“Let’s get dressed,” she says. “You can buy me a glorious Cantonese breakfast, and I’ll lord it over all the women sitting with uninteresting men.”
“Oh, I’m interesting now. A moment ago, I was a furry interloper and not a very bright one.”
“But you kiss well,” says Ana.
“And you’re amazing in red,” I observe.
I give her a rough shove. Surprised, Ana lands with a soft thump against the sun-warmed leather. The silk robe surrenders to each side, leaving only the red sash at her waist. With a defiant glare, Ana parts her knees a little more and the direct sun reveals that she, too, is aroused. Last night, this woman was a moonlit snowfield. In the direct sun, she is a hallucination of haughty splendor.
I lean forward to lick a long line along a luminescent leg, finally forcing my face into the very crux of the matter, enjoying the woman-scents there, teasing them out one by one. Ana’s fingertips dig into my scalp. Moments later, her belly swells and I know she is mine. I have known this woman’s alpine snowfields. Now I will learn of her equatorial jungles.
Unexpectedly, though, the white belly deflates. Ana Manguella is a fallen cake. Did I miss something here? Ana gives off a post-orgasmic glow, yet I don’t remember any orgasms. Eager to rekindle the blaze, I apply the Unfailing Tongue. It’s mere seconds before the white belly swells again, and Ana presses against me with an “ooo-ooh.”
Got her.
At the very last moment, Ana pulls away. Unwilling to let her go, I follow, pressing adamantly. I hear a throaty sound almost like mourning—but again she backs away. I follow hungrily, only to learn that two bare feet are pressed against my shoulders. Those feet now give me a savage shove, and I find myself sprawled on the opposite end of the sofa.
Lifting my head, I stare dumbfounded at the woman of the tousled tresses.
Ana sits up, crosses her legs, tidies her robe, throws her hair behind her shoulders, and says, “I decide when I come.”
I stare a little more.
“I had multiples last night,” she tells me calmly, combing her unruly hair with her fingers. “It was a wonderful release, but another right now wouldn’t be the best of ideas, so I circulated.”
“Circulated,” I repeat.
“Really, Julian, you’re old enough to understand how sex works by now. It’s an energy pump. You use it to accumulate and discharge energy. Personally I find that being a little overcharged has its uses. It keeps me primed. Being blown all to hell, on the other hand, is quite limiting. Like I told you about polarity, maintaining a little tension between positive and negative is the engine that drives everything.”
With an effort, I pull myself upright. I still want that cup of coffee.
Ana says, “Sex is fun and it’s also a technology. I woke up with a headache, so when you started feeding me energy, I received it and circulated it. The headache’s gone. Simple as that.” She tilts her head. “How are you feeling?”
“Feeling?” I repeat blurrily.
“You’ll find it in the f’s. I think you’re totally out of focus, Julian. Lie down.” Ana pats the spot beside her. “On your back. Get comfortable.”
I fuss about for a minute, fighting the undersized bathrobe. Finally, I’m more or less situated.
“I said comfortable,” says Ana. “ Look at how your leg is twisted. And this shoulder is high. Do something with yourself.” She begins yanking at me, jamming cushions under this spot and that until I am very comfortably arranged on the ultra-warm leather, my knees bent and supported by cushions. Ana pulls at both my knees now, shaking them until they release their customary tension. Sighing, I feel my lower body surrender, one knee falling against the back of the sofa, the other against Ana’s breasts. “Good,” she says. “Hold that spot.”
Slowly Ana’s hands part my robe, dragging its smooth silk across the delicate skin of my thighs. The sunlight now pours deliciously onto something that stirs expectantly. All of Ana’s fingertips go to the beginnings of my scrotum, making tiny unhurried circles there. “You have nice balls,” she says without emphasis. “It’s a secret pleasure among women, stealing glances at men’s balls. Handsome ones, anyway.” The fingers arrive at the base of my pleasure, pulling at it, exposing more and more of the rising serpent’s head.
