“You're welcome, ma'am."My head whips up at the ma'am.Not that I haven't heard that word spilled like sticky sweet syrup from a thousand mouths of a thousand boys who've been born and bred to use it everyday.There's something about this boy, the way that word just slides off his tongue, buoyed with cautious respect and elegant pleasure.Like he loves saying the word.Like his lips weigh the worth of it.”

“Is a picture really worth a thousand words? What thousand words? A thousand words from a lunatic, or a thousand words from Nietzsche? Actually, Nietzsche was a lunatic, but you see my point. What about a thousand words from a rambler vs. 500 words from Mark Twain? He could say the same thing quicker and with more force than almost any other writer. One thousand words from Ginsberg are not even worth one from Wilde. It’s wild to declare the equivalency of any picture with any army of 1,000 words. Words from a writer like Wordsworth make you appreciate what words are worth.”

“His head turns fractionally toward me, his eyes darkest slate. I bite my lip.“Oh, fuck the paperwork,” he growls. He lunges at me, pushing me against the wall of the elevator. Before I know it, he’s got both of my hands in one of his in a vice-like grip above my head, and he’s pinning me to the wall using his hips. Holy shit. His other hand grabs my ponytail and yanks down, bringing my face up, and his lips are on mine. It’s only just not painful. I moan into his mouth, giving his tongue an opening. He takes full advantage, his tongue expertly exploring my mouth. I have never been kissed like this.”

“He broke away from my mouth and trailed his lips down the front of my throat. I felt his lips close around my scars. He kissed away their ugliness. His lips parted in tingling butterfly kisses that drained the strength from my knees. I realized he was mouthing words against my skin. Not words. Just one word.Mine.”

“And about a thousand other things," he says, pausing sometimes between his words, making sure he has them right. I get the sense that words are not sufficient tools for him to build what's going on in his head as he stands before me.”

“I hold my finger up to his lips. He flicks his eyes down to look at it."You're absolved," I tell him.He brings his eyes back up to mine. There's no fucking way he knows what that word means. That's a word I dream someone will say to me.So I put it in his language. "You're free.”