Laura

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“Am I inopportune?”

He who proffers the question and appears to stumble over it a little is of comely mien, olive of skin, not having passed his fortieth year, tall, well-sprung, and with most kindly eyes.

“I know not your habits, sir, so cannot answer for you.”

“It is Hari!” Semantha rushing forth, her corsage disarrayed to show her mounds. A kiss exchanged, she presents him as her cousin. He noted, it seems, our entrance to the Duke of York's but tarried in his coming.

“You are not English, then?” Wine is dispersed.

“One cannot pick and choose the colours of one's skin upon one's coming. The desert stung my mouth before. Dry the vegetation, cruel the winds, nights cold, the days all oven baked. Were I a lizard I would lie beneath the stones and lick the coolness of their surface.”

“He is a philosopher, Laura-makes mysteries of words. As for myself, I prefer the simpler life. Even so, I must to my aunt. She knows me not diverted. May I leave you to your discourse?”

“Shall you return, Semantha?”

I have no anxiety upon the matter, though a simple curiosity.

“There are ever returnings, comings, and passings. Kiss me once more and pass your tongue within my mouth.”

“Hari will see.”

“Oh pouf, it does not matter. He may make play with you himself if you are minded to it.”

“Go, you minx.” I laugh at her. “Your tongue runs away with you and may be hard to catch one day. Kiss your aunt for me. Wear the ring forever, for I shall know you by its glittering, this life or that.”

“Have you come, then, to such understandings?”

Upon the closing of the door his glance is mild on me but rains its tiny questions on my brow. Thus it is with some that one may find immediate comfort with them such as the Germans call gemutlich. His skin is smooth as mine. His testicles though small perhaps will yet have power.

“I shall wear a sari. Would you wish me to?”

“Naked beneath as Grandma wore?”

“If you would have it so. My obedience may not be absolute. I have but one true master. Did her breath taste of olives? I often wondered at that. I know not why olives. The thought came to me upon seeing her likeness-pale and frayed though it was-the tincture of the sepia all but gone.”

“There was a muskiness, heady to the senses. I knew her breasts firmer than a young woman's, her belly flat. But we were younger then, in other climes. Why do we speak upon the merely physical?”

“Being human, we are prone to do. One looks for shade in light and light in shade, listens for footfalls, hears the creak of doors, waits for the postman's knock while arranging polished apples in a bowl where fitfully the sun will glance across their surfaces; and so the scenes will change from time to time, sounds will come and go, and presences be felt.”

“A fine cascade of words! You trust your senses far too much, abide in them too long. So long as you clutter your mind with concepts you will have no knowing of the truth of this little matter.”

“This little matter? Is that what you call it?”

My mischief is unintended, yet obtains. Winsome I look and soft to hold. He gazes at me long, rises from his chair, and draws me up.

“Know that your mind is like a monkey in a cage, ever fretting to take nuts or break without the bars.”

I recall what father said about the trumpet's blare, my aunt about the cats, and clap my hands.

“You see-the bars are gone!”

Some admiration shows now in his look. His hands glide round my thighs and pat my cheeks.

“There is more knowing in you than I thought.”

“Of several things, yes, Hari. How slim yet strong your hands! Are you upon the physical or the spiritual now?”

He answers not but draws my cheeks apart, feeling through cloth to know their springiness.

“I shall teach you the words, advance you in your path, dissect your being.”

“If there are words to learn then let me learn. Are they pretty? Do they dance, scuttle as leaves, whirl up in the wind's flight?”

“Come-disrobe yourself to your boots and stockings. Kneel up upon the bed and let your mind be empty of desire. Know neither desire nor no desire. Be of this world and yet not of this world. Come 'twixt, between-my God, what perfect limbs!”

“You are of this world, I perceive! Do you not find my bottom as comely as any dusky maiden's, the cleft as deep and secretive, the lips below protruding to desire?”

“Be quiet, Laura!”

Dutiful I hang my head and, naked to his view, await his coming. Slow movements he makes in the discarding of his clothes. I know my placings, my positions, am square upon the centre of the bed.

