seas and voyaged on them wherever they may be, I don't know where. So why, pray, should a pretty girl like myself go with you?" "You forget that no automobile swings you through the street in long thrusts; I see no gentlemen escorting you in a close half-circle, pressing on your skirts from behind and murmuring blessings on your head; your breasts are well laced into your bodice, but your thighs and hips make up for that restraint; you are wearing a taffeta dress with a pleated skirt such as delighted all of us last autumn, and yet you smile-inviting mortal danger-from time to time." "Yes, we're both in the right, and to keep us from being irrevocably aware of it, hadn't we better just go our separate ways home?

When he’d watched her in the past, he hadn’t understood why she would wear such conservative tops, then such provocative skirts. Yes, they went past her knees, but they also stretched so enticingly over her ass. He’d finally figured it out. Holly didn’t realize how those expensive materials molded over her generous curves. Cade knew females liked to ask, “Does my ass look big in this?” But considering Holly as an example, he’d begun to suspect that women really couldn’t determine what their asses looked like. Oh, well. A question for the ages.

She wore a pleated skirt, a white cotton blouse, and simple black shoes with knee high stockings. At the arc of each step, the skirt would rise to expose a few inches of her taut thighs. Neither Earl nor Duke could recall what Chad was wearing.

- If a woman wears short skirt in the company of man it means "I want to fuck", if she talks with a man when she wears short skirt it means "I want to fuck just you". - And if I have no clothes now? - It means that I'm gonna fuck you right now!

LINA"S RULES FOR SCOOTER RIDING: 1.Never ride a scooter sopping wet. 2. Never ride a scooter wearing a short skirt. 3. Try to pay attention to light signals. Otherwise, every time the driver accelerates you'll smash into him and you'll have this awkward untangling moment and then you'll worry he 's thinking you're doing it on purpose.

She'd become an English major for the purest and dullest of reasons: because she liked to read. The university’s “British and American Literature Course Catalog” was, for Madeleine, what its Bergdorf equivalent was for her roommates. A course listing like “English 274: Lily’s Euphues” excited Madeleine the way a pair of Fiorucci cowboy boots did Abby. “English 450A: Hawthorne and James” filled Madeleine with an expectation of sinful hours in bed not unlike what Olivia got from wearing a Lycra skirt and leather blazer in Danceteria. Even as a girl in their house in Prettrybrook, Madeleine wandered into the library, with its shelves of books rising higher than she could reach … and the magisterial presence of all those potentially readable words stopped her in her tracks.

This one, I guess," he says. I look over at the counter, he is looking back at me. He is holding a riding crop: "I'd like to try it out." There is a peculiar shift: from one second to the next I have become disoriented, I am on alien territory, in a foreign century. He walks a few steps to where I am half sitting on the desk, one foot on the floor, the other dangling. He pulls my skirt up my left leg, which is resting on the desk, steps back and strikes me across the inner thigh. The searing pain is an inextricable part of a wave of excitement; every cell in my body is awash with lust. It is silent in the small, dusty room. The clerks behind the counter have frozen. He slowly smooths down my skirt and turns to the older man, who is wearing a suit and still looks like an accountant, though a deep flush is spreading upward from his shirt collar. "This one will do.

but she was wearing a short skirt.” it doesn’t matter. “but she never screamed for help.” it doesn’t matter. “but she had a lot to drink.” it doesn’t matter. “but she waited so long to tell.” it doesn’t matter. “but she consented to it before.” it doesn’t matter. “but they were hopelessly in love.” it doesn’t matter. —believe her, no matter what.

SEPTIMUS: My lady, I was alone with my thoughts in the gazebo, when Mrs Chater ran me to ground, and I being in such a passion, in an agony of unrelieved desire -- LADY CROOM: Oh....! SEPTIMUS: -- I thought in my madness that the Chater with her skirts over her head would give me the momentary illusion of the happiness to which I dared not put a face. (Pause.) LADY CROOM: I do not know when I have received a more unusual compliment, Mr Hodge. I hope I am more than a match for Mrs Chater with her head in a bucket. Does she wear drawers? SEPTIMUS: She does. LADY CROOM: Yes, I have heard that drawers are being worn now. It is unnatural for women to be got up like jockeys. I cannot approve.

Lou, honey, I'll buy you a new pair of shoes if you'll stop flashing your panties at everyone sitting across the room from us. You are wearing panties, right?" I glance up and across at Stefan. His words register a moment later and my head swivels toward the other side of the room. There are a number of people staring at me. One of them is Detective Terry Shay. Or I think it is. He's not looking directly at me. He's looking up my skirt

...but I do very emphatically believe there is an enormous amount of the androgynous in any all-or-nothing prose writer, or even a would-be one. I think that if he titters at male writers who wear invisible skirts he does so at his eternal peril. I'll say no more on the subject. This is precisely the sort of confidence that can be easily and juicily Abused.

Strong is strong and weak is weak, and it doesn’t matter if you wear breeches or skirts if you’re the latter. Life will hammer you flat.

The monsters come anyway—whether you wear short skirts or sweats.

This necklace has cost two very fine men their lives. At times I wear it in tribute to their sacrifice. Other times, I wear it because it goes with this skirt, - China Sorrows

I wear dresses most of the time. If I wore a skirt or pants my panties would show because of all the people pulling at my hem wanting something from me.

If ye wear underwear, it's a skirt. If ye dinna, it's a kilt.

Some women wear a miniskirt to reveal their thighs; some wear one to conceal their age.

You think girls don't play sports because they don't want to? We can't play because it's uncomfortable to play wearing skirts, tights, and dress shoes!

I didn’t go for dangerous guys, especially bald guys wearing skirts who I couldn’t figure out. He

He lifted a single eyebrow as he adjusted his pants, zipping his fly. The sound made my back stiffen and I realized how close we’d just been to copulating in the back of a car. “I think you look good just like that.” I stared at him for two seconds before I smacked him on his infuriatingly well-muscled shoulder. “My shirt is ripped open and…” I frantically twisted in my seat and may have shrieked, “Where are my underwear?!” There was no amusement in his voice when he responded, “Someplace safe.” My eyes widened further and, I knew, my mouth hung open dumbly. I was about to lose my mind. “Give them back-” “You don’t need them-” “-to me right now-” “-and you should try new things-” “I am not leaving this limo while commando!” The passenger door on Quinn’s side opened and I yanked the skirt I was wearing back to my midcalf. I didn't miss his dark smile when it was clear that I was not likely to push the underwear issue further until we were in private. And, by then, it likely wouldn't matter.

„Most men would say this isn’t women’s work.“ There was no mistaking the challenge in her tone. „My father was one of them“, admitted Arent. „He taught me that women were frail creatures purposely crippled by God that men might prove their virtue by protecting them. Sounded right enough. Until I went to war and saw men pleading for their lives while women swung hoes at the knights trying to take their land.“ His tone hardened. „Strong is strong and weak is weak. And it doesn’t matter if you wear breeches or skirts if you’re the latter. Life will hammer you flat.

Is the mask magic?" he demanded with sudden, passionate interest. "Yes." I bowed my head, so that our eyes no longer met. "I made it magic to keep you safe. The mask is your friend, Erik. As long as you wear it, no mirror can ever show you the face again." He was silent then and when I showed him the new mask he accepted it without question and put it on hastily with his clumsy, bandaged fingers. But when I stood up to go, he reacted with panic and clutched at my grown. "Don't go! Don't leave me here in the dark." "You are not in the dark," I said patiently. "Look, I have left the candle ..." But I knew, as I looked at him, that it would have made no difference if I had left him fifty candles. The darkness he feared was in his own mind and there was no light in the universe powerful enough to take that darkness from him. With a sigh of resignation I sat back on the bed and began to sing softly; and before I had finished the first verse, he was asleep. The bandages on his hands and wrists showed white and eerie in the candle-light, as I eased my skirts from his grasp. I knew that Marie was right. Physically and mentally, I had scarred him for life.

My life is hard. No one would rob me of that. The clothes I am wearing came out of a knotted up black plastic trash bag from a resale shop downtown. And not the downtown where shiny cars wink at you in the sunlight. If a car winks at you in this area it’s being driven by a person you would be best to avoid. My side of downtown is crumbling and skirted by chain link fences. --Rocky Evans

My eyes pop out when I catch a glimpse of how much leg she's showing. She's wearing her shortest mini skirt, the one that drives me crazy. Her legs look about a mile long as she crosses them and bobs her foot in time with the cafe's background music. She's really trying to kill me, isn't she?

You were wearing a skirt nearly as short as this. Were you hoping he’d finger you right in front of me?” Embarrassment and desire twine through me. “Maybe.” My breath catches in my throat as his hand shift higher, his rough palm against my bare skin. I swallow hard. “Maybe I was hoping you’d do it.

Women in the West who insisted on wearing the full-skirted modes of the nineteenth century—including the hoop-skirt, the bustle, and Mother Hubbards—fought a continual battle against a hostile environment. The fact that flowing yards of silk and satin eventually won out over buckskin and rawhide is only one more confirmation of the theory that woman’s vanity can conquer all, any place and any time.

She was wearing a skirt and a big-shouldered jacket of a royal blue that was fashionable in France, a blue-and-white-striped silk blouse, and electric-blue lizard pumps with white calf caps on the toes.

Xaden's head snaps in my direction. 'Violence?' I take a step and then another, holding my frame upright with muscle memory I didn't have last year, and begin to cross. Xaden swings his legs up and then fucking jumps to his feet. 'Turn around right now!' he shouts. 'Come with me,' I call over the wind, bracing myself as gust whips my skirt against my legs. 'Should have gone with the pants,' I mutter and keep walking. He's already coming my way, his strides just as long and confident as if he was on solid ground, eating up the distance between us as I move forward slowly until we meet. 'What the fuck are you doing out here?' he asks, locking his hands on my waist. He's in riding leathers, not a dress uniform, and he's never looked better. What am I doing out here? I'm risking everything to reach him. And if he rejects me... No. There's no room for fear on the parapet. 'I could ask you the same thing.' His eyes widen. 'You could have fallen and died!' 'I could say the same thing.' I smile, but it's shaky. The look in his eyes is wild, like he's been driven past the point where he can contain himself in the neat, apathetic façade he usually wears in public. It doesn't scare me. I like him better when he's real with me, anyway. 'And did you stop to think that if you fall and die, then I can die?' He leans in and my pulse jumps. 'Again,' I say softly, resting my hands on his firm chest, right above his heartbeat, 'I could say the same thing.' Even if Xaden's death wouldn't kill Sgaeyl, I'm not sure I could survive it.' Shadows rise, darker than the night that surrounds us. 'You're forgetting that I wield shadows, Violence. I'm just as safe out here as I am in the courtyard. Are you going to wield lightning to break your fall?' Fine. That's a good point. 'I... perhaps did not think that part through as thoroughly as you,' I admit. I wanted to be close to him, so I got close, parapet be damned.' 'You're seriously going to be the death of me.' His fingers flex at my waist. 'Go back.' It's not a rejection, not with the way he's looking at me. We've been sparring emotionally for the past month, hell, even longer than that, and one of us has to expose our jugular. I finally trust him enough to know he won't go for the kill. 'Only if you do. I want to be whereever you are.' And I mean it. Everyone else- everything else in the world can fall away and I won't care as long as I'm with him.

In another minute or two, those men would have tossed your skirts in that alley right there... if you were wearing skirts! You should be thanking me for saving your sorry hide! By my calculations, that’s twice in one day.

The Highland men and women certainly dress differently than we do, even when we're out in the country. Why do you think the Scotti9sh men wear those ridiculous skirts, George?" Enough was enough. Fagan approached the table and gave her a roguish grin. "'Tisnae a skirt, lass. If I wore something under it, then it would be called a skirt.

Jessie,” I whisper against her lips. “I want you so bad. Let me have you.” “Unnmf,” she grunts. I reach under the short skirt she’s wearing and find a tiny pair of underwear that I quickly tug off. “Now, baby,” I urge. “Do it.

Carefully she spread open the skirt of the dress and found the place where Ellen’s necklace lay hidden in the pocket. The little Star of David still gleamed gold. “Papa?” she said, returning to the balcony, where her father was standing with the others, watching the rejoicing crowd, She opened her hand and showed him the necklace. “Can you fix this? I have kept it all this long time. It was Ellen’s.” Her father took it from her and examined the broken clasp. “Yes,” he said. “I can fix it. When the Rosens come home, you can give it back to Ellen.” “Until then,” Annemarie told him, “I will wear it myself.

For a moment, I was perfectly relaxed, and I began enjoying the sight of this beautifully candlelit room full of well-dressed people. Then Mr. Merchant made a grab for my décolletage from behind, and I almost spilled the punch. “One of those dear, pretty little roses slipped out of place,” he claimed, with an insinuating grin. I stared at him, baffled. Giordano hadn’t prepared me for a situation like this, so I didn’t know the proper etiquette for dealing with Rococo gropers. I looked at Gideon for help, but he was so deep in conversation with the young widow that he didn’t even notice. If we’d been in my own century, I’d have told Mr. Merchant to keep his dirty paws to himself or I’d hit back, whether or not any little roses had really slipped. But in the circumstances, I felt that his reaction was rather—discourteous. So I smiled at him and said, “Oh, thank you, how kind. I never noticed.” Mr. Merchant bowed. “Always glad to be of service, ma’am.” The barefaced cheek of it! But in times when woman had no vote, I suppose it wasn’t surprising if they didn’t get any other kind of respect either. The talking and laughter gradually died away as Miss Fairfax, a thin-nosed lady wearing a reed-green dress, went over to the pianoforte, arranged her skirts, and placed her hands on the keys. In fact, she didn’t play badly. It was her singing that was rather disturbing. It was incredibly . . . well, high-pitched. A tiny bit higher, and you’d have thought she was a dog whistle.

white tank top, currently covered by my beloved shearling-lined denim jacket, and a black satin skirt from Teddy’s closet. The slit went a little higher than I was used to—right above mid-thigh—but I loved the way it made me feel. Sultry. I was wearing black cowboy boots that should never be within a ten-foot radius of a horse, but they were perfect for a night at the bar.

She slid a slim volume of poetry off the shelf and returned to her chair, swishing her rather unnattractive skirts before she sat down. Benedict frowned. He'd never really noticed before how ugly her dress was. Not as bad as the one Mrs. Cabtree had lent her, but certainly not anything designed to bring out the best in a woman. He ought to buy her a new dress. She would never accept it,of course, but maybe if her current garments were accidentally burned... "Mr. Bridgerton?" But how could he manage to burn her dress? She'd have to not be wearing it, and that posed a certain challenge in and of itself... "Are you even listening to me?" Sophie demanded. "Hmmm?" "You're not listening to me." "Sorry," he admitted. "My apologies. My mind got away from me. Please continue." She began anew, and in his attempt to show how much attention he was paying her, he focused his eyes on her lips, which proved to be a big mistake. Because suddenly those lips were all he could see, and he couldn't stop thinking about kissing her, and he knew- absolutely knew-that if one of them didn't leave the room in the next thirty seconds, he was going to do something for which he'd owe her a thousand apologies. Not that he didn't plan to seduce her. Just that he'd rather do it with a bit more finesse. "Oh, dear," he blurted out. Sophie gave him an odd look. He didn't blame her. He sounded like a complete idiot. He didn't think he'd uttered the phrase, "Oh,dear," in years. If ever. Hell,he sounded like his mother. "Is something wrong?" Sophie asked. "I just remembered something," he said, rather stupidly, in his opinion. She raised her brows in question. "Something that I'd forgotten," Benedict said. "The things one remembers," she said, looking exceedingly amused, "are most often things one had forgotten.

