“He’d sworn off sex, remember? Not unless he could do it properly, humanly, heartfully.”

“For as long as he could remember, he’d suffered from a vague nagging feeling of being not all there.”

“He’d known Lily forever. Or for as long as he could remember, which was basically the same thing.”

“an arsenal of serious tools that needed to be sworn at to work properly.”

“Did we have sex?" he asked directly.For about two minutes, this might actually be fun. "Eric," I said, "we had sex in every position I could imagine, and some I couldn’t. We had sex in every room in my house, and we had sex outdoors. You told me it was the best you’d ever had." (At the time he couldn’t recall all the sex he’d ever had. But he’d paid me a compliment.) "Too bad you can’t remember it," I concluded with a modest smile.Eric looked like I’d hit him in the forehead with a mallet. For all of thirty seconds his reaction was completely gratifying.”

“Tobie. Unless I'm giving off steam, behave normally. I remember what to do. One foot in front of the other, but not both at the same time unless I'm a robin.”