Cần môi nóng để biết lòng còn ấm cúng

-----

Last summer, shortly after the first lockdown (phong tỏa) was relaxed enough to allow strangers (người lạ) to meet outdoors, Rosie, 35, an editor (biên tập viên) based in London, joined a man for a first date (buổi hẹn đầu) on Hampstead Heath. “He said: ‘I brought some wine with me, but the glasses are in my flat, round the corner.’ I’d only met him for an hour. Even in normal times, I wouldn’t be up for that.” She can’t be entirely sure if he was suggesting an illicit (trái phép, không hợp pháp, lậu) drink or a very quick-off-the-bat ("tàu nhanh") shag (quan hệ tình dục), but it wasn’t a dilemma (thế tiến thoái lưỡng nan, tình trạng khó xử), at least. “Maybe people’s pheromones have gone funny,” Rosie says, “or maybe I secretly have Covid and can’t smell anyone properly, but I’ve had more smouldering frisson at the supermarket than I have on a date. I’ve had sex just four times since March (mới được làm tình có bốn lần kể từ tháng 3 năm ngoái đến giờ, thế thành "bò điên" mất).”

For nearly a year, give or take the odd month, the rules introduced to fight the spread of coronavirus mean that, in England, sex between single people, or established couples who don’t cohabit (sống chung như vợ chồng), has in effect been either illegal, or against regulations, or only allowed outdoors. To give that a sense of scale, 40% of people – rising to 71% among 16- to 29-year-olds – don’t live in a couple.

...As a result, talking to single people about their sex lives since the start of the pandemic (đại dịch) is a labyrinth (mê cung, mê hồn trận), a constant cross-check between what was allowed and what actually happened, told in a series of bizarre (kỳ quái, kỳ dị), dream-like (như mơ, mộng tưởng) sequences, from intense, anguished romances cut short by global circumstance, through muted misfires sucked dry by the vacuum in which they began, to bloodless, stilted dates in municipal parks or local supermarkets. It’s like reading a short story told by Leo Tolstoy one minute and Ian McEwan the next. As Rosie puts it: “The park is just not a sexy place.”

Bài trước: Anh ấy thật nhiều bạn