Some more quotes from my man David Goodis:

He reached for the glass and was bringing toward his mouth when he saw her entering the cocktail lounge. She moved toward him like a thin blade of blue-white steel coming to cut him in half. Here she comes, he thought, gazing dismally at the advancing figure of his wife, and he closed his eyes, wishing he could keep them closed for a long, long time. He was saying to himself, Point One: You can’t stand the sight of her. Point Two: You can’t stand the idea of losing her. Point Three: What in God’s name is the matter with you?

The wall was a dark gray and her body was cream-yellow against the darkness. She was awfully skinny but it was a flexible construction, it was soft and somehow electric-wild, the voltage charging across to him where he reclined on the bed looking at her, getting hit with the blaze that never failed to blast him whenever she stood there with nothing on.

If it wasn’t opium it was hemp, and they had a way of treating it to make it extra-powerful, lifting the smoker very high above the earth, allowing him to soar up there with all the great ones, all the famous singers and dancers, all the champions and leaders. This special hemp they sold along Morgan’s Alley was a very pleasant habit when it was available. When it was not available, the loss of altitude was sudden, a sort of plunging , and so finally they had to take it all the way and jump off a pier. It was the only thing to do when the hemp was not available to a user.

Because even in this short time she had taken the lead, she was out there in front, her pace steady and yet relaxed, her confidence a thing of menace, her relaxed superiority almost like a panther’s playing with a zebra.

The platinum hair came nearer. He stood there waiting, watching the parted lips, watching her tongue moisten them. He felt the mild caress of her breath against his face, and suddenly he found her in his arms, and her lips crushed against his mouth. His hands followed the smooth curve of her back, and he breathed deeply of her hair, drugged with the nearness of her. He didn’t see the clock that said Now and the bed that said Here. He was aware only of her closed eyes, the swell of her breasts against his chest, the warmness of her. He was swept outward and away from the boundaries of reality and yet somehow he knew this wasn’t a dream, it was something he had waited for and hungered for and it was happening…

Clayton lowered his head and felt the pain lacing through him. On the level of sanity he called himself a moon-maddened idiot, craving something that was worthless. And yet he was torn with yearning, and the core of that wound was a horrible sense of futility and loss.

– David Goodis