Marsha > Recent Status Updates

Within the moonlight, she could see the life of the night not normally available to her senses. Bugs crawled on leaves, and a bird startled high up in a tree. Beneath the grasses and old leaves, a snake pushed its way toward a mouse, moving the air around it ever so slightly. The whole of the night clicked and purred about her. The moonlight itself seemed to vibrate and bring to life each and every thing.

The mother closed her eyes. What must it be like to sit among women with the same animating vitality? To build vast empires and heretofore undreamt worlds? To control the exchange of ideas, the evolution of a society? She had never really been all that interested in traditional success or power, but for a moment she saw the appeal of it, of an empire ruled only by women.

The silence in the classroom thickened around us. The only sound was the clock on the wall, ticking down the minutes, Alexandria swallowing hard. She glanced at Tabitha. "I'm kind of thirsty," she said. "Could I have a glass of water?"
Tabitha pointed to her backpack. "You've got a bottle sticking out of your bag, there," she said.

His words stir up images in my brain. Standing in the middle of this re=created world, it's easy to picture the royalty that once filled this place, the grand lives they would have led. Back when casting full magic was celebrated, done out in the open. When no one had to hide their power because everyone had the same kind. People in silks and velvets drinking Wu teas while they pulled power from the earth.

I had visited Schofield College on occasion, mostly for scientific lectures and to avail myself of their capacious library. Being here had always made me feel intellectually stimulated and closer to Mum. I had often pictured myself dashing across the grounds one day, in my black academic robes, from lecture hall to examination, taking up my own university education.

"Professor Leighton was their teacher. She fell from the belltower--"
"Campanile," Caroline corrected me.
"--and vanished into thin air. Her name was Olive Blackwell. Just like the Display."
"How chilling!" Caroline's eyes darted about the room, as if the ghost of Olive Blackwell might leap out from the shadows. Which was, I reflected, more or less what had happened this morning, in the shop.

"I've always known I would make a better ruler of Herat than my brother," Lethia said. "He was more interested in tinkering with toys than ruling a kingdom. But despite our ages, despite my skill at strategy, at politics, at everything that makes one fit to rule, no one ever considered that I would be the better choice. Because there wasn't ever going to be a choice. Not when my brother had Grace and I did not."

"Tell me," the woman had said. "How much money have you made at my card table these past few nights?"
He'd blinked at her. "I'm not cheating."
"I never said you were. I asked how much you'd made."
"Why? Do you want to make me a better offer?"
One eyebrow arched, a thick swoop of amusement. "Tell me your name."
"I'm no one."
She had only smiled at him, and Anton had felt stripped bare beneath her gaze.

"Here you are, a democracy--free--the power in the hands of hte people. You let that group of conservatives saddle you with a constitution which has so interfered with free action that you've forgotten you had it. In this ridiculous helplessness--you have sat open-eyed, not moving a finger, and allowed individuals--mere private persons--to help themselves to the biggest, richest, best things in the country."

It was a beautiful world, but it was not my world. It was like a beautiful dream, but seemed a dream nevertheless. I could no longer dispute that it was possible for people to be "healthy, wealthy and wise"; and happy, too--visibly happy--here they all were; working and playing and enjoying life as naturally as possible. But they were not the people I used to know.

"You remember the hideous poverty and helplessness of the old days--did that 'spur' the population to do anything? Don't you see, John, that if poverty had been the splendid stimulus it used to be thought, there wouldn't have been any poverty? Some few exceptional persons triumphed in spite of it, but we shall never know the amount of world loss in the many who did not."

"I'm coming." Artemis climbs into the backseat of the car. So much for talking with Leo. And I'm pretty sure he was on the verge of telling me something big. Personal, even. She leans forward. "I can't believe you're doing this, Nina." I shrug, but Artemis is right. Even when I've disagreed with the Council's tactics and ideologies, I've always done what they told me.

The warbot addressed the sand-sniper. "Unidentified assailant, please back away immediately. I will be forced to immobilize you if you do not comply." That invader wawnts your food, Eva thought out to the sniper. It will take your food and kill all of your food-fingers.

Grandmere reached up to her ruined face and took the edges of the wound in her lavender gloves. she grabbed and pulled. And darkness poured out. The room filled with crows, more than I could possibly count. Wings and beaks and eyes, shrieking, tearing at my face and hands. When they cleared, I saw what Grandmere really was. The soft old woman who smelled of violets lay crumpled in a heap on the floor.

