Wide Forehead Quotes

Lincoln?” she asked. “Yes?” “Do you believe in love at first sight?” He made himself look at her face, at her wide-open eyes and earnest forehead. At her unbearably sweet mouth. “I don’t know,” he said. “Do you believe in love before that?” Her breath caught in her throat like a sore hiccup. And then it was too much to keep trying not to kiss her.

I pull my foot back again, but Four's hands clamp around my arms, and he pulls me away from her with irresistible force. I breathe through gritted teeth, staring at Molly's blood-covered face, the color deep and rich and beautiful, in a way. She groans, and I hear a gurgling in her throat, watch blood trickle from her lips. "You won," Four mutters. "Stop." I wipe the sweat from my forehead. He stares at me. His eyes too wide; they look alarmed. "I think you should leave," he says. "Take a walk." I'm fine," I say. "I'm fine now," I say again, this time for myself. I wish I could say I felt guilty for what I did. I don't.

Locks of blue hair fell across his forehead, but they didn't hide his eyes. They were wide, broken star-bright, and full of something that looked a lot like hope.

Do you believe in love at first sight?" He made himself look at her face, at her wide-open eyes and earnest forehead. At her unbearably sweet mouth. "I don't know," he said. "Do you believe in love before that?

Open your eyes.” Julia looked up into a pair of blue orbs that were startlingly clear and very emotional, but she could not decipher the emotions. He smiled and pressed his lips to her forehead again before rolling onto his back and gazing up at the stars. “What are you thinking?” She shifted herself so that she was curled up at his side, close to but not touching him with her body. “I was thinking about how I waited for you. I waited and waited, and you never came.” He smiled at her sadly. “I’m sorry, Gabriel.” “You’re here now. Apparuit iam beatitudo vestra.” “I don’t know what that means.” She sounded shy. “It means now your blessedness appears. But really, it should be now my blessedness appears. Now that you’re here.” He pulled her closer, snaking his arm beneath her neck and down to her waist where he splayed his hand, fingers wide, at the small of her back. “For the rest of my life, I’ll dream of hearing your voice breathe my name.

As she chattered and laughed and cast quick glances into the house and the yard, her eyes fell on a stranger, standing alone in the hall, staring at her in a cool impertinent way that brought her up sharply with a mingled feeling of feminine pleasure that she had attracted a man and an embarrassed sensation that her dress was too low in the bosom. He looked quite old, at least thirty-five. He was a tall man and powerfully built. Scarlett thought she had never seen such a man with such wide shoulders, so heavy with muscles, almost too heavy for gentility. When her eye caught his, he smiled, showing animal-white teeth below a close-clipped black mustache. He was dark of face, swarthy as a pirate, and his eyes were as bold and black as any pirate's appraising a galleon to be scuttled or a maiden to be ravished. There was a cool recklessness in his face and a cynical humor in his mouth as he smiled at her, and Scarlett caught her breath. She felt that she should be insulted by such a look as was annoyed with herself because she did not feel insulted. She did not know who he could be, but there was undeniably a look of good blood in his dark face. It showed in the thin hawk nose over the full red lips, and high forehead and the wide-set eyes.

Sweet baby Jesus, Blue Eyes was… He was gorgeous in all the ways that made girls do stupid things. He was tall, a good head or two taller than me and broad at the shoulders, but tapered at the waist. An athlete’s body—like a swimmer’s. Wavy black hair toppled over his forehead, brushing matching eyebrows. Broad cheekbones and wide, expressive lips completed the package created for girls to drool over. And with those sapphire-colored eyes, holy moley…

If looks could kill right then, Jason had no doubt he would’ve been lying flat on the ground with an expression of wide-eyed shock on his face and a twelve-inch hatchet lodged deep in his forehead.

Your hair," repeated Dimitri. His eyes were wide, almost awestruck. "Your hair is beautiful." I didn't think so, not in its current state. of course, considering we were in a dark alley filled with bodies, the choices were kind of limited. "You see? You're not one of them. Strigoi don't see beauty. Only death. You found something beautiful. One thing that's beautiful." Hesitantly, nervously, he ran his fingers along the strands I'd touched earlier. "But is it enough?" "It is for now." I pressed a kiss to his forehead and helped him stand. "It is for now.

You won," Four mutters. "Stop." I wipe the sweat from my forehead. He stares at me. His eyes are too wide; they look alarmed.

It was like staring into the face of a familiar stranger. You know, that person you see in a crowd and swear you know, but you really don't? Now she was me - the familiar stranger. She had my eyes. They were the same hazel color that could never decide whether it wanted to be green or brown, but my eyes had never been that big and round. Or had they? She had my hair - long and straight and almost as dark as my grandma’s had been before hers had begun to turn silver. The stranger had my high cheekbones, long, strong nose, and wide mouth - more features from my grandma and her Cherokee ancestors. But my face had never been that pale. I’d always been olive-ish, much darker skinned than anyone else in my family. But maybe it wasn’t that my skin was suddenly so white ... maybe it just looked pale in comparison to the dark blue outline of the crescent moon that was perfectly positioned in the middle of my forehead. Or maybe it was the horrid fluorescent lighting. I hoped it was the lighting. I stared at the exotic-looking tattoo. Mixed with my strong Cherokee features it seemed to brand me with a mark of wildness ... as if I belonged to ancient times when the world was bigger ... more barbaric. From this day on my life would never be the same. And for a moment — just an instant—I forgot about the horror of not belonging and felt a shocking burst of pleasure, while deep inside of me the blood of my grandmother’s people rejoiced.

One should let one's nails grow for a fortnight. O, how sweet it is to drag brutally from his bed a child with no hair on his upper lip and with wide open eyes, make as if to touch his forehead gently with one's hand and run one's fingers through his beautiful hair. Then suddenly, when he is least expecting it, to dig one's long nails into his soft breast, making sure, though, that one does not kill him; for if he died, one would not later be able to contemplate his agonies. Then one drinks his blood as one licks his wounds; and during this time, which ought to last for eternity, the child weeps.

I wrenched the door out of my way―ridiculously eager―and there he was, my personal miracle. Time had not made me immune to the perfection of his face, and I was sure that I would never take any aspect of him for granted. My eyes traced over his pale white features: the hard square of his jaw, the softer curve of his full lips―twisted up into a smile now, the straight line of his nose, the sharp angle of his cheekbones, the smooth marble span of his forehead―partially obscured by a tangle of rain-darkened bronze hair . . . I saved his eyes for last, knowing that when I looked into them I was likely to lose my train of thought. They were wide, warm with liquid gold, and framed by a thick fringe of black lashes. Staring into his eyes always made me feel extraordinary―sort of like my bone were turning spongy. I was also a little lightheaded, but that could have been because I'd forgotten to keep breathing. Again.

Never mind that. What's going on with you and Heath?" Annabelle pulled a little wide-eyed innocence out of her rusty bag of college acting skills. "What do you mean? Business." "Don't give me that. We've been friends too long." She switched to a furrowed brow. "He's my most important client. You know how much this means to me." Molly wasn't buying it. "I've seen the way you look at him. Like he was a slot machine with triple sevens tattooed on his forehead. If you fall in love with him, I swear I'll never speak to you again." Annabelle nearly choked. She'd known Molly would be suspicious, but she hadn't expected an outright confrontation. "Are you nuts? Setting aside the fact that he treats me like a flunky, I'd never fall for a workaholic after what I've had to go through with my family." Falling in lust, however, was an entirely different matter. "He has a calculator for a heart," Molly said. "I thought you liked him.

Cam’s grin was wicked as his hand coasted up my waist to cup my breast. He squeezed it, setting off a weird mixture of painful tenderness and a bolt of lust to my sex. “My eyes!” Cole yelled. Cam and I jerked apart, and I twisted my head to see my brother standing in the doorway in his pyjamas, his hair falling in wet locks across his forehead. His forearm covered his eyes. “I’m fucking blind,” he growled and turned around, bumping into the wall before remembering to drop his arm. After that he stomped out of the flat, the door slamming in his wake. Horrified, I looked up into Cam’s face, my eyes wide. “I think I should let him get away with using the ‘f’ word on this occasion.” Cam snorted, laughter sputtering as he dropped his head to my chest, his whole body shaking with amusement. I felt an irrepressible giggle escape me despite my mortification for myself and Cole. “It’s not funny. We’ve scarred him. I better check on him.” Cam shook his head, his eyes bright with mirth. “You’re the last person he wants to see right now … I’m sure he’s barricaded himself in his room and is doing anything he can to burn the image of me dry-humping his sister out of his mind.

Somehow I feel that an ordinary person–the man in the street if you like–is a more challenging subject for exploration than people in the heroic mold. It is the half shades, the hardly audible notes that I want to capture and explore. […] My films are about human beings, human relationships, and social problems. I think it is possible for everyone to relate to these issues. On a certain level, foreign audiences can appreciate Indian works, but many details are missed. For example, when they see a woman with a red spot on her forehead, they don’t know that this is a sign showing that she is married, or that a woman dressed in a white sari is a widow. Indian audiences understand this at once; it is self-evident for them. So, on certain level, the cultural gap is too wide. But on a psychological level, on the level of social relations, it is possible to relate. I think I have been able to cross the barrier between cultures. My films are made for an Indian audience, but I think they have bridged the gap.

I AM ROWING (a hex poem) i have cursed your forehead, your belly, your life i have cursed the streets your steps plod through the things your hands touch i have cursed the inside of your dreams i have placed a puddle in your eye so that you cant see anymore an insect in your ear so that you cant hear anymore a sponge in your brain so that you cant understand anymore i have frozen you in the soul of your body iced you in the depths of your life the air you breathe suffocates you the air you breathe has the air of a cellar is an air that has already been exhaled been puffed out by hyenas the dung of this air is something no one can breathe your skin is damp all over your skin sweats out waters of great fear your armpits reak far and wide of the crypt animals drop dead as you pass dogs howl at night their heads raised toward your house you cant run away you cant muster the strength of an ant to the tip of your feet your fatigue makes a lead stump in your body your fatigue is a long caravan your fatigue stretches out to the country of nan your fatigue is inexpressible your mouth bites you your nails scratch you no longer yours, your wife no longer yours, your brother the sole of his foot bitten by an angry snake someone has slobbered on your descendents someone has drooled in the mouth of your laughing little girl someone has walked by slobbering all over the face of your domain the world moves away from you i am rowing i am rowing i am rowing against your life i am rowing i split into countless rowers to row more strongly against you you fall into blurriness you are out of breath you get tired before the slightest effort i row i row i row you go off drunk tied to the tail of a mule drunkenness like a huge umbrella that darkens the sky and assembles the flies dizzy drunkenness of the semicircular canals unnoticed beginnings of hemiplegia drunkeness no longer leaves you lays you out to the left lays you out to the right lays you out on the stony ground of the path i row i row i am rowing against your days you enter the house of suffering i row i row on a black blinfold your life is unfolding on the great white eye of a one eyed horse your future is unrolling I AM ROWING

That space. It begins in the middle of my forehead and ends in the middle of my groin. It is, variously, as wide as my body, as narrow as a slit in a fortress wall. On days when thought flows freely or better yet clarifies with effort, it expands gloriously. On days when anxiety and self-pity crowd in, it shrinks, how fast it shrinks! When the space is wide and I occupy it fully, I taste the air, feel the light. I breathe evenly and slowly. I am peaceful and excited, beyond influence or threat. Nothing can touch me. I’m safe. I’m free. I’m thinking. When I lose the battle to think, the boundaries narrow, the air is polluted, the light clouds over. All is vapor and fog, and I have trouble breathing.

One should let one’s fingernails grow for a fortnight. Oh! how sweet to snatch brutally from his bed a boy who has as yet nothing upon his upper lip, and, with eyes open wide, to feign to stroke his forehead softly, brushing back his beautiful locks! And all of a sudden, just when he least expects it, to sink your long nails into his tender breast, but not so that he dies, for if he died you would miss the sight of his subsequent sufferings. Then you drink his blood, sucking the wounds, and during this time, which should last an eternity, the child weeps.

His mouth was a little too wide and snaked from corner to corner. His nose had been broken a few times, and when you looked at him straight on like I was doing as I stared at him across the circle bar, you could really tell. But his eyes were beautiful, cunning and otherworldly. His hair was a controlled mess; wispy dark strands that swooped across his forehead with long sideburns. He had high cheekbones, a strong jawline. When you combined all the parts, they equaled so much more than the sum. He was exotically, dangerously beautiful. He'd been mine once. He'd broken my heart once. And he was here to kill me. He only needed to do that once, too.

A long hug when you really need it Sometimes we all get rattled. When bad news surprises you, painful memories flash back, or heavy moments turn your stomach to mush, it’s great to fall into a warm and comforting pair of big, wide open arms. Shaking with sobs, dripping with tears, you snort up your runny nose and smear snot across their shoulder as that hug relaxes you and comforts you and helps you get through everything, even for a minute, even for a moment. Maybe there are “It’s going to be okay” whispers, some gentle back rubbing, or just the quiet silence of knowing that they’re not going to let go until you let go first. As their steady arms support you, and the pain washes over you, the hug gives you a warm glow in a shivery moment. So when you eventually pull back, smile that classic “I’m sorry and thank you” smile, and swipe wet bangs off your forehead, you still might not feel great, but if you’re lucky you’ll feel a little more AWESOME!

