Shadow of the wind

"There is nothing like the first kiss", she said. But my mind drifted, unable to embrace this beautiful certainty. My first kiss didn't seem special in this way. It went on for hours and was wonderful (is that what she meant?). It seemed the way all true erotic encounters have appeared to me since: warm and lovely and spontaneous.

I remember her hands. I loved her hands and especially her nails, which were long and unpainted. I would trace the length of her fingers with mine, then let her long nails dent the soft cushion of my fingertips. I loved that sensation, there was something reassuring about the hardness of her nails against the softness of my fingers. When she kissed me she kissed as if she'd kissed many guys before - and she probably had.

Now I have been spoilt by certain writers. With their echoes in my mind anything less does not really satisfy. Take Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind. By page 23 I had developed a crush. On page 56 I realised it was wearing off and I am left with merely a page-turner. No less and I am not complaining, but I suspect that in 400 odd pages I will read what a rare author says in a page, or two paragraphs. Of course
that's not the way to sell novels, but that's another matter.

While those certain authors chipped away at the fabric of my soul, these other mortals seem happy to play in the clear light of day, waiting for the same echoes to spur them on and animate their writing - stimulating but pretentious in the deep sense of the word. From somewhere in my mind those certain others keep returning, particles hurtling through space to teach about the very skin of the universe. Perhaps this is what she meant about nothing being like the first kiss, that the others are merely a bit like it.