“Why do you fall in love with the impossible?”

“I wonder if I loved him because I thought no one like you would ever come along.”

“The things we take for granted. The things we never feel we’ll lose. Not missing the water until the well runs dry, and hundreds more tired idioms and metaphors to build monument to the fact that I was drinking in every detail of Dominic’s body like the precious thing it was, quenching the thirst of years with visions of flesh and beauty. It was impossible to believe, suddenly, that I had ever known beauty and excitement before.”

“I never thought people actually woke up the way I did that morning. I always figured it was hyperbole and massive overcompensation to say that you woke up grinning, woke up in a state of contentment and excitement for the smallest things. Even while I was in love formerly, it seemed more like a comfortable thing rather than a giddy, overwhelming happiness. Realize, then, that I had never been joined in a mutual state of infatuation with someone else. My infatuations tended to be unrequited, accompanied by a sense of muted sadness. I sat up at 7:00a.m. without even waiting for the alarm, and kept still there, smiling, looking at nothing and going over yesterday’s conversations, the fevered symphony of emotion ringing forever in my ears.I fell back and actually laughed to myself, reaching for my glasses to slide them on as I stretched out my back comfortably in a lazy, half-waking state.You are in love.”

“Desire. You can't fight that; you can only fight yourself after it hits you...”

“You are already my lover so I cannot offer to make you that. You are already a man so I cannot offer that, either. You are already half of my soul, you are already my religion and my prayer.”

“My lips pursed on the shuddering feather softness of his belly and a sigh broke from Dominic that invaded and destroyed and rebuilt my brain, rebuilt it with a true, unwavering knowledge that I was his now. If he wanted, he could do as he wished, but I knew then that no matter the consequence I would follow his whims, wherever they might lead me.”