I opened the other envelope. It contained a photograph of a girl. The pose suggested a natural ease, or a lot of experience in being photographed. It showed darkish hair which might possibly have been red, a wide clear forehead, serious eyes, high cheekbones, nervous nostrils and a mouth which was not giving anything away. It was a fine-drawn, almost a taut face, and not a happy one

A Black, E white, I red, U green, O blue: vowels, Someday I shall tell of your mysterious births: A, black velvety corset of dazzling flies Buzzing around cruel smells, Gulfs of shadow; E, white innocence of vapors and of tents, Spears of proud glaciers, white kings, shivers of Queen Anne's lace; I, purples, spitting blood, smile of beautiful lips In anger or in drunken penitence; U, waves, divine shudderings of green seas, The calm of pastures dotted with animals, the peace of furrows Which alchemy prints on wide, studious foreheads; O, sublime Bugle full of strange piercing sound, Silences crossed by Worlds and by Angels; - O the Omega, the violet ray of her Eyes!

Jack gave her a fierce look. “Your mother gave up the best thing she had in her life. I know you miss her, I know you’re confused and have all sorts of questions for her. But you’re better than her, Lola, you’re better than all of this. “She wronged you, not the other way around. You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t deserve what happened to you. She’s the one that needs to feel bad, not you. “Sometimes there are no answers. You have to accept that. Maybe you’ll never know what you think you need to know, but do you really need to know all the details, really? You know she wasn’t there when you needed her, she still isn’t here when you need her, but look around, Lola.” Jack opened his arms wide. “You got me. You got your aunt. Jared. Sebastian. Rachel. Even Isabelle. “You need to realize that and move on, as best you can. I had to realize that myself. When you let go of the pain and hurt and unanswered questions, Lola, then you’ll be okay. You’re safe now.” Jack pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You’re safe now. Remember that. Believe that.

Eleonora is a woman all too aware of her rarity and worth: she possesses not only a body able to produce a string of heirs, but also a beautiful face, with a forehead like carved ivory, eyes wide-set and deep brown, a mouth that looks well in both a smile and a pout. On top of all this, she has a quick and mercurial mind.

When the golem has accomplished its mission—typically the martial defense of the Jewish people (as was the case with the Golem of Prague, widely considered the Michael Jordan of golems), but sometimes manual labor (the task appointed to the Golem of Chelm, usually regarded as the Scottie Pippen of golems)—the aleph is erased from his forehead, changing the word truth to the word death and causing the golem to return to a state of vacant immobility, like a toddler in front of a television screen.

A wide wrinkle like a comprehensive bracket sign was written upon his forehead, the point between his brows, and there were patches of brown on his dark-blond skin.

The water rippled when he leaned in; he studied what he saw. Against a background of blue sky, there was his face, broad of forehead and overly long, and he was surprised at the new look of age on him. To everybody else, I must look ten years beyond twenty-seven, he thought, and it made him glad. Even had begun to fear gaps and what they might mean. Wide-spanning spaces between age and its weight of language and ability had begun to feel like easy reasons for saying good-bye. He saw inside the calm reflection a gull flying low over his head, braced by clouds drifting east toward Runnelstown. Turning back, he walked north around moss-based trees and finally found her digging wild onions growing thick next to fern. With her back to him she said, "Tired does one of two things-either builds the soul or breaks the heart. Can't decide which it is right now. All I know is I'm tired.

He did not appear to be a very tall man; what I could see of legs seemed stumpy, though heavily muscled. His chest was broad and deep. Later I learned that he swam in the sea almost every morning. His thick strong arms were circled with leather wristbands and a bronze armlet above his left elbow that gleamed with polished onyx and lapis lazuli... Puckered white scars from old wounds stood out against the dark skin of his arms, parting the black hairs like roads through a forest... Odysseos wore a sleeveless tunic, his legs and feet bare, but he had thrown a lamb's fleece across his wide shoulders. His face was thickly bearded with dark curly hair that showed a trace of grey. His heavy mop of ringlets came down to his shoulders and across his forehead almost down to his black eyebrows. Those eyes were as grey as the sea outside on this rainy afternoon, probing, searching, judging.

It had been only natural that as she developed into a young woman, she would become physically attracted to him. Certainly every other female in Hampshire was. McKenna had grown into a tall, big-boned male with striking looks, his features strong if not precisely chiseled, his nose long and bold, his mouth wide. His black hair hung over his forehead in a perpetual spill, while those singular turquoise eyes were shadowed by extravagant dark lashes. To compound his appeal, he possessed a relaxed charm and a sly sense of humor that had made him a favorite on the estate and in the village beyond.

You heard me. Let someone else send you to your blaze of glory. You're a speck, man. You're nothing. You're not worth the bullet or the mark on my soul for taking you out." You trying to piss me off again, Patrick?" He removed Campbell Rawson from his shoulder and held him aloft. I tilted my wrist so the cylinder fell into my palm, shrugged. "You're a joke, Gerry. I'm just calling it like I see it." That so?" Absolutely." I met his hard eyes with my own. "And you'll be replaced, just like everything else, in maybe a week, tops. Some other dumb, sick shit will come along and kill some people and he'll be all over the papers, and all over Hard Copy and you'll be yesterday's news. Your fifteen minutes are up, Gerry. And they've passed without impact." They'll remember this," Gerry said. "Believe me." Gerry clamped back on the trigger. When he met my finger, he looked at me and then clamped down so hard that my finger broke. I depressed the trigger on the one-shot and nothing happened. Gerry shrieked louder, and the razor came out of my flesh, then swung back immediately, and I clenched my eyes shut and depressed the trigger frantically three times. And Gerry's hand exploded. And so did mine. The razor hit the ice by my knee as I dropped the one shot and fire roared up the electrical tape and gasoline on Gerry's arm and caught the wisps of Danielle's hair. Gerry threw his head back and opened his mouth wide and bellowed in ecstasy. I grabbed the razor, could barely feel it because the nerves in my hand seemed to have stopped working. I slashed into the electric tape at the end of the shotgun barrel, and Danielle dropped away toward the ice and rolled her head into the frozen sand. My broken finger came back out of the shotgun and Gerry swung the barrels toward my head. The twin shotgun bores arced through the darkness like eyes without mercy or soul, and I raised my head to meet them, and Gerry's wail filled my ears as the fire licked at his neck. Good-bye, I thought. Everyone. It's been nice. Oscar's first two shots entered the back of Gerry's head and exited through the center of his forehead and a third punched into his back. The shotgun jerked upward in Gerry's flaming arm and then the shots came from the front, several at once, and Gerry spun like a marionette and pitched toward the ground. The shotgun boomed twice and punched holes through the ice in front of him as he fell. He landed on his knees and, for a moment, I wasn't sure if he was dead or not. His rusty hair was afire and his head lolled to the left as one eye disappeared in flames but the other shimmered at me through waves of heat, and an amused derision shone in the pupil. Patrick, the eye said through the gathering smoke, you still know nothing. Oscar rose up on the other side of Gerry's corpse, Campbell Rawson clutched tight to his massive chest as it rose and fell with great heaving breaths. The sight of it-something so soft and gentle in the arms of something so thick and mountaineous-made me laugh. Oscar came out of the darkness toward me, stepped around Gerry's burning body, and I felt the waves of heat rise toward me as the circle of gasoline around Gerry caught fire. Burn, I thought. Burn. God help me, but burn. Just after Oscar stepped over the outer edge of the circle, it erupted in yellow flame, and I found myself laughing harder as he looked at it, not remotely impressed. I felt cool lips smack against my ear, and by the time I looked her way, Danielle was already past me, rushing to take her child from Oscar. His huge shadow loomed over me as he approached, and I looked up at him and he held the look for a long moment. How you doing, Patrick?" he said and smiled broadly. And, behind him, Gerry burned on the ice. And everything was so goddamned funny for some reason, even though I knew it wasn't. I knew it wasn't. I did. But I was still laughing when they put me in the ambulance.

Are you high, Wes Bennett?” "I'll answer that if you answer this: Were you playing Beyoncé on the piano last night?" Her green eyes went wide, and her mouth dropped open. "You heard me?" "The windows were open," I said, shrugging like it was the first time I'd ever heard her, "and I was having a smoke out back. So was it 'Halo'?" "You smoke?" She was looking at me like I was a puzzle, like she couldn't figure me out. "No. Was it?" The crinkle in her forehead grew somehow. "Yes. So ... do you or don't you?" "Like Beyonce? Fucking love her." She rolled her eyes. "Why do I even bother trying to have a conversation with you?" "Because you're fascinated and want to know more." She snorted. "Because you find me wildly attractive and need some insight into my soul?" "Try again." "Because you want to reconcile the data you've entered into your diary about me with the real-life, actual facts?" "So you are high.

A, Black, E, white, I red, U green, O blue: vowels, Someday I shall tell of your mysterious births: A, black velvety corset of dazzling flies Buzzing around cruel smells, Gulfs of shadow; E, white innocence of vapors and of tents, Spears of proud glaciers, white kings, shivers of Queen Anne's lace; I, purples, spitting blood, smile of beautiful lips In anger or in drunkin penitence; U, waves, divine shudderings of green seas, The calm of pastures dotted with animals, the pece of furrows Which alchemy prints on wide, studious foreheads; O, sublime Bugle full of strange piercing so und, Silences crossed by Worlds nad by Angels: - O the Omega, the violet ray of her Eyes!

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

They all stood unwilling on the sandbar, holding to the net. In the eastern sky were the familiar castles and the round towers to which they were used, gray, pink, and blue, growing darker and filling with thunder. Lightning flickered in the sun along their thick walls. But in the west the sun shone with such a violence that in an illumination like a long-prolonged glare of lightning the heavens looked black and white; all color left the world, the goldenness of everything was like a memory, and only heat, a kind of glamor and oppression, lay on their heads. The thick heavy trees on the other side of the river were brushed with mile-long streaks of silver, and a wind touched each man on the forehead. At the same time there was a long roll of thunder that began behind them, came up and down mountains and valleys of air, passed over their heads, and left them listening still. With a small, near noise a mockingbird followed it, the little white bars of its body flashing over the willow trees. 'We are here for a storm now,' Virgil said. 'We will have to stay till it’s over.' ("The Wide Net")

Matteo didn't lick a woman's pussy because he felt obligated, or at the very least not mine. I might have argued he enjoyed it more than I did if he wasn't so damn good at it. That talented tongue explored every part of me, thrusting in and out until I whimpered. When he turned his attention to my clit, it was so he could slide a finger inside me. I clenched around him on a cry, feeling the way he moaned in response vibrate through me. He withdrew that finger, only to add a second and curl them to stroke that spot inside me that made me quiver. "Teo," I whimpered, and the sound of his name seemed to push him over the edge. He wrapped his lips around the bundle of nerves at the apex of my thigh, sucking gently. My legs tightened around his head; my hand buried in his hair to hold him exactly where I wanted him as I shattered in a blinding orgasm that stole my ability to function. I laid there, panting and trying to regain my ability to move. When I opened my eyes, it was to Matteo shoving his own underwear down his legs and kicking them off. He pulled his fingers free of me and spread my legs wide from where they'd wrapped around his head. Sliding up my body, his hips lined up with mine so he could grind his length against my wet core. His lips found mine in a bruising, claiming kiss that seemed even more primal because he tasted like me. He reached down, sliding himself through my wet and notching his head at my entrance. Pulling away from my lips, he groaned, "Tell me you're mine." Still recovering from my orgasm, I nodded in a daze. "Words, Angel. Give me the words." "Yours," I murmured, cupping his cheek with a delirious smile and tugging him down to kiss him again. He slid inside me slowly, filling me until there wasn't a single inch that couldn't feel him. "Fuck," he groaned against my mouth. He reached down, wrapping my legs around his hips. Our foreheads pressed together; our mouths not quite touching as he started to move inside me. Even without his lips on mine, I could taste him, taste me in his breath on my face. One of his hands grabbed mine, our fingers intertwining while he wrapped his other under my shoulder to hold me where he wanted me. He slid in and out in slow, hard thrusts.

FATHER FORGETS W. Livingston Larned Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside. There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor. At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, “Goodbye, Daddy!” and I frowned, and said in reply, “Hold your shoulders back!” Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive—and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from a father! Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. “What is it you want?” I snapped. You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs. Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding—this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years. And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed! It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: “He is nothing but a boy—a little boy!” I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother’s arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much.

Set them on fire.' Her eyes go wide. 'In your mind,' I say, attempting a smile. 'Let them fuel the fire that keeps you striving.' I reach out, touch my fingers to her cheek. 'Idiots are highly flammable, love. Let them all burn in hell.' She closes her eyes. Turns her face into my hand. And I pull her in, press my forehead to hers. 'Those who do not understand you,' I say softly, 'will always doubt you.

The advisors, on the other hand, were like older brothers and sisters. My favorite was Bill Symes, who'd been a founding member of Fellowship in 1967. He was in his early twenties now and studying religion at Webster University. He had shoulders like a two-oxen yoke, a ponytail as thick as a pony's tail, and feet requiring the largest size of Earth Shoes. He was a good musician, a passionate attacker of steel acoustical guitar strings. He liked to walk into Burger King and loudly order two Whoppers with no meat. If he was losing a Spades game, he would take a card out of his hand, tell the other players, "Play this suit!" and then lick the card and stick it to his forehead facing out. In discussions, he liked to lean into other people's space and bark at them. He said, "You better deal with that!" He said, "Sounds to me like you've got a problem that you're not talking about!" He said, "You know what? I don't think you believe one word of what you just said to me!" He said, "Any resistance will be met with an aggressive response!" If you hesitated when he moved to hug you, he backed away and spread his arms wide and goggled at you with raised eyebrows, as if to say, "Hello? Are you going to hug me, or what?" If he wasn't playing guitar he was reading Jung, and if he wasn't reading Jung he was birdwatching, and if he wasn't birdwatching he was practicing tai chi, and if you came up to him during his practice and asked him how he would defend himself if you tried to mug him with a gun, he would demonstrate, in dreamy Eastern motion, how to remove a wallet from a back pocket and hand it over. Listening to the radio in his VW Bug, he might suddenly cry out, "I want to hear... 'La Grange' by ZZ Top!" and slap the dashboard. The radio would then play "La Grange.

