Sam > Recent Status Updates

“But she held his gaze as she got up, went around him, her thigh touching his knee as she grabbed the bourbon from his desk. His eyes didn’t leave hers as she pulled the cork cap out with a plink! too loud for the dark room. “Then catch up,” she said. “And tell me what to do.”

3/3

“It was as if he’d confirmed every misplaced feeling she’d had. “Have you been drinking?” he asked now. She raised an eyebrow, brain fuzzy. “Do you disapprove?” “No. I’m wondering if I should catch up.” She was probably too drunk for this conversation, still buzzed on adrenaline and the toxic punch.”

2/3

“Once, she had thought she’d do anything he could ask of her – and now, she still wasn’t sure. She’d looked up at him on that night, ages ago, blood thick in her mouth after she’d pulled out her own tooth, amazed at her capacity to let him unmake her. And then – then he’d lowered himself onto his knees, level with her, and wiped the blood away from her lip with one beautiful thumb.”

1/

“And Gamble’s mouth thinned to a line, the revelation of you’re going to hate this, I’m going to hate this written so clearly between chin and philtrum that it was almost worse than him speaking the words to her out loud.”

2/2

“You okay?” Mila asked, the briefest break in propriety. Gamble was their mentor, their leader into the secrets of the Order – he did not need their help, nor their support, and he reminded them of this constantly. He was superior in every way. But Mila was his favorite.”

1/2

“He was the kind of boy she could’ve fallen in love with, Mila thought every time she looked at his bitter-coffee eyes. New England stock, hair the color of freshly turned earth, handsome in the way of those who never really had to worry.”

“I think,” said Charlie, “that if you keep bending over that desk I’m going to get out of bed and come over there.” She put down the dictionary. “You have a one-track mind, you know that?” “I like to think of it as intellectual focus. Come back to bed.” “Alright,” said Phoebe. “As long as you promise to help me find out what it is.” “Anything,” promised Charlie.”

2/2

“Then he sat up and stared as she got out of bed and padded over to the desk. “You really want to know, don’t you?” “Mmm,” said Phoebe. She leafed through the dictionary. “It’s not in here.” “Well, who cares?” “I do. It’s kind of… odd. A whole department and it’s so obscure.” She looked at him. “Don’t you think?”

1/2

“Lou came in late, leaving her car parked a few blocks away, counting on the stumble back to sober up before she got behind the wheel again. She’d never been very careful with her life; life had never been very careful with her.”

“Daniel woke too early, stretched out as much as the cabriole allowed, the ceiling coming slowly into focus. In the weak light the chandelier was freckled with tarnish, and a long, osseous crack branched out from the canopy in a web of reticulated tributaries – the contour map of some imaginary river system.”

“God,” he said, leaning back against the overstuffed cushions, trying to rub the exhaustion from his eyes. “What would you do?” “Me, or God? Pretty sure those answers would be pretty different.”

“He couldn’t move, transfixed by the smoke that spilled from her lips, entwined in her black-coffee curls. The brush of her hand inside his thigh stung him like an electric shock and he abruptly threw her off.”

3/3

“He’d never looked at her so close before, eyes drawn in half a dozen directions at once – the tiny gap between her front teeth, the treacherous crevice between her breasts, the black widow inked behind her left ear in lines so precise it looked real. He could almost taste the wine, warm and metallic like blood on her tongue as she said, “Something’s bound to… come to you.”

2/3

“She’s going to do what she wants to do, so I’d give her a good reason not to want to have a baby with you.” He squinted down the couch at her. “Like what?” She sat forward, leaned toward him – slowly but suddenly, if such a thing were possible, some strange obliquity in the architecture bending time and space into sublime, phantasmatic shapes.”

1/

“Lou licked a smear of sauce from the edge of her spoon – a snakelike dart of her tongue, purpled by the wine.”

“Even the couch was uncomfortable – a stiff cream cabriole with batting bulging through the gashes in the satin stretched over each arm, as if the miserable thing had tried to slit its wrists.”

“She had instinct more than technique and a fittingly promiscuous repertoire, leaping across styles and centuries with offhand abandon.”

2/2

“He heard nothing for a while but the syncopation of the rain on the roof and the patio out back, the occasional snarl of thunder overhead. But she must have grown bored, because the tumble and creep of piano keys soon filled the staccato silences of the storm. The music sawed on his nerves, not because she played poorly but because she was so carelessly, artlessly good.”

1/2

“Something about serpents and innocent flowers flitted at the edges of her subconscious, but she couldn’t quite grasp it before her phone buzzed in her hand, for the second time that day.”

2/2

“Runs in the family, Daniel had said, and so it did. So what? She let herself into the bedroom. The coverlet was white matelassé gone yellow with age. A silk kimono blushing with cherry blossoms dripped from the bedpost, but the belt had come loose and spooled on the floor underneath.”

1/2

“She still found the blood-and-flesh Alan cute and wonderful, yes, even in his thick wire-framed glasses and retainer, yet the sheer physical reality of him – of his precise, mathematical mind, his gym-sculpted body – failed to incite any emotion in her other than admiration, the kind you feel for a good-looking horse or dog, without any personal stakes.”

“You don’t write stuff like even after we are both in our graves, I hope the ravages of your betrayal torment your withered soul to someone who’s only a friend.”

“And there it was again, pervasive as a haunt – that shivering memory of the rabbit in the mist, its foot mangled and its eyes wide and fearful. A girl dying in the street, her mouth pooled with blood. Somewhere in the bowels of his consciousness, he heard the hinge of fangs snapping shut. Saw the blood-red muzzle of a wolf. He cleared his throat.”

3/3

“The way she peered up at him through her lashes made him feel a thousand things at once and, for a moment, he forgot all about the rabbit in the wood. Swallowing thickly, he asked, “And where will you lead me?” A strange light came into her eyes. A sun-flare sparkle and a starlight twinkle. Softly, she said, “You’ll have to wait and see.”

2/

“I see you’ve relinquished my seat,” he said. “Victory was easier than I expected.” A faint smile caught at the corners of her lips. The feel of it sharpened in his stomach. “I wouldn’t be so quick to count it as a win,” she said. “Maybe this is all part of my plan.” “Yeah? And what plan is that?” “To get you to follow me.”

1/

“When are you going to move out of this motel?” Mollie asked. “Your poor cat is trapped in this room all day.” “Edward, do you want to move?” Edward said nothing. “He loves it here,” I said.”

“Care for some company?” Mollie was behind me in the tub when she asked this. Somewhere between the front door and bathroom she had removed her clothes. What I couldn’t see I could feel. “Sorry I’m running late,” I said. “You’re right on time,” Mollie said. She reached down, confirming how punctual I was.”

“If you want to make the day of a dozen undergrads and cancel class, we could be on for right now.” Mollie’s smile flickered beneath my blind spots. “I aspire to your apathy, Tate.”
2/2

“Mollie joined me in the hall. “Tough crowd,” I said. Her classroom had two doors. She led me halfway between them, out of view from her students. With her thumb and forefinger, she led my chin toward her face. Her full lips did the rest. She whispered, “We’re still on for tonight, aren’t we?”
1/2

“Healy was dismissed during my second year.” “And that would be seven years ago?” “Look at you with the math.” “I used to work in a bank.” “I’ve always liked that about you. There’s no money in poetry, as they say.” “There was no money in banking, either.”