The inspiration for this very short story is the image that
WhiteWave48
displays on her Biography.
I don't know about you, but to me it certainly appears that she is affectionately holding some lucky guy's erection - but then maybe it is either my always over-active imagination at work, or perhaps just another of the pieces of pottery that are beside her, on the table...
*
Michael and I had spent the best part of a year in the planning of our trip; an overseas adventure holiday which had been prompted by some friends' enthusiastic recounting of their trip to India.
We had of course sought brochures, searched the Web, and checked prices with various agents - then spent many, many hours poring over the information we had accumulated, before deciding on the rough outline of an itinerary.
In addition to many of the more usual tourist icons, our mutual interest - both physical and intellectual - in things sexual, meant that high on our list were visits to at least some of the multitude of temples bearing the well publicised erotic carvings. Unlike our western cultures, the 'lingam' (the phallus, the erect penis, the cock) has always been a much venerated part of some Hindu practices - and that, and the 'yoni' (the vagina, the pussy, the cunt) - were eulogised and glorified in both paintings and statues in many extremely holy places.
Although we knew there was a gigantic - reputedly over seven feet high - lingam in one temple in Ranbireshwar, as this was north of our starting point, in Delhi, and our proposed route would actually take us south, we agreed to miss a visit to that one. We also knew that that particular carving was a purely symbolic one, not depicting the actual reality of the subject, so, in addition to the awkwardness of its location, it also held very much less personal appeal for me in particular!
I have always found the male's erection quite fascinating - and of course, in the right circumstances, sexually exciting, especially when believing that it was something about me that had given rise to it! It's lovely knowing that the man I am with finds some aspect of me - whether some physical attribute, or some especially stirring activity - so stimulating that he gets that powerfully turned on. But even just seeing one - whether a photograph or a simulation - so long as it is a nice, well shaped and proportioned one - I have often felt myself getting warm and wet.
But I am digressing!
So, given all that rising expectation, and just when my anticipation of the long awaited trip was at its highest - and we had each paid the full amount of our share of the bookings - Michael dumped me! He coldly informed me he had been seeing someone else for the last couple of months - she turned out to be the bubble-headed, blue-eyed, but admittedly big-titted, Cynthia - who I knew would drive him positively nuts in little more than the time he had already spent with her. But it was clear that he was absolutely determined to go to her, so what could I do? He obviously thought he was being generous when he told me he would only seek his portion of the air fare back from the agent, meaning that I would still be able to go on the trip - on my own?
I spent a week or two in deep depression, nursing both my loneliness and my much wounded pride, and seriously considered seeking a refund of whatever portion of the cost of the trip I would be entitled to. But then a few friends cajoled and persuaded me that with my holiday from work already firmly booked, as well as probably most of the money spent, why not go! They told me that the trip would not only give me a chance to clear my head of all thoughts of Michael - at least for the time being - it might also be an opportunity for some grand adventure.
During that time I also thought back on the four or so years Michael and I had been together; there had certainly been very many very good times, and our overall sexual compatibility had played no small part in creating many of those. But, if I was to be brutally honest with myself, there had always been something - something I found totally indefinable - but nonetheless there had undoubtedly been something missing. Whether that had been a lacking in Michael's technique or vigour, or my own failure to be able to unlock something within me, our love-making, though more times than not, totally enjoyable, still often left me with the feeling that there might, in other circumstances, have been something that could have been even more deeply satisfying. I was sometimes reminded of the song I occasionally heard played on the station devoted to the hits and ballads of the '60s and '70s, a song - no, it was more of a lament really - sung by Peggy Lee, entitled 'Is that all there is?'. The words of that song seemed to define so well the feelings I sometimes had immediately after it was clear that Michael had done all he either wanted, or was capable of doing with me.
Anyway, somewhat against my better judgement, I took my friends' advice and , a few increasingly apprehensive weeks later, finally set off on my own.
