How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
[Trip] received letters emblazoned with ten different sets of lips (the lines of each pucker distinct as a fingerprint). He stopped studying for tests because of all the girls who came over to cram with him in bed. He spent his time keeping up his tan, floating on an air mattress around his bathtub-size swimming pool. The girls were right in choosing to love Trip, because he was the only boy who could keep his mouth shut. (3.41)
Trip Fontaine, the sexiest guy in school, has girls throwing themselves at him left and right. He doesn't have to work at school anymore, because he can exchange sexual favors for study tips. The sexually inexperienced boys see Trip as a love god who they'll never be able to measure up to. They also point out one of the real dangers of teenage sex—boys like to brag about their conquests. Trip, to his great credit, doesn't.
Quote #2
He didn't understand how she had bewitched him, nor why having done so she promptly forgot his existence, and in desperate moods he asked his mirror why the only girl he was crazy about was the only girl not crazy about him. For a long time he resorted to his time-tested methods of attracting girls, brushing his hair back as Lux passed, or clomping his boots up on the desktop, and once he even lowered his tinted glasses to give her the boon of his eyes. But she didn't look. (3.49)
In Lux, Trip finally finds a girl who doesn't just jump him at first sight. Perhaps the challenge, or the unexpectedness of her coolness, is what makes her irresistible to him. It wouldn't be the first time that unrequited love just made the beloved that much more attractive.
Quote #3
He thought about Lux getting ready for bed, and just the idea of her holding a toothbrush excited him more than the full-fledged nudity he saw in his own bedroom nearly every night. (3.57)
Trip is used to having sex. He has a parade of girls and women coming through his home, attracted by his good looks. But since he can't have Lux, every single, mundane thing she does is attractive to him. The toothbrush, that most unsexy accessory, becomes sexier than full frontal nudity. It's the mystery that's exciting.
Quote #4
He felt himself grasped by his long lapels, pulled forward and pushed back, as a creature with a hundred mouths started sucking the marrow from his bones. She said nothing as she came on like a starved animal, and he wouldn't have known who it was if it hadn't been for the taste of her watermelon gum, which after the first few torrid kisses he found himself chewing. (3.57)
When Lux and Trip finally get together, it's more of an attack than a romantic encounter. The sex is described with violent terms: sucking the marrow, a creature with a hundred mouths, starved animal. It's like something non-human has been unleashed in Lux.
Quote #5
It was as though he had never touched a girl before; he felt fur and an oily substance like otter insulation. Two beasts lived in the car, one above, snuffling and biting him, and one below, struggling to get out of its damp cage. Valiantly he did what he could to feed them, placate them, but the sense of his insufficiency grew, and after a few minutes, with only the words "Gotta get back before bed check," Lux left him, more dead than alive. (3.57)
More animal imagery: "fur," "otter insulation, " "snuffling and biting." It's all Trip can do to manage it. Women's sexuality is often seen as dangerous in some societies. Many ultra-religious sects make women cover up their bodies, not because they're shameful, but so the men don't become aroused by the sight and do something inappropriate. It's that powerful and dangerous.
Quote #6
Even though that lightning attack lasted only three minutes, it left its mark on him. He spoke of it as one might of a religious experience, a visitation or vision, any rupture into this life from beyond that cannot be described in words. "Sometimes I think I dreamed it," he told us, recalling the voracity of those hundred mouths that had sucked out his juice in the dark, and even though he went on to enjoy an enviable love life, Trip Fontaine confessed it was all anticlimactic. (3.58)
While the actual sexual encounter is compared to an animal attack, afterward, in his memory, Trip elevates it to a spiritual experience. There was something about this distant, inaccessible girl suddenly emerging as a ravenous sexual animal that had an unreal and dreamlike quality. It's still mystifying to the narrators as well.
Quote #7
We never learned whether Mrs. Lisbon caught Lux as she tried to sneak back inside, but for whatever reason, when Trip tried to make another date to come sit on the couch, Lux told him she was grounded, and that her mother had forbidden any future visits. (3.59)
Mrs. Lisbon obviously doesn't catch Lux in the act of sexing Trip, but she has that maternal sense that someone's up to something and puts the kibosh on it immediately. Maybe she just feels the sexual tension between the two, but she sees sex as sinful and clamps down.
Quote #8
In Dr. Hornicker's opinion, Lux's promiscuity was a commonplace reaction to emotional need. "Adolescents tend to seek love where they can find it," he wrote in one of the many articles he hoped to publish. "Lux confused the sexual act with love. For her, sex became a substitute for the comfort she needed as a result of her sister's suicide." (3.60)
Dr. Hornicker believes that Lux's depression after her sister's death, the trauma of Cecilia's suicide and her mother's withholding of love causes her to look for love in sex. Her mother disagrees strongly with this analysis and insists there was plenty of love in their home. Again, it's a simplistic explanation. Bereaved siblings don't usually become sex maniacs.
Quote #9
A sense of playacting permeated much of her behavior. Willie Tate admitted that, despite her eagerness, "she didn't seem to like it much," and many boys described similar inattention. […] Other times she treated it like some small chore, positioning the boys, undoing zippers and buckles with the weariness of a checkout girl. (4.14)
Lux's promiscuous sexual behavior has a compulsive quality to do it. She can't stop luring boys to her rooftop but doesn't seem to be really enjoying it. It becomes routine and almost boring, but she can't stop.