Almanzo could see his feet, but of course Alice's were hidden under her skirts. Her hoops rounded out, and she had to pull them back and stoop to drop the seeds neatly into the furrow. Almanzo asked her if she didn't want to be a boy. She said yes, she did. Then she said no, she didn't. "Boys aren't pretty like girls, and they can't wear ribbons." "I don't care how pretty I be," Almanzo said. "And I wouldn't wear ribbons anyhow." "Well, I like to make butter and I like to patch quilts. And cook, and sew, and spin. Boys can't do that. But even if I be a girl, I can drop potatoes and sow carrots and drive horses as well as you can." "You can't whistle on a grass stem," Almanzo said.

The aroma of chicken broth and beef pie wafted into the parlor. She set down the tray of food on the low table next to him. “Are you all right?” He grunted. “You don’t want to eat anything?” “No.” He did not want to tax his stomach for the next twelve hours. “So what now? Are we going on the run?” He removed his arm from his face and opened his eyes. She was sitting on the carpet before the low table, wearing his gray, hooded tunic, but not his trousers. Her legs were bare below mid-thigh. The sight jolted him out of his lethargy. “Where are your trousers?” “They had no braces and won’t stay up. Besides, it’s warm enough in here.” He was feeling quite hot. It was not unusual to see girls in short robes come summertime in Delamer. But in England skirts always skimmed the ground and men went mad for a glimpse of feminine ankles. So much skin—boys at school would faint from overexcitement. He might have been a bit unsteady too, if he were not already lying down. “You never answered my question,” she said, as if the view of long, shapely legs should not scramble his thoughts at all.

So if I asked you to wear my skirt and juggle my high heels, you would?” I joked. I could only see Andrew's face in profile, but a grin overtook his earlier grim expression, and he laughed. “I draw the line at wearing women’s clothing.” “Are you sure?” I whispered seductively, nibbling on his earlobe. “That’s cheating,” he said, his breath hitching. I kissed down his neck. “If all else fails, I’ll never rule out using my womanly wiles.” “I refuse to be used as a pawn by my devious lover,” he countered, grinning. I abruptly pulled away from him. “Ah, well, it never hurts to try.

What to wear on a Minnesota farm? The older farmers I know wear brown polyester jumpsuits, like factory workers. The younger ones wear jeans, but the forecast was for ninety-five degrees with heavy humidity. The wardrobe of Quaker ladies in their middle years runs to denim skirts and hiking boots. This outfit had worked fine for me in England. But one of my jobs in Minnesota will be to climb onto the industrial cuisinart in the hay barn and mix fifty-pound bags of nutritional supplement and corn into blades as big as my body. Getting a skirt caught in that thing would be bad news for Betty Crocker.

The only fashion advice my father has ever given me is never wear anything you couldn't run from an assailant in. As pessimistic as that counsel may be, he has a point. So many of the hallmarks of women's fashion, from high heels to pencil skirts, in addition to being uncomfortable, slow us down and even endanger us.

Touching the copper of the ankh reminded me of another necklace, a necklace long since lost under the dust of time. That necklace had been simpler: only a string of beads etched with tiny ankhs. But my husband had brought it to me the morning of our wedding, sneaking up to our house just after dawn in a gesture uncharacteristically bold for him. I had chastised him for the indiscretion. "What are you doing? You're going to see me this afternoon... and then every day after that!" "I had to give you these before the wedding." He held up the string of beads. "They were my mother's. I want you to have them, to wear them today.” He leaned forward, placing the beads around my neck. As his fingers brushed my skin, I felt something warm and tingly run through my body. At the tender age of fifteen, I hadn't exactly understood such sensations, though I was eager to explore them. My wiser self today recognized them as the early stirrings of lust, and . . . well, there had been something else there too. Something else that I still didn't quite comprehend. An electric connection, a feeling that we were bound into something bigger than ourselves. That our being together was inevitable. "There," he'd said, once the beads were secure and my hair brushed back into place. "Perfect.” He said nothing else after that. He didn't need to. His eyes told me all I needed to know, and I shivered. Until Kyriakos, no man had ever given me a second glance. I was Marthanes' too-tall daughter after all, the one with the sharp tongue who didn't think before speaking. (Shape-shifting would eventually take care of one of those problems but not the other.) But Kyriakos had always listened to me and watched me like I was someone more, someone tempting and desirable, like the beautiful priestesses of Aphrodite who still carried on their rituals away from the Christian priests. I wanted him to touch me then, not realizing just how much until I caught his hand suddenly and unexpectedly. Taking it, I placed it around my waist and pulled him to me. His eyes widened in surprise, but he didn't pull back. We were almost the same height, making it easy for his mouth to seek mine out in a crushing kiss. I leaned against the warm stone wall behind me so that I was pressed between it and him. I could feel every part of his body against mine, but we still weren't close enough. Not nearly enough. Our kissing grew more ardent, as though our lips alone might close whatever aching distance lay between us. I moved his hand again, this time to push up my skirt along the side of one leg. His hand stroked the smooth flesh there and, without further urging, slid over to my inner thigh. I arched my lower body toward his, nearly writhing against him now, needing him to touch me everywhere. "Letha? Where are you at?” My sister's voice carried over the wind; she wasn't nearby but was close enough to be here soon. Kyriakos and I broke apart, both gasping, pulses racing. He was looking at me like he'd never seen me before. Heat burned in his gaze. "Have you ever been with anyone before?" he asked wonderingly. I shook my head. "How did you ... I never imagined you doing that...” "I learn fast.” He grinned and pressed my hand to his lips. "Tonight," he breathed. "Tonight we ...” "Tonight," I agreed. He backed away then, eyes still smoldering. "I love you. You are my life.” "I love you too." I smiled and watched him go.

you see, my whole life is tied up to unhappiness it's father cooking breakfast and me getting fat as a hog or having no food at all and father proving his incompetence again i wish i knew how it would feel to be free it's having a job they won't let you work or no work at all castrating me (yes it happens to women too) it's a sex object if you're pretty and no love or love and no sex if you're fat get back fat black woman be a mother grandmother strong thing but not woman gameswoman romantic woman love needer man seeker dick eater sweat getter fuck needing love seeking woman it's a hole in your shoe and buying lil sis a dress and her saying you shouldn't when you know all too well that you shouldn't but smiles are only something we give to properly dressed social workers not each other only smiles of i know your game sister which isn't really a smile joy is finding a pregnant roach and squashing it not finding someone to hold let go get off get back don't turn me on you black dog how dare you care about me you ain't go no good sense cause i ain't shit you must be lower than that to care it's a filthy house with yesterday's watermelon and monday's tears cause true ladies don't know how to clean it's intellectual devastation of everybody to avoid emotional commitment "yeah honey i would've married him but he didn't have no degree" it's knock-kneed mini skirted wig wearing died blond mamma's scar born dead my scorn your whore rough heeeled broken nailed powdered face me whose whole life is tied up to unhappiness cause it's the only for real thing i know

Jill had always wanted to know what it was like to be allowed to wear her hair long, to put on a pretty skirt, to sit next to her sister and hear people cooing over what a lovely matched pair they were. She liked sports, yes, and she liked reading her books; she liked knowing things. She would probably have been a soccer player even if her father hadn't insisted, would definitely have watched spaceships on TV and superheroes in the movies, because the core of who Jill was had nothing to do with the desires of her parents and everything to do with the desires of her heart. But she would have done some of those things in a dress. Having half of everything she wanted denied to her for so long had left her vulnerable to them: they were the forbidden fruit, and like all forbidden things, even the promise of them was delicious.

Someday in our future it may be possible for women everywhere not to be restricted to those roles society deems natural, God-given, or appropriately feminine. A woman will not need to be disguised as a man to go outside, to climb a tree, or to make money. She will not need to make an effort to resemble a man, or to think like one. Instead, she can speak a language that men will want to understand. She will be free to wear a suit or a skirt or something entirely different. She will not count as three-quarters of a man, and her testimony will not be worth half a man's. She will be recognized as someone's sister, mother, and daughter. And maybe, someday, her identity will not be confined to how she relates to a brother, a son, or a father. Instead, she will be recognized as an individual, whose life holds value only in itself.

None of us really cheer for glory, prizes, tourneys. None of us, maybe, know why we do it at all, except it is like a rampart against the routine and groaning afflictions of the school day. You wear that jacket, like so much armor, game days, the flipping skirts. Who could touch you? Nobody could.   My question is this: The New Coach. Did she look at us that first week and see past the glossed hair and shiny legs, our glittered brow bones and girl bravado? See past all that to everything beneath, all our miseries, the way we all hated ourselves but much more everyone else? Could she see past all of that to something else, something quivering and real, something poised to be transformed, turned out, made? See that she could make us, stick her hands in our glitter-gritted insides and build us into magnificent teen gladiators?

Lynchings—they’re hate crimes,” he said. “But the kid who thinks that [wearing a skirt] is anomalous and decides to play a prank is not committing a hate crime.

If you were wearing a skirt, I'd be in you already. I'd fuck you right here, while they sat down to dinner.

Men don’t usually leave cosy relationships unless they’ve found someone who wears ridiculously short skirts and stockings.

Sneezes Breezes Go through the treezes Girls wear skirts upto their kneezes And it gives guys different Diseases

I understood why parents would want to do that, but it wasn’t the message I was going for. If anyone should change their behaviour, I thought, it ought to be those doing the shaming. Justine’s crime had been a badly worded joke mocking privilege. To see the catastrophe as her fault felt to me a little like ‘Don’t wear short skirts’. It felt like victim-blaming.

I have a sweet tooth and I am not ashamed. That's all there is to it. No need to mention donuts at all." "How about buns?" She looked back over her shoulder and caught him staring at her ass. She was wearing a tight black skirt for no other reason than she'd had a strange urge to feel sexy after Hassan shredded her the other day. She gave a little wiggle before she walked into the restaurant and was rewarded with the sound of his sharp intake of breath. "Layla?" "Yes?" She turned in the doorway, caught a cheeky smile. "I like sweet things, too.

Write down a list of your fantasies and we’ll check them off.” “How do you know that you’ll want to do them? Maybe one of them is you wearing a French maid’s costume.” “I look damned good in a skirt. It might be too much for you. Besides, we both know how that fantasy ends.” “How?” I raise a haughty eyebrow. “With the feather duster up your ass and my cock in your pussy.

white and blue, Victorian-style dress with a bell skirt and puffed sleeves. Alister noticed that the rabbit was even wearing a pair of tiny, white, lace gloves, and smiled goofily. “How curious.

[33]* In the seventh month, when the heat is dreadful, everything in the building is kept open all through the night, and it’s delightful to wake on moonlit nights and lie there looking out. Dark nights too are delightful, and as for the sight of the moon at dawn, words cannot describe the loveliness. Picture her lying there, on a fresh new mat 1 placed near the outer edge of the gleaming wooden aisle-room floor, the low standing curtain pushed to the back of the room in a quite unseemly way. 2 It should normally be placed at the outer edge, but perhaps she’s concerned about being seen from within. Her lover must have already left. She is lying asleep, a robe drawn up over her head 3 – it is pale greyish-violet with deep violet inner lining, the outer surface a little faded, or perhaps it is a stiffish robe of rich gleaming damask. Beneath this, she is wearing a clove-tan or yellow gossamer-silk shift, and the long strings of her unlined scarlet skirted trousers trailing undone from below the hem of her clothing tell us that she must have fallen asleep with trousers still untied after her lover departed. The soft luxury of hair that lies piled in waves beside her speaks of its wonderful length.

Marley, let’s get one thing straight. I've seen you in a short skirt. I've seen your bare legs and have imagined them wrapped around me. I've felt the curves of your body with my hands and the way it responds to me. I've tasted the sweetness of your mouth. There is nothing you can do to erase those images from my mind. So understand this, you could wear a Middle-eastern Burka and it wouldn't help me right now.

We could come up with a reasonable explanation for your wearing it. Would that help?" wheedled Sophronia. "Justification for my trotting around wearing a lady's undergarments? I hardly see how." Soap's eyes were sparkling with amusement, and Vieve was dimpling openly at the very idea of Pillover in a skirt. Pillover stood holding the petticoat between thumb and forefinger as if it were contaminated with some dreaded chemical. "Go on, pull it on over you clothes and go out there," Sophronia urged. "You could say you were running some experiment dangerous to your nether regions," suggested Vieve. "You could say you were testing the response time of the maid mechanicals," suggested Sophronia. "You could say you like ladies' undergarments," suggested Soap. "I'm doomed." Pillover rolled his eyes and flapped the petticoat.

My faux school uniform is like a power suit, my armor, a super hero’s costume that makes me feel on top of the world. Short skirt, white blouse, knee-highs and Mary Janes. When I wear this, I make the rules.

[High angel] Carter's fucked-up sense of humor in action.' [The angel] Lucinda flushed deep crimson. 'How can you use such language so carelessly? You sound like you're… like you're in a locker room!" I smoothed down my tank top. 'No way. I'd never wear this in a locker room.' 'Yeah, it isn't even in school colors,' said Peter. I couldn't resist toying with the guardian. 'If i were in a locker room, i'd probably have on a short cheerleader skirt. And no underwear.' Peter continued playing off me. 'And you'd do that one cheer, right? The one with your hands splayed against the shower wall and ass sticking out?' 'That's me,' i agreed. 'Always ready to take one for the team.' Even Cody[, the other vampire] flushed at our crassness. Lucinda was practically purple. 'You–you two have no sense of decency! None at all.

first time Calypso came to check on him, it was to complain about the noise. “Smoke and fire,” she said. “Clanging on metal all day long. You’re scaring away the birds!” “Oh, no, not the birds!” Leo grumbled. “What do you hope to accomplish?” He glanced up and almost smashed his thumb with his hammer. He’d been staring at metal and fire so long he’d forgotten how beautiful Calypso was. Annoyingly beautiful. She stood there with the sunlight in her hair, her white skirt fluttering around her legs, a basket of grapes and fresh-baked bread tucked under one arm. Leo tried to ignore his rumbling stomach. “I’m hoping to get off this island,” he said. “That is what you want, right?” Calypso scowled. She set the basket near his bedroll. “You haven’t eaten in two days. Take a break and eat.” “Two days?” Leo hadn’t even noticed, which surprised him, since he liked food. He was even more surprised that Calypso had noticed. “Thanks,” he muttered. “I’ll, uh, try to hammer more quietly.” “Huh.” She sounded unimpressed. After that, she didn’t complain about the noise or the smoke. The next time she visited, Leo was putting the final touches on his first project. He didn’t see her until she spoke right behind him. “I brought you—” Leo jumped, dropping his wires. “Bronze bulls, girl! Don’t sneak up on me like that!” She was wearing red today—Leo’s favorite color. That was completely irrelevant. She looked really good in red. Also irrelevant. “I wasn’t sneaking,” she said. “I was bringing you these.

