Beneath the Stain Quotes

“They became one, and Mackey could breathe. Trav was a part of him, and Mackey had strength. Trav moved, and Mackey’s body became light and Trav’s body became sound and together they were the thing Mackey worshipped most.
Music.”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“I love you, McKay. I love you so much it would kill me not to try.”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“I’m trying to follow all the steps and check all the boxes. But my heart hurts and my skin aches, and God, I just want to be touched…….Can you touch me and then look at me tomorrow, and it will be okay?”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“Trav knew the real boy underneath, and he was three times as beautiful as the image.”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“Trav thought of the song – his song – and the cry from the invisible boy who slept in forgotten corners and lived to make people love him or hate him or anything so long as they didn’t forget his name.”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“Mackey stretched out on Trav’s sheets almost defiantly, one knee drawn up, his cock larger than Trav had expected now that it was hard and extended up over his thigh.”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“Damn, Trav wanted this, had barely dared dream of it, yearned for the time Mackey Sanders would be old enough, whole enough, well enough, to possess like this, like a man, an equal, a partner.”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“but Mackey and Kell had asked Stevie straight out if any of his male relatives had the last name Jefferson, and he couldn’t think of one.”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“Hey, Mackey—how’s your mom?” “I don’t know—how’s yours? She was looking okay when I left her this morning!” “I will fucking—” “You will? I’d like to see that. Wait. Nobody would like to see that. Suggest something else.” “Oh God—”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“And when they were playing it through a second time, Mackey opened his mouth and blew everybody’s minds.”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“WHEN MACKEY was ten and Cheever had been in diapers, Kell had been stuck with babysitting duty while their mom was working nights. Grant and Stevie often came over to keep the boys company, both of them playing fast and loose with the truth of “Are there adults there to supervise?”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“Got lost in your eyes,”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“Suddenly Mackey knew—they’d both been hurt. The only thing that had put the hurt to an end for Grant had been the end itself. Mackey had been”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“But that was okay, because Grant laughed too and met Mackey’s eyes in a moment of understanding for just the both of them. He’d hurt too.”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“Man, I think if teachers knew that, they’d be asking all the scrappy kids at school if they were gay, just to get it out there and stop having to bandage up the poor Mormon kids who didn’t see it coming!”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“or not, he’d just sold his soul to Mackey James for the price of a shower curtain and a bottle of lube.”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“Your ass is trying to make shit into diamonds,” Mackey snapped,”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“Yeah, but I didn’t like him and you still did it!”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“Unspoken things—stupid unspoken things: Grant Adams had a finite number of hugs left.”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“under the heartbreak blue sky.”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“Gay porn is for gay men and straight women, I’m not telling you something you don’t know.”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“Climax was a roaring, gentle thing from the pit of his stomach. Trav’s body in his arms should have grounded him, but instead they flew, flew together, and Trav’s groan against Mackey’s shoulder, the hot spurt of his come in Mackey’s ass, that was the crescendo, the soaring of the heavens against his face, the ocean roaring of the wind in his ears.”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“then let him go, losing himself in the Zen of pain control once more.”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“Trav held him, thinking only, Thank God. Thank God. He’ll take me and not the drugs. Me and not the horrible fall. Thank God.”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“Sure it is,” Trav said, realizing it as he said it. “It’s why there’s all the fuss about legalizing gay marriage. When you’re happy, you want the world to acknowledge that your happiness is valid.”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“I mean, we bonded doing blow in the bathroom when we were doing our clinical rotations. It was 1987—who wasn’t getting high? But….” He sighed, and Mackey realized his voice had gotten really impassioned.”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“Cause when they’re pissed at me, at least they know I’m there,” Mackey said. “You spend enough time with a town that wants you to disappear, you realize that you can’t do that when someone wants to slug you.”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“And then crumpled on a muffled shriek, because he’d hit a stud in a load-bearing wall and broken three bones in his wrist and hand.”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“the IV needle.”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain

“Living poor gives you a really short view of the world. You live to your next meal, your next paycheck, your next birthday, your next high.”
― Amy Lane, Beneath the Stain