It would never have seemed remotely possible that someone so thoroughly okay with himself might want me to share his body as much as I ached to yield up mine.

What I didn't realize was that wanting to test desire is nothing more than a ruse to get what we want without admitting that we want it.

He would never know, just as the people we buy the newspaper from and then fantasize about all night have no idea that this particular inflection on their face or that tan along their exposed shoulder will give us no end of pleasure when we're alone.

Fire like fear, like panic, like one more minute of this and I'll die if he doesn't knock at my door, but I'd sooner he never knock than knock now.

He kissed me on the mouth, but it wasn't the kiss after the Pasquino, when he'd pressed me hard against the wall on via Santa Maria dell' Anima. I recognized the taste instantly. I'd never realized how much I liked it or how long I'd missed it. One more thing to log on that checklist of things I'd miss before losing him for good.

No, there’d been another time yet. In my sleep, when he came into my bedroom and lay on top of me, and I pretended to be asleep. Correction there again: in my sleep I’d heaved ever so slightly, just enough to tell him, Don’t leave, you’re welcome to go on, just don’t say I knew.

Wanting to test desire is nothing more than a ruse to get what we want without admitting that we want it.

Was our intimacy paid for in the wrong currency? Or is intimacy the desired product no matter where you find it, how you acquire it, what you pay for it, black market, grey market, taxed, untaxed, under the table, over the counter.