This wasn't any mere song and dance; here was a bold, blaring declaration howling itself into the empty face of death.

Her voice makes me think of her mouth makes me think of her breath makes me think of her breasts.

As a child of the 1970s, I couldn't hold a narrative in my head; I was lucky if I could hold a joke in my head, because every time you turn on television or radio, it wipes the slate clean - at least in my case. After I gave up television, I found I could carry longer and longer stories or ideas in my head and put them together until I was carrying an entire short story. That's pretty much when I started writing.

When I first started writing, there was no way I'd write a sex scene. That just seemed impossible. That's why in "Fight Club" all the sex happens off-screen. It's all just a noise on the other side of the wall or the ceiling. I just couldn't bring to write in a scene like that. So one of the challenges with "Choke" was I wanted to write sex scenes until I was really comfortable just writing them in a very mechanical way.

Why should I believe any of this?' It happens that fast. I say, because I think I like you. Marla says, 'Not love?' This is a cheesy enough moment, I say. Don't push it.

Abortion occurs so frequently in my stories. Abortion sort of synthesizes both sex and death. To have sex and death placed as close to one another as possible is always a goal of mine.

Part of her doing suicide intervention is my caseworker has to mix me another gin and tonic.