CHAPTER 18
The four didn’t formally discuss "Africa." Though intensely aware of the quickening of The Embrace, though flashing on Courting events in memory and bits of conversation, though aware that the world they live in is much like the world they have always lived in: each being like the other a product of a Happy Home, of a neighborhood which knew no poverty, no joblessness, one which would not even be able to comprehend the unthinkableness of homelessness - being a time, a period, a wave in the quantum where such negatives of materiality did not exist; not knowing that they even once existed, for such as "evil" was not discussed as they grew: dreamed as only few, Deacons foremost, who had known - and who, once The Embrace blossomed, made it real that such was not a foremost idea, notion, concept nor reality of any moment either personal or public: dreamed it, but as not … though aware as such, as such forgetting.
Day in, day out: the foursome were as forgetful of "Africa" as they were mindful of it; not avoiding its sound, hearing the word "Africa" bandied about as it had always been, but not letting it do more than forget them. And as The Embrace desired, so it was: for The Embrace desired that all who Couple do so forget.
Forget what they had learned, had become during Courting. And it was of such a moment and such a weight that once Coupled, scarce words were ever spent recalling Courting. Though Courting was everywhere: as foil, as backdrop, as contrast, as diving board - "Walla-walla-walla" the flapping board wobbles to a steady state: the diver as flung.
As individuals of every period: cosmic, historic, psychological, fantastic; of every dimension: here, there and not-anywhere-but-now, such individuals were only barely aware of their individuality, in fact, individuality being, as those once blossomed dreamed, being only because of the forgetfulness of the common, the communal, the collective: more than We and Us - that terrible Ground of Being, so dark that it was all light, so thick that it was thinner than air, as weighty as a vacuum, and as such the throbbing flesh of any moment - Whew!
Terrible. It was the transition word. The one word which they were taught to image, to meditate upon, so that individuality would happen. "Coupling is Terrible!" Scarce knew the Courters what this could mean, but it rushed goosebumps up and down, in and out, around and over every patch of flesh, stiffened every follicle, trembled every breath. Coupling will be Terrible! Why did it fascinate?
"Terrible!"
Terrible.
:he to she and she to he:
Some during Courting, early on, feinted away. That’s how they phrased it, "feinted away." Meaning, two spent more time together than the others should have allowed. Yes, the responsibility of the others, not your own. So it was known to them: that it happened is just that it happened. Why? - no one posed. Actually, the simple fact - if Zav had taken the time to consider it, to swish it around in his poetic mind: to discern the play of is and is-not: but he didn’t; doesn’t - the simple fact is that Courters were too busy giving rein to every impulse to every desire to every pleasure that they just didn’t take the time: "Don’t have time!" if it had to be said; not time to dally, be alone; only to practice the whispered arts of Coupling: focusing in on just one, no, "Hell no!" and a behind was slapped, a bra strap flipped like snapping a rubber band, three fingers wilding about the ball-field ... yes, there were some who dallied, but others soon found them out, flushed them out, rolled them over and rousted their Courting spirits: everyone had had such a moment, maybe a handful of such moments, normally in the last year - each of the four would have something to say about this, but: Who’s asking?
Terrible: because it was turning-everything-inside-out; that painful; that perplexing; that astounding: astounded that it could be done, that they - each one, did have this individuality, not as self-knowledge, rather, as being known by the other. All through Courting one was urged, prodded, taught, encouraged, motivated - to know the other through an-other: other - a capital sense, but it was the way to "know thy presence." Such was all that the youths had known. From their earliest years, "The Other reveals your presence." No capital for one’s presence; no capital I, though I was capital ... such linguistic trivia was nothing but the lid on desires, and they had desires: to go out, to take in, to eat, to consume, to lick, to be licked - ha! it never took their teachers long to train such pubes in the arts of Courting. Not a moment’s length to have them itchy to jump up out of their chairs and start doing: "Have all through others having all!" The sensate thud of all stirred them: "All having you to have their own presence!" Cock by being all cocks: cocking a pussy which is all pussy - instant insight; instant ignition: "Stay!" as in stay-put - ha! - even in the far-reaches of the galactic stretch it was known that the young of all stripes had the pulse, and that the pulse throbbed: All living is throb. An invocation which drew not critical reflection, just reflex utterance.
So, the inside-out:outside-in: "You are all. All is within you." But then the terrible difference: "You are all you have." Here, catching right from the start that the subject "you" and the object "you" are at once yourself and your spouse: thus the phrasing of Coupling.
"There are not others." Once Coupled - so he and she jotted down furiously, stabbing at their notebooks with uncontrollable energy: it was clear, Once Coupled that it is the You which is I which is We.
Terrible!
Intimates: A Journey Towards Sacred Sexuality Page 26