How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
I don't enjoy adultery, really. I'm not even sure I enjoy getting laid. Sometimes it's okay. Other times it's only coming. Is there supposed to be more? There used to be. There used to be much more heat. (5.91)
Slocum is a bit lost in his own sexual feelings. Is he just as much in control of his own pleasure as the women he lusts after? As in, not at all in control? Sounds like Slocum needs to work on himself a bit. Like everyone else in this novel.
Quote #8
Everybody wants to keep control. (I want to keep control. Penny makes me lose control, and often my wife does too. Penny diminishes me into a gargling, blabbering imbecile every time, and I love it.) (6.21)
Like most things in his life, sex has become somewhat routine for Slocum, and he knows what to expect and with whom each time that he has it. As in most areas in his life, spontaneity is a rarity.
Quote #9
Virginia is closed now, like those people in the storeroom whose cases had been settled in one way or another. So am I. And lying among them like flaked stains now in that dreary storeroom for dead records are my own used-up chances for attaining sexual maturity early, for getting laid young (or what we considered young). I could have had here there. (6.50)
Virginia still occupies Slocum's youthful sexual fantasies, and he'll always regret that he didn't make it past first base with her. But the thing is that because Virginia died young, Slocum never got the chance to experience an actual relationship—and the trials and tribulations an actual relationship brings—with her. She seems perfect partly because Slocum never actually got to really know her, sexually or otherwise.