All Fours: A Novel

“Remember the Simone de Beauvoir quote,” she said, “ ‘You can’t have everything you want but you can want everything you want.’ ”

“If you were a French man this would all be perfectly acceptable,” Jordi said. She was a really good friend.

I couldn’t imagine what she meant. Now that I knew it was mutual, no pain was possible.

I was speaking now to all my friends and family: You have all missed the point of me.

I used to think everyone knew about the deathfield,

You had to withstand a profound sense of wrongness if you ever wanted to get somewhere new.

Generally speaking, when real pain was involved, there was no reason. No one to hold accountable. No apology. Pain just was; it radiated with no narrative and no end.

But there was enough hypocrisy built into life, one shouldn’t choose it.

“We’re reshaping the calendar. The bookmark worked. Every day is Tuesday.”