“And then when she takes him through the whole wine tasting process, finishing with a long, languid taste that she really enjoyed “she opened her eyes and saw Nick staring at her.“I feel like I need a cigarette and a shower after watching that.”

“This cigarette tastes like ass," she said. I wasn't sure what ass tasted like, but she looked like she would know, so I was willing to take her word for it.”

“As i thought about all that surgar running through her veins, i imagined it as a kind of liquid candy. But when i asked her if it tasted sweet, she laughed quietly and said no. It stung, she said. But she needed it. She had to have it. All i could imagine was that candied water burning inside my mother. Like an invisible fire that i could not see or taste or touch or stop.”

“I could smell something. Fear.I could taste it now.It tasted like blood in my mouth, and I could feel it slide through me and open me up when I saw him ...”

“She arches her body like a cat on a stretch. She nuzzles her cunt into my face like a filly at the gate. She smells of the sea. She smells of rockpools when I was a child. She keeps a starfish in there. I crouch down to taste the salt, to run my fingers around the rim. She opens and shuts like a sea anemone. She's refilled each day with fresh tides of longing.”

“She was flushed and felt intoxicated with the sound of her own voice and the unaccustomed taste of candor. It muddled her like wine, or like a first breath of freedom.”