In 1917 I went to Russia. I was sent to prevent the Bolshevik Revolution and to keep Russia in the war. The reader will know that my efforts did not meet with success. I went to Petrograd from Vladivostok, .One day, on the way through Siberia, the train stopped at some station and the passengers as usual got out, some to fetch water to make tea, some to buy food and others to stretch their legs. A blind soldier was sitting on a bench. Other soldiers sat beside him and more stood behind. There were from twenty to thirty.Their uniforms were torn and stained. The blind soldier, a big vigorous fellow, was quite young. On his cheeks was the soft, pale down of a beard that has never been shaved. I daresay he wasn't eighteen. He had a broad face, with flat, wide features, and on his forehead was a great scar of the wound that had lost him his sight. His closed eyes gave him a strangely vacant look. He began to sing. His voice was strong and sweet. He accompanied himself on an accordion. The train waited and he sang song after song. I could not understand his words, but through his singing, wild and melancholy, I seemed to hear the cry of the oppressed: I felt the lonely steppes and the interminable forests, the flow of the broad Russian rivers and all the toil of the countryside, the ploughing of the land and the reaping of the wild corn, the sighing of the wind in the birch trees, the long months of dark winter; and then the dancing of the women in the villages and the youths bathing in shallow streams on summer evenings; I felt the horror of war, the bitter nights in the trenches, the long marches on muddy roads, the battlefield with its terror and anguish and death. It was horrible and deeply moving. A cap lay at the singer's feet and the passengers filled it full of money; the same emotion had seized them all, of boundless compassion and of vague horror, for there was something in that blind, scarred face that was terrifying; you felt that this was a being apart, sundered from the joy of this enchanting world. He did not seem quite human. The soldiers stood silent and hostile. Their attitude seemed to claim as a right the alms of the travelling herd. There was a disdainful anger on their side and unmeasurable pity on ours; but no glimmering of a sense that there was but one way to compensate that helpless man for all his pain.

Do you believe in love at first sight?” He made himself look at her face, at her wide-open eyes and earnest forehead. At her unbearably sweet mouth. “I don’t know,” he said. “Do you believe in love before that?” Her breath caught in her throat like a sore hiccup. And then it was too much to keep trying not to kiss her. She came readily into his arms. Lincoln leaned against the coffee machine and pulled her onto him completely. There it was again, that impossible to describe kiss. This is how 2011 should have ended, he thought. This is infinity. The first time Beth pulled away, he pulled her back. The second time, he bit her lip. Then her neck. Then the collar of her shirt. “I don’t know…,” she said, sitting up in his lap, laying her check on the top of his head. “I don’t know what you meant by love before love at first sight.” Lincoln pushed his face into her shoulder and tried to think of a good way to answer. “Just that… I knew how I felt about you before I ever saw you,” he said, “when I still thought I might never see you…” She held his head in her hands and titled it back, so she could see his face. “That’s ridiculous,” she said. Which made him laugh. “Absolutely,” he said. “No, I mean it,” Beth said. “Men fall in love with their eyes.” He closed his. “That’s practically science,” she said. “Maybe,” Lincoln said. Her fingers felt so good in his hair. “But I couldn’t see you, so…” “So, what did you see?” “Just…the sort of girl who would write the sort of things that you wrote.” “What things?” Lincoln opened his eyes. Beth was studying his face. She looked skeptical-maybe about more than just the last thing he said. This was important, he realized. “Everything,” he said, sitting straighter, keeping hold of her waist. “Everything you wrote about your work, about your boyfriend…The way you comforted Jennifer and made her laugh, through the baby and after. I pictured a girl who could be kind, and that kind of funny. I pictured a girl who was that alive…” She looked guarded. Lincoln couldn’t tell from her eyes whether he was pushing her away or winning her over. “A girl who never got tired of her favourite movies,” he said softly. “Who saved dresses like ticket stubs. Who could get high on the weather.. “I pictured a girl who made every moment, everything she touched, and everyone around her feel lighter and sweeter. I pictured you,” he said. “I just didn’t know what you looked like. And then, when I did know what you looked like, you looked like the girl who was all those things. You looked like the girl I loved.” Beth’s fingers trembled in his hair, and her forehead dropped against his. A heavy, wet tear fell onto Lincoln’s lips, and he licked it. He pulled her close, as close as he could. Like he didn’t care for the moment whether she could breath. Like there were two of them and only one parachute. “Beth,” he barely said, pressing his face against hers until their lashes brushed, pressing his hand into the small of her back. “I don’t think I can explain it. I don’t think I can make any more sense. But I’ll keep trying. If you want me to.” She almost shook her head. “No,” she said, “no more explaining. Or apologizing. I don’t think it matters how we ended up here. I just…I want to stay…I want.. He kissed her then. There. In the middle of the sentence.

But even farther into the vision he saw a little boy, the gold circlet on his forehead, his brown locks flowing around it and his amber eyes wide, large in his small face and full of tears and longing. Devoid of a mother and nearly without a father. A heart broken beneath the weight of his loneliness. Like a sapling bent underneath the weight of its leaves, having grown too fast for its roots to hold, he toppled over and fell from the calling and destiny that had been on his life.

He shook his head, dark hair tumbling across his forehead. “I should never have let you out of my sight in the first place. Chasing down that asshole after the crash almost cost me my life.” I stilled, wide eyed staring at him, not even able to blink. “He almost killed you?” Beck stepped the two steps back to me, stopping right in front of me. “You are my life, Riley. My fucking life, heart, and soul.” His hand slammed against his chest. “Without you, there is no fucking me, so yes, he almost killed me.

perhaps from most people’s perspective, there were no signs of illness or struggle written across my forehead. I brought the act to law school, diligently planned and orchestrated the disguise, playing the part of the perfect young woman I wanted so badly to be. It never transformed me into healthy again, but it kept my dignity high, even when I was sweating, gagging, and terrorized by my hidden side of life. I wiped away the spit, sweat and tears in the bathroom. I fooled them all, but I was also fooling myself.

I feel shock splinter through him, his body going rigid. Then he relaxes, melting into me, stepping forward until I am caught between him and the wall, the torch crackling beside me. His hands slide down my back, over my hips and thighs, leaving a trail of fire. His heart beats fast enough for the both of us, its thunderous pulse echoing through me. I bury my hands in his dark hair, fingers knotting around those thick locks. Desire pulls at my stomach, and I lean into him, lifting one leg and wrapping it around his waist. He lifts me, and my other leg coils around him, my skirts sliding up my thighs, my back pressed against the column. His lips are soft and warm and gentle, underlined with barely restrained urgency. I cannot get enough of him. I pull his kurta over his head and let it fall on the floor. I press my hands against his bared chest, feel his heart against my palm, his lungs rising and falling. His shoulder is knotted with the scar from the arrow he took for me. He kisses me again, this time more strongly, and I run my hands down his jaw and neck, over his shoulders, the taut muscles of his back. He turns, without letting me go or breaking our kiss, and we tumble onto the soft divan. Aladdin holds himself over me, his abdomen clenched and his hair hanging across his forehead. His lips wander downward, to my chin, to the curve of my jaw, to my neck. My hands are ravenous, exploring the planes and angles of his body. His fingers find mine, and our hands knit together. He raises them over my head, pressing them into the pillow beneath my hair, as his kisses trace my collarbone, and then he sinks lower, parting the buttons of my dress and pressing his lips to my bare stomach. I gasp and open my eyes wide, my borrowed body coursing with sensations I have never felt, never dared to feel, never thought I could feel. “Aladdin,” I murmur. “We shouldn’t . . .” “Sh.” He silences me with a kiss, and I lift my chin to meet him. A warm wind rushes through my body, stirring embers and setting them aflame. I don’t want to stop. I don’t want to think about consequences. I only want Aladdin, everywhere.

It is not the only good thing you’ve ever done,” Akos said, in plain Thuvhesit. It felt like the right language for this moment, the language of his home, which Cyra understood but didn’t really speak when he was around, like she was afraid it would hurt his feelings. “It’s worth everything to me, what you did,” he said, still in Thuvhesit. “It changes everything.” He touched his forehead to hers, so they shared the same air. “I like how you sound in your own language,” she said softly. “Can I kiss you?” he said. “Or will it hurt?” Her eyes went wide. Then she said breathlessly, “And if it hurts?” And smiled a little. “Life is full of hurt anyway.” Akos’s breaths shuddered as he pressed his mouth to hers. He wasn’t sure what it would be like, kissing her this way, not because she surprised him and he didn’t think to pull away, but because he just wanted to. She tasted malty and spiced from the painkiller she had swallowed, and she was a little hesitant, like she was afraid to hurt him. But kissing her was touching match to kindling. He burned for her.

I do not know whether it is an act of faithfulness to her or a betrayal of the dignity she never lost, to say that she had bitten her tongue, to say that there was blood flowing across her mouth and lips which my brother kept wiping away. I do not know whether I have the right to say, though I will do so, that her body was shaken with epileptic tremors and that she took enormous, terrifying breaths that went on and on until you could not believe she had the strength for them. I do not know whether, as we thought at the time, she could feel our hands on her forehead and cheek, or whether she had waited until we were both there to die. I did not say 'I am here'. I did not say anything. Her mouth was open wide, as in those portraits by Francis Bacon of caged prisoners in their final extremity. I watched and listened to those terrifying, rattling, hoarse breaths, wondering at the strength remaining in her aged body and at the violence it still had to endure. I looked over at my brother as if he might know, as if he might understand whether she had the strength to continue. He was stroking her forehead, whispering soundlessly to her, attempting even at this moment to reach behind the veil and find her. If you believe that she knew we were there, if you believe--I cannot be sure--that she understood what her sons needed at that instant, her eyes which had been shut and which, by being closed, made her seem completely out of our reach, suddenly opened. Blue-grey eyes, staring up into the ceiling above her sons' heads, upwards, ever upwards, fixed like an exhausted swimmer on the shore. Then her eyes closed and she took the largest, most violent breath of all, and we watched and waited, stood and looked at each other, felt for her pulse and slowly, as seconds turned into minutes, realized that she would never breathe again. There is only one reason to tell you this, to present the scene. It is to say that what happens can never be anticipated. What happens escapes anything you can ever say about it. What happens cannot be redeemed. It can never be anything other than what it is. We tell stories as if to refuse this truth, as if to say that we make our fate, rather than simply endure it. But in truth we make nothing. We live, and we cannot shape life. It is much too great for us, too great for any words. A writer must refuse to believe this, must believe there is nothing that cannot somehow be said. Yet there at last in her presence, in the unending unfolding of that silence, which still goes on, which I still expect to be broken by another drawing in of breath, I knew that all my words could only be in vain, and that all that I had feared and all that I had anticipated could only be lived--without their help or hers.

Cat, I have something to ask you . . .” “Yes?” “Poppy wants to know more about my past. What may I tell her, if anything, about the part when I found you?” Catherine replaced her spectacles and stared into a nearby blaze of daffodils. “Tell her everything,” she said eventually. “She can be trusted with my secrets. And yours.” Harry nodded, silently amazed by a statement he once could never have imagined her making. “There’s one more thing I want to ask of you. A favor. I understand the reasons we can’t acknowledge each other in public. But in private, from now on, I hope you’ll do me the honor of . . . well, letting me act as your brother.” She glanced at him with wide eyes, seeming too stunned to reply. “We won’t have to tell the rest of the family until you’re ready,” Harry said. “But I would rather not hide our relationship when we’re in private. You’re my only family.” Catherine reached beneath her spectacles to wipe at an escaping tear. A feeling of compassion and tenderness came over Harry, something he had never felt for her before. Reaching out, he drew her close and kissed her forehead gently. “Let me be your big brother,” he whispered.

One of them was a young fellow of about twenty-seven, not tall, with black curling hair, and small, grey, fiery eyes. His nose was broad and flat, and he had high cheek bones; his thin lips were constantly compressed into an impudent, ironical—it might almost be called a malicious—smile; but his forehead was high and well formed, and atoned for a good deal of the ugliness of the lower part of his face. A special feature of this physiognomy was its death-like pallor, which gave to the whole man an indescribably emaciated appearance in spite of his hard look, and at the same time a sort of passionate and suffering expression which did not harmonize with his impudent, sarcastic smile and keen, self-satisfied bearing. He wore a large fur—or rather astrachan—overcoat, which had kept him warm all night, while his neighbour had been obliged to bear the full severity of a Russian November night entirely unprepared. His wide sleeveless mantle with a large cape to it—the sort of cloak one sees upon travellers during the winter months in Switzerland or North Italy—was by no means adapted to the long cold journey through Russia, from Eydkuhnen to St. Petersburg.

