He was climbing into the bath and, as I approached, he turned and looked at me seriously for a moment, then held out a hand to help me in beside him. His tub was large, with the taps set in the middle rather than at one end. I smelt some essential oils – sandalwood and perhaps also ylang ylang – that he must have added to the water. I sat down, let the water caress me, looked at him expectantly.
His head was back against one end of the bath, his eyes closed, as if all thoughts of sex had evaporated from his mind like the steam rising from the surface of the water. As if to remind him, I slipped one foot between his legs, brushed his cock and balls with the ends of my toes. He reached down, pushed them away, gently but firmly.
‘Not yet,’ he intoned.
I wanted to sit up, yell at him for leading me on. Here I was, a woman in need of consolation; a woman, moreover, who needed consolation precisely because of all that she had given up for him. And all he could do was run us an oily bath and look as if he was going to fall asleep.
He opened his eyes, fixed them on me, a little sternly I thought.
‘You’re in too much of a rush,’ he said. ‘The great Western disease. It seems to have got even worse since I left the West. It’s a veritable epidemic now. It affects not only people’s work lives but also their most intimate activities, and that’s a danger to health.’
I stared at him. I was frustrated, horny as never before, but what he was saying made a strange kind of sense. What was this urgency I felt inside me? Sure, I was making up for lost time, for the barren years with Ravi, but there was something else to it too, at least this time – the panic need for a sort of oblivion.
‘Sex,’ said Chris as if tuning into my thoughts, ‘is not a kind of forgetfulness, another way of numbing ourselves, like drugs or alcohol. On the contrary, it should awaken us, not only to ourselves and each other, but to life as a whole, to the universe in all its mystery and complexity.’
‘So we’re doing it wrong?’ I said. ‘Not us – you and me – specifically, but humanity as a whole?’
‘The vast majority, yes. All those who see it as a ten- or twenty-minute race to orgasm, yes. All those who think that orgasm is the natural or inevitable endpoint. Whereas initiates know that the true purpose of intercourse is intimacy.’
I frowned. ‘But don’t you need intimacy to start with?’ I said.
‘Yes, ideally,’ he said. ‘But it is an intimacy that is to be deepened through sex. That is its true purpose. In the service, of course, of enlightenment.’
It was time for me to lean my head back now, zone out. I’m all for a spot of yoga or meditation to flush out the mind and tone the body, but if he was going to get all serious with talk of enlightenment and nirvana and karmic this and karmic that, then he’d soon realise he was going above my head. Not that I actually objected to anything he had to say. Yes, I do love coming, I do strive to climax and feel cheated if I don’t when having sex, but I appreciated what he was saying about hurrying to the end, experiencing sex as little beyond genital stimulation. Perhaps that had been part of the problem with Ravi and me – with him exhausted from long days or nights at the hospital and me from motherhood, we regarded sex, when we did have it, as a quick in-and-out, the scratching of an itch.
Chris’s hand was on my shin now, but in a non-predatory way; he was washing me, in fact, slowly and gently, as if I were a piece of delicate porcelain he feared dropping. With his fingertips he barely skimmed the surface of my skin, and his touch left me shivery with pleasure, a pleasure that had something of the sexual to it, but something much deeper too. I’ll never be able to put it into words; perhaps that’s where its very power lay, in its resistance to language, to being communicated. It made me feel extraordinarily sensual and yet, for once, there was no burning sensation between my legs, the urgency to be filled and satisfied. It was a kind of bliss that didn’t need an orgasm, that wasn’t rising towards some goal, towards satiation.
He washed my whole body, every last crease and crevice of me, and it took an age. But he was right: what was the hurry? We had all night. When at last we climbed from the bath, he massaged me a little, as he had the previous night, with Ayurvedic oils. Then he wrapped me in a silk kimono, laid me on the bed and read some poetry to me, from something he told me was called the Amarushataka or ‘One Hundred Poems of Amaru’, compiled in the eighth century.
