"Do you think men will ever feel equal to women?"
"Obviously they can't feel equal until they are equal, and whether or not that'll ever happen I can't say. But before any change can happen there has to be recognition of the present situation, and that's the object of this study."
"I'm afraid I'm too old to change, Melissa."
"Nobody's asking you to. I'm not exactly a role model either and I'm too perverse to change, so I guess the two of us will have to carry on being less than perfect."

from Angelica's Grotto

The sky grew dark as they went down Piccadilly towards Green Park Station, Klein whispering, "A winged horse can't do my flying for me, I have to do it on my own. We are something to each other. You don't always know what's happening when it's happening. `This can't be love because I feel so well…' " Suddenly there was rain beating down, urgent and shining and steaming on street and pavement. "You go on ahead, he said, "I can't run."
"A little rain won't hurt me," she said, and pressed his arm closer to her. Drenched and smiling, he felt almost middle-aged again.

from Angelica's Grotto

"I'm not in love with her," Klein whispered into his hand. "That would be too pathetic."
"What are you whispering?"
"I'm not in love with you, Melissa."
"That's perfectly all right, Harold, but if you want to be in love with me, that's all right too. An experience can be life-enriching even when it's emotionally frustrating."
She said this tenderly, with her hand on his arm and her blue eyes full on him. Klein kissed her and she kissed him back.
"This is my life now," he whispered into his hand. "The past doesn't go away, but the present steps in front of it."

from Angelica's Grotto

Whoosh! High in the sky goes Rocket Max. Showers of stars explode over the Coliseum, it's like a movie. The stick falls back to earth in St Martin's Lane. "This is it," he says to his mind. "This is the real thing. This is my destiny woman." All through the shop heads turn. "Did I say that out loud?" he says.

"Audibly," says Lola. Blushing.

"What do I do now?" says Max.

Darkness roared with the lion, the night stalked with the silence of him.

The lion was. Ignorant of non-existence he existed. Ignorant of self he was a sunlit violence with calm joy at the centre of it, he was the violence of being-as-hunter constantly renewed in the devouring of non-being. The wheel had been when he ran tawny on the plain, printing his motion on the grateful air. He had died biting the wheel that went on and left him dead. The wheel continued, the lion continued. He was intact, diminished by nothing, increased by nothing, absolute. He ate meat or he did not eat meat, was seen or unseen, known when there was knowledge of him, unknown when there was not. But always he was. For him there were no maps, no places, no time. Beneath his tread the round earth rolled, the wheel turned, bearing him back to death and life again.

Through his lion-being drifted stars and blackness, morning sang, night soothed, dawn burst its daylight from the womb of vital terror. Oceans heaved, frail bridges spanned the winding track of days, the rising air sang lion-flight in wings of birds. In clocks ticked lion-time. It pulsed in heartbeats, footsteps walking all unknowing, souls of guilt and sorrow, souls of love and pain. He had been called, he had come. He was.

from The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz

I went to see if she was still asleep. She wasn't in my bed. She wasn't in the studio or on the balcony. She wasn't in the bathroom or the kitchen. She was nowhere in the house. The night was gone, the day was here; the tube trains were running and the trees on the common were swaying in the cool of a morning that was going to turn hot very soon. Some birds were twittering in a half-hearted way, as if they were working to rule. At that time of day I always have the feeling that if you gave reality a good kick, the scenery would shake.

'I'll go to my bed now and you lie down here. Look at the Mobius strip while you go around it with the slider. You're going to be pulling me into your dream so you should have me in your mind's eye while you're sliding the Mobius. Easy does it, just float with it, OK?'

'OK.'

'You're going to do it, I can feel it in you.' She kissed me with what was unmistakably a destiny kiss. 'See you in your dream,' she whispered. 'What if one of us is still awake while the other one's asleep?'

'If we're tuned in right that won't happen. Trust me, I'm a weirdo.'