The song just started again, and now I sang it, too. "These strong hands belong to you..." I found a place between two men. The first was about my age, maybe a little younger, with high cheekbones and small eyes. The other was middle-aged, with a wide forehead and bulb nose, and beside him was a man with a striking face, a square, dimpled chin and high cheekbones... and then there was another, and another--all the kinds of faces in all the colors the world calls black: brown and tan and yellow and orange, copper and bronze and gold. "These strong hands belong to you..." They sang--we sang--with no enthusiasm or joy. We used to sing at Bell's, crossing the yard or working on the pile, just like slaves used to sing in Old Slavery, spirituals and work songs, sly lyrics, silly lyrics, yearning for freedom or roasting Massa in nonsense words he couldn't understand. This, though--this was a different kind of singing. I looked from man to man, and they were singing mechanically, eyes front, mouths moving like puppets. Singing this dumb refrain about how much they loved their bosses and loved their work. Nothing spiritual about this. This was something else altogether.

She started shaping the face, using a wire loop to gently carve the slope of the strong forehead and brow, then the nose and the lean angle of the cheekbones. In little time, her fingers were moving on automatic pilot, her mind disengaged and gone into its own flow, her subconscious directly commanding her hands into action. She didn’t know how long she’d been working, but when the hard rap sounded on her apartment door some time later, Tess nearly jumped out of her skin. Sleeping next to her feet on the rug, Harvard woke up with a grunt. “You expecting someone?” she asked quietly as she got up from her stool. God, she must have been really zoned out while she was sculpting, because she’d seriously messed up around the mouth area of the piece. The lips were curled back in some kind of snarl, and the teeth . . . The knock sounded again, followed by a deep voice that went through her like a bolt of electricity. “Tess? Are you there?” Dante. Tess’s eyes flew wide, then squeezed into a wince as she did a quick mental inventory of her appearance. Hair flung up into a careless knot on top of her head, braless in her white thermal Henley and faded red sweats that had more than one dried clay smudge on them. Not exactly fit for company. “Dante?” she asked, stalling for time and just wanting to be sure her ears weren’t playing tricks on her. “Is that you?” “Yeah. Can I come in?” “Um, sure. Just a sec,” she called out, trying to sound casual as she threw a dry work cloth over her sculpture and quickly checked her face in the reflection off one of her putty spatulas. Oh, lovely. She had a slightly crazed, starving-artist look going on. Very glamorous. That’ll teach him to do the pop-in visit, she thought, as she padded over to the door and twisted the dead bolt.

Suddenly with a single bound he leaped into the room. Winning a way past us before any of us could raise a hand to stay him. There was something so pantherlike in the movement, something so unhuman, that it seemed to sober us all from the shock of his coming. The first to act was Harker, who with a quick movement, threw himself before the door leading into the room in the front of the house. As the Count saw us, a horrible sort of snarl passed over his face, showing the eyeteeth long and pointed. But the evil smile as quickly passed into a cold stare of lion-like disdain. His expression again changed as, with a single impulse, we all advanced upon him. It was a pity that we had not some better organized plan of attack, for even at the moment I wondered what we were to do. I did not myself know whether our lethal weapons would avail us anything. Harker evidently meant to try the matter, for he had ready his great Kukri knife and made a fierce and sudden cut at him. The blow was a powerful one; only the diabolical quickness of the Count's leap back saved him. A second less and the trenchant blade had shorn through his heart. As it was, the point just cut the cloth of his coat, making a wide gap whence a bundle of bank notes and a stream of gold fell out. The expression of the Count's face was so hellish, that for a moment I feared for Harker, though I saw him throw the terrible knife aloft again for another stroke. Instinctively I moved forward with a protective impulse, holding the Crucifix and Wafer in my left hand. I felt a mighty power fly along my arm, and it was without surprise that I saw the monster cower back before a similar movement made spontaneously by each one of us. It would be impossible to describe the expression of hate and baffled malignity, of anger and hellish rage, which came over the Count's face. His waxen hue became greenish-yellow by the contrast of his burning eyes, and the red scar on the forehead showed on the pallid skin like a palpitating wound. The next instant, with a sinuous dive he swept under Harker's arm, ere his blow could fall, and grasping a handful of the money from the floor, dashed across the room, threw himself at the window. Amid the crash and glitter of the falling glass, he tumbled into the flagged area below. Through the sound of the shivering glass I could hear the "ting" of the gold, as some of the sovereigns fell on the flagging. We ran over and saw him spring unhurt from the ground. He, rushing up the steps, crossed the flagged yard, and pushed open the stable door. There he turned and spoke to us. "You think to baffle me, you with your pale faces all in a row, like sheep in a butcher's. You shall be sorry yet, each one of you! You think you have left me without a place to rest, but I have more. My revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side. Your girls that you all love are mine already. And through them you and others shall yet be mine, my creatures, to do my bidding and to be my jackals when I want to feed. Bah!" With a contemptuous sneer, he passed quickly through the door, and we heard the rusty bolt creak as he fastened it behind him. A door beyond opened and shut. The first of us to speak was the Professor. Realizing the difficulty of following him through the stable, we moved toward the hall. "We have learnt something… much! Notwithstanding his brave words, he fears us. He fears time, he fears want! For if not, why he hurry so? His very tone betray him, or my ears deceive. Why take that money? You follow quick. You are hunters of the wild beast, and understand it so. For me, I make sure that nothing here may be of use to him, if so that he returns.

You say respect my elders, but what you mean is respecting my betters, is that not right? Are you so full of your own arrogance that you need me to bow and kowtow to you like some throwback fledgling? Or perhaps we should reinstate the role of concubines in our society. Then you may have the pleasure of claiming me and forcing me to fall to my knees, bowing low in respect of your masculine eminence!” Gideon watched as she did just that, her gown billowing around her as she gracefully kneeled before him, so close to him that her knees touched the tips of his boots. She swept her hands to her sides, bowing her head until her forehead brushed the leather, her hair spilling like reams of heavy silk around his ankles. The Ancient found himself unusually speechless, the strangest sensation creeping through him as he looked down at the exposed nape of her neck, the elegant line of her back. Unable to curb the impulse, Gideon lowered himself into a crouch, reaching beneath the cloak of coffee-colored hair to touch her flushed cheek. The heat of her anger radiated against his touch and he recognized it long before she turned her face up to him. “Does this satisfy you, my lord Gideon?” she whispered fiercely, her eyes flashing like flinted steel and hard jade. Gideon found himself searching her face intently, his eyes roaming over the high, aristocratic curves of her cheekbones, the amazingly full sculpture of her lips, the wide, accusing eyes that lay behind extraordinarily thick lashes. He cupped her chin between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, his fingertips fanning softly over her angrily flushed cheek. “You do enjoy mocking me,” he murmured softly to her, the breath of his words close enough to skim across her face. “No more than you seem to enjoy condescending to me,” she replied, her clipped words coming out on quick, heated breaths. Gideon absorbed this latest venom with a blink of lengthy lashes. They kept their gazes locked, each seemingly waiting for the other to look away. “You have never forgiven me,” he said suddenly, softly. “Forgiven you?” She laughed bitterly. “Gideon, you are not important enough to earn my forgiveness.” “Is your ego so fragile, Legna, that a small slight to it is irreparable?” “Stop talking to me as if I were a temperamental child!” Legna hissed, moving to jerk her head back but finding his grip quite secure. “There was nothing slight about the way you treated me. I will never forget it, and I most certainly will never forget it!

Picking up his own gun, he checked the ammo, and then lined up the shot with one hand. He turned his head toward her and pulled the trigger, watching her eyes go wide when he hit his mark. “Holy shit,” she said. “You hit him.” He lowered the gun and put it back in his waistband. “You told me to.” “Yeah, but…you hit his neck without looking.” He glanced up. “And?” She was still shaking her head in apparent disbelief. “And you’re kind of a badass.” “What the hell do you think I get paid for?” … She laughed. “You’re not even modest about it either, are you? Hell, I wouldn’t be. I’d get badass tattooed on my forehead if I could make a shot like that.

The blood-soaked cloth tied around his arm made the wound look worse than it was. “It was only the skin.” She bent over and put her hands on her knees, gagging again. When she’d finally regained control of herself, she straightened. “Why in the seven rings of hell would you do that?” Rennick stepped into her space and wrapped his hand around her nape. “There is no longer any part of my body she has touched.” He kissed her forehead and felt her fury and jealousy dissolve. “You were wearing long sleeves,” she croaked. “She didn’t touch your skin.” He shrugged. “I’ll burn the shirt, too.” “Why is that attractive?” she muttered quietly, eliciting a wide smile from him.

Jacques appeared on his hands and knees, peering around the corner of the cabin. His dark eyes lit with pleasure when he saw her. The baby flashed Antonia his wide grin and scooted toward her. Only in the last two days had he gone from pushing himself across the floor to a hands-and-knees crawl. Henri trailed so close behind Jacques that he had to walk wide-legged so he didn’t step on his brother. The baby reached her, placed his hands on her legs, and pressed himself up, grabbing at the front of her tunic. “Maa.” Antonia hugged Jacques. He’d soiled his rabbit skin diaper and smelled, but she held him close, needing to feel the baby in her arms. He wiggled in protest. She dropped a kiss on his forehead and reached up to her shoulder to unlace the leather ties of her tunic, pulling the flap down to free her breast. He began to suckle greedily. Henri dropped to her other side and leaned against her. Antonia put her arm around him. Just holding her sons brought her comfort but also increased her despair. What do I be doin’ now? Should I be takin’ the boys and leave? Head for Sweetwater Springs? Antonia shook her head. No! I won’t be leavin’ Jean-Claude. Cain’t leave my home. But without her husband to provide for them, she didn’t know how long she’d be able to manage on her own. Somehow, I’ll be findin’ a way, Antonia vowed.

He took a cedar shingle or splint eighteen inches long and four or five wide, rounded at one end, that the corners might not be in the way, and tied it with cedar bark by two holes made midway, near the edge on each side, to the middle crossbar of the canoe. When the canoe was lifted upon his head bottom up, this shingle, with its rounded end uppermost, distributed the weight over his shoulders and head, while a band of cedar bark, tied to the crossbar on each side of the shingle, passed round his breast, and another longer one, outside of the last, round his forehead; also a hand on each side rail served to steer the canoe and keep it from rocking. He thus carried it with his shoulders, head, breast, forehead, and both hands, as if the upper part of his body were all one hand to clasp and hold

Hymn to Mercury : Continued 11. ... Seized with a sudden fancy for fresh meat, He in his sacred crib deposited The hollow lyre, and from the cavern sweet Rushed with great leaps up to the mountain's head, Revolving in his mind some subtle feat Of thievish craft, such as a swindler might Devise in the lone season of dun night. 12. Lo! the great Sun under the ocean's bed has Driven steeds and chariot—the child meanwhile strode O'er the Pierian mountains clothed in shadows, Where the immortal oxen of the God Are pastured in the flowering unmown meadows, And safely stalled in a remote abode.— The archer Argicide, elate and proud, Drove fifty from the herd, lowing aloud. 13. He drove them wandering o'er the sandy way, But, being ever mindful of his craft, Backward and forward drove he them astray, So that the tracks which seemed before, were aft; His sandals then he threw to the ocean spray, And for each foot he wrought a kind of raft Of tamarisk, and tamarisk-like sprigs, And bound them in a lump with withy twigs. 14. And on his feet he tied these sandals light, The trail of whose wide leaves might not betray His track; and then, a self-sufficing wight, Like a man hastening on some distant way, He from Pieria's mountain bent his flight; But an old man perceived the infant pass Down green Onchestus heaped like beds with grass. 15. The old man stood dressing his sunny vine: 'Halloo! old fellow with the crooked shoulder! You grub those stumps? before they will bear wine Methinks even you must grow a little older: Attend, I pray, to this advice of mine, As you would 'scape what might appal a bolder— Seeing, see not—and hearing, hear not—and— If you have understanding—understand.' 16. So saying, Hermes roused the oxen vast; O'er shadowy mountain and resounding dell, And flower-paven plains, great Hermes passed; Till the black night divine, which favouring fell Around his steps, grew gray, and morning fast Wakened the world to work, and from her cell Sea-strewn, the Pallantean Moon sublime Into her watch-tower just began to climb. 17. Now to Alpheus he had driven all The broad-foreheaded oxen of the Sun; They came unwearied to the lofty stall And to the water-troughs which ever run Through the fresh fields—and when with rushgrass tall, Lotus and all sweet herbage, every one Had pastured been, the great God made them move Towards the stall in a collected drove. 18. A mighty pile of wood the God then heaped, And having soon conceived the mystery Of fire, from two smooth laurel branches stripped The bark, and rubbed them in his palms;—on high Suddenly forth the burning vapour leaped And the divine child saw delightedly.— Mercury first found out for human weal Tinder-box, matches, fire-irons, flint and steel. 19. And fine dry logs and roots innumerous He gathered in a delve upon the ground— And kindled them—and instantaneous The strength of the fierce flame was breathed around: And whilst the might of glorious Vulcan thus Wrapped the great pile with glare and roaring sound, Hermes dragged forth two heifers, lowing loud, Close to the fire—such might was in the God. 20. And on the earth upon their backs he threw The panting beasts, and rolled them o'er and o'er, And bored their lives out. Without more ado He cut up fat and flesh, and down before The fire, on spits of wood he placed the two, Toasting their flesh and ribs, and all the gore Pursed in the bowels; and while this was done He stretched their hides over a craggy stone.

