“I could make better pie-type love with a new stove!I heard his disembodied voice shout back, “Dick territory, babe. Don’t even think about it unless I’m there.”“Chick territory,” I kept shouting. “A stove’s in the kitchen!”“It’s got a plug and weighs over fifty pounds. Totally dick,” he shot back on his own shout.I gave in, turning to the plans while giggling.Totally dick.My old may was funny.”

“It isn't that it's too soon, you're on the back of my bike, it ain't too soon. You can buy sheets. You cannot install blinds." "um..." I mumbled. "Can you explain the difference?" "Sheets are chick territory," he said without delay. "You gotta use tools, that's dick territory." "Oh," I whispered. "Don't tread on dick territory," he advised. "So, um... is a paintbrush a tool?" I asked cautiously. "If you're paintin' the side of the house, yeah. If you're painting mud colored paint in a room, no." "It's terracotta," I said softly. "Whatever," he muttered, his mouth twitching. "Or, the paint chip called it Mexican horizon. The blue is dawn sky." "Definitely chick territory," Tate replied, losing the fight with his grin. "What about...pictures for the walls?" I asked. "Chick," he answered instantly. "Um...could I ask that, instead of you getting angry and being a jerk, maybe you give me a head's up when I'm doing something stupid?”

“I’m like a ventriloquist chasing his own voice. I can whisper and shout at the same time, and this is the closest approximation I have to a description of love. I would offer you something to drink, but I’m not in the kitchen, even though it may sound like I am.”

“Every time I jerked off over the past few days, I thought about you. Forget the chicks—I’m going with the dicks. Well,” he made a face, “one dick, I mean. My own private dick. Start off slow, you know, and then build up to the orgies.”Rhodes brought his lips down onto Wash’s smiling mouth. “My dick,” Rhodes growled against the curve of Wash’s lips. “And my dick only. Remember that.”

“If I could make you stay, I would,’ he shouted. ‘If I had to beat you, chain you, starve you—if I could make you stay, I would.’ He turned back into the room; the wind blew his hair. He shook his finger at me, grotesquely playful. ‘One day, perhaps, you will wish I had.”

“I half expected you to whip out your dick and pee on me as you snarled at him and marked your territory.”