""Your hair never quite lies flat here." He touched my head, just behind my ear. "I don't think I've ever told you how I like it."
My scalp prickled where his fingers had been. "You haven't," I said.
"I should have." His hand drifted down to the vee at the base of my throat, drew softly across the pulse.
"What about this? Have I told you what I think of this, just here?"
"No," I said.
"This surely, then." His hand moved across the muscles of my chest; my skin warmed beneath it. "Have I told you of this?"
""That you have told me." My breath caught a little as I spoke.
"And what of this?" His hand lingered over my hips, drew down the line of my thigh. "Have I spoken of it?"
"You have."
"And this? Surely, I would not have forgotten this." His cat's smile. "Tell me I did not."
"You did not."
"There is this, too." His hand was ceaseless now. "I know I have told you of this."
I closed my eyes. "Tell me again," I said.
LATER, ACHILLES SLEEPS next to me. Odysseus' storm has come, and the coarse fabric of the tent wall trembles with its force. I hear the stinging slap, over and over, of waves reproaching the shore. He stirs in the air stirs with him, bearing the musk-sweet smell of his body. I think: this is what I will miss. I think: I will kill myself rather than miss it. I think: How long do we have?"
-The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller














