Love & Sex

(Please click on the title for a reading aloud by the author.)

I’m drinking coffee and mooching some high speed at Counter Culture and a young woman approaches the table next to me, arranges her latte and purse and opens up her laptop. Is it now notebook, is laptop passé? She is tall and slender and fair complexioned. In a skirt and tank top, in her natural not made up way she is beautiful. We are facing each other. With no illusions (she is all of twenty), I glance at her. If she was a painting I would treat myself to a good long look. She sips the latte and otherwise focuses on her laptop.

A young man walks up to her table. He is tall with dark curly hair and a scraggly beard. He is handsome in a no frills way. They look at each other and smile and say hi. The woman stands up and they touch each other, their embrace starts at the pelvis and continues until they are completely intertwined. They make out. As two magnets, by the laws of nature they are inextricably drawn to each other. Then they tug and push and pull apart. Their parting looks almost painful. He gets a coffee, comes back to the table and sits next to her. The embrace starts anew and they look this close to tearing their clothes off and making love. At any moment they might hurriedly gather their things and rush out the door to do just this, such is the passion.

I’m fifty-three and remember being twenty and remember my girlfriend at that time and being like this couple. My fire still burns but no longer like this, which is something of a relief. I look at this couple and smile. It is wonderful. They are, in their every youthful dimension crazy for each other. They have discovered the joy and the melting delight of being head over heals in love. Thank goodness life contains a chapter when this is the way it is.

Gordon Bunker