Untie My Heart

On the roof, on the duvet under the steam vent, with the planets overhead, he let her scream all she wished. She screamed into the night. To the stars. At one point, with his lying atop her, he said, “Look over my left shoulder. Venus is visible tonight.” Then he pulled the covers away from her, wrestling her for the duvet, as he called, “Here she is, all you Venusians”—he lifted out his arm, using it to span the celestial horizon-—“and the rest of you planets out there: the most beautiful woman on Earth, spread-eagled for your pleasure!” He laughed. “At my disposal, mm-m-m!” He bent down, nibbling, kissing her neck with his teeth, his lips, his mouth.

You’re brave. You’re good. Why would you hesitate to explore yourself? Your dark nooks and crannies? With someone who is fascinated by the whole of you? You aren’t a bad woman, merely a human one, which entails a certain amount of”—he cocked his head—“‘awfulness,’ as you call it.

He looked for gestures, afraid of words

A harem," she murmured into his neck and laughed at last at the notion. "I can't believe you had a harem. You are hilarious, Stuart." He laughed. At himself. "I hated men. I loved women. I wanted them all. It seemed logical to start to accumulate them.

I can't protect you from mean people, because they're everywhere, but I would be nice. That much, I can promise." "Fine," she said. "If I"m pregnant, you can marry me." He folded his harms and contemplated her motionlessly from the dark. Then said, "Not that nice.

Tied up a lot of women, have you?" He raised one eyebrow, whatever that meant. "A bit odd, are you?" She was being sarcastic, trying to taunt him into a sense of guilt. While perhaps bursting any bubble in herself of misguided, soft-hearted concern for a man with sad eyes and complicated wealth. Though his sexual inclinations were perhaps not the wisest of barbs to do either. He looked down at her, speculative. "Difficult to say." He actually answered the question seriously. "Legally? Decidedly. But then British laws on the subject are so guilt-ridden I'm surprised we've propagated as a race." He mad a small, grim smile. "How delightful we're having this conversation. And what is it you like?

A man in cahoots with a woman’s sexual instinct was the devil himself, for he had the united power over her—himself and her own longing—greater than a mere man

She went about that afternoon looking under sheep like a pervert, happy with all the dark, purple-pink tissue at their hindquarters. New lambs in the spring.

Yes, besides English, I can stutter my way my into Russian, Turkish, Arabic, French, and some Farsi, Urdu, Punjabi and a bit of Kurdish.” He laughed at himself. What he liked best about the next was that she didn’t deny it, yet spoke immediately. “I like the rhythm of your speech. It’s interesting.” She blinked, looking sheepishly sincere, then added, “I, um, have to be careful sometimes or I’d find myself imitating it, answering back in the same rhythm, or some facsimile of it.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t do it as well. But sometimes I know just how you’ll say a sentence, before it’s out, and I want to say it too, like wanting to dance with you.

When it comes to sexuality, I’m perfectly adolescent about it. No,” he recanted, “more like an eight year old. I play. I have no shame. Only imagination.

First, I figure out what you want. I seduce you with that. Then, there is the harder job of figuring out what you need — and the two are almost never the same thing. The need goes much further. And here is the challenge; to give you what you don’t know to want, Emma, yet need so badly that, when presented with it, no matter how embarrassing or naughty, you can do nothing but surrender to it.

Oh, Stuart. You think you can do anything. It’s one of your great charms, but it’s also one of your most aggravating qualities when you think you can move unmovable mountains.

You had no right." Oh, yes, he did. He suggested, "Why don't you write that down. Put it in my handwriting. Perhaps I'll chance to read it, think I wrote it: Maybe then I'll believe you.