LOOK BOTH WAYS
2
He gazed around. It was a small home, cosy, but small. Two bedrooms he could see, a lounge room and a kitchen. It was all a home really needed, to be one, for one person, or maybe two. Carpet warmed his feet, as he stripped off the soggy socks and placed them in the linen basket she offered him; soft carpet, with a long and friendly shag pile.
She disappeared into one of the rooms then returned carrying a brown robe. He took it from her outstretched hand and wondered. She looked at him and smiled, waiting. Then she turned and went back into the same room.
His coat and then his shirt fell away from his fingers and dropped with a squelch into the basket, with his socks. His trousers followed, along with his underwear. The brown robe was warm on his skin. It was of a towelling type, absorbing the moisture and replacing it with warmth from the texture of its thread.
He tied the sash and glanced down at the linen basket full of his clothes. Then he shivered and smiled. Even his underwear had been wet. If she had asked him whether or not he had been cold he would not have lied. He was cold, but it had been okay then. Now it wasn’t.
He wanted to get warm and eat something. He felt hungry, as if he had been on a fast and doing something he had not wanted to do; living some way he had not wanted to live. He had been away a long time. Thirty years in the desert was a long time, by any thinking-dominant man’s measure, even longer by any feeling-dominant male’s measure.
Yet, now he knew some secrets, at least, one. He was not in the desert any more. He was half sure he had prayed to come in from the cold, finally. And now he wanted to get warm and be grateful, and help others to get warm, too, and to feel that warmth—his warmth.
Do not tell lies, he thought to himself. There is no need any more. And do not do what you hate. So he didn’t, any more. He had come in from the cold and home from the thirty-year desert, knowing all things are plain, in the sight of Home; for nothing hidden above or below or within will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain, without being uncovered.
He smiled and agreed with himself, even though he stood naked in a strange female’s lounge room; naked beneath the warm brown robe.
Then he suddenly felt consumed by a universal love for all things under the moon and the stars, but did not know why. He wasn’t in the desert any more. He wasn’t quite sure where he was, but he wasn’t in the desert. Nothing grows in the desert, he knew he knew that much, at least.
He felt blessed, like the lion, which becomes man when consumed by man. Yet, he knew he was once cursed, as the man whom the lion consumed and he had to leave. That was when the lion became man. Yet, he wasn’t in the desert any more, so he was no longer cursed. He didn’t feel cursed. He felt blessed in her home, her warm female home. And this time, he would not leave, until he felt no longer wanted, or needed.
The warm home was like a wise fisherman who cast his net into the sea and drew it up full of small fish. He knew that, somehow. And among them the wise fisherman found a fine large fish. He threw all the small fish back into the sea and chose the large fish, without difficulty. That was why he knew now, that whoever had ears to hear, would hear when he told them in the confusing times ahead, that he was no longer in the desert where nothing grew.
He hadn’t seen or heard her return, but she had, and stood smiling at him, to his left. She, too, wore a robe, but the colour was blue, a light blue. Her hair was wet, black and very long. She was drying it with a towel. The robe looked too big for her and he smiled. It was perfect for a wet body with long, black wet hair. Perfect.
‘I’ll make some coffee,’ she said to him, as she turned and finished wrapping her hair within the white towel. ‘How do you have it?’
When the lion is hungry, he eats, he thought then. When the eagle is thirsty, she drinks. They both know that unless they feel hungry and then act, they will perish. But how did he take his coffee? He didn’t know. Had he ever drank coffee? He wondered, trying to recall what it tasted like.
‘Out of a hot pot is fine,’ he smiled his answer then walked over to stand on the other side of the waist high divider. It separated he from her, in the small kitchen big enough for only one, without a cat swinging.
She laughed a laugh from her belly, a natural laugh, a female laugh; full of her heart’s natural and abundant warmth and good cheer for him, a perfect stranger. It warmed him and it cheered him, as he watched her busy herself with two mugs, two lots of milk, and two one-teaspoon lots of sugar and coffee, in each cup. It smelled great. His stomach agreed. One coffee, one milk and one sugar was how he obviously took his coffee.
He smiled softly. Now he knew.
‘My name is Kathy,’ she said over her shoulder, as she anticipated the boiling of the kettle. ‘What’s yours?’
The kettle answered for him and whistled a high siren that she quickly shut down. She poured and stirred, at the same time, so as not to burn the milk. He wondered how he knew that was why she poured and stirred at the same time? Maybe he was wrong?
