4
" When Batty got back home from walking the dogs, there were teenagers lounging all over the place, some left over from the basketball game, some arriving for the birthday dinner, some who fit into both categories. For once, she hardly cared, too delighted to see that Oliver's sleek car was no longer in the driveway. Hoping that he was gone forever, she rushed into the house and ended up in the kitchen, where dinner preparations were in full swing. Mr. Penderwick was chopping up vegetables for quesadillas, Rosalind was pulling a cake out of the oven, Jeffrey was shredding cheese, and Iantha was cooking up small, plain cheese quesadillas for Lydia, who was to be fed before the big dinner got rolling. Then there were the non-workers: Lydia in her high chair, wearing both her crown and her lamb bib, her new pink rabbit beside her; Jane sitting cross-legged on the floor, in everyone's way; Ben, strutting around, showing off his new Celtics T-shirt; and Asimov, sticking close to Jeffrey, hoping for falling cheese. "
― Jeanne Birdsall , The Penderwicks in Spring (The Penderwicks, #4)
5
" No. No… No!’ the fear ebbed my voice, cut through me like a knife. I ran, bare feet slipping and sliding over the floorboards. I turned the corner and headed for the backdoor.
Run. Run. I must run.
As soon as I reached the backdoor in the kitchen, pulling the barn door from the hinges, I felt his gaze upon me. Cinders and kindling crunched at my feet; what had once been my lovely mahogany kitchen furniture was now little more than firewood. My crockery and china splintered in shards and as I turned to face him, I felt them dig into my skin, cut me with every shiver that bolted through my frame.
‘You wanted Hemlock House. You have, Hemlock House.’ His voice was dark, cruel and yet hauntingly light. As if cooing, whispering to a newborn. He was lounging against the countertop as if waiting for breakfast, as if waiting for something so meaningless. "
― Charlotte Munro , Skeletons in The Closet [A Horror Collection]
11
" Syn stared into Furi’s sparkling eyes. He brought one hand up and tenderly brushed Furi’s cheek. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” Furi kissed his lips gently. “I’ll be fine. I’m a big boy.”
“I know you are.” Syn winked.
Furi flushed with embarrassment. “Shut up. Don’t start something you can’t finish.”
“I’ll finish it later,” Syn promised. His look was pure lust as he pushed his rising cock against Furi’s jean-clad thigh.
“Fuckin’ right you will,” Furi moaned against Syn’s cheek, rocking back against him. “I’d fuckin’ take you right now if your bosses weren’t in the front room.”
Syn groaned.
Furi gripped Syn’s cock in a firm grip and stroked a couple times, wrapping his other arm around Syn’s back to hold him close. He nipped at Syn’s stubbled chin, peppering sweet kisses along his jaw to his ear. Furi flicked his tongue out and pulled the fleshy lobe between his soft lips. Furi’s lips were pressed against his ear as he spoke in a low, sexy drawl, “I’d bend you over this sink and fuck you until you yelled my name and begged me not to stop.”
“Fuck,” Syn moaned. Heat tore up through him at Furi’s nasty words.
“Fuck you hard, just how you like it, baby.” Furi increased the speed of his stroke.
“Oh fuck, fuck. No. Stop honey,” Syn protested weakly, his balls already throbbing with the need for release.
“Why?” Furi hissed.
“Because I fucking refuse to let Day hear me come.” Syn put some room between their bodies and kept backing up until he hit the wall. He tried to control his breathing, but staring at Furi’s gorgeous, flushed face didn’t help.
“You guys are crazy.” Furi shook his head.
“Day’s pranks have no boundaries. I wouldn’t be surprised if my moans are broadcasted over the loudspeaker in the office today.” Syn opened the bathroom door and gestured for Furi to look out into the hallway. “See.”
Furi busted out laughing at Day standing there in the hallway with his cell phone in his hand, studying the non-existent art on Syn’s bare wall. He whistled like he was just lounging around not looking for trouble. Syn just flipped him off and pulled Furi into his bedroom, slamming the door behind them.
“Oh my fucking god. That shit is too funny.” Furi laughed while he put a few things into his backpack.
“Yeah, because you don’t’ have to deal with his silliness.” Syn hurried to get dressed. "
― A.E. Via
12
" Same time as every day, Fyl..." she fussed, the rest of the bridge crew seeming to hold their breaths. " TWELVE THIRTY!" came the chorus. The next hour dragged by, in about the same way as the hour before that. At twelve twenty-five, Commander Ortez found himself stepping out of an elevator into an equally mundane grey steel corridor on his way to the mess hall. Turning a corner, he met with a stream of crewmen milling around between shifts. Some off-duty personnel were lounging around in civvies, which consisted mostly of re-revamped 60's hippy fashions. Of all the places on the ship, the mess was the most spacious, (i.e.: it was a big mess.) The command officer’s balcony overhung the rest of the crew dining area. Ortez sat at his usual place, wincing as he remembered to get someone to fix the springs in his chair. An ensign, 3rd class dressed in chef’s white, served him with a plate of what either ended up feeding the chefs latest pet - or strangling it. Marnetti, Barnum and the sciences officer Commander Jaris Skotchdopole filed in, not necessarily in that order, and found seats. After a few bites, Marnetti -- who was the first officer and navigator, put up a hand and signalled a waiter. The lad approached fearfully, appreciating the highlight of his day. "
15
" There was just enough room for the tonga to get through among the bullock-carts, rickshaws, cycles and pedestrians who thronged both the road and the pavement--which they shared with barbers plying their trade out of doors, fortune-tellers, flimsy tea-stalls, vegetable-stands, monkey-trainers, ear-cleaners, pickpockets, stray cattle, the odd sleepy policeman sauntering along in faded khaki, sweat-soaked men carrying impossible loads of copper, steel rods, glass or scrap paper on their backs as they yelled 'Look out! Look out!' in voices that somehow pierced though the din, shops of brassware and cloth (the owners attempting with shouts and gestures to entice uncertain shoppers in), the small carved stone entrance of the Tinny Tots (English Medium) School which opened out onto the courtyard of the reconverted haveli of a bankrupt aristocrat, and beggars--young and old, aggressive and meek, leprous, maimed or blinded--who would quietly invade Nabiganj as evening fell, attempting to avoid the police as they worked the queues in front of the cinema-halls. Crows cawed, small boys in rags rushed around on errands (one balancing six small dirty glasses of tea on a cheap tin tray as he weaved through the crowd) monkeys chattered in and bounded about a great shivering-leafed pipal tree and tried to raid unwary customers as they left the well-guarded fruit-stand, women shuffled along in anonymous burqas or bright saris, with or without their menfolk, a few students from the university lounging around a chaat-stand shouted at each other from a foot away either out of habit or in order to be heard, mangy dogs snapped and were kicked, skeletal cats mewed and were stoned, and flies settled everywhere: on heaps of foetid, rotting rubbish, on the uncovered sweets at the sweetseller's in whose huge curved pans of ghee sizzled delicioius jalebis, on the faces of the sari-clad but not the burqa-clad women, and on the horse's nostrils as he shook his blinkered head and tried to forge his way through Old Brahmpur in the direction of the Barsaat Mahal. "
― Vikram Seth , A Suitable Boy (A Bridge of Leaves, #1)