‘Hear his name and every hair on my body’s aroused.
See his moonlike face
I get moist like a moonstone everywhere.’
Eyes closed, I felt myself smiling, caught up in a sensation of luxuriance and lazy sensuality, and glad now that Chris had foisted me off him after the blow job, even if it had seemed a bit of an insult at the time that he could resist me and my wet pussy. I felt relaxed and indolent, yet at the same time, as Chris had suggested, more alert – both to my own body and to his body, and to the world at large. It was as if what he had done to me – the washing, the massaging, the poetry – had revitalised me, re-energised me. I was infused with passion for him yet, curiously, in no need of actually fucking him. And that, for the moment at least, seemed healthy. Especially after all that had happened with Charles. It was as if Chris had put a brake on me, reined my appetites back in just as they were becoming excessive. And in any case, would it have been good for me, having sex with him to make myself feel better about, or at least forget, for a time, Nadia? Any relief it afforded me would have worn off as quickly as the effects of my orgasm.
No, Chris, in his serious, thoughtful way, had seen through my desperation and known what it was that I really needed that night. For that, for the respect he had shown me in not taking advantage but instead in making me feel cherished, comforted, he earned my thanks.
That, however, was the first night after Nadia left. And since it was our second night in bed together, albeit one in which sex didn’t occur, I didn’t feel that it was out of place to suggest we spend some time together that day, after the meditation and yoga sessions. Truth be told, I didn’t know how Chris passed his time when he wasn’t leading these sessions. I guessed he had to tend to his vegetable patch, shop for provisions in which he wasn’t self-sufficient, deal with the boring admin of running his own business. But I didn’t imagine he was busy all day and I thought that as a couple we might do something together.
His refusal was curt, hurtful, a plain refusal without any real explanation beyond the statement that his day was ‘all accounted for’. The look on his face suggested that it was an imposition on my part even to have made the suggestion and made me realise how much I’d been taking for granted as a result of being allowed into his bed. Were we a couple after all? Did he even fancy me? I’d been touched by the way he’d refused to take advantage of my distress the night before, but now I wondered if the simple truth was that he didn’t really want me, had only submitted to me that first night because I’d thrown myself at him.
I suppose I should have had some self-respect and taken myself out for the day. God knows I’d spent enough of my life cooped up in our family home in Sheffield – you’d think I wouldn’t miss the opportunity to do a little unfettered exploring in this most colourful of countries, especially on such a gloriously sunny day. But I just couldn’t pull myself together – as if Nadia hadn’t been enough, now Chris was giving me the brush off, and I felt old and worn out.
Of course, I was being oversensitive. But as it turned out, I had reason to be suspicious: mid-afternoon, I heard voices in the courtyard and looked out of my window to see Chris sitting out under the trees chatting and laughing with a pretty young woman. I didn’t recognise her from the yoga sessions. For a while they sat sipping at lassis and talking, and then they rose and headed inside. I ran to my door, opened it quietly and tiptoed out and along the corridor in the direction of Chris’s quarters. Sure enough, he and the girl were walking towards them.
I grimaced. Why had I placed my trust in this man after what Nadia had told me? Suddenly the compliments he had
paid me during our first night together appeared to me in their true light as just so many smarmy lines. Nadia had been right. He told people what they wanted to hear and naive little me had lapped it up. Bloody old fool – a couple of compliments and I was anybody’s. Pathetic, really.
But I had to be sure. I continued along the hallway, then halted outside his door and pressed my ear to it. I was aware, of course, of the risk of being found out, but at that moment I was smarting so much I didn’t care. If he discovered me there, then all the better – I could confront him.
At first I could make out nothing beyond a low murmur of voices, with nothing distinct. Then I made out the woman’s voice.
‘Could you just explain that a bit more fully?’ she said.
‘Well,’ I heard Chris say. ‘The only time we ever really think about breathing, in any kind of conscious way, is when we are having trouble doing it. Yet conscious breathing can be a powerful aid in sexual growth.’
