© Copyright 2005 by silli_artie@hotmail.com
This work may not be reposted or redistributed without the prior
express written permission of the author.
A work of fiction, meant for adults. Read something else if you are
not an adult, or are offended by stories with sexual content. Then
again, if all you’re looking for is in-out, in-out, in-out, you
should probably read something else. I welcome constructive comments.
Enjoy.
I managed to wake partially before Andrea took me again, riding us to mutual bliss.
I would have been more than content to stay in her arms afterwards, but she insisted we get up and shower; it was going to be a long day.
Well, we can shower on my terms... And our shower was just getting interesting when Moira barged into the bathroom to tell us plans had changed and we were leaving for the airport soon, so get with it! And don’t forget to wash behind your ears! I took her advice, and checked Andrea’s ears -- with my tongue.
A worry as we got out and dried. I take off my earring if I’m showering, swimming, things like that. Soaps and detergents not good for opals, or at least that’s what I believe. When I went to put it back on, it felt dirty, contaminated, like there was something on it. With what we’d been through the last few days, no big surprise. Rinsing it in water and blowing on it a few times did the trick, though.
A brief reunion with Kaye, some breakfast, and we were off to the airport -- fly to Dallas, sit on our cans for a few hours, then Seattle. I’d call Terry from Dallas and warn him to bring the van. I laughed to myself -- was I actually coming back with three women? Three gorgeous women, I was corrected... What a wild ride!
Kaye was the reason behind our changed plans -- something she’d seen, or sensed. A while after takeoff on the way to Dallas, the pilot told us Chicago O’Hare had been closed by a winter storm, and we were damn lucky to get out when we did!
Our bags were checked through to Seattle. I quizzed the ladies on clothing -- what were they going to wear? During the day, I mean... Gloria told me they’d expected to return to a new England winter, so they had some winter clothing. Moira added that more clothes were being packed up and shipped out; they’d arrive Monday. Good. We could go down to Portland if an extended shopping spree was called for.
Dallas again. Had the world changed so much in so short a time, or had I? I’m still me; must be everything else that’s changed, right?
After we landed in Dallas, I borrowed a phone and gave Terry a call.
“Hey Terry, this is Bob,” I told him.
“Hey man! We heard about that freaky storm! You made it through okay?”
“A wild ride, man. I’m on my way back -- can you pick us up tonight?”
“Sure thing. Us? You do something rash?”
I laughed. “You’ll have to wait and see. Bring the van -- four of us.”
“Ooh! You and who else?”
I laughed; it was a big change for me. “Well, there’s me, and then there’s Gloria, and Andrea, and Moira...”
“Hello?” he hollered into the phone. “Is this Bob Serrano? Physics prof and yoga teacher who refuses to date students? My phone must be goin’ whacky!”
“You heard just fine Terry,” I told him. “Bring the damn van and see for yourself. American flight 2033, nine tonight but check beforehand as a lot of flights are screwed up.”
“I’ll be there buddy,” he said, “Wouldn’t miss it!”
“How’s the house doing?” I asked.
“Real nice -- they finished on time, and cranked up the heat like you asked. I’ll drop by later and check it out.”
“Okay -- see you.”
Since we had such a long layover, we didn’t have to change terminals. We retired to the first class lounge, taking over the same corner. Again? Had it been two days ago?
Andrea and Gloria wanted to walk around, and decided to get lunch from one of the fast-food places in the terminal area. They quizzed Moira and me. My preferences went Burger King, Taco Bell, McDonald’s. Okay; they’d be back.
I was sitting, looking at my hands, not really thinking of what had transpired the last few days/daze...
“Why don’t we get started!” Moira said in a very cheery voice.
I looked over as she dug in her carry-on. Big sigh -- she looked so soft, so full, like I could sink into her, so comfortable... The others -- Gloria, Andrea, and now Kaye, they were gorgeous, but so young... Moira seemed ... riper, fuller, softer somehow.
She gave me a soft smile as she sat up, handing me a small book.
I took it, opening it. Blank. I looked at her again.
She nodded. “The first of many. Use it to keep track of your thoughts, your dreams, your observations, especially early on.”
“Like a lab notebook,” I suggested.
She nodded.
“I think this is going to be a lot like physics,” I told her. “We have lectures, assigned reading, lab work, and recitation sessions where we go over problems and labs.” I thought for a moment. “One of the things I teach is the importance of separating observation from interpretation.”
Moira sat back, smiling. “This is going to be very interesting... One of the big changes in what we do has been the application of more formal analytical techniques -- among them separating what is externally observable from personal interpretation. Want to guess who started us on that path?”