What are the people like? Do the women wear plaid skirts, cable-knit sweaters? Are the men in hacking jackets? What’s a hacking jacket?” “They’ve grown comfortable with their money,” I said. “They genuinely believe they’re entitled to it. This conviction gives them a kind of rude health. They glow a little.” “I have trouble imagining death at that income level,” she said. “Maybe there is no death as we know it. Just documents changing hands.

Yer skirt invites a man’s attention. I’ve seen handkerchiefs that were bigger.” She swung her handbag over her shoulder. “At least I wear underwear under my skirt.” “I hope they’re nice since everyone is sure to see them.

I kind of was beginning to feel like I was being underutilized [as Teen Ambassador to the UN]. I mean, there were a lot more important issues out there for teens that I could have been bringing international attention to than what kids see out their windows. I mean, instead of sitting in the White House press office for three hours after school every Wednesday, or attending International Festival of the Child concerts, I could have been out there alerting the public to the fact that in some countries, it is still perfectly legal for men to take teen brides -- even multiple teen brides! What was that all about? And what about places like Sierra Leone, where teens and even younger kids routinely get their limbs chopped off as "warnings" against messing with the warring gangs that run groups of diamond traffickers? And hello, what about all those kids in countries with unexploded land mines buried in the fields where they'd like to play soccer, but can't because it's too dangerous? And how about a problem a little closer to home? How about all the teenagers right here in America who are taking guns to school and blowing people away? Where are they getting these guns, and how come they think shooting people is a viable solution to their problems? And why isn't anybody doing anything to alleviate some of the pressures that might lead someone to think bringing a gun to school is a good thing? How come nobody is teaching people like Kris Parks to be more tolerant of others, to stop torturing kids whose mothers make them wear long skirts to school?

It starts before you can remember: you learn, as surely as you learn to walk and talk, the rules for being a girl... Put a little color on your face. Shave your legs. Don’t wear too much makeup. Don’t wear short skirts. Don’t distract the boys by wearing bodysuits or spaghetti straps or knee socks. Don’t distract the boys by having a body. Don’t distract the boys. Don’t be one of those girls who can’t eat pizza. You’re getting the milk shake too? Whoa. Have you gained weight? Don’t get so skinny your curves disappear. Don’t get so curvy you aren’t skinny. Don’t take up too much space. It’s just about your health. Be funny, but don’t hog the spotlight. Be smart, but you have a lot to learn. Don’t be a doormat, but God, don’t be bossy. Be chill. Be easygoing. Act like one of the guys. Don’t actually act like one of the guys. Be a feminist. Support the sisterhood. Wait, are you, like, gay? Maybe kiss a girl if he’s watching though—that’s hot. Put on a show. Don’t even think about putting on a show, that’s nasty. Don’t be easy. Don’t give it up. Don’t be a prude. Don’t be cold. Don’t put him in the friend zone. Don’t act desperate. Don’t let things go too far. Don’t give him the wrong idea. Don’t blame him for trying. Don’t walk alone at night. But calm down! Don’t worry so much. Smile! Remember, girl: It’s the best time in the history of the world to be you. You can do anything! You can do everything! You can be whatever you want to be! Just as long as you follow the rules.

I must tell you something about necks in Japan, if you don't know it; namely, that Japanese men, as a rule, feel about a woman's neck and throat the same way that men in the West might feel about a woman's legs. This is why geisha wear the collars of their kimono so low in the back that the first few bumps of the spine are visible; I suppose it's like a woman in Paris wearing a short skirt. Auntie painted onto the back of Hatsumomo's neck a design called sanbon-ashi-"three legs." It makes a very dramatic picture, for you feel as if you're looking at the bare skin of the neck through little tapering points of a white fence. It was years before I understood the erotic effect it has on men; but in a way, it's like a woman peering out from between her fingers. In fact, a geisha leaves a tiny margin of skin bare all around the hairline, causing her makeup to look even more artificial, something like a mask worn in Noh drama. When a man sits beside her and sees her makeup like a mask, he becomes that much more aware of the bare skin beneath.

A study by T. Joel Wade and Jennifer Slemp similarly found that the most effective flirtation tactics for women include touching, dressing in revealing clothing, moving closer, kissing on the cheek, and rubbing against the man.37 Effective nonverbal seduction tactics for women in Lisbon, Portugal, included wearing tight skirts, wearing low-neck blouses, and exposing legs through short skirts or wearing attention-getting black or red nylons.38 Women who sexualize their appearance and behavior succeed in evoking approaches from men.

Got it," I say as he hands me a pencil skirt, a crisp long-sleeved white shirt, and some low black heels. "This is what I'm wearing?" I'm a librarian. "Can I safely assume the accessories will include glasses on a chain and my hair in a bun? Should I shush people tonight?

I’m consumed. This is what it feels like. This is what right feels like. It was always wrong before. Kissing someone. Letting them touch me. I never had that burn low in my belly. I was never hungry. Until her. I sink into her mouth again, kissing, sucking, tasting… At least there’s this. I thought hating her was enough. If I couldn’t have this, at least I had her attention. Even if it was bad. At least I could destroy what I was going to lose anyway in three months when we graduated, and I couldn’t look at her every day anymore. But God, I do hate her. Her smile and her red lips. The way she smudges her dumb eyeliner, making her eyes look smoky and captivating, and her wild hair that always looks like it flew through the wind before she put it up in a ponytail. Her olive skin, how her bracelets make music every time she moves, her chipped, black nail polish, and those stupid biker boots with all the buckles she wears that make her legs so hard not to look at. The way she rolls her skirt up, and I can’t pay attention in calculus. I hate it all. How every part of her looks like it has a taste

Liza considering back-peddling but thought about her empty bank account. “That’ll be fine, sir. I don’t wear skirts anyway.” He hmphed as though he suspected she might also be inclined to burn her bra on the courthouse steps and snapped, “No jeans either, this is a professional establishment.

Kya stood and walked into the night, into the creamy light of a three-quarter moon. The marsh’s soft air fell silklike around her shoulders. The moonlight chose an unexpected path through the pines, laying shadows about in rhymes. She strolled like a sleepwalker as the moon pulled herself naked from the waters and climbed limb by limb through the oaks. The slick mud of the lagoon shore glowed in the intense light, and hundreds of fireflies dotted the woods. Wearing a secondhand white dress with a flowing skirt and waving her arms slowly about, Kya waltzed to the music of katydids and leopard frogs.

I'm wearing a French maid's outfit because this bunch of misogynistic homophobes thinks that the most humiliating thing you can do to a guy is put him in a skirt and call him a woman. And instead of telling them to fuck off, that if I wanted to wear drag, I'd do it fucking proudly, I'm letting them win.

Lolita is defined as a type of street fashion known only in Japan. But for me, Lolita goes far beyond fashion and serves as my unwavering, absolute personal policy. Wearing a frilly blouse, a skirt over a huge ruffly petticoat with my waist squeezed into a corset, and a totally outlandish headdress, is my way of pledging that I have devoted myself to Rococo. If I didn't dress in this totally conspicuous and bizarre way, I'd make friends and be popular with boys... is what people tell me, and the more they say that, the more it fans the flames of my Lolita passion and stiffens my resolve to be a Lolita through and through.

There is a guard standing behind me. And then I hear footsteps. “Nicki,” I say. She’s wearing a white shirt and a navy blue skirt. Her Nike 130s are white with a blue Swoosh. “Carrie.” “You feeling all right?” I say. “How’s your ankle? How’s your back? Any injuries I should exploit?” Nicki laughs. “Unfortunately for you, I’m feeling one hundred percent.” “Good,” I say. “The win will be sweeter.” Nicki shakes her head. “I read an interview with you years ago, when I was still a kid,” she says. “Where you said your father called you ‘Achilles.’ ” “Yeah,” I say. “The greatest of the Greeks.” “I was always jealous of that. That sense of destiny you seemed to have. Do you remember what Achilles said to Hector after Hector killed Patroclus?” It has been a long time since I’ve actually read The Iliad. I shake my head. She smiles. “He says, ‘There can be no pacts between men and lions. I will make you pay in full for the grief you have caused me.’ 

My sisters and I stand on the deck, the shale tile cool against the soles of our feet - for a week it seems we never have to wear shoes - and take turns twirling, the matching turquoise silk skirts my mother bought us sliding coolly up our legs, our laughter flying out over the ocean. We are all light and happy and far, far away from home.

I remembered that Stacey was wearing a matching top and skirt made of gray sweatshirt material with big yellow number tens all over it. Her hair was pinned back with clips shaped like rainbows. Little silver whistles were dangling from her ears. It was all very cool, but it seemed kind of young looking. And she was drinking a glass of milk.

The Bone Keeper presides over the festival. She rules the lowest level of the Lowerworld where she keeps watch over the bones. They say she has a skull for a face,wears a skirt made of serpents,and her mouth is extra wide in order to feed off the stars during the day.And yet,despite my numerous journeys to the Lowerworld,I have yet to run into her.But maybe you will, nieta,who knows?" "A skull faec,a snake skirt,and a steady diet of stars?" I shake my head and balk. "No thanks.I'd prefer to avoid her if it's okay with you." "You don't always get the journey you want, nieta. Though you always get the journey you need," she says-yet another sage statement in a collection of many. "You paraphrasing Mick Jagger now?

But your habits undergo no change in this pretense? Or do you think anyone was fooled yesterday by your so-called 'appointment' last night? That is what you told your mother, correct? That you had an appointment?" His eyes came back to hers. "Are we showing signs of jealousy again?" "I'm asking a pertinent question," she said stiffly. "If you think this pretense is going to only be one-sided, then it ends now." Incredibly,his humor returned abruptly, his grin quite wide. "Before you start turning green, I suppose I must admit that appointment wasn't a good word for it, since it wasn't a scheduled meeting. I merely went to see my solicitor,and,no, he doesn't wear skirts." She ignored that ridiculous attempt at a joke.

am so sick of it. All of it. I’m sick of my dad and his it’s-your-fault-for-wearing-a-skirt-that’s-too-short BS. I’m sick of people acting like I’m crazy. Anytime a woman gets mad or sad or emotional, boom, let’s put a big stamp on that feeling that says it isn’t valid. That it’s maybe even pathological. You know as many as 70 percent of women got diagnosed as hysterical by certain doctors back in the day? But what if none of them were Crazy Bitches? What if they were just tired? Tired of pretending everything was okay when it wasn’t, and living in a world that was designed to be against them, and being told to smile through the knife wounds. Maybe pretending to be okay in the middle of a tornado is the truly crazy thing.

Hally: – […] See, a smart woman tends to act on your typical eighteen-year-old male like instant kryptonite. But, not to worry – mother tells me something mystical happens at graduation and suddenly male people who never pulled a grade above a C in their lives automatically become smarter than anything that wears a skirt. Maybe after that happens, we can date who we want.

There was another line of argument that nagged at me: the suggestion that boys simply could not help themselves. As if he never had a choice. I have told each of my girls heading off to college: If you walk in front of a semi truck expect to get hit. Don't walk in front of a semi. If you go to a frat party expect to get drunk, drugged and raped. Don't go to a frat party. You went to a frat and got assaulted? What did you expect? I'd heard this in college, freshman girls in frats compared to sheep in a slaughterhouse. I understand you are not supposed to walk into a lion's den because you could be mauled. But lions are wild animals. And boys are people, they have minds, live in a society with laws. Groping others was not a natural reflex, biologically built in. It was a cognitive action they were capable of controlling. It seemed once you submitted to walking through fraternity doors, all laws and regulation ceased. They were not asked to adhere to the same rules, yet there were countless guidelines women had to follow: cover your drink, stick close to others, don't wear short skirts. Their behavior was the constant, while we were the variable expected to change. When did it become our job to do all the preventing and managing? And if houses existed where many young girls were getting hurt, shouldn't we hold the guys in these houses to a higher standard, instead of reprimanding the girls? Why was passing out considered more reprehensible than fingering the passed-out person?

Caroline O’Day was one of those rare parochial-school girls who managed to wear her St. Michael’s uniform—her pleated flannel skirt and matching burgundy knee socks—as if she were a cocktail waitress in a lounge of questionable repute. With boys, Caroline O’Day was as aggressive as a Corvette, and Maureen Early enjoyed her company because Mr. Early thought the O’Days were vulgar.

Lefty had seen Desdemona undress many times, but usually as no more than a shadow and never in moonlight. She had never curled onto her back like this, lifting her feet to take off her shoes. He watched and, as she pulled down her skirt and lifted her tunic, was struck by how different his sister looked, in moonlight, in a lifeboat. She glowed. She gave off white light. He blinked behind his hands. The moonlight kept rising; it covered his neck, it reached his eyes until he understood: Desdemona was wearing a corset. That was the other thing she'd brought along: the white cloth enfolding her silkworm eggs was nothing other than Desdemona's wedding corset. She thought she'd never wear it, but here it was. Brassiere cups pointed up at the canvas roof. Whalebone slats squeezed her waist. The corset's skirt dropped garters attached to nothing because my grandmother owned no stockings. In the lifeboat, the corset absorbed all available moonlight, with the odd result that Desdemona's face, head, and arms disappeared. She looked like Winged Victory, tumbled on her back, being carted off to a conqueror's museum. All that was missing was the wings.

I was exhausted, and even though I knew it’d be my last night in my own bed, I fell asleep right away and didn’t wake up until Mother called me at five-thirty the next morning. Fortunately, it wasn’t as hot as Sunday; a warm rain fell throughout the day. The four of us were wrapped in so many layers of clothes it looked as if we were going off to spend the night in a refrigerator, and all that just so we could take more clothes with us. No Jew in our situation would dare leave the house with a suitcase full of clothes. I was wearing two vests, three pairs of pants, a dress, and over that a skirt, a jacket, a raincoat, two pairs of stockings, heavy shoes, a cap, a scarf and lots more. I was suffocating even before we left the house, but no one bothered to ask me how I felt.

If I had three lives, I’d marry you in two. And the other? That life over there at Starbucks, sitting alone, writing — a memoir, maybe a novel or this poem. No kids, probably, a small apartment with a view of the river, and books — lots of books and time to read. Friends to laugh with; a man sometimes, for a weekend, to remember what skin feels like when it’s alive. I’m thinner in that life, vegan, practice yoga. I go to art films, farmers markets, drink martinis in swingy skirts and big jewelry. I vacation on the Maine coast and wear a flannel shirt weekend guy left behind, loving the smell of sweat and aftershave more than I do him. I walk the beach at sunrise, find perfect shell spirals and study pockmarks water makes in sand. And I wonder sometimes if I’ll ever find you.

