Standing and stretching her tired muscles, Kael nodded. “I’ll hold you to that. Thanks for the story, Lao Ma.”
“Thank you for listening, Kael. May you have a pleasant evening.”
“And you as well. Goodnight.”
8 June 1991. Lao Ma’s Home. Chengdu, China.
Kael stepped from the bathing chamber, her skin still warm and tingling slightly from the vigorous scrubbing she’d given herself.
It was Saturday, the Pleasure House’s one day of rest for the women who had stayed up into the wee hours of the morning, pleasuring the men and women who had come to work off a hard week’s labors. The house was quiet in the golden minutes just after dawn. Kael padded silently through the massive structure on bare feet, the fine silk of her robes brushing softly against the floor to mark her passing.
She was heading toward Lao Ma’s private sitting room; the one place in the entire house where she felt most comfortable. As she moved, Kael thought back on the three weeks already spent in the remarkable woman’s gentle company.
The two women spent many evenings together after the business was closed down for the night. Lao Ma spoke candidly about her total devotion to the Tao and its principles. She spoke very little about herself, yet was warm, caring and compassionate, with a serenity about her that helped draw out a tiny sliver of peace lodged deep within Kael’s dark and shadowed soul.
The story of the original Lao Ma and her warrior-student was never spoken of again after that first night. Instead, the small Asian woman took up the mantel of mentor once again, gently opening Kael’s eyes to a new philosophy of the world.
Lao Ma taught Kael forms of meditation that the former soldier, well versed in such arts, had never considered. The techniques were welcomed, for they helped her ease her way out of the opium addiction she’d fallen back into. They also helped to impart some sense of stillness to the American’s always active mind, and for that, Kael was grateful.
Though the teachings of the Tao, with their emphasis on stillness and serenity, were as foreign to the American as anything could ever be, when seen through the eyes of a true devotee like Lao Ma, Kael couldn’t help but feel the smallest bit jealous over the woman’s seeming comfort with the world and her place in it.
For Kael, every day of life was a war, a struggle which pitted her unbending will against any foes who had the audacity to face her. She was born a soldier and likely would die one. She felt it her destiny, if such a thing could even be contemplated.
To accept, then, life on life’s terms was a concept she couldn’t begin to understand, except at the most basic of intellectual levels. How could it be possible to live life without expressing her will, her desire for things she wanted? It could simply not be done, not even with the bright promise of a world the Tao envisioned hanging over her head like a reward.
Still, Kael had, at some deep and unspoken level, come to treasure her evenings with the gentle woman who had taken her in, though she would probably never admit it to anyone but herself. If spending time with Lao Ma was like looking into the window of a world she could only dream of, then look she would, and be content with the view.
“I really am going soft,” she chuckled to herself as she rounded the last corner to her destination. She rounded the corner, and then stopped, her vision captured by one of the most beautiful sights she had ever seen.
Lao Ma, her hair unbound and luxurious, gently brushing against the curvature of her buttocks, stood at one of the long, narrow windows in her sitting room. A shaft of early morning sunlight lanced through the window, gilding the Asian woman in tones of purest gold. Her simple white robe took on a luminescent quality, and the sun brought out the bluish highlights in her night-black hair.
To Kael, Lao Ma didn’t look prosaic as a mere angel, but rather a goddess, bathed in the hues of her majesty. The American suddenly found herself physically aching with the need to become a part of that light, that majesty. She felt pulled to the vision as a magnet to a core of iron. Her feet carried her across the room, her eyes never wavering from what was before them.
If utter goodness had a physical form, surely this was it.
Stopping less than an arm’s length away, Kael reached out a slightly termoring hand and brushed the tips of her fingers against the shining radiance of Lao Ma’s flowing hair. Her hand tingled as if she were touching some great, but controlled, power source.
Lao Ma, who had known Kael was present from the moment the other woman had stopped before the threshold, felt the gentle, almost reverent, touch to her hair and turned, closing the distance between them to almost nothing.
Kael, too, was standing in the light. Her eyes fairly glowed from an internal heat Lao Ma couldn’t even begin to contemplate. The Asian tilted her chin up slightly, taking in the sun-gilded features of the striking woman standing so close to her. She is truly beauty incarnate.
Quite of its own volition, Lao Ma’s arm went up, the backs of her fingers gently brushing away a strand of hair that had laid itself across Kael’s marble-cut cheekbone. She smiled at the unconscious gasp of air which came from the lips of the taller woman.
“You are so beautiful,” Kael whispered, her eyes drawn to the pink-bow lips of her teacher. Still drawn, she lowered her head slowly, her hand sinking into the thick fall of Lao Ma’s hair to cup the skull beneath.
Their lips brushed lightly against one another, then melded seamlessly, tasting, touching, taunting.
Kael felt as if she had swallowed the sun. A riot of colors exploded behind her closed eyes, washing through her as if giving benediction for her sins.
For one brief and shining moment, she felt …clean.
Then her body caught up to her mind and she deepened the kiss, drawing her tongue against Lao Ma’s lips, which opened in invitation and drew her in to the warmth beyond.
Lao Ma responded primally to the kiss of the beautiful woman, tasting the heady flavor of her lips, taking the warm, exotic and thoroughly female scent of her deep into her lungs.
Desire arrowed through Lao Ma on eagle’s wings.
When she recognized it for what it was, she gently pulled away, gathering up Kael’s hands and kissing them softly, her face shining.
Stunned, Kael’s ice-blue eyes popped open and she stared dumbly down at Lao Ma.
“It is not yet time,” the other woman said, smiling.
Kael blinked. “But I …you … .” She sighed, shaking her head. Then she cleared her throat. “Did …did I do something wrong?”
“No, not at all.” Lao Ma’s smile broadened, her almond eyes twinkling. “It was wonderful. What I’d dreamed it would be.”
“You …thought about kissing me?”
“I have. But …not like this. It’s not time yet. We have much more to go through.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“As with all things, Kael,” Lao Ma replied gently, brushing their joined hands against her own cheek, “understanding will come to you when you are ready for it.” Then she smiled again. “But, it seems as if you’ve taken at least one of my lessons to heart.”
An eyebrow rose over one impossibly blue eye. “And which one was that?”
“When I pulled away, you did not attempt to follow. For that one brief moment, you did not try to bend something to your will. This is a good thing.”
For the American, standing in a puddle of her own raging hormones, it didn’t feel like a very good thing at all.
As if reading her mind, Lao Ma threw back her head and laughed gaily, enjoying the perplexed look on the beautiful woman’s face. “Come, my friend. Let us sit and talk awhile. I think we could both use some cooling off.”
Totally dumbfounded, Kael followed meekly behind her teacher, absently wondering where the real Kael Androstos had gone off to and if she was planning on coming back anytime soon.