murakami, haruki - Norwegian wood

her bed. I had no doubts about those things. I loved Midori, and I was
happy that she had come back to me. The two of us could make it, that
was certain. As Midori herself had said, she was a real, live girl with
blood in her veins, and she was putting her warm body in my arms. It
had been all I could do to suppress the intense desire I had to strip her
naked, throw open her body, and sink myself in her warmth. There
was no way I could have made myself stop her once she was holding
my penis and moving her hand. I wanted her to do it, she wanted to do
it, and we were in love. Who could have stopped such a thing? It was
true: I loved Midori. And I had probably known as much for a while. I
had just been avoiding the conclusion for a very long time.
The problem was that I could never explain these developments to
Naoko. It would have been hard enough at any point, but with Naoko
in her present condition, there was no way I could tell her I had fallen
in love with another girl. And besides, I still loved Naoko. As twisted
as that love might be, I did love her. Somewhere inside me there was
still preserved a broad, open space, untouched, for Naoko and no one
else.
One thing I could do was write a letter to Reiko that confessed
everything with total honesty. At home, I sat on the veranda, watching
the rain pour down on the garden at night, and assembling phrases in
my head. Then I went to my desk and wrote the letter. It is almost
unbearable to me that I now have to write a letter like this to you, I
began. I summarized my relationship with Midori and explained what
had happened that day.
I have always loved Naoko, and I still love her. But there is a decisive
finality to what exists between Midori and me. It has an irresistible
power that is bound to sweep me into the future. What I feel for
Naoko is a tremendously quiet and gentle and transparent love, but
what I feel for Midori is a wholly different emotion. It stands and
walks on its own, living and breathing and throbbing and shaking me
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