“Right, I can't watch this shit." Kacey grunted as he got up. "It's one thing getting a hard-on over you, baby girl. The fact that Tyler happens to be in the picture…I'm freaking slightly.”

“Stop it!" Chas shrieked, stomping her foot. "I will not have my boyfriend fighting if it's not over me! Stop it!""Let's say it's over you!" Tom grunted as he and Coalhouse wrestled with one another. "If he thinks he's gonna finally get a girl, he might grow balls enough to beat me!”

“Juliette, please, tell me what I'm supposed to do. How am I supposed to feel? It's one shitty thing right after another and I'm trying to be okay--God, I'm trying so hard but it's really freaking difficult and I miss--I miss you, I miss you so much it's killing me.”

“How I met Tyler was I went to a nude beach. This was the very end of summer, and I was asleep. Tyler was naked and sweating, gritty with sand, his hair wet and stringy, hanging in his face.Tyler had been around before we met.Tyler was pulling driftwood logs out of the surf and dragging them up the beach. In the wet sand, he’d already planted a half circle of logs so they stood a few inches apart and as tall as his eyes. There were four logs, and when I woke up, I watched Tyler pull a fifth log up the beach. Tyler dug a hole under one end of the log, then lifted the other end until the log slid into the hole and stood there at a slight angle.You wake up at the beach.We were the only people on the beach.With a stick, Tyler drew a straight line in the sand several feet away. Tyler went back to straighten the log by stamping sand around its base.I was the only person watching this.Tyler called over, “Do you know what time it is?”I always wear a watch,“Do you know what time it is?”I asked, where?“Right here,” Tyler said. “Right now.” It was 4:06 P.M.After a while, Tyler sat cross-legged in the shadow of the standing logs. Tyler sat for a few minutes, got up and took a swim, pulled on a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, and started to leave. I had to ask.I had to know what Tyler was doing while I was asleep.If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person?I asked if Tyler was an artist.Tyler shrugged and showed me how the five standing logs were wider at the base. Tyler showed me the line he’d drawn in the sand, and how he’d used the line to gauge the shadow cast by each log. Sometimes, you wake up and have to ask where you are. What Tyler had created was the shadow of a giant hand. Only now the fingers were Nosferatu-long and the thumb was too short, but he said how at exactly four-thirty the hand was perfect. The giant shadow hand was perfect for one minute, and for one perfect minute Tyler had sat in the palm of a perfection he’d created himself.You wake up, and you’re nowhere.One minute was enough Tyler said, a person had to work hard for it, but a minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection.You wake up, and that’s enough”

“Well, you've got the growling part down pat already. Probaly all those years of practice."He began to rise, his legs wobbly."All right, I'm coming back. I just didn't want to be in your way."A grunt. Your not. Or that's what I hoped he meant."You can understand me, can't you?" I said as I returned to sit on his discarded sweatshirt. "You know what I'm saying."He tried to nod, then snarled at the awkwardness of it."Not easy when you can't talk, is it?" I grinned. "Well, not easy for you. I could get used to it."He grumbled, but I coulld see the relief in his eyes, like he was glad to see me smile."So I was right, wasn't I? It's still you even if wolf form."He grunted."No sudden urges to go kill something?"He rolled his eyes."Hey, you're the one who was worried." I paused. "And I don't smell like dinner, right?"I got a real good look for that one."Just covering my bases.”

“This one guy Roland was so weird that during sex his voice altered—as if he were a fucking alien—and he started talking like a baby in a bizarre high-pitched voice. He’d start screaming shit like, “I just want to fuck my baby! I’m your baby! Will you be my baby? Baby? Baby?” For one thing, he couldn’t decide whether he was the baby or the daddy. Make up your mind, freak. I had to force myself out from under him and flee the apartment undressed, clutching my clothes.”