This story contains sexually explicit material.
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The Politics of Innocence

I was born in Revelation, Texas, but I grew up in New York. Not the big one. The former theme park east of Dallas, in Revelation. Unless you are Jewish, a jazz fan, or an ex New Yorker, you wouldn't have heard of it.

There is an overlook on the road into town so that, when they stop to stare after driving over the hill, people won't get run over. There is the statue of Liberty, the Empire State building, and if it is dark, the lights of Times Square. Liberty is scaled down and across a small lake from Battery Park. The Empire State is twenty stories high plus a rooftop cafe and antenna tower. A block beyond is the sixteen story Chrysler building, with pushed in corners on the fourteenth story, a half circle over the sixteenth, four lines of lights instead of seven, and a spire. A small version of the George Washington bridge, originally the theme park entrance but now toll free, leads over a ditch to 42nd St and Broadway. The park had opened with just three blocks of 42nd street and part of Times Square. In addition to the Empire State and Chrysler buildings, there had been a Broadway theater, Grand Central Station, stores, restaurants, and a few four to twelve story buildings. In a burst of over enthusiasm the developers hired people from New York City to bring their families and set up businesses. Central Park, St Patrick's Cathedral, the Public Library and Bryant Park, an eight story Flatiron building at the other end of Times Square, and Washington Square were added before the theme park failed.

A wealthy New York Jewish family bought it and completed Chinatown with a restaurant and martial arts studio, and the Jewish street with a deli, bakery, falafel shop, book store and temple. That was it for a number of years. They brought in more families to try and turn it into a shopping mall and residences. It didn't work too well. But they had built a nice temple, and over time Jewish people from New York who had heard about it moved here to retire. The Chinese restaurant did a good business. Shows were brought in to the Broadway theater. Slowly more people moved here. Some from Dallas, since it was close enough to commute, or they came to shop or for the entertainment. The Jewish area expanded east, over another ditch, into what would have been Brooklyn. Greenwich Village with a folk club and sanctum, Little Italy with a bakery and shoemaker, and a neighborhood with a boardwalk and Orthodox church that was supposed to be Russian but turned out partly Greek were added. Then the Upper West Side with a grocery and fitness center, and the Metropolitan Museum with mostly copies. Tiffany Cafe and Steuben Gallery on the Upper East Side, Harlem with Mintons jazz club and Leroy's Smokehouse. And finally Soho with an art gallery, the East Village with a rock club, Little India with two buffets, Spanish Harlem with a botanica, and Columbia as a private high school for residents.

The city still follows the plan laid out by original developers. It stretches fifteen blocks south to north, from Canal St to 135th St, and is three longer blocks wide. A bus runs north on 8th Ave and back south on 5th. People liked the off Broadway theater in the Village. The Indian restaurants are popular. St Patrick's is Episcopal because the Catholic Church wouldn't let them hire a priest. Mintons has developed a reputation. Most people in Texas can't tell the difference between Cyrillic and Greek. And two restaurants gentrified out of NYC, Polish and Ukrainian, opened here in the East Village. The city has a population of thirty thousand and looks something like this.

                    8th Ave           5th Ave
135th                   

125th                    Harlem            Hispanic

116th  Columbia                 
      
110th                                      Indian
                         Central Park
96th  
       West Side                           Metropolitan
81th                     Central Park    
                                           East Side
72nd   Black
                         Central Park      Tiff,   Mad, Steuben
59th   Irish
                                           St Pat, Park
50th
       Theaters          Algonquin         Gr Cen, Lex, Chrysler
42nd              Times Sq
                         Empire State      Marsh's
34th                                           
       Public Library    Flatiron
23rd
                            5th Ave        Union Sq
14th   Greenwich Village               Broadway
             Jones       Washington Sq
4th                 6th Ave                East Village

Spring  Soho             Italian           Chinese

Canal                    Russian           Jewish
       Battery

       harbor

       Statue of Liberty

I was born on august first so my parents named me Lugh after the Pagan holiday and Celtic hero. It rhymes with Hugh. I remember walking along streets with narrow apartment buildings made of brick and brownstone, with vegetation in front of them and trees growing up out of holes in the sidewalk. We lived on the West Side, and Mom took me with her to the yoga classes she taught across town at the Ashram. Sometimes we would go to India House for the buffet. I liked the chickpea curry, rice and naan. Dad worked in Dallas. Other times we went to Central Park.

The park has a small wood and ramble to the north, a lake that curves from one side to the other in the middle, and to the south there's a fountain, a bandshell and a lane on the east side, and a meadow surrounded by trees on the west. There are paths, rocks, plants and people, lots of people, and it is inhabited by squirrels, mice, pigeons, sparrows, crows, ducks, turtles, fish, dragonflies and crickets. There are no statues. In the southeast corner where the sea lion pool would have been there's a pond filled with bluegill and bass. Tube, tray, suet and hummingbird feeders hang around the edge for the finches, titmice, redbellies and rubythroats. People sit on benches. The resident Maine coon cat likes to sun himself on the rocks and seems to think he's an eighteen pound lizard.

I slept with my parents. I liked when Mom held me and kissed me. She would give me a breast when I wanted it, and I used to watch Dad on top of her. I guess they thought I wouldn't remember when I was older. She would put her legs in the air, and he would put his thing in her and arms around her and scrunch up his bottom. There was a sweaty smell that I liked. Sometimes she made squeaky noises, which were different from the squishy noises. Then she would start making puffing sounds. Later she would whisper now and he would make grunting sounds and they'd stop. His thing sometimes dribbled when he took it out. Not with pee, this stuff was sticky, like frosting.

