Filthy Animals

intimacy

• They were connected by that single fiber, that single black thread of hair — he could graph the function of its growth, imagine the derivative.

  TAY-FA-RC-146

• He put his cold fingers under Lionel's shirt and held them there against his skin. He could do this, could give his heat, at least.

  TAY-FA-RC-154

trauma-and-survival

• There was no why. No coherent theorem. It had been all gesture, as empty an idiom as the references from the potluck last night.

  TAY-FA-RC-150

• It was the first time he had told someone about it. His throat was hot from talking and from trying to make himself known to another person.

  TAY-FA-RC-072

shame

• Charles's ability to copy not only his actions but the attitude each action contained was uncanny — Lionel had the feeling of watching himself in a mirror.

  TAY-FA-RC-152

• There were a million tiny ways to make someone feel bad about something that didn't involve saying anything directly.

  FAB-RC-098