"May I touch your hair," I said quietly after she had stopped talking.

      She turned to me and smiled. "You may touch anything you love about me, because your loving is honest."

      "Honest?" I repeated.

      "Of course, honest," she affirmed. "If loving is lustful, that's dishonest. It's rape. In that case, you wouldn't have asked. But you asked, for the sheer joy of it. That's obvious. This is honest and will make us both richer. But most of all, honest means that you love me primarily as a human being. Anything else is dishonest, because that is what I am, first and foremost; a human being and a woman. Forget about all the other roles people play, hierarchical roles, like brother, sister, lover, or wife. We are much more closely related as human beings. Every vertical relationship adds a touch of isolation. Hierarchical relationships create a vertical world. They isolate people. But as human beings we stand side by side as equals. Can you think of a closer relationship than that?

      "Is this zero distance in the lateral world close enough to touch?" she added and grinned.

      I said that it was. Her hair felt beautiful to touch, as beautiful as it did to look at, smooth, in flowing lines. There was a great sense of joy unfolding from this intimacy.

     I asked her moments later, "What did you mean, when you said for the joy of it? Did you mean the joy that makes the very air sparkle?"

      She didn't answer. She couldn't. I prevented her answer with a kiss. For a brief moment I even dared to touch her breasts, but within seconds I pulled my hands back and let them slide away along her side, down to her skirt. It seemed all too daring. "Popular opinion says that one mustn't touch a woman if one is a man and is not married to her," I said in a small, quiet voice.

      "That's slavery, Peter," she relied. "Don't be a slave to that opinion. Respond to truth. Be truthful. Respond to your humanity, the humanity that we all share." She turned around with a smile. "The clasp for my skirt is at the back," she said and began to grin. "If it is too restrictive, take it off. Take the panties off, too." She said that there is the same beauty in life and in love, as there is in truth. "Those are the constituents of our being."

      She kissed me briefly. We took hold of the plate of sandwiches and carried them into the good room. I carried the tea and the cups.

      As it turned out, her skirt wouldn't have been too restrictive. Nevertheless, she excused herself after a few moments and changed into something "more appropriate," as she put it. She should have called it something 'more exciting.' It certainly was that. She wore a full-length feather light dressing gown when she returned, that was almost transparent. Being with her became a sexual delight. There was a beauty in these moments of a growing intimacy in which there wasn't the slightest haste. It was born by a promise that felt secure. Indeed, her earlier promise was already coming true, when she said, 'You can touch anything you love about me.'

      I commented on what a delightful feast this had become; a feast enriched with sex, olives, and smiles.

      "That spells out SOS," she said and burst out laughing.

      "Yes, it's become an SOS type of a day for both of us," I agreed.

      "I think we both needed to be rescued," she added.

      I agreed. Still, I shook my head in disbelief as she stood before me like a beautiful white angel. I shook my head and smiled.

      "Enjoy yourself Peter, embrace the world," was her reply, "the principle of love is universal. It cannot be limited nor be made conditional. If you love yourself you simply love all. There is no isolation rational in this sphere, since we all share the same humanity. I don't exist apart from it as someone different from you. That is the truth. That's what love is built on. That's what freedom is all about. Nicholas of Cusa, a dear friend of mine, one of the creators of the Renaissance, championed the idea of natural and universal freedom and unity."

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Stories about  Healing from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche