Sexuality and Spirituality, United

Sacchi Green


Which came first, spirituality or religion? It seems to me most likely that religion grew out of humanity’s innate spirituality just as science grows out of our curiosity. Religion and science are both attempts to explain the universe around us and figure out how to survive in it. Science may seem to ignore spirituality in favor of facts derived from replicable research, but the scientific impulse to stretch the mind beyond the known could be considered a form of spirituality too.

Religion isn’t specifically mentioned in our topic here, but it inevitably crops up in our discussions, and really, if it weren’t for the way some of the currently dominant religions class sex as a major sin, we wouldn’t have to be asking whether sexuality meshes or clashes with spirituality at all. Why shouldn’t they mesh? Why shouldn’t spirituality encompass all of human experience, especially its heights of sensory awareness?

Of course it’s all a matter of definition, and I’m not going to claim to either know for a fact or take on faith an exact definition of spirituality, or religion, or even sexuality. I know I should try to define, or at least to explain, what I mean by “innate spirituality,” but the best I can do is to claim to be an agnostic when it comes to the complexities of the human mind. However much we think we’ve discovered, there’s always more we don’t know. For whatever reason, though, humans seem to need spirituality, whether they see it as coming from a supremely powerful source outside themselves or from higher levels of their own consciousness.

Mind, consciousness, whatever we call them, or whether we think of them as a single entity, have dimensions we can’t fully know. Just as a minor example, as storytellers, haven’t we all been surprised at the thoughts that percolate to the surface of our minds when we’re writing? Things that we hadn’t realized we knew, or could imagine? (Don’t tell me I’m the only one!)

And, as writers, don’t we try to produce both mental and physical reactions in our readers? Spirituality and sexuality, or mind/spirit and any of the physical senses, are inextricably bound together. Just as music, something we perceive with the physical senses, can sometimes trigger spirituality, so can sex in its most intense moments. Why should they always be separate? Yes, of course spirituality and sexuality—or, really, any flavor of sensuality—can mesh.

Going a bit off-topic here, when I got to pondering on spirituality I remembered my mother’s funeral last year, and working with the minister of the very progressive church I grew up in to help him know more about her, since she’d been in decline for the several years he’d been with the church. I told him that she didn’t talk about religion much—I think she was in it for the music and the sense of community more than for any dogma—but that one of her favorite poems was “The Soldier” by WWI British poet Rupert Brooke. The “some corner of a foreign field” phrase is the best-known part, but the lines that struck me were in the second verse:

"And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her days;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.”

Well. Setting aside the England part, agnostic as I am, I’d like to think that in some unknowable, inconceivable sense, all of our lives, our memories, our consciousnesses, can be pulses “in the eternal mind”. Even those areas of our experience involving sexuality in its most spiritual manifestations.    

   

       

Does Spirituality Mix with Sexuality, or Do They Clash?

By Spencer Dryden

Executive summary: They should but they don't

Analysis and discussion:

What a great topic for my first blog. It goes right to the heart of my TOE (Theory of Everything).

As a writer, I have incorporated the subject into one of my short stories (The Gueschtunkina Ray Gun) and blogged about a related topic on the ERWA Blog (Is There a Man in the House?). My answer to the question goes all the way back to the dawn of mankind.

I believe sex is what brought us down from the trees. It is the most powerful force at work in shaping civilization and certainly the most powerful force acting on our psyches. Something happened when we were only two feet tall that caused our kind to go from near extinction to exploding over the planet like an invasive species. In my TOE, two things happened in close proximity among females: a switch from seasonal to monthly estrus and the anterior migration of the vagina. Not exactly the stuff of erotic romance but stay with me.

The switch to monthly estrus meant that females were available for mating on a year round basis. Remember how it used to be. Females came into heat emitting pheromones that drove the guys to frenzy trying to get some nookie. We pounded on each other trying to be first in line, then the alpha males pounded nuggies on our heads and took all the females.  The pheromones died down and everything went back to normal. That system worked successfully by Darwinian standards and continues to work among our cousin apes.  Shifting to monthly estrus broke the cycle of the dominant alpha male getting all the sex, now males were crazy for it all year long. Some of us other dudes had a chance if we brought stuff to women.

