Goines On: Nature trails

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While Goines had enjoyed his cardio walk following the slender, dark-haired woman and her dog for a couple of blocks, he later felt a bit uneasy about having done it. How could Goines not be shy about people knowing or even just suspecting that he was attracted to a number of women in the neighborhood, that he was drawn to attractive women – attractive in either body or soul, if they had shown him their soul.
    He was drawn to exchange smiles with them, a word or two possibly. When did innocence become flirting? And flirting something more? Would anyone – the women themselves – think that he was “coming on” to them? Wasn’t that sort of thing better left under the covers, unwrapped, not spoken of?
    It was certainly natural for men to be attracted to women of child-bearing appearance, and for women to be attracted to men who— Who what? Goines guessed Nature would have them be attracted to strong, healthy men they thought they could depend on. Strands of Nature’s way were trailing, still, down through human civilization, communities, houses, streets. Goines asked himself, had he been stalking that woman that morning?

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