I shook my head. “Not a clue.”
She had a most interesting look on her face. “Emma Carmichael.”
I sat back as well. “Interesting...”
“Indeed,” she agreed. “She’s made a big difference, introducing rigor, challenging us to separate what is observable by others, or to a camera, with what we interpret, with what goes on inside us.”
“But that part, the internal part, is still important,” I suggested.
“Oh my yes! But it’s subjective, and we need to be careful... Anyway, for now, write things down. Recent events as well, recall what you can. We’ll be exploring some of those, you and I, working together.”
I didn’t know whether to sigh or chuckle. “I’ve got one to start with... I wanted to tell you about it...” I paused, looking at her, visualizing the two of us on my bed, my head resting in her bosom, arms around her, the sound of rain outside.
“Yes?” she asked, smiling, moving closer.
“I was thirteen,” I started out, “the first time. Standing, outside, a dark place, beneath a clear sky full of stars, but so dark, so alone. A high plateau, dry, hard dirt under my feet.”
“A dream? Some place you visited?” she asked.
I smiled. “At first it was a nightmare -- I woke up screaming, it frightened me so. But it kept returning, the same place, looking in the same direction, some times feeling the wind. The wind changed with the seasons, some times cold, some times warm, always dry, so dry. So alone. After a while, I learned not to be scared.”
“This keeps happening?”
“Yes, an old friend for years. Interesting changes, interesting events there. Never a moon in the sky, always so dark, so alone. Shortly before I met Beth, my wife, I had the feeling something special was going to happen.” I know I was smiling. “Oh it did, very special... And after she died, I was so alone again, and I cried for hours, my tears hitting the dirt, the wind hot and dry, stinging. But it hasn’t always been during dreams -- the fourth meditation retreat I went on, about the sixth or seventh day, I was sitting in meditation, eyes closed, and a dry wind went through the hall. It took me there, suddenly. I felt as if I could reach down with my right hand and touch that dry, hard-packed dirt. I reached down, and touched it! For a while, I was there! Then things shimmered and I was back in the hall again.”
Moira nodded. “You need to write that out, as much detail as you can.”
I nodded in agreement. “There’s more -- about a month ago, over a period of two or three days, things changed. It started with that feeling that something was going to change, something big. All those years, visiting that place, I’d never turned around. I’d looked up at the sky, seen shooting stars streak across the sky, sat on the dirt, felt it, but never turned around. So dark, always so dark. Then I turned around...”
“And?” she asked.
“And I saw behind me the beginning of the sunrise. The faint glow...” I smiled.
But she frowned. “Can you date that one?”
I thought for a moment. “Yes, I can go back to my class notes, and place it within a day or so.”
“I’m very interested in pinning that down!” she told me.
“It will have to wait until I get back to school,” I suggested.
She chuckled and put a hand on my arm. “I can wait.”
Her hand was soft and warm. She looked so soft and warm. A sudden image, feeling of suckling in softness...
“That’s all, so far, on that one?” she asked.
I shook my head. “No. The night before Chichen Itza, hours before getting on the bus, I was there, standing, knowing the sun, or whatever star it is, whatever world that is, standing there waiting for dawn to break, for a new begining, and I knew I was waiting for someone...” I had to pause as my throat filled with emotion. “And I knew I would not be alone any more,” I managed to whisper.
She held one of my hands while I wiped my eyes with the other. “Gloria?” she suggested.
I sighed, thinking. “More than just Gloria,” I said, deliberately not looking at her. “A feeling, a strong feeling, of one, of many, of different parts making a whole. One of the other things I learned from meditation -- if I try to pry out too much detail from these images, part of me produces as much detail as I want, more than may have been present initially.”
She patted my arm. “Very, very true -- and something it takes a long time to learn, to realize. Let’s leave that one be. Any other recent dreams?”
I frowned. “Murky stuff, raptors and snakes -- birds with scales, snakes with feathers, bound together.”
“Fighting?”
I frowned again. “I’m interpreting something murky here -- how can one side of a coin fight the other? The right hand ‘fight’ the left? In opposition, but still parts of the same whole, even though different and to a certain degree distinct.” I shook my head, trying to clear it. “See what I mean? Murky stuff.”
She smiled, shaking her head slowly. “Doesn’t sound murky to me!” She sighed.
“What?” I asked.
She looked at me, putting a hand on mine. “You already have great depth in certain areas, tremendous understanding.”
I nodded. “But I don’t know simple things, like materials formed by fire, or why Emma wanted our hair?”
She looked more pensive, nodding. “Yes... I’m afraid you’re jumping in at the deep end... Think of hair as a homologue, a stand-in, for a person -- once-living cells.”