Other times they would do Hindu tantra. It was like the meditation people did at the Ashram but for two people. He would sit cross legged, and she would lower herself onto him and put her arms around his neck and cross her ankles behind him. He held her with an arm around her lower back and her shoulders. I liked to watch them sit there breathing slowly and not moving. It made me feel safe. When I woke up again later they would still be there in the same position. I think they slept like that.

I liked it when she rubbed my front and back. She would whisper to me to relax, and also work on my arms, legs and neck. Sometimes when my thing got big she would put my hand on it, like when she taught me how to pee. It felt long and sort of hard with a softer lump along the bottom, and spongy at the top. The things underneath rolled around like slippery lima beans when I played with them. It felt good if I slid my hand up and down and scrunched my bottom so sometimes I did that, but mostly I just liked her touching and holding me.

All sex is masturbation, whether you identify with the other person, or not.

My body is not me, it's just a box.

There are no adults. There are just kids who got bigger.

2

At three my parents moved me into Sis's room. She was eight, five years older, and had sometimes come in to sleep with Mom and Dad and me. I had my own bed but usually slept with her. She called me whozie. I think it was something about not liking my name. I didn't mind. I sort of liked having my own title, even if it wasn't capitalized. At night she would diddle herself until she started breathing hard and jerked around. Maybe she was too young to have a real orgasm, but I couldn't tell any difference from what my parents did. She held me like Mom did while I touched myself, and we learned massage by practicing on each other. There was always a lot of hugging and touching in our family.

When I was four and she was nine I wanted to see inside her slit. When she sat down to pee before we took our bath I couldn't see anything. I could hear her, and she could see me pee into the toilet. Since we slept naked like our parents most of the time, she just spread her legs and let me look. There wasn't much to see. I knew the big hole was for having babies since that was where Dad put his thing. In Mom, not her. She pointed out the little hole where pee came out and let me feel it. She explained how she diddled herself and let me touch that too but not play with it. I already knew what an asshole looked like from giving her massages. She knew about my thing from when she washed it. She liked when it got hard, so she usually kept going until it did.

When I was five and she was ten I lost interest in her parts. I also started breathing fast and jerking around when I touched myself while Sis hugged me from behind. Nothing came out yet, but I still liked it a lot when I came. She held me against her side like a teddy bear while she diddled herself and came. I liked that too.

When I was six and she was eleven I told Sis I wanted to try meditating like Mom and Dad did. I used to meditate with Mom's yoga class, and Sis took yoga classes and still did. She hesitated and said it might be like having sex. I said maybe a little, but they didn't move and never had orgasms so I thought it would be okay. It wasn't much different from other stuff we did. She said um, well, she wanted to try it and guessed it would be alright. She applied her lube to me and well as herself, which she had never done before, and lowered herself onto my erection as I sat crossed legged on the bed. I felt myself slide into her and throb with my heartbeat inside. I had never been inside a girl before. I liked it but didn't see what the big deal was. I put an arm around her lower back just above her buttocks and behind her shoulder blades and leaned back a little to share weight, like Dad did. She crossed her ankles behind me and put her arms around my neck. I kissed her for a moment and then held her tight. Okay, good. A little awkward but not bad. She was heavier than I thought she'd be. We adjusted our positions slightly and matched our breathing. Watching each others breath seemed easier than watching my own. And more fun. Feeling each other front to front was nicer than holding on from behind or from the side, which was what we usually did, sometimes all night. It was different from Mom and Dad. My thing was smaller, we didn't have pubic hair, she was bigger compared to me, and was still mostly flat chested. But my thing didn't get in the way when I held her, which it always had before. Maybe this really was were it belonged. I let it, and the warm body I held it my arms, become just another sensation that I was aware of while I breathed slowly in and out.

I also started grade school at Columbia. It was a grade school, high school and music school run by the city. They city owned all the land and buildings, but it didn't run everything. The grade and high schools were of course free for residents, but the music school charged for classes. However, grade school included a daily music class for all students. We learned rhythm and singing and were exposed to different kinds of music. Mom asked me if I wanted to take a yoga class, but I said I would rather study kungfu. So she found a class and I learned strikes and kicks, discipline and respect, and Taoist alchemy, which was about chi and yin and yang. The class was in Chinatown, one of the first neighborhoods built after the Coen family took over the theme park so that Jewish people would have somewhere to go on Christmas.

Sometimes if Sis was still asleep when I woke up at night I would go out to the living room and look out the bay window. I had a good view up and down the street from the sofa and there were often people around. It was the city that never sleeps, even if it was in Texas. Some of the people and couples could have been headed home or just out wandering around. One time I saw a girl who looked the same age as me who was wearing white knee socks, tee shirt and briefs. She was carrying a small box by the string it was tied with. I wondered what she was doing. When I saw her again another time she was headed the other way, toward the park, and didn't have her box but was wearing the same outfit. I saw her a few more times and it was always the same. Once she looked up at me. I don't know if she could see in. I wanted to go down and ask about her errands but never did.

When I was seven and she was twelve Sis got real breasts. At first there hadn't been much to see, just slight bumps on her chest. I wouldn't have noticed if she hadn't pointed them out. She had only let me touch them a little to see what they were like. When they started to look grown up I asked if I could suck on them, like I used to do with Mom. She said okay and was surprised I could remember. I moved my head down and tasted each. They seemed a little small, partly because I was bigger, but I still liked it. She did too if I was gentle enough. When I was doing what she wanted she put her hand between her legs and diddled herself. Mom hadn't done that with me. I kept sucking until I felt her chest heaving and her body spasm as she came. She hugged me and told me she loved me. Our family was always doing that, but it was the first time she had done it right after she diddled herself.