“Mmmph,” says someone. It might have been me.
“Is it good?” asks Ana curiously.
I open one eye. Ana doesn’t notice. Her smile is tipping forward, drawing ever nearer the serpent’s head. I feel her busy fingertips glide further along the sensitive shaft.
“Oooh,” says someone.
My one eye watches Ana lick her lips. I feel her warm breath touching me. The warm finger pads reach the hyper-sensitive throat of my pleasure, and I cry out as her right hand grips that throat and gives it a punitive twist.
“Slow your breath,” she says, and I feel her hot breath again. “Let the energy build.”
I try to locate my breath. I can’t find it.
“Focus,” says Ana.
Closing both eyes, I find my breath and force it to expand. Instantly the excitement fades a bit and with it the erection.
“Breathe,” she says, her hand pumping now, teasing the phallus back to life. I only manage a couple more deep breaths before I’m approaching my limits.
“Orrurrgh.”
“Breathe,” orders Ana, stilling her hand.
My nervous system skids to a rough halt.
The hand disappears. “Julian, you aren’t breathing. You have to move back and forth between the sensations and the breath. The sensations are the accelerator. The breath is the brake. Between the two, you can fill your whole body with light. But you have to try.”
“Light,” I say dizzily.
The warm hand reappears at my groin. “I’m going to massage you some more. First just enjoy it on the most basic level. When the energy begins to build, shift your focus from external to internal and work with the breath. Accelerator and brake.”
I close my eyes and lace my hands behind my head. “Got it.”
Fuck her. I’m going to come.
“As you breathe,” says Ana, “picture a bright yellow-orange light building in your second chakra, flooding your whole body. It builds on the inhale and circulates on the exhale.”
Suddenly I’m aware that Ana’s other hand has closed around my balls. My eyes jerk open.
“If you come,” she says, “I’m going to squeeze until you’re unconscious, drag your ass out on the street, and leave you there.”
“Uh, no real need.”
“If you’re getting close, just say stop, and I’ll stop.”
I nod obediently.
Might actually be worth it. Ana’s right hand moves slowly and affectionately now, as though behind the ears of a beloved pet. This is pure mammalian touch, I realize. Something due every one of us. Basic to our membership. Foundational to our wellbeing. I can’t complete the thought. The back of Ana’s right hand is now twirling against the reawakening penis. Quite unexpectedly I laugh. I’m laughing, stretching, yawning, and shuddering at the same moment, as well as pressing quite rudely against the back of the friendly hand, pressing as might a greedy cat demanding more. The warm hand matches my pressure exactly, pushing back, now turning, thumb and forefinger closing around my dick to tug and twist. The tip of Ana’s smallest finger appears lightly at the edge of my anus, and the energy builds dizzily.
“Brake,” says Ana, and the fingertip disappears.
Desperately I shift my attention to the breath, trying to envision a yellow-orange light at my center. I’m too distracted by the burn of pleasure. Or. Maybe it’s the burn itself that she’s talking about. Curious, I slow my breath to more closely observe. A few moments later, I’m surprised to discover that the center of my pleasure is located deep within my body’s core. The skin-sensations feed energy to that central burn as would dry sticks tossed onto a fire. But it’s the enduring coals beneath the flames that provide the deepest undercurre
nts of pleasure. I focus on that deep, slow burn and find it not at all featureless but composed of tiny, bubbling cells of translucence. I try to discern a color. Ana’s hand begins to move, and more bubbles appear, welling, brimming, colliding one against another, a golden white when first appearing. As they tumble faster, the color becomes yellow-orange. I find I can rest my point of perception in their midst and let them carry me up, boiling up from the center of the cradle of the pelvis.
Oooh.
Ana has gripped me quite firmly, the flat of her thumb pressing into the underside of the cobra’s head. Now her hand begins to tremble spastically, and the tip of her smallest finger re-appears at my anus. My mouth falls open a little wider. I think I’m drooling. I don’t care. I also don’t care if I spend the remainder of the day unconscious in a gutter.
