by Smith, Skye
The girl sat down in a rattan chair and pulled her legs up so her ankles would not be bitten by the mosquitoes that always seemed to live under rattan chairs. She listened to the moans and looked at Maya curiously. "I suppose you know that the price of these VIP bungalows includes lessons in tantric sex?"
"Tantric sex? I thought this was a Yoga institute," Maya said as she poured tea the English way, putting milk into the china cups first so that the black tea would not stain the cup.
"Tantric sex is a form of yoga, sensual yoga, sexual yoga," the girl defended while watching Maya pour tea. More moans drifted out of the bedroom window. "If you do not have a companion for the lesson, one will be provided. Should I make arrangements for a companion for you?"
"I think I will stick to normal everyday yoga, thank you."
"Are you sure?" the girl asked. "It is true that most of our guests come to study normal yoga, but you are a VIP guest. You have already paid for the special massages and personalized session of the sexual yoga." Isn't it just the way she reflected. Finally there are some attractive young people in a VIP cottage, and they don't want the full package. "There is nothing else like it. The meditational level you reach is like, way intense and powerful."
The girl scratched at the old bites on her ankles and brushed a ringlet of blonde hair out of her eyes and hung it over one of her ears. "No sugar for me, thank you. Sugar is evil."
"I have been around yoga people all of my life," Maya said. "They tend to be thin and lithe and vegetarian. I have seen the men in those other two VIP bungalows over there. They are clumsy and fat and smell like meat eaters."
"My instructor teaches that it is not our place to judge them when they start, for the importance is that they have started," said the girl taking a first sip of strong Indian tea, and then adding two lumps of sugar.
"You mean to say that like, you are going to have sex with those fat guys?" Maya shuddered.
"Not until the other companion and the instructor arrive. We must never be alone with the new ones." she said softly. "They may look like pigs, but we are taught that one should embrace another with all of your senses before you gauge their true inner beauty." She giggled. "I just close my eyes."
"I am Maya, by the way."
"Ah, Maya. That is nice. So you have already been given your ashram name. Mine is Vasini. Are you joining us, then? Are you going to become a companion? We need more blondes. The men from Mumbai all want blonde companions. Real blondes. If you and your friend both join us, then I won't be so busy on the weekends."
"I am thinking of joining." Maya lied. "Can you tell me what you like and what you don't like about this place?"
"Well first, the place is a paradise," Vasini said. "Have you walked around these grounds, through the gardens, along the stream, listened to the birds, smelled the flowers, especially the plumeria? I grew up in a factory town where the smokestacks sickened everything around them."
She slurped some tea. "More than that, I like feeling that I belong somewhere, to something, a community. We live like a large family, and I have a loving place in it. In my town everyone was busy and in debt and always angry. Hmm, what else? I like not having to worry about finding a job, or saving rent money, or lusting after some other girl's clothes or boyfriend or car."
"Are there no bad things? What about having sex with strange men?"
"You must not judge the men by those next door. Most of the men that I companion are wealthy, well groomed and are searching for something spiritual. Besides, we are taught not to give voice to the things we don't like. It just enables them," Vasini quoted.
"Then I will not join, because I like to know both the good and bad before I make a decision."
Vasini took another sip of tea and frowned. "They took my passport and my money, so I must ask their permission to leave. If a companion makes trouble, then they are sent to another ashram where they can meditate and rediscover their own inner beauty, but they never seem to come back here. I like it here."
"And is the sex good or bad?" Maya asked.
"At first it was wonderful. I was trained by two experienced companions. They were so handsome, so kind and gentle, so skilled. Now that I am a companion, it is me that must be all of those things. Some of the men they match me with are not here to learn, they are simply here so that they can brag to their friends that they have had a white woman."
"Then why do it, Vasini? Why do it?"
"We all must contribute in some way. There are many of us that live here, live well and in peace, on the earnings of the ashram. Some clean, some cook, some mend, some build, some teach, each according to their talents. I am desirable to the rich men from Mumbai, so my contribution is to be a companion."
"And you are happy here despite that?" asked Maya in a whisper.
"It's not fair to ask me that in tourist season. In high season I am too busy running from one bungalow to the next. It is much better in the slow season, when there may be no one to companion and I can be myself. If you and your friend join us then the work will be more balanced, and there will be more happiness for all."
"Is that how you joined?" Maya was intrigued. "Did you come here for the yoga and then decide to join the community?"
"I was on a student tour of India, you know, the ones in the double decker buses. One of our last stops was Goa. I met a handsome man in a club, and left the tour for him, and delayed my flight home. We became lovers. He was so skilled. He brought me here. He trained me."
"Do you still love him?" asked Maya, suspecting the answer.
"No, I hate him. He never loved me. Once I was trained as a companion, he went back to Goa to find another girlfriend."
"Vasini," came the call of a young woman's voice from the next bungalow. "The men are ready. Come and help."
"Duty calls," Vasini whispered and put down her tea cup and put her feet down onto the ground. "Even if you don't end up joining us, you would enjoy the training. It is wonderful. And while you are in training you can live here as one of us for free." She walked away towards the other young woman who was waiting for her at the next bungalow.
