Chi

Sometimes spiritual revelation touches something other than the mind. Assume the position for enlightenment.

Chi

by Miles Naismith

"Any new business?" asked Daphne Fraser, President of the Epping Forest Women's Club.

"Yes, ma'am, Madame President," said Sally Saarensen. "I know I'm the new kid on this block, but I'd like to suggest an alternative to another Chinese dinner or a talk on gardening. I move that the next monthly meeting be held at the Cock o' the Walk Pub instead of the China Inn."

In the ensuing babble of conversation, a voice asked, "Isn't that one of those Chippendales-type places?"

"More like Clydesdales, if my friend is right," Sally murmured, then louder, "Yeah, that's the general idea."

Daphne choked back her laughter as she listened to the chaotic reaction to Sally's proposal. Trust Sally to shake 'em up, she thought. I do believe she positively delights in playing the liberated provocateur. Finally, it seemed clear that the proposal would not pass, despite an undercurrent of interest and curiosity in several of the voices. Too bad, she thought.

"All right, ladies, order. Is there a second to Sally's motion?" After a long pause, she said, "Motion fails for want of a second. Anything else? Well then, meeting adjourned."

Later, sitting in Sally's living room, Daphne and Sally sipped drinks and chatted about the meeting.

"Did ya see the look on Betty's face? I thought she was going to choke!"

"Sally, you shouldn't do those things to our neighbors and friends... compared to you, they are virtually unarmed when it comes to sexual upfrontedness. Give them a break."

"Upfrontedness? Wow, you really are from the Sixties! Okay, Ms. Tolerance, I'll lay off them, but what about you? You looked like you wanted to go. And I know why."

"This ought to be good... so, why's that, Dr. Freud?"

"Your in a rut, girlfriend. Your kids are gone, and you have time for fun, but you're not getting any. Time to get wild, girl. Time to do something your mother warned you against."

"I've done wild. We went to nude beaches in Europe, and I've been topless in the Caribbean. And we used to do a little dope before we had the kids. I don't always color inside the lines, you know."

"Dope? Oh yeah, you mean 'Mary-jew-wanna.' Hell, everyone who went to college back then tried that. And I'll bet you were so self conscious you never looked to see what men were eyeing you on the nude beaches...although I'll bet you felt real 'free,' defying convention like that! Phui. Come to the Cock o' the Walk with me."

"I don't think so, Sally, but not because I'm uptight about it. I just don't think I could get that enthusiastic over stuffing dollar bills into the pouch of some over-muscled moron while squealing with girlish glee about how naughty I was being."

"Well, then, come with me to yoga class. Like Ken Lee recommended."

"I don't buy all that mystic Eastern stuff about controlling the flow of chi and all that. I liked the self-defense course, and I like Ken Lee's teaching style. I don't need some yogi telling me to meditate on the wonders of Krishna while assuming unnatural positions. And what's yoga class got to do with it?"

"Well, I believe in chi, and so does Ken. He said he felt it in us when he singled us out to join the yoga class. It's being given by his former teacher, and as to its relevance, the class is going to be in the nude."

Daphne arrived home with no conscious memory of the drive from Sally's house. She had been thinking about Sally and what she had said. She had not had a friend that she felt so close to, that she could share confidences with, since high school, and she found that Sally filled a void in her life that she hadn't even known she had had. But sometimes Sally hit too close to the mark. She was in a rut - a nice, comfortable rut, but a rut nonetheless. She had her books and her garden, her comfortable house, and her routine.

Her husband was comfortable, too. She loved him, but she had known him, it seemed, forever. She loved being in bed with him, but she had to admit, she secretly wanted more. Reading erotica on the Web, secret masturbation to her fantasies - not even Sally knew about that - had awakened a yearning for that first giddy excitement of discovering sex, and later, of trying its variations each for the first time. She wanted to feel again like she felt when her husband, when he was then her boyfriend, had been the first to rub her between her legs. Lord, she had felt naughty that night-the first time her parents had allowed her to wear a miniskirt on a date.

