“Omni mani padme hum. Hum the words slowly in your mind. Place them not upon your forehead but just below your navel. Think of no other.”
“Shall I be transformed?”
“Better that you are silent on the matter and receive. To what could you be transformed other than you are? Look ever inwards, not without, for in looking outwards you perceive only the manifestations of your thinking mind. Behind, within, and all about the Pure Mind shines. Some call it the Void. Be not afraid to plunge.”
“I shall be falling, falling. Shall I fall? Sometimes he cupped my quim as you have done, found the deep nest of hairs, toyed with my curls, his prick full 'twixt my cheeks and held me so.”
“What is your prattling but to disguise what you would seek?”
“I do not know what I would seek. I move between all worlds, yet do not know my own.”
“You move between appearances, not revelations. Seek, as I have said, within and not without. There is a cave of devils there.” He waves his hand.
“You frighten me!”
He laughs. “They are not real!”
“I asked Semantha of reality. She did not know.”
“It is a word and nothing but a word. Have you not perceived that yet? So long as you are stuck between reality and non-reality you will never find your way. You will be as a tiger between two tethered goats, as a man with two left shoes who ever tries to put both on. All pleasure ends in pain, all hopes fulfilled arouse a new desire. Abandon the muddled workings of your conceptual mind. Discover who you are.”
“You said you would exercise me more today. I wish to be. It is my last greediness perhaps.” I curl my toes.
“So says a man who eats a plate of oysters and then within the hour returns for more. Sitting quietly doing nothing. Is this not the most fruitful of activities?”
“I would be bored!”
Even so I laugh and the laughter refreshes me. Perhaps I like my pains. They nag at me, demand attention, as does a rotting tooth. Pressed by the tongue, it issues thrills of hurtful love. Even so I make my little speech. I cannot help but make my little speech.
“The mountain is too slippery to climb. I have learned nothing and my aunt will brood. My father may admonish me in silence, sharpen his arrows, hold The Times before his face.”
“A mountain-maker are you now? Out of flat ground you make your own upheavals.”
“Oh, very well! You seem to have the better of me in your phrases. I will upheave my bottom, though, and on and on, if you do not put me to it once again!”
“Upon your back, woman!”
He pretends a sternness. Meekly I lie and meekly blink, legs straight, apart, and hands behind my head. His stem is up again, protrudes its knob.
“Are we not irreverent after your speakings?”
“What is reverence or irreverence? Do you not know still where you are?”
“I have been at my wanderings, entrapped in corridors, enchanted by demons, chased by shades of dusk, bewildered in the light. Oh woh!”
My little quivered cry. I hold him tight. Smooth in my sleekness is his shaft embedded, peach-clinging of my lovelips round his prick. His balls swing, smack, dividing at my cleft. I hum my breath to his, extend my tongue. In liquid swirls we whirl and thresh our loins.
“ Omni mani padme hum! Oh, love me yet, oh, love me yet!”
“Can this be love that drinks another as a sponge drinks water? So your poet Blake wrote, said, delineated and made plain. Speak, Laura, speak!”
“No, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no yes! Oh, do it on and on and on and on!”
Far falling far we fall, the ceiling spins, the room divides from heaven and from earth, floats in the universe and is dissolved. The cries of curlews sound far and forlorn, the summer dying as must die the swan. Man comes and tills the earth and lies beneath. I, too, have read my verses well, yet would be ploughed by Hari on and on.
“Ha-haaar! Oh yes! Oh, do it to me, do!”
The room returns, the room returns again. The walls enclose. My aunt is furious, strides back and forth, awaiting the undoing of our loins.
“There…you are still now, still. Be still.”
“How beautiful that was! You came so much.”
“Be quiet, girl, quiet-receive your, benedictions. Holy the body as the spirit is. Is it not a privilege to be born, to seek and find again the fount of all your origins?”
“Yes, Hari, yes, but keep it in and spurt your little spurts before we part.”
“Woman you were and are and ever will remain. Succulent your quim, tight your rosette. You were born to it and yet have years to tread.”
“Shall I not learn more, learn more-not?”
“What is to learn?”
He dangles, rises, dresses now with speed.
“I have failed. In all have I failed. I feel sometimes the consciousness of it upon me. My mind is like a rag that would be washed, yet fears the water.”
“How you distinguish still! What is the water to the rag, the rag to water? Only empty your mind of all illusions.”
“Very well. I shall sit with my legs crossed and my hands together as my father taught. Oh, but my quim bubbles merrily with your spendings! I cannot help but wriggle. I shall wet the coverlet.”
“Such a cloak you put around yourself with your prattlings, ever avoiding a falling into mindfulness! I am ready to depart. We may not meet again.”
“Shall we not? I shall not wait upon it for you would laugh and put me back to mindfulness. Even so, you might kiss me.”
“Were we ever from the beginning parted?”
“I do not know. There are ever meetings and partings.” I bend my head back, laughing as we kiss. It hides my tearfulness. I would clutch at him, but no. My aunt would say no. I know she would say no. I am sinful. Am I so? “Am I sinful, Hari? Have I failed?” He pauses at the door. His smile is beatific. “How could you fail, O foolish one, when there was nothing in which to succeed?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
All that was said and done I have told my aunt. My limbs are bathed, my linen changed, my stockings tightened up, boots, shoes, removed for polishing, my trunks now put away.
I am not the same who made my journeys hence, and yet I am the same.
“All that was said, all that was done, is gone away. You may wear this henceforth, Laura, if you wish.”
A sari is laid out, green, threaded gold.
“If I wish.”
“Yes, if you wish. Clocks tick more gently when the day is done. Before the day is done disrobe to stockings, garters, shoes, and put it on.”
“Shall you, then, follow suit?”
“I may. Summer or autumn, winter-cold or spring, it becomes us to behave as we behave, move as we move.”
“Shall I be strapped again?”
“Is there a need for it?”
“No…At least…”
“Then there is no need for it unless you wish it so. There is no harm to wish it so, to feel the stimulation of the fire. Stir your hips gently when you feel its calling. The caressing of the leather at your cheeks betokens the arising of desire, not admonition. In your returning.”
“There are cockles to be had at Brighton. Bright the dresses on parade, a glittering of domes, the cryings of the gulls that sear the air as chalk on slate.”
“Then we will take the carriage in the morning if you wish, pack hampers with delights, make merry of the day.”
“Perhaps we may steal a girl. Say yes! There was one there that I liked. She lingers waiting on the promenade.”
“To steal indeed! What would you have me do? I doubt not your persuasions in such matters, crumpets at your mouth and butter at your lips.”
“I shall hide her in my wardrobe, bring her out at dusk and toy with her.”
“See to it that you become not wanton in your ways! You are ever at beginnings, I at ends. When in time you teach, I shall be the first to listen. Ere you are taken now, sit quietly without consciousness of self before disrobing. All is in the mind and all in Mind contained.”