CHAPTER 20
Mark and Cilla were in tandem with their now forever foursome. Realizing this play in the cosmic dance was nothing but as easy as grasping the fundamental Rules and protocols of Coupling as they had as singles grasped all that Courting is.
Not that it became a topic for dinner-time discussion. No, they quickly came into the play of "Four-square" as it was tagged, into that dynamic which ensured each a reflective point, this being the other of one’s gender, and a compassionate buffer, this being the other not-one’s-gender.
Lil would cut a diagonal and triangulate with Cilla about "them." This being the men in their lives, "Males!" An exasperated point reached after many an event: being abandoned for the de rigor male bonding at any lumen screeching with cheers and the jiggles of Courtly young "things" - "Ain’t she some thing!" A phrase not intended to be heard, not in that it was not forwarded for comment, but said self-absorbedly loud enough that the girls, women, females -- all also of the nature of that thing -- heard clearly no matter in what other room in the house they sequestered themselves. That plus a range of habits and customs which were never detailed during Courting classes: the sonic toothbrush never re-set for her tenderness; the classic "Don’t throw that away!" of digital fodder on their i-beam archiver; failing to appreciate the specialness of their heirloom china plates, treating them only as if Special Occasion paper! -- Oh! exasperation at the minutiae of this thing called male.
For Mark and Zav, there was something about Coupling which -- "Hades Fire! They’re just so, so .... expecting." Zav blew out that word, relieved the pain it cut from his tongue with a swallow of lusty foamed ale, didn’t even have to look aside towards Mark, both still eye-balled on the re-play, Mark losing, today, like he’s never lost to Zav before: in itself enough irritation! .... "Expecting," both had heard it bandied about -- always out of sight of female ears -- and it worked for them. They had laughed. Slung arms around each other’s shoulders. Pushed and shoved as they howled it, the howl being all that such howl has been for mythic eons: "Expecting. Prissy’s sweet pussy, she expects, doesn’t she?!"
It hit its mark: "What’d’ja say?" As if whacked upside the head, eye-balls jiggling, dimensions violated: What?!
Zav missed his own free-fall; his classic vonnerguttian slip in time.
Nothing inside Mark wanted to hold onto it.
Expecting echoed inside their collateral brains, memories: without even a wink, they stood in a bonded moment of eternity.
Expecting.
More than Attention. Even, Intention.
Baffling. In his mind when he thought about it, and he did think about it more than he’d like: thinking to himself -- "Like there’s more." Seeing himself up from the bed, a bed which had just flowered with good sex, amazing sex, indulgent sensuality: after two hours in the sack just paying Attention: noticing every part of her .... practicing: they liked this word, "Want to practice?!" with a barely restrained blast of bared-teeth desire, this word "practice" was like the Perpetual Motion machine: it was always on, even when off!
They’d practice breathing. Lie. Sit. Spoon. Any position would do. All did: letting the sounds of their voices arrive in all their differentnesses: he with a deeper inhale and a nostril flaring exhale; she with the whisper which pursed into a stream of whistled sound, high pitched but soft, wafting; adjusting themselves, moving an arm, a leg, a hand "falling asleep" shaking it, maneuvering into those indefinable spaces of personal presence: feeling the current up and down the spine, trilling skin, which is each other’s breath, feeling it, hearing it, responding to it as if dance, indeed, dancing: holding breaths like partners touching hands, fingertips, then an arm on a shoulder, and waltzing; this without a measure of time, not-measuring time being the discipline of the practice: eyes closed, eyes open, working only to see with the other’s breath, trusting that the tempo will rise, the beat catch its rhythm, there, together: Attending closely to the other, so close that it is Attending to one’s presence ... deeply, slipping, imaging themselves as they have prepared, for preparation in "other time" was vital, that time for sharing images, stories, for summoning up the humor, from "Melons, I couldn’t get past them as melons!" to the bawdy toilet jokes of those so yoked: "Farting like an Amateur Night jazz band!" "Oh, you mean, Uranus jazz, don’t you?!" Stop. Stop. Stop! ... such a moment of practice, such a joyous plunge into the Well of Your Spouse: splashing about, swimming elegantly paired; all that, and he stands, rolled off the bed and stood up, stretched his yawning arms -- and then is arrested! "Halt!" did she yell that? "Stop, thief!" did she mean that? He had not to turn. He had not anything to do, for it was all about him, all the clothing he need ever put on: Expecting -- "What?!" he had first said, during those first months, "What’s a matter, honey?" Learning shortly thereon never to even ask, for the tears, or the laughter, or the frigid stare -- "Jesus, Zav/Mark/Any-Male, what does she expect?"
But the Four-square was more than simply Coupled banter and commiseration. For there was also an Expectation which they shared: one less articulated, more a gnawing "something" none had a garrulous image for, something, at the least, felt, yet only once approached: "I had this dream ..." who had opened this up? The Embrace quickly mis-directed this slipper: "This is not expected of you, not now," so the thought was emitted, shared, communicated: the other three almost say in sync, "Not now. No dreams!" not knowing why, just laughing and moving on to other matters, which, more than likely in these first years was about "Babies. Are you two picking out any names?"
For what they sensed -- long forgetting how they had sensed just the opposite during their months of first meeting -- they sensed that they were Family. Obviously, not by blood. More jolting as it once dawns upon each of them, by soul, spirit, "As if we’re on this planet having Ascended from another!"
Zav and Mark didn’t like the rightness of this feeling, even though they both admitted that they "believe Cilla’s right about this." There was something, again, that gnaw of "expected," meaning, that "What are we here to do?" was asked each to the other, finding a tenuous comfort in the fact that it was not just his alone but his and his to figure out: "a brotherly quest, so to speak."
A feeling of Fate not incompatible with that of Divine Providence: that, possibly -- "Probably?" mulled Mark to himself -- he and she and him and her had been bonded in a sealed marriage in a former life, on a different planet; that their togetherness is an Ascension?
"I’ve asked, but no one can cite an Old nor a New Truth whether sealed spouses have knowledge of their past lives." Is that necessary? Lil asks, silently.
So, "Four-square" was accepted by them, a phrase now precious, secretly uttered now and all throughout their Coupling years, one that was, "Correct. It fits." Words which were heard upon waking; waking words which slithered away, soaked into their pillows: that sacramentum of dreaming.
Coupling. "All about family and babies. You’ll catch on!" Scribbled on a small swatch of such pure white paper: so white that it called forth other words -- parchment, scroll, vellum: ancient words, words when paper was as revered as the simplest of glass is now ... small, but by its purity called all Innocent eyes to peer: and they peered: a handwriting which flowed, a flowing which rose up as if it had just kissed the paper ever so alightingly, ever so lovingly, ever so sensually, kissed and then flew away: words of Lovers’ Flight: flying together; as they read the words, as they read and so arose, sailed: they knew it was a gift from the Deacons.
Intimates: A Journey Towards Sacred Sexuality Page 28