The Sensual Mirror Read Online Free PDF Page B

simply.
    “Babba. You’ve mentioned that name a couple of times now. Is he one of these Indians whose pictures you see plastered everywhere?”
    Robert did not answer and Martin waited several minutes before speaking again. He was beginning to feel the effects of the steam deep in his body. It was almost like getting drunk. He had told Robert about his breakup with Julia and now the two of them were discussing God. It was rather strange, and interesting, and exhilarating. Martin felt a loosening in his solar plexus, the beginning of a relaxation of a knot that he now saw must have been a very long time in forming.
    “Excuse me,” he said at last, “I didn’t mean to insult your teacher.”
    “Oh no, no, nothing like that,” Robert replied. “I was just wondering whether . . . well, whether you might not want to come with me tonight. I’m going to Babba’s. It’s an open meeting.”
    Martin’s instinctive response was to refuse. For years he had trained himself to turn down all forms of invitation, counteracting his impulse to step out into relative chaos. Numberless times he had felt the calloused hand of routine grab him by the shoulder when he would have preferred to fall into a space of unstructured time. During his daily workout and subsequent steam a kind of lilting melody would play, like a randomly fingered turn on a shepherd’s flute, luring him into a night of pathless pleasure. Such a course was almost invariably festooned with vague intimations of erotic surprises, but it was not sexual liberty per se he really desired; simply the liberty itself, the chance to be guided only by chance.
    Now he hesitated and felt the weight of all the times he had denied himself access to the void, to the formlessness of virgin encounter. Going with a yoga teacher to see an Indian holy man was the least likely thing he might have imagined himself doing when free of the need to report home each night. But because it offered itself in the context of his perception of the pattern of refusal, he decided that he would do it.
    “I don’t know . . . “ he said, extending himself tentatively.
    “It’s at nine o’clock,” Robert said. “We’ll have time to have dinner and talk beforehand.”
    “What do people do there? Maybe I won’t fit in.”
    “Oh, there’s nothing to do. We sit around. Sometimes we sing. Sometimes we are just silent. Then Babba gives a talk and answers questions.”
    “Well, all right.”
    Just then there was a loud knock at the door of the steam room. A false falsetto voice called out. “Can I turn the steam off, or would you two rather stay all covered up and cozy?”
    Freddie, one of the attendants, was an overtly gay man of twenty-four, short and chubby. He generally gave the impression of being asexual, so his homosexual veneer was taken as an artifact of identification to keep himself from facing his essential lack of desire or desirability. He was destined, if he maintained the same manner long enough, to evolve into a classic auntie, possibly complete with frills on his cuffs. His bit, acerbic and fluffy, ranged from the irrelevant to the amusing and was irritating only when one was obsessed with a task or had a headache. He had been at the club a year while he took courses in watch repair. His goal was to own a shop which handled rare and antique clocks.
    “Turn it off, Freddie,” Martin called out.
    “Can I peek?” Freddie shrilled.
    “If watching a conversation turns you on, come right in,” Martin said as he slid the door open. He had padded quickly to the sliding door and pushed it aside precisely to give the attendant a start.
    But Freddie was waiting for him, and Martin found himself no more than a foot away from the theatrically leering man. Freddie slid his glance down Martin’s front until it came to rest at his crotch.
    “Some conversation,” Freddie said turning gracefully on one heel and sauntering away. “I’ve read all about that body language.”
    Martin