from e. white’s the farewell symphony:
But it was all much simpler than that: ever since I was a kid I’d wanted someone beautiful to belong to me, a man who had beautiful hair, teeth, hands, skin, loins, bones, a beautiful way of walking pigeon-toed, of lifting a spoon seriously, simply to his lips, of scratching his neck, of pissing a full, hard stream, of plunging off a diving board forthright, without fear, of sleeping, one hand cast back, someone with full, plush lips, who had a fine dusting of gold hairs on his stomach and longer, darker, silkier hairs around his scrotum, whose leg muscles are flat and suggested even in repose the power to hold, to clasp, whose skin was warm to the touch as a clay pot left out in the sun, someone so beautiful he’d never had anything but romantic sex, someone who’d never made the first move, whose palms were callused and neck burned from manual labor, someone whose breath was sweet and so warm it fogged up the window on his side of the car, while the other passengers sat beside shamefully clear glass, someone who knew instinctively how to turn up the collar of his blue cashmere coat or to leave his white cotton pajamas unbuttoned to show his scabbard-flat chest, someone blessed with a driving intellectual curiosity so that he’d never had much interest in his own beauty, whose hair was as heavy, thick and straight as a cord that separates a masterpiece from the public.
