What if the novel in you is one you yourself would never read? A beach novel, a blockbuster, a long, windy, character-driven literary drama that ends… - Alexander Chee

In the occult, good manners matter, as they do in life, and perhaps even more so.

The animal will be tender with you, and you with it, but the animal never forgets that when what it wants for survival requires your death, it will become unafraid to kill you. And so you cannot forget this, either. It is, on reflection, good training to be a courtesan. A woman of any kind.

That boys do things together and it's a secret. That we are boys and not men dressed like children, surprised by the passage of even a year. And as he kisses me I try to decide, if he likes secrets better than kisses. After, I decide it's kisses.