It was enough: there he was again, spinning lines, and I was damned if I was going to stick around and listen to him beguile another poor victim. I ran off down the corridor, not caring now if my footsteps could be heard, tears in my eyes.
In our room, now my room, alone, I wept. Then I swore at myself, told myself to stop feeling sorry for myself and decided to confront Chris about his visitor. I had no hard evidence that he was seducing her, after all, and before jumping to conclusions I had to be clear about who she was and what their relationship was. So I splashed my face with water, applied a mask of make-up and made my way to dinner.
Chris was there, of course, surrounded by his fawning pupils. As always, it was difficult to get his attention, but this time it appeared to me as if all the other students were ganging up on me, working together to shoulder me out and get me away from Chris. If we can’t have him, they seemed to be saying, then neither can you.
At last I found an opportunity to speak to him without being overheard, as he was making his way out of the door to replenish one of the dishes in the kitchen. Unlike earlier, when he had seemed so offended by my suggestion we spend some time together, he was gentle and kindly, and I wondered if I’d misinterpreted his behaviour, or perhaps just caught him at a bad moment, when his mind was on more pressing matters. He was, in spite of everything, a businessman, I reminded myself, and there were bound to be pressures that even the meditation couldn’t fend off.
Perhaps sensing that I was upset, he touched my hand briefly. ‘Come to my room,’ he said. ‘But not before eleven. There are things I need to sort out. See you later.’
It was hard, filling the hours between dinner and the hour at which Chris would admit me to his inner sanctum, and I ended up going for a walk on the beach to de-stress me. As I strolled, I thought about the previous evening: about the bath, the massage; about Chris’s insistence on taking one’s time, on not hurrying. I’d thought he’d been talking strictly about sex, but now it seemed to me there might have been a message to me in there too, a message about our relationship as a whole. Let’s take our time, he seemed to have been saying, and this morning I’d gone and nearly blown it by coming on too strong. Perhaps he was also thinking about his professional reputation. He might have felt safe entertaining me in his quarters late at night, but would it be right to be seen spending time with me during the day? He couldn’t have failed to notice that by appearing with me at the meditation session after our first night together he’d incited animosity among some of his students, which probably wouldn’t do his credentials a great deal of good. Yes, now that I thought about it, that was undoubtedly why he’d taken such a step back, had seemed almost frightened at my innocent-enough proposal.
He answered the door, at eleven, swathed in the same silk kimono in which he’d wrapped me the previous night. He looked relaxed, friendly.
‘Come in,’ he said, standing back and gesturing me inside. Inside, I relaxed too, relieved to feel welcome, my heart lifting at the prospect of whatever was to happen that night. I had no idea what he might have in mind, but it was guaranteed to be something out of the ordinary. First, however, I needed to set my mind at rest about his visitor of earlier in the day.
I sat down in an armchair; the chaise-longue was too obvious, too full of implications. I looked at him. He was so damned handsome, albeit in a slightly womanly way, that my resolve wobbled. What did it matter who he had entertained here that afternoon? What did it matter that I only seemed important to him at certain times of day, and an encumbrance again afterwards? So long as I could experience some of that sweet and tantalising loving again, that feeling of our bodies slowly becoming one – not in some carnal sense, but on a spiritual level – then I didn’t care. I wanted him.
Chris was regarding me thoughtfully, but when I held his stare it seemed to me as if he were almost looking through me. Perhaps that was just the effect of his fathomless blue eyes, which seemed to contain as many secrets as the oceans of which they reminded me.
‘You seem … agitated,’ he said.
I grimaced. ‘Bad day,’ I said.
‘Anything I can help you with? You know I’m always here to listen. Being a yoga teacher is not only about guiding you through the right poses. In a way I guide people through their lives.’