"Interesting, eh?" said Marique from where she stood behind the screen door. "So, there are snakes in dees paradise."
Maya's voice was like a hiss. "She is being whored and doesn't know it."
"Oh, she knows it," Marique replied, "that is why she hides from it behind the holy quotes. I am not to judge. I 'ave never lived in a factory town. And look around. This commune 'as built a paradise, so something is working."
"I suppose, but if it is so good here, why do they take away her passport and money."
"Eh," Marique shrugged as she came through the screen door wearing one of the supplied robes, "This is a commune. To each according to their need, from each according to their ability. It only works if you limit the ties to the outside world. Is there more tea?"
Marique sat in the rattan chair and pulled her feet up onto the seat. "You should 'ear the offer that manager guy made to Ajay last night. A thousand dollars if he would simply leave us 'ere and go back to Mumbai and keep quiet."
"Did he say yes?" Maya asked as she poured more tea. "Sex becomes you, by the way. You look flushed with health, and younger, perhaps sixteen or seventeen."
"It 'as been too long. Not since Randy in Vancouver. My old boyfriends in Belgium all smoke, and I do not like that flavor anymore. Kissing them is like licking an ashtray."
"Did he say yes?" Maya repeated.
"I do not know. He did not tell me the answer, just the question," she giggled.
Ajay came out onto the veranda to join them. "I was thinking it is better not to be answering such a question. I was telling them only that I would be thinking about it," said Ajay waggling his head in time with his sing song, He sat and began waggling a tea cup as a hint that he wanted tea too. Marique stood up and went over and settled into his lap.
Her robe draped loosely around them and he stroked her long shapely legs. "I am very canny at bargai
ning. It is the Indian in me. I am holding out for one thousand and one dollars."
"Ah, you think the manager was joking. You obviously didn't hear what we just heard," Maya whispered. "It was a serious offer. It's high season and they have a shortage of blonde companions for all the VIPs."
"I am knowing this already," he said, "I have been speaking with the Nepali girl who is our maid. She and her sister were brought here to do cleaning work. They are only fourteen and fifteen but they are being pressed to help with the VIPs."
"Erik told me that this place had been closed down because of all the sex and drugs," said Maya.
Ajay sipped some tea from Marique's cup. "Ahh, but now they are forbidding drugs here, so they have been allowed to be opening again. Now they are paying their taxes and their bribes like all good businessmen must. And think about all of the rich Mumbai men who are coming here to be spending time with Euro women. The police will not be making trouble for them."
"How much?" said Marique switching positions so she could put her empty cup down and pick up Ajay's. "How much will you ask for, you know, to leave us 'ere?"
He chuckled and kissed her neck. "I am thinking no less than ten thousand ... each." His voice turned serious and lost its sing song. He suddenly sounded like a Canuck from Vancouver. "They must be making four hundred dollars a night gross from each VIP guest. They need you, here and now, to increase their sales. Their payback in high season will be less than a month. High season lasts four months. Ten thousand would be cheap for them."
"That is disgusting," complained Maya. "How can you rattle off a business justification for such, such, ..."
"But it is a business, darling," Marique interrupted. "Their profits are high because they have aimed at the high end of the market. No twenty dollar streetwalkers in this outfit. They are businessmen not criminals."
"The Nepali girls are under age. That makes them criminals." Maya was losing her temper with her friends.
"You must be calming down," said Ajay, "this is India. There are many young girls in Nepal that are orphans or are sold by their fathers to cancel a debt. The didi, I mean, sister I was speaking with was older than the age that most girls are sold. Ten is more normal."
He ducked from the teaspoon that Maya threw at him. "Just because it is normal doesn't make it right," she hissed.
"And just because it isn't right, doesn't mean we can stop it," Marique fired back at her friends naivety.
"I think we that we should be leaving this place as soon as we are being dressed," Ajay said, back to his sing song rhythm.
"No," Maya said softly with a finality in her tone, "the gardener has agreed to tell me things about my aura. I must stay. Please, at least one more night." There were no nods or shakes or words. "Okay, while you guys talk about it, I'm going to a morning Yoga class."
* * * * *
The class was held on a large hardwood floor underneath a large palm roof supported by columns. There were no walls. None of the fat cats from Mumbai were there. Everyone looked like a pretty typical yoga bunch, mostly women, mostly women who looked like they had money and lots of leisure time. As the newcomer, Maya sat at the back on the floor. One of the attendants brought her a mat.
Class started simply with the salutation to the sun, followed by a short meditation. There were two instructors and one announced that anyone who was a beginner should move to the back, and the rest should move to the front. Thus the class split into two, and each set sat with their backs to the others. Maya decided to sit in the middle so that just by turning herself she could join one class or the other.
The two lithe woman instructors were slick. They were facing each other from opposite ends of the floor and they coordinated their changes so that both classes changed positions at the same time. This meant that one class was never distracted by the other.
Maya was wearing her Indian equivalent of a body suit. It was perfect. Both the top and bottoms were like close fitting pajamas but of a weave so fine that they did not restrict her movement. As the positions got harder and taxed her strength in an isometric way, she undid the little snaps that held the top closed.
