When is Lust really LOVE???

Not one for matters of the heart usually, I was recently taken by surprise. I am always a happy one night stander, and have always had the masculine capacity to separate sexual escapades from anything emotional…..and yet I was completely laid flat (literally and subjectively) recently when a past two night stand re-occurred and fired something not felt in a long time.

The original meeting and two nights of passion were amazing. Everything fitted, physically, chemically and also, not so noticed at the time, emotionally. I put the emotions down to lack of sleep…for obvious reasons.

The second meeting, three months later was equally encapsulating. Both meetings being in a working environment, (the second time, as well as the first), I remember, there was no discussion needed for what was to happen. It was known, assumed and understood, without words what would occur. This second meeting was prolonged over five days. With nights of laughter and passion and days of unspoken mutual coveting. Gestures of friendship and glances at distance from which we both understood the meaning.

This man ticks none of my boxes!

He’s not tall, not of the ethnic background I would usually pursue, older than the optimum age range I circle in, and lives in a different state!  And yet he is the perfect height, race and age… why is that? If you described him to me I would pull the ugly face and say no immediately.

Yet his kind face, generosity and deeply ground shaking sense of humour entrapped me, encapsulated me and completely overwhelmed me to a point where I can’t tell, is this lust or love? Does love need time to evolve? Or can it appear from nowhere?

I understand that the physical attraction is lust inspired, that happens many times. That stirring just inside you, ready to spill out. The need, the want, the desire. It’s lust!

I know, wanting to feel a certain man’s naked skin against your own.

But this was more. A happiness to just lie around laughing. Not needing to tear away clothing at every opportunity. A contentment to drift away to sleep just laying in each others arms having done no more than kiss deeply. This is not lust. This is not animal desperation or physical need.

Both knowing it could not go on (the complications are many). Both asking ‘ what are we doing’, ‘this is madness’. That horrible sinking feeling as he left and shut the door. Like someone twisting my insides around and around. How can this be just a longing for passion and amazing sex. This was more.

So now I try to think of him less every day, I’m not sure I’m really managing it. It is his smile I see, his laugh I hear….not his beautiful body or deeply satisfying manhood. It’s not the sex I recall but the man himself.

Is it time to scrap the boxes, the ideals, the plans in our minds. Will love just jump out at us one day when we are not expecting it… how wonderful to think so.

Pepper Goldsmith.