“He could take happiness from her, but could he give any?”

“He'd wanted to take her dirty and take her sweet, take her any way he could get her and every way he could dream up”

“He wanted her. Her. Nothing could take that away from her. Ever. He wanted her, not the status he thought her purloined name could bring him”

“He wanted to do things to this woman. He wanted to make her feel the way a good boyfriend would – desired, wanted, craved. She deserved all that. He could give it to her now. He could give it to her for a week.”

“He couldn't help but give in to the occasional temptation to replay past events in his mind, altering them, changing them from cruel to comfortable, from sad to happy, from unfair to accommodating. Anything was possible in his imagination. Any ending. If only thinking it could make it so.”

“He felt like a man in a small boat under which a huge sea creature has passed, causing the boat to pitch gently. Like a man in a boat, he could chase it or run from it, and he picked chase. If he felt it on her lips, he put his mouth on her lips. If he found it on the palm of her hand, he opened her hand and licked it up. Her soul darted here and there, sensitive as any creature, tipping her center of balance back and forth as it oscillated. She liked this, and if she had any fear, she did not take it seriously. He liked it, too, so much that he could barely concentrate on the chase.”