I also got my own room, sort of. Our apartment only had two real bedrooms. The third was a tiny room behind the kitchen with a skylight and no window. There was just about enough room for a bed, and a dresser if you didn't open the drawers all the way. There was no room for a desk, and there were some hooks on the wall for my shirts. The skylight sometimes leaked when in rained hard and you could see down into the room, except no one was on the roof at night. I didn't like it, and after lying there for a while the first night, went back into Sis's room. She was crying but stopped when I came in. I climbed into bed and hugged her and told her I loved her, and she started again. My bed had been in here until yesterday but I never used it much. Mom either assumed we wouldn't do anything or didn't care. A couple months later Sis got her first period. She seemed worried. I said it was just a little blood. It seemed like a lot, but blood always seems like a lot.

When I was eight and she was thirteen Sis asked if she could help. Up until then I had been taking care of myself. She hadn't touched my penis much since I had started washing myself. I said yes and let go. She reached around and took me in hand. I don't know how often she actually watched what I did, but she knew enough. She started out gentle, exploring, seeing what she had missed. She said I didn't feel that much different, a little bigger, that she still liked it. I asked why she had stopped? She said she wasn't sure. It was hard to decide what was okay and what wasn't. There was no one to ask. Her strokes got firmer and I shut up. I liked to take my time but she was even slower. Her firm grip felt amazing. She would let me get a little excited then slow down again, and seemed to be having more fun than I was. Finally she didn't slow down as much and let the sensation gradually build until I was tottering on the edge, then pushed me over with a few harder strokes and matched my thrusts when I came. After I was finished she said thank you, she had needed that.

When I was nine and she was fourteen Sis asked me if I would do her? I had offered a few times but she had always declined. I said yes and asked why now? She said it seems like it was time. She was holding me next to her like she usually did when she diddled herself, so I just reached down and did it instead. I knew what she felt like. She sometimes she let me touch her and we often did tantra together. I slid my finger around and dipped into her wetness. I came out and used her rhythm and what I thought was her pressure. She squirmed a little and whispered not so hard. I eased off slightly and after a moment felt her arm around me tighten. I bent my head down and took her nipple into mouth. Her breasts were a little bigger now and this one was my favorite. I gauged her reaction by her breathing and tried to hold her at an even level of excitement. When her breath deepened and I felt her relax, I worked on mellow for a while then added some tension. I was rewarded by slow deep swells that gradually increased. I was afraid I would lose her if I backed off too much, so I went with it. I answered her thrusts and added pressure when I felt her start to stiffen and listened to her grunt out her orgasm. She pulled me up and kissed me like she never had before, then drifted off to sleep.

When I was ten I started middle school. It was located in the Public Library, which also had a music school for the students that was free if they did okay. I had wanted to study guitar and signed up for lessons. A few weeks later Dad gave me a copy of Bach's Two and Three Part Inventions and told me I should try to pick out the melodies and transpose them to an appropriate register. I should also try to play two or three notes at the same time, not as a chord I had memorized but by sight reading the music. He said that was how a good guitarist could accompany himself. Even if I didn't decide to play like that, I should at least know how it was done.

I also signed up for Hebrew lessons. Some Jewish kids started younger, but some just learning it for their bar or bat mitzvah waited until they were my age. I had learned a few words and some of the letters in sunday school. I had always liked the stories of Jesus wandering around Galilee and preaching with his disciples. His talk about helping and caring for others sounded something like what I heard in kungfu class. I learned about the prophets and psalms he quoted in Matthew and other books and wanted to understand them better. I thought there was more to them than what I heard in church. I started attending Jewish services sometimes with friends from school.

When I was eleven and she was sixteen Sis told me she didn't want to anymore. We could still share a bed if I wanted, but she didn't want us to diddle each other or do tantra. She was going out with boys and didn't want to deceive them. She said she was sorry, she knew it wasn't fair. I said okay. If that was what she wanted then that was what she wanted. She still held me while I masturbated, and kissed me and told me she loved me after I came.

People have family, a few friends, a job, a place to live, a car, a phone, and interests. Except for stuff they have accumulated, that seems to be about it. Are normal people much different from hermits? We all lead lives of quiet desperation, or coffee spoons.

3

When I was in middle school I started going out with Abbie. I knew her from class and from temple. There were thirty thousand people in the city, but we were so densely packed that you knew a great many of them by sight. The same was true in school. The city was a safe place for kids to wander around at night. There was a fence around the whole place and security at the gates. We all had IDs. The city didn't require them for residents until fourteen but would issue them at twelve. Abbie and I liked to go to the Glass Onion folk club in the Village on tuesdays and hear Don and Ian perform. They played Simon and G, Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart, Davy Graham and Nick Drake. She would have a cafe au lait and I'd have a lime seltzer. Afterward we would wander around Washington Square, look up one block of Fifth Avenue through the Arch, and kiss by the fountain. Abbie was in the choir at school and I got her to sing while I played guitar at some of the open mikes.

Then we got interested in jazz. I had studied guitar but played mostly up the neck on the melody strings, so I switched to a concert ukulele. It was easier to carry around. What can I say, I'm lazy. I liked a high G string because I could play closed jazz chords instead of the open guitar chords. We added our friend Danny on guitar and did John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington. Abbie used the words written by Jon Hendricks or made up her own. I invented my own three note voicings for left hand chords on the uke and made up an algebraic notation.

          A          B          C

min 7   4.8.11     8.11.4     11.4.8
dom 7   11.3.5     3.5.11           
maj 7   5.8.10     12.3.5     10.12.3
- maj   4.8.12     8.12.4
dim     4.7.10     7.10.4
h dim   4.7.11     7.11.3
7 b9    11.2.5     2.5.11
7 alt   9.11.5     5.9.11  or 7 +9 or b13/+5
7 +11   11.5.7     5.7.11
sus     11.3.6     3.6.11
phr     2.6.8      6.8.2 
maj 6   5.8.10     10.3.5

11=-7th  1=root  3=9th  5=3rd  6=11th  8=5th  10=6th

Two thirds should not equal a fifth, and a third should not have two different sizes. Instead, 4 and 3 equal 7. Numbers should be our friends. Not all alt seven chords are whole tone chords, but the ones I used were. If you make a mistake, resolve it and do it again later, so they'll think it was on purpose. I wrote Apricot Jam, a tune in A and C. Abbie thought it sounded too orange. She asked me why we hadn't we been to the park yet? Didn't I want to have sex? I said yes, I was just a little nervous about it. We could go if she wanted to. She said good. I didn't point out that she could have asked me sooner if she had wanted to.

