“Though he was often tormented by visions of her past, he never asked her about it and he had no idea of how  many years or boys, then men, it entailed, but he felt that for the last two or three or even four years (she was nineteen) Dana had somehow cheated him, as if his possession of her was retroactive. He also feared comparison. But most disturbing of all was her casual worldliness: giving herself that first time as easily as, years before, high school girls had given a kiss, and her apparent assumption that he did not expect a lengthy seduction any more than he expected to find that she was a virgin. It was an infectious quality, sweeping him up, making him feel older and smarter, as if he had reached the end of a prolonged childhood. But as the same time he sensed his destruction and, for moments, he looked fearfully into her eyes.” ~Andre Dubus “Over the Hill”