Is Lisa going to the prom?' I shelved my worries for the moment. 'I don't know, Mom. We don't talk about the You-Know-What. We made a pact.' You could go together, if you didn't want to mess with dates and things.' I don't want to mess with the prom ...
Karma has been a pop culture term for ages. But really, what the heck is it? Karma is not an inviolate engine of cosmic punishment. Rather, it is a neutral sequence of acts, results, and consequences. Receiving misfortune does not necessarily indicat...
When I throw back my head and howl People (women mostly) say But you've always done what you want, You always get your way - A perfectly vile and foul Inversion of all that's been. What the old ratbags mean Is I've never done what I don't. So the shi...
Jacques practically choked on his coffee. Did she just suggest what I think she did? “Jerard is a close friend of mine. He’s a great...” He stopped the worthless chatter about Jerard. He had to know. “Are you a submissive?” Her eyes flicked...
If I order an appetizer is there any chance I can get it quickly? I'm two and a half months pregnant with a Bradford," she said, not mentioning it was twins because the thought was actually starting to scare her and she hadn't told Trevor yet and did...
With a regrettable sigh he shook his head. "I'm sorry, but this isn't going to work out." "What the hell are you doing, Trevor?" Hank demanded anxiously. No doubt the man wouldn't be getting laid tonight, but Trevor couldn't help it. He had his stand...
Above his head at street level, he saw an angled aileron of a scarlet Porsche, its jaunty fin more or less at the upper edge of his window frame. A pair of very soft, clean glistening black shoes appeared, followed by impeccably creased matt charcoal...
What a shame," signed the Dodecahedron. "They're so very useful. Why, did you know that if a beaver two feet long with a tail a foot and a half long can build a dam twelve feet high and six feet wide in two days, all you would need to build Boulder D...
The filling of the Holy Spirit brings a sharp separation between the believer and the world. Actually, after Pentecost, they were looking at another world. They really saw another world. Nowadays, we perceive that even a large part of evangelical Chr...
A few days later, Tuesday quietly crossed our apartment as I read a book and, after a nudge against my arm, put his head on my lap. As always, I immediately checked my mental state, trying to assess what was wrong. I knew a change in my biorhythms ha...
You really want my honest opinion?” I ask. Anton gestures for me to go on. “Please, this is why I hired you, devochka.” I detect a little hint of sarcasm, but I go ahead and say, “I hate restaurants like this.” “Why?” He seems genuinely...
Emerson lifts his head. His eyes are two dark pools of desire, a clouded night’s sky. He catches his breath a moment, unsteady, and then drops a kiss on my lips. Sweet. Almost tender. I barely have time to take it in before he grabs my shoulder and...
Every deal can be closed. Every prospect can become a buyer. Every no can turn into a yes. In any market. In any economy. There is always an angle. There is always another attempt. There is no law against how much you can prospect, or how many times ...
Cosmos drew himself to his full height. His cavernous chest swelled and his wings and various other appendages spread open, encompassing all the land and the rain-filled skies. “Henceforth,” he boomed, “you shall call me your Omniarch, or Creat...
Anyhow, I took every stitch of clothing off and got out of bed. And I got down on my knees on the floor in the white moonlight. The heat was off and the room must have been cold, but I didn’t feel cold. There was some kind of special something in t...
In Paris the cashiers sit rather than stand. They run your goods over a scanner, tally up the price, and then ask you for exact change. The story they give is that there aren't enough euros to go around. "The entire EU is short on coins." And I say, ...
She remembered one of her boyfriends asking, offhandedly, how many books she read in a year. "A few hundred," she said. "How do you have the time?" he asked, gobsmacked. She narrowed her eyes and considered the array of potential answers in front of ...
Each cherry took about three seconds to eat. Three seconds to eat, but at least five years in the making. It seemed unfair to the hard-working cherry tree. The least I could do was to devote my attention to the cherry in those three seconds, really a...
I’d like to sit there,” I said softly to the girl sitting in front of the other mirror. She scampered. I took over her abandoned make-up and painted my face. Red cheeks, to attract hungry vampyre glances. Black liquid eyeliner and mascara, to dra...
They were worried about keeping military families strong. They were worried about the stress and strain of prolonged military service and how it would affect our military readiness the next time a Hitler-wannabe reared his ugly head. As they made a l...
It was language I loved, not meaning. I liked poetry better when I wasn't sure what it meant. Eliot has said that the meaning of the poem is provided to keep the mind busy while the poem gets on with its work -- like the bone thrown to the dog by the...