She handed him his hot steaming cup and he forgot the question that did not seem all that important now, especially after the hot coffee slid down his throat and into his deeper belly, like liquid fire.
In this 7th time, I will cast a natural fire upon the world, he thought, with his second sip. And I will guard it until it blazes naturally in all, above, below and within. With the third sip of the steaming liquid, he forgot that thought, too. He felt warm and he then felt naked beneath the brown robe, yet did not feel ashamed to be that way.
When you disrobe without being ashamed, he thought, and take up your clothes and place them under your feet, like a little child, and tread on them, then will you feel like the Son or Daughter of the Living One and you will not be afraid.
He was not ashamed, and he was not afraid. And he did feel like a little boy, on his first serious make-out date. He felt good about himself, and without feeling ashamed or feeling guilty. He lived as one, with the One, and all was well, now. He was no longer in the thirty-year desert, and, he could feel, as others would. Then they would be saved from those gods who could not, for that would be their only defence.
She didn’t look ashamed, either, he thought, as he watched her, above the rim of his cup, smiling back at him while she sipped her coffee, almost in time with him. And beneath her blue robe, he concluded. She, too, would be as naked, as the day she was born. He wondered whether she was shaven or not.
Then he sipped his coffee, wondered why he thought that then forgot the thought completely, with the deep warmth it had already given him. Then it came back.
‘Come and sit in the lounge,’ she said, leading the way. ‘I’ll try and crank up this fireplace.’
A home is warmer with a fire going, he thought with a smile, as he looked both ways, then followed her lead. She turned on a gas tap while he settled into the two-seater lounge. There was one single chair opposite him.
‘Ffft,’ spoke the gas fireplace, as the natural fire burst into life.
He sipped his coffee and watched her turn up the quietly hissing blue-gold flame, until it stood and shimmered proudly, about three inches above its birthplace.
‘Mmmmm,’ she murmured, hugging herself and shivering at the same time as she turned back to face him.
He smiled. When she shivered, she had spilled a little coffee onto the carpet.
‘I’ll get it on the weekend, don’t worry,’ she grinned sheepishly, like a schoolgirl who had done something naughty and had been caught in the act, with nowhere to turn, for a justifiable excuse for her behaviour.
He smiled and sipped some more coffee. It tasted good. It did not taste familiar, but it tasted good, and it warmed him. He wondered if that was really the way he took his coffee, or even if he ever took it, at all? There was warmth in natural human nature warmth, he thought, and a fire was unnecessary.
She sat down opposite him. Her knees were closely held together. She leaned forward toward him, three feet away and smiled, and then brought her coffee mug to her lips and sipped. She had nice lips, he thought, wondering how someone could sip coffee, yet still continue to hold a smile?
‘So,’ she said with a sigh, as she leaned back in the single chair.
Her knees remained held tightly together, but her shins looked smooth. He looked and did not feel guilty about doing that. He wondered if he should. He knew she knew where he was looking. Then he looked up and smiled at her. She smiled back.
‘What’s it all about?’ She asked and took another sip of her coffee. ‘What was the point?’
Two good questions, he mused. He had often wondered and even asked that himself, in the desert—of himself, of others, and even of God, at times. Nobody had ever given him a satisfactory answer that he had been able to take to the bank, as true and correct.
He sipped again. The mug was half-empty. No, he thought. It is half full. He smiled, knowing he was delaying. He knew she knew that, too.
‘You know.’ she grinned. ‘Standing in the middle of a suicide intersection, in the pouring rain, without even a raincoat to keep you dry? You have a death wish or something?’
She chuckled at her joke. He did, too.
No, he thought. I have a life wish for me and for you. I’ve been dead for thirty years and living in a desert, of my own making. I didn’t like it. Then he wondered why he thought that and where that desert was, but he couldn’t remember. So, he just smiled.
‘Family?’ she asked.
‘I’m a trinity twin,’ he said, without hesitation then wondered why, as he looked at the way the top of her robe had billowed outward, slightly, revealing the very edge of each of her breasts. She saw where he was looking. He knew that. Then he stopped looking and looked at her.
‘I hope your trinity twin has more sense than you,’ she grinned and sipped some more coffee.
‘Sometimes,’ he replied, without thinking. ‘Sometimes not.’
She laughed and her knees relaxed, opened, and then closed again. Something had made him look. He smiled, but said nothing. Yet, something had made him look. He knew she saw him. It was perfect.