We all knew about Central Park. It was supposed to be closed from 1am to 6am, but that was just to keep out the younger kids and old people. For high and middle school kids it was a time and place to have sex. It was considered okay for them to go into the park at night if they were holding hands, to at least suggest that their primary interest wasn't voyeurism. People over thirty were expected to get a room. Some parts of the park were more private and some less so, but people didn't bother each other. Some of us felt safer if other couples were around and it wasn't too dark. I'm not quite sure from what, maybe being stepped on. Some people covered themselves but others didn't bother. If the girl was wearing a dress or at least briefs, and the boy didn't take off his pants, you couldn't see much more than at other times. Some didn't mind being educational. A few couples backed the girl up against a tree with one leg raised in the traditional outdoor posture, which seemed awkward. It was said there were undercover security couples watching out for trouble.

Security would check IDs at the park entrance after hours if the kids looked too young or not close enough in age, and they didn't already know them. If kids younger than twelve wanted sex they had to do it at home. We showed ours and they waved us by. They didn't smirk or say have a nice night. City security wasn't like the regular police. I had a blanket, but we walked around and looked at what was going on for a while first. Hearing about it was not the same as seeing it for ourselves. I don't know if Abbie had been there before. I didn't ask and she didn't ask me. It was mostly heterosexual couples who were at various stages in the process or still walking around. One girl had on overalls, and the boy had his hand down in her crotch from the side, which was unbuttoned. That seemed convenient. And nobody would be able to see anything if they didn't go further than that. There was an acoustic band playing quietly in the bandshell and some people listening. Only kissing was allowed on the benches along the lane. We finally chose a vacant spot by a tree, not too close to a streetlight or the next couple. I spread out the blanket while Abbie took off her shoes and pants, then took off mine and lay down next to her.

I kissed her and put my hand up her shirt. It was exciting even though her breast through her bra didn't feel much different than through her shirt, which was how I'd felt it before. After a couple minutes she unbuttoned her longsleeve shirt and undid her bra. Feeling her stiff nipple directly did make a difference and it was easier to hold between my fingers. While still holding on to my lips and flirting with my tongue, she reached down and felt along the outside of my navy briefs, stroking my erection and squeezing my balls, then reached inside. I was anxious to suck her breasts but wasn't going to move down out of her reach. I stroked the outside of her striped panties, then reached inside and parted her folds. She was wetter than I was but not as slimy. After her first orgasm I did slide down to taste her breasts and was soon rewarded with a second. She moved my hand to her leg opening and told me she was ready. I pulled down my briefs in front, put on a condom, moved into position, and as she held the crotch of her panties aside, slid into her. She moaned. The other girls moaning, panting and gasping around us sounded like a chorus of frogs spread out through the park. Nobody was making a lot of noise, but it all added up. The boys seemed to be mostly quiet except for a few grunts. Her next orgasm seemed not to stop, but after several minutes the half naked girl moving in my arms started whispering give it to me, so I did, and added my own grunts to the chorus.

I had been asking questions when my kungfu instructor talked about Taoist alchemy. He suggested I try an internal martial art if I wanted to learn more. So I switched to a tai chi class that talked about vitality, energy and spirit and started reading translations of Taoist texts. It was interesting but didn't make a lot of sense. All the energies and essences sounded the same to me. The only time I could feel generative energy moving was just before I ejaculated, I couldn't feel the chi energy circulating during the tai chi movements, and the only spirit energy I felt was goosebumps. It didn't matter. The ancient sages were fond of spouting nonsense. If I wasn't supposed to understand it, then I guess I was doing it right. Mom's maternal grandmother had been Jewish, so technically I'm a Jew. She married a Catholic and raised my grandmother Episcopal. Mom was raised and still considers herself Methodist but practices Hinduism. At fourteen I wasn't sure what to rebel against, so I decided I was Taoist.

The low string on a violin is G below middle C. The low note on a cello is two octaves below middle C. I got another uke and put a low G on it and Danny tuned his guitar down to C so we could play arrangements of string quartets on uke and slack key. Beethoven and Debussy sounded good. Shubert was fun. Bartok was strange. Martinu and Shostakovich were okay. I liked working on Carter's first but we couldn't play it very well. Crumb was hopeless. Choruses, recitatives and arias from Bach's cantatas with Abbie worked well. Bach sounds good on anything. I was surprised at how good our version of his passacaglia sounded. We used these when we performed and people liked them.

Then while eating a bagel after services one saturday Abbie told me she had started going out with Danny. She said she liked me but he was more Jewish, even though we went to temple together. She wasn't the first person to pass judgment on how Jewish someone was, and I couldn't fault her verdict. I asked if that meant she wanted to stop going out with me? She said yes. So I found some other people to sit with. We kept our group together even though it wasn't the same. Music is important.

Sue took off all her clothes before lying down on the blanket, so I did too. It was hot, and there were more naked people than usual. She had big breasts with small pink nipples. I kissed her and sucked on them while exciting her with my fingers. I tasted salt on her skin. The security officers at the entrance would hand out free condoms to anyone who asked. I put one on and moved into position, but her stomach was in the way and I could barely get the tip of my penis into her. I tried pushing harder but nothing happened. She wasn't fat, but she was heavy and short. I had never had this problem before and didn't know what to do. I guess she didn't have very much experience. This must be why men liked skinny girls. We lay there like that, neither in nor out, not saying anything, both of us feeling a little embarrassed. Then she started to giggle, quietly, so as not to disturb other people. I popped out due to her bouncing, which seemed funny at the time. I thought about it.

