Charlotte Stein

“You know it feels good. I can hardly geta…I don’t even…”There was something amusing about watching him trying to form a coherent sen-tence. Amusing, but arousing at the sametime.”

“Why not? It's true. I don't even laugh for anyone but you."She hesitated, for that one. Did he really mean that? Surely not."Tim seems like a really funny guy." She tried, but all it did was make his mouth form that mean line."Tim pees in the kitchen sink.""Well, okay. I could atleast promise not to do that, but even so-”

“A vagina. Were you really that mystified there, or are you actually not sure?’‘Sure about what?’Goddamn, he needs to finish his sentences.‘About the benefits of having a vagina.’‘Look – I know the benefits, OK?’I totally don’t. Currently it feels like an angry animal that wants to eat him, between my legs.”

“And I want the heart. I do. I don’t care if it’s black with despair and riddled with rot. I’d live inside the bits of him that are barely functioning, if I could. I’d spend the rest of my days trying to piece him back together, if he’d let me.”

“I’m not some sex addict trying to sort myself out. I don’t get a high from fucking everything that walks. I get a high from wanting someone as much as I want you. From actually thinking that for once … for once in my life someone actually cares enough to cry because they think they’ve messed me up.”

“I’m quite aware of what I am, Kit. I know how people look at me. I’m the guy you see in some bar, being loud and obnoxious. I’m the jock at your college, throwing a basketball onto your desk as you’re trying to study. I know I am. But I want more than that now. I’m too old to be playing games any more.”

“He's fucking stone cold deadpan. His pan is so dead he could lay it in a casket and bury it at Bellevue. They made a movie about him once: Dawn of Ivan's Pan.”

“You're a bad girl, trying to force me over the edge. ... But you don't have to. I'm already there. I'm already lost in you.”

“Girl with a pie, I’ll call it. It’s almost like guy with an axe, if you squint hard enough.”

“Apart from the obvious psychological problems, he’s the perfect man.”

“There were times, many, many times, when she just didn't get him. She'd heard on numerous occasions that men were bad, wicked creatures, who'd do terrible things at a moment's notice. You wore the wrong skirt or bent over at an inopportune time and BAM. They slipped their penises into you.”

“The bath wasn’t the best thing. Lying with him spooned up against her, listening to the rain rattle against the glass and his voice like a rolling wave…that was the best thing.”

“What can I give you? I--""You give me everything.”

“See—this is the problem. You don’t even get where this is going. You can’t just ask me to come in, or kiss me, or tell me you want to know what smoking pot feels like. When I’m close to you I feel crazy, okay? When you say my name I feel crazy. It’s not…the right thing for you. I don’t think I can just…be your friend.”

“Everything had been cloaked in sensuousness, to the point where details seemed fuzzy and languid.Like the cuff of his sleeve stroking over the back of her hand, or the feel of his breath stirring against her lips. Her lips had grown seventy thousand nerve endings between yesterday and right now, and they seemed to buzz whenever he moved.”

“Whereas this…this was wet. His lips sank into a rhythm obviously familiar to him—like a kind of slow rock over her mouth—and there were times when she felt his tongue, hot and slippery. Times when he insinuated himself right against her and that same slipperiness made her go all funny inside.”

“He suggested devils, skulls, harsh masculine drawings. This thing was…heart poundingly good. She wanted to pluck it, and bury her face in it, and keep it in a vase by her bedside.”

“His voice sounded like molten metal. As if he had something thick at the back of his throat and it was making him sound deeper and richer than he actually was.”

“Just that one word—sound—sent a strong answering pulse through her body. His tongue curled around syllables that weren’t there, like a promise. This is what you’ll get, if you just let me hear.”

“And there was something both frustrating and maddeningly arousing about that. His restraint made something burn low and deep in her belly, and then his mouth, oh God his mouth. He tasted like cinnamon, again, and every now and then he’d pull away, just a little — just enough to make her want to drag him back. Before giving her a teasing lick with that perfect, curling tongue of his. It set all the nerve endings in her upper lip on fire.”

“Dear God, she couldn't give this man sex. She could barely give it to Van, and he currently smelled so good she just wanted to shove her face under his t-shirt and eat whatever she found there.”