it is chicken, it is eggs

Whenever he and Belinda were alone, Chuck couldn't stop thinking about that watch.

The watch that didn't exist, that is; the watch that had never left a pale mark in cold-pressed strip along the underside of a vein-lined wrist; the watch that never had to be shucked off in the phase transition between barenaked eggmaking and...wordplay given however you'd will.

She was so soft, unregimented, yet with all her lines in exactly the right places. He'd nose along her jaw, breast in hand and mind already whimpering, going numb for the enormity of promise.

She came out of time.