Beyond these moments, she could hardly count the fumbling ministrations of boys in high school who, even to her senior prom, never went beyond sticky pleasantries. With one exception, it was just a sort of half-clothed handshake for bragging rights, none hers.

Private moments held not a candle to coitus, not even the expensive kind of candle that made the whole room smell of far off seasons.

It seemed inequitable at best that one could and did gain a reputation for things that left one both physically and emotionally unsatisfied.

Roselyn adored the scent of sex, the wafting aroma of angel fontanels before they earn their halos.

There is little worse than when the person to whom you want to apologize is having great sex in your room.

There might have been prettier women in the room but, when she turned those babies on, fluttered her eyelashes, I was hers. It had taken me nearly fifteen years to extinguish their light. Now, when she looks at me, it's a vacuum. I had drained so much from her over the course of our marriage that every glance rips a little bit of my soul away to fill the void I had whittled within her.