The Library of Kisses
The building is glass and mesh, large but not intimidating.
Rather, welcoming. A cantilever of floors over the city street. We can see
lights inside but can’t quite make out what is there. We move closer, holding
tight to each other’s hands. Curious and eager.
The door swings open as we approach. No sound. Daylight
streams in from high clerestories. An escalator in the lobby moves upwards
silently, smoothly, continuously. We step onto it and gasp as we realize where
we find ourselves. This is the famous Library of Kisses.
The librarians have used the Greek names for Love to
organize and label all eight of the floors: Eros (the body), Philia (the mind),
Storge (family), Ludus (play), Mania (obsession), Pragma (endurance),
Philautia (self, soul), Agape (highest form of love, divine).
Each floor opens as we rise, each with wooden
tables, small lamps and silk pillows. Each pillow has a tag sewn neatly on
its edge. Perched on the pillows, the embodiment of love: lips. Lips in all
shades of red, pink, brown; lips narrow, lips full, lips parted, lips glistening,
lips wet, lips pursed, lips smiling. Combinations of these traits, too--an infinite
potential for kisses.
We leave the escalator to examine the offerings on the Ludus
floor. It is an airy floor, all shades of green. One entire aisle has
red-labeled Cans of Bliss, the red vibrating against the greens of the room. The
pillow tags describe the qualities and applications of the nestled lips, of the
proffered kisses.
I contemplate a smiling pair of lips, plump and very
lifelike, when my companion leans over, “Stop reading for a minute,” she says.
She lightly touches the lips on the pillow with her index finger and they
disappear like a bubble, with a soft pop. “Here is that kiss. Like this.” She
nuzzles her lips under my ear, a warm, soft exploration ending in a little nibble
on my ear lobe. “It is supposed to tickle,” she says, drawing back to study me.
“Yes, it does,” I say in appreciation. “How did you know?”
“See the sign? This whole table has tickling
kisses. Over there are the slurping smooches, right near the movie kisses.”
“Can we take some of those home?” I wondered. “For later?”
The lips she had touched are returning, it looks like a mist, condensing into
their original form on the pillow.
She grabs my hand and pulls me back onto the escalator, this
time going down. We stop and get off at Eros. “Here, this is what I want to take
home,” she says. “Some of this.”
A librarian approaches us, a friendly smile on her lips. “First
time?” she asks.
It’s a little embarrassing, to be honest, to be caught on
this floor. It is pink, purple and glittery. The heat is turned higher here
than the other floors, making me damp. The pillows are larger than the others
upstairs and they appear to be dented and rumpled, as if these lips had been
moving. And indeed, as I watch, I see activity. Slow opening, closing, smiling,
exhalations, panting, rolling—it is as if the lips were part of exercises and
dances, but in slow motion. I blush, understanding at last what this all about.
My friend stammers out, “Yes,” she says. “First time.”
“Don’t be nervous,” the librarian says. “Many people start
here. It is a good place for a beginning.”
“Can we take any of these home?” my friend asks. I admire
her directness.
The librarian doesn’t answer right away. She tilts her head
and contemplates me. “I see you have already found the tickling kisses. That’s
very good.” She points to the skin beneath my ear and shows my friend the sign
of our experiment on the Ludus floor. She tells us how each kiss leaves a small
glow of warmth in its place. “You have already found the way to take our kisses
home,” she says. “That glow will last a few hours and you can place those
kisses in new places. Simply use your lips to pick up the warmth and transfer
it. Once you have learned it, it is yours, ingrained, to repeat as often as you
wish.”
The Library of Kisses is a vast and educational place, each
kiss catalogued, each kiss a lesson. We can try any that we like. The Eros librarian
leads us to the table with the French kisses, the deep kisses, the noisy kisses.
She seems to float rather than walk. We float along after her.
As I wonder about this, she explains more. Time is adjusted
here like the heat and it is effortless to be in the spell. On this floor, everything
moves in slow motion in order to preserve the kisses. They are powerful,
demanding near total surrender to learn fully by heart. She cautions us to
choose what we want but to take it home in our own bodies before bestowing it
on to the other. “You’ll need privacy,” she says, her eyes glowing. She looks at
each of us, slowly, of course. “Remember, you can return,” she says. “We
encourage it.”
In spite of the lazy heat and the warp of time, my heart races. I
want to select our new kiss, head to my place sooner than later. I lean over
the pillows to read, my friend’s hand in mine. We exchange glances, slowly lick
our lips in unison. We nod. We choose the Soul kiss to make our own.