This seemed more than a little arrogant to me, a tad presumptuous, but I knew from past experience of yoga classes that people did feel more open with each other after doing yoga together – with their classmates but especially with their instructor. It was as if the opening up of parts of one’s body involved in certain of the postures – Utthita Trikonasana, for instance – encouraged one to open up one’s soul too, or whatever you wanted to call it. My own yoga teacher back in the UK had in fact become a kind of confidante during my divorce, and she had taught me various ways of controlling – but not repressing – my emotions through yoga.
Now, however, I was repressing my true feelings, was holding back on the questions I needed to ask, for fear of losing Chris. Which was ridiculous. My hold on him was tenuous, perhaps even imaginary. Looking back now, I see I had nothing to lose by confronting him, not really. But once again, as I had been, briefly, with Charles, I was caught in the trap of sex. My body was winning out over my mind.
‘It’s nothing a hug won’t sort out,’ I said at last. For a moment he continued to just look at me, which was more than a little unnerving. Then his chest rose and fell, as if in a sigh, and he stepped forwards and, taking my hands, helped me to my feet.
‘I need a little loving,’ I said. ‘I need to feel like a woman.’
He pressed his face into my neck. ‘That can be arranged,’ I heard him breathe, emitting a warm exhalation onto the skin beneath my ear.
I reached down for his cock, fondled it through his loose canvas trousers. The breath became a moan. I moaned too, my pussy aching for him, and reached for the elastic top of his joggers.
‘Whooa,’ said Chris.
I stopped, pulled my head back. ‘What’s wrong?’ I said. ‘Did I do something wrong?’
He shook his head. ‘Not as such. But you are my pupil and I’ve been trying to teach you about the value of patience, of slowness, of holding off. Have you taken in anything I’ve said?’
I shook my head, more than a little stung at being called his ‘pupil’. Was that all I was to him? Were we not lovers, gone far beyond that relationship?
‘The breath,’ I heard him continuing, ‘is the key. Yet the only time we ever really think about breathing, in any kind of conscious way, is when we are having trouble doing it. Yet conscious breathing can be a powerful aid in sexual growth.’
Sensing something hypnotic to his voice, as if he was trying to put me under his spell, I stepped back, shrugged his hands from me.
‘You could at least come up with something original to use on me,’ I said. ‘A different line. At least do that for me.’
He was frowning at me. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean … well, I was walking by your room earlier and I
heard you say those self-same words to someone else, another woman. I can understand … I wouldn’t flatter myself that I’m the only one in your life. But I think I’m deserving at least of being seen and treated as an individual, not the latest item to be plucked off a conveyor belt and then discarded.’
He was waving his hands at me, fanning them up and down. ‘Calm, calm,’ he was saying softly. ‘You’re getting this all out of proportion, seeing it out of perspective. There’s no question of anybody discarding anybody.’
‘Then what?’ I said. ‘What perspective should I be taking?’
He guided me over to the chaise-longue, applied slight pressure to my shoulders to indicate that I should sit down and then lowered himself so he was sitting beside me. His hands were still on my shoulders. He cleared his throat, spoke slowly.
‘Yes, there was a woman in my room earlier,’ he said. ‘Her name is Jasmine. What you have to understand, Valerie, is that this is my business as well as my home and as such I have meetings and classes and tutorials of one kind or another all through the day, day in, day out.’
‘So who was she, this … this Jasmine?’
‘She’s an acolyte.’
‘What’s an acolyte?’
‘A student.’
‘She’s learning yoga?’
‘No, I am her guru in spiritual matters.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means that she focuses on me during her meditation, as a sort of earthly deity.’
‘A god? Don’t make me laugh.’
‘I’m deadly serious.’
‘But you … you were talking about sex.’
‘Look, Valerie, all of this is extremely complicated and more than I have the time and energy to explain to you, especially at this late hour. Now –’ he turned to his bookshelf, then back to me ‘– if you really are interested in all this and are not merely annoyed because I had the cheek to consort with another woman, for very valid reasons, then I suggest you take this away with you tonight and spend a profitable couple of hours reading it.’
Chilli Heat Page 13