The second change was more subtle. With the anterior migration of the vagina, males and females could face each other during copulation. Sexual cues became visual rather than chemical. We guys saw pretty faces everywhere. Females grew larger breasts. Males became mesmerized by the holy triangle of breasts down to the pubic mound. The image  and the wanton desire it triggers is never far from the male mind.

In my case I have been enchanted by female allure since the first time I felt the stirring in my pants at the sight of a naked woman. Female allure has colored my life and often led to horrible decisions. There is simply not enough blood to serve the big head and the little head. The color is fading now, which has allowed me enough cranial circulation that I try to write stories about human sexuality and  make stupid postulations.

Why did this happen? Consciously or unconsciously females did this to make their lives easier. Guys had to bring them stuff all year long, especially food, protein dense food for our growing brains. Guys had to keep bringing more and better stuff to get laid. The disaster we call civilization ensued.

Things went wrong with one part of the plan though. Females kept mating with big harry brutes who eventually enslaved them in order to keep control of sex. They shoulda mated more with us sensitive caring guys who would respect them in the morning and treat them like equals. Just sayn'.

I think one day science will bear out my theory. But the way I see it, who ever controls fertility, controls destiny. The story of civilization is a story inexorably mixed with the control of women and fertility and therefore sex. If order is to be maintained in the kingdom, then a rational was necessary to imprint compliance on the followers. So the rulers created god in their image and likeness. A god that was hostile to sexual inclinations, otherwise women would go around having babies by whom ever they chose. We certainly can't have that or how to you keep a kingdom together?

Sound harsh? Look at that part of the world where women are tortured, raped and murdered for the crime of wanting an education. The misogyny is so deeply ingrained in the culture that women are clothed from head to toe to keep from tempting men. Our weakness is foisted on them.

My silly little theory may seem ridiculous but please offer me another explanation for  the utter inhumanity to women. which began when we first started living in large groups and continues to this day.

Questions of Ultimate Concern

by Giselle Renarde

I wonder if I've shared this excerpt before.  I know I've posted portions of Audrey and Lawrence stories in the past, but there are 12 in total.  They're based on the 10 years of my life I spent as mistress to a married man. And, because adultery is so off-putting to so many readers, nobody buys the individual ebooks or the complete collection... so, hell, I might as well share them here.

The series has been on my mind lately because I just finished writing its companion piece, The Other Side of Ruth, four years after I started it.  It's the story of Lawrence's wife (that's the w-word Audrey can't bring herself to say) and her lesbian affair with a younger woman.

Anyway, back to Audrey and Lawrence.  This excerpt is from a story called Questions of Ultimate Concern:

“I thought you were an atheist.”

“Why did you think that?” he asked.

“Because I remember you telling me you believe that when we die, that’s the end of the line. There’s nothing more. There’s nothing out there.” When he didn’t reply, I went on, “That’s what you said.”

“That’s what I believe,” he agreed, which only piled more questions onto my heap of scepticism.

“So, you don’t believe in God?” I asked.

“No,” Lawrence squeaked, like that was such an easy question to answer he didn’t have to contemplate it for even a moment.

“But if you don’t believe in God, why does your w…” Again, the unspeakable w-word tripped me up. “…Why does she think you’re at church?”

Lawrence surprised me by pulling the covers open. I was sure he was enraged. I was sure he’d get up to leave.

But he didn’t. He opened the covers and pulled my chilly body in next to him, wrapping me in his warm arms. That sense of a man’s big body pressing against mine for the first time made me feel wonderfully virginity. My mound tingled as its hair brushed the flesh of his slight paunch. I nestled my head in the crook of his shoulder, relieved he wasn’t running away from me.

“Because I used to go to church,” Lawrence finally responded from somewhere above me. I could feel his chin moving against my head as he spoke.

“Did you stop because of me?” I asked, looking up so quickly I smacked his chin with the top of my head. “Aïe!” I cried, while Lawrence sucked in air, making a hhhssshhh sound.