Maybe she did need to do something risky. But yoga in the nude? Posturing in unflattering positions that would exhibit every part of her body? It was easy for Sally - Sally was only thirty-two and had a face and body that made lesser women contemplate pacts with the Devil... not to mention her sexually uninhibited nature. She would be checking out the eyes of the men to see if they were looking, and probably checking out other parts of their bodies as well. Daphne knew she wouldn't look, but she'd feel every eye burn her skin like a hot iron.

Over dinner that night, she said to her husband, "Did I tell you that my self-defence instructor took me aside and told me I had great potential? Sally too. He suggested we study with his old teacher."

"Just you and Sally? Hmm, only the two most beautiful women in the class are invited, eh? Sounds like self-defense is not what he had in mind studying..."

"Oh, stop it. But you're right that it's not self-defense. He says we need something both strenuous and meditative. He wants us to take a yoga class."

"So, do you want to do it?"

"I don't know, honey. It's flattering, but..."

"But?"

"Well, he says his teacher is very traditional and strict, and that his teacher says clothes restrict movement and interfere with his ability to see whether the student has achieved the correct posture."

"Nude yoga? Sounds like an adolescent boy's dream. But you are a mature woman. And you'll know whether the class is serious very quickly. Why don't you give it a try."

As soon as she heard the phrase "mature woman," Daphne knew she would be taking the class. Her husband hadn't meant it that way, but she would prove she still had it, even at fifty. She had kept in shape, and her body was quite satisfactory, thank you. Maybe her hips were a little exaggerated compared to runway models, and maybe her breasts were only adequate, rather than the pumped up DDs that men's magazines favoured... maybe Playboy wasn't beating down her door for a pictorial, but she had seen men look at her. And she knew that "mature" was not the first thing that came to their minds.

And so it was that she and Sally found themselves nude under short silk robes, two of three women among seventeen men of the class, facing a wall of mirrors in a karate studio, waiting for their teacher to appear. Feeling enormously self-conscious, she noted that the men also seemed nervous. And then, suddenly, as if he had appeared from thin air, a man stood in front of them. A man with disconcertingly blue eyes under a jet-black head of hair, looking out from an almost olive complexion. A man whose eyes seemed bottomless, whose utter calm seemed in contrast to his aura of command-a man who could only be their teacher.

"Relax. Sit down." He matched action to words, dropping effortlessly into the lotus position. Several of the students, including Sally and Daphne unhesitatingly followed suit. So great was the teacher's presence that Daphne did not even blush at the exposure caused by the short robe and the lotus seat until she happened to glance down, several seconds later.

"My name is Sean Callahan. I will be your teacher. Please call me 'Sensei' within these walls. I know it's not a traditional title for yoga, but it's what I'm comfortable with. Let me tell you a little about the class before we start. You are all here because someone has recommended you to me as having strong chi. Two ladies come from a self-defense class, Mr. Evans from another Yoga class with another master, and the rest from martial arts classes. My goal will be to help you develop your sense of and control of your chi.

"I have studied the various Eastern religious doctrines traditionally surrounding chi, and frankly, I don't believe religion is the answer. I do believe that the body contains something more than its physical components. Call it a soul, call it chi, call it The Force from Star Wars, call it whatever you like. I use the term chi. Sometimes chi manifests itself in a body as perceptible energy. Advanced martial artists have all felt it, and some can summon it at will. The hysterical strength that lets a mother pull a door off a car to save her baby is a manifestation of chi. Different people manifest it different ways. We'll begin with yoga for all of you. Yoga gives you a good base. But I may find that your chi needs a different discipline to respond to, so don't try to judge yourself by what others are doing."

By the fifth week, Daphne no longer blushed when she dropped her robe to begin the class. Being one of three women in a class of twenty no longer bothered her. She no longer felt the eyes of the others, the men. In fact, she knew they weren't even looking. Their concentration, like hers, was turned inward, in an attempt to master a recalcitrant body, to focus a wandering mind, and especially to earn the very rare words of praise delivered so parsimoniously by Sensei.

At home, she practiced diligently. She knew she didn't have the flexibility that came with lifelong yoga training, so she concentrated on balance and strength. But try as she might, she couldn't attain the level of focus at home that she did at the dojo. After several weeks, she had mentioned it to Sensei, and he had asked to see her house.