Lady Isabeau was tall for a woman, nearly as tall as Molly, but slender where Molly was stout, with a smooth immobile face that looked as if it had been carved from ivory, pale and serene. Hob stared at her: glossy black hair bound about the brows with a broad white linen fillet and partly concealed by a veil that draped down her neck; dark eyes beneath dark brows plucked thin; unsmiling lips, full and well-shaped. There was so little expression on her face, and its beauty was so unworldly, that Hob had a moment when he thought her an apparition, or a graven figure. “Blanche comme la neige,” came to his mind, a song Molly had taught him, “belle comme le jour.” The thinnest of scars ran from her hairline down her forehead, divided her left eyebrow, and curved along her cheek to the corner of her mouth, and seemed at once to augment her beauty and to reinforce its carven stillness, as if some wright's chisel had slipped in the course of fashioning her visage. A linen band of the sort known as a barbette ran down from the fillet at her temples and passed under her chin, framing her face, and rendering her features all the more austere. Her gown was a muted purple; heavy embroidery of red and blue circled its neckline, and it was gathered by a zone of gray silk, sewn with pearls, that circled her hips. From this belt depended a silver ring, as wide around as a big man's fist. On the ring was a bunch of black iron keys, of varying sizes: the symbol and reality of her standing as administrator of the household. As she spoke, she fiddled with the keys as though they were prayer beads; they gave off a continual muted clink, just barely audible to Hob above the rumble of voices, the thuds and thumps of plank tabletops settling onto their trestles.

What’s the most frightening thing to a child? The pain of being the outsider, of looking ridiculous to others, of being teased or picked on in school. Every child burns with fear at the prospect. It’s a primal instinct: to belong. McDonald’s has surely figured this out—along with what specific colors appeal to small children, what textures, and what movies or TV shows are likely to attract them to the gray disks of meat. They feel no compunction harnessing the fears and unarticulated yearnings of small children, and nor shall I. “Ronald has cooties,” I say—every time he shows up on television or out the window of the car. “And you know,” I add, lowering my voice, “he smells bad, too. Kind of like … poo!” (I am, I should say, careful to use the word “alleged” each and every time I make such an assertion, mindful that my urgent whisperings to a two-year-old might be wrongfully construed as libelous.) “If you hug Ronald … can you get cooties?” asks my girl, a look of wide-eyed horror on her face. “Some say … yes,” I reply—not wanting to lie—just in case she should encounter the man at a child’s birthday party someday. It’s a lawyerly answer—but effective. “Some people talk about the smell, too… I’m not saying it rubs off on you or anything—if you get too close to him—but…” I let that hang in the air for a while. “Ewwww!!!” says my daughter. We sit in silence as she considers this, then she asks, “Is it true that if you eat a hamburger at McDonald’s it can make you a ree-tard? I laugh wholeheartedly at this one and give her a hug. I kiss her on the forehead reassuringly. “Ha. Ha. Ha. I don’t know where you get these ideas!” I may or may not have planted that little nugget a few weeks ago, allowing her little friend Tiffany at ballet class to “overhear” it as I pretended to talk on my cell phone.

Jethro had a scar near one of his eyes, an angry tear that scraped through his eyebrow and reached up to his forehead where it disappeared beneath his hairline. In winter he wore black motorcycle boots and a checked sheepskin jacket that was orange and brown. He had sideburns like a man and the other kids said his eyes were like laser beams in comics, that your face would explode if he even looked at you. That was why he wore those steel-rimmed reflective sunglasses, they said, as he cruised around in his car with his hairy arm out the window, fingers spread wide on the door. Jethro Sands was like the scariest crackers on Guy Fawkes Night. He was the loudest thunder, the meanest dog. Out of everyone she was scared of Jethro Sands the most. She imagined buildings and trees bursting into flame on either side of the road as he drove along, turning his head slowly from side to side. He was threatening, noxious. Dark.

Cassandra, I can't marry you and go about business as usual the next day. Newlyweds need privacy." He had a point. But he looked so disgruntled, Cassandra couldn't resist teasing. With a glance of wide-eyed innocence, she asked, "What for?" Tom appeared increasingly flustered as he tried to come up with an explanation. Cassandra waited, gnawing on the inside of her lips. Tom's face changed as he saw the dance of laughter in her eyes. "I'll show you what for," he said, and lunged for her. Cassandra fled with a shriek, skirting nimbly around the table, but he was as fast as a leopard. After snatching her up with ease, he deposited her on the settee, and pounced. She giggled and twisted as the amorous male weight of him lowered over her. The scent of him was clean but salted with sweat, a touch of bay rum cologne sharpened with body warmth. His face was right above hers, a few locks of dark hair tumbling on his forehead. Grinning at her efforts to dislodge him, he braced his forearms on either side of her head. She'd never played with a man like this, and it was incredibly entertaining and fun, and the tiniest bit scary in a way that excited her. Her giggles collapsed slowly, like champagne froth, and she wriggled as if to twist away from him even though she had no intention of doing so. He countered by settling more heavily into the cradle of her hips, pressing her into the cushions. Even through the mass of her skirts, she felt an unfamiliar pressure of his arousal. The thick ridge fit perfectly against the juncture of her thighs, aligning intimately with her in a way that was both embarrassing and stirring. A stab of desire went through her as she realized this was how it would be... the anchoring weight of him, all hard muscle and heat... his eyes heavy-lidded and hot as he stared down at her. Dazedly she reached up and pulled his head to hers. A whimper of pleasure escaped her as he kissed her thoroughly, wringing sensation from her softness, licking deep.

She was too narcoleptic to speak. Or move. How long had this been going on? Was she like this yesterday? Had I missed her illness in my quest to prove to my brain that my dick wasn’t the one behind this train wreck’s wheel? I touched her forehead again. It sizzled. “Sweetheart.” “Please get out.” The words clawed past her throat. “Someone needs to take care of you.” “That someone definitely isn’t you. You made that clear these past couple days.” I said nothing. She was right. I hadn’t bothered to check on her. Perhaps I’d wished she’d check on me. In truth, she’d already gone beyond any expectations in trying to make whatever it was between us work. Meanwhile, I’d shut her down. Repeatedly. “Shortbread, let me get you some medicine and tea.” “I don’t want you to nurse me to health. Do you hear me?” She must have hated that I’d seen her like this. Weak and ill. “Call Momma and Frankie. It’s them I want by my side.” I swallowed but didn’t argue. I understood she didn’t want to feel humiliated. To be taken care of by the man who ensured she understood her insignificance to him. How did her bullshit meter not fry? How could she think I really felt nothing toward her? “First, I’ll get you medicine, tea, and water. Then I’ll call for Hettie to stay with you. Then I’ll notify your mother.” I tugged her comforter up to her chin. “No arguments.” She tried to wave me out, groaning at the slightest movement. “Whatever. Just go. I don’t want to see your face.” I gave her what she wanted, though as always, not in the way she expected. The sequence of actions didn’t proceed as promised. First, I contacted Cara to dispatch the private jet to Georgia. Then I called my mother-in-law and Franklin—separately—demanding their presence. Only then did I enter the kitchen to grab water, tea, and ibuprofen for Shortbread’s fever. Naturally, like the chronic idler he often proved to be, Oliver still sat at the island, now enjoying an extra-large slice of red velvet cake I was pretty sure was meant to be consumed by Dallas. “What are you still doing here?” I demanded, collecting the things I needed for her. He scratched his temple with the handle of his fork, brows pulled together. “You invited me here. You wanted to watch a soccer game, remember?” I did not remember. I didn’t even remember my own address right now. “Get out.” “What about the—” I snatched the plate from his fingers, admitting to myself that I’d treaded into feral grounds. “This cake wasn’t for you to eat.” “You’ve gone insane in the ten minutes you were gone.” Oliver gawked at me, wide-eyed. “What happened to you? Did Durban not get her hands on the latest Henry Plotkin book and take her anger out on you?” Shit. The Henry Plotkin book. I shoved Oliver out with a fork still clutched in his grimy fist, dialing Hettie with my free hand. She half-yawned, half-spoke. “Yes?” “Dallas is ill. You need to come here and take care of her until my in-laws arrive in about two hours.” “Oh, yeah?” Her energy returned tenfold. “And what the hell are you gonna do during this time?” “Freeze my balls off.”(Chapter 58)

You know why I always looked like a slob around you? Because I liked you.” He pulled his face back a little and his eyes went wide. “Yeah. I felt guilty that I liked you so much when I had a boyfriend. So I always tried to look bad in front of you so you wouldn’t know.” He beamed down on me. “So the mud mask and the curlers and that nose strip thing—” “All proof of my enormous lady boner for you.” My buzz made me careless. And I couldn’t care less. “Wow,” he said, looking reflective. “You must have really liked me. You didn’t brush your hair for two days in a row once.” I launched into giggles and he laughed with me, putting his forehead to mine. “And I still thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever met.” I squeezed my eyes shut, breathing him in, feeling his breath on my face. I wanted to hold this moment in suspended animation. These tender stolen seconds. My forehead pressed to his, his warm hand over mine, his heart beating against my palm. Him slowly turning me on a dance floor, telling me I’m beautiful.

Peter did not feel very brave; indeed, he felt he was going to be sick. But that made no difference to what he had to do. He rushed straight up to the monster and aimed a slash of his sword at its side. That stroke never reached the Wolf. Quick as lightning it turned round, its eyes flaming, and its mouth wide open in a howl of anger. If it had not been so angry that it simply had to howl it would have got him by the throat at once. As it was—though all this happened too quickly for Peter to think at all—he had just time to duck down and plunge his sword, as hard as he could, between the brute's forelegs into its heart. Then came a horrible, confused moment like something in a nightmare. He was tugging and pulling and the Wolf seemed neither alive nor dead, and its bared teeth knocked against his forehead, and everything was blood and heat and hair. A moment later he found that the monster lay dead and he had drawn his sword out of it and was straightening his back and rubbing the sweat off his face and out of his eyes. He felt tired all over. Then, after a bit, Susan came down the tree. She and Peter felt pretty shaky when they met and I won't say there wasn't kissing and crying on both sides. But in Narnia no one thinks any the worse of you for that.

We took a hike in Malibu and shared ice cream. I stayed with him while he had walking pneumonia, heating soup and pouring him glass after glass of ginger ale and feeling his fevered forehead as he slept. He warned me of the life that was coming for me if I wasn’t careful. Success was a scary thing for a young person, he said. I was twenty-four and he was thirty-three (“Jesus’s age,” he reminded me more than a few times). There was something tender about him, broken and gentle, and I could imagine that sex with him might be similar. I wouldn’t have to pretend like I did with other guys. Maybe we would both cry. Maybe it would feel just as good as sharing a bed. On Valentine’s Day, I put on lace underwear and begged him to please, finally, have sex with me. The litany of excuses he presented in response was comic in its tragedy: “I want to get to know you.” “I don’t have a condom.” “I’m scared, because I just like you too much.” He took an Ambien and fell asleep, arm over my side, and as I lay there, wide awake and itchy in my lingerie set, it occurred to me: this was humiliating, unsexy, and, worst sin of all, boring. This wasn’t comfort. This was paralysis. This was distance passing for connection. I was being desexualized in slow motion, becoming a teddy bear with breasts.

In order to conform to the current Empire style in fashion, the modiste had raised the waistline so that it fell just beneath Esme's small rounded breasts. Mrs. Benson had embellished further by adding a slender grosgrain ribbon there that matched the exact shade of tiny embroidered golden flowers scattered over the gown's ivory satin. Next she had shortened the sleeves so they were now small puffed caps edged against the arms with more narrow golden ribbon. As for the long length of material that had once run from shoulder to heel, she'd removed it and used the excess fabric to create a sweeping train that ended in a spectacular half circle that trailed after Esme as she walked. The entire hem was further enlivened by small appliquéd white lace rosettes, whose effect was nothing short of ethereal. On her feet, Esme wore a soft pair of ivory satin slippers with gold and diamond buckles that had been a last-minute gift from Mallory and Adam. On her hands were long white silk gloves that ended just above her elbows; her lustrous dark hair was pinned and styled in an elaborate upsweep with a few soft curls left to brush in dainty wisps against her forehead and cheeks. Carefully draped over head was a waist-length veil of the finest Brussels lace, which had been another present, this one from Claire, and in her hands she held creamy pink hothouse roses and crisp green holly leaves banded together inside a wide white satin ribbon.

I didn’t hate her because she was objectively very attractive, although that certainly didn’t help. I’d sometimes catch myself staring sideways, admiring her perfect profile, thinking, Imagine having that, imagine going out into the world with that, with those big, watery eyes and those cheekbones, imagine what that does to a person. I thought that some people had the compassion and intelligence to become fundamentally decent people while also being very beautiful, but that Kate wasn’t one of them. She reapplied her lipstick thirty times a day. She took a selfie every morning and afternoon—not to post or send to anyone, just to look at. She got anxious when she ate carbs. She rearranged her hair and asked for feedback on her posture every few hours. We were once in midconversation about an annoying meeting we had to attend, and she veered off to state “I’ve never had a brown coat,” to no one in particular. I found her a peculiarly oppressive presence—just being near her made me feel anxious. Being beautiful, I suspected, had ruined her life. Sitting next to her, I thought about how exhausting it must be to settle for nothing less than perfection because you had the capacity to obtain it. I felt grateful for my own average looks. My wide and unyielding forehead. My slightly crooked nose. It made me feel like what I was doing was very important and that it could maybe even help people. I started thinking I would work on initiating Kate into the Supper Club as a sort of end goal. If we could get her, we could get anyone.