“Sorry,” he offered, though it wasn’t his fault. “No, it was just before I met you that I stopped going. I used to drive all the way out to my parents’ church every Sunday morning, attend service with them, have a bit of lunch, and then drive back home. It wasn’t about religion, it’s just what I did.”

“Tradition,” I suggested.

“Yeah, it was a tradition. I didn’t think about why I was doing it, or how I might do it differently, or if I really felt inclined to do it at all. Every Sunday morning, like clockwork, I got up and went.”

“You went alone? What about…?” I hoped Lawrence would catch my drift because I didn’t want to use the w-word again.

“What about the person with whom I share a marriage certificate?” he laughed. Yes, that was one way of putting it. “She always preferred to sleep in on Sundays.”

“So, when did you lose your faith?” I asked, kissing the soft skin along his collarbone.

“When did I have any faith to lose?” he chuckled wryly. “I wasn’t raised to have faith in God, just to fear his wrath. For years, that kept me on the straight and narrow. Mind you, was it God I was afraid to upset, or was it my parents? Was it God the Father, or Father the God? And I suppose that whatever it was, it worked for a time. I was a good child, and then a good teenager, and then a good man…”

“And then you met me.” I giggled like a wicked fairy from the comptes de fées. I wrapped serpentine legs around his waist, and a forgotten sensation like burning ice coursed through my veins. I remembered how good it felt to be bad. “When I met you, petit, you were the image of a choirboy. You were such an innocent I had to corrupt you. And you said, no, no, no! You wanted to be the perfect husband, but would Audrey take no for an answer?”

Lawrence grabbed me round the waist, growling a little as he spoke. “When have I ever said no to you?”

Rolling him onto his back, I countered, “In the beginning, you said no, no, no to everything.” I punctuated each “no” with a sharp kiss to his neck.

“Not me!” he chuckled, smiling slyly as I hovered above him, my hair falling into his face.

“Yes you, monsieur le loup!” I replied like a little flirt.

His eyes sparkled as he awaited my descent, and I pulled my hair into a rope to get a better look at him. How could a bald man seem so childlike? What was he, nearly fifty? Older than that, perhaps? He could almost have been a baby.

Grabbing my ass, Lawrence pulled me close against him. Somehow, I didn’t expect his cock to be quite so hard. Tabernak, it was like a steel rod against my juicy mound as he slid me up and down by the hips. My desire to kiss him overpowered my resolve to tease him and, sinking my nails into his shoulders, I gave in to his warm mouth. His impatient tongue just about killed me as I rubbed my clit down his rigid shaft. Every time my pussy lips met his balls, my mouth fell away from his. He had to pull me all the way up again just to kiss me again.

Lawrence pulled away from my mouth just long enough to speak into my ear. “I wanted you to corrupt me.”

Like a jungle cat, my heart raged in my chest and my throat released a growling noise. I grabbed hold of his cock, wet with the juice of my craving cunt, and stroked it with an expert hand. Lawrence fell into a trance, gazing down at the fingers firmly enveloping him. My thumb smoothed a pearl of precum around his pinky-purple head as he looked on. His cock was mine, all mine.

“Do you want me to corrupt you now?” I asked, as if he had a say in the matter.

With a snorted kind of laughter, he cried, “God, yes!”

So, holding his shaft firmly by its base, I eased myself down onto it until his beautiful cock disappeared inside my body. Saint Ciboire, he felt huge inside the engorged walls of my cunt. Pressing my tits against his broad chest, I wrapped my arms around him. I wrangled his hot snake of a tongue in my mouth. He pressed on my hips. His hands helped my frenzied motion as I rubbed my clit against the fur of his pelvis. Tangled in his limbs, I couldn’t contain my expressions of joy when my core began skipping like a pebble across a pond.

“Tabernak, Lawrence!” I cried, throwing my body against his. His cock was so wet from my pussy juices that it slid effortlessly in and out of me. Pounding my mound against his pelvis, I couldn’t even let up when we were both tender and bruised. I knew I should stop, but I didn’t. The fullness feeling in my pussy threatened to explode my mind if I kept on grinding. Of course, I did. I couldn’t stop.