One thing about the park was you could see how other people managed. The people here came in all shapes and sizes. No one worried about it, they wanted to have sex. I remembered something I had seen and asked her to try raising her legs. She blushed. It was hard to see in the dim light, but she was fair skinned and I noticed. I kissed her again and put my hand back in her crotch. Then I lifted her legs and spread them apart. They came down again when I let go to guide myself in. When I lifted them again she put her hands under her knees and pulled them to either side. I pushed myself into her. It worked better this time. She pulled her legs higher and wider, and I went all the way into her. I put my arms around her shoulders and started to move. She stopped worrying about her position. After a while she started pushing back. Then her breathing got deeper and she came while I tried not to bounce out again. I kept going. Maybe she came again, it was hard to tell. But she really seemed to like it when I filled her with cum. Of course it all came out again afterward with the condom. Later she wanted to do it again, so we did. We were sweaty and hot, so after we caught our breath we gathered our stuff and went skinny dipping in the lake. Other people had the same idea. Swimming wasn't allowed, but security would look the other way unless there seemed to be a problem. Then we spread out the blanket and lay down again and left after first sleep. One of the security officers said good night on our way out. I thought I had seen her earlier having sex under a sweet gum tree. Maybe the different teams traded assignments. None of the officers in the park were over thirty.

One time when Sis was home I told her about my adventures in the park while we were in bed together. Sheila liked to give blow jobs. I had seen her in the park with other boys wearing just her panties, her kneeling over them with her dark hair hanging down, them in various states of undress. She was sopping wet when I entered her and quickly started having orgasms. It felt like she was having an epileptic fit. I was afraid she would injure herself, but she whined when I tried to slow down. Most of the girls had pubic hair. Maybe they didn't want to look naked naked. Or liked looking grown up. Or copied a girl who let it grow.

Sis knew I had always liked hers and said she used to go to the park. One time she started barking when she came, an arf with each spasm, because the boy had said he wanted to do it doggie style and she thought that was what he meant. I said oh my god, that was you? She said yeah. He had liked it anyway and held on until she did it again, this time ending with a soft low pitched howl. Then she sped up and got him to fill her with human cum and whined a little when she felt it hit. For next time she had drawn six brown spots along her milk lines as extra nipples, the ones on her abdomen closer together, and cleaned them off after so I wouldn't see them. Some things I didn't need to know. I said that was what the washable markers were for. She said yes. A couple other boys had wanted the same thing, but she stopped after she began hearing stories in school of the dog girl. I said it was too late, she was an urban legend. Even if no one else knew it was her. What happened in the park pretty much stayed in the park.

Then things changed again. After I found out that girls thought sex meant they owned me, I gave it up. I didn't want to fight with anyone and didn't want sex to be a competition. I knew how loving it could be from what Sis and I had done over the years. I still liked giving girls orgasms, and between making out, the occasional blow job, and Sis holding me while I took care of myself when she was home, I received sufficient affection.

Cultivating Stillness p 55. Be free of the emotion happiness and it will be transformed into original nature. Be free of the emotion anger and it will be transformed into original feeling. Be free of the emotion sadness and it will be transformed into original spirit. Be free of the emotion delight and it will be transformed into original generative force. Be free of want and it will be transformed into the original breath. In this way the five cravings will be transformed into the five original essences. When this happens, you will become immortal.

4

I was trying to play the third Shostakovich string quartet on one guitar on the streets of Haifa for the tourists when someone asked if they could help. I was sort of busy at the time so I just said sure. Several bars later another guitar came in with the viola and cello parts, which freed me up for just the two violin parts I used to play on uke. It worked a lot better. I glanced over and just saw the top of a blond head of someone sitting on the sidewalk bent over her instrument. When I had to use harmonics for some of the high notes she picked up the second violin part. Either she had played this piece before or she was a lot better guitarist than I was. When we finished the movement and collected a few shekels in the case it turned out to be somewhere in between. She said her name was Illya, and she had played through lots of different music but not really studied this piece. She knew it from listening to it. She said she liked my arrangement. I said um, and invited her for a falafel. She accepted.

We sat at a small table in the falafel shop. I said I was, like her, in my first year of college here. I had wanted to see more of the world and this seemed like a good place to start. I could learn about my Jewish and Christian roots at the same time. She said she was from Russia. She came to Israel to live with her uncle while she attended high school and college. Her Hebrew was better than mine, but I would have called the accent British. I told her about growing up in New York. The Coen family owned all the land and wanted high density housing. There were small grocery stores and no suburbs or strip malls. They got away with partial segregation because some apartments were reserved for people hired to work there and they were considered entertainers. Danny Coen played guitar. There were the Ziegfeld, Sullivan and Little Theaters in Times Square that had plays, concerts, opera and dance. The Ziegfeld was the largest with one thousand good seats. Off Broadway there was the Village Theater that sometimes had naked Shakespeare. Illya said she had heard me playing on the street before and liked what I did with the music. She thought that if we could put together an act, she could find us a job. Was I interested? I said I was.

