In due course the novel offers a steamy love story, and Patrick proves to be a deft hand at the erotic. I do mean “hand” — an important word when it comes to queer sex, for obvious reasons. How they look at her informs her relationship to her butch body. It makes her transparent to the headmaster, who cannot recognize her as a sexual rival for his femme wife’s affections. Then there’s “the Housemistress,” the other butch working at the school, who becomes a kind of talisman.

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Persons: Patrick, hawkishly, They’re licked, There’s, butch, “, ”