Well, this girl, this Ashford or whatever her name was, looked like a hippie. She was wearing a very pretty pink flowered skirt that was full and so long, it touched the tops of her shoes, which I soon realized were not shoes, but sort of hiking boots. Her blouse, loose and lacy, was embroidered with pink flowers, and both her wrists were loaded with silver bangle bracelets. Her hair, which was almost as long as my friend Dawn's and was dirty blonde, was pulled into a big fat braid (which I might add, was not held in place with a rubber band or anything; it sort of trailed to an end). But the amazing thing was that because of her hair was pulled back, you could see her ears and she had three pierced earrings in each ear. They were all silver and all dangly, but none matched.

The very tall Monsieur Sievers, who was wearing a hoop skirt the empress had lent him, was dancing a Polonaise with me. Countess Hendrikova, who was dancing behind me, stumbled over the hoop skirt of Monsieur Sievers as he turned around with his hand in mine. In falling, she struck me so hard that I fell beneath the hoop skirt of Monsieur Sievers which had sprung upright beside me. Sievers himself became entangled in his own long skirts which were in great disorder and there we were, all three of us, sprawling on the floor with me entirely covered by his skirt. I was dying of laughter trying to get up, but people had to come and help us up because the three of us were so entangled in Monsieur Sievers’s clothing that no one could get up without causing the other two to fall down.

that women were frail creatures, purposely crippled by God that men might prove their virtue by protecting them. Sounded right enough, until I went to war and saw men pleading for their lives while women swung hoes at the knights trying to take their land.’ His tone hardened. ‘Strong is strong and weak is weak, and it doesn’t matter if you wear breeches or skirts if you’re the latter. Life will hammer you flat.

I walk into the bathroom and even though I don’t need to pee, I do anyway. I’m wearing a skirt that Amber forced me to put on and it’s so easy to use the bathroom when you’re in a skirt, it’s stupid not to take advantage of the opportunity. Besides, I’m pretty sure I’m getting a cab home right after I punch Ben in the face, so I might as well use the restroom while I’m here. Why am I justifying the fact that I’m peeing?

I never suspected you had a sense of humor,” she mused aloud, studying his face as if he were a fascinating puzzle to be figured out. “See? Hardly ten minutes into the night and I am already learning fabulous things about you.” “Imagine what will happen in an hour,” he said. “That sounded suspiciously liberal to me,” she rejoined slyly, reaching to wind her arms around his neck. “Did I mention that you look like you just stepped off a pirate ship? This outfit is very . . . roguish.” “Roguish?” “‘Roguish’ is a word from the English language,” she lectured. “It means . . . to be like a rogue. In your case, to be in the style of a rogue. Roguish.” “I know what it means, Neliss. I do not believe I have ever heard myself described in such a way before. I shall have to take your word on that.” He reached up to push back some of the heavy fall of her hair. “You always wear dresses like this, and almost never bind your hair. Do not take this as a complaint, but I was wondering why that is.” “I like dresses. I never quite took to the idea of skirts above the ankle. I guess I am an old-fashioned eighteenth-century girl.” “I see. And just when, exactly, should I begin to look for those pigs that will be flying by?” “You know, you sit there and accuse me of having a smart mouth?” “Well, you were wondering what part of you was going to show up in me,” he rejoined. “Oh. Ha ha. Your stellar wit has charmed me straight to my toes,” was her dry reply. “In any event,” he continued, ignoring her sarcasm, “your style suits you quite well. It suits me as well.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another woman sitting over in a wing chair, a pleasantly attractive lady wearing the tasteful clothes of a senior redactrice, or senior civil servant, the stylish black skirt, the dark stockings, the black pumps, and the starched white linen blouse of her caste. The dark hair was swept up in a chignon, elegant and functional, dark eyes glistened as she smiled at him in a professional manner. He could see that she was a woman who met men in a highly assured way—serene, and expert at creating a proper distance.

HAVE YOU EVER sailed in a longship? Not a stubby, robust knörr laden with trade goods and wallowing like a packhorse across the sea, but a sleek, deathly quick, terror-stirring thing – a dragon ship. Have you ever stood at the bow with the salt wind whipping your hair as Rán’s white-haired daughters cream beneath the beast’s strong, curving chest? Have you travelled the whale road with wind-burnt warriors whose rare skill with axe and sword is a gift from mighty Óðin, Lord of War? Men whose death work feeds the wolf and the eagle and the raven? I have done all this. It has been my life and though it would make those skirt-wearing White Christ followers sick with disgust (and fear, I shouldn’t wonder) I have been happy with my lot. For some men are born closer to the gods than others. By the well of Urd, beneath one of the roots of the great life tree Yggdrasil, the Norns, those sisters of fate, of present and future, take the threads of men’s lives and weave them into patterns full of pain and suffering, glory and riches, and death. And their ancient fingers must have tired at the spinning of my life.

She was a hunchback with a sweet smile. She smiled sweetly at anything; she couldn't help it; the trees, me, the grass, anything. The basket pulled her down, dragging her toward the ground. She was such a tiny woman, with a hurt face, as if slapped forever. She wore a funny old hat, an absurd hat, a maddening hat, a hat to make me cry, a hat with faded red berries on the brim. And there she was, smiling at everything, struggling across the carpet with a heavy basket containing Lord knew what, wearing a plumed hat with red berries. I got up. It was so mysterious. There I was, like magic, standing up, my two feet on the ground, my eyes drenched. I said, "Let me help." She smiled again and gave me the basket. We began to walk. She led the way. Beyond the trees it was stifling. And she smiled. It was so sweet it nearly tore my head off. She talked, she told me things I never remembered. It didn't matter. In a« dream she held me, in a dream I followed under the blinding sun. For blocks we went forward. I hoped it would never end. Always she talked in a low voice made of human music. What words! What she said! I remembered nothing. I was only happy. But in my heart I was dying. It should have been so. We stepped from so many curbs, I wondered why she did not sit upon one and hold my head while I drifted away. It was the chance that never came again. That old woman with the bent back! Old woman, I feel so joyfully your pain. Ask me a favor, you old woman you! Anything. To die is easy. Make it that. To cry is easy, lift your skirt and let me cry and let my tears wash your feet to let you know I know what life has been for you, because my back is bent too, but my heart is whole, my tears are delicious, my love is yours, to give you joy where God has failed. To die is so easy and you may have my life if you wish it, you old woman, you hurt me so, you did, I will do anything for you, to die for you, the blood of my eighteen years flowing in the gutters of Wilmington and down to the sea for you, for you that you might find such joy as is now mine and stand erect without the horror of that twist. I left the old woman at her door. The trees shimmered. The clouds laughed. The blue sky took me up. Where am I? Is this Wilmington, California? Haven't I been here before? A melody moved my feet. The air soared with Arturo in it, puffing him in and out and making him something and nothing. My heart laughed and laughed. Goodbye to Nietzsche and Schopenhauer and all of you, you fools, I am much greater than all of you! Through my veins ran music of blood. Would it last? It could not last. I must hurry. But where? And I ran toward home. Now I am home. I left the book in the park. To hell with it. No more books for me. I kissed my mother. I clung to her passionately. On my knees I fell at her feet to kiss her feet and cling to her ankles until it must have hurt her and amazed her that it was I.

As for my clothes, they suit the life I lead. The current fashions are impractical for an active person. Skirts so tight one must toddle like an infant, bodices boned so firmly it is impossible to draw a deep breath…And bustles! Of all the idiotic contrivances foisted upon helpless womankind, the bustle is certainly the worst. I wear them, since it is impossible to have a gown made without them, but at least I can insist on sensible dark fabrics and a minimum of ornament. What a fool I should look in puffs and frills and crimson satin—or a gown trimmed with dead birds, like one I saw!

Freedom of Dress (The Sonnet) Freedom of dress is as important, As freedom of press, that's common sense. If we're still stuck with squabbles on clothes, When will we manifest character's radiance! What does it matter, what we wear, As long as we walk with our head held high! Anything that strengthens our backbone, Is worth the fight of a thousand lifetime. Clothes perish, so does the body in them, But a well-built character keeps on shining. Focus on conduct across all shallow exterior, Let burning dogs burn, you just keep dazzling. I repeat, heed not the honks of primeval puritans. Own your booty and trample all condemnation.

Cecily let her cheek fall to Leta’s shoulder and hugged her back. It felt so nice to be loved by someone in the world. Since her mother’s death, she’d had no one of her own. It was a lonely life, despite the excitement and adventure her work held for her. She wasn’t openly affectionate at all, except with Leta. “For God’s sake, next you’ll be rocking her to sleep at night!” came a deep, disgusted voice at Cecily’s back, and Cecily stiffened because she recognized it immediately. “She’s my baby girl,” Leta told her tall, handsome son with a grin. “Shut up.” Cecily turned a little awkwardly. She hadn’t expected this. Tate Winthrop towered over both of them. His jet-black hair was loose as he never wore it in the city, falling thick and straight almost to his waist. He was wearing a breastplate with buckskin leggings and high-topped mocassins. There were two feathers straight up in his hair with notches that had meaning among his people, marks of bravery. Cecily tried not to stare at him. He was the most beautiful man she’d ever known. Since her seventeenth birthday, Tate had been her world. Fortunately he didn’t realize that her mad flirting hid a true emotion. In fact, he treated her exactly as he had when she came to him for comfort after her mother had died suddenly; as he had when she came to him again with bruises all over her thin, young body from her drunken stepfather’s violent attack. Although she dated, she’d never had a serious boyfriend. She had secret terrors of intimacy that had never really gone away, except when she thought of Tate that way. She loved him… “Why aren’t you dressed properly?” Tate asked, scowling at her skirt and blouse. “I bought you buckskins for your birthday, didn’t I?” “Three years ago,” she said without meeting his probing eyes. She didn’t like remembering that he’d forgotten her birthday this year. “I gained weight since then.” “Oh. Well, find something you like here…” She held up a hand. “I don’t want you to buy me anything else,” she said flatly, and didn’t back down from the sudden menace in his dark eyes. “I’m not dressing up like a Lakota woman. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m blond. I don’t want to be mistaken for some sort of overstimulated Native American groupie buying up artificial artifacts and enthusing over citified Native American flute music, trying to act like a member of the tribe.” “You belong to it,” he returned. “We adopted you years ago.” “So you did,” she said. That was how he thought of her-a sister. That wasn’t the way she wanted him to think of her. She smiled faintly. “But I won’t pass for a Lakota, whatever I wear.” “You could take your hair down,” he continued thoughtfully. She shook her head. She only let her hair loose at night, when she went to bed. Perhaps she kept it tightly coiled for pure spite, because he loved long hair and she knew it. “How old are you?” he asked, trying to remember. “Twenty, isn’t it?” “I was, give years ago,” she said, exasperated. “You used to work for the CIA. I seem to remember that you went to college, too, and got a law degree. Didn’t they teach you how to count?” He looked surprised. Where had the years gone? She hadn’t aged, not visibly.

That the men in our family got to traipse around naked, while I had to wear outfits that resembled those favored by Mennonite women, taught me at a very young age to feel guilty about my appearance and contributed to me developing all sorts of body image issues down the road. Ruthanne prohibited me from wearing pants because, as she explained to me, “Pants separate a woman’s legs, and that tempts men to want to have intercourse with you.” I was only to wear skirts or dresses, otherwise I would be disobeying God’s desire for women to be modest. Not wanting to defy God or—gulp—get raped, I did as I was told, but this new rule presented some difficulties.

There is something else I must confess about Tata Boanda: he's a sinner. Right in the plain sight of God he has two wives, a young and an old one. Why, they all come to church! Father says we're to pray for all three of them, but when you get down to the particulars it's hard to know exactly what outcome to pray for. He should drop one wife, I guess, but for sure he'd drop the older one, and she already looks sad enough as it is. The younger one has all the kids, and you can't just pray for a daddy to flat-out dump his babies, can you? I always believed any sin was easily rectified if only you let Jesus Christ into your heart, but here it gets complicated. Mama Boanda Number Two doesn't seem fazed by her situation. In fact, she looks like she's fixing to explode with satisfaction. She and her little girls all wear their hair in short spikes bursting out all over their heads, giving an effect similar to a pincushion (Rachel calls it the "haywire hairdo.") And Mama Boanda always wraps her pagne just so, with a huge pink starburst radiating across her wide rump. The women's long cloth skirts are printed so gaily with the oddest things: there is no telling when a raft of yellow umbrellas, or the calico cat and gingham dog, or an upside-down image of the Catholic Pope might just go sauntering across our yard.

Well, feminine, but not too feminine, then.” “Careful: In Hopkins v. Price-Waterhouse, Ms. Hopkins was denied a partnership because she needed to learn to ‘walk more femininely, talk more femininely, dress more femininely,’ and ‘wear makeup.’” “Maybe she didn’t deserve a partnership?” “She brought in the most business of any employee.” “Hmm. Well, maybe a little more feminine.” “Not so fast. Policewoman Nancy Fahdl was fired because she looked ‘too much like a lady.’” “All right, less feminine. I’ve wiped off my blusher.” “You can lose your job if you don’t wear makeup. See Tamini v. Howard Johnson Company, Inc.” “How about this, then, sort of…womanly?” “Sorry. You can lose your job if you dress like a woman. In Andre v. Bendix Corporation, it was ruled ‘inappropriate for a supervisor’ of women to dress like ‘a woman.’” “What am I supposed to do? Wear a sack?” “Well, the women in Buren v. City of East Chicago had to ‘dress to cover themselves from neck to toe’ because the men at work were ‘kind of nasty.’” “Won’t a dress code get me out of this?” “Don’t bet on it. In Diaz v. Coleman, a dress code of short skirts was set by an employer who allegedly sexually harassed his female employees because they complied with it.” It would be funny if it weren’t true. And when we see that British law has evolved a legal no-win situation very close to this one, a pattern begins to emerge.

Bash’s hands come to the hem of my dress and yank it up. He clucks his tongue. “I don’t think you should be allowed to wear panties anymore.” “I would agree,” Kas says and relieves me of them in one quick yank. “Maybe she shouldn’t be allowed to wear any clothes at all.” Bash lets the skirt of my dress drop back down, then slides his hand up the curve of my waist to my breast. His touch is patient as he presses into my ass, letting me know he’s hard for me. “I can’t just walk around naked,” I say. “Why not?” he purrs against my ear. “Then we could admire you at all hours of the day and night. Have you dripping wet whenever we’d like, with nothing to stand between us.” He rubs at my nipple, coaxing it to bead.