The long flight to Delhi was exhausting and the time lag meant my first night's sleep did not prove as refreshing as I'd hoped it would be, so I'm afraid a found myself occasionally dozing off during the next day's tour of the city, so I failed to fully appreciate the visit to the Red Fort, and even the undoubtedly tantalising bargains displayed in the much vaunted Delhi markets, left me singularly unimpressed.
However, by the time I arrived in Agra, for the trip to the even more famous Taj Mahal, I was happy to find that I had picked myself up enough to fully appreciate its beauty. Then, on my return to the hotel for a snack and an intended early night, I was persuaded by the admittedly extremely handsome room-service waiter that I should not leave until I had seen that building by moonlight - when it to all intents and purposes actually seemed to float above the ground beneath it. He was sufficiently persuasive, and had such an immediate physical appeal, that I allowed myself to agree to let him be my guide.
He later admitted, with a wickedly cheeky grin, that he well knew that that night would be moonless - but even so, and regardless of what followed, the sight of it lit by skilfully placed floodlights, is one I'll always treasure.
Young Mahendra proved to be just as creative and certainly as considerately acrobatically athletic a lover as he was a persuasive tour guide - and by the time he had to leave to get ready for his following day's work, I was both wearily sated and grateful that I still had several hours before needing to get ready for the next stage of my journey. Yet in spite of all that we had energetically done together, I still had that strange feeling that I could well have been able to experience something even deeper than the purely physical exhaustion he had left me with.
Although I did not meet up with another Mahendra, the next few days were certainly both fascinating, and sometimes, sexually stirring. I visited at least a dozen of the temples and shrines Michael and I had included on our list of places venerated by the lingam and yoni worshippers. Most were of either couples or, less frequently, groups, performing the innumerable positions of coupling; some I had tried, many I had not - but found I fancied trying some day - others I felt would require either one or both partners to be highly skilled contortionists.
All in all I must have seen hundreds, possibly thousands of lingams, in all manner of shapes and sizes.
Some were several times life-size, some carved from varying colours of stone, others quite gaudily painted. Some singly, some in groups and some formed into circlets being worn as either crowns or waistbands of the appropriate deity. Many were just starkly representational, others shown in the act of literally pouring forth their life-giving seed - and I have to admit that I found I was especially turned-on by those!
Then, quite late on one particular morning, when coming out of the last of our listed temples in that particular town, I happened to spot a relatively large group of youngish women going into another, much smaller temple, just a little further down the road. Although most of the places I had visited did have a significant number of women, of varying ages, entering them, the majority of the worshippers had in fact been men - so seeing that group naturally aroused my feminine curiosity, and I tagged along behind them.
Whilst my curiosity may have been the primary motivation, the humidity and down-beating heat of the mid-day sun also contributed to my eagerness to get inside another building. Although I had wisely chosen light, loose-fitting cotton shirts and skirts to wear during most of my trip to India, even after just a minute or so outside I felt the discomfort of countless pin-pricks of perspiration spotting various parts of me.
The temple was both heavy with the smell of the many smouldering joss sticks, and very much larger on the inside than its exterior had suggested. In fact it was quite large enough to allow the twenty or thirty people already there to not crowd the place; so I felt free to wander slowly around and admire the various objects it contained.
And there were lingams aplenty! And although this temple had for some reason not been one included on my list, most of them were undoubtedly some of the very best specimens I had seen.
There was one particularly large one, that was understandably the centre of most of the women's attention, adding their garlands of mainly Marigolds, but also other assorted floral tributes, to those already hanging down over much of its rigidity. It was a particularly vivid depiction of the phallus, and although the shaft of cunningly carved stone immediately aroused me by the way the artist had showed both the swollen skeins of veins, and the down-curling loose folds of skin, it was the head, and especially what was spurting up from it, that immediately began turning me on even more strongly than had any of those I had seen earlier in the morning.