“Because people should not be punished for loving and hoping and holding their hearts open.”
“It's a kilt, dumbass. It's only a skirt if I'm wearing underwear.”
“[...]Are both of you...?"
"Manscaped?" Dante smiled. "I'm fucking Italian; I been mowing my lawn since I was thirteen.”
“For the first time in his life he understood why the Bible called sex "knowing". Everything was different. Now he knew Dante. He'd known Dante. And wonder of wonders, Dante had known him right back.”
“Just then Dante leaned against him, brow between his shoulder blades for a moment, so tentatively Griff held his breath. His voice was almost sheepish. “Nah. Everyone knows I was born defective. They didn’t instal you until later.”
“You tell him for me: if he fucks with you, if he lays one Russian knuckle on you, your buddy is coming after him and someone's gonna need a screen door to fish out the pieces.”
“If your heart is broken, do you have a phantom heart?”
“People need space; families need air; love needs light. Like Mrs. Anastagio always said, ―You need enough rooms to love someone properly.”
“Your life needs an airbag. I swear, Anastagio, you should have come equipped when you were born.”
“Gotten butt-ass, bone-dog naked for your vadge-cam?" Dante offered with an angelic smile, standing close.
"Fucking hell, D." Griff turned to Beth with an apology, but she spoke first.
"Huh-yeah. Thanks, cockbreath.”
“Dante chuckled low. "There's my blush."”
“So damn jealous! Like I can see anyone but you.”
“No. Look, the mutual tug paid extra.” Dante mimed jerking and squirting without looking embarrassed, which only made Griff more embarrassed. “And the
stuff you did at the end bumped our fee even—”
“I know, man. Sorry about—”
“—more. Bullshit, sorry! Blowing your jazz on me got us a three hundred dollar bonus. Didja know that?” Dante rolled his eyes and waved away the worry.
“Dude, if I could get a fee every time you squirted on me, I’d camp under your bed and have you doing it three times a day.”
Help me, Jesus.
Griff’s eyes honest-to-God bugged at that.”
“Griff groaned and covered Dante's loose mouth with his own, driving his tongue in to steal the stars from his eyes, the fire from his mind.”
“Everything was so nutty with Loretta, all her reactions. She used tantrums like most people used sedatives”
“It was the list of activities thing. Like the menu with price, only I'm not the restaurant; I'm the meal.”
“I'll take Classic 69 and semen-swapping for $300”
“The smile on her face was almost Dante's. Tears pricked his eyes, then hers, while all those impossible things passed between them. While the truth was sending down roots and throwing out branches until it filled the silent room with impossible blossoms.
I love him.”
“Griff's pretty neat on his own. Scottish hedge!”
“Trust this: drinking until you go away from the world only wastes moments of your life. All that time is lost. And time and love are incredibly precious. Yes? Don't waste either.”
“He needed me to make it okay.”
“The world is different, but folks are the same, huh?”
“Because I love you!"
There it was, out in the air. Griff's eyes got wide. The words had come out angry, but Dante had meant them. He couldn't open his perfect mouth and swallow them back.
His face softened. "In love, I mean. With you. For so long.”
“I want you to move in with me, man."
"Nah. I appreciate it, but I need to get a place of my own. I'm a grownup.”
“Griff held his breath while Dante's hand slid against the side of his soft bulge. He tried to remember that they were just two friends joking around on the corner in Brooklyn.(...) "Yeah. I coulda…you don't have to play undersea treasure hunt in my damn pants."
"Gotta watch out for that electric eel." Dante closed his hand over the ring and winked and pulled his fist out.”
“Hey, Alek, you want us to, you know, weed-whack at all?" Dante tugged at his pubic hair. "Clip the curlies."
"Uh, no. Our members prefer natural hair. Are both of you...?"
"Manscaped?" Dante smiled. "I'm fucking Italian; I been mowing my lawn since I was thirteen. My brother taught me."
Jesus. "I'm not." Griff's eyes bulged. He'd never thought about trimming down there.
Dante gave his crotch a once over. "Griff's pretty neat on his own. Scottish hedge!”
“Whatsamatter?" Dante scraped a hand over his abs, his neck, the side of his face--collecting his jizz. He sucked his pleasure off his lower lip. "I gave myself a fuckin' necklace.”
“Dante climbed back on top of him, sitting on Griff's round butt to knead his shoulders. "I just wanna try. It'll be fine. No big deal. Maybe a massage first? Two dudes. That'd be okay right?"
What was he asking?
"And then, I want you" -Dante leaned forward, pressing his chest against Griff's muscular back, lips against his ear -"to fucking turn yourself loose on me.”
“Perhaps that was his way of punishing himself. Masochism. People torture themselves more terribly than anyone else could.”
“Maybe a massage first? Two dudes. That’d be okay, right?” What was he asking? “And then, I want you”—Dante leaned forward, pressing his chest against Griff’s muscular back, lips against his ear—“to fucking turn yourself loose on me.”
“wished the Citroën were an automatic. He could have put it in drive and let it commit suicide on its own. The stick meant he had to push it over the edge.”
“in my first American
class—a freshman chemistry class during the 1969-70 academic year—
they looked at me as though I was supposed to be their nurse because
they were paying a stiff tuition. That's another concept I had to learn—
in American private schools we worked for them because they paid the
tuition, but in Egypt we were educating them.”
“Can I get to the bottle of Old Crow and mix it up with the remains of these ice fragments...a cool drink for the freak? Give the gentleman something cool, dear, can't you see he's wired his brain to the water pump and his ears to the generator...”
“Somewhere squidgy. Your belly, maybe?”
“I can’t believe you called my belly ‘squidgy.’ It’s not squidgy, it’s pillowy. And sexy!”
“No individual element in your story, including the hero, will work unless you first create it and define it in relation to all the other elements.”
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