As soon as I saw her walk into the place, I was aroused. Embedded in my mind: Tall, with angled cheek bones, her eyes drew you in. There was energy smoldering there.

I came to find out later, she consumed your energy, like a black hole, sucking you in, a high gravity pool at infinite depth. I found this out later, but now, as I sat with her on my sofa, I was curious.

‘What made you come out with me?’ I asked.

‘It was easy to talk to you,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t weird. I remember my friends looking over at me, like what’s up? Why are you still over there talking to him? We were just flowing.’

‘You knew I liked you, right?’ I said.

‘I figured,’ she smiled.

‘How?’ I asked.

‘Because you complimented me,’ she said.

I smiled. ‘Yes.’

‘But guys can be creepy,’ she said. ‘Creeps hit on me.’ She made a disgusted face and shook her head.

I was surprised. Not at her getting compliments, but that guys were unable to pay a compliment without being creepy. Maybe those guys were just creeps. Or unable to express themselves properly.

Anyway, we enjoyed our time together. She drew me in, with those eyes, and heart, and carelessness. She lived without thought to her well-being, which triggered my “fix-it” sensibility. But the abuses from childhood were too much, and suddenly it was over. We were over, and I wondered how I had ended up on such a trip with her. Where had my mind gone?

But I learned from her, as I do from all the women who enter my world. I listen at the knee of females. I gather their feelings, amd experiences, and ideas… little pieces to fit together. Pieces of the puzzle that I will never complete. The puzzle of the female spirit.