The Story Guy Quotes

“I will meet you on Wednesdays at noon in Celebration Park. Kissing only. I won’t touch you below the shoulders. You can touch me anywhere. No dating, no hookups. I will meet with you for as long as you meet me, so if you miss a Wednesday we part as strangers…”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“You were the first thing I had asked for, just for me, in a long, long time.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“Story guys are like life highlighters. Your life is all these big blocks of gray text, and then a story guy comes in with a big ol’ paragraph of neon pink so that when you flip back through your life, you can stop and remember all the important and interesting places.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“To have the love of this man, who knows what it is to sacrifice his life for love, I would have waited longer.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“I love you. I couldn’t be more of a mess right now, but I can’t believe I haven’t told you because I have, for so long now, and it’s like I don’t have anything else to give you, anyway. Not time. Not my full attention. Not the kind of boyfriend you deserve. But my heart, such as it is, you do have that.” I am struck by my previous reluctance for regret, as if regret were the worst possible consequence of living.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“I should take his kisses with me and go. But with a seeping, resolute calm, I decide to keep him. I am not losing these Wednesdays, even if I can’t have anything else.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“My path is the nice one. The one filled with friends who will smile when I buy their children books for their birthdays. Who will take me out, sometimes, when I call on a random night because I can't settle down. The path with peaceful holidays with my parents, and reasonable work promotions at reasonable times.

The path with nice men, who take me on nice dates where I learn their last names the minute we shake hands at the bar.

A path clear of a man with eyes that drift into some private sorrow. A path that will never lead to a man whose hands shake when he holds my face for a kiss that feels like falling.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“I would need … daisy love, you know, pretty love, sweet love that nonetheless was ubiquitous in roadside ditches in the summertime, and instead I would get orchid love. Love that needed misting and replanting and pruning and fertilizing and died anyway.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“No picture necessary. I’d recognize you, see you, anywhere. I could fill my life with you.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“If I were there, Carrie, I would need to feel how soft the skin on the inside of your thighs is, first, how hot it is at that place where your thigh curves into your pussy. I love that place. I would kiss it first, but then lick it, inhale you.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“But I think, maybe, I won’t look back at what you highlighted, because I won’t need to. I want to read all the way to the end with you.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“My life is cozy, but I'm starting to let myself think I want something wet and aching stabbed through it. I want something substantial. I want to gorge myself. Excess.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“No. I’m waiting because it’s not enough. What’s on the other side of the waiting is enough.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“You dole out these stolen little pieces for yourself. You’ve been doing it for so long that you not only have no idea what you need, you have no idea what anyone else might need, either. No one is all or nothing. Grown-ups don’t need someone to be all or nothing.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“Did you know that your mouth, your skin, is so soft? All week, every time I’ve thought about it, my hands feel like they’re buzzing. I love your hair. I love that it’s short and so when I put my fingers through it, I can feel your whole nape bust out in goose pimples.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“If I’m broken, the break will be clean and easily mended. If he breaks, I’m not sure if there will be enough pieces to approximate. I can afford to go along with what he thinks will protect him. I can have this, and I can give him what he thinks he needs, even if he may deserve better.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“I have never had a first kiss like this. Is it that he’s a stranger? So beautiful? If so, I am ruined for anything but beautiful strangers for the rest of my life. He is so hungry seeming, so explicit with his lips and teeth from every angle he tips my head into. I can feel my heart pounding every place…”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“The first book I ever read that made me cry. I was seven and hadn’t realized books could do that. Just finish you like that. I was sitting in a beanbag chair in the school library when the book ended, weeping, looking at all the books on the shelves all around me, and I decided then and there that I never wanted to be anywhere else.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“If I were there, I’d be holding your knees over my shoulders, Carrie. My mouth would be over you and I’d lick you and taste you and suck you until you were so wet and swollen. And I’d move up to kiss you, so you would taste yourself, but I wouldn’t leave you, my fingers high inside you, rubbing up and out until—”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“I can hear you shake,” he whispers. “What are you doing?”

“My hand’s under my blouse, my bra. Very softly, I am brushing my finger over my nipple. It’s—so hard. So tight it almost hurts. I am barely touching it and I’m getting hot all over.”

He groans, and I get inspired. I tell him, “Touch your nipples, too. Like I did for you at the picnic table in the park.”

“Jesus Christ, Carrie. I’m sweating, hot. That feels good, but my cock is harder, please—”

“Touch it, something, Brian.”

“I am—there’s—pre-cum. I’m slippery. Carrie, God, Carrie, are you wet? Tell me.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“It’s just that she’s mine, you know? I get her, I know how to listen to her. Who will know her here? What if she’s scared? I won’t be here to know if she’s scared.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“It’s so easy to be consumed by this shamelessness with him. The way he kisses, let alone the way he touches me, is so sharply present that it is impossible to think about anything other than the one single second in front of me. With Brian, maybe all that we have is this single second in front of us.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“And yet, every day, Brian gathers his sister’s long hair into a beautiful plait, and just the sound of his voice is enough to calm her when she is uncomfortable and frightened. I think that tells me his real story.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“He pulls just an inch away, releasing with a sweet suction my bottom lip. “Your mouth is hot and tastes like honey.” I show him the tea that I’ve been holding out of the way. “I see,” he twinkles at me and takes the travel mug, helping himself to a long sip.

He leans back in, and I guess what he’s doing just in time. His feeding me the hot sip of honeyed tea should be weird, but as usual, he’s so committed to the moment that I just enjoy the sweetness, the intimacy.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“He keeps his arms away from me, but eventually, holding him, I feel him tuck his chin over my head. Then he whispers, “You’re the sweetest girl, the best girl, I ever kissed, Carrie West,” and rubs his face into my hair like a child, breathing deep.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“That’s just it, Carrie. I’m not going to burden you. You would take it all, I can tell. God, it’s tempting. You’re tempting, and more so than just this,” he says, gesturing his hand around the pergola. “You and your big, clear eyes that make me just want to lie down with you and rest.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“Oh Carrie,” he breathes in my ear, “there are so many places I want to touch you.”

“Above the shoulder?”

“No. Though I love your neck, and it’s worth exploring more. So if I were there, I would start at your nape right where those small dark curls point into the hollow, where I can feel your goose bumps against my tongue when I bite into you.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“He moves to look in my eyes and everything below the belt swoops, then his big hands are around my face and he’s angled to brush his mouth against my lips. I reach up to put my hands over his.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“How so many of her needs have been gathering, pebble by pebble, into the mountain that Brian climbs every day.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy

“This is, of course, the privilege of love, to bear witness to a strong man’s grief over the little sister he could never save, as much as he has tried to, with every moment of life.”
― Mary Ann Rivers, The Story Guy