All My Friends Are Fictional’s Reviews > The New Life > Status Update

That sense of himself, as a marvellous secret, persisted. […] He had seen this quite quickly, seen that the sex instinct might be a great engine for happiness, if only it could be liberated from shame. […] His determination to realise this role was the life spring concealed behind his shyness, the motive that, in his own mind, excused it - indeed had come to justify it, as a necessary shield against distraction.

“How to define extremity? The greatest extremity? Lust, not as quickened heartbeat or lurch into dizzy possibility, but as lagging sick-ness, a lethargy. Lust as slow poisoning. Lust as a winter coat worn in summer, never to be taken off. Lust as a net, cast wide, flashing silver, impossible to pull in. Lust as a thousand twitching, tightening strings, sensitive to every breeze. Lust as a stinking, secret itch.”