Beyond Principle

It predestined her to become a thinker, to become a woman in a storm center for many years to come, because she did no fornicating with any other. She never left him out of it, never; not before she met him or after she had met him.

Into her mind she liked to keep adding what she called “a little curve” or “a little fork” among the path­ways. She was ready to change her mind. Original conclusions were not her aim. She preferred to lay claim to the obvious.

One time when her hands were on his naked flesh, he said, “I love it when you draw me in.” Squeezing his rump, “Like this?” she said.

Doing her job, she thought, Who says that men aren’t soft? and the one man became the multitude through the backward path that leads to satisfaction, toward the upshot of all far-fetched speculation and curiosity—which is an example for example of how she first thought her idea of giving herself a little pinch or little pushes, of getting her hand up in between her and him in the very middle of their act. Not seeking to interrupt, to fail shamefully, or to baby herself, she intended to be serious—not to goof up, not to fuck up. “You’re going to have fun with it, I know,” she said. She thought, I want to know how this turns out. She said, “Come in and show me.” She wagged her finger.

She cut him out of her life.

Isn’t she wonderful, if an assumption is permissible? It looks as if she ended those embarrassing situations at any cost.

Her terrible war gave rise to pathology of this kind, but her terrible war finally put an end to temptation. Now I could throw in something that’s so sensual, that’s full of an object.