I tilt my head slightly to one side, taking in her blue sleeveless dress which ends a few inches above her knees. She looks exquisite. Definitely perfect for dessert.__ know what I want to eat and it__ not lemon cake._ I say thickly.Heat flares up in her eyes and I know the cake has been forgotten.She wants to be dessert.

As soon as I saw her, I knew I had to stay far away from her. Being with her makes me feel like I__e been starving for so long. Sofia has given me a taste of something I didn__ know I wanted. Something I am now desperate for. Her.

...this refinement and delicacy were what Cale adored; but Cale had been beaten into shape, hammered in dreadful fires of fear and pain. How could she be with him for long? A secret part of Arbell had been searching for some time for a way to leave her lover__lthough she was unaware of this, it is only fair to record. And so as Cale waited for her to save him while he worked out a way of saving her, she had already chosen the bitter but reasonable path of the good, of the many over the one...

When basic human needs are ignored, rejected, or invalidated by those in roles and positions to appropriately meet them; when the means by which these needs have been previously met are no longer available: and when prior abuse has already left one vulnerable for being exploited further, the stage is set for the possibility these needs will be prostituted. This situation places a survivor who has unmet needs in an incredible dilemma. She can either do without or seek the satisfaction of mobilized needs through some "illegitimate" source that leaves her increasingly divided from herself and ostracized from others.While meeting needs in this way resolves the immediate existential experience of deprivation and abandonment. it produces numerous other dif_ulties. These include experiencing oneself as __ad_ or "weak" for having such strong needs; experiencing shame and guilt for relying on __llegitimate_ sources of satisfaction: experiencing a loss of self-respect for indulging in activities contrary to personal moral standards of conduct; risking the displeasure and misunderstanding of others important to her; and opening oneself to the continued abuse and victimization of perpetrators who are all too willing to sel_hly use others for their own pleasure and purposes under the guise of being 'helpful.

If someone slaps you on one cheek, offer the other cheek also...but of course if you were able to stand soberly after the first slap.

The attraction of reading is that it allows you to live, for a few hours, as someone else__rants you access to their head, their thoughts, their secrets.