As I teetered on the brink orgasmic insanity, my thighs threatened to give out. Lawrence kept right on pushing and pulling me like a rag doll. Every muscle in my body, starting with my friction-warmed pussy, went into ecstatic spasm. As my eyelids scrunched closed of their own volition, I couldn’t help but cry out, “Ostie de calisse de crisse de saint ciboire de tabernak!” Then I fell like a twitching puddle against Lawrence’s smooth chest. When I was on top, I always came first. It was almost symbolic, I thought, like my pleasure came before his.

Bearing with me while I was temporarily lost in space, Lawrence issued the occasional thrust in my direction. I had little sense of time, but at some point he said, “What did all that mean? I’ve always meant to ask.”

“Ah, well, I swear a lot when I get very excited,” I laughed.

“In French?”

“In Québécoise, yes.”

“Well, what did you say?” he prodded, slipping out from under me until my stomach met the mattress. Kissing my hair, my neck, my shoulder, he eased his eager cock inside me. His chest warmed my back. Tabernak, his cock felt even bigger in that rear-entry position.

“I never really thought about it, but all our curse words come straight from Catholic liturgy: chalice and holy host and tabernacle… In Québec, the sacred is profane. It’s bizarre.”

“Yeah,” Lawrence reflected, moving in slow, deliberate circles inside me, stirring my deepest regions. “I think it’s because sacred words carry such weight for the followers of any religion. When you abuse them, it’s an offence. My mother would never have stood for us taking the Lord’s name in vain.”

“Oh, God!” I moaned, mostly to tease him, but also because what he was doing in that moment felt incredible.

I could hear Lawrence smelling my hair, his face planted in the crook of my neck. He made no response to my tease, except to slide his hand beneath my body and press his fingers against my clit. Lawrence was all over me, on my back and caressing my front, shoving his generous cock halfway through my core. Through the veil of my hair, I was mesmerized by the sight of his hips pressing against my ass, my supple flesh giving way to his. It was like watching somebody else, like watching other people’s bodies. They looked too good, too golden, to be ours.

"Blue Nails": A conversation

I can’t believe I’ve forgotten my watch again.  I left it at home on the bed.   I feel insecure without my wrist watch, almost naked.  And she’ll be here soon, but she’s such an old school German, in spite of growing up as a country girl in a time when clocks were a luxury, she is punctual.  When she says she’ll be here, she’ll be here.  She is her own watch.

I could go up to the barrista and ask her what time it is but there’s a line of people and she’s cranking out drinks for them.  Also if I leave my table out here on the sidewalk someone will snatch it and she won't see me.  She'd just go into a kind of hunting mode and track me by scent like a blond haired bloodhound.  I don't like being around her when she’s like that. Twitchy.

I check the settings on the little iPod that I’ll be using to keep the interview going.  My ears are itching inside from using those little ear buds which I should probably wash.

A sharp finger flick on the back of my head.  Bop.

“Hallo, Scheißekopf.”

I reach back and touch the back of my head just as she swings into sight and plops into the other chair in front of the uncapped bottle of Heineken I bought her.  The milk pale face, the platinum silver hair, she looks as though she was poured into her clothes from moonlight.  “They don’t have Paulaner?”

“Always something with you,” I say.  “They don’t have True Blood either.”

“Oh - you asked?”

“I really did!”

She laughs with happy teeth, not a danger in sight.  "You doof!  What did they say?”

“Oh nothing, they thought I was being dumb.  I’ll bet a lot of drunks this time of night ask for weird stuff.  Hey - I found a place that sells Absinthe.”

“Like in the Anne Rice books?  You did?”

“Yeah!  I found it in a liquor store too.”

“Buy us some.”

“The Green Fairy comes high,  little miss Queen of the Damned.”

She takes a swig of beer and holds it in her mouth, looking around for a place to spit.