Where dost thou stand behind them all, my lover, hiding thyself in the shadows? They push thee and pass thee by on the dusty road, taking thee for naught. I wait here weary hours spreading my offerings for thee, while passers-by come and take my flowers, one by one, and my basket is nearly empty. The morning time is past, and the noon. In the shade of evening my eyes are drowsy with sleep. Men going home glance at me and smile and fill me with shame. I sit like a beggar maid, drawing my skirt over my face, and when they ask me, what it is I want, I drop my eyes and answer them not. Oh, how, indeed, could I tell them that for thee I wait, and that thou hast promised to come. How could I utter for shame that I keep for my dowry this poverty. Ah, I hug this pride in the secret of my heart. I sit on the grass and gaze upon the sky and dream of the sudden splendour of thy coming---all the lights ablaze, golden pennons flying over thy car, and they at the roadside standing agape, when they see thee come down from thy seat to raise me from the dust, and set at thy side this ragged beggar girl a-tremble with shame and pride, like a creeper in a summer breeze. But time glides on and still no sound of the wheels of thy chariot. Many a procession passes by with noise and shouts and glamour of glory. Is it only thou who wouldst stand in the shadow silent and behind them all? And only I who would wait and weep and wear out my heart in vain longing?

I'm so excited to meet you, Emma," she says. "Now I know why Galen won't shut up about you." Her smile seems to contradict the decades' worth of frown lines rippling from her mouth. In fact, it's so genuine and warm that I almost believe she is excited to meet me. But isn't that what all moms say when introduced to their son's girlfriend? You're not his girlfriend, stupid. Or does she think we're dating, too? "Thanks, I think," I smile generically. "I'm sure he's told you a million times how clumsy I am." Because how else am I supposed to take that? "A million and one, actually. Wish you'd do something different for a change," Rayna drawls without looking up. Rayna has outstayed her welcome on my nerves. "I could teach you how to color in the lines," I shoot back. The look she gives me could sour milk. Toraf puts his hands on her shoulders and kisses the top of her head. "I think you're doing a great job, my princess." She wiggles out of his grasp and shoves the polish brush back into its bottle. "If you're so good at it, why don't you paint your toes? They probably stay injured all the time from you running into stuff. Am I right?" Yeah? And? I'm about to set her straight on a few things-like how wearing a skirt and sitting Indian-style ruins the effect of pretty toes anyway-when Galen's mom puts a gentle hand on my arm and clears her throat. "Emma, I'm so glad you're feeling better," she says. "I bet dinner would just about complete your recovery, don't you?

Come on, Ree, get a grip, I told myself. Something was going on…this was more than simply a reaction to the August humidity. I was having some kind of nervous psycho sweat attack--think Albert Brooks in Broadcast News--and I was being held captive by my perspiration in the upstairs bathroom of Marlboro Man’s grandmother’s house in the middle of his cousin’s wedding reception. I felt the waistband of my skirt stick to my skin. Oh, God…I was in trouble. Desperate, I stripped off my skirt and the stifling control-top panty hose I’d made the mistake of wearing; they peeled off my legs like a soggy banana skin. And there I stood, naked and clammy, my auburn bangs becoming more waterlogged by the minute. So this is it, I thought. This is hell.

Teddy Roosevelt?" I suggested. Sadie and I had been trying to figure out the second mathlete's costume for a few minutes. He was wearing a 1930's-style suit,had his hair slicked down carefully, and was sporting a fake mustache. "No glasses. And I can't even begin to imagine the connection between Davy Jone's Locker and Teddy Roosevelt." Sadie pulled a long gold hair from her pumpkin-orange punch and sighed. Maybe her mother hadn't topped her Sleepy Hollow triumph, but it wasn't from lack of determination. What Mrs. Winslow hadn't achieved in creativity (she'd gone the mermaid route), she'd made up in the details. The tailed skirt was intricately beaded and embroidered in a dozen shades of blue and green. It was pretty amazing.The problem was the bodice: not a bikini, but not much better as far as Sadie was concerned. It was green, plunging, and edged with itchy-looking scallops. She was managing to stay covered by the wig, but that was an issue in itself. It was massive,made up of hundreds of trailing corkscrew curls in a metallic blonde. To top it all off, the costume included a glittering, three point crown, and a six-foot trident, complete with jewels and trailing silk seaweed. "Sadie," I'd asked quietly when she'd appeared at my house, shivering and tangled in her wig, "why don't you..." Just tell her where she can shove her trident? But that would just have been mean. Sadie gives in and wears the costumes because it's infinitely easier than fighting. "...come next door and we'll see if Sienna has a shawl you can borrow?

You don't look like a Rupert." Startled,he raised a black brow at her. "Dare I ask what I look like to you?" "A hungry wolf." He didn't laugh at the description, but he did abruptly release her. "Wolf, perhaps," he said drily. "Hungry? Not at the moment." She had enough sense to guess she'd just been insulted. Had she touched a nerve perhaps? Good,because he was certainly touching too many of hers. Regaining her balance after stumbling back from him,she went to straighten her skirt in an indignant manner,but forgot she wasn't wearing one.How could she appear to be offended while she was wearing britches? She settled for grabbing the hat off the floor and shoving it back down on her head. The very idea! Not hungry at the moment? As if she didn't know he was implying she wasn't to his taste.

Because there’s a silent, shrugging, stoical acceptance of all the things in the world we can never be part of: shorts, swimming pools, strappy dresses, country walks, roller-skating, ra-ra skirts, vest tops, high heels, rope climbing, sitting on a high stool, walking past building sites, flirting, being kissed, feeling confident. And ever losing weight, ever. The idea of suggesting we don’t have to be fat –that things could change –is the most distant and alien prospect of all. We’re fat now and we’ll be fat forever and we must never, ever mention it, and that is the end of it. It’s like Harry Potter’s Sorting Hat. We were pulled from the hat marked ‘Fat’ and that is what we must now remain, until we die. Fat is our race. Our species. Our mode. As a result, there is very little of the outside world –and very little of the year –we can enjoy. Summer is sweaty under self-conscious layers. On stormy days, wind flattens skirts against thighs, and alarms both us and, we think, onlookers and passers-by. Winter is the only time we feel truly comfortable: covered head to toe in jumpers, coats, boots and hat. I develop a crush on Father Christmas. If I married him, not only would I be expected to stay fat, but I’d look thin standing next to him, in comparison. Perspective would be my friend. We all dream of moving to Norway, or Alaska, where we could wear massive padded coats all the time, and never reveal an inch of flesh. When it rains, we’re happiest of all. Then we can just stay in, away from everyone, in our pyjamas, and not worry about anything. The brains in jars can stay inside, nice and dry.

She retrieved the beads she had dropped from under the sewing tables, and strung them again. She made and painted more beads, added the slimerod cores she had dried, the seed pods of this plant, tufts of long hair from cows’ tails caught in brush… she wasn’t sure what she was making, only that she liked the patterns of chunky things and thin ones, color and texture and line. When she put the construction on her body, she realized it needed a bit more here — another length of beads — and something else there to balance the weight and keep it from slipping off her shoulders. She looked in the mirror. Odd how seldom she’d done that, not since before the other landing. She had not wanted to see her expression; she had been afraid that she might frighten herself. But now the figure in the mirror hardly looked human. She stared. She felt the same — mostly the same — and in the mirror her own face scowled at her, the familiar scowl with which she had always greeted her mirror-self. Her eyebrows were thinner and whiter; her white hair a tousled bush of silver. But the inner self that had been so intent on stringing beads and feathers and wool and cows’ hair and seedpods, that had been so sure where to lace this string to that, and how to hang the tassels — that self had not imagined how she would look in anything but the old drab workshirts and skirts and bonnets of earlier years. Indecent, the old voice said. Amazing, the new voice said, with approval. Her body was old, wrinkled, sagging, splotched with the wear-marks of nearly eighty years… but hanging on it in weblike patterns were the brilliant colors and textures of her creation.

I’m standing in front of Enrique’s Auto Body, doing deep-breathing exercises to keep from being nervous. Enrique’s Camry is nowhere in sight, so I know Alex is alone. I’m going to seduce Alex. If what I’m wearing doesn’t capture his attention, nothing will. I’m giving this my all…bringing out all the artillery. I rap on the door, then close my eyes tight and pray this goes as planned. I open my long, silver satin jacket and the cool night air rushes onto my exposed skin. When the creak of the door alerts me to Alex’s presence, I slowly open my eyes. But it’s not Alex’s black eyes staring at my scantily clad body. It’s Enrique--who’s staring at my pink lace bra and pom-pom skirt as if he’s won the lottery. Ripped with embarrassment, I wrap my coat around myself. If I could wrap it around twice, I would. “Uh, Alex,” Enrique laughs. “There’s a trick-or-treater here to see you.

A while back a young woman from another state came to live with some of her relatives in the Salt Lake City area for a few weeks. On her first Sunday she came to church dressed in a simple, nice blouse and knee-length skirt set off with a light, button-up sweater. She wore hose and dress shoes, and her hair was combed simply but with care. Her overall appearance created an impression of youthful grace. Unfortunately, she immediately felt out of place. It seemed like all the other young women her age or near her age were dressed in casual skirts, some rather distant from the knee; tight T-shirt-like tops that barely met the top of their skirts at the waist (some bare instead of barely); no socks or stockings; and clunky sneakers or flip-flops. One would have hoped that seeing the new girl, the other girls would have realized how inappropriate their manner of dress was for a chapel and for the Sabbath day and immediately changed for the better. Sad to say, however, they did not, and it was the visitor who, in order to fit in, adopted the fashion (if you can call it that) of her host ward. It is troubling to see this growing trend that is not limited to young women but extends to older women, to men, and to young men as well. . . . I was shocked to see what the people of this other congregation wore to church. There was not a suit or tie among the men. They appeared to have come from or to be on their way to the golf course. It was hard to spot a woman wearing a dress or anything other than very casual pants or even shorts. Had I not known that they were coming to the school for church meetings, I would have assumed that there was some kind of sporting event taking place. The dress of our ward members compared very favorably to this bad example, but I am beginning to think that we are no longer quite so different as more and more we seem to slide toward that lower standard. We used to use the phrase “Sunday best.” People understood that to mean the nicest clothes they had. The specific clothing would vary according to different cultures and economic circumstances, but it would be their best. It is an affront to God to come into His house, especially on His holy day, not groomed and dressed in the most careful and modest manner that our circumstances permit. Where a poor member from the hills of Peru must ford a river to get to church, the Lord surely will not be offended by the stain of muddy water on his white shirt. But how can God not be pained at the sight of one who, with all the clothes he needs and more and with easy access to the chapel, nevertheless appears in church in rumpled cargo pants and a T-shirt? Ironically, it has been my experience as I travel around the world that members of the Church with the least means somehow find a way to arrive at Sabbath meetings neatly dressed in clean, nice clothes, the best they have, while those who have more than enough are the ones who may appear in casual, even slovenly clothing. Some say dress and hair don’t matter—it’s what’s inside that counts. I believe that truly it is what’s inside a person that counts, but that’s what worries me. Casual dress at holy places and events is a message about what is inside a person. It may be pride or rebellion or something else, but at a minimum it says, “I don’t get it. I don’t understand the difference between the sacred and the profane.” In that condition they are easily drawn away from the Lord. They do not appreciate the value of what they have. I worry about them. Unless they can gain some understanding and capture some feeling for sacred things, they are at risk of eventually losing all that matters most. You are Saints of the great latter-day dispensation—look the part.

Thus, there is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us and not we them; we may make them take the mould of arm or breast, but they mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking. So, having now worn skirts for a considerable time, a certain change was visible in Orlando, which is to be found if the reader will look at the above, even in her face. If we compare the picture of Orlando as a man with that of Orlando as a woman we shall see that though both are undoubtedly one and the same person, there are certain changes. The man has his hand free to seize his sword, the woman must use hers to keep the satins from slipping from her shoulders. The man looks the world full in the face, as if it were made for his uses and fashioned to his liking. The woman takes a sidelong glance at it, full of subtlety, even of suspicion. Had they both worn the same clothes, it is possible that their outlook might have been the same.

Arin had bathed. He was wearing house clothes, and when Kestrel saw him standing in the doorway his shoulders were relaxed. Without being invited, he strode into the room, pulled out the other chair at the small table where Kestrel waited, and sat. He arranged his arms in a position of negligent ease and leaned into the brocaded chair as if he owned it. He seemed, Kestrel thought, at home. But then, he had also seemed so in the forge. Kestrel looked away from him, stacking the Bite and Sting tiles on the table. It occurred to her that it was a talent for Arin to be comfortable in such different environments. She wondered how she would fare in his world. He said, “This is not a sitting room.” “Oh?” Kestrel mixed the tiles. “And here I thought we were sitting.” His mouth curved slightly. “This is a writing room. Or, rather”--he pulled his six tiles--“it was.” Kestrel drew her Bite and Sting hand. She decided to show no sign of curiosity. She would not allow herself to be distracted. She arranged her tiles facedown. “Wait,” he said. “What are the stakes?” She had given this careful consideration. She took a small wooden box from her skirt pocket and set it on the table. Arin picked up the box and shook it, listening to the thin, sliding rattle of its contents. “Matches.” He tossed the box back onto the table. “Hardly high stakes.” But what were appropriate stakes for a slave who had nothing to gamble? This question had troubled Kestrel ever since she had proposed the game. She shrugged and said, “Perhaps I am afraid to lose.” She split the matches between them. “Hmm,” he said, and they each put in their ante. Arin positioned his tiles so that he could see their engravings without revealing them to Kestrel. His eyes flicked to them briefly, then lifted to examine the luxury of his surroundings. This annoyed her--both because she could glean nothing from his expression and because he was acting the gentleman by averting his gaze, offering her a moment to study her tiles without fear of giving away something to him. As if she needed such an advantage. “How do you know?” she said. “How do I know what?” “That this was a writing room. I have never heard of such a thing.” She began to position her own tiles. It was only when she saw their designs that she wondered whether Arin had really been polite in looking away, or if he had been deliberately provoking her. She concentrated on her draw, relieved to see that she had a good set. A tiger (the highest tile); a wolf, a mouse, a fox (not a bad trio, except the mouse); and a pair of scorpions. She liked the Sting tiles. They were often underestimated. Kestrel realized that Arin had been waiting to answer her question. He was watching her. “I know,” he said, “because of this room’s position in your suite, the cream color of the walls, and the paintings of swans. This was where a Herrani lady would pen her letters or write journal entries. It’s a private room. I shouldn’t be allowed inside.” “Well,” said Kestrel, uncomfortable, “it is no longer what it was.

Tell me about yourself," Midori said. "What about me?" "Hmm, I don't know, what do you hate?" "Chicken and VD and barbers who talk too much." "What else?" "Lonely April nights and lacy telephone covers." "What else?" I shook my head. "I can't think of anything else." "My boyfriend - which is to say, my ex-boyfriend - had all kinds of things he hated. Like when I wore too-short skirts, or when I smoked, or how I got drunk too quickly, or said disgusting things, or criticized his friends. So if there's anything about me you don't like, just tell me, and I'll fix it if I can." "I can't think of anything," I said after giving it some thought. "There's nothing." "Really?" "I like everything you wear, and I like what you do and say and how you walk and how you get drunk. Everything." "You mean I'm really OK just the way I am?" "I don't know how you could change, so you must be fine the way you are." "How much do you love me?" Midori asked. "Enough to melt all the tigers in the world to butter," I said. "Far out," she said with a hint of satisfaction.

