The Scar (New Crobuzon, #2)

by China Miéville

There was a caustic pain as he peeled off a clot of old life and exposed himself open and unsure to her, to new air.

She checked herself and verified that she was still lonely, still as numb to this place as ever. She would have been astounded to find it any other way. But still, but still. Even so. She smiled again. She felt better.

Scars are not injuries, Tanner Sack. A scar is a healing. After injury, a scar is what makes you whole.’

I don’t want to wonder what I’m going to do any more, she thought. I want to just do something.

It was as if having used sex to connect and open to each other, the channel was in place and the act was superfluous.

To speak simply, without smiling, to someone else with the same manner; to know that what of her would have intimidated most people did not fluster him, and that the same was true the other way round: that was rare, and a pleasure.