Tipping the Velvet: A Novel

these men who thought I was like them, like that — well, that was not to be pestered; it was to be, in some queer way, revenged.

coins and canes and flowers, there was a private language, in which we held an endless, delicate exchange of which the crowd knew nothing. This was a language not of the tongue but of the body,

The man had looked like Walter; I had pleasured him, in some queer way, for Kitty’s sake;

A double act is always twice the act the audience thinks it: beyond our songs, our steps, our bits of business with

I could not help it: I had fallen in love with Kitty; now, becoming Kitty, I fell in love a little with myself.

Indeed, I seemed to want her more and more, the further into boyishness I ventured.

my own felt wet and sore and naked in the bitter December breezes, as if her kiss had flayed them.

to love her in his company, than out of it.

I thought I had my queer desires cribbed and chilled and chastened.