After a twenty minute vigorous class, they had twenty minutes to cool down and meditate. Everyone shuffled their mats closer together and formed one large ring with the instructors in the center. She noticed the women around her pulling off their sweaty tops, and she followed suite.
This was more like it. This was exactly what she had expected of a yoga ashram. A place where you could safely meditate with like souls. She pressed her palms together and emptied her mind and allowed her aura to do whatever it wanted to do.
She heard the women on either side of her moaning softly. She expected that. They would be closest to the wash of her aura and would be feeling its effect. Hopefully they would work through the obvious sexual arousal and use the aura to reach a higher level of meditation. She ignored them and emptied her mind again. She heard nothing more until she felt a light touch on her shoulder.
"It is time for the next class," said a soft, calming voice. She opened her eyes and looked ahead, and then to either side. About a dozen women had formed a tight circle around her. They were all in the wash of her aura. She grasped her elbows and started to breath more quickly, and increase her heart rate from the slow motion it reached during meditation.
"It is time for the next class," said the other instructor who was walking around the outside of the tight circle touching shoulders. She kept going around and around until everyone had their eyes open. Maya stood and stretched her legs and rolled up her mat and put it in the mat holder and then walked with a graceful glide towards her bungalow.
Two of the women from the tight circle danced to catch up to her. "Howdy, I'm Marie and this is Theresa. We are from Spokane, ya know, in the USA. Do you speak English? What was that? That thing you were doing. What was that? Was that yoga? Oh honey, wait up." One of them grabbed her arm.
Maya stopped and turned. Besides the two that had turned her, there were another five heading her way. She faked a thick foreign accent and said, "Not now, I must, how you call it, pee. Pee now." She bowed to them and made good her escape. Over her shoulder she could see now eight women standing in the middle of the courtyard all talking over top of one another.
Worse, she could see the two instructors talking to the manager from last night. They were pointing at her as they talked. She hurried her pace. She really did need to pee. When she reached the bungalow's veranda she heard two things simultaneously. Sounds of passion through the bedroom window, and a soft "namaste" from a bent old man in a filthy dhoti.
* * * * *
* * * * *
MAYA'S AURA - the Ashram by Skye Smith
Chapter 13 - The Hills near Pune, India
Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well. - Mahatma Gandhi.
It turned out that the place that Sanjay the gardener wanted to take her, was far enough away to require a car to reach it. Ajay offered to drive them, which meant that Marique had to come too, because Ajay refused to risk leaving her alone in the ashram. In the old Mercedes, in the front, Marique sat as close to Ajay on the bench seat as she possibly could, whereas in the back, Maya sat as far from Sanjay as she could manage without crawling out of the window.
The old man was in a better mood this morning. He was completely open with them about his adventures in the ashram business, though open did not necessarily mean truthful.
"My ashram became famous and then infamous because of drugs and then sex. As a place of enlightenment, the drugs helped a lot, but the sex was a great mistake. It was just a big distraction from what I was trying to teach. As a place of business, however, the sex meant extreme profits, but the drugs were a great mistake. It made enemies of the police, and made it difficult for me to take my teachings beyond Pune."
"If you are no longer partnering in the business, then why are you staying on at the ashram
?" asked Ajay. "It must be demeaning to be a gardener. That is a job for an untouchable."
"It is not a job," Sanjay replied, "because I am not paid. Any money I earn, the taxmen takes. All of it." He smiled at the two women. This other one, Marique, was so comely. "I stay because of the fringe benefits. I like being a gardener and that earns me a bed and my food. I like the company of beautiful people, and there are many of those at the ashram. It is all good."
Maya felt his eyes looking through her travel clothes. "What did you say to the boss to gain us the bungalow?"
"I said, 'don't be a fool. Look at those women. Give them a bungalow and they will stay awhile'." He chuckled. "Of course he is not a fool, far from it. He is the genius of the business. At the time he didn't realize that Ajay was with you. If either of you had gone with Ajay into the office, you would have saved a lot of arguing. Turn right at the next corner and follow that road until there are cliffs ahead."
Maya decided to push for answers while he was so talkative. "Were the Nepali girls his decision?"
"It was a kindness. He saved them from being sold to a brothel."
"Like the ashram isn't a brothel," she snickered.
"The ashram is soft and protective. A brothel is harsh reality. It is not the best solution, but it will do until there is a better one. You should join the ashram. You would enjoy it. Life becomes simple, and leaves you much quality time to seek enlightenment."
They rode in silence until an escarpment rose in front of them. "Take the track just past the big palm." The car slowed and then bumped down the shoulder and onto a cart trail.
"Is there a turnaround at the ending of this trail?" asked Ajay. He was being forced to wrench back and forth on the steering wheel to keep his muffler from being torn away.
"The cart track improves on the other side of the stream."
"The stream," Ajay screamed as they bumped down a shallow embankment, and crossed a rough ford in a spray of water. Thankfully he could not find the brake, else the old Merc would not have lost the momentum it needed to lurch up the other side. The track did improve but only because the muddy soil became gravel on the other side.
