"Little fat detective whose name I don't know"-her voice had a tired huskiness in it, and a tired mockery-"you think I am playing a part, don't you? You think I am playing for liberty. Perhaps I am. I certainly would take it if it were offered me. But- Men have thought me beautiful, and I have played with them. Women are like that. Men have loved ( Read more... )

She crosses the complex room dense with its supple hides, lemon-rubbed teak, rising snarls of incense, bright optical hardware, faded Central Asian rugs in golds and scarlet, hanging open-ribbed wrought-ironwork, a long, long downstage cross, eating an orange, section by acid section, as she goes, the faille gown flowing beautifully, its elaborate ( Read more... )

   Alone, he all at once remembered that he and Pamela had once disagreed, as they disagreed on everything, on a short-story they'd both read, whose theme was precisely the nature of the unforgivable. Title and author eluded him, but the story came back vividly. A man and a woman had been intimate friends (never lovers) for all their adult lives. ( Read more... )

Sometimes I forget completely ( Read more... )

In the tavern are many wines-the wine of delight in color and form and taste, the wine of the intellect's agility, the fine port of stories, and the cabernet of soul singing. Being human means entering this place where entrancing varieties of desire are served. The grapeskin of ego breaks and a pouring begins. Fermentation is one of the oldest ( Read more... )

I've got to tell you ( Read more... )

I had this thought a while ago ( Read more... )

Entering the same room, they crackle with the electricity of their solitary loving ( Read more... )

Love is not all: It is not meat nor drink ( Read more... )

The time is now propitious, as he guesses ( Read more... )