"Dear," she said to her husband, "Sensei wants to see the house. I told him I couldn't concentrate as well here, and he asked to come by. I invited him to dinner Thursday night. I hope you don't mind."

"Mind? No, indeed. I've been wanting to meet the leader of your cult for quite a while."

"What do you mean, 'cult'? It's just a yoga class."

Her husband laughed. "Just a class? I haven't seen you so serious about anything for years. And, to hear you talk, and Sally too, you'd follow this guy off a cliff if it would earn some praise from him. Heck, yeah, I want to meet this Svengali to see what's so special."

"Well, it's not like that at all," she replied, "and you will see him Thursday."

She fussed and cooked and worried all day Thursday. She cleaned and straightened. She wanted everything perfect. She hardly noticed her husband when he arrived home, greeting him with a perfunctory kiss and distracted thanks for the wine he had brought home to accompany dinner, before returning to her chores.

And then he was there. Looking past her husband to the man framed by the open doorway, she was startled. After the introductory lecture, she had hardly looked at him in the dojo. She felt his presence, heard his instruction, and even watched his demonstrations - but she had been turned inward, concentrating so hard, that she hadn't really looked at him. But, in that doorway, when his icy-blue eyes looked past her husband and focused on her, she felt like the world had been reduced to a tunnel, running from those eyes to hers. She was certain he had felt it, too.

Dinner passed like a dream to her. She did her part with the small talk - "Sure and begorra, yes, I'm pure Irish... but Black Irish, y'know," he had said. It was all she remembered later.

She served and removed like a good hostess, and gave no outward sign of it, but she knew something had changed. Even when he corrected her with casual good humor, "Not 'Sensei' here. Call me Sean," she knew the relationship now involved her conscious acknowledgement of him as master.

Time and again she turned to find his eyes on her, and each time it took a conscious effort of will to turn away. Finally, dinner was over, and he asked to see where she practiced. She led the way to the sun porch. Her mat was already laid out as it was when she practiced, in front of the sliding glass doors that lead to her garden.

"I think I see the problem," he said. "I know it sounds crazy, but the Chinese really do have something in feng shui. This room is not harmonious." Turning to her husband, he said, "Will you humor me by helping me rearrange a few things? I'll gladly help put them back if you don't like the result."

Soon the room contained much the same items of furniture, but somehow looked like a different place. One old chair was banished, and a small table with a flower arrangement - the centerpiece from dinner - on it was added. Sally and her husband both voiced their approval.

"It feels okay to me," he said, "but we won't really know until you try it, Daphne. Please do a few postures for us."

Daphne blushed, and tried to demur, but her husband said he'd like to see what she had learned himself. She started to drop into the lotus, but her slacks pulled against her. She looked at him, and he said, simply, "Correct form, please." He wasn't smiling.

She blushed furiously, and began to unbutton her blouse. She blushed down to the tips of her breasts as she stripped, and kept her eyes away from her husband. Finally, nude, she turned toward the flower arrangement and drew in her focus. Almost on its own, her body flowed through her postures, moving smoothly from one to the next, as perfect a routine as she had ever done in the dojo.

She felt like she had felt when she was hitting the man in the Red Man Suit in the finale of the self-defense class. Not thinking, just kicking and punching, as she had been taught. A feeling of energy-gathering, energy that was released in a final flurry of blows, leaving a feeling of all, and yet a feeling of nothingness. Yoga was different, of course, but she felt the same warmth, the same energy, gather as she moved, and it seemed to concentrate in her lower abdomen. The postures felt effortless. She settled into stillness in the lotus at the end, and then flinched, startled, when her husband applauded.

Blushing, she turned to see Sensei, his eyes boring into hers. He gave her a small bow, no more than a nod. He approved. It gave her an almost sexual jolt of pleasure. He stood and said, "I think that's done it. Thank you so much for the delightful dinner. It has been a pleasure. Don't get up, I'll see myself out."

When the front door closed, her husband was on her immediately. No words were needed for them to know they were both ready. They didn't make love, there on the floor - they fucked liked teenagers stealing time together when the parents were out. It was what they both needed. It was what she needed. Later, in bed, he kidded her again about it being a cult to get her to do that, but he allowed as to how, if it were a cult, he approved if he could reap the benefits. She hugged him to her, feeling her love for him envelop them even as she remembered the little nod Sensei had given her.

