alike , this oneness of theirs is to be treasured and cherished , not condemned or crucified . Right ?
Right .
Love is a four-letter word too , albeit more socially palatable . Love is what remains after the body has been explored and ravished , its well-kept secrets unwrapped , its odours and imperfections exposed . Love is often a precursor to lust , at times a by-product , sometimes residue . There are times when it happens effortlessly , like in the movies . Most other times , it has to be coaxed , nudged , persuaded to occur . We all dream of eternal romance but most love is just life insurance . Most people treat it like a project with a deadline . Anyway , this ‘ love ’ business lends legitimacy to leg-spreading . Which is unnecessary , considering the pleasures of fornication are , in my humble opinion , strong enough a reason to reach out and bond , without warranting the pointless charade of love .
I know , I ’ m trying desperately hard to convince myself here . Because no matter how much I talk about the futility of marital mores , I find myself questioning our relationship all the time for the lack of a label . Each time I meet Deb , I catch myself making mental notes of everything wrong about us . And then , because I must prove to myself I ’ m no criminal , I start to draw up the opposite side of the balance sheet , enlisting all the things that are right about us – or , at least , morally neutral .
I am exhausted from this never-ending mental mathematics . The constant oscillation depletes me .
I look at this man now and think to myself – what if we have been fretting over nothing ? What if the mountains decide to disintegrate and descend upon our little hotel tonight , killing us in sleep ? Or , what if the airplane we catch tomorrow meets with an accident and leaves us invalid ? Even worse , what if we bump into someone known who decodes our little camouflage and decides to announce to the world that we ’ re despicable little bastards ?
The planet is anyway in the throes of a terrible pandemic , one that has swallowed nine hundred thousand lives . It continues to rage around the world like wildfire . Life has become precarious . Who knows whether we will be able to get back home without running into a fatal sneeze cloud on the way ?