Fragment from a Work of Fiction #1

On the question of sex, he quite freely surrenders. It is not that it baffles him. On the contrary; in good Freudian form, he has always believed in something essentially primitive about sex. The mechanics of desire, he agrees, are inseparable and considerably more complicated. But let sexual relations be sexual relations if motivated by mutual desire. By mystical desire. Why go through pains to sublimate or disavow such things? He sees that such a treatment of sexuality is often at odds with a certain concept of courtship, not to mention the institution of marriage. Nevertheless, he imagines women submitting themselves to its uncomplicated practicality, to its swift efficiency and precision, as if to escape the unendurable nature of sexual ambiguity. Let us simply do the deed, he might say. What more can I give you, but this body, which you already are or are not predisposed towards? And if not: then let us shake hands and be on our ways!

In fact, he knows that human relations are not so forthright and easily rendered. As much as he might like to exercise them in the vein of happy transaction (a business transaction?), he does not, present or past. People are not machines. He has had serious engagements with women which he feels have obdurately shaped him into the person that he is. Recognizing their contributions, he appreciates these former friends and lovers with unfailing gratitude, and hopes they feel much the same. Nevertheless, he accepts that were he to fall back into favour with them, if only serendipitously for a single evening, he would exercise no restraint on carnal desire. For as long as youth and beauty remain, he pays homage to them. Youth and Beauty. The moving forces of the old masters, from Holderlin to Tolstoy. They would have surely done the same, would they not? Was it Wilde who said that we bow to beauty because we tacitly recognize its capacity to destroy us?