“Shit,” I say, “I forgot - wait.”  I run up to the counter and the barrista, a little grumpy at being interrupted in her psychic flow passes me a big plastic cup without looking.  I bring it back and Nixie spits in it. 

“You’re good to me Scheißekopf.”

“Waste of good beer.  And you want Absinthe?”

She lifts her middle finger and takes another swig.

“Did you watch the True Blood DVDs I borrowed you yet?  Fifth Season?”

She spits the beer.  “’Loaned you’,” she says  “Don’t you say ‘loaned’ ?”

“I come from Minnesota; they say ‘borrowed’.”

“You should be teaching me proper English.”

“ ‘Borrowed you’ says I.”

“Shitty teacher.”

I push the iPod forward.  “I wanted to pick up where we left off last night.  You told about how you were turned.  We were at the part where you had to leave your Uncle’s house.”

She waves her hand imperiously.  “You're kind of rude.  You.  We have all night.  Don't be so grabby.  Yes!  I watched all of them in two nights.  True Blood.  Sookie,what will she do?  That Bill!  Garce!  He is a monster.”  She draws out the word with a kind of gleeful relish.

“Bill has bigger fangs than you do.”

“And he has a bigger dick than you do!”

“You’ve never seen it.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Absolutely and twice on Sunday.”

“And mein gott - they fuck a lot on that show.  Everyone.  Schtup!  Schtup! Schtup! It’s ridiculous.  You know who I like best?”

“Who?”

“Who do I like best?”

“Jessica.  The red hair.  Definitely.”

“Yes!  How do you know this?”

“She was very religious in the beginning, like you.  Then she becomes crazy later, but she’s deep.  She has a lot of soul.”

“In real life Debra Wohl, she’s supposed to be a really sweet person.”

“Yes, but you were religious like Jessica.”

“I’m not religious now,” she says, “but I’m spiritual.”

“But do nosferatus have sex?  Sex is an evolutionary function to reproduce a species.  You reproduce asexually.  Technically.”

She puts her bottle down with a sharp petulant rap.  “You.  You are all about the science.  The science.  I fucked Daniel when he was alive. Like on True Blood, like crazy we fucked.”

“You said you don’t fuck.”

“I don’t fuck prey.  He wasn’t prey.  He was never prey.” 

I turn on the recorder app on the iPod.  “Let’s get back.”

“No,” she says.  “Let’s chat.  Schießen die Scheiße.  Shoot the shit.”

We sit in awkward silence for a minute like a bad first date.  Finally I think of something I’ve always wondered. “Do you dream?  When you sleep?”

“I dream sometimes just before I rise.  Mostly it is very silent and time passes quickly.  When I wake up I always feel kind of sad.”

“Why?”

“Oh.  Dunno.  I miss the sun.  But I dream.  Mind . . .”

I sense the German philosopher in her rising to the surface like Moby Dick.

“Mind is like a spectrum.”

Thar she blows. . . 

“There is the conscious mind.  Then the unconscious mind, which I have like you.  But different.  My nosferatu consciousness, its a little different because I am adapted to my limitations differently.”

“Do you worry about having a soul?”

“I do,” she says.  “But I am not worried about Hell.  I know about Hell.”

“You mean figuratively?  Poor me, I’m in Hell?”

“No - really.”

“Seriously?  A real Hell?  You’re usually so German about everything.  Rational.”

She looks off in the distance and slouches back in her chair, slinging an arm over the back of it with the bottle in her hand.  When she does this she’s getting ready for something.  She reminds me of my Dad in the fishing cabin when he was about to explain something abstract.  This moment, this philosophical slouch is why I know I’m safe from her.  She can’t talk like this with anyone else.  She needs me.  For this.

“There is Hell.  But to understand Hell you must understand the universe.”

“Ooo,” I say.  “Sookie never talks like this.”

She sits straight.  Puts the bottle down.  Dead serious.  Here it comes.

