Love Making

Early Sunset

As the sun goes down over the city, far to our west over the Pacific, a man's mind turns to the women he has known.

Deep Sunset

As the colors in the sky deepen, so does the intensity of his memory.

To hold a woman, to touch her, on a bed, in a car, on a beach is as close to heaven on earth as I can imagine.

Tonight, I am imagining running my hands slowly from a woman's fingertips up to her slender wrist and all the way up her long arm to her shoulder.

I turn her around, so her back is facing me, and I slowly start massaging her shoulders. All the women I have known hold tension in their shoulder muscles. A woman's back is so different from a man's!

Ours are rippled with muscles that suddenly appeared on our bodies long after puberty, in our early 20s. Theirs, too, have muscles, but much smaller, softer, and more pliable.

These muscles hold tensions from her day. Kneading them softly elicits little cries of pain from her mouth. You kiss her hair, her neck, breathe in her ear.

I would never be one to presume that I know this for sure, but as all of this is happening, it is my impression that a woman remains acutely aware of her environment. She has to feel safe, normally -- the sounds and smells have to be familiar or otherwise attractive; all of her senses are now engaged.

As the lovemaking continues, eventually a woman surrenders to you completely. You can tell when she becomes incredibly soft and no longer even aware of where she is or even (it seems) what is happening.

For a man, at these moments, is to be acutely aware of exactly what is happening. I move this way and you move that. I lift this and you surrender that. I remove that and you open this. You reach here, and gasp, and I stroke you there, and you gasp.

Our bodies are perfectly in rhythm now -- they know what to do. Both of us are carried along in the heat of the primal connection, which is where children are made.

The intensity of these connections rivals the depth of the greatest sunset, and it is every bit as natural. Afterwards, as the sky grows purple, then black, we lie back, sweating, catching our breaths.

Such is love.

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