"And underlying it all was a pervading surprise at not being engulfed by shame. Far from it: I felt three-dimensional, whole, alive. I was not unmindful of my wrong position, and I had no defense for it. One does not apologize for self-discovery.
I shall call him Matthew, for to speak of him at all without clumsiness or sham, I must call him something. The word lover, applied to a specific person, has always seemed to me distasteful. It is at once too poetical and too graphic, and I find both repugnant. I expect I am old fashioned in some ways. To call him merely my friend, although he was, slurs the extraordinary quality of that friendship by leaving out so much else.
It may seem curious that among the lessons of an illicit love is a discreet use of words, but it is, and this precision in turn enhances the relationship and in some measure explains the reason for it. The longing not to be be nothing is one of the sharpest hungers a human can know. Men in prison have rioted for names instead of numbers."
-"Advice to a Young Wife from and Old Mistress, Michael Drury
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