“She cleared her throat and asked, “Do you have a preference?”Christ, was she insane?“I’d love to feel at least one part of you without latex between us.”

“Katie cleared her throat again. Then she looked into the window at her gums. She said, "To change the subject, do you think I could tell if I had gingivitis?”

“I do not mourn the loss of my sister because she will always be with me, in my heart," she says. "I am, however, rather annoyed that my Tara has left me to suffer you lot alone. I do not see as well without her. I do not hear as well without her. I do not feel as well without her. I would be better off without a hand or a leg than without my sister. Then at least she would be here to mock my appearance and claim to be the pretty one for a change. We have all lost our Tara, but I have lost a part of myself as well.”

“But is not one a result of the other?” she asked. “Love and loyalty? I cannot see how could you prefer one to the other.”

“Janies lips part in surprise. She takes it. Feels really strange about opening it in front of him. She wets her lips and examines the box and the ribbon that surounds it. "Thank you." She says softly. "Um..." He clears his throat, "The gift, see is actually inside the box. The box is like an extra bonus gift.It's how we do things here on planet Earth.”

“Is it love to worship a saint in heaven, whom you dare not touch, who hovers above you like a cloud, which floats away from you even as you gaze? To love is to feel one being in the world at one with us, our equal in sin as well as in virtue. To love, for us men, is to clasp one woman with our arms, feeling that she lives and breathes just as we do, suffers as we do, thinks with us, loves with us, and, above all, sins with us. Your mock saint who stands in a niche is not a woman if she have not suffered, still less a woman if she have not sinned. Fall at the feet of your idol an you wish, but drag her down to your level after that- the only level she should ever reach, that of your heart.”