Goddess for Hire

by Sonia Singh

  Because of the late hour, traffic in LA and Orange County proved relatively sparse. Forty-five minutes and I was home.

  I stepped inside, expecting my parents to be up, demanding to know what happened to their only daughter. Instead the house was quieter than a cluster of nuns at a Marilyn Manson concert. Mom and Dad were obviously asleep.

  Just as I reached my room, the guest bedroom door opened and the last person I expected to see stood there.

  “What on Earth happened to you?” Tahir demanded. “Your parents were absolutely ill with worry. I offered to wait up so they could get some sleep.”

  I yawned. “That was nice.”

  “Not quite. I happen to be suffering from the most awful jet lag.”

  I slumped against the wall. “What are you doing here anyway? I thought you were staying with my aunt?”

  “Thanks to your shockingly vulgar display of manners at the airport, I was forced to converse with a ruffian of a baggage handler on where to get a taxi. Public transportation is pathetic here. Your parents were understandably horrified to hear of my ordeal and kindly offered to let me stay.”

  I yawned again and felt my eyelids droop. “Well good night then.”

  “Excuse me,” Tahir snapped. “I’m not quite finished.”

  I looked up and smiled. He was as beautiful as I remembered. “Kiss my brown ass.”

  Before he could respond another door opened and my parents stood there, tired and rumpled in their pajamas. My mom tucked a lock of black hair behind her ear. “Maya, where were you?”

  Staring at their weary faces lined with concern, I longed to tell them the truth. Maybe they’d take the news their daughter was the incarnation of the goddess Kali by exchanging high fives and hugging each other.

  After all, my decision not to major in premed had gone over pretty well. Mom had fainted twice, and Dad had faked a heart attack.

  I just wasn’t ready to share this particular news with anyone, not until I figured it out for myself.

  I decided to resort to the excuse one of my high school friends, Lisa Kim, had used with her parents to great advantage. Facing them I took a deep breath. “Mom, Dad, it was terrible, there were these white supremacists and…”

  Enough said.

  Chapter 8

  MY EYES OPENED at the crack of noon.

  I blinked and spared a thought for the events of the night before. Goddess incarnate, please. It had taken me two months just to learn how to insert a tampon correctly.

  I staggered out of bed and retrieved my purse from the floor. My cell phone fell out, and I winced at the number of missed calls, all from one number, home. I plugged it into the charger, then jumped in the shower. I wasn’t sure my parents accepted my excuse from the night before. If I were going to face them, I’d do it feeling zestfully clean.

  No one was home.

  I checked the dry erase calendar in the kitchen where family members were supposed to record their daily schedules. My parents had duly filled out their whereabouts. Mom would be at her office until six, administering lollipops, diagnoses, and shots with equal aplomb to her young patients. Dad had a vasectomy scheduled for ten and something called a urologic oncology seminar from one to four.

  Tahir was nowhere to be seen. Thank Vishnu for small favors!

  I fixed myself a bagel and cream cheese, then thought, what the hell, and stuck a dollop of homemade, spicy, mint chutney on top like my dad was always telling me to. It was actually good.

  Munching on my impromptu meal, I went through the house, out the French doors, and stepped barefoot onto the deck. The wood was pleasantly warm under my feet. To the right the pool gleamed and sparkled in the sunlight. I’d never seen either of my parents in a bathing suit, they’d never seen each other naked, and there wasn’t a single copy of the Kama Sutra in our house.

  To the left was my dad’s garden filled with plump prizewinning roses. He’d told the neighbors the credit went to an ancient Indian gardening secret. His trick? Feeding them Budweiser beer.

  I walked toward the edge of the pool. It was a beautiful day, mild, despite being the middle of January. The sky was a wide expanse of blue with a cloud dotted here and there to break the seemingly endless azure infinity.

  I stuck out a toe and swirled the water. I wasn’t about to swim. I did my laps at night. My golden complexion was natural, and I didn’t want the risk of skin cancer, or worse, wrinkles.

