It is cloudy this morning so I imagine you sitting indoors somewhere in weather like this, staring out at the grayness. It is chilly too, so you’re wearing a thin coat or thick sweater. Plum colored or gravel gray. Your fingernails are dark red but your lips are pale. Are you meeting someone? Or are you alone the whole day? Are you talking animatedly to a friend or silent, your hands still? Hands are not important to me although I know they are crucial to some people when describing their dream mate. On the chair next to you is a small purse. Or maybe none at all— you don’t like clutter. When you leave the apartment, often it is just with your keys in one pocket and some cash in the other. There’s a cellphone too but you don’t like to use it and usually forget it at home. I’m talking about the woman sitting half in shadows in the corner of an afternoon restaurant, one hand in her hair while she speaks into the phone in a language you’ve never heard before— Norwegian or Turkish. A waiter comes over. Smiling, she gives him her full radiant attention, even if it’s just to order a glass of wine. He walks away happy. She said something he liked, something unimportant but witty or kind that made things nicer for a few moments. I knew a woman who said she fell in love almost every day with men she passed on the street, men sitting in buses reading newspapers, in bars talking with their friends about sports. She said falling in love was the easiest thing in the world. I never could figure out whether she was right or dead wrong. — Jonathan Carroll
Some women let you kiss them while some kissed you back— but just. Others kissed with enthusiasm, but it was with the same kind of enthusiasm they felt for a good meal, a Bette Davis film, or a lovely present they’d just been given. But she was different. She was hungry for you, hungry to kiss you, to hear what you had to say; hungry to tell you what was on her mind. To his mind, this overall hunger was what defined her. It was the greatest compliment he had ever received from a woman and he never grew tired of it. — Jonathan Carroll (from the new book)