‘Where is your family?’ she asked, leaning back further into the chair. Her knees relaxed once more and opened a little way then closed again, as she settled more deeply into the chair.
When you see one who was not born of a woman, he thought, prostrate yourself on your face and worship him. That one is my Father and yours. He wondered then why he could not put a face to his Father. He smiled and sipped his coffee; aware he was waiting for her to relax her knees, again. He didn’t feel guilty or shamed.
‘What are they like?’ she asked, her knees relaxing, as she shifted a little in the chair. ‘For that matter, what are you like? I suppose I should know, all alone, here with you?’
She laughed again, a perfect laugh for a female. Her inner thighs were white. He saw. She saw him see. He knew that and slowly looked both ways then looked up at her. She was smiling softly, like a natural female.
Compare me to someone and tell me who I am like, he thought of saying, but he did not. She did not know him to compare, yet. Some compare me to a righteous angel, he reflected, but he knew he was no angel, not with what he was waiting to see. Some compare me to a wise philosopher, he thought then. But he knew he wasn’t wise or he wouldn’t have been standing in the middle of a suicidal intersection, in the pouring rain, with no money, no name, and no home.
And some mouths are wholly incapable of saying whom I am like. He liked that one, because he didn’t know whom he used to be and he now didn’t care. He knew who he was, now. That was all that mattered.
‘Are you always this big on conversation with good Samaritans who rescue you from the rain and probable death?’ she said, sipped, and then laughed, gaily. He laughed with her and finished his coffee, with a gentle sigh.
‘Only when I’m wet,’ he said with a grin. ‘That was very nice. Warmed me up from the bottom to the top. Thanks.’
She smiled. ‘Would you like another one? It’s free. You don’t have to give me any money.’ Then she chuckled.
I shall give you what no eye has seen and what no ear has heard, he thought, as he held her soft smile in his gaze. And I will touch what no hand has touched and what has never occurred to the human mind to touch.
He nodded in appreciation and handed her the mug, as she stood up from her chair. He looked as she rose and he saw. She knew he saw. It had not been deliberate, but he had seen. He knew she knew that. She was not shaven. His eyes rose to meet hers, as she took the mug from him. Soft smile met soft smile. Then she turned and walked to the kitchen to get him another.
‘Feel like something to eat?’ she said to him from the kitchen, as she stood waiting for the kettle to boil again.
When I come into your home and sit with you, he thought of saying. If you receive me as you have, I will eat whatever you set before me, and heal the sickness in you. What goes into your mouth will not defile you. Yet, that which comes from your mouth, it is that which will defile you.
Yet, he didn’t say that. He only thought it.
‘Thank you, yes,’ he said back to her then settled more deeply into the two-seater lounge. It was warm and it was comfortable. The heat from the fireplace was now warming the air about his face. He shivered, yet it was a nice shiver.
‘Would you like a little something in your coffee, this time?’ she asked with a chuckle. ‘Might loosen you up a bit.’ Then she laughed. So did he.
I am not your master, he thought. Yet because you will drink from me, in time, you will become intoxicated by my heart’s natural, bubbling spring, which I will measure out. He smiled and did not feel ashamed of that living, breathing thought.
‘Whatever you’re having will be fine,’ he answered, recalling the very brief glimpse of the mass of dark carpet pubic hair he had seen between her thighs, as she had risen from the chair. That natural part of her would need no artificial fireplace to be kept warm, he thought, with a smile.
Then he felt life stir within him. His smile widened at himself. He felt no guilt and no shame. He was a natural male, with a natural human nature. He felt natural and he felt stirred to life, once more. Then he wondered when he had, last. Then he did not.
‘Can’t have you starving to death in my lounge room,’ she grinned when she came to him and offered him a small plate of sandwiches. Then she turned and went back to shut down the whistling kettle, but not before he had, this time, seen her cleavage, as she had leaned forward and down, to hand him the plate.
She had known he was looking. He knew that. And he knew she knew he knew she knew. It was perfect. He felt no guilt and no shame. Only her left nipple had he remembered as being seen. It was brown, a dark brown, and it was perfect, too. No, he didn’t want to starve. He had been starving for many things in the self-chosen thirty-year desert, but food had not been one of them.
If I fast, I will give rise to sin for myself, he thought idly. Yet, he knew he was no sinner. Neither was she. She was a natural feeling-dominant female who couldn’t sin, even if she wanted to. And he was a natural feeling-dominant male.
