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If a man says he loves you, it's because he wants to control you. That's what I decided. No man says, "I love you so go be free. I expect nothing." Not in my experience, anyway. Every man since my father has loomed his love over me like a sentence.

— Prostitute Laundry by Charlotte Shane (Page 122)

Placing fences around sex to separate it from the rest of your normal life makes it more intense, not safer. I've gotten to practice that rush so many times through work. Not always or even often. But for years, I've practiced parsing out what is real and enduring from what's artificially heightened.

Fucking outside a relationship has no plausible conclusion other than an end. Conventional romantic relationships end too but they usually flourish inside the hope that they won't, that something permanent is being built.

— Prostitute Laundry by Charlotte Shane (Page 118)

We kissed and kept kissing even though his mouth is too much for me, plush and good, and I can't kiss. I try a little but then I stop because men's mouths are a changing puzzle I've had to solve almost every day for almost a decade and sometimes I just shut down, I hate it so much, I don't know how to respond to wanting to do it well. The next day I'd be off on a long date with an old man who leads with his hard, short tongue, his mouth open in a grimace around it, like an animal struggling to eat from a narrow jar.

— Prostitute Laundry by Charlotte Shane (Page 91)

Nei, faen. Nå vet jeg det. Han skal selvfølgelig verve meg. Jehovas vitner? Allahs Allstars? Unge Høyre, Natur og Ungdom, Redd Hvalene? Veldig vanskelig å si med folk som med vilje har brukt slips på videregående, det kan virkelig gå alle veier.

— Kongene av Kongeparken by Maren Skolem (Page 50)

And now I'm beginning to feel so drained and tired that I don't think I can move. I don't even wash my hands and face, I just curl up on the floor and close my eyes, and my eyelids start to get heavy and I can't open my eyes any more. I wonder if when I wake up will I be on my futon, and how nice it will be if I am. I remember a long time ago, maybe before I could have any memories, so it could be a memory that I made up, someone like my dad, when I was half-asleep, picking me up and rocking me and laying me down on my soft futon, and it feels like a real memory that comes back to me at times like this, and maybe tomorrow morning I will find myself tucked up in my futon. I know it's not going to happen, still I think about it because it feels like I am remembering my dad. I hear myself mumbling, Did you bring me here when I was sleepy? I realize that I am speaking to my dad who isn't here, but he must be here somewhere. And I remember the sensation of being in his arms as I fall asleep with my head on the zabuton.

— Ms Ice Sandwich by Mieko Kawakami (Page 70 - 71)