“Stuffing the voodoo doll with the victim’s hair, nail clippings?”
She nodded, more pensive. “Indeed -- and in the hands of an adept, very powerful.”
I shook my head. “So I need to be careful when I wipe my nose, or sneeze?”
She managed a chuckle, smiling once more. “It’s not that bad... There’s a simple spell that takes care of it. One of us will teach you tomorrow. It quickly becomes second nature.”
“Or it better? Am I at risk? Am I putting you at risk?”
She sighed, sitting back a bit. “Let’s just say that a certain degree of paranoia would be considered healthy for a while.”
I shook my head. “Why? What’s so attractive about a fifty-year-old who’s been taken for a ride by one of the Old Ones? Why were those women looking for me, and what would they do with me if they’d found me?”
She frowned. “I’ll come back to that phrase you used... Right now, Doctor Serrano, you look to be in your late thirties to early forties, not fifty one. Gina and Andrea look younger than they did when last I saw them. You know how Kaye has changed. As a metaphor, think of yourself as a battery, a large, fully-charged battery. Ignoring your other potentials, that ability alone makes you quite desirable. Imagine a life servicing a harem of witches, all of whom got younger and more vibrant the more you serviced them.”
“Could be worse,” I tentatively agreed.
She chortled.
“And you’re offering me what?” I asked.
She smiled once more. “Oh, the same, if you completely lack curiosity and motivation. But I think you want to learn and explore. I think we have a great deal to offer each other.”
I looked up at the ceiling.
She laughed, putting a hand back on mine. “Oh, this is going to be quite an experience... Seriously, we also offer you choice. Some things will be easy, others will be quite hard and take a long time to master.”
“There were times I didn’t think I’d ever learn headstand, let alone Vrischika-asana, scorpion pose,” I told her.
She furrowed her brow, nodding. “It’s so hard to get that attitude across to some of them!”
I touched her forehead. “Don’t frown, please. I understand. That doesn’t mean I won’t get impatient, though. I deal with that in students all the time -- wanting to do handstand, splits, or just being able to place the palms of both hands on the floor in forward fold -- and wanting it now. So impatient!”
She smiled. “And what do you tell them?”
I sighed, my turn to shake my head. “I tell them to take it easy, or they’ll hurt themselves, that’s the first thing! I tell them to let go of desire and stay with here and now; it will happen in time. If they’re more amenable to learning, I try and turn it into a lesson, that desire is the start of all suffering...”
“Are you free of desire?” she asked with a slight smile.
“Oh hell no!” I replied immediately. We both laughed.
“But it starts with awareness -- how many times are you going to tell me that?” This time I took her hand and held it.
“Quite a few, I imagine...” She frowned again. “So much of our material is geared to late teens, young adults... We all are going to have to keep good notes...” She frowned, looked up, then smiled at me, questioning.
I went with it. “Lunch arrives,” I said, standing.
She stood as well.
I gave her a hug. I think it surprised both of us -- a soft, gentle, sensuous hug, with an intense exchange of glances.
Hugs and lunch; I had a burger and fries, washed down with soft drinks provided by American Airlines.
As we finished up, I observed Gloria very closely as she threw away our trash. There -- that slight gesture of her right hand, something happened. I stood and walked to the trash can, putting my arm around her waist. I moved to another trash can, trying to sense something. Back to the first one, then the second. Okay, there was a difference. One more pass between them.
Gloria looked quite puzzled, as did Andrea when we came back and sat down.
Moira was smiling, though. “What did you learn?” she asked me.
I held Gloria close. God, how I wanted to snuggle in with her, with all of them! Skin against skin, hold on, let go and just be there...
“I was expecting something,” I told Moira. “She dumped out stuff into the can, and then, well, zapped the whole thing. It was quick, like you said, probably a reflex. Moving back and forth between the two trash cans, there is a difference. The one she zapped feels, well, blank, empty, dead.”
Moira smiled even more. “Very good!”
I shook my head. “No, not good -- checking out the room, finding that zapped trash can, I know an adept has been here. The -- silence, flatness -- sticks out. If I’d zapped the little bag of trash before I dumped it into the larger trash can, it would be much, much harder to tell what happened. Make sense?”
Moira raised her eyebrows and exhaled through her nose. “Thank you, my Lord,” she said, bowing her head briefly, then looking at Gloria and Andrea. “Up to now, we’ve taught thoroughness -- not realizing that very thoroughness was in itself identifying us. Ladies, thoughts?”
The way Andrea looked at me, you’d have thought I’d grown a third eye.
Gloria said, “We were gone less than an hour -- what happened?”
