On Chesil Beach

by Ian McEwan

but he wanted to shake her awake, or slap her out of her straight-backed music-stand poise,

with my body I thee worship

She wondered if perhaps she might even make it through, and be strong enough to pretend convincingly, and on later, successive occasions whittle her anxieties away through sheer familiarity, until she could honestly find and give pleasure.

This had to be what eventually happened since she did later marry and have a child

at breakfast, yogurt—a glamorous substance he knew only from a James Bond novel.

the velvety interleaving of the instruments,