The novel opens with a soliloquy about love. It's about a guy who's been teaching a novelist how to talk about love in a way that's direct and honest. The narrator tells the guy that he's being honest because the guy is red-faced. He's not lying, the narrator says, and he doesn't want to hurt the guy's feelings. He wants to make sure that the guy knows that he loves him. The two of them have been lovers for a month, and they've been having sex all the time. They've had sex before, but they haven't had sex as much as they used to. This is the first time that the narrator has heard the guy say, "I love you." The narrator is all, "Oh, yeah, I love you too" . He says that if they'd gotten to know each other as lovers, he'd feel the same way, too. He tells the narrator that he would love her too, too, if he could hear her say that. He asks her if she'd ever heard him say that, and she says