After her next class, he had held her back with a hand on her shoulder. At his instruction, she found herself kneeling, Japanese style, on a cushion in Sensei's office. While she waited for him, she took in the stark, traditional emptiness of the room: tatami mats, a low desk or table with another cushion behind it, a niche containing a single smooth rock, and a wall hanging of what looked like Chinese or Japanese calligraphy.

She was also surprised to find that the mirrored door to the office she had seen from the other side was actually half-silvered. From the inside of the office, it was nearly transparent, giving her a good view of the great hall of the dojo where she had just been doing her postures. "I asked you - no, don't turn around, remain still - I asked you to stay today to talk to you about the other night at your house. You felt it, didn't you?"

Sitting still as commanded, she answered the voice behind her, "I'm not sure what you mean, Sensei."

"You felt your chi. You felt this..." She hadn't heard him move, but his voice was a whisper beside her ear. Suddenly she felt his presence, felt heat at her back... No, inside her back.

"Lace your fingers on the back of your head, like prisoners do. Keep them there."

It was the voice of command, no less demanding for being whispered. She put her hands up behind her head and intertwined her fingers. She felt, as much as saw, his hands come around her waist. Careful not to touch her, his hands untied the belt to her robe. When she started to move her arms, he said, "Be still." She resumed her position as his hands opened her robe.

"Move your knees apart." His hands moved up, close to her but not touching, until his palms were opposite her cheeks. He held them there, and she felt the heat again, like a blush, and yet different. He moved his hands down, very slowly, still close but never touching, and heat seemed to follow them. He paused with his hand cupped around, but still not touching, her breasts. Her nipples, already erect, seemed to become a focus for the heat, as if the breasts funnelled it to the points. She was almost disappointed when his hands moved on, down again slowly. As his hands moved between her thighs, he put his right hand over his left to keep from touching her. It seemed to double the intensity of the heat, which seemed to flow from his hands to her sex. She felt as if she were getting warmer and warmer, filling with heat like a coffee cup fills from the pot. Her clitoris was tumescent, wanting. She was filled with desire, with a need for climax, with a need to be touched.

His right hand moved up quickly and pulled her right hand away from her head, and down to the heat. He pushed her hand against her mons and said, "Release your chi."

Her need was great, and she masturbated in front of him without reservation, without blushing. She came in great, gasping moans, feeling an intensity to her climax that stunned her. Later, she thought about things she had read about people, in China perhaps, who inserted knotted ropes in the anus of their partner, and pulled them out at the moment of climax. She had felt the knots of energy in her belly leave her through her sex in what she imagined was a similar feeling, dissipating themselves in her orgasms.

When she was through, he pulled her back against his chest, and supported her.

"I saw it that night. Your chi is gathered and intensified by submission, freed with sex. I bet you and your husband fucked as soon as I left, and I bet it was good for you. We'll continue the yoga to help you learn to focus your mind, but we'll need some other exercises to focus your chi."

She said, wearily, drained by the intensity of the experience, "Are you going fuck me now?" She knew she would not resist.

"I'll see you next week at class," was the reply. "Go home now."

He was not in the room when she finally rose, grabbed her clothes, and drove home in her robe. And, although she had walked out dragging, driving home in only her short thin robe was like a shot of adrenaline... and an aphrodisiac. The further she drove, the more she realized that she was practically naked. Her robe didn't cover her mound when she sat in the car, and every movement tended to loosen the hold of the belt, threatening to let her breasts escape. She almost hoped a truck or van would drive by, so the driver could see her.

It didn't happen, but by the time she got home, she was ready. Her husband never knew what hit him, but it wasn't tender lovemaking. He didn't complain. She brooded over events for a week, and considered quitting the class. But she was there again for the next class, self-conscious at first. She surprised herself with her discipline, though, quickly turning inward toward the meditative blankness she sought. Even as she felt the energy, the chi, building in her again, she was not distracted by thoughts of the previous week's episode. It was only when class was over, and she received no instruction to stay, that realized she wanted it to happen again.