Moira nodded. “Ladies, Bob, this is our challenge! The only thing I did was to mention in passing that there was a way to deal with things we discard. He did the rest on his own!”
“And I’m still not sure just what I did,” I told them.
“You’ve changed one of the basic things we teach,” Andrea said. Gloria nodded and hugged me closer.
Gloria spotted the notebook. “You’ve started?” she asked, pointing.
“Just an introduction,” I told her. My arm felt so good around her.
“Why don’t you tell them about your home away from home?” Moira suggested. “The plateau?”
I leaned back, pulling Andrea closer so I could have an arm around each of them. I started telling them about my early teen nightmares, getting used to the place, learning to be at peace there. I was about to tell them about my wife when Andrea interrupted.
“Have you sketched it?” she asked.
“I might have some sketches,” I told her.
“Have you tried looking at your hands?” Gloria asked.
I smiled. “Castaneda suggested that.”
“Who?” Moira asked.
“Castaneda -- Carlos Castaneda. Heard of him?”
Moira raised an eyebrow. “Oh yes -- you met him?”
I thought back. “Yeah, I think I was a senior, so that’s around 75? He was touring, and was at our place for a week, giving talks. Somehow I got the idea to talk to him. I went to one of his talks, think it was on Monday afternoon. Tried to talk to him afterwards, but as you’d expect, there was a crowd about him. And, he tended to pay attention to the pretty girls. But as I was waiting, he turned, looked at me, and told me in very rapid-fire Spanish to join him for lunch the next day, told me the room and time, and turned back to the girl he was charming.”
“Pig,” Angela muttered.
I laughed. So did Moira.
“Oh, he wasn’t the bad one -- he had two characters traveling with him, a thin one, and a fatter one. The fatter one was a real cabron -- an old, smelly, oversexed male goat. I had the feeling he was there for the fun of it.”
“Joined them the next day for lunch,” I continued. “They were in a mid-sized room, and had all the chairs pushed to one end; they were sitting on the floor more or less in a circle. About a dozen people there. Castaneda had the thin guy on one side, a girl on the other side, the fat guy, another girl. Castaneda pointed and told me to sit next to the thin guy, who he called uncle, mi tio . Castaneda would talk to someone in the crowd, switch to someone else for a moment, go back to a previous conversation. I sat and ate my lunch. Castaneda turned to me and asked in Spanish if I had a question. I told him I had dreams. He nodded and told me to look at my hands in my dreams -- look at my hands and turn them over, that was the path.”
A shiver ran through me, goosebumps running over me.
“And?” Moira asked.
The skin on the back of my neck -- pieces falling into place. “The thin one,” I said softly, “picked up my hand and looked at me. He said, ‘You’re not a snake, you’re not a bird? What are you?’”
Gloria gasped. Moira nodded. “And then?”
I shook my head. “Things went to hell. I guess the cabron tried to unsnap someone’s bra, as the girl next to him screamed and slapped him. The room turned to chaos, and Castaneda and company left that day, even though he had two more days of talks scheduled.”
“And that was 75?” Moira asked.
I thought back, remembering cold weather. “I remember cold weather, but not what classes I had -- late 75 or early 76.”
After a period of silence, I asked, “It’s them -- the bird, that’s the raptors, the women we saw. And I turned the cards into the Three of Snakes -- they are the other side of that coin.”
“We call them Shining Strike,” Moira said softly.
“Mortal enemies,” Gloria added.
I smiled and shook my head. “Stand up,” I asked her. “Please, stand up for me.”
She gave me a confused look, but stood.
I touched the muscles on the front of a leg, and then the muscles on the back of her leg. “You have muscles here, and here. Are they fighting?”
“What?” she asked.
“Are they fighting? They’re in opposition, are they fighting?”
“No...” she said, still sounding confused.
“They work against each other, but they are part of the same whole. One cannot function without the other. They are different, but still parts of the same whole.”
“How do you know?” Moira asked with a smile.
“About the bird and the snake? I don’t know -- I’m guessing. I feel it. Murky dreams, birds with scales, snakes with feathers. A lot of things. But one can’t exist without the other.”
Moira said, “He’s right... I’ll have some material sent out. They predate European contacts with the region, that much we’re sure of. We’re not sure just how far back they go; perhaps you can add to that knowledge.”
“From a distance,” I suggested.
“From them? Oh yes, I think so!” Moira agreed.
I closed my eyes, letting my head go back, holding Andrea and Gloria. My head buzzed. What a world!
Phantasy in Progress
Rev 02/04/2005
Student and Teacher
By silli_artie@hotmail.com
http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/artie/www