Three Women

desire

• A young woman being called whore and fat cunt. An alleged relationship with her married high school teacher. The fascinating thing was the absence of intercourse.

  TW-011

• She wouldn't mind dying this way. She loses her self-consciousness not completely but enough — slow and doing this rhythm she enjoys so much.

  TW-001

• How much of that wanting was what I wanted from myself — how much of what I thought I wanted from a lover came from what I needed from my own mother.

  TW-008

shame

• Maggie's desire for love, for someone to tell her she was a valuable being, was attacked in the end for its impudence.

  TW-013

• The rumors were that I'd slept with three guys in one night — the truth is they raped me. I didn't know that was the truth until years later.

  TW-007

erotic-as-power

• All eyes glittering with excitement — and then Sloane's husband was behind this other woman, and something inside Sloane stopped. She could feel her actual soul skitter from the room.

  TW-002