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d, I stand and look at them long and long.   They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.   So they show their relations to me and I accept them, They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in their possession.   I wonder where they get those tokens, Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop them?   Myself moving forward then and now and forever, Gathering and showing more always and with velocity, Infinite and omnigenous, and the like of these among them, Not too exclusive toward the reachers of my remembrancers, Picking out here one that I love, and now go with him on brotherly terms.   A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and responsive to my caresses, Head high in the forehead, wide between the ears, Limbs glossy and supple, tail dusting the ground, Eyes full of sparkling wickedness, ears finely cut, flexibly moving.   His nostrils dilate as my heels embrace him, His well-built limbs tremble with pleasure as we race around and return.   I but use you a minute, then I resign you, stallion, Why do I need your paces when I myself out-gallop them? Even as I stand or sit passing faster than you.

Why are you making that face, Fern?” Bailey asked. “What face?” “That face that looks like you can't figure something out. Your eyebrows are pushed down and your forehead is wrinkled. And you're frowning.” Fern smoothed out her face, realizing she was doing exactly what Bailey said she was doing. “I was thinking about a story I've been writing. I can't figure out how to end it. What do you think this face means?” Fern gave herself an underbite and crossed her eyes. “You look like a brain-dead cartoon character,” Bailey answered, snickering. “What about this one?” Fern pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows while wincing. “You're eating something super sour!” Bailey cried. “Let me try one.” Bailey thought for a minute and then he made his mouth go slack and opened his eyes as wide as they could go. His tongue lolled out the side of his mouth like a big dog. “You're looking at something delicious,” Fern guessed. “Be more specific,” Bailey said and made the face once more. “Hmm. You're looking at a huge ice cream sundae,” Fern tried again. Bailey pulled his tongue back into his mouth and grinned cheekily. “Nope. That's the face you make every time you see Ambrose Young.” Fern swatted Bailey with the cheap stuffed bear she'd won at the school carnival in fourth grade. The arm flew off and ratty stuffing flew in all directions. Fern tossed it aside. “Oh yeah? What about you? This is the face you make whenever Rita comes over.” Fern lowered one eyebrow and smirked, trying to replicate Rhett Butler's smolder in Gone with the Wind. “I look constipated whenever I see Rita?” Bailey asked, dumbfounded.

Jake tried to pull away from the clutching hand and went sprawling on the Tick-Tock Man's throne. His eye fell on a pocket which had been sewn into the right-hand arm-rest. Jutting from the elasticized top was the cracked pearl handle of a revolver. "Oh, cully, how you'll suffer!" the Tick-Tock Man whispered ecstatically. The O of surprise had been replaced by a wide, trembling grin. "Oh how you'll suffer! And how happy I'll be to...WHAT--?" The grin slackened and the surprised O began to reappear as Jake pointed the cheesy nickel-plated revolver at him and thumbed back the hammer. The grip on Jake's ankle tightened until it seemed to him that the bones there must snap. "You DASN'T!" Tick-Tock said in a screamy whisper. "Yes I DO," Jake said grimly, and pulled the trigger of the Tick-Tock Man's runout gun. There was a flat crack, much less dramatic than the Schmeisser's Teutonic roar. A small black hole appeared high up on the right side of Tick-Tock's forehead. The Tick-Tock Man went on staring up at Jake, disbelief in his remaining eye. Jake tried to make himself shoot him again and couldn't do it. Suddenly a flap of the Tick-Tock Man's scalp peeled away like old wallpaper and dropped on his right cheek. Roland would have known what this meant; Jake, however, was now almost beyond coherent thought. A dark, panicky horror was spinning across his mind like a tornado funnel. He cringed back in the big chair as the hand on his ankle fell away and the Tick-Tock Man collapsed forward on his face. The door. He had to open the door and let the gunslinger in. Focusing on that and nothing but, Jake let the pearl-handled revolver clatter to the iron grating...

Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside. There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor. At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, ‘Goodbye, Daddy!’ and I frowned, and said in reply, ‘Hold your shoulders back!’ Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive – and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from a father! Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. ‘What is it you want?’ I snapped. You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs. Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding – this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years. And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed! It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: ‘He is nothing but a boy – a little boy!’ I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother’s arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much. Instead of condemning people, let’s try to understand them. Let’s try to figure out why they do what they do. That’s a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness. ‘To know all is to forgive all.

He must have seen something in my gaze because he pushed away from the door and moved closer.  He stopped in front of me, and without breaking eye contact, reached into my bag and pulled out a pair of jeans.  He held them out to me and tapped his lips. I smiled widely.  “A kiss for the jeans?” He nodded.  I grabbed the jeans from his loose grasp and tossed them on the bed. He watched me, curious, as I stood and placed my hands on his chest for balance. “I don’t need bribes to kiss you, Clay.  Come here.” His lips covered mine in a move so fast, my head spun even more.  I clutched his shirt in my fists, not sure if it was his kiss or my condition that caused the current wave of dizziness.  His arms circled around me.  I felt safe.  And so desired.  I pressed myself closer, and he increased the pressure on my lips.  His warm breath fanned my face.  One of his hands roamed up to curve around the back of my neck. My heart skipped a beat, and my breathing became more erratic.  I knew he’d hear but I didn’t care.  Standing on my tiptoes, I loosened my hold on his shirt and slid my hands up and around his neck.  I didn’t want him to let go just yet. Tentatively, I opened my mouth and ran my tongue across his bottom lip.  He growled, and his hold tightened fractionally.  A thrill shot through me, heating my limbs and tickling my stomach.  I used my tongue again.  His mouth opened in response.  He took control of the kiss and turned it from tender-sweet to passionately melting.  Our tongues touched.  I stopped breathing.  My world tilted then steadied.  He anchored me.  How could I doubt this?  Us? My lungs burned for air, and he gently pulled away even though I whined in protest.  He kissed my cheek, then my forehead. It took a minute for the world to right itself again while I caught my breath.  Clay placed his chin on my head and held me tight.  My head rested on his chest over his thundering heart.  The kiss had affected him as much as it had me.  It made me smile because now I knew without a doubt; I attracted him, not my strange pull. I

Then, on a left-hand curve 2.8 kilometres from the finish line, Marco delivers another cutting acceleration. Tonkov is immediately out of the saddle. The gap reaches two lengths. Tonkov fights his way back and is on Marco’s wheel when Marco, who is still standing on the pedals, accelerates again. Suddenly Tonkov is no longer there. Afterwards Tonkov would say he could no longer feel his hands and feet. ‘I had to stop. I lost his slipstream. I couldn’t go on.’ Marco told Romano Cenni he could taste blood. His performance on Montecampione was close to self-mutilation. Seven hundred metres from the finish line, the TV camera on the inside of the final right-hand bend, looking down the hill, picks Marco up over two hundred metres from the line and follows him for fifty metres, a fifteen-second close-up, grainy, pallid in the late-afternoon light. A car and motorbike, diffused and ghostlike, pass between the camera and Marco, emerging out of the gloom. The image cuts to another camera, tight on him as he swings round into the finishing straight, a five-second flash before the live, wide shot of the stage finish: Marco, framed between ecstatic fans on either side, and the finish-line scaffolding adorned with race sponsors‘ logos; largest, and centrally, the Gazzetta dello Sport, surrounded by branding for iced tea, shower gel, telephone services. Then we see it again in the super-slow-motion replay; the five seconds between the moment Marco appeared in the closing straight and the moment he crossed the finish line are extruded to fifteen strung-out seconds. The image frames his head and little else, revealing details invisible in real time and at standard resolution: a drop of sweat that falls from his chin as he makes the bend, the gaping jaw and crumpled forehead and lines beneath the eyes that deepen as Marco wrings still more speed from the mountain. As he rides towards victory in the Giro d‘Italia, Marco pushes himself so deeply into the pain of physical exertion that the gaucheness he has always shown before the camera dissolves, and — this must be the instant he crosses the line — he begins to rise out of his agony. The torso lifts to vertical, the arms spread out into a crucifix position, the eyelids descend, and Marco‘s face, altered by the darkness he has seen in his apnoea, lifts towards the light.

You mean you’re not going to kiss my wrist again,” I said. “But that’s all right, because I am going to kiss you.” And I did. If I could keep a single moment for all time, that would be the one. I became the very air; I was full of stars. I was the soaring spaces between the spires of the cathedral, the solemn breath of chimneys, a whispered prayer upon the winter wind. I was silence, and I was music, one clear transcendent chord rising toward Heaven. I believed, then, that I would have risen bodily into the sky but for the anchor of his hand in my hair and his round soft perfect mouth. No Heaven but this! I thought, and I knew that it was true to a standard even St. Clare could not have argued. Then it was done, and he was holding both my hands between his and saying, “In some ballad or Porphyrian romance, we would run off together.” I looked quickly at his face, trying to discern whether he was proposing we do just that. The resolve written in his eyes said no, but I could see exactly where I would have to push, and how hard, to break that resolve. It would be shockingly easy, but I found I did not wish it. My Kiggs could not behave so shabbily and still remain my Kiggs. Some other part of him would break, along with his resolve, and I did not see a way to make it whole again. The jagged edge of it would stab at him all his life. If we were to go forward from here, we would proceed not rashly, not thoughtlessly, but Kiggs-and-Phina fashion. That was the only way it could work. “I think I’ve heard that ballad,” I said. “It’s beautiful but it ends sadly.” He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against mine. “Is it less sad that I’m going to ask you not to kiss me again?” “Yes. Because it’s just for now. The day will come.” “I want to believe that.” “Believe it.” He took a shaky breath. “I’ve got to go.” “I know.” I let him go inside first; my presence was not appropriate for tonight’s ritual. I leaned against the parapet, watching my breath puff gray against the blackening sky as if I were a dragon whispering smoke into the wind. The conceit made me smile, and then an idea caught me. Cautiously, avoiding ice, I hauled myself up onto the parapet. It had a wide balustrade, adequate for sitting, but I did not intend merely to sit. With comical slowness, like Comonot attempting stealth, I drew my feet up onto the railing. I removed my shoes, wanting to feel the stone beneath my feet.

If you know so much,then tell me of Lily or are you too swayed by her beauty?" "Aye,she's beautiful, but also complicated and young.She is an....an opportunist,but not necessarily a selfish one." "Ha.She can be. Lily's world revolves only around her." Tyr chuckled and the sound sent ripples of awareness down her arms. "I'd rather talk about you, Lady Edythe." "I'd rather not." "Lady Edythe," Tyr repeated, drawing out her name. His forehead wrinkled. "No. Don't like it. A girl like you needs a nickname." She hadn't been a "girl" for several years,and Edythe was irked that he saw her as such. "That's one thing I'll never want." "That's a shame.Everyone should have a nickname." "Really,then what's yours?" Tyr licked his lips and in a low voice, lied, "Bachelor." "Fitting," Edythe retorted. "I doubt with your type of self-serving charm, too many women vie to change that status." Tyr clucked his tongue, completely unfazed by her ridiculous barb. "Ed,I think.Little and sweet...just like you." "Thoin," Edythe hissed and moved to walk away,not dreaming for a second that he would know Gaelic and understand what she meant. "Bauchle," Tyr chirped back in retaliation. Edythe spun around, her jaw open, but before she could retort, he added, this time with a Scottish brogue, "Ed,even if I didn't know my own language, certain words are known far and wide, and "ass" is certainly one of them." Straightening, she puffed out her chest and poked him in the ribs. "I may be many things,but untidy, fat, and your wife isn't one of them." Tyr gulped.It had been a long time since he'd spoken his native tongue to a woman who knew Gaelic and he plucked the wrong insult from memory.He had just remembered it being about a woman and knew it wasn't flattering. "You're right. My apologies.But you,my pretty lady, are in desperate need of a nickname. How about one that is more fitting?" "I don't want a nickname," she gritted out. And certainly not one from you, she hissed to herself. Why did he have to call her pretty? And why did she care? "Well,Ruadh,you got one." "Red? Lord,you are the most unimaginative-" "Hmm,when you put it that way...Red...Ed. Quite memorable and easy to say.I like it!" "You would.That nickname-if you can call it that-wouldn't suit a kitchen rat." Tyr shook his head. "I disagree,and just remember that it was you and not I who compared yourself to such a repulsive creature.I would have said...a finch.Yes...small,loud and with a sharp beak.

