About the “Senses of Love” Series
“Love is the poetry of the senses.”
-Honore de Balzac
Love is not only a feeling or an idea, but the result of what is experienced through the five senses:
Touch. Taste. Sound. Smell. Sight.
Through these senses, we may each be touched by love, or express love, differently. This is the purpose of my “Senses of Love” series – to express stories depicting that, although we may each experience or express love differently, it is nevertheless our capacity for love which is unifying.
To that end, the “Senses of Love” series will contain five books – one each addressed to the five senses. This is the third book in the series. The books in the series may be read in any order.
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Chapter 1
There are really only a handful of moments in life which could be considered truly defining. The birth of a child. The loss of a loved one. Your wedding day. A first kiss. A first job. A job loss – or even a job change to avoid the ritualistic pattern of daily life. Out of all of the time in life spent searching for meaningful moments, really there may only be a handful of actual defining ones.
But Nikki wasn’t searching for a defining moment. Instead, she was searching for a fulfilling one: one of those incredibly unique moments where it makes all of life – the hard moments and the mundane ones – completely and unequivocally worth it. Nikki was searching for that rare moment where she discovered love, or, rather – that moment where love discovered her. She knew that once she found the type of unequivocal love which she was looking for, that she’d want nothing more than to hold onto it for the rest of her life. So, simply put, she wasn’t just searching for love, she was also searching for her future husband.
To say that Nikki sought out love would be correct, but not totally accurate in describing her approach. She wasn’t just seeking out love, she was actually being so bold as to be interviewing for it. And since she knew that she’d eventually marry that love when she found him, this meant that Nikki’s quest for love also resulted in her actively interviewing to find her future husband. But the fact that her dates were really interviews for a husband wasn’t her goal – that was just the byproduct of what she really wanted in life: love.
Nikki knew that her lifetime of love existed in the world somewhere. And until she found it, she made the decision to actively be engaged to discover it. She figured that she had to because the whole world was full of candidates. So, if she was going to find him, she had to get going!
To Nikki, her faith that she would eventually find love never wavered. She knew it was just a matter of numbers. Love was somewhere out in the world – and she hoped that it happened to be in her backyard of New York City.
Nikki always knew that she’d recognize her future husband – the love of her life – almost immediately upon meeting him. And she knew that he’d recognize her back as his equal. It wasn’t really a pie-in-the-sky or knight-in-shining-armor dream for Nikki, either. If she remained single for the rest of her life, that was fine. She knew that she would have given it the best shot she could, and that was good enough for her. But since she didn’t prefer it that way, Nikki took action. It was a modern-woman approach, for sure.
And there was definitely a basis for Nikki believing that she’d eventually find love. She’d had several friends over the years who would be single one week, and then suddenly engaged the next. Just like that. And when Nikki asked them each how that happened, each of her girl friends would similarly remark how they just suddenly met him and knew. So, this type of sudden love existed – both for those other girls and in Nikki’s mind as well.
Nikki knew it was also going to happen to her. Why wouldn’t it? After all, she was an attractive, accomplished blonde woman in her early thirties living in the largest city in the nation. She maintained a schedule of working, going to the gym, seeing friends and family, getting out into the city, and … interviewing for her future husband.
Nikki’s interviews in her search for love occurred via dates which normally took place twice every week. The first date was mid-week every Wednesday evening. The second date was every Saturday evening. If the Wednesday date went well, then she would invite the guy back for a second date that same Saturday. However, that was just her plan - so far, it had never actually happened.
Since she began this schedule for first dates, no guy had ever actually advanced to the second date. Not yet. Nikki was picky and didn’t want to give a guy a second date just for any reason. She had good reason to be picky, too, since she’d experienced the unfortunate result of what happened when you dated the wrong guy. But that was a subject from her past which Nikki no longer wanted to dwell on. She’d moved on. Even after her prior experience with the wrong guy, she kept an earnest, upbeat attitude that she’d know love when she met him.
But it wasn’t just the scheduling of her dates which she maintained on a strictly consistent basis. She was also extremely consistent with the location and time of them. Each date was exactly the same and began with a dinner date.
She would meet each guy at 6:00 p.m. at Fate’s Kitchen in Manhattan. The restaurant was named after its owner and chef, Joey Fate. And although Nikki had gotten to know Joey and his family well over the last year or so, she still preferred this modern, sit-down restaurant for its name. She was hoping that meeting at Fate’s Kitchen would somehow allow fate, if it existed, to intervene in her love life.
Of course, if a second date happened with a guy, then Nikki would have to plan to go somewhere else. Ironically, down the street from Fate’s Kitchen was an off-Broadway theatre named Second Chance Theatre. Due to its name, she obviously kept that in the back of her mind for if a second date was to happen. But that would be a bridge to cross when it happened. And as to meeting so early in the evening at 6:00 p.m., that was also intentional. If the date wasn’t going well, then she could always use a fictitious previously-planned engagement to end the date early. She had it all planned out.
But incredibly, she took this strict routine about her first dates even a step farther.
During her dates, she would ask the exact same questions. She’d often make the same exact off-handed jokes as well. This was done with well-rehearsed precision so as not to give away the fact that she was actually interviewing each candidate. The purpose behind this act was simple: to better compare each guy to each other. By eliminating as many variables between the dates as she could, she was able to see each guy’s personality traits and tendencies more clearly. She figured this would help her know love more easily when it manifested. She wasn’t sure if it would come from one guy being unique from the others, or if it would be depicted by his sincere interest in her being reciprocated. But, either way, Nikki figured that having this routine was beneficial. Or, maybe, she was just so actively looking for love that she didn’t want to have to plan so many different dates out! That was possible, too. Either way, it was her plan – and a well-rehearsed one at that.