Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that some­times he has to eat them.

—Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.

It’s after din­ner, and while her par­ents are putting the dishes away down­stairs, she’s going down on me, lying on her pink sheets, pants pulled down to my knees. Her brother’s in his room next door, and I’m pressed up against the wall that sep­a­rates us. In my quick­ened breath she hears that I’m on the verge of moan­ing, and keeps me in check with an embar­rased shush.

Without a means to express my plea­sure, all I can say is that I love her.

It wasn’t true. I was just lost in the moment, addicted to the heat of her tongue.

A week later, we broke up.

This is why they have the insan­ity plea. When you catch your wife in bed with another man. When you tell some­one that you love them, because you’re intox­i­cated, get­ting the best head you’ve ever had in your life.

And to this day what I regret the most wasn’t the con­flict I caused in her fam­ily with my even­tual absence, or the tak­ing of her vir­gin­ity, or dat­ing some­one else the day after we broke up.

It was that I couldn’t con­trol my words for those ten lit­tle minutes.