“She has all the right equipment to look sexy, pretty even. She just overdoes everything-like she's a coloring-book women who got scribbled on by a toddler,”

“The Thing Isto love life, to love it even when you have no stomach for it and everything you've held dear crumbles like burnt paper in your hands, your throat filled with the slit of it. When grief sits with you, its tropical heat thickening the air, heavy as water more fit for gills than lungs; when grief weights you like your own flesh only more of it, an obesity of grief, you think , how can a body withstand this? Then you hold like life a face between your palms, a plain face, no charming smile, no violet eyes, and you say, yes, I will take you I will love you, againEllen Bass”

“My insides contract- bad. "who are you?" I ask right out loud. And he says what I've been afraid of since I killed Lester's father. Haven't you guessed? I'm you. The real you.”

“You have an amazing imagination!" "I Know," I say, smiling back at her. "my head is chock-full of gruesome ideas”

“Virginia Woolf killed herself. She was a lesbian—or maybe she was just a woman writer.”

“But, after one quick trace of his tongue between her lips, he abruptly pulled away and stepped back from her. She was leaning into him so hard he had to put his hands on her shoulders to steady her.Catherine’s eyes flew open. Releasing her shoulders, he pointed past her to the books he’d set on the desk.She opened her mouth to protest, but closed it again. As she followed Jim, she caught a glimpse of his profile when he picked up the books and slate. There was a smug grin on his face. He was toying with her, teaching her a lesson—that two could play at heating things up and abruptly cooling them down.Indignation and amusement competed in her as she took her seat beside him and he handed her the paper he’d written. She hadn’t set him any homework. He’d done it on his own, printed a brief description of their picnic in short sentences or single words. It wasalmost like a poem without rhyme. “Fish swim water. Sky. Trees. Leaves. Eat food. Drink.”She smiled at him. “Very good.”He touched his lips, puckering them ina kiss, and tapped the signing book.“Kiss,” she said and looked up the sign for it. “Fingers touching thumbs as bothhands come together,” the text said. Her cheeks flushed as she read, “trembling slightly to indicate the degree of passion.”Catherine made the movement as she repeated the word aloud. “Kiss.”Jim copied the movement, shaping his lips like hers. He pointed to the slate and offered her the chalk so she could spell the word. He studied each letter as she wrote it, before printing them himself: K-i-s-s.Catherine’s cheeks flamed even hotter from seeing it written in glaring white against the black slate. Kiss. Kiss. Somehow there seemed to be no denying or hiding it now that it was written down. She glanced at Jim’s lips and her nipples tightened at the memory ofhis mouth sucking them.”

“When she’d finished, she cut the thread with a pair of scissors, patted the wound once more and stepped back. “Better.”“No bandage?”She shook her head. “No bandage. Need air.”“All right. I guess you’re the doctor.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her onto his lap. Even in the midst of inflicting pain she’d aroused his lust. “Don’t I get a reward for being a good patient?”“I don’t understand.” She delivered the all-purpose phrase he’d taught her.“Reward. A kiss.”The grooves in her cheeks flashed as her lips turned up. “Yes, you need a kiss.” And she bent her head to give him one.”