In November of 2004, I didn’t write a novel. This is a series of excerpts from all the novels I didn’t write that month.

She was thinking about the way Perry used to whisper across her throat like a silk scarf. Which made her feel naked and uncomfortable. She didn’t trust the touch of silk. It seemed too delicate for her clumsy mouth and fingers.

But this one! This one felt like tree bark. More real, more alive, more immediate beneath her fingertips. Not that she could touch him yet. The more she looked, the more she wanted to run her thoughts between the convolutions of his mind, to find it rough and smooth and solid and fragile (if she knew how to feel the cracks) next to her skin.

And he was speaking to her now. A voice that hid the twittering of small, homey birds. That thrumped with seasons and patience. A smile that rustled in a gust of wind. She leaned against it and sighed.