And, should anyone here present know of any reason that this couple should not be joined in holy matrimony,” Archbishop Callaghan said as he neared the end of the wedding ceremony. “Speak now or forever hold your peace.” There wasn’t even a slight pause when a voice rang out from behind. “Grant! No! I love you!” Vanessa Bennet came running down the aisle, her eyes glazed over. She was also wearing a full-length wedding gown. “You can’t marry her! You love me.” “Cazzo!” Frankie rolled her eyes. “Hold this,” she shoved her bouquet at Grant and picked up her skirts, intending to give Vanessa a piece of her mind. Who the hell wears white to another woman’s wedding? Before Frankie could even began walking towards the aisle, Vanessa let out a pained shriek as a fist connected with her jaw, sending her sprawling to the ground. “You. Will. Not. Ruin. This. Day!” Callista declared, her voice edged with danger as she rubbed her fist. Alynna guffawed loudly from her seat on the groom’s side. “Wow. I guess Callista’s not too classy to smack a biatch either.

It did not occur to her to question whether Tara was worth marrying Frank. She knew it was worth it and she never gave the matter a second thought. She smiled up at him as she sipped the wine, knowing that her cheeks were more attractively pink than any of the dancers’. She moved her skirts for him to sit by her and waved her handkerchief idly so that the faint sweet smell of the cologne could reach his nose. She was proud of the cologne, for no other woman in the room was wearing any and Frank had noticed it. In a fit of daring he had whispered to her that she was as pink and fragrant as a rose. If only he were not so shy! He reminded her of a timid old brown field rabbit. If only he had the gallantry and ardor of the Tarleton boys or even the coarse impudence of Rhett Butler. But, if he possessed those qualities, he’d probably have sense enough to feel the desperation that lurked just beneath her demurely fluttering eyelids. As it was, he didn’t know enough about women even to suspect what she was up to. That was her good fortune but it did not increase her respect for him.

Lucinda and Mr. Wiley were returning at last, and she ran to Lucinda, hastily stepping around the black horse, who laid his ears back evilly in warning. “Lucy!” she burst out while Lucinda waited calmly for Mr. Wiley to help her down. “Lucy! Disaster has struck.” “A moment, if you please, Elizabeth,” said the unflappable woman. “Whatever it is, it will surely wait until we’re inside and can be comfortable. I declare, I feel as if I were born atop this horse. You cannot imagine the time we had finding suitable servants…” Elizabeth scarcely heard the rest of what she was saying. In a torment of frantic helplessness she had to wait while Lucinda dismounted, limped into the house, and sat down upon the sofa. “Now then,” said Lucinda, flicking a speck of dust off her skirts, “what has happened?” Oblivious to the vicar, who was standing by the fireplace looking mystified and alarmed on her behalf, Elizabeth handed Lucinda the note. “Read this. It-it sounds as if he’s already accepted him.” As she read the brief missive Lucinda’s face turned an awful gray with two bright splotches of angry color standing out on her hollow cheeks. “He’d accept an offer from the devil,” Lucinda gritted wrathfully, “so long as he had a noble title and money. This shouldn’t come as a surprise.” “I was so certain I’d persuaded Belhaven that we couldn’t possibly suit!” Elizabeth almost wailed, twisting her blue skirt in her hands in her agitation. “I did everything, Lucy, everything I told you about, and more.” Agitation drove Elizabeth to her feet. “If we make haste, we can be home by the allotted time, and perhaps I can find a way to dissuade Uncle Julius.” Lucinda did not leap to her feet as Elizabeth did; she did not race for the stairs, dash into her room, and vent her helpless rage by slamming a door, as Elizabeth did. Her body rigid, Lucinda stood up very slowly and turned to the vicar. “Where is he?” she snapped. “Ian?” the vicar said distractedly, alarmed by her pallid color. “He’s gone hunting.” Deprived of her real prey, Lucinda unleashed her fury upon the hapless vicar instead. When she finished her tirade she hurled the crumpled note into the cold fireplace and said in a voice that shook with wrath, “When that spawn of Lucifer returns, you tell him that if he ever crosses my path, he’d better be wearing a suit of armor!” So saying, she marched upstairs.

This means, a woman might think, that the law will treat her fairly in employment disputes if only she does her part, looks pretty, and dresses femininely. She would be dangerously wrong, though. Let’s look at an American working woman standing in front of her wardrobe, and imagine the disembodied voice of legal counsel advising her on each choice as she takes it out on its hanger. “Feminine, then,” she asks, “in reaction to the Craft decision?” “You’d be asking for it. In 1986, Mechelle Vinson filed a sex discrimination case in the District of Columbia against her employer, the Meritor Savings Bank, on the grounds that her boss had sexually harassed her, subjecting her to fondling, exposure, and rape. Vinson was young and ‘beautiful’ and carefully dressed. The district court ruled that her appearance counted against her: Testimony about her ‘provocative’ dress could be heard to decide whether her harassment was ‘welcome.’” “Did she dress provocatively?” “As her counsel put it in exasperation, ‘Mechelle Vinson wore clothes.’ Her beauty in her clothes was admitted as evidence to prove that she welcomed rape from her employer.” “Well, feminine, but not too feminine, then.” “Careful: In Hopkins v. Price-Waterhouse, Ms. Hopkins was denied a partnership because she needed to learn to ‘walk more femininely, talk more femininely, dress more femininely,’ and ‘wear makeup.’” “Maybe she didn’t deserve a partnership?” “She brought in the most business of any employee.” “Hmm. Well, maybe a little more feminine.” “Not so fast. Policewoman Nancy Fahdl was fired because she looked ‘too much like a lady.’” “All right, less feminine. I’ve wiped off my blusher.” “You can lose your job if you don’t wear makeup. See Tamini v. Howard Johnson Company, Inc.” “How about this, then, sort of…womanly?” “Sorry. You can lose your job if you dress like a woman. In Andre v. Bendix Corporation, it was ruled ‘inappropriate for a supervisor’ of women to dress like ‘a woman.’” “What am I supposed to do? Wear a sack?” “Well, the women in Buren v. City of East Chicago had to ‘dress to cover themselves from neck to toe’ because the men at work were ‘kind of nasty.’” “Won’t a dress code get me out of this?” “Don’t bet on it. In Diaz v. Coleman, a dress code of short skirts was set by an employer who allegedly sexually harassed his female employees because they complied with it.

Tina and Pete stood together. Pete knew he should be grilling the girl, getting the full story before details were lost, but he was too spellbound by the reunion. The boy he was watching was so different. There was no way to avoid the truth. Someone, a very evil someone, had hurt his boy. Pete felt his fists clench. Whoever it was that had turned Lockie into the skinny kid trapped behind his pain, he would pay. If he had to spend his whole life looking for him, Pete would find him and then he would make him pay. The girl had obviously helped Lockie. He had no idea if she had found him or if she had been with him the whole time, but Lockie kept saying that she had ‘saved’ him. He was a clever kid and he knew what the word meant. Pete liked the way she looked at Lockie—like a lioness, like a sister, like a mother. The skinny girl with short messy black hair could have been anyone. She looked about fifteen but when she spoke she sounded a lot older. She was wearing a big coat but underneath that Pete had caught a glimpse of a short skirt and a tight red top. Not the kind of thing a nice girl would wear. Maybe she wasn’t a nice girl but she was smart. That was easy to see. She was watching Lockie with his dad and Pete could see her body sag with relief. She was relieved to get him home. It must have been a promise she had made the boy. Pete had no idea how she’d got him home. She didn’t look like she had a cent to her name. He sighed. So many questions to answer and the worst part was that some of the answers would be things he did not want to hear. Some of the answers would keep him up at night for the rest of his life. He wished he didn’t have to know, but he figured that if Lockie had been through it his family should know about it. If Lockie had been one of the small skeletons buried in the yard in Sydney they would have only been able to imagine what he had suffered. Now they would know. Which way was better? Pete thought about all the other parents who were waiting for the results of tests from the police. For a moment he let go of what needed to be done and what was to come and he offered up a prayer of thanks. Then he offered up a prayer for strength for all those other parents who would never again get to feel their kid’s arms around their neck. And then he wiped his eyes because he was a grown man and a cop and he really shouldn’t be standing in the driveway crying.

Is this true?" Suzette asked, sounding like a suspicious nanny. It was a tone Daniel had heard often as a child, though from his mother, not a nanny. They hadn't been able to afford a nanny. Oddly enough, he suddenly found himself imagining Suzette as that nonexistent nanny, though really the gown he pictured her in as that nanny was nothing a respectable nanny would wear and covered less than it revealed as she approached him in his mind with a naughty smile and a spanking paddle in hand. "Spank me," he breathed on a sigh, and then muttered, "Better yet,let me spank you." A vision immediately rose in his mind of her turning and slowly pulling up her scandalously short, ankle-revealing skirt to present him with a view of her very fine bottom. That vision died an abrupt death when Richard's voice intruded, soaked with melodrama as he said, "Guilt can lead a man to act like an ass and do the most foolish of things." Daniel almost snorted at that. He was standing there in a dark room all but dancing with a dead man while having the most ridiculous sexual fantasies about Suzette. All this wile waiting to be able to slip out of the house undiscovered. Oh yes, guilt-and many other emotions-made a man do foolish things.

I turned my focus to clothes, immediately endeavoring to find just the right dress for the occasion. This was huge--my debut as the girlfriend of Marlboro Man--and I shopped with that in mind. Should I go for a sleek, sexy suit? That might seem too confident and brazen. A floral silk skirt? Too obvious for a wedding. A little black dress? Too conservative and safe. The options pummeled my brain as I browsed the choices on the racks. I tried on dress after dress, suit after suit, outfit after outfit, my frustration growing more acute with each zip of the zipper. I wanted to be a man. Men don’t agonize over what to wear to a wedding. They don’t spend seven hours trying on clothes. They don’t think of wardrobe choices as life-or-death decisions. That’s when I found it: a drop-dead gorgeous fitted suit the exact color of a stick of butter. It was snug, with just a slight hint of sexy, but the lovely, pure color made up for it. The fabric was a lightweight wool, but since the wedding would be at night, I knew it would be just fine. I loved the suit--not only would I feel pretty for Marlboro Man, but I’d also appear moderately, but not overly, confident to all his cousins, and appropriate and proper to his elderly grandmothers.

The floor was full of crepe streamer seaweed and decomposing pirates. Or at least so it seemed. Half of the male population of Willing was out srutting its stuff in frilly shirts, head scarves, and gruesome makeup. Although, to be fair, some of the contorted faces had more to do with exertion than costume-store goop. Some boys need to concentrate really hard if they want to get their limbs to work with the music. It looked like "Thriller" meets Titanic. Of course,the other half was blinding. As predicted, sequins reigned. Also as predicted, the costume of choice was some sort of skirt(the smaller the better) paired with a bikini top (ditto). As I watched from my seat at the edge of the gym,a mousy physics teacher dressed in a rotuned foam sea-horse suit had a brief, finger-waggling argument with a mermaid over the size ofher shells. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but the hand gestures said plenty. The teacher won; Shell Girl stalked off in a huff. She stopped halfway off the floor to do an angry, hokey-pokey leg shake to disentangle a length of paper seaweed from around her ankle. A group of mathletes watched her curiously. One,wearing what looked like a real antique diving suit, even tried an experimental shake of his own leg before another elbowed him into stillness.

Luigi, the art teacher, holds up his brush, and we all do the same. I’m not quite sure why we’re mirroring his action, but Luigi is very compelling, more than capable of making four excited girls calm down and concentrate on what he’s telling us. I think it’s partly because he’s very serious. Either he doesn’t have a sense of humor, or it’s extremely well hidden. This, as I’m perfectly aware from years of a girls-only school, is a crucially important quality for male teachers. There aren’t that many of them in a girls’ school, and unless they look like the back of a bus, they inevitably become huge crush-objects. Little girls follow them around in packs, giggling madly, turning bright red and running away when the teacher turns to look at them; older girls wear the shortest skirts and tightest tops they can get away with, and do a lot of what Kelly calls hair-flirting. Male teachers are usually pretty good at coping with the flirting techniques: the best way to get under their skin, forge a special bond with them, is to share their sense of humor, make them laugh. The clever girls know this; the pretty ones usually don’t, because they tend to rely too much on their looks. Of course, the ones who are both clever and pretty do especially well, but that’s true for everything in life.

So I was just sitting in the dining room feeling sorry for myself. “What am I going to do?” Almost as soon as I asked that question, the answer came. “End it all.” Oh, I don’t know what possessed me. I really don’t have any idea at all. But I got up and walked over to a window. Well, that window was painted shut, so I went to another window. That one led out to a gangway, a stairwell, where I figured no one would find me until my body started to smell. No, that wouldn’t do. I looked at the front windows. One was a picture window that didn’t open, but then I couldn’t jump from those windows on the sides, either. Children played out front and that would be so traumatic for them. Besides, after I thought about it a little more, I realized something else that was very important: I wasn’t wearing pants. I didn’t wear pants back then. I was wearing a dress that Mama had made for me. Oh, I remember that dress. It was sleeveless, real tight in the waist with a long flared skirt. It was a white dress, white with a floral pattern, some kind of design in it, and that design was pink. That was one of my favorite dresses. I couldn’t stand the thought of jumping in that dress. More important, I couldn’t stand the thought that my skirt might fly up. Just then, as I was thinking about all that, the phone rang. It was a reporter. He was thinking about doing a follow-up story on me and he wanted to know what I was planning to do. Well, I couldn’t tell him I was planning to jump out the window. So I said I wanted to go back to school and become a teacher. I turned around as if to ask, “Who said that?” Now, I don’t know to this day where it came from, but he said he would take me to register for classes. I mean, he was just going to carry me down to the college and walk me through it. That was fine with me, because I didn’t even know where to go. I hadn’t exactly given this a whole lot of thought. As it turns out, the place to go was Chicago Teachers College. He took me there and, unfortunately, we were told that registration for classes had just closed. Before I even got a chance to start thinking about those windows back home again, he somehow convinced them to admit just one more student, and that’s how it all started. That’s how I was able to start over. I was going to go to college. I was going to become a teacher. I would be able to work with children, to teach them, to help shape them, to introduce them to a whole world of possibilities. In the process, a whole world of possibilities was opening up to me. Throughout my life I have heard a great many stories about how people received the call to their life’s mission. I have to smile when I recall how I received mine. For me, the call came by phone, from a reporter.

