this woman looked like a threat

I'm in rereading mode. The last few months, all I've wanted to read is a steadily-revolving array of poetry (new and old) and books from my fiction and lit shelves. This weekend I plowed through two novels in 2 days, as well as a fictionalized biography.

It is that book that has my mind reeling. A weird little story, delicate and spare, purchased for one reason but kept for entirely another, it manages to catch me by surprise each time I read it.

This page, these three paragraphs, are what it's all about (this time around).

The bachelor hung

up the phone and sank into confused immo-

bility. At a more self-reflective moment, he

might have grasped the truth. The fact was that

he had become comfortable with his romantic

life: on-again, off-again with the girlfriend and

plenty of room in between for wild times with

attractive strangers. Some people might have

compared his romantic routine to watching

sports on television. It gave him drama, pas-

sion, variety, and not much responsibility.

This woman looked like a threat to all that.

What jolted him out of his stupor was the

thrill of a project: a seduction dinner! He was

excited, too, by the chance to talk to her again.

It had been a long time, he realized, since he

had been with someone whose talk was a thrill

in itself.

[L.F. Hoffman, from The Bachelor's Cat]

Someone whose talk [is] a thrill in itself.