  Dusting my hands free of crumbs, I stuck out my right arm. I was wearing a black GAP signature T-shirt, and the birthmark on my shoulder was easily visible. Three dots in the shape of a triangle.

  Could I really be Kali?

  Or what if this was some elaborate scam?

  Ram kidnapped women all over the world, told them they were goddesses in disguise, then hit them up for a fat check, all in the name of divine duty. I’m sure if I’d hung around the Holiday Inn a bit longer, he would’ve started his spiel on how his temple really needed a bigger altar and for just a few thousand rupees more…

  Still.

  There was the matter of my birthmark. And Ram’s description of a young woman with the body of a lush lotus blossom pretty much fit me to a tee.

  Meanwhile, there was definitely one thing I could do.

  Time to do a little research on the dark goddess Kali.

  Chapter 9

  INDIA IS CONSIDERED the bastion of spirituality. Every mountaintop is supposedly sprinkled with wise men in orange robes contorting themselves into complex yogic positions or communing with trees. So just because I share the same ethnic heritage as those men doesn’t mean I have some inborn sense of the metaphysical.

  At the age of ten I’d taken a stand to stop attending the Cerritos Hindu Temple with my family. There were far more important things than learning the origins and teachings of one of the world’s oldest religions, namely, Sunday morning cartoons.

  Not that it really mattered; I was pretty much failing Hinduism 101. It was the pundit’s fault. He should’ve taken my suggestion to put epics like the Mahabharat and Ramayan in comic book form. As a result I could barely tell the difference between Vishnu and Shiva.

  Of course I’d heard of Kali, along with gods like Ganesh and Hanuman. However, with regard to the second two, I couldn’t remember which one was a monkey and which had the head of an elephant.

  I went back through the house and into what, according to the real estate agent, was supposed to be the library. My parents had converted it into a Puja room, where they laid garlands, burned incense, and offered coconuts to the Hindu gods on a white marble altar. I didn’t have any coconuts on me, but I did put half of a Twix on the offering plate.

  There were several deities my family worshipped, and as I gazed at the statuettes, some of it began to come back. The flute-playing man in blue was Krishna, probably the most famous incarnation of the god Vishnu. He’d definitely set the bar high for future divine embodiments like me. Krishna’s teachings were summed up in the Bhagavad Gita, sort of the Hindu Bible.

  Next to Krishna was Lakshmi, seated in a yogic position on top of a lotus blossom, her lovely face a perfect picture of serenity. Lakshmi was the Goddess of Wealth so I said a quick prayer over my Lotto numbers.

  I was surprised to see two non-Hindu icons. A bronze Buddha in the laughing pose and a small, framed painting of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism. Apparently my parents were more open-minded than I thought.

  Now if they’d only get off my back about marriage.

  The last statue was of a chubby god with an elephant head. Staring at his appealing face I remembered he was Ganesh, the remover of obstacles. I said a quick prayer to him over my Lotto numbers, too.

  Lakshmi was the only female featured on the altar, so my parents obviously didn’t worship Kali. This was a dead end. There was another place I could try, though, and they happened to serve Starbucks coffee.

  Chapter 10

  DESPITE THE FACT it was Monday afternoon, the two-story Barnes & Noble bookstore was
doing steady business. Students and shoppers occupied all the tables in the café. I opted for a Venti Caramel Macchiato and, sipping my drink, headed toward the escalator. Religion was on the second floor. An accident or direct attempt to put the section closer to the heavens?

  I passed by the information desk where a heavyset blond woman was arguing with a harried male clerk. “But the book was there last week, and now it’s gone!”

  “Do you know the title or author?” the clerk asked.

  The woman pursed her lips. “No. But it had a purple cover.”

  Leaving the clerk to the delights of customer service, I let the escalator carry me up, up and away.

  I got off next to the political science section and had to walk to the opposite end of the floor to find religion. The bookstore was clearly adhering to the separation of church and state.