She returned and handed him his mug full of fresh coffee. He took it from her and placed it down on the small table between them while he finished the two small sandwiches she had already made him.
He watched her place her coffee and plate of sandwiches on the small table then sit down in the single chair. He watched, but he saw nothing. She held her knees closed and pulled the robe tightly about her thighs, as she sat. She smiled when he lifted his gaze to hers. She had seen him and known. It was perfect.
‘So,’ she said, ‘are you married?’
He shrugged without thinking, but looked down at the white marked skin around his wedding finger, wondering who, when, where and why he had taken the ring off. He knew the ‘what.’ The ring was no longer on his finger. Then he wondered when he had first put it on. He found himself amused. He couldn’t recall ever having seen it there, yet, he knew it must have been.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Me, neither.’
She began to lean forward while she ate one of her two sandwiches. He looked and he saw, but not enough to see her right nipple. He imagined it was as perfect, as the left one.
‘Well,’ she said, taking her coffee mug and lifting it upward, in a toasting manner, ‘here’s to new beginnings, no matter how strange they might seem, at the time.’
Then she laughed gaily. He laughed with her and toasted, with a sip of his coffee. It tasted different to the first. She had added something to it. Milk? Sugar? He wondered at the slightly different taste, yet it warmed him and stirred him to life, even more so. Her laugh was a wonderful laugh, he thought. It was a natural human laugh, full of warmth and caring for a total stranger.
Have you discovered then, he thought of saying to her, that the beginning you look for is the end, beginning all over, again?
Yet, he did not say it. He knew that where the beginning is and always was, there will the end, beginning, yet again, also be. He felt really good in knowing that, for some reason. He did not know why right at that moment in non-time. Yet, he felt blessed, knowing he had finally taken his place, again, in the beginning.
I will know the end and will not experience death, he concluded, and then wondered where that thought had come from.
‘Like them?’ she asked, with a soft smile, referring to the sandwiches of Tuna and Mayo.
He nodded and smiled then glanced down at her slightly open cleavage. He wondered what she would taste like, on top of the Tuna and Mayo sandwiches he had finished now, if he were to take her right nipple into his mouth and suckle her deeply where she sat, coffee cup and half-eaten sandwich still in hand. He grinned then felt like a baby, all of a sudden; an innocent little baby boy, a feeling-dominant natural male boy.
Infants being suckled are like those who will enter my home, he thought idly and felt himself stir strongly to life, at the thought. Then he wondered where his home was or had been. And also, if she had sensed that he was stirring to life before her and beneath the brown robe she had given him to clothe his once-wet nudity with?
‘I was… once,’ she said, her smile fading and her eyes misting. ‘Married, that is.’
He nodded, but said nothing. Sipping his coffee he knew everyone had their story to tell, if only they could find someone to listen. One single, solitary tear began to run down her left cheek. His heart swelled.
I will choose you, he decided then. One out of a thousand, and then two out of ten thousand, and you both shall stand proudly and naturally, as a single one.
‘Too many fights,’ she said sadly, ‘too many problems, always strife and anger. It just wasn’t meant to be, I guess.’
He said nothing. Thinking-dominant men and women think, he then mused idly, that perhaps, it is peace, which I have come, this time, to bring. They do not know that it is dissension of their thoughts, which I have brought, instead.
‘We fought all the time,’ she then went on softly. ‘I lived with his parents then, and my younger sister. The whole family ended up fighting all the time. It was a nightmare.’
He nodded, knowing there will be five in a house: three will be against two and two against three; the father against the son and the son against the father. And they will stand solitary.
She sniffed, as he drained his second cup of coffee then placed the mug gently down on the small glass tabletop.
‘Want another?’ she asked, but the gaiety had gone from her voice.
He shook his head.
‘It was perfect,’ he smiled warmly at her melancholy. ‘Just perfect.’
She smiled and her face lit up, like a beacon. She sipped her coffee. She was meant to smile. He concluded—like a lighthouse beacon, bringing home the weary and the lost, like him—the stray cat who came in from out of the rain. He chuckled.
She rose from her chair and leaned forward, stacking her empty plate on top of his, clinking his empty coffee mug beside hers, as she grasped it with one hand and lifted the plates, with the other. He had seen both breasts full and free; both nipples erect and naturally extended, between the loose, folding sides of her blue robe.