“Scientists now, they say that all that exists in the universe, everything that exists is within layers of existence.  And that the only thing that actually exists is energy.  There is only one thing that exists by itself. Everything is energy in different, you know, states.  Conditions.  But there is only one thing.  Energy.  And energy is never lost.  It only changes its state of being.  Like the Einstein.  E equals M and C times two.  Energy equals mass.  Mass is energy.  But - “

She looks to see if I’m paying attention.  I totally am.  Not to her words, but to her.  What does a vampire do best but fascinate?  But this isn’t a vampire anymore.    A cannibal with table manners.  This is my friend.

“ - there is one more state of existence.  Physicists say energy is the final state, the only true state.  But there is one more.  All energy has consciousness. There.”  She points the bottle at me.  “Jah?  Hören Sie?”

“Okay.” 

“That is the secret of god.  All energy is conscious.  But - consciousness exists on a spectrum.  There is a universal and unmanifested consciousness beyond energy from which energy comes forward in what the Hindu's call 'Prana'.   Prana is not good or bad.  It does not love or hate.  But it creates, it must manifest.  It must Be. It does not hate me anymore than it hates the wolf or the tiger. There is such violence in nature, Garce,  that I would look like a baby compared to what a wasp will do to a cockroach or a poor caterpillar. If you knew what horrors a parasitic wasp can do to a poor cockroach, you would weep for the icky little bastards.  Really.  But it is the fabric of the world and the fabric of the spirit.  We are all connected in one great web of existence. Hören Sie?  I’m not putting you to sleep?”

“Why do you believe in Hell if you think God doesn’t hate you?  I mean, what does the idea mean to you?”

“Hell is to be outside the web of existence,” she says slowly, “It is to be in a state of exile.  But exile, existence, these things, like mind - they exist on a spectrum too.  Hell is not being alone.  It is good to be alone for a time.  Hell is to be cut out from the web of existence.  But you can never be cut off from the web of existence.   Hell is an illusion of ego.   Only a part of the spectrum of existence, even as you continue to exist within it.  Like a ghost.  I am in exile from humanity.  But I am also human, because I come from human.  Because I can love.”  She holds up her green beer bottle, tips it towards me.  “I love you.”

Did she say that?  Is that dangerous?  “You’ve never said that before.”

“I do love you.  I only just knew that now.  I don’t want to fuck you - “

“Shucks.”

“ - but you’re my friend.  We are friends.  Because of you I am not exile.  That would be Hell.  To be out of existence, to be out of the web.  Because of you I am not.  You make me gentle.  If there were True Blood I would drink it and harm no one.  That’s you.”

“Thank you,” I say. I can feel myself getting squishy inside. “You too.”

“True spirituality, good spirituality, and I have learned this from my experience with Hell, is to be most human.  What will make you most fearlessly human, without armor, without deceiving yourself - that is good religion.  Good spirituality will make you bigger and more deeply connected to the web of humanity and your place in it and this is by compassion.  Compassion is the only real spiritual virtue that will make you more human.   Bad religion makes you small.  Good religion makes you big.  Have you read Schopenhauer?”

“No.”

“You should read him.  In Deutsch. Maybe I will borrow it to you.”

“ ‘Loan’, sweet thing.  The word is ‘loan’.”

“Oh shut up.”

This time when she tips back the bottle - I see.

Oh - I see.

It stops my breath with wonder.

“Nixie,” I whisper, grim as death.  “Oh child.  What happened to you?  Who did this to you?”

She spits the beer in the cup.  And smiles.

The killing teeth.  Now I see them.  She puts the bottle down.  So slowly.

“What have you done?”  Almost crying.  “Fuck me.  What is that?  What is that?”

 She holds up both her hands as if being arrested, turns them around, wiggles her fingers, smiling behind them with a tiger grin.  Her eyes flash like a cats.

“Nixie.  Jesus.  You did your nails.”

“Yes!!”

I’m breathing again.  Laughing, both of us like lunatics.    

“You like them?” she says.  “Yes?”

“You painted your fingernails?”

“Yes! - but - " Jumping up and down; “Do you like them?” 

“Yeah!  Definitely.  I mean, I always associate metallic blue with mental illness but they look fine, really fine, kind of go with your hair.  Your nails?  Are you kidding?  Did you do your toes?”

