Cutting for Stone Chapter 31: The Dominion of the Flesh Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • Marion misses Genet and tries to fill up his time by wandering around the hospital. He wanders right into a room where a woman is dancing to rock and roll, the first time he's heard such music.
  • The woman pulls Marion in and starts dancing with him. They kiss.
  • The woman asks Marion's forgiveness for letting his mother die: turns out she's the probationer, the nurse-in-training that didn't react very well to Sister Mary Joseph Praise's complicated labor. Marion realizes they're in his mother's old room.
  • To get the probationer to stop crying, Marion forgives her.
  • The probationer offers her body to Marion, but he says he'd rather wait until another day. He wants to have sex with her, but he wants to only want to have sex with Genet, his true love. Is that complicated, or what?