Another Country

by James Baldwin

“You’ll be kissing a long time, my friend, before you kiss any of this away.”

But he had the tendency of all wildly disorganized people to suppose that the lives of others were tamer and less sensual and more cerebral than his own.

And he thought, The women have more courage than we do. Then he thought, Maybe they don’t have any choice.

There were so many things one did not dare to know. And were they all patiently waiting, like demons in the dark, to spring from hiding, to reveal themselves, on some rainy Sunday morning?