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We made love with a violence and ferocity I had almost forgotten after so much sailing in the ship of the gentle blue silk sea. In that chaos of sheets and pillows, clasped in the living knot of desire, screwed into each other to the point of fainting, I felt I was twenty again, and happy to be holding in my arms this bold, swarthy woman who didn't fall apart when you got on top of her, a strong mare you could ride on without giving it a second thought, who didn't make your hands feel heavy, your voice hard, your feet gigantic, or your beard too scratchy, but someone like yourself, who could take a string of bad words in her ear and didn't need to be rocked with tender arguments or coaxed with flattery. Afterward, sleepy and happy, I rested awhile by her side, admiring the solid curve of her hips and the shudder of her snake.

This passage stuck with me from when I read it in college, but I couldn't find it in Google Books search - (I was trying to search for "horse" not "mare") and so I listened to the audiobook during holiday driving. (FWIW, the "gentle blue silk sea" is his estranged wife's extravagant bed covers, and "her snake" is a serpent tattoo on his lover Tránsito's abdomen.)

An excellent book and its retelling of the atrocities in Chile when a fascist military dictatorship overthrew the democratically elected socialist president reminded me of the fears some of my Latinx activist allies live with.