“Listen, kiddo,” he said. “I’m a selfish prick, and I want to be the greatest fuck of your life and ruin you for every man who comes after me. But I’m not a mind reader, so I need some help. Otherwise I could end up as the douchebag who’s got shitty taste in wine and totally traumatized you when you were thirty.”

“I’m a selfish prick, and I want to be the greatest fuck of your life and ruin you for every man who comes after me. But I’m not a mind reader, so I need some help.”

“You taste so fucking amazing.” He brought his head up and Laurel could see the violent rise and fall of his chest. “Sit on my face,” he said.”

“I spend forty to fifty hours a week at everybody’s beck and call. When I’m off, I want what I want, the way I want it.”

“You ever been fucked by a man’s mouth?” The way he said it, I knew he wasn’t talking about any kind of oral I’d experienced. I’d been teased and spoiled and serviced by guys’ mouths, but no, I hadn’t been fucked…”

“And I realized something I never had before. Deep down, I want to be seen as an object too. I want to be coveted and sought after. I want to be taken apart and understood, reassembled, filed away in Didier's cabinet. I don't even need to be pretty to have this. I only have to allow him to open me up.”

“Is six a.m. too early to watch The Bachelor and mock all the giggly, desperate women?""Go for it. Though I bet it'd work better as a drinking game," Laurel said. "One shot for the flirty arm touch. Chug if they strip and bum-rush the pool." Anne hit play. "Like they'd get their hair wet."Laurel stared at the screen, laughed at Anne's comments but felt another weird pang upset her insides. "Would you say this show makes something incredibly complex--you know, relationships--into something mind-numbingly vapid? Or does it make something actually rather simple into a big fucking circus?""Both. That's why I love it.""I couldn't stand competing for a man like that," Laurel murmured. "I don't have the right...programming for it. Like to fight like that. Some people get an adrenaline rush and they're like foosh, give me somebody to beat down. I just, like curl up into a ball and want to hide." "I'm somewhere in the middle," Anne said. "I'm like a ninja. I'll like, come out of my shadowy hiding space and beat you down, bitches. You won't even see me.”