“For you she learned to wear a short black slipand red lipstick,how to order a glass of red wineand finish it. She learned to reach outas if to touch your arm and then nottouch it, changing the subject.Didn't you think, she'd begin, orWeren't you sorry. . . .To call your best friendsby their schoolboy namesand give them kisses good-bye,to look away when they sayYour wife! So your confidence grows.She doesn't ask what you wantbecause she knows.Isn't that what you think?When actually she was only waitingto be told Take off your dress---to be stunned, and then do this,never rehearsed, but perfectly obvious:in one motion up, over, and gone,the X of her arms crossing and uncrossing,her face flashing away from you in the fabricso that you couldn't say if she wasappearing or disappearing.”

“Talent must be a fanatical mistress. She's beautiful; when you're with her, people watch you, they notice. But she bangs on your door at odd hours, and she disappears for long stretches, and she has no patience for the rest of your existence; your wife, your children, your friends. She is the most thrilling evening of your week, but some day she will leave you for good. One night, after she's been gone for years, you will see her on the arm of a younger man, and she will pretend not to recognize you.”

“Take them off," I order and without hesitation she removes them and drops them on the floor. She lifts her cami so I can see her, then rubs her hand over her tummy and over the top of her mound while she watches me. When I look into her eyes she's licking her lips."Do you like what you see?" she asks playfully."You know I do.""Good. When you apologize, you can have some."Oh, hell no. "Let me remind you, as your husband and your Master, I don't need your permission. I'll have some with or without an apology, but because I love you and because it was a shitty thing for me to accuse you of, I'll apologize anyway. So for what's worth - I'm sorry for accusing you of hitting on Sawyer. I love you. Now open your legs like a good wife and let me fuck you.”

“But his words fall away. He looks confused. He looks flustered and sorry. Like you do when you run up to someone you think you know and take her arm and she turns around and you were wrong.”

“When your wondering what to say, or how you look... just remember... she is already out with you. That means, she said yes, when she could've said no. That means she made a plan... when she could've just blown you off. So that means it is no longer you job to make her like you... It's is your job NOT TO MESS IT UP.”

“But the last one: the baby who trails her scent like a flag of surrender through your life when there will be no more coming after - oh, that's love by a different name. She is the babe you hold in your arms for an hour after she's gone to sleep. If you put her down in the crib, she might wake up changed and fly away. So instead you rock by the window, drinking the light from her skin, breathing her exhaled dreams. Your heart bays to the double crescent moons of closed lashes on her cheeks. She's the one you can't put down.”