I am not a Goddess. I am the face of them All, the embodiment of many. I will burn your village to the ground wearing pants. Nourish your soil and scatter new seeds in a skirt that lifts in the breeze. Strike like lightening and change everything you thought you knew. Scorch you and replenish your reservoir. Sing until you weep with joy. I will leave you poetry on your pillow beside a bottle of hemlock. Feed you til' your belly is full. Devour your ego and spit out your falsities in front of you. Steal your favourite things. I will lead you into temptation. Be the ugliest hag you ever did see. Awaken you from your slumber. Hand you a poisoned apple. Light a candle in your darkness. Weave you a dream. Bow at your feet and kiss the ground you walk upon. I will love you like you've never felt love before. Take your breath away with my beauty. Call your demons into the Light and watch them bury you. Make you tremble in ecstasy. I'll answer your prayers. Shake you til' you scream. Retrieve you from the deep. Carry your manifestations inside of me and birth them into Being. Be the wind in your sails. The blood on your sheets. The wish granted from the wild dandelion wheel. The snake in the grass. Tufts of idle time. I will disappear suddenly, wait until you ache for me, and reemerge as if I had never gone. I am not a Goddess. I am the face of them All, the embodiment of many.

Two sailors hauled on ropes, hoisting the jolly boat up to the ship’s side, revealing two apocryphal figures standing in the center of the small craft. At first glance, Sophia only saw clearly the shorter of the two, a gruesome creature with long tangled hair and a painted face, wearing a tight-fitting burlap skirt and a makeshift corset fashioned from fishnet and mollusk shells. The Sea Queen, Sophia reckoned, a smile warming her cheeks as the crew erupted into raucous cheers. A bearded Sea Queen, no less, who bore a striking resemblance to the Aphrodite’s own grizzled steward. Stubb. Sophia craned her neck to spy Stubb’s consort, as the foremast blocked her view of Triton’s visage. She caught only a glimpse of a white toga draped over a bronzed, bare shoulder. She took a jostling step to the side, nearly tripping on a coil of rope. “Foolish mortals! Kneel before your king!” The assembled sailors knelt on cue, giving Sophia a direct view of the Sea King. And even if the blue paint smeared across his forehead or the strands of seaweed dangling from his belt might have disguised him, there was no mistaking that persuasive baritone. Mr. Grayson. There he stood, tall and proud, some twenty feet away from her. Bare-chested, save for a swath of white linen draped from hip to shoulder. Wet locks of hair slicked back from his tanned face, sunlight embossing every contour of his sculpted arms and chest. A pagan god come swaggering down to earth. He caught her eye, and his smile widened to a wolfish grin. Sophia could not for the life of her look away. He hadn’t looked at her like this since…since that night. He’d scarcely looked in her direction at all, and certainly never wearing a smile. The boldness of his gaze made her feel thoroughly unnerved, and virtually undressed. Until the very act of maintaining eye contact became an intimate, verging on indecent, experience. If she kept looking at him, she felt certain he knees would give out. If she looked away, she gave him the victory. There was only one suitable alternative, given the circumstances. With a cheeky wink to acknowledge the joke, Sophia dropped her eyes and curtsied to the King. Mr. Grayson laughed his approval. Her curtsy, the crew’s gesture of fealty-he accepted their obeisance as his due. And why should he not? There was a rightness about it somehow, an unspoken understanding. Here at last was their true leader: the man they would obey without question, the man to whom they’d pledge loyalty, even kneel. This was his ship. “Where’s the owner of this craft?” he called. “Oh, right. Someone told me he’s no fun anymore.” As the men laughed, the Sea King swung over the rail, hoisting what looked to be a mop handle with vague aspirations to become a trident. “Bring forth the virgin voyager!

Back in L.A., I’d remained friends with my freshman-year boyfriend, Collin, and we’d become even closer after he confided in me one dark and emotional night that he’d finally come to terms with his homosexuality. Around that time, his mother was visiting from Dallas, and Collin invited me to meet them at Hotel Bel Air for brunch. I wore the quintessential early-1990s brunch outfit: a copper-brown silk tank with white, dime-size polka dots and a below-the-knee, swinging skirt to match. A flawless Pretty Woman--Julia Roberts polo match replica. I loved that outfit. It was silk, though, and clingy, and the second I sat down at the table I knew I was in trouble. My armpits began to feel cool and wet, and slowly I noticed the fabric around my arms getting damper and damper. By the time our mimosas arrived, the ring of sweat had spread to the level of my third rib; by mealtime, it had reached the waistline of my skirt, and the more I tried to will it away, the worse it got. I wound up eating my Eggs Florentine with my elbows stuck to my hip bones so Collin and his mother wouldn’t see. But copper-brown silk, when wet, is the most unforgiving fabric on the planet. Collin had recently come out to his parents, so I’d later determined I’d experienced some kind of sympathetic nervousness on Collin’s behalf. I never wore that outfit again. Never got the stains out. Nor would I ever wear this suit again.

Rider's head snapped up at the sound of gravel crunching under Willow's boots. The sight of the girl in boy's garb birthed an oath. Beneath her cotton shirt, her breasts bounced freely with each step. And within the tight mannish pants, her hips swung in an unconscious rhythm, clearly proclaiming her all woman. Hell, she might as well be naked! His body's reaction was immediate. Cursing his lack of control, he turned sideways, facing her horse, and pretended to adjust the saddle straps. Willow took Sugar's reins and waited for Rider to move aside. He didn't budge an inch. Instead, he tipped his hat back on his head, revealing undisguised disapproval. "Is that the way you always dress?" he bit out. Willow stiffened, immediately defensive. Criticizing herself was one thing; putting up with Sinclair's disdain was another! "If you were expecting a dress, you're crazy!" she snapped. "It would be suicide in this country." "Haven't you ever heard of riding skirts?" "Yes. I'm not as dumb as you seem to think. But fancy riding skirts cost money I don't have. 'Sides, pants are a hell of a lot more useful on the ranch than some damn riding skirt! Now, if you're done jawing about my clothes, I'd like to get a move on before dark." "Somebody ought to wash that barnyard mouth of yours,woman." Willow rested her hand on her gun. "You can try, if you dare." As if I'd draw on a woman, Rider cursed silently, stepping out of her way. As she hoisted herself into the saddle, he was perversely captivated by the way the faded demin stretched over her round bottom. He imagined her long slender legs wrapped around him and how her perfect heart-shaped buttocks would fill his hands and...Oh,hell, what was he doing standing here, gaping like some callow youth? Maybe the girl was right.Maybe he was crazy. One moment he was giving the little witch hell for wearing men's pants; the next he was ogling her in them. He started to turn away, then reached out and gave her booted ankle an angry jerk. "Now what?" Icy turquoise eyes met his, dark and searing. "Do you have any idea what you look like in that get-up? No self-respecting lady would dress like that. It's an open invitation to a man. And if you think that gun you're wearing is going to protect you, you're badly mistaken." Willow gritted her teeth in mounting ire. "So what's it to you, Sinclair? You ain't my pa and you ain't my brother. Hell,my clothes cover me just as good as yours cover you!" She slapped his hand from her ankle, jerked Sugar around, and spurred the mare into a brisk gallop. Before the fine red dust settled, Rider was on his horse, racing after her. Dammit, she's right.Why should I care how she dresses? Heaven knows it certainly has no bearing on my mission. No, agreed a little voice in his head, but it sure is distacting as hell! He'd always prided himself on his cool control; it had saved his backside more than once. But staying in any kind of control around Willow Vaughn was like trying to tame a whimsical March wind-impossible!

In her eyes, he could see the fear, but also the love. The need. Time to show her, that to him, she meant everything. “Before you shower me with kisses for saving you –” “I think it could be argued that I played a part.” “Not when I retell the story you won’t. But we can argue about that later, naked. As I was saying, I have something for you.” Remy pulled the sheet of paper out of his back pocket and unfolded it. Initially he’d worried about it being too short. But as Lucifer assured him when he made the contract and binding, the less clauses he put in, the more his promise would stick out. Handing it to her, he waited. Fidgeted when she didn’t say a word. Almost tore it from her grasp. Then stumbled back as she threw herself at him. I, Remy, the most awesome demon in Hell, do declare to love the witch Ysabel, fiery temper and all, for an eternity. I will never stray. Never betray her trust. Never do anything to cause her pain upon penalty of permanent death. This I do swear in blood, Remy A simple contract, which in its very lack of clauses and sub items, awed her. “You love me that much?” He peered at her with incredulity on his face. “Of course I love you that much. Would I have done all the things I did if I didn’t?” “Well, you are related to a mad woman.” “Yes, and maybe it’s madness for me to love you, but I do. Do you think just any woman would inspire me enough to take on a bloody painful curse. Or put up with the fact you have a giant, demon eating cat. I know you have trust issues, and that I might not have led the kind of life that inspires confidence, but I will show you that you can believe in me. I want you to love me.” “I know you do. And I do love you. Only for you would I come to the rescue wearing nothing to cover my bottom.” His eyebrows shot up. “You came to battle in a skirt without any underwear?” A slow nod was her answer. He grinned, then scowled. “You will not do that again. Do you know how many demons live in the sewer and could have looked up your skirt? I won’t have them looking at what’s mine. On second thought. Throw out all your underwear. I’ll lead the purge on the sewers myself so you can stroll around with your girl parts unencumbered for my enjoyment.” “You’re insane,” she laughed. “Crazy in love with you,” he agreed. “But I do warn you, we’ll have to have dinner with my crazy mother at least once a month.” “Or more often. I quite like your mom. She’s got a refreshing way of viewing the world.” “Oh fuck. Don’t tell me she’s already rubbing off,” he groaned, as he pulled her into his arms. She snuggled against him. This was where she belonged. But she did have a question. “As my new… what should I call you anyway? Boyfriend? Demon I sleep with?” “The following terms are acceptable to me. Yours. Mate. Husband. Divine taster of your –” She slapped a hand over his mouth. “I’ll stick to mate.” “And I’m going with my super, sexy, touch her and die, fabulous cougar, ass kicking witch.” “I dare you shout that five times in a row without stumbling.” He did to her eye popping disbelief. “I told you, I have a very agile tongue.” “I remember.

Why did you come here tonight?” she asked. “Other than the fact that you’ve finally come to your senses and realize you love me.” Chuckling, Grey reached up and untied the ribbons that held her mask. The pretty silk fell away to reveal the beautiful face beneath. “I missed you,” he replied honestly. “And you were right-about everything. I’m tired of drifting through life. I want to live again-with you.” A lone tear trickled down her cheek. “I think that might be the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.” He grinned. “I have more.” She pressed her fingers to his lips. “I’m tired of talking.” She kissed him, teasing his lips with the ripe curves of hers, sliding her tongue inside to rub against his in a sensual rhythm that had him fisting his hands in her skirts. By the time they reached Mayfair, Grey’s hair was mussed, Rose’s skirts crushed, and he was harder than an oratory competition for mutes. “I can’t believe you came,” she told him as the entered the house, arms wrapped around each other. “I’m so proud of you.” “I wouldn’t have done it without you.” She shook her head. “You did it for yourself not for me.” Perhaps that was true, and perhaps it wasn’t. He had no interest in discussing it tonight. “It’s just the beginning,” he promised. “I’m going to go wherever you want to go from now on. Within reason.” She laughed. “Of course. We can’t have you attending a musicale just to please me, can we?” She gazed up at him. “You know, I think I’m going to want to spend plenty of evenings at home as well. That time I spent out of society had some very soothing moments.” “Of course,” he agreed, thinking about all the things they could do to one another at home. Alone. “There has to be moderation.” Upstairs in their bedroom, he undressed her, unbuttoning each tiny button one by one until she sighed in exasperation. “In a hurry?” he teased. His wife got her revenge, when clad only in her chemise and stockings, she turned those nimble fingers of hers to his cravat, working the knot so slowly he thought he might go mad. She worsened the torment by slowly rubbing her hips against his thigh. His cock was so rigid he could hang clothes on it, and the need to bury himself inside her consumed him. Still, a skilled lover knows when to have patience-and a man in love knows that his woman’s pleasure comes far, far before his own. So, as ready as he was, Grey was in no hurry to let this night end, not when it might prove to be the best of his new-found life. Wearing only his trousers, he took Rose’s hand and led her to their bed. He climbed onto the mattress and pulled her down beside him, lying so that they were face-to-face. Warm fingers came up to gently touch the scar that ran down his face. Odd, but he hadn’t thought of it at all that evening. In fact, he’d almost forgot about it. “I heard you that night,” he admitted. “When you told me you loved me.” Her head tilted. “I thought you were asleep.” “No.” He held her gaze as he raised his own hand to brush the softness of her cheek. “I should have said it then, but I love you too, Rose. So much.” Her smile was smug. “I know.” She kissed him again. “Make love to me.” His entire body pulsed. “I intend to, but there’s one thing I have to do first.” Rose frowned. “What’s that?” Grey pulled the brand-new copy of Voluptuous from beneath the pillow where he’d hidden it before going to the ball. “There’s a story in here that I want to read to you.

Laura stands, in another photograph, wearing a two-piece gown, bodice and skirt, from centuries ago. The scarlet material is trimmed in gold brocade. From her waist the skirt billows outward, broad as a spinnaker, and grazes the floor in a huge circle. It fastens in front by a series of cobalt buttons, and she is about to start closing it, but for the moment it gapes open: a vertical window, eight or ten inches wide, runs from her waist to the floor. The gold brocade lines the opening like a ceremonial decoration, a veneration of what lies within. But nothing lies within. Inside the vast regal tent of the garment is darkness. Because of the lighting and pose, Laura’s body seems to end at the belly, to have no stumps at all. The opening exposes a pure emptiness. It is unclear how she is standing, what keeps her upright. The cavern beneath the skirt is illumined just enough to suggest that she isn’t wearing her prosthetics. She stands on no legs, suspended, magical. And that magic, along with her strong jawline turned in profile, endows her with omnipotence. The cavern is at once a universe and a womb. The vertical opening is a vaginal slit, and to slip through it, to slide the body inside the scarlet walls of the tent, to wait inside while she fastens the skirt and encloses you, swallows you, would be to live out the primal fantasy of entering the vagina not only with the penis but with everything from the skull to the toes: to be ensconced, to be consumed. The photograph’s viewer, not its subject, is at risk of disintegrating, coming apart, deliquescing in the lightless world he has longed for, turning to liquid in the womb. Laura, with her half-body, will remain more than intact, more than whole.

I’ll find out who’s inside. Wait here and keep alert!’ Hallam rasped. He skirted the main path to skulk towards one of the shuttered windows on the building’s eastern wall. There was a crack in the wood and he gently inched closer to peer inside. There was a hearth-fire with a pot bubbling away and a battered table made of a length of wood over two pieces of cut timber. A small ham hung from the rafters, away from the rats and mice. He couldn’t see anyone but there was a murmur of voices. Hallam leaned in even closer and a young boy with hair the colour of straw saw the movement to stare. It was Little Jim. Thank God, the child was safe. Snot hung from his nose and he was pale. Hallam put a finger to his lips, but the boy, not even four, did not understand, and just gaped innocently back. Movement near the window. A man wearing a blue jacket took up a stone bottle and wiped his long flowing moustache afterwards. His hair was shoulder-length, falling unruly over the red collar of his jacket. Tied around his neck was a filthy red neckerchief. A woman moaned and the man grinned with tobacco stained teeth at the sound. Laughter and French voices. The woman whimpered and Little Jim turned to watch unseen figures. His eyes glistened and his bottom lip dropped. The woman began to plead and Hallam instinctively growled. The Frenchman, hearing the noise, pushed the shutter open and the pistol’s cold muzzle pressed against his forehead. Hallam watched the man’s eyes narrow and then widen, before his mouth opened. Whatever he intended to shout was never heard, because the ball smashed through his skull to erupt in a bloody spray as it exited the back of the Frenchman’s head. There was a brief moment of silence. ‘28th!’ Hallam shouted, as he stepped back against the wall. ‘Make ready!