For the next several evenings we met in my room and arranged jazz and classical pieces. If we played them on guitar people would think it was progressive rock. After a couple weeks I said I didn't know if it was a good idea, but would she like to have sex with me? She looked at me. She asked how it would affect the act if we did and she decided to stop later? I said it wouldn't be a problem for me, but we shouldn't if she though it would be for her. I wanted to work with her. But I should warn her that I might find someone else I wanted to be with. If I did, she would have to decide what she wanted to do. We shouldn't start if that would break up the act. She asked if it would break up our relationship? I said not if she didn't want it to. She asked how often that was likely to happen? I said I wasn't sure, probably not very, less if I gave up casual encounters. And I didn't think I could handle more than three relationships at once. She kept looking at me. She asked if I was already seeing anyone else? I said no. But there were some relationships I wouldn't mind picking up again if the opportunity arose. No one local. Then she said okay, if she could have the same deal. And there wasn't currently anyone else in her life. I said good. I didn't want to put any restrictions on her. Was she busy tonight? She said she was available. Would I buy her dinner first? I said yes, I would do that.

We went to a small dairy place and had spinach and mushroom lasagna. After she closed the door to her room in her uncle's house, I kissed her. I had a roommate. Her uncle didn't seem to exactly approve, but he didn't exactly disapprove either. He seemed sensible. She kissed me back. Then she pulled me over to sit on the bed with her and kissed me again. This was awkward, so we took off our shoes and lay down together. Sometime later she decided it was time to take off our clothes. I assumed she meant me too. Neither of us said anything. I kissed her some more and felt various parts. She made sure I was all there. She asked about my not being circumcised. I said I was Jewish by descent but hadn't been raised that way. When I started going to temple I hadn't done anything. She said oh, she guessed it didn't matter. She didn't usually worry about details in private. She'd never had a whole penis inside her before. She asked what should she do? I said just pull back to foreskin. And be gentle, because it wasn't as tough as an unprotected penis. She said it didn't feel any less firm. She bent her head over my instrument and said it didn't taste delicate. Slurp. Could use a little salt. I said wait a minute. She kept going away, and said that was better. I said uh. When she moved back up, I bent down. She said not to take too long. She wanted to taste me some more. Differently. So I didn't, but when I got out a condom she asked if I had been tested recently? I said yes. She said then we didn't need that. She had too and had her diaphragm in. I could check if I wanted. I trusted her but checked anyway. She was telling the truth. I took my fingers out and slid into her. She said oh and kissed me some more. Then she said yes. A while later she said now. And then she said thank you.

We played on the street for a while then opened in a small club. She said Unc knew someone. When we had free time she drove me through Galilee so I could see where Christ had lived and worked. I stood on the shore of the Sea of Galilee at Tiberias and looked across at the hills where he had preached. She took me to Migiddo were the last battle is supposed to take place. We walked through Safed where Jewish scholars had studied Kabbalah. When someone she knew found out from her boyfriend that I wasn't circumcised and asked her why not, Illya said because I wasn't as a child and I wasn't as an adult. She would have thought that was obvious.

I asked Illya about the muffins that appeared in her room overnight. She said she ordered them. They were delivered by magic. I was about to let it go when something felt familiar. The small muffin boxes were tied with string. I had seen that somewhere before. I asked if they were delivered by a girl dressed in white knee socks, tee shirt and briefs who was my age? She said no. The muffin angel was much younger than that, about six years old. I asked if she had ever spoken with her? She said no, she seldom saw her and didn't want to break the spell. Would she mind if I tried? I would be careful and respectful. I had seen her in the street outside my window when I was young and wanted to know who she was. Illya said she was the muffin angel. She delivered muffins. I looked at her. She said well, if I could see her maybe it would be okay. I asked how she ordered the muffins? She said she wasn't allowed to say. People had to figure it out for themselves, like she had. I said but. Then I said okay, if that was how worked then that was how it worked.

So the next night when I was there and she said she was ordering muffins, I stayed awake and waited. She was still asleep when I woke. It was dark, but instead of just lying there I moved the chair over and looked out the window. The street was deserted. When no one appeared I turned to look at the desk. And there she was. She set her box down and just looked at me. I said um, hello. She said hello and kept standing there. I asked if she was the same person I had seen from my window at home a long time ago? She said yes. I asked about her outfit. She said the socks were so she wouldn't look naked, and showed me the non slip layer on the heel and ball of the foot. I asked why she came from the park? She said trees were an easy way to get through. There were others. I asked if I could order some muffins? She said yes. I asked how? She looked at me. She asked if I was asleep or awake? I thought a second and said I didn't know. I wasn't sure there was a difference. She said I should tell her it was okay to tell me. Then she turned around and walked through the mirror on the back of the door. She walked toward her reflection, and as she and her reflection stepped into each other they both disappeared. I went and looked out the window again. There was still no one there. I thought I better move the chair back before I returned to bed.

So in the morning I told her she had said it was okay to tell me. She said what? I said I had talked to the muffin angel. She said oh. She thought a second and asked how did she know I had really seen her? I said she showed me her socks. She said oh. She went and got a carrot muffin and gave me half. I sat on the chair with my plate and waited. She sat on the bed and took a couple bites. Then she said she used to visit fairyland as a child and still dreamed about it sometimes. She had learned about a bakery in a forest in America. The baker was the master of time and lived with a bookseller. He had hired a fairy named Jamie to deliver his baked goods. You could buy a token from the bookseller and exchange it for them. She reached under her pillow for hers and showed it to me. I asked why she still had it? She said she went online and added more credit when it got low. I said okay. She couldn't afford to travel to America to get her token, so she had traveled there via fairyland. She couldn't take anything real, so she had taken a dream copy of her credit card. All they needed was the number. They mailed her the token. She sat there eating the rest of her muffin. I said well? She said well what? I asked how did she order the muffins? She said online. I said oh.

Essential Kabbalah p 32. Even attributing mind and will to God, even attributing divinity itself, and the name God - these, too, are definitions. Were it not for the subtle awareness that all these are just sparkling flashes of that which transcends definition - these, too, would engender heresy.

