fiction
notes on the tantra
Emilio is haloed orange in the candlelight, and Chelsea is splayed out, her four limbs and blonde hair spooling out onto the sheets in a star shape. Beyond the glass wall, cars on Lafayette roll slowly through canyon-like treadmarks in sleet. Orange headlights cut a pale grey mist of snow, and new flakes fall, slowly and without end. My reflection wavers in the glass panes, illumined in space.
Holding a cup of turmeric tea in the shower, I lean my head back into the stream and close my eyes as the water falls. A series of disparate images idly rise and dissipate again.
We sit cross-legged and hold hands for tantric eye-gazing. Emilio and Chelsea’s eyes meet and I watch Chelsea’s left eye. I see her seeing. I see her existing across multiple time-spaces. I see the age of her and her agelessness, like a deck of cards unfolded. I see her passage through time and the ephemerality of her body as it is here with me now. We switch. I meet Emilio’s eyes and Chelsea watches mine. I feel Emilo’s character and find him to be very nice. We switch. Chelsea balances my hips between her legs and we hold each other. I think you’re a dolphin, I say. We smile. I think you’re a cat, she says. But you’re wavering between a feral cat and a domestic cat. Right now you’re a feral cat, and I don’t think you know yet which one you will be. I meet her eyes warmly. Emilio returns. Laurel has found my dolphin, says Chelsea.
Emilio asks if I have ever seen a face change. Yes, I say. I just saw that. I saw that with Chelsea. Why does that happen? He says, They think it's because you're seeing beyond someone's body, seeing into their soul. I nod. Ageless, I say.
You never know what a couple is going to be like. This evening I was wearing thigh-high stockings and brought a gift, a small flask of Jack Daniel’s. It was a slight misread, because they were in athleisure and had wine, and 528 hz tantric music on their sound-system. They were not seedy, grunge, rock, or Playboy. They were more New York Times or Architectural Digest couple- holistic, elegant, mellow.
Emilio places his fingers over my 3rd eye and my root chakra. We do several variations on chakra transfers, moving energy between us. Chelsea says that when Emilio places his hand on her sacrum and my sacrum, she feels a transfer through him, like a conduit. As we change positions, my mind wanders toward diagrams of circuits. I like the aqua heart chakra, but my natural tendency is toward violet. I touch Chelsea and Emilio’s heart, hoping to bring them to that chakra as well.
Later we talk, about ourselves, our pasts, hopes, dreams. I say that by the time I was a teenager, I'd begun to think of the artist not just as a job or a trade, but as a sexual identity, a social class, an ethos. Introduction into an international sphere of exchange. We talk about the politics of love-language, and how to improve the language of love. New words.