His fingers taste me first, here, there, about-linger beneath my quim where plumps my mound. The lips are sultry, moisten to his touch. I feel his prick, the bulb, the warmth of it, saluting as it does my out-thrust cleft.

“As is our practise, Laura, I will enter it at first but an inch. Clench and do not reject. Upon learning what you are to speak, then you will speak, surging your hips as you were taught to do, persuasive, gentle, on and on.”

I would say yes, but may not and so wait. My aunt will come with benedictions, tut, and pull the curtains, light the lamps. Naught will be said. That was the best of it. I am finished with rumbustious, rude ways. Ah! The little blindness as he thrusts! So was I first, and squirmed, but was held tight. The nosing-in, ecstatic, puffs my breath full out. My little jerk is done and I am stilled. Only the gentle snorting of my breath was heard in my initiations. Once, only once, soft, lewd, exciting words were spoken to my lips, my nipples felt and then the cork urged in.

Words spin as do Bogardus balls when thrown in flight, a merriness of seeking air and space, and then about the ears like pendants settle.

The hands of Had feel the sleekness of my sides, convey their admiration of my breasts, plump melons to his palms. His loins are still as though in warning held. Prize mount as I would seem to be, my hips are held.

Another inch! He gives me not a warning of it, tingles, strains. Finding me meek, he enters it right in, though half-inch by half-inch while the clock spits its tiny sparks of time. I would say “Ooooh!” and wriggle-once or twice in my beginnings I said “Ooooh!” and wriggled, once or twice, but then was overawed by silence, then as now.

“Bulb your bottom, Laura, into me.”

The words are softly spoken. I obey. Full-corked, I waited his churnings and his thrusts to which my hips will weave a wilder dance, the angels from my eyelids sliding, gliding, fallen down and gone to sleep.

We wait again. In stillness do we wait. I hear his breathings joining with my own. Hands flitter at my stocking tops, flirt at my flesh. One cups my slit: a bird, furred, nested tight.

“Omni manipadme hum- repeat the words, repeat the words.”

“Ha! Omni mani p…p…padme Hooo-um!”

The words become my being as we jolt, as in a vault my mind might soar and float.

“Repeat! Repeat!” There is no end to it, his voice joined with my own. All time is flown, burnt paper in the wind, sweet smacks of bulging to his belly's thrusts, I with his cock protruding in and out.

Sometimes my aunt in thoughtful mood would tell me not to make too much of it.

“Go to it softly as a lamb to grass, as knife to butter, ivy to a wall. All may separate and part, without thought for the morrow or the parting. Concentrate, though, wholly upon what you are doing whether in passion moving or in quietness sitting.”

I concentrate, I concentrate, I concentrate. The words, the motions, movements now are one. The sea flows to the beach, beach to the sea. In rhythm are our omni's, mani's, padme's, hum's. Slapsmack, slapsmack, my nipples pointed hard, spurt-sprinkle of my comings on his palm, and ever in and out his rigid rod that certain as the tide is in its flow.

Till we are done, are done, spring-splashings of his sperm, the long thick shoots that spatter me with pleasure, gathered in, and our words die and die and die away until we panting He and quiver close, the arrow deep embedded still and gripped.

I stretch my legs straight down and clamp him in-I, plank to him, upon a crumpled sea.

“What did the words mean, Hari? Tell me what?”

I am at my wanderings again, beyond the spell of concentration. Would that I could walk on Brighton beach, hide 'neath the pier and hear the calling of the fishermen, their lobster pots abandoned in the rain.

“Were you to know the meaning of the words you would be further from the meaning than you are. Make not too much of words in their beginnings or their end, their colourings or dullness. These are but illusions.”

“You speak as father speaks and yet I am no nearer to the meaning than I ever was.”

A wiggle of my bottom and he draws it out, half stiff, half limp, and lies beside me straight. His face is quietude. I feel his balls and let the thick worm tingle to my fingertips.

“Are you anxious for it more? Are you ever well exercised, Laura?”

“I was put to it twice by day sometimes, but never more, back dipped, legs straight, and bottom well pushed out. Speak me your litany again.”

“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?”