Kabbalah p 33. The greatest impediment to the human spirit results from the fact that the conception of God is fixed in a particular form, due to childish habit and imagination. This is a spark of the defect of idolatry, of which we must always beware.

5

A girl was sitting at a table facing away from me on Mikonos with the two pelicans nearby. Something about her hair and the arrogance of her posture made me think that I should know her, and I tried to sound casual when I walked over and asked shouldn't those be swans. There was a red light behind her eyes when she turned her face up to mine and said aren't they? I was about to say something else when I saw that their necks were a lot longer than I had thought, and one opened its broad pure white wings and small orange bill and hissed at me. Then they were pelicans again and I fell on by face in front of her. The Greeks thought I was a crazy American, the Americans thought I was drunk, and the Germans thought it was a colorful Greek ritual and took pictures. She smiled, I could feel it even without seeing her. I waited. When the crowd dissipated she said I should get up and buy her a glass of wine. I knew what she liked, and got down on one knee when I came back and handed it to her. She touched my hand as she accepted it and told me to sit beside her. She was different from the memory I didn't have of her but thought I should. I was older now and she was younger. She said not to worry about it. It was a long time ago. She either read or guessed my thoughts, probably the former.

I asked what I should call her now? She said Dika. It rhymes with paprika. She asked me to tell her what I was doing here. Digging around inside her head for my name and story was too much work. I said I was Lugh and had a job in a club playing guitar with my friend Illya for part of the summer. We were going to school in Israel. She asked if I could speak Hebrew as well as Greek? I said better. I had tried to learn Biblical languages. She said she would like to hear us play. I told her where and when we were performing and had the feeling I was dismissed. So I left.

I told Illya I had met someone I didn't remember and that she was more dangerous than Jamie the muffin angel. After our show I introduced them to each other. We sat together and Illya asked her if it was tough to be a god? I almost choked on my seltzer. Dika said we wouldn't believe how boring being everything was. Which was why she divided up into aspects and lived one life at a time. Hence not being able to remember names. She didn't care if the Jews got offended. They couldn't understand a few simple commandments. It was always her people this and their god that. As if she couldn't be all things to all people. Illya said she was sorry. Dika said is wasn't our fault. She really only had herself to blame. Illya asked if she ever apologized for some of the things she did? Dika said she had tried it a few times, but it scared people out of their wits so she gave it up. I was getting nervous. Though this being Greece, maybe I should have expected god to be a pouty seventeen year old girl. I knew he could do a spoiled three year old.

Illya said she thought she had done a good job, mostly. She liked sex. Dika brightened up and said yes, that had been a good idea. It showed people that they were literally all part of each other and connected them directly to heaven in a way that anyone could understand. Some of them actually got it, and a few even remembered for a while. I said I thought music was another good idea. Dika said yes, that was good too. She liked what we did. Had we thought about expanding the band? Illya and I looked at each other. I said no, not yet. We had just gotten together and were still working on the act. Did she have something in mind? Dika said she had found a nice looking young bass player and was looking for something to do with him, although she hadn't spoken to him yet. He might be a good fit. I looked at Illya again. She said we were willing to try it and see how it went.

Not being one to waste time, Dika took us over to where he was playing. They turned out to be a rock band, and I started to get scared. After their set Dika accosted him and brought him over. We introduced ourselves and learned his name was Nate. Illya said we liked his playing. Did he also play acoustic bass? He said no. We looked at Dika. She asked if he had ever thought about trying it? He said he had but never had the opportunity or the time. He liked what jazz players did. She told him Illya and I played jazz guitar at a place a few streets over. If she could find an instrument and a place, would he be interested in trying to play with us? He said he always wanted to improve his playing, but wouldn't know how to begin on an upright. She said that was reasonable. What if she could get him some help? He said he wouldn't pass up a free lesson. She asked how committed he was to his current group? He said it was just for this gig so far. He didn't know after that. She said good. She would be in touch. And he should bring his electric bass too.

The next day Nate came in to listen to our early show. He left without saying much. A few days later Dika called after lunch and said we should show up at this address in an hour. We arrived to find her and Nate and an older bass player I recognized. Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised at what she could do. He and Nate were talking together. They both grew up in Harlem but in different eras. I told Dika I thought he was dead. She said details. Besides, a legend never dies. Nate had started his lesson earlier. Now the legend played with Illya and me to show him some possibilities. I started getting ideas of directions we could go. Then Nate played with us on his electric bass and a small portable amplifier to get used to the music. I thought he sounded good. Then he tried the acoustic bass. The legend coached all of us on how to play together. I could see we all had a lot of work to do but thought this might work. Then Dika started singing, weaving a scat line into what we were doing. She had a beautiful mezzo soprano voice. I tried our Rossini piece next, and she sang the aria with a jazz styling. It inspired all of us. When it was time to leave, Dika told us we had exclusive use of the space for as long as we wanted. Nate could keep the bass here. It was a good student instrument. He said that would probably be best. Would it be safe? She said yes. The legend wouldn't be able to join us again, but she would find Nate another teacher. And she would like to be part of our new group. We all thought that was a fine idea.

Nate had his jazz bass lessons in the morning. The four of us practiced together in the afternoon. Nate said he had played guitar or bass in various rock bands in high school. He couldn't find anything afterward and was afraid he'd end up in prison. A band had needed a bass player, so he got a job as a bass player and ended up here. He didn't talk much because he said everything he needed to with bum duda boom. He'd rather get by on his skill than his smile. He had once tried to learn jazz electric bass from a book and picked up some useful ideas, but he couldn't get very far without other people to play with. Most rock bands didn't like their bass player to do much, but he could sometimes slip in something sweet. He asked why we had two guitars instead of piano and guitar? I said they were easier to carry, and I liked the sound of another guitar better, and for exactly that reason. The piano always came first and made the guitar more or less unnecessary. With a guitar you could actually get your hands on the strings. A piano was a machine for bouncing hammers off wires. It was good for reading music, composing, and playing lots of notes at the same time, but you couldn't do very much with the individual notes. I asked Dika about our practice room and the double bass. She said people gave her stuff. I asked if she had sex with them? She said she did with some and not with others. They all gave her stuff anyway. Most of it she donated. She kept less than most charities did.

