She found a joint in the nightstand, lit it, and handed it to Fortunato. "I'll be back in a second," she said.
He took his clothes off and lay down with his hands behind his head, the joint hanging out of his mouth. He took a lungful of smoke and watched his toes uncurl. The ceiling overhead was deep blue, with constellations dabbed on in phosphorescent yellow-green. Signs of the zodiac, as far as he could tell. Magic and astrology and gurus were very hip right now. People at trendy Village parties were always asking each other what sign they were and talking about karma. For himself, he thought the Aquarian Age was just so much wishful thinking. Nixon was in the White House, kids were getting their asses shot off in Southeast Asia, and he still heard the word "nigger" every day. But he had clients who would love this place.
If the psycho with the knife didn't put him out of business. Lenore knelt beside him on the bed, naked. "You have such beautiful skin." She ran fingertips over his chest, raising gooseflesh. "I've never seen a color like this before." When he didn't answer she said, "Your mother is Japanese, they told me:"
"And my father was a Harlem pimp."
"You're really fucked up about this, aren't you."
"I loved those girls. I love all of you. You're more important to me than money or family or… or anything."
"And?"
He didn't think he had anything else to say until the words started coming out. "I feel so… so goddamned helpless. Some twisted son of a bitch is killing my girls and there's nothing I can do about it."
"Maybe," she said. "Maybe not." Her fingers tangled in his pubic hair. "Sex is power, Fortunato. It's the most powerful thing in the universe. Don't ever forget that."
She took his penis in her mouth, working it gently with her tongue like a piece of candy. It stiffened instantly and Fortunato felt sweat break on his forehead. He put out the joint with a wet fingertip and dropped it over the edge of the bed. His heels skidded on the icy slickness of the sheets and his nose filled with Lenore's perfume. He thought of Erika, dead, and it made him want to fuck Lenore hard and long.
"No," she said, taking his hand from her breast. "You brought me in off the streets, you're teaching me what you know. Now its my turn."
She pushed him down flat on his back, his arms over his head, and ran her black-polished fingernails down the tender skin over his ribs. Then she began to move over his body, touching him with her lips, her breasts, the ends of her hair, until his skin felt hot enough to glow in the dark. Then, finally, she straddled him and took him into her.
Being inside her gave him a rush like a junkie's. He pumped his hips and she leaned into it, taking her weight on her arms, her hair waterfalling around her head. Then, slowly, she lifted her eyes and stared at him.
"I am Shakti," she said. "I am the goddess. I am the power." She smiled when she said it, and instead of sounding crazy it just made him want her even more. Then her voice broke into short, rattling breaths as she came, shuddering, throwing her head back and rocking hard against him. Fortunato tried to turn her over and finish it but she was stronger than he would have believed possible, digging her fingers into his shoulders until he relaxed, then caressing him again with aching slowness.
She came twice more before everything turned red and he knew he couldn't hold back any longer. But she sensed it too, and before he knew what was happening she had pulled away and reached down between his legs, pushing one finger hard into the root of his penis. It was too late to stop and the orgasm took him so hard that it lifted his buttocks completely off the bed. She pushed his chest down with her left hand and held on with her right, cutting off the sperm before it could shoot out, forcing it back inside him.
She's killed me, he thought as he felt liquid fire roar back into his groin, burning all the way through to his spinal cord and then lighting it like a fuse.
"Kundalini," she whispered, her face sweating and intent. "Feel the power."
The spark rocketed up his backbone and exploded in his brain.
Eventually he opened his eyes again. Time had come out of the sprockets of the projector and he saw everything in single, unrelated frames. Lenore had both arms around him. Tears ran out of her eyes and down his chest.
"I was floating," he said, when he finally thought to use his voice. "Up around the ceiling."
"I thought you were dead," Lenore said.
"I could see the two of us. Everything looked like it was made out of light. The room was white, and it seemed like it went on forever. There were lines and ripples everywhere." He felt a little like he'd had too much cocaine, a little like he had his fingers in a socket. "What did you do to me?"
"Tantric yoga. It's supposed to… I don't know. Give you a charge. I never heard of it taking anybody so hard before." She turned her face up to him. "Did you really get out? Out of your body?"
"I guess." He could smell the peppermint shampoo she used on her hair. He took her face in both his hands and kissed her. Her mouth was soft and wet and her tongue flickered against his teeth. He was still diamond-hard and he started to shake with wanting her.
He rolled onto her and she guided him inside where he could feel her burning for him. "Fortunato," she whispered, her lips still so close that they brushed his when they moved,
"if you finish, you'll lose it. You'll be so weak you can barely move. "
"Baby, I don't give a shit. I never wanted anybody this much." He pushed himself up on his forearms so he could see her, his hips thrusting frantically. Every nerve in his body was alive, and he could feel the power surging through them, then slowly drawing back, massing somewhere at the center of his body, ready to roar out of him, to pump him dry, leave him weak, helpless, drained…
He pulled away from her, rolled to the end of the bed, and bent double, clutching his knees. "Jesus!" he screamed. "What the fuck is happening to me?"
She wanted to stay with him, but he sent her to geisha class anyway. He would be here, he promised, when she got home.
The apartment seemed vast and empty without her, and he had a sudden, chilling vision of Lenore alone on the street, with Erika's killer still loose.
No, he told himself. It wouldn't happen again, not this soon.
He found a gaudy oriental robe in her closet and put it on, and then he walked back and forth through the apartment, pacing out the inaudible hum in his nervous system. Finally he stopped in front of the bookcase in the living room.
Kundalini, she'd said. He'd heard the name before and when he saw a book called The Rising Serpent he made the connection. He took it down and started to read.
He read about the Great White Brotherhood of Ultima Thule, located somewhere in Tartary. The lost Book of Dyzan and the vama chara, the lefthand path. The kali yuga, the final, most corrupt of ages, now upon us. "Do whatever you desire, for in this way you please the goddess." Shakti. Semen as the rasa, the juice, of power: the yod. Sodomy that revived the dead. Shape shifters, astral bodies, implanted obsessions leading to suicide. Paracelsus, Aleister Crowley, Mehmet Karagoz, L. Ron Hubbard.
Fortunato's concentration was absolute. He absorbed every word, every diagram, flipped back and forth to make comparisons, to study the illustrations. When he finished he saw that twenty-three minutes had passed since Lenore walked out the door.
The trembling in his chest was fear.
In the middle of the night he reached out to touch Lenore's cheek and his fingers came away wet. "Are you awake?" he said.
She rolled over and huddled tight against him. The warmth of her naked skin electrified and soothed him at the same time, like the taste of expensive whiskey. He combed through her hair with his fingers and kissed her fragrant neck. "What are you crying for?" he said.