  I started on one end of the aisle and began working my way down. There were three full shelves on Christianity, one shelf on Judaism, and a third of a shelf for Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam.

  Hmm, talk about your Holy War.

  I plucked three titles on Hinduism off the shelf, then had to circle the floor several times before nabbing a corner table vacated by two students wearing UCI sweatshirts.

  I took a revitalizing sip of my drink and cracked open the first book. Scanning the table of contents I found the page number, flipped to the chapter on Kali, and began reading.

  Kali, the black goddess, is naked with long matted hair. She wears severed arms as a girdle, a necklace of freshly cut heads, children’s corpses as earrings and cobras as bracelets.

  Umm…

  I didn’t know if it was the mint chutney, but an uncomfortable stirring had begun in my stomach.

  Okay maybe it was just the author’s bias that made Kali sound like Lakshmi’s ugly stepsister. I took another fortifying sip of my coffee, and turned to a different page.

  Kali has long sharp fangs and claw-like hands. Her hang outs include the battlefield, where, as the fiercest of all warriors, she gets drunk on the blood of her victims or, in a cremation ground, where she is surrounded by jack-als and goblins.

  Yuck!

  The stirring in my stomach had become a churning.

  There were a few things Ram had neglected to tell me about Kali, namely, her freakish fashion sense. If I were Kali’s personal shopper I’d dress her in Dolce & Gabbana, and advise leaving the necklace of freshly cut heads at home.

  I needed to see a picture. Quick.

  I picked up another book and turned a few pages until I came upon one. I studied it for a few moments, then cocked my head and considered it from another angle.

  Personally, I didn’t see what was so scary about the goddess Kali. So her red protruding tongue contrasted with her ink black skin, and yeah, she was juggling a trio of human heads, and had teeth that would put Dracula to shame but…

  I slammed the book shut.

  Pushing back my chair, I grabbed my purse and ran to the bathroom. Thankfully it was empty. I stood in front of the mirror. My reflection stared back at me. Flawless oval face, smooth black brows that arched perfectly to frame my almond-shaped brown eyes, full lips, long black hair…

  I held up my slender hands—definitely not claw-shaped. And I would never drink blood, not even if it were guaranteed to make me lose weight. Plus there weren’t any cremation grounds in Orange County that I knew of, but if there were, you wouldn’t find me partying it up there on a Saturday night.

  The blenderlike movements in my stomach subsided a bit.

  I returned to the table, which was, of course, occupied, and grabbed a different book. I leaned against a shelf of Stephen King novels, appropriate for the subject matter and flipped pages until I came to another picture. This time Kali was shown straddling a pale, white, male form. The caption read:

  The Dark Mother, squatting over her dead consort Shiva and devouring his entrails, while her yoni sexually devours his lingam (penis).

  Gross!

  And, technically, it’d been more than a year since my yoni had sexually devoured any lingam.

  I tossed the book onto an empty cart and stepped over a little boy sprawled in the aisle, busy drooling over pictures in the Joy of Sex. He looked up and stared at me defiantly.

  I wasn’t about to steer him toward the Newbery Award winners, and left the little pervert stewing in his hormones. There were bigger things to think about. Namely, Kali was a horrifying creature who looked more like the Incredible Hulk than Wonder Woman. I couldn’t be her, could I?

  Considering the state my stomach was in, I tossed my coffee into the trash can. I’d also stop off at the drugstore for some Tums, just in case.

  There was one surefire way to settle this once and for all.

  It was time to do that womb-tomb mediation thing Ram had told me about.

  Chapter 11

  POPPING TUMS LIKE CANDY, I drove down Newport Boulevard, traffic parting before me faster than the Red Sea for Moses. My dad referred to me in my H2 as a weapon of mass destruction.

  Ram said to try the exercise outside. For obvious reasons I didn’t think the Barnes & Noble parking lot would suffice, I knew a far more suitable place.

  I turned onto Iris Avenue, heading toward a small, secluded section of Corona del Mar beach. It was practically deserted, and I parked on the shoulder of the road. On the weekend both sides of the street would be lined with cars.

