“I fell into a sound sleep and dreamed that I was at a banquet back in Gion, talking with an elderly man who was explaining to me that his wife, whom he'd cared for deeply, wasn't really dead because the pleasure of their time together lived on inside him.”

“Everything he said sounded wonderful, but it wasn't true. I was desperately insecure and I did care what people thought. Jackson wasn't really talking about me. He was talking about an idea of me he'd concocted in his head. As soon as he remembered me and my true weaknesses in the clear light of day, he'd be as cruel this time as he had been the last.”

“But I never thought of who he wasn't, I never had to explain or defend him to myself, I didn't even care what we talked about.”

“I dipped into his brain. He wasn't happy that I wasn't wearing a bra, because my boobs distracted him. He was thinking I was a bit too curvy for his taste. He was thinking he'd better not think about me that way anymore. He was missing his wife.”

“I began to feel that all the people I'd ever known who had died or left me had not in fact gone away, but continued to live on inside me just as this man's wife lived on inside him.”

“Kid, show me a man who doesn't go down on his wife and I'll show you a man whose wife I can sleep with, tonight.”