Love

For the first time,
her love for Edward
was associated with a definable
physical sensation, as irrefutable as vertigo.
Before, she had known only
a comforting broth of warm emotions,
a thick winter blanket of kindness and trust.

That had always seemed enough,
an achievement in itself.

Now here at last
were the beginnings of desire,
precise and alien, but clearly her own;
and beyond, as though suspended
above and behind her, just out of sight,
was relief that she was just like everyone else.
-- Ian McEwan, "On Chesil Beach"