Jason had often written lyrics about himself in the third person. Now that he was with Angela songs were pouring out of him in the third person plural. That was love for you. ‘They’, the token of crowded anonymity, of paranoid conviction, of midnight grudges, the parasite of a beleaguered ego, had become the pronoun of confessed love.
‘You know, I’ve done a lot of personal growth work,’ said Angela with unquiet pride. ‘I’ve lived in communal situations, I’ve worn crystals and I’ve prayed to Navajo gods, but I don’t need to prove that I’m cool any more.’
‘Right,’ said Jason.
‘I trust my intuition now and go with what comes up, if it feels right.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ said Jason, daydreaming about his career.
‘When I heard about this Tantric workshop, I started getting this tingling all over my body and these little mystical events in my life. I hadn’t even met you, but I knew that I would be doing the workshop with someone totally appropriate.’
‘That’s me,’ said Jason, ‘Mr Totally Appropriate.’
‘It was like the first time I heard about the Goddess,’ said Angela.
Jason tended to glaze over at the mention of the Goddess. If there was one thing that worried him about Angela, it was this Wiccan trip she was on. He really had no idea what it was about but his imagination was seized by disturbing images of neo-pagan harvest festivals, of chicken’s blood irrigating blazing straw effigies on a rainy night, of body-painted mudwomen moon-dancing around windblown coals, empowered by the music of dry beans in a pig’s bladder.
‘What’s so great about the Goddess is that she has so many faces,’ said Angela. ‘I was into this Gaian model which identifies the Feminine with the Earth. I’m still totally into that, but now, thanks to Tantra, I’ve met her as a sky dancer. So she’s in the Sky too, which is really cool.’
‘She’s everywhere,’ said Jason uneasily.
‘Definitely,’ said Angela. ‘I really appreciate being with a man who understands that.’
She skipped around him laughing and waving the edges of her skirt.
* * *
Jerome had been darting through the garden with a pair of nail scissors and a torch, collecting flowers to garland himself for his beloved. He wore a bedraggled crown of Mexican daisies, a mayoral sash of Californian poppies, a couple of lupin bracelets and a snapdragon behind his ear. Like a heavily medicated King Lear, too serene to notice his own madness, he wandered naked through the baths, holding in each hand a fistful of petals to strew on the sulphurous waters in which he expected to find Sabine.
Instead, to his surprise, he found her lying naked on a padded white massage table next to a strange man. They were whispering conspiratorially.
Jerome was cool. He had lived through the sixties; he had an open relationship with Sabine; he knew that she had an issue with him that evening, and he owned his part in it.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ he asked.
Sabine turned round slowly and looked at Jerome.
‘Oh, my God,’ she said, bursting into uncontrollable giggles, ‘you look so funny.’
‘I asked you what you were doing,’ said Jerome, letting the petals fall from his hands.
‘Having a great time,’ said Sabine. ‘This is Paul. Paul, meet Jerome. He’s not in a very good mood,’ she whispered to Paul.
‘I can’t believe you’re doing this,’ wailed Jerome.
‘Doing what?’ asked Sabine.
‘Lying here naked with another man on the night of our Tantric seminar.’
‘I sense I oughta leave at this point,’ said Paul.
‘Oh, don’t go,’ moaned Sabine. ‘We were having such fun.’
‘I take back my love,’ screeched Jerome, suddenly losing his temper and tearing off his lupin bracelets. ‘I take back my devotion.’ He threw his sash of yellow poppies to the ground. ‘I take back my passion,’ he concluded.
‘And why don’t you take that stupid crown off as well?’ said Sabine, flicking the Mexican daisies off his head. ‘You make a lousy King.’
‘You’re acting out your abuse issues,’ said Jerome coldly.
‘Don’t try that, you fucking man,’ said Sabine, pushing him on to the neighbouring massage table.
‘I sense that you have some personal issues to clarify at this point,’ said Paul. ‘I’m really going to leave now.’
‘Great,’ said Jerome. ‘Take a hike.’
‘For your information she told me she was alone,’ said Paul, pointing a finger at Jerome’s nose.
‘You said that?’ said Jerome.
‘I thought maybe the three of us could have some fun together,’ lisped Sabine, looking down coyly.
‘Oh, I get it,’ said Jerome, with a relief verging on glee. ‘Poly’s here tonight, isn’t she?’
‘Yes,’ said Sabine girlishly. ‘Poly wants more than one.’
‘Jerome knows what Poly wants.’
‘Yes,’ said Sabine, picking up the daisy crown and placing it back carefully on Jerome’s head. ‘Jerome is Poly’s hero. Jerome is King.’
Paul hesitated. Sabine was the most attractive woman he had met in years. On the other hand, there was a question mark over her mental health.
‘You’re a very lucky man,’ said Jerome, putting an arm around Paul’s shoulder. ‘This beautiful woman, this quintessence of erotic … I tell you, man, she’s hot.’ Jerome punched him in the shoulder a little too hard. ‘This vision of loveliness has chosen to share her shakti with you this evening.’
He looked deep into Paul’s blue eyes, his face paralysed with friendliness.
* * *
Crystal sat on the bed, cross-legged and naked, her brown hair falling in spirals down to her breasts. The darker curls of her pubic hair were half hidden by her heels.
Nervous in his underpants, Peter stood at the end of the bed, at once seduced and reproached by her physical ease. The atmosphere of giddy spaciousness that had surrounded her in the Dzogchen workshop radiated even more strongly from her nakedness. She wasn’t going to tell him to relax because she was so relaxed herself that she was immune to his nervousness.
How could he offer her his pale body with its tufts of wiry black hair? Was it bad manners not to be naked as well? Would it be better to have an erection, or should he be content with what he had learned to call a soft-on? His waist was not narrow enough, his cock was not big enough, his throat was too dry, his …
‘Hi,’ said Crystal.
‘Hi,’ said Peter.
Peter crawled across the bed and sat opposite Crystal.
‘You look as nervous as a virgin,’ said Crystal.
‘I’m trying to relax,’ Peter defended himself.
‘Why? It might be fun to be a virgin.’
‘The only time I tried I was confused and incompetent.’
‘Let’s get it right this time,’ said Crystal, placing a hand on Peter’s chest.
He felt his shoulders sink a couple of inches. She reached out with her other hand and cupped it under his balls. John had spoken about these funny hand positions which ‘ran the energy’ from one chakra to the other.
‘Is this a mudra?’ gulped Peter.
‘Yes,’ said Crystal. ‘Do you like it?’
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Peter. ‘Only I feel like crying.’
Crystal smiled at him.
He felt a warm current flowing upwards between Crystal’s hands. She was definitely running the energy and now the energy was running him.
He smiled back at her.
‘You’re so lovely,’ he said.
* * *
Whereas Jason was well capable of getting depressed about his career, he had absolutely no worries about his body. His compliments to women were adjuncts to his self-congratulation as a lover. ‘You’re not bad yourself,’ he would say, or ‘It’s nice to be appreciated.’ He knew his wizzer was above average, and he offered women his genital confidence with the breezy conviction that it might blow their circuits if he were to offer them anything more. He certainly felt no need to give a woman his attention while he was making love to her. If she was lucky enough to be getting his pelvic thrust, his mind was free to stalk through the masturbatory routines which had drained him since adolescence. His sexual formation, like that of almost all his friends, had taken place among inaccurate rumours, dirty mags, clumsy gropings and hopeless hopes. Nothing had made him question the mental habits which grew from this thin soil.