For some reason, Jase thought it would be really funny to lock me out of the house, and I was furious. I kept banging on the door, but Jase had turned the music up loud so he wouldn’t hear me. He kicked his feet up on a table and kept yelling, “I can’t hear you. I can’t hear you.” I went to Granny’s house and told Kay what Jase had done. Kay went marching back to our house and was hotter than a catfish fry in July. She started banging on the door, but Jase thought it was still me and just kept blaring the music and enjoying having the house to himself. Kay got so angry that she banged on the glass pane and her fist went right through the window, cutting up her hand pretty badly. This caught Jase’s attention. When he saw her hand, he knew he was in big trouble. “When your dad gets home, he’s going to whip y’all’s butts,” Kay told us. I hadn’t even done anything, but Phil didn’t usually conduct and investigation to find out who was at fault. He just whipped whoever was in the vicinity of the crime. Jase and I ran back to our room and padded up with anything we could find-socks, underwear, and pillowcases. We sat on our bed with our butts padded, waiting for Phil to get home, certain we were in big trouble. Phil came into our house and saw the bandage on Kay’s hand. “What in the world did you do?” Phil asked her. “Look at what these boys did,” Kay told him. “Jase locked Willie out of the house, and I was banging on the door for him to let us in. My hand went right through the window.” “Kay, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Why would you bang on a glass window?” Phil said. Phil walked right by her and took a shower. Jase and I were standing there with padded behind, our mouths wide open with relief. Phil was always in charge of disciplining us, but sometimes Kay tried to take matters into her own hands. Unfortunately for Kay, she was really an uncoordinated disciplinarian. One day when Phil was out fishing, Kay announced that she was going to whip us. She grabbed a belt that had a buckle on one end and told us to line up for a whipping. Now, Kay never liked whipping us and always closed her eyes when she swung because she didn’t want to watch. This time, she reared back and swung and missed, and the buckle flew back and hit her right in the forehead. Jase and I just looked at her, started laughing, and took off running into the backyard. I really don’t know how she survived raising us four boys. Korie: Poor Kay! All that testosterone in one house! Maybe that’s why she is so great to us daughters-in-law. She is thankful we took them off her hands. She has definitely enjoyed all of her granddaughters. She has set up a cute little library and a place for tea parties. They have coloring contests and dress-up parties. She didn’t get to do any of that with her four boys so our daughters have gotten the full “girly” grandma treatment.

THE NIGHTGOWN was only the first of the garments in the box. There were seven nightgowns, in fact—one for each day of the week—of delicate silk, lovely georgette, and beautiful tiffany. As Alexandra pulled them out, she draped them on the bed. She’d never seen a nightgown that wasn’t white, but these were almond and pale blush pink, powder blue and soft peach, with delicate edgings of lace and intricate, exquisite embroidery. “They’re stunning,” she said. “Madame Rodale has nothing like them in her book of fashion plates.” Tris just grinned. He seemed different tonight. More relaxed, less worried. She didn’t know what had prompted his sudden good humor, but she didn’t want to question it. She’d rather enjoy it instead. After the afternoon she’d had—starting with Elizabeth’s letter and ending with three fruitless interviews—she wasn’t about to risk the one thing that seemed to be going right. “Are you going to try one on for me?” he asked. Her face heated. He chose a nightgown off the bed, palest lavender with black lace and violet embroidery. “This one,” he said, handing it to her. “Do you require assistance with your dress?” “Just the buttons,” she said, and turned to let him unfasten them. She shifted the nightgown in her hands. It felt so light. “There,” he said when the back of her green dress gaped open. He kissed her softly on the nape of her neck, then settled on one of the striped chairs, sipping from the glass of port he’d brought upstairs with him. “Use the dressing room. I’ll be waiting.” In the dressing room, she shakily stripped out of her frock, chemise, shoes, and stockings, then dropped the nightgown over her head and smoothed it down over her hips. The fabric whispered against her legs. She turned to see herself in the looking glass. Sweet heaven. She’d never imagined nightgowns like this existed. Her nightgowns all had high collars that tied at the throat. This one had a wide, low neckline. Her nightgowns all had long, full sleeves. This one had tiny puffed sleeves that began halfway off her shoulders. Her nightgowns were made of yards and yards of thick, billowing fabric. This one was a slender column that left no curve to the imagination. It was wicked. “Are you ready yet?” Tris called. Alexandra swallowed hard, reminding herself that he’d seen her in less clothing. And he was her husband. Still, wearing the nightgown for him somehow felt more intimate than wearing nothing at all. She was as ready as she’d ever be. Drawing a deep breath, she exited the dressing room, walked quickly through the sitting room, and paused in the bedroom’s doorway. She dropped her gaze, then raised her lashes, giving him the look—the one Juliana had said would make men fall at her feet. Judging from the expression on Tris’s face, it was a good thing he was sitting. The way he looked at her made her heartbeat accelerate. He rose and moved toward her. She met him halfway, licking suddenly dry lips. “Will you kiss me?” she asked softly, reaching up to sweep that always unruly lock off his forehead. It worked this time. He kissed her but good.

I stopped struggling, going limp in his arms. He reached around us and shoved the door closed, spinning around and facing us toward the kitchen. “I was trying to make you breakfast.” It took a moment for his words and their meaning to sink in. I stared dumbfounded across the room and past the island. There was smoke billowing up from the stove and the window above the sink was wide open. Bowls and spoons littered the island and there was a carton of eggs sitting out. He was trying to cook. He was really bad at it. I started to laugh. The kind of laugh that shook my shoulders and bubbled up hysterically. My heart rate was still out of control, and I took in a few breaths between laughs to try and calm it down. He said something, but I couldn’t hear him because the fire alarm was still going off. I had no doubt half the neighborhood was now awake from the sound. He didn’t bother to put me down, instead hauling me along with him, where he finally set me down, dragged a chair over near the alarm, and climbed up to remove the battery. The noise cut off and the kitchen fell silent. “Well, shit,” he said, staring at the battery in his hand. A giggle escaped me. “Does this always happen when you cook?” He shrugged. “The only time I ever cook is when it’s my turn at the station.” His forehead creased and a thoughtful look came over his face. “The guys are never around when it’s my night to cook. Now I know why.” He snagged a towel off the counter and began waving away the rest of the lingering smoke. I clicked on the vent fan above the stove. There was a pan with half a melted spatula, something that may or may not have once been eggs, and a muffin tin with half-burned, half-raw muffins (how was that even possible?). “Well, this looks…” My words faltered, trying to come up with something positive to say. “Completely inedible?” he finished. I grinned. “You did all this for me?” “I figured after a week of hospital food, you might like something good. Apparently you aren’t going to find that here.” I had the urge to hug him. I kept my feet planted where they were. “Thank you. No one’s ever ruined a pan for me before.” He grinned. “I have cereal. Even I can’t mess that up.” I watched as he pulled down a bowl and poured me some, adding milk. He looked so cute when he handed me the bowl that I lifted the spoon and took a bite. “Best cereal I ever had.” “Damn straight.” I carried it over to the counter and sat down. “After we eat, would you mind taking me to my car? I hope it’s still drivable.” “What about the keys?” “I have a security deposit box at the bank. I keep my spare there in case I ever need them.” “Pretty smart.” “I have a few good ideas now and then.” “Contrary to the way it looks, I do too.” “Thank you for trying to make me breakfast. And for the cereal.” He walked over to the stove and picked up the ruined pan. “You died with honor,” he said, giving it a mock salute. And then he threw the entire thing into the trashcan. I laughed. “You could have washed it, you know.” He made a face. “No. Then I might be tempted to use it again.

Show me." He looks at her, his eyes darker than the air. "If you draw me a map I think I'll understand better." "Do you have paper?" She looks over the empty sweep of the car's interior. "I don't have anything to write with." He holds up his hands, side to side as if they were hinged. "That's okay. You can just use my hands." She smiles, a little confused. He leans forward and the streetlight gives him yellow-brown cat eyes. A car rolling down the street toward them fills the interior with light, then an aftermath of prickling black waves. "All right." She takes his hands, runs her finger along one edge. "Is this what you mean? Like, if the ocean was here on the side and these knuckles are mountains and here on the back it's Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, West L.A., West Hollywood, and X marks the spot." She traces her fingertips over the backs of his hands, her other hand pressing into the soft pads of his palm. "This is where we are- X." "Right now? In this car?" He leans back; his eyes are black marble, dark lamps. She holds his gaze a moment, hears a rush of pulse in her ears like ocean surf. Her breath goes high and tight and shallow; she hopes he can't see her clearly in the car- her translucent skin so vulnerable to the slightest emotion. He turns her hands over, palms up, and says, "Now you." He draws one finger down one side of her palm and says, "This is the Tigris River Valley. In this section there's the desert, and in this point it's plains. The Euphrates runs along there. This is Baghdad here. And here is Tahrir Square." He touches the center of her palm. "At the foot of the Jumhurriya Bridge. The center of everything. All the main streets run out from this spot. In this direction and that direction, there are wide busy sidewalks and apartments piled up on top of shops, men in business suits, women with strollers, street vendors selling kabobs, eggs, fruit drinks. There's the man with his cart who sold me rolls sprinkled with thyme and sesame every morning and then saluted me like a soldier. And there's this one street...." He holds her palm cradled in one hand and traces his finger up along the inside of her arm to the inner crease of her elbow, then up to her shoulder. Everywhere he touches her it feels like it must be glowing, as if he were drawing warm butter all over her skin. "It just goes and goes, all the way from Baghdad to Paris." He circles her shoulder. "And here"- he touches the inner crease of her elbow-"is the home of the Nile crocodile with the beautiful speaking voice. And here"- his fingers return to her shoulder, dip along their clavicle-"is the dangerous singing forest." "The dangerous singing forest?" she whispers. He frowns and looks thoughtful. "Or is that in Madagascar?" His hand slips behind her neck and he inches toward her on the seat. "There's a savanna. Chameleons like emeralds and limes and saffron and rubies. Red cinnamon trees filled with lemurs." "I've always wanted to see Madagascar," she murmurs: his breath is on her face. Their foreheads touch. His hand rises to her face and she can feel that he's trembling and she realizes that she's trembling too. "I'll take you," he whispers.

She lay curled up on the ground, one scrawny hand held out as if begging, the other clutching a doll as ragged as she. But her mouth was open, her eyes wide, unblinking. There was a bullet hole in her forehead that looked like a third eye. A dark bruise on her upturned cheek. Gittel had such a dress once, he thought. That blue. Even as he walked on, his eyes filled with tears. A line of a poem sledgehammered into his startled mind. Dance on the streets of Heaven, for you shall never dance here again.

What is this thing we call form, and to what extent do we comprehend our own forms? I have a form, surely, as do you, and let us grant that we’re both conscious even though certain philosophers would argue that assertion—fortunately they’re not here. So! Both conscious. But we have imperfect knowledge of our own forms, let alone our own selves—consider the human man, his last self-image formed at the age of twenty-five, surprised by wrinkles on his forehead as he looks in the bathroom mirror. Deathless Kings’ residual physicalities endure long after they’ve become skeletons—and they perform premortem exercises to stem mental fragmentation. You’d be surprised how frequently and how widely mental image and physical form differ.

Its February 1, 2018, earnings call was almost exclusively dedicated to highlighting its service revenue, which was $31.15 billion in 2017 and could constitute a Fortune 100 company itself. That revenue is growing at 27 percent a year and represents more than half of Apple’s growth. And while its hardware business is seasonal and subject to wide peaks and troughs, its service business shows consistent, predictable growth quarter over quarter. But guess what? Some people still don’t get it! The Q&A session of that last earnings call was dominated by analyst questions around iPhone supply and demand. It’s enough to make you slam your forehead on your desk.

Okay, y’all,” Ashley announced. “This is our dress rehearsal. Our last chance to get everything perfect before the big night tomorrow. Any questions? Ideas? Opinions?” “Yeah, I have an idea.” Slumped on the front steps of the Battlefield Inn, Parker choked down a mouthful of cough syrup and tried not to speak above a whisper. “Let’s call it off. That would really make it perfect. No more ghost tour.” “Walk of the Spirits,” Ashley corrected him, irritated. “Walk of the Spirits. And we’re not calling it off. After all this time? All this work?” “All this suffering?” Roo added. She was perched one step below Parker, and was digging through her pockets for a cigarette. Her face still bore some major bruises from the storm, and a wide gash zigzagged across her forehead, not quite healed. She’d taken great pains to highlight this zigzag with dark, red lipstick. “You like suffering,” Parker reminded her. “And, excuse me, but you’re not the one with pneumonia.” "You don’t have pneumonia. You’re just jealous because Gage was in worse shape than you, and he got more attention.” “Well, it’s almost pneumonia. It’s turning into pneumonia.” Tensing, Parker let out a gigantic sneeze. “Shit, I hate this. I feel like my brain’s ten times its normal size.” Roo gave him a bland stare. “You know, when people lose a leg or an arm, they think they still feel it, even though it’s not really there.” “Will you two behave?” Ashley scolded. “And, Parker, where’s that newspaper article your mom was going to give us?” “Somewhere.” Parker thought a moment, then shrugged. “In my car, I think.” “Well, will you please go get it? The sooner we start, the sooner we can all go home.” “She’s right.” Though unable to hold back a laugh, Miranda came loyally to Ashley’s rescue. “Let’s just walk it through, and read the script, and make sure we’ve covered all the basic information. Ashley, what about your costume?” “I’ve got the final fitting after I leave here.” Ashley’s eyes shone with excitement. “Can you believe Mrs. Wilmington went to all that trouble to make it for me?” “She didn’t.” Parker scowled. “She got her dressmaker, or designer, or whoever the hell she calls him, to make it for you.” “Parker, that doesn’t matter--it was still really nice of your mother to do that.” “You’re a southern belle--how could she resist that?” Ashley shot Miranda a grateful smile. “That was Miranda’s idea.” “It made sense,” Miranda explained. “A costume sets the mood. It’s all about southern history and heritage, so our tour guide should be a southern hostess--hoopskirt and all.” “And I’m the only one who gets to dress up! And I can’t wait to wear it! It’s like cotton candy!” Roo arched an eyebrow. “Sticky?” “No! All pink and fluffy and…sweet. I love the way I feel in it.” “I agree,” Parker said hoarsely. “I love the way you feel in it, too. And I love the way you feel out of it even better.” Roo stared at him. “Wow. You should write greeting cards.

