Six years of dreams would end in eternal love, or an eternity of loss.

Pissec approaches Pamela Geiger’s cubicle, itching in rhythm with her. He wants to ask her a question while Kalist is out of earshot. She’s not a grass, he’s sure, but stupid people die first.

Baumauer sits at home in silence in the evenings planning how to impress his rigidly strict father who’s in his late seventies, but who still enforces the same dynamic between himself and his three, guilt-ridden...

A black-haired bitch with man’s hands, widow Liza Van der Bruggenziltch-Finch makes all the important decisions. She is a power-hungry dominatrix. Orwell is her slave. (No one ever sees him.)

And when I slide my tongue between your legs, I’ll lose myself in the sweetness of you. I want to watch your face as the orgasm builds inside you. I want to feel you tremble...

I don’t mind working, holding my ground intellectually, artistically; but as a woman, oh, God, as a woman I want to be dominated. I don’t mind being told to stand on my own feet, not...

Only men with intelligence, confidence and absolutely no empathy at all can progress upstairs.

People who make snide comments to authors like “anyone can write a book” or “well, you did it, so obviously I can/it can’t be that hard” or poke at a book because it’s “romance” or...

The beagles are partying under Geiger’s desk.

Love is a relation that starts before you are born and survives even after you die…

Do I need to fire the little prat yet?” Liza Van der Bruggenziltch-Finch.

Hard and raw, soft and sentimental. How can I know what she wants until I see how she reacts?

It’s late and most of the clerks are at home in their beds, dreaming of swimming in pools filled with real money.

Maxwell D. Kalist is a receiving teller at a city bank, Orwell and Finch, where he runs an efficient department of twenty two clerks and twelve junior clerks. He carries a leather-bound vade mecum everywhere...

If for some reason we get separated, I want you to wait for me. I’ll find you, I promise. – Gabriel Emerson

Heads swivel. Whispers erupt. As Kalist returns to his desk, bone cane by his side, he indulges, briefly, in horse practice, neighing lightly as he scrolls through a few mental images of busty secretary, Geiger,...

I guess if you get too close, the twinkling stops; they don’t look like stars anymore.

Obelmäker is eating at his desk, a habit both Baumauer and Pissec find repulsive.

Everyone should feel alive. Should smash up against passion and danger, against temptation and anticipation. You have to push the envelope sometimes,because otherwise how do you know what your limits really are?

Without pride, man becomes a parasite – and there are already too many parasites.

Each day of the week, Kalist indulges himself in a different, secret ritual. On Mondays, he wears cologne. On Tuesdays, he eats meat for lunch. On Wednesdays, he places a bet after work. On Thursdays,...

Either I’ve got a wart on my nose they find curious, or I’ve grown a tail, Albie Merani muttered to himself. Just then he thought. I’d better get a move on, got work to do....