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.

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.