I’m standing in front of Enrique’s Auto Body, doing deep-breathing exercises to keep from being nervous. Enrique’s Camry is nowhere in sight, so I know Alex is alone. I’m going to seduce Alex. If what I’m wearing doesn’t capture his attention, nothing will. I’m giving this my all…bringing out all the artillery. I rap on the door, then close my eyes tight and pray this goes as planned. I open my long, silver satin jacket and the cool night air rushes onto my exposed skin. When the creak of the door alerts me to Alex’s presence, I slowly open my eyes. But it’s not Alex’s black eyes staring at my scantily clad body. It’s Enrique--who’s staring at my pink lace bra and pom-pom skirt as if he’s won the lottery. Ripped with embarrassment, I wrap my coat around myself. If I could wrap it around twice, I would. “Uh, Alex,” Enrique laughs. “There’s a trick-or-treater here to see you.” My face is probably beet red, but I’m determined to see this through. I’m here to show Alex I’m not going to desert him. “Who is it?” comes Alex’s voice from somewhere inside the garage. “I was just leavin’,” Enrique says, slipping past me. “Tell Alex to lock up. Adiós.” Enrique walks across the darkened street, humming to himself. “Yo, Enrique. ¿Quién está ahi?” Alex’s voice fades when he reaches the front of the shop. He looks at me with contemp. “Need directions or your car fixed.” “None of the above,” I say. “Trick-or-treatin’ on my side of town?” “No.” “It’s over, mujer. ¿Me oyes? Why do you keep droppin’ into my life and fuckin’ with my head? Besides, aren’t you supposed to be at the Halloween dance with some college guy?” “I blew him off. Can we talk?” “Listen, I’ve got a shitload of work that still needs to get done. What did you come here for? And where’s Enrique?” “He, uh, left,” I say nervously. “I think I scared him away.” “You? I don’t think so.” “I showed him what I was wearing under my coat.” Alex’s eyebrows shoot up.

Blood pressure check!” The doorknob rattled, as if the nurse were intending just to walk in, but the lock held, thank God. The nurse knocked again. “Oh, shit,” Gina breathed, laughing as she scrambled off of him. She reached to remove the condom they’d just used, encountered . . . him, and met his eyes. But then she scooped her clothes off the floor and ran into the bathroom. “Mr. Bhagat?” The nurse knocked on the door again. Even louder this time. “Are you all right?” Oh, shit, indeed. “Come in,” Max called as he pulled up the blanket and leaned on the button that put his bed back up into a sitting position. The same control device had a “call nurse” button as well as the clearly marked one that would unlock the door. “It’s locked,” the nurse called back, as well he knew. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, as he wiped off his face with the edge of the sheet. Sweat much in bed, all alone, Mr. Bhagat? “I must’ve . . . Here, let me figure out how to . . .” He took an extra second to smooth his hair, his pajama top, and then, praying that the nurse had a cold and couldn’t smell the scent of sex that lingered in the air, he hit the release. “Please don’t lock your door during the day,” the woman scolded him as she came into the room, around to the side of his bed. It was Debra Forsythe, a woman around his age, whom Max had met briefly at his check-in. She had been on her way home to deal with some crisis with her kids, and hadn’t been happy then, either. “And not at night either,” she added, “until you’ve been here a few days.” “Sorry.” He gave her an apologetic smile, hanging on to it as the woman gazed at him through narrowed eyes. She didn’t say anything, she just wrapped the blood pressure cuff around his arm, and pumped it a little too full of air—ow—as Gina opened the bathroom door. “Did I hear someone at the door?” she asked brightly. “Oh, hi. Debbie, right?” “Debra.” She glanced at Gina, and then back, her disgust for Max apparent in the tightness of her lips. But then she focused on the gauge, stethoscope to his arm. Gina came out into the room, crossing around behind the nurse, making a face at him that meant . . .? Max sent her a questioning look, and she flashed him. She just lifted her skirt and gave him a quick but total eyeful. Which meant . . . Ah, Christ. The nurse turned to glare at Gina, who quickly straightened up from searching the floor. What was it with him and missing underwear? Gina smiled sweetly. “His blood pressure should be nice and low. He’s very relaxed—he just had a massage.” “You know, I didn’t peg you for a troublemaker when you checked in yesterday,” Debra said to Max, as she wrote his numbers on the chart. Gina was back to scanning the floor, but again, she straightened up innocently when the nurse turned toward her. “I think you’re probably looking for this.” Debra leaned over and . . . Gina’s panties dangled off the edge of her pen. They’d been on the floor, right at the woman’s sensibly clad feet. “Oops,” Gina said. Max could tell that she was mortified, but only because he knew her so well. She forced an even sunnier smile, and attempted to explain. “It was just . . . he was in the hospital for so long and . . .” “And men have needs,” Debra droned, clearly unmoved. “Believe me, I’ve heard it all before.” “No, actually,” Gina said, still trying to turn this into something they could all laugh about, “I have needs.” But it was obvious that this nurse hadn’t laughed since 1985. “Then maybe you should find someone your own age to play with. A professional hockey player just arrived. He’s in the east wing. Second floor.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Lots of money. Just your type, I’m sure.” “Excuse me?” Gina wasn’t going to let one go past. She may not have been wearing any panties, but her Long Island attitude now waved around her like a superhero’s cape. She even assumed the battle position, hands on her hips.

Change Your Look With These Top Notch Fashion Tips In fashion, there aren't any set rules. There is no one right way to be fashionable. Read a lot of different sources and then take what you've learned, pick it apart and use the tips that are best for you. Continue reading to learn great advice that you can tailor to your own wants and needs. If you like a shirt or skirt think about getting it in more than one color. Because clothes come in so many varying cuts and styles, you're likely find it difficult to find clothes that fit well for your body type. When you do just get more than one so that you can feel great more often. If you have thick or very curly hair, using a gel product will help you to create the style you desire. Work the product into towel-dried hair and then style it as you want. You can allow it to dry naturally, or use a hair drier. This is especially helpful in humid weather. In today's business world, it is imperative that men be well dressed. Therefore, it is essential to shop for top drawer clothing when buying clothes for your next interview. To begin your search, look through today's business magazines to ensure your wardrobe matches the top executives. Look for whether men are wearing cuffed pants or hemmed pants, ties with designs or solid ties as well as what type of shoe is currently in style. Skimpy tops are comfortable to wear in hot weather, but be careful if you are a big busted gal. Your figure needs good support, and you will feel more secure if you wear a sports bra under a lightweight top that has skinny straps and no shape of its own. Don't overstock your beauty kit with makeup. Just choose a few colors that match the season. Consider your needs for day and evening applications. Makeup can go bad if it's opened, just like other products. Bacteria can build on it, too. Have yourself professionally fitted for a bra. An ill-fitting brassiere is not only unflattering, but it affects how your clothing fits. Once you know your true size, buy a few bras in different styles and cuts. A plunge or demi-cup bra, a strapless bra, and a convertible bra give you versatile options. The thing about fashion is that it's a very easy topic once you get to know a little bit about it. Use the ideas you like and ignore the rest. It's okay not to follow every trend. Breaking away from the trends is better if you desire to be unique.

She had not wanted to come, and now that she was there, she was still praying for deliverance. “Aunt Berta!” she said forcefully as the front door of the great, rambling house was swung open. The butler stepped aside, and footmen hurried forward. “Aunt Berta!” she said urgently, and in desperation Elizabeth reached for the maid’s tightly clenched eyelid. She pried it open and looked straight into a frightened brown orb. “Please do not do this to me, Berta. I’m counting on you to act like an aunt, not a timid mouse. They’re almost upon us.” Berta nodded, swallowed, and straightened in her seat, then she smoothed her black bombazine skirts. “How do I look?” Elizabeth whispered urgently. “Dreadful,” said Berta, eyeing the severe, high-necked black linen gown Elizabeth had carefully chosen to wear at this, her first meeting with the prospective husband whom Alexandra had described as a lecherous old roué. To add to her nunlike appearance, Elizabeth’s hair was scraped back off her face, pinned into a bun a la Lucida, and covered with a short veil. Around her neck she wore the only piece of “jewelry” she intended to wear for as long as she was here-a large, ugly iron crucifix she’d borrowed from the family chapel. “Completely dreadful, milady,” Berta added with more strength to her voice. Ever since Robert’s disappearance, Berta had elected to address Elizabeth as her mistress instead of in the more familiar ways she’d used before. “Excellent,” Elizabeth said with an encouraging smile. “So do you.” The footman opened the door and let down the steps, and Elizabeth went first, following by her “aunt.” She let Berta step forward, then she turned and looked up at Aaron, who was atop the coach. Her uncle had permitted her to take six servants from Havenhurst, and Elizabeth had chosen them with care. “Don’t forget,” she warned Aaron needlessly. “Gossip freely about me with any servant who’ll listen to you. You know what to say.” “Aye,” he said with a devilish grin. “We’ll tell them all what a skinny ogress you are-prim ‘n proper enough to scare the devil himself into leading a holy life.” Elizabeth nodded and reluctantly turned toward the house. Fate had dealt her this hand, and she had no choice but to play it out as best she could. With head held high and knees shaking violently she walked forward until she drew even with Berta. The butler stood in the doorway, studying Elizabeth with bold interest, giving her the incredible impression that he was actually trying to locate her breasts beneath the shapeless black gown she wore.

Something I can help you find?” he asks. Because to be fair, I’m digging through his drawer. “Nope,” I tell him. “Found it.” “Everly, what in the hell are you doing?” He’s finished buttoning his shirt and is staring at me, hands on hips, the corners of his eyes creased as he frowns. “I’m putting on your underwear,” I tell him, stepping into a pair of his briefs. I was digging around for a black pair. Why the hell do they even sell them in white? Just, no. “Why?” He still looks bewildered, but he’s stopped staring at me to tuck in his shirt. “You got me all worked up and horny in there.” I point a thumb in the direction of the bathroom. “I gave you an orgasm.” He seems confused by my accusation. I snort. “Right. Which you know only makes me want your dick more.” I glance over at the clothing I brought, contemplating what will work with this underwear. I’ve been chatting with his assistant Sandra all week about what people wear to this party. Sawyer was zero help on that front. “Wear whatever you want,” he’d said. As if I can pick an outfit with that kind of direction. “I hope you’re wearing your new cufflinks with that shirt,” I tell him, eyeing his outfit of black slacks and grey dress shirt. He holds up the cat cufflinks I gave him at Christmas and fastens his left sleeve. “I still don’t understand what my underwear has to do with anything.” “Oh!” I pull a solid black sleeveless dress with a full skirt and a wide waistband off the hanger and step into it. “Because you’re obviously planning on having your way with me at this party. Probably gonna shove me into a coat closet and fuck me with your hand over my mouth so no one hears us. And if anyone’s panties are getting left behind at this party, it’s gonna be yours.” He nods slowly and fastens his right sleeve. “Do women your age still use the phrase ‘having your way with me?’” “I just did. Anyway, yours are more absorbent. Can you zip me?” I turn my back to him and swipe my hair over one shoulder, waiting. I feel his fingers on the zipper, the fabric gathering slowly up my back. He finishes and rests his thumbs on the back of my neck, rubbing small circles into my skin as he kisses the nape of my neck. I shudder, feeling his touch all the way to the black briefs. “That’s a pretty elaborate plan I came up with,” he murmurs. I turn and nod, sadly. “I know. You’re kind of a menace.” “It’s good of you to put up with me.” I shrug. “Someone’s got to.” “I’m not going to be able to rip those underwear off of you.” “Haha!” I point at him with one hand and slip a heel on with my other. “I knew it!

When we arrived at the wedding at Marlboro Man’s grandparents’ house, I gasped. People were absolutely everywhere: scurrying and mingling and sipping champagne and laughing on the lawn. Marlboro Man’s mother was the first person I saw. She was an elegant, statuesque vision in her brown linen dress, and she immediately greeted and welcomed me. “What a pretty suit,” she said as she gave me a warm hug. Score. Success. I felt better about life. After the ceremony, I’d meet Cousin T., Cousin H., Cousin K., Cousin D., and more aunts, uncles, and acquaintances than I ever could have counted. Each family member was more gracious and welcoming than the one before, and it didn’t take long before I felt right at home. This was going well. This was going really, really well. It was hot, though, and humid, and suddenly my lightweight wool suit didn’t feel so lightweight anymore. I was deep in conversation with a group of ladies--smiling and laughing and making small talk--when a trickle of perspiration made its way slowly down my back. I tried to ignore it, tried to will the tiny stream of perspiration away, but one trickle soon turned into two, and two turned into four. Concerned, I casually excused myself from the conversation and disappeared into the air-conditioned house. I needed to cool off. I found an upstairs bathroom away from the party, and under normal circumstances I would have taken time to admire its charming vintage pedestal sinks and pink hexagonal tile. But the sweat profusely dripping from all pores of my body was too distracting. Soon, I feared, my jacket would be drenched. Seeing no other option, I unbuttoned my jacket and removed it, hanging it on the hook on the back of the bathroom door as I frantically looked around the bathroom for an absorbent towel. None existed. I found the air vent on the ceiling, and stood on the toilet to allow the air-conditioning to blast cool air on my face. Come on, Ree, get a grip, I told myself. Something was going on…this was more than simply a reaction to the August humidity. I was having some kind of nervous psycho sweat attack--think Albert Brooks in Broadcast News--and I was being held captive by my perspiration in the upstairs bathroom of Marlboro Man’s grandmother’s house in the middle of his cousin’s wedding reception. I felt the waistband of my skirt stick to my skin. Oh, God…I was in trouble. Desperate, I stripped off my skirt and the stifling control-top panty hose I’d made the mistake of wearing; they peeled off my legs like a soggy banana skin. And there I stood, naked and clammy, my auburn bangs becoming more waterlogged by the minute. So this is it, I thought. This is hell. I was in the throes of a case of diaphoresis the likes of which I’d never known. And it had to be on the night of my grand entrance into Marlboro Man’s family. Of course, it just had to be. I looked in the mirror, shaking my head as anxiety continued to seep from my pores, taking my makeup and perfumed body cream along with it. Suddenly, I heard the knock at the bathroom door. “Yes? Just a minute…yes?” I scrambled and grabbed my wet control tops. “Hey, you…are you all right in there?” God help me. It was Marlboro Man.