Deftly, Ana holds me teetering at the edge, reading my micro-moments. Time ceases moving. The erection rages, the glistening bubbles boiling furiously until they threaten to burst their container, and my breath catches. Instantly Ana’s hand becomes still. Belatedly I remember to use the breath to distribute the glow throughout my body. A moment later, the bubbles die down but the undercurrents continue to radiate warmth to my whole body. I realize that each of Ana’s little tugs and squeezes is intended to stoke that inner glow deep at my center. Is that what she means by shifting my focus from external to internal? Ana’s fingers begin to move, and the bubbles stir once more. Soon I’m again teetering at the edge.
Ana stills her hand.
“Is it too much?” she whispers. “Too much stimulation?”
I nod helplessly, and the hand glides to the underside of my balls.
“Just breathe,” she says. “Let yourself relax into it.”
The flat of her thumb presses into the perineum and slowly circles there. I loose a contented sigh.
“Good,” says Ana. “Good.”
Her massage is soothing. I fall forward into the sensation, melting into the glow as does my skin into the sunlight from the window. I realize that I am in the presence of orgasm. Not as an approaching event. As a present reality. Not as a sneeze of the loins but as a surrender of the entire organism. But unto what? I feel a strange sense of completion, strange because I’m not sure I’ve ever felt it before. Not like this. No need to reach for something further. Everything I want is present and basking in its own light. This can’t be possible. Following Ana’s instruction, I relax farther into that sensation, becoming a tumbling point of acceptance within an undifferentiated sphere of self-pleasure that—
“Is it good?” asks Ana.
My eyelids part for a bleary glance at her face. If only she knew how good. Then again, I suppose she does. My eyes roll closed. Again I fall forward into the glow, surprised at its depth. I recall what I’ve read about the second chakra, about all the chakras, how they’re capable of opening astonishingly wide when cultivated. Yoga-speak. Whatever. But now I am an unknown creature coiled at the center of that truth, gazing serenely out. I am within orgasm, within its warmest and safest chambers.
Ana’s hand grips me very tightly, and the coal at my center sends forth a flare. I realize that in an instant all will flash white-hot, consuming itself. I deepen my breathing, using the exhalation to dissipate as much of the yellow-orange fire as I can until the moment of danger has passed.
“Very good,” says Ana, her hand becoming still.
I rest for a long moment, opening my eyes to check whether my body is emitting light. No, yet I’m quite certain of something. Each cell of my body is a tiny engine of ecstasy that feeds the collective flame that feeds it in turn, conjuring an arrival in self without boundaries or purpose beyond its own micro-cellular brilliance.
“Very, very good,” says Ana, her palms spreading across my lower belly. I feel them glide up to my chest then down along my thighs, as though helping me spread the glow from my center to every part of my body. My erection slowly descends to a place of rest at my thighs. The session is coming to a close, yet there is no sense of anticlimax. No sense of deprivation. I feel only that same unexpected sense of completion. I can’t quite find my edges.
“How do you feel?” asks Ana.
“Bnrrrgh.”
“You see how it works?” she says. Ana Manguella’s hands grab fistfuls of my pubic hair and give it a playful tug. “Breakfast!” she cries.
Chapter Thirty-Four
“Death to all Americans!”
Those words were heard on a Baghdad street yesterday. We bomb their cities, we kill their sons, we depose their government, we destroy their infrastructure, we tell them what their religion can and can’t do, and still they’re not satisfied.
I woke up alone this morning among my sister’s scented pillows. Which is not the first line of any existing twelve-bar blues. On my way to the American Teacher’s Bathroom, I discovered Lillian’s rat inside my aquarium leaning against one glass wall, a dazed expression on its face. I did a double-take. All the promising menacing dark red mushroom sprouts had been mowed as level to the ground as the eighteenth green at Augusta. “You didn’t,” I growled, lurching toward the aquarium.
