No End to the Way

(The thing I detest most in a book is Second Person POV—and that’s how this book’s written. Honestly, this author can go fuck himself.)

Except

Yes, you look at him again and see the firm forehead beneath the silhouetted hairline, short-cropped, and yet almost like a plume, the way it flows back over his head so smoothly. His eyes are deeply entrenched, as though sheltering themselves from some kind of hostility. It’s a good nose, too, long and straight. And you’ve already noticed the mouth. It’s the first thing you did notice, as usual. Mouths are so important to you. You don’t know why, but they are. Some people like eyes, or hands, or teeth, or the backs of heads. But with you it’s always the mouth you notice about anyone; whether it’s a slice you want to make or just any normal person outside of that sphere entirely, you always look first at the mouth. And it’s usually this that makes you decide whether you like a person or not. A mouth expresses so much, particularly when it’s not expressing words. And this mouth is firm and yet generous, ‘sculptured’ was the first word you thought of, as though some genius had just carefully and lovingly chiselled it. Beneath it is the chin, firm and well-shaped too, and—oh God another weakness of yours!—with a cleft in it. He could get money for a face like that, all right. Anytime, anywhere.

He wouldn’t need to have the body to go with it, which it looks as though he has anyway. Yes, he could easily be for money. Usually, if they are, they make quite sure you’re going to pay up long before you get this far, and he hasn’t said anything about it yet. Hasn’t said another word, matter of fact. He just walks there beside you, looking straight ahead of him, and all that you can see of his eyes, which might give you a clue if you could really see them, are the occasional little beads of light which they catch and hold for a second or two, catching the light from street-lamps as you go by, or from the headlamps of passing cars. But then those deep eyes of his soon drop these little light-beads again, and there are only shadows left. Darkness. And he seems so withdrawn into that darkness.