She looks down, does something with her sneaker and - thunk - puts her left foot on the table, twisting her leg so I can get a look.  Bright red toenails. With perfect white trim.

“Jesus!  You are such a girly-girl!  When did that happen?

“Revlon China Flower and they’re perfumed.  Perfumed nail polish!  It’s new.  Smell.”

“No.”

“Smell my toes.”

“Here?”

“Smell my smelly toes or die.”

“Oh all right, okay.  Whatever.”  I swear I throw myself across the little table and get a whiff of her big toe in front of people passing by.  It smells like jasmine.  Really nice.

“And that’s the toe nail polish?”

“Scented.”

“Perfumed toenail polish?  You did that?”

“No, a sweet old Vietnamese lady.”

“Oh, Nixie, no.  No, no, no.  Not a sweet old lady.  That’s unforgivable.”

“She’s fine.”

“Swear?”

“I swear she’s fine, Scheißekopf.”  She holds up her pinky finger.  “I swear.  More than fine.  Beyond fine.”

Now it hits me.  Now I get it.  “So you gave it to her.  The little sip.”

“Yes,” she nods up and down and her eyes are pink rimmed with blood tears.  For me.  She wants so much for me to say this is okay.  

"Now I know, all this stuff about compassion.  I knew there was something way different about you."

“Your interview with me two weeks ago, my early days in Munich, just before I was turned.  It made me think about my life.”

“You’ve started a blood family.”

“Yes.”

“How many?”

“Just two.  So far.  There’s Bai.  And a man named Oscar.  Oscar’s pretty ill.”

“But getting better now I’ll bet.”

“Yes.”  She nods eagerly, wipes at her eye.  “My experiment.”

“Do they love you?”

“Bai loves me.  When she gets younger I think she wants to sleep with me.”

“Do you love them?”

“Yes,” she says softly.  “I think I do.  In my way.”

“So,” I say, “Not only spirituality, but intimacy exists on a spectrum too.”

“How is that?”

“Sex is intimacy.” Now I’m thinking too.

“Not always.”

“True, true.  But its communication.  It’s touch.  We are what we are.  We need to touch.  Its part of being human.  You talk about what makes us most human.  Sex is one way we become more connected, so sex has always had this edgey spiritual side to it.  Sex and spirituality come from the same place.  Prana.  Expression.  Connectedness.  It will make you human, Nixie.   I think its because the energy is all coming from the same place.  Maybe like the spiritual visions you used to have long ago. Its about union.  When sex is good its about union, intimacy.  There's that moment when it makes you bigger, transcendent.  Ecstatic union with the divine through another person and losing control for that special moment.  Like dying to yourself."

"La petite mort."

"People who have direct experience of god, especially mystics, often describe it in erotic terms because there is that moment when they lose themselves in ecstasy.”

“In the past,” she says, “there were sometimes people when I drank from them, it was very erotic.  For me.  I felt their spirit, I felt union. When I felt that union I would spare their lives.  When it was an evil man I didn’t.”

“Usually when we think of God we always think of god as being dominant, but in your visions it wasn’t always like that.  I think what God wants is a lover.”

“No,” she waves her hand with its blue fingernails.  “You’re being a theist.  That’s a mistake.  There is only god.  There is nothing else.  Don't be a dualist.  Sat Chit Ananda.  I am That.  Thou are that.  All This is That.  The web of life and union.  No energy is lost.  All energy has consciousness.  So no consciousness is lost.  There will be existence after death, not the same as in life.  But there will be something.”

“But you’re dead.  Sort of.”

“No, I’m not.”  She sets down the empty bottle, pushes it aside.  “I’m still waiting.  But now I think I have something to feel hope.  My little blood family.  Now I can wait longer.  You.”  She comes across the table so suddenly for an instant I feel a wave of fear as if a viper is striking at me too fast to escape.  Her face is suddenly close, her lips open.  She plants a big dry kiss on my mouth with cold lips.  “You have awakened something in me,” she whispers.  “Thank you.”