At which point, the rat startled and crouched. Then there was something like a silent explosion of light at the center of the aquarium, and the rat was no more. I mean. Literally. I blinked and looked again. I even brought my face down to the level of the aquarium and gave its interior a really good examination. No ‘shrooms. No rat. No explanation.
Woke up this morning
Rat inside my mushroom farm
Yes I
Woke up this morning
Rat up inside my mushroom farm
Reckon dematerialization
Never done no rat no harm
That’s how the day began. Then, before I could get my shirt buttoned, Rui Long was knocking at the door. Below is a transcript of our conversation.
Why, Rui Long.
Why not Rui Long? Aren’t you going to invite me in?
Invite you in. In broad daylight. With or without a film crew?
Then when can I see you?
Before or after class. You’ll find me at the front of the classroom, quite near the chalkboard.
That’s not enough, and you know it.
Rui Long. You can’t come here anymore. You know that.
That stupid Chinese girl comes here anytime she wants.
That stupid Chinese girl is sent here by her parents. And I leave the door open.
You’re fucking dropping me.
I think that would require first having a relationship.
I can’t believe you said that to me. I’ve told you things I’ve never said before in my life.
I’ve heard things I’ve never heard before in my life. Still in all.
You are one sorry-assed motherfucker and a fat-assed one at that.
Rui Long. We can’t go on meeting like this. And my ass is no fatter than the rest of me.
Yes it is, you lard-assed pussy-assed motherfucker. I’m gonna tell every goddamn person at this school what you did to me. And the po-lice. And a lawyer.
Rui Long? Itsy? Doo?
So it goes with counseling displaced American schoolgirls IHW. You see what it gets you.
Found me a little schoolgirl
Yellow as moonlight in the pines
Whoa I
Found me a little schoolgirl
Yellow as moonlight in the pines
She had a protuberation
But not nearly big as mine’s
True is true.
Anyway, who would prefer a sprig to a fully opened jasmine, a half-formed idea to a master’s thesis, a giggle-box to a fine cello?
Now, at mid-morning I am en route to Studebaker Supermarket, hurrying somewhat, as it’s Saturday and I’d like to beat the worst of the crowds. I stick to the busy streets these days, no more charming little alleyways with differently abled po-lice, though hypothetically I am now entirely safe from the latter. How does one really know without testing the theory? I’
m not really into testing right now. All I’m into just this moment is a dozen large eggs that have never been anywhere near a duck and an un-previously-owned wad of bubblegum.
I also feel an unaccountable urge to purchase flowers. Ever since yesterday morning’s little lewdness with Ana Manguella, I have felt practically romantic. I don’t, in fact, think I’ve passed five consecutive minutes all morning without thinking of one particular warm-leather love session, as I’m quite certain I have never been touched like that in any recent lifetime. I’ve certainly never experienced so much sensation at my inner core. It was at the same time exquisitely sexual and nothing of the kind. And both. And quite possibly neither. I’m no longer sure whether anything lies outside pleasure. I seem to have penetrated levels of experience that up to now I’ve taken considerable trouble to avoid. I hate to acknowledge it. Then again, I’ll acknowledge pretty much anything you want if you play with my dick long enough. Rooms. Levels of experience. Faux bubbles. Whatever you got.
Crossing a busy intersection, I encounter three teenage girls, each in tight jeans and a tighter blouse, their dead hair teased, their faces painted on. All three are chewing gum. All three gaze listlessly at cell phones. Two days ago, I would have stolen at least one glance at certain of their body parts, filing away snapshots as future sexual capital. Now I am only struck by how tragically clueless those girls are.
Again Rui Long comes to mind, and I sigh uncomfortably. Without a doubt, our little sex parties were marvelously intense. Truthfully she and I are at the same level of maturity, sexually, emotionally, whatever you got, everything fantasy-driven, excitement-driven, driven-driven. Danger. Predation. Taboo-busting. Giving it to her there. Getting it from her here. Practically checking items off a list. The more items you check off, the better the encounter, right?
The Year of the Hydra Page 32
