2024.12.30
Isabelle pulled me backwards, she laid me down on the eiderdown, she raised me up, she kept me in her arms: she was taking me out of a world where I had never lived so that she could launch me into a world I had not yet reached; the lips opened mine a little, they moistened my teeth. The too feshy tongue frightened me; but the strange virility didn't force its way in. Absently, calmly, I waited. The lips roved over my lips. My heart was beating too hard and I wanted to prolong the sweetness of the imprint, the new experience brushing at my lips. Isabelle is kidding me, I said to myself. She was tracing a circle around my mouth, she was encircling the disturbance, she laid a cool kiss in each corner, two staccato notes of music on my lips; then her mouth pressed against mine once more, hibernating there. . . . We were still hugging each other, we both wanted to be swallowed up by the other. . . . As Isabelle lay crushed over my gaping heart I wanted to feel her enter it. She taught me to open into flower. . . .Her tongue, her little flame, softened my muscles, my flesh. . . . A flower opened up in every pore of my skin. . . .
There may have been a time of collective rituals, when sensual release attained its apogee, but we are no longer engaged in collective rituals, and the stronger the passion is for one individual, the more concentrated, intensified, and ecstatic the ritual of one to one can prove to be.
I'm not going to get into a lot of detail about Henry Ford's reasons for promoting square dancing in public schools, because I find it distasteful. I'll just say that it seems like any time you want to know why Henry Ford did something you don't understand, you can assume the answer was likely either "increased efficiency" or "antisemitism."