The kiss and beyond

THE KISS AND BEYOND: When man and woman are alone and intimate, the trappings of propriety are shed. The ever-present but hidden brashness of our animal nature emerges, and we copulate as all animals do. Why? To satisfy an inherent craving, nature has implanted in each of us. Sexual satisfaction is nature’s way of rewarding us for ensuring the species’ survival, above all, through evolutionary adaptation. And that is what life is all about. As a voyeur, I observe my characters dispassionately. They do their own thing as literary characters tend to. They lust and love, they fret their hour upon life’s stage, they age, they die, then are heard no more. The rest is just one overarching trivial pursuit. Come to think of it, maybe the lust of lust is, in the greater scheme of things, just that, too. What, I ask, in all of this, if anything, is life’s ultimate purpose? No, I am not a cynic. We are what we are, we strive for perfection – at least, some of us do – we live, we die. We cannot re-engineer humanity, try as we might.

This is what The Kiss and Beyond investigates.