He looked up. She was still there looking down at him, with a soft smile. He knew she knew, and it was perfect. Nature, human nature was just absolutely perfect. It was a gift, and not a sin. Then she turned and walked through to the kitchen to begin clinking and rattling, as she washed the plates and mugs. He settled back more deeply into the two-seater lounge and smiled inwardly.
Thinking-dominant men and women are not worthy of the life they hold, but waste, moment by living now-moment, he thought idly, as he stretched in the warmth from the fireplace. I myself will lead her, in order to liberate her natural feeling female, so that she, too, will become a living spirit, resembling all natural, feeling-dominant males and females.
Every woman who will make herself natural female for and with the universal heart of a natural male will enter my home, he concluded. Then he wondered, again, just exactly where his home might be, or once, had been.
He thought then of how much warmer it would be, were he lying full length natural upon her, after both had shed their man-made warm outer-shell robes. Woe to the flesh that depends on the soul, he thought with a grin. Woe to the soul that depends on the flesh. Align all natural trinities and communicate as one. Only then will natural warmth reign supreme.
Then he chuckled softly to himself, as he watched her return from the kitchen to sit back down in her chair. She did not hold the robe closely about her thighs, as she had done last time. The insides of both thighs were very white and very visible. He was still looking at her there when he heard her speak.
‘Nothing like a little Rum on a cold wet day, to warm a body up, from the inside out,’ she laughed.
He looked up at her smiling eyes and saw her natural female there, loose and natural. She was perfect. Yet, man and women did not need additives, of any unnatural kind, to set their natural male or female free. This all had yet to discover. Then he wondered what Rum actually was and why he could not remember ever having heard of it.
‘Yes,’ he replied, with a smile at himself. ‘It feels good.’
‘Want to keep living dangerously and try a straight one?’ she then asked him.
‘If you are,’ was his answer.
He watched her thighs, as she rose from her chair then turned to walk to the kitchen. As she turned, he watched her buttocks. They trembled slightly beneath the material robe and in his glimpses of her natural flesh, as she walked and stirred him to life, yet again.
He took a deep breath and sighed. It was good to be alive again, he concluded, as he watched her walk back toward him, carrying two glasses, that looked a quarter full of so-called, ‘straight Rum.’
She who will drink from my mouth will become like me, he thought idly, as she handed him his drink. I myself will become she. And the things that are unnaturally hidden will become revealed to her.
She settled back down into her chair. He watched, but saw nothing, except her, watching him, watching her.
He smiled. She answered, in the same manner, as she took her first small sip of the drink. He did the same and revelled in the unnatural, man-made flames, as they torched his throat and deeper belly. Again, he stirred to life. He did not feel shamed or guilty. Yet he knew he needed no unnatural additive to simply be the natural male he had been born.
‘Mmm!’ she purred, as he watched her swallow a second small sip.
He followed her lead and took a second one, himself. Then he swallowed slowly and smiled at her, feeling, from his will and his gaze, the natural heat begin, inside; watching her get more comfortable, by sitting slightly sideways in the chair then pulling her knees up beside her. She tugged down the robe to cover her exposed upper thigh. She only just managed it.
He smiled as he saw. It was perfect. He looked up and saw that she had seen him see, and that was perfect, too. He did not feel guilty or ashamed in knowing she had seen him attempt to always see her.
What is the sin that I have committed? He asked himself with a smile; or wherein have I been defeated? Yet, when the bridegroom leaves the bridal chamber, then let them fast and pray.
He wondered where that thought had come from then seared his throat and belly again, as the liquid fire slipped fluidly down his gullet to mix with his own natural heat and expand. He waited for the coming of the internal combustion of his own heat and fire, and the radiating natural warmth that would follow. It did.
He smiled again. It was nice to be home, inside his natural Self and inside a natural home again. He watched her sip then do the same. When her glass lowered, he could see that it was empty. He then drained his, too. Her eyes were shining, as she lowered her legs to the carpet then prepared to get up, again. His gaze went directly between her legs, which were waiting.
‘Feeling strong enough for another?’ he heard and sensed her grin at him.
He wasn’t looking at her face, yet he knew she was grinning. Her knees were not held tightly together. She was not a shaven woman.
‘If you are,’ he answered, sincerely, as he looked up at her, with a smile. Her eyes shined.
She rose from her chair and turned then walked casually to the kitchen. He rose and stretched, luxuriating in the warmth of the small apartment. Then he, too, walked to the kitchen that was too small for one person and a swinging cat.