Okay, y’all,” Ashley announced. “This is our dress rehearsal. Our last chance to get everything perfect before the big night tomorrow. Any questions? Ideas? Opinions?” “Yeah, I have an idea.” Slumped on the front steps of the Battlefield Inn, Parker chocked down a mouthful of cough syrup and tried not to speak above a whisper. “Let’s call it off. That would really make it perfect. No more ghost tour.” “Walk of the Spirits,” Ashley corrected him, irritated. “Walk of the Spirits. And we’re not calling it off. After all this time? All this work?” “All this suffering?” Roo added. She was perched one step below Parker, and was digging through her pockets for a cigarette. Her face still bore some major bruises from the storm, and a wide gash zigzagged across her forehead, not quite healed. She’d taken great pains to highlight this zigzag with dark, red lipstick. “You like suffering,” Parker reminded her. “And, excuse me, but you’re not the one with pneumonia.” "You don’t have pneumonia. You’re just jealous because Gage was in worse shape than you, and he got more attention.” “Well, it’s almost pneumonia. It’s turning into pneumonia.

I love you,” Stitch whispered and kissed Zak’s lip piercing. Everything about his man was perfect. Zak stared at him, his eyes going wide, still glossy from the sex. Stitch shook his head with a smile. “You don’t have to say it back. I just want you to know.” Zak took a shuddery breath and blinked, leaning in for a deep, sensual kiss that took Stitch over the moon with its raw need. But good things come to an end, and Zak pulled away, keeping their foreheads together. “You make me feel all those things, you stupid man,” he grunted, gently punching Stitch’s chest. Stitch wrapped his arms around Zak’s waist and kept kissing those glorious lips. He knew tonight, he’d sleep like a baby

He leaned his forehead against hers. “You’re never going to forgive me, are you?” “I forgive you,” she said, fighting the urge to press her lips to his. She meant it. She couldn’t stay mad at him. And even though she didn’t understand, she would do her best not to judge. She was far from perfect herself. Falco exhaled deeply. “That is the best news I have gotten all day,” he said. He leaned back, and his face broke out into a wide smile. “And the second-best news is that my paintings did well at the exhibition. A wealthy artisan from the mainland has offered me work. A lot of work.” “Falco, that’s amazing!” Cass couldn’t resist reaching out to squeeze his hand. “Life-changing,” he said, in a low voice. “Like you. Like us.” Cass opened her mouth to protest, but no words came out. Falco was right. She wouldn’t deny that he had reached deep inside of her and unlocked secret places she had never even known existed. “But the position will mean a lot of travel. Perhaps relocation,” he said. She looked away from him, biting her lip. “You’ll be far away.” Falco nodded. “But I might get to see my family again.” “Your family?” Cass had never even thought to ask Falco about his family, whether he had brothers and sister. “My mother is a washerwoman and my father a cobbler. My brothers all work at the shop. I have a pair of little sisters in a convent in Verona,” he said. “It’s been years since I’ve seen them.” Cass couldn’t imagine what it would be like to grow up in such a large family, with so many built-in companions. “Come away with me, Cassandra,” Falco said, his hands coming to rest lightly on her waist. “I can give you a life now. It may not be quite what you’re used to, but it will be filled with love.

Zeke,” I say when I open the door. “What’s your problem? It’s the middle of the night.” There’s a line of sweat on his forehead, and he’s out of breath. He must have run here. “I was working the night shift in the control room,” Zeke says. “Something happened in the transfer dorm.” For some reason, my first thought is her, her wide eyes staring at me from the recesses of my memory. “What?” I say. “To who?” “Walk and talk,” Zeke says. I put on my shoes and pull on my jacket and follow him down the hall. “The Erudite guy. Blond,” Zeke says. I have to suppress a sigh of relief. It’s not her. Nothing happened to her.

Why isn’t the door locked? You should be more careful!” He winced at the sight of Kellan hugging his knees to his chest and staring at him with wide eyes. His voice must have come out louder than he’d intended. “Is it because of the dragons? I didn’t think a lock could keep out any witches.” Vic rubbed his forehead. Why did I ever tell him that? Then again, it wasn’t as if he could avoid them if he stayed in town. Vic’s chest tightened. He has to stay. “I already explained that you have nothing to fear from our dragons and witches. We’re all good folk here.” “I know, I’m sorry. But Finn used to tell me horrible stories about them. After mom and dad died, he said if I didn’t do everything he told me to do, he’d cut off my ears and sell me to the witches.” Vic crossed his arms as he ground his teeth. He took a couple deep breaths before responding. No need to scare him any more than I already have

him to be inside of me. I ache for it. I crave it. I need to be satisfied soon. I feel like I will die if he doesn’t get inside me within the next three seconds. My mouth drops open on a silent moan when he rubs his wide tip through my wet lips. “One day, I want to fuck you just like this. I just want to slide along your surface, pinch your clit, and when you come, I’ll shoot my seed so deep inside you, you'll feel it for the rest of the day.” “Caden,” I say as I move my head to the side, officially drunk from his words. Without warning, he thrusts all the way inside me with one long stroke, bottoming out. Both of us moan, and he drops his forehead on my shoulder to gather himself. Well, I don’t want him gathered. I clench my pussy, causing him to gasp. “Behave, sunshine.” “No.” I clench my walls again, and a demonic sound roars from his lips. He pushes my head down until my cheek is against the couch. He uses the other hand to latch on my hip, keeping my ass steady as he starts to create a rhythm. He moves faster and faster, gliding

thin glasses that seemed to get lost on his wide red face. His balding forehead glared in the overhead lights. He reminded Bryan a little of that Muppet—the puffy-faced science guy with glasses but no eyeballs on his melon head. “For example, the next time that bell rings, all of you will immediately forget everything I’ve told you. You will scramble for your backpacks, and you will rush out that door without so much as a simple thank-you for all the mind-blowing knowledge I bestowed upon you today. You will do so mindlessly, as you have for the last several weeks of school, because it is a conditioned response. The bell is a stimulus and you are conditioned to act a certain way when you hear it.” Like ducking behind someone taller as soon as you spot Tank Wattly coming down the hall, Bryan thought. Or losing your ability to say anything witty or intelligent whenever this one girl in particular so much as looks at you. “We are all conditioned by our environment. We are all creatures of instinct, driven by our need to survive, but capable of learning through experience. In that way we are actually no different,” Tomlins said, reaching beneath him and pulling up a wire cage from under the table, “from mice.” Susan Onesacker screamed, but the rest of the class bent forward to get a better look at the tufts of white fur huddled against one another in the cage. There had to be at least a dozen of them in there. Beady little red eyes. Twitching noses. Some of the mice lifted their snouts to the air. Others started clawing to find an exit. They didn’t

At my “office” I wear an AR visor on my forehead. The visor is a curved band about hand width wide that is held a few inches away from my eyes for extra comfort during daylong use. The powerful visor throws up virtual screens all around me. I have about 12 virtual screens of all sizes and large data sets I can wrestle with my hands. The visor provides enough resolution and speed that most of my day I am communicating with virtual colleagues. But I see them in a real room, so I am fully present in reality as well. Their photorealistic 3-D avatar captures their life-size likeness accurately. My coworkers and I usually sit at a virtual table in a real room while we work independently, but we can walk around each other’s avatar. We converse and overhear each other just as if we are in the same room. It is so convenient to pop up an avatar that even if my real coworker is on the other side of the real room, we’ll just meet in the AR rather than walk across the gap.

She heard the door close as she examined the dog. "You're looking much better," she told the animal. "Good enough that Jean-Marie might be able to take you outside to wash you. Oh, don't get up." This last was said nervously as the dog climbed laboriously to his feet. "Really, you shouldn't." Eve watched wide-eyed as the animal staggered toward her. "Sit back down, 'please,'" she said, arms raised, but the animal either didn't know what an order was or ignored hers. He walked unsteadily right to her as Eve glanced wildly toward the closed door, hoping that Jean-Marie would make a sudden, early reappearance. And then the animal laid his big head on her knees. "Oh," she said, for she had no idea what else to do. The dog was 'looking' at her with huge brown eyes, his forehead wrinkled up as though he was worried. His enormous drooping jowls were spread like a messy black skirt upon her lap, and the animal's triangular ears were back. Actually it was rather adorable. Hesitantly Eve laid her palm very gently on the beast's head. Slowly the dog's tail swayed back and forth, and he gave a great sigh.

Despite his elegant clothes—black coat and dark gray trousers—he reminded her of a tomcat, tall and large-boned, lacking the polish of aristocrats she was accustomed to. The spill of thick black hair over his forehead should have been slicked back with pomade, and the knot of his cravat was too loose, as if he had been tugging at it unconsciously. Bronson was handsome, although his features were blunted and his nose looked as though it had once been broken. He had a strong jaw, a wide mouth and laugh lines at the corners of his eyes that betrayed a ready sense of humor. She received a strange shock of awareness as she met his gaze. His eyes were a shade of brown so deep they appeared black, giving his alert stare a penetrating quality that made her distinctly uncomfortable. The devil must have eyes like that, audacious, knowing… sensuous.

The sky opened wide to vast and velvety blackness punctuated by tremulous stars. The bright, swirling red moon rode the top of the sky. Only Tora, the smaller of the two gray moons, was visible, hanging grim and freckled along the horizon like a fat, ripe fruit. A breeze tugged at her hair, cooling the sweat that had beaded along her forehead.

a sadistic rapist. He couldn’t get it up unless his victims were visibly overcome by fear. Fear that made their eyes wide, their cries strangled. Fear forming a beaded tiara across their foreheads. He liked them fully conscious and very afraid.

ANGER: Eyebrows squeezed together, brows knitted, eyes squinty, pupils flared, lowered head, nostrils flared, looking upward through a scrunched brow, tight facial muscles, flat lips, flaring nostrils, or an penetrating gaze. CONTEMPT: Squinty eyes, mouth snapped shut, mouth set in a hard line, or lips pressed together, grinding teeth, muscle in jaw twitching, face turns crimson, ears red or hot, or hardened expression. EXCITEMENT: Smile shows teeth, eyes wide, flushed cheeks, eyebrows high, twinkle in eyes, tears in eyes, dimples showing, or raised eyebrows. FEAR: Pale skin, eyebrows are drawn together, trembling mouth, brows furrowed creased forehead, eyes wide and huge, blinking rapidly, mouth opening and closing, or tense, white lips. FRUSTRATION: Slanting eyebrows, jaw tightened, face reddened, chin raised, deep frowning, gnashed teeth, tense eyebrows, squinty eyes, lips pulled back, or mouth twisted to one side. REVULSION: Frowning, gritted teeth, lips drew back in a snarl, lowered head, tense lips, eyebrows drawn together, wrinkled forehead, or pursed lips. SURPRISE: Wide eyes, mouth hanging open, huge smile, flushed face, gaping, raised eyebrows, pupils are huge, and head held back, intense gaze, and eyebrows lifted. SADNESS: Pale face, lower lip quivered, tears shimmered in eyes, frowning of lips, head hangs low, pouty expression, or gaze downcast. HAPPINESS: Smiling big with teeth visible, flushed cheeks, crinkle at corners of the eyes, the corners of mouth turned upward, eyes lit up, tears shone in eyes, face glowing. ***

My stomach drops and Darren shifts, making me wobble. Bruno’s eyes don’t even register Darren’s existence. “All right?” He looks down at the foot I’m favoring. “She’s fine,” Darren says before I can respond. “Are you?” Bruno rests his hands on each of my shoulders and hunches so we’re eye to eye. “Stop,” I tell him, shifting back. Of course he’d try to stake a claim on me now when there’s another guy around. Why can’t I get this much interest back at school? Darren releases my arm and takes a step away. I can’t look at him. “Tell me,” Bruno says, dropping to his knees to assess the damage. His skilled fingers glide all the way down my bare leg. My face flames so quickly, my eyes water. “I stepped on a rock. My ankle fell out.” In my periphery, Darren brings a fist up to his mouth to suppress a laugh. Bruno looks up at me, puzzled. “Your ankle…what?” “It twisted or something. It’s no big deal.” I swipe at my forehead with the back of my hand. “You cannot walk. Look.” Bruno whistles and points to my foot. “It is…” He makes a gesture with his hands, but I can see for myself. My ankle is swollen like a baseball. Chiara bounds down the hill to us, spouting something frantic in Italian. Her wide eyes take in the scene and she’s at my side, relieving me of my backpack within seconds. “Pippa! What--” “My foot. Rock. Twist. Really, it’s a lot less dramatic then you’re all making it seem.

She was throwing stars at him. It was hard to listen. It was hard to look at her. He still felt like he was stealing something. "Lincoln?" she asked. "Yes?" "Do you believe in love at first sight?" He made himself look at her face, at her wide-open eyes and earnest forehead. At her unbearably sweet mouth. "I don't know," he said. "Do you believe in love before that?

The junior executives recommended a variety of different techniques to foster cross-group dialogue and afterward seemed proud of their own ingenuity. Then Jeff Bezos, his face red and the blood vessel in his forehead pulsing, spoke up. “I understand what you’re saying, but you are completely wrong,” he said. “Communication is a sign of dysfunction. It means people aren’t working together in a close, organic way. We should be trying to figure out a way for teams to communicate less with each other, not more.” That confrontation was widely remembered. “Jeff has these aha moments,” says David Risher. “All the blood in his entire body goes to his face. He’s incredibly passionate. If he was a table pounder, he would be pounding the table.