Two Wants

As you know, love and seduction sometimes play across my mind. Sometimes, I daydream that the woman I have loved the most will make overtures to return to the way things were—no, better than the way things were. This is idle daydreaming since she never will. Enough time has passed that I know I could never do it either. Yet we exchange cards and letters. Whenever I receive one from her, it triggers fond memories and hopes I once had. A night of hard drinking erases those memories and silly hopes.

Two wants have figured in the choices I have made. One, I would like to live with someone I love and who loves me too. Two, the excitement of first seduction will not release its hold upon my imagination.

Ah, the seduction: the thrill of the first time I undress her, the first penetration, then lying next to her after we have both crossed a border to a place from which we may never return. We have shared danger and transgression along with pleasure. I want the danger and transgression more than the pleasure. Then there is the list.

Now, I have chosen a life of relative solitude. I am a selfish person too often satisfied with being exactly that. I try to master the art of causing people as little pain as possible. I tell myself that I have others’ interests in mind even though this is a paltry goal and seldom true.

I have gone through several phases and stages in life. My time now is just another one of those phases. I wonder what will be next. I hope I like it, or that it proves valuable to someone, or better yet, both.

I think about Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera and that I admire it. How can I say anything about the story without spoiling the ending? Let me just say that it is partially a study of the relation between unrequited love and seduction.

I will end it here. I have other things to write about.