Arnetta Scorgie

“She turned and walked towards Krupp. She moved like smoke from the end of a cigarette in a still room, languorous, smooth. Her beauty stopped the conversation of the few people she walked past. Eyes of envy, lust, admiration, longing, followed her every move as she glided through the sumptuously furnished, dimly lit Champagne Bar. Krupp realised she was moving through the room deliberately towards him. He held his breath again as she approached him. His heart thumped against his lungs, making it hard to breathe out. Krupp sat up and he gulped when she saw him and looked straight into his eyes. He felt a tingle up his spine as she seemed to float, slowly, like a ghostly spirit between the tables. He wondered if she was real or a spectre. This could not possibly be Freya, he thought, and yet there was something …
She arrived at the table. She relaxed a knee. Their eyes met, a small smile on her lips. Krupp suddenly remembered his manners and stood, hauling himself up with the aid of his stick and the arm of the sofa. It could not have been an elegant move, he thought with annoyance. He should have remained seated.
“May I join you?” she said in perfect German.”
― Hugo Woolley, The Wasp Trap

“He thought what happened to me would … destroy, would disillusion me about the Bureau, and he enjoys seeing the destruction of faith, it’s his favorite thing. It’s like the church collapses he used to collect. The pile of rubble in Italy when the church collapsed on all the grandmothers at that special Mass and somebody stuck a Christmas tree in the top of the pile, he loved that.”
― Thomas Harris, Hannibal

“Mrs. O’Dowd, the good housewife, arrayed in curl papers and a camisole, felt that her duty was to act, and not to sleep, at this juncture. “Time enough for that,” she said, “when Mick’s gone”; and so she packed his travelling valise ready for the march, brushed his cloak, his cap, and other warlike habiliments, set them out in order for him; and stowed away in the cloak pockets a light package of portable refreshments, and a wicker-covered flask or pocket-pistol, containing near a pint of a remarkably sound Cognac brandy, of which she and the Major approved very much; ... Mrs. O’Dowd woke up her Major, and had as comfortable a cup of coffee prepared for him as any made that morning in Brussels. And who is there will deny that this worthy lady’s preparations betokened affection as much as the fits of tears and hysterics by which more sensitive females exhibited their love, and that their partaking of this coffee, which they drank together while the bugles were sounding the turn-out and the drums beating in the various quarters of the town, was not more useful and to the purpose than the outpouring of any mere sentiment could be? The consequence was, that the Major appeared on parade quite trim, fresh, and alert, his well-shaved rosy countenance, as he sate on horseback, giving cheerfulness and confidence to the whole corps. All the officers saluted her when the regiment marched by the balcony on which this brave woman stood, and waved them a cheer as they passed; and I daresay it was not from want of courage, but from a sense of female delicacy and propriety, that she refrained from leading the gallant--personally into action.”
― William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

“With our beloved prairie voles the female has her ovulation induced by the smell of male urine. It’s a sure sign there’s a male nearby and so her body gets ready for mating. The exact opposite of a human female getting a whiff of urinals in a nightclub and her vagina falling off in disgust”
― Sara Pascoe