The Course of Love. A novel pdfdrive com

Romanticism hasn’t only increased the prestige of monogamous sex; along the
way it has also made any extraneous sexual interest seem unvaryingly foolish
and unkind. It has powerfully redefined the meaning of the urge to sleep with
someone other than one’s regular partner. It has turned every extramarital
interest into a threat and, often, something close to an emotional catastrophe.
In the fantasy in Rabih’s mind, it could have been such a tender and easy
transaction. He and Kirsten would have chatted with Antonella in the café, all
three of them would have recognized the tension and the appeal, and then in
short order they would have ended up back at Merchiston Avenue. Antonella
and Kirsten would have made out for a while as he looked on from an armchair,
then he would have taken Kirsten’s place and had sex with Antonella. It would
have felt warm, exciting, and wholly meaningless in terms of the marriage and
of Rabih’s essential love for Kirsten. Afterwards he would have walked
Antonella back to the café, and none of them would ever mention the interlude
again. There would have been no melodrama, no possessiveness and no guilt. At
Christmas they might have bought her a 
panettone
and a card by way of thanks
for the orgy.
Despite the liberal atmosphere of our time, it would be naive to assume that the

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distinction between “weird” and “normal” has disappeared. It stands as secure
as ever, waiting to intimidate and herd back into line those who would question
the normative limits of love and sex. It may now be deemed “normal” to wear
cutoff shorts, expose belly buttons, marry someone of either gender, and watch a
little porn for fun, but it also remains indispensably “normal” to believe that
true love should be monogamous and that one’s desire should be focused
exclusively on one person. To be in dispute with this founding principle is to risk
being dismissed, in public or private, with that most dispiriting, caustic and
shameful of all epithets: pervert.
Rabih belongs firmly outside the category of the good communicators. For all
that he nurses some strongly held views, he has long found the journey towards
expressing these fraught with obstacles and inhibitions. When his boss, Ewen,
announces a new corporate strategy of concentrating more on the oil sector and
less on local government contracts, Rabih doesn’t—as someone else might do—
request a meeting and sit down with him for half an hour in the top-floor
conference room with its view over Calton Hill to explain why this policy shift
could prove not only mistaken but possibly dangerous. Instead he remains
largely quiet, making only a few gnomic remarks and fantasizing that others will
somehow magically deduce his opinion. Similarly, when he realizes that
Gemma, an entry-level staffer who has been taken on to assist him with his
workload, has been getting many of her measurements wrong, he feels inwardly
frustrated but never raises the issue with her and simply does the work himself,
leaving the young woman amazed by how little there is for her to do in her new
job. He’s not secretive, controlling, or withdrawn for malicious reasons; he just
gives up on other people—and on his ability to persuade them of anything—with
unhelpful ease.
For the rest of the day, after their visit to the Brioschi Café and the humiliating
business about Antonella, there’s the kind of tension between Rabih and Kirsten
that often follows on from aborted sex. Somewhere in his mind Rabih feels a
disappointment and irritation that he doesn’t know what to do with. After all, it
isn’t right to start making a fuss when your partner isn’t wild at the idea of
having a threesome with a recent graduate who knows her way around a plate of
eggs and happens to look nice in an apron.