Page 25: — Reading

Alma is lying in bed naked, on her stomach, one foot kicked back in the air, holding a book in both hands in the light, reading intently.

Over the course of the next week, reading into the early morning hours, that I felt my foundations shifting under me. I tore through books I'd never heard of like The Anatomy of Love, The Ethical Slut, and The Chalice and the Blade (Diana had told me, "it's flaky but it'll make you think"). They all made me think.

They weren't erotic, but they called into question preconceptions I hadn't even know I'd had. It was exciting, and also unsettling.

Alma in work clothes, along with other men and women dressed in suits and carrying briefcases, are walking down railroad tracks that stretch into the distance. They are all looking down at the tracks; none are looking around. The sky might be sunset red, and migrating birds might be visible overhead.

Before, without being aware of it, I'd been following my peers along railroad tracks of normality. Sex, marriage, career and status were all stations along the way, and we competed to see how fast and far we could go.

Alma sitting naked on a rock in the sunlight, her knees drawn up to her chest, looking out meditatively into the distance. In the background is a spectacular view of mountains and forest.

Now, by contrast, I felt I was alone without a map in a vast wilderness without trails. In all directions were places of unspeakable beauty to be discovered, but also real dangers to be avoided.

I began to grasp two unfamiliar things about this sexual wilderness: first, there was nowhere in it I was supposed to go, and second, there was nowhere I was not supposed to go. Instead, I got to explore cautiously, choosing my own destinations as I went provided I didn't break a leg, fall off a cliff, die of exposure or become prey to a predator.

It was scary, but I didn't want to go back.

This script may be copied freely and used provided that its authorship in each instance is prominently and clearly attributed to Harold S. Henry.

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(last updated 20 March 2004)