  Slipping out of my Tommy Bahama sandals, I scooped them up in one hand and stepped onto the sand. I walked toward the water’s edge, and looked around surreptitiously, but this area of the beach was empty—no body surfers, no bobbing bosoms in bikinis, no bloated bodies burning brightly.

  Ram said to close my eyes and visualize the energy flowing up from my womb and down from my third eye. Too bad I had no idea where either spot was. Was my third eye between my eyebrows or slightly above?

  According to my birthmark it was slightly above, like a pyramid. Now where the hell was my womb? Would the stomach region suffice? Maybe I’d focus on my uterus? Thanks to Aunt Gayatri, I knew exactly where that was.

  I closed my eyes and began to chant “Om.” I was playing by ear, and Om seemed as good a word as any. Personally, I doubted I’d experience anything other than a few relaxing yogic breaths.

  “Ommm.” I stretched the syllable out as far as I could. Other than the call of seagulls in the distance, the beach was relatively silent. The Pacific Ocean truly lived up to her name. Waves eased onto the shore with barely a whisper.

  I took another deep breath and imagined energy as a golden hand, traveling up from the nether reaches of my body, and down from my forehead, connecting as two fingertips in my chest.

  Okay, so I stole the idea from Michelangelo.

  I did this a few times, staring hard at the insides of my eyelids, and saw nothing except for the usual swirls of geometric colors. Moments passed.

  Zilch.

  I opened my eyes and exhaled. It hadn’t worked. Had I expected it to? But it wasn’t like I had any pressing matters to attend to, so I tried again.

  Nada.

  My eyes flew open and I kicked at the sand. This was ridiculous!

  I wasn’t one of those people who crossed over with John Edward or happily panted with the Pet Psychic. I didn’t scamper through the woods looking for fairies or roam the desert trying to contact E.T. I believed in the tangible, like credit cards. But here I was, trying to summon up cosmic energy from my fallopian tubes.

  I suppose I could have continued being disgusted with myself, but that wasn’t any fun. Instead, I channeled my anger against Ram. What right did he have to disrupt my life this way? I was going to drop-kick him on the side of the head. I was going to run over his bony ass in my megaton SUV.

  Righteously pissed, I threw out my arms and shouted, “Om!”

  And something happened…

  A pool of warmth began building in my stomach. Like soft liquid lava it traveled up, spread through my chest, rushed along my a
rms, and seeped down into my legs. The point between my eyes began tingling. With a shaking hand I pressed the tip of my finger there. It burned.

  A shadow fell across my face, and my eyes drifted upward. The blue sky was spreading with black.

  Oh-my-God!

  Chapter 12

  A FIERCE WIND, warm and carrying the scent of a faraway land, sprang up and lashed out at the smooth surface of the ocean, kicking the water into massive, churning waves. My long hair swirled around me like a shawl of black silk.

  Lightning strikes laced through the darkness, and the warmth inside me seethed into pure intense power. My nerve endings were buzzing.

  The wind swelled with hurricane force. It was all I could do to keep on standing, but I felt better than I ever had in my life. Laughter spilled from my mouth, and the wind carried the sound until it echoed all around me.

  I was sheer energy. I was light.

  I was invincible.

  Then, like tendrils of a venomous creeper, an image of Kali I’d glimpsed in one of the books slowly spread through my mind. Dark, fierce, holding a bloodstained sword in one hand, and a decapitated man’s head in the other. Threads of cartilage hung where his neck used to be.

  “No!”

  My hands fell to my side. In haste, I jumped back from the water and fell hard against the sand. “Stop!” I didn’t know who or what I was talking to.

  I only hoped someone was listening.

  My adrenaline rush of atomic proportions was swallowed up by sheer panic. What if I’d opened some sort of Pandora’s box? What if I’d unleashed an unstoppable force?

  But the wind died down to nothing, the sky cleared, and the surface of the water was once again calm.