We Love with the Brains of a Child (by Mircea Cartarescu)

The most wonderful woman in the world is the one who truly loves you and the one you truly love. Nothing else matters. Once, while in high school, I was wandering about the streets with a friend, two frustrated wannabes who gave qualifications to “chicks” and talked as dirty as erotic innocent they were. What a but one had, what hooters another one… Women were to us nothing more than some objects of luxury, like the polished cars in the windows of “Volvo” or “Maseratti” dealer stores - we couldn`t really imagine us having one some day. In front of Patria cinema we saw a hot chick. We remained still: what thighs in black net nylons, what a round but, what a narrow waist, what clothes on her, what red hair curled in all directions… We twisted around her to see her from the front, too: how could she possibly had such pair of tits, as perfect as one could only saw in art albums – which, at that time, were a substitute for Penthouse magazine - ? Who was such a creature designed for, what a night of sex with her could be like? Eventually, we put ourselves in line to buy tickets, without letting her out of our sights and without stopping from our comments. Suddenly we heard some guy, a rather dirty one, who was waiting to buy a ticket, too, eating seeds, right in front of us: “This whore is hot, isn`t she? You want her, too, you little brats… Now listen to me, as I “checked” dozens like her: as fuckable as she may appear to you, be sure that somewhere there is a man who is sick and tired of her! She may be the hottest in the world, she may even be Brigitte Bardot, but there still is a man who finds her as attractive as I find my wife…”

Those remarks shocked us more than expected. How can anybody get bored of the beauty itself, untouchable and unimaginable? Of the one who you would give even your skin for? What more a man could want than to wrap his arm around her waist, look for hours into her eyes, lay her down on bed… Get her out of her silky clothes… From that point on my imagination got blocked as I couldn`t imagine what making love to a woman was like. Whenever I thought about that, I used to see a pink ocean whirling above and suffocating me…

Later on, I met real women, imaginary women, dream women, novel women, movie women, commercial women. Women from the pages of porn magazines. Each one different and with something else to offer. I felt in love with few of them and every time it was the same: the first sign that I could be in love with her was always the fact that, looking at her, I couldn`t think of “how fuckable she is”. Even if she was. The brain of a man is filled up with hormones. Not even the most gentleman of intellectuals makes exception. Even this man, at any age, imagines what would be like messing with the bored not known girl standing next to him. But when you meet the most wonderful woman in the world, the one you can love, the sign is, it has to be, that neither the thighs, nor the “hooters” can be seen anymore, as if the hormones of sex and agresivity would draw back from your harmed brain and let it as innocent as the one of a child. We have sex thinking with the brain of a men, but we love with the brain of a child, hopefully, addictively and willing to be offered affection. The wonderful women of my life, the ones I truly loved and who answered with love to my love, were – to some extent – bodyless, not material, they were pure joy, pure nervosity, pure experience. Sensuality was nothing but an ingredient in a complex and exhausting adventure of my mind. So, for me, there is no such thing as “the most wonderful woman” either from the 90-60-90 point of view, or from the blonde, brunette, red haired, tall or short, shop assistant or poet point of view. The most wonderful woman is the one with whom I can have a virtual child named “our couple”, “our love”.