The Principle of Desire

erotic-as-power

• My skin is a closely guarded secret...it bears Ivan's marks like an ever-changing tattoo. Sunset colors, rose and violet and gold.

  PDS-001

• He'll call me a good girl later. That was always a highlight...Ivan was complicated beyond belief, but in that way he was simple; he never hid his agenda.

  PDS-006

• Nobody is in charge, here. She yanked away, breathing hard...she returned to the kitchen and slumped over.

  PDS-003

intimacy

• With Ed, she wanted them to make up the rules together as they went along—too much like work instead of play.

  PDS-008

• Her expression had gone from blissful to closed-off...fat tears pattering on his arm. He finally figured out this was her about-to-cry face.

  PDS-009

self-and-identity

• For the first time it occurred to her that they could have sex the way people did everywhere. The very notion was exotic to her, like a kink.

  PDS-007