GASTON WAS GROWING RESTLESS. HE had spent the past few weeks doing what he normally did--hunting, participating in eating contests, taking one of the local girls out for dinner. but he was wondering when Belle would finally return. Maurice was no doubt long gone. He wasn't going to return to bother Gaston, and when Belle came back from wherever it was she had run off to, the path to their marriage would be clear.

Let's talk about the boys' roles in sexting. To some boys the collection and exchange of sexts is basically the teenaged version of baseball card trading. It's all about the chase,a bout eliciting sexts from the elusive hot girls. And it's about boys having power over one another--as one boy put it to me, "I have the Derek Jeter card and you don't."

YOU: "Lauren, why do you think I'm flipping out?"
LAUREN: "I didn't do anything, and you're acting like I killed your dog!"
YOU: "I'm telling you that I don't like it when you embarrass me around Mike and Jack."
LAUREN: "OMG! I am totally not doing that! You are being so overly sensitive!"

Have you noticed that some girls will use any excuse to dress up in sexy costumes? Halloween is the most obvious example, but girls will do it whenever they feel they can get away with it. Note that I don't mean get away with it with you but with their peers.

"Look, we made an agreement about how you could post things onto the Internet. I know what you did was an honest mistake, but it's important to take responsibility for your actions. To the best of your ability, you are going to remove the post. You are also going to ask your friends if anyone forwarded it to any other social networking site and you're going to do whatever you cant o pull that down as well."

When Aaron had thought about going home for Christmas, he'd assumed he'd alternate between quiet days while his mother went to work and long, uncomfortable evenings with her when she was home. These assumptions, however, were all made PG: Pre-Giles. To start, Giles came over at least every other day. He apologized profusely for being less available, for taking Aaron on such lame dates.

"My dad...doesn't do shades of gray. Only his way or the highway. My mom didn't like how often he traveled. Said she wasn't sure she wanted to be married to someone gone so often. The confession was her way of saying it hurt her, how often he was gone."
"What did he do?"
"Served her divorce papers before he went to bed."
Giles drew back. "Are you kidding me? You're not, are you. Jesus, what an asshole."

He'd had to call Dustin at work several times to pick up cat food or milk or laundry detergent, and the fact that Dusty had been all copacetic about it and hadn't teased him at all told Quinlan all he wanted to know about how not okay he was.

The wine was already going to Teddy's head. He could feel it curling along the neurons, tickling them, goading them to behave in ridiculous way. The only question was how the neurons would react. Would he end up dancing on the tables in this nice restaurant or sobbing underneath them? Only time would tell.
"What's your dream?" he asked, hoping to maintain a steady course as long as possible.

She didn't seem inclined to shed any light on the matter, rising from her seat and pouring tea from a shiny silver pot into three delicate china cups. "They're rather plain, aren't they?" she asked, indicating the cups, which were white and unadorned. Since she seemed to want an answer and Romeo looked blank, Teddy stepped in. "I guess you wouldn't want anything to compete with the pot itself. It's gorgeous."

It hadn't occurred to him until he came out of the hood to find Brad holding his phone, flipping whey-faced through his gallery, that he should have found someone new to be his backup. Brad stopped on an image of Adam bound, gagged, glasses dangling, nipples clipped, face twisted up in pain, then looked up at Adam as if he didn't recognize the man standing in front of him.

Patch realized Tucker would do it, drag him into a public john in a twenty-four-hour cafe and milk his nut with folks outside a thin door and in the street besides. Do it? Hell, he'd enjoy it more, savor the slow suffering. "Nossir. I'm good right here with you. I'd better wait."

You want to talk about tight. Tight and hot. God, he felt like a fever inside. Hot, soft velvet. Slick with lube. Two fingers were hard on him, but I got it done, and I snaked them deep inside and brushed his prostate. He bucked into my mouth and groaned. I did it again. And again.

The extended honeymoon didn't have an end date. Ander and Rafe would return to New York at some point, settle back into their apartment, and then Ander would launch his label with Rafe as his business manager. "Couples working together, being fabulous in New York--what a wonderful and interesting reality show that could be," Ander had said, right before Daniel had called him fucking insane and hung up.

"The future is a realm...unavailable to him," Jasmine said. "The only time he managed to foresee anything, it involved complicated blood magic and the sacrifice of the one dearest to him." "Oh, holy heavens," Morgiana said, suddenly getting it. "The parrot. That's why it's on all his coins and flags and everything. That was the one dearest to him. What a complete lunatic."