One night when we were in bed I asked Illya for the website to order muffins. Jamie had said I could. Illya said the site wasn't on google. I couldn't get to it without a token, for their protection and ours. Magic is dangerous if you don't know what you're doing, or aren't careful and don't take it seriously. The prohibitions against it in the Bible are there for a reason. The muffin angel used the token to find you. It was why we could get muffins on Mikonos. Mailing addresses didn't seem to work. I asked how did I get a token? She said I could visit the bookseller in person or go there in a dream. I asked how did I dream myself there? She said she didn't know. She had just dreamed she was in fairyland and her friends had helped her find the bookseller. Maybe I should try stepping through a mirror.

The next day at practice I asked Dika if she knew Jamie the muffin angel? She said she had heard of her. I asked her if she could help me get a token? She asked if I was praying to her? I said um, I didn't think so. Was I supposed to? She said it was what most people did when they wanted something. But she didn't really like prayers, they gave her a headache. She ignored most of them. Usually the stuff people asked for would do them more harm than good. I said oh. I guessed I didn't really need a token. Illya seemed to be in charge of muffins. Would she like to have sex with me? She said yes, she would. I asked if she was busy tonight? She said yes, Nate was staying over. But tomorrow night was good. I told Nate I was going out with Dika tomorrow night. He said that was nice. I told Illya the same thing and got the same response. I felt confused and didn't know why.

I took Dika out to dinner. A food offering was traditional when you wanted something from a god. We went to Niko's and had tzatziki, moussaka and baklava. When we were in bed I asked what aspect of god she was? She said she was a fertility god. I said oh. Like Aphrodite? She said she was Aphrodite. That was what Dika was short for. She was also Asherah, whose poles the Israelis kept setting up and tearing down, and Ishtar of Uruk, and probably a bunch of others. She helped men and women have good sex and make babies. I asked what about lesbians and gays? She said she had nothing against them, but she wasn't a goddess of sex or pseudo sex, just fertility. I asked if a condom would work? She said yes, but I didn't have to worry about her getting pregnant. Nobody did unless she let them. I said what about STDs? She said she didn't get them. Sometimes those who had sex with her were cured, but she didn't think it was anything she did. She was a sex worker, not a doctor. And I should stop being so nervous. She didn't smite people much anymore.

I asked if skepticism or being careful were sins? She said no. They were actually the eleventh and twelfth commandments. You shall not believe everything you hear. You shall not take unnecessary risks, neither with your own life nor with those of others. So I kissed her. I already knew about the voice of god. I explored the lips, tongue, breasts, nipples and clitoris of god. I felt the hand of god upon me. She took the condom, blessed it, and unrolled it over my penis. I felt myself held in the womb of god, and it was very wet. I learned that not only were people a part of each other, but I was a part of god. She visited heaven several times. I wondered if I was supposed to wait for permission. Finally she looked me in the eye and smiled, and I exploded in an orgasm as powerful as any I have ever felt. I don't know if time stopped, but I didn't, not for a while anyway. Then finally I was completely drained. I didn't think I would be able to have sex again for a month. She said oh, she didn't think we would have to wait that long.

A couple days later Illya found a note under the string of the muffin box. I was admiring the view since neither of us was dressed yet. She looked beautiful in the morning sunlight coming in from the window, not fully awake and her short blond hair mussed from sleep. She stared at the note and said she thought it was for me. I walked over and read it. All it said was dream of me.

Lao Tzu ch 6.
The spirit of the valley never dies.
This is called the mysterious female.
The gateway of the mysterious female
Is called the root of heaven and earth.
Dimly visible, it seems as if it were there,
Yet use will never drain it.

Stillness p 64. What is meant by seeing emptiness? Outwardly, it refers to neutrality. Inwardly, it refers to the true void that is the Mysterious Gate in the body.

Kabbalah p 10. Shekhinah is the opening to the divine: One who enters must enter through this gate.

6

So I did. I dreamt of Jamie and she took me to see the bookseller. I went over to the bakery and looked at the goods on display. In the morning I found a box containing two cream puffs on the desk. My token was under the string. Illya and I ate our breakfast and fucked each others brains out.

I had stored my stuff with Illya and her uncle while we were away and moved in at the end of the summer. She said Unc thought I would keep her out of trouble until someone better came along. Her aunt didn't exactly approve but I got along well enough with her cousin. Dika found an apartment in Haifa and hired Nate as her caretaker. She didn't seem to need much rehearsal and often disappeared for extended periods. We added Nate to the act. Sometimes Illya would stay over with him, sometimes he went out with other girls. He continued his bass lessons for several months. The next summer the four of us got a job playing in Florence.

Our second night there Dika told the manager she was expecting someone. Please seat him at our table in the back and bring him whatever he wanted. Part way into our first set I saw a dark young man watching us from our table. At the break Dika took us back and introduced us to Tjak. It rhymes with Mac. We sat down and he took a sip of his Ayinger. I had some seltzer and tried to talk to him. I had picked up some Italian from listening to operas, but he told me in English he was sorry, he didn't understand. I said I was American. He asked me who we were and why was he here? I said I didn't understand. He said he was from Australia. His walkabout had taken a strange turn and he ended up living with a girl in Leipzig. She had a sugar glider but had grown tired of her exotic pet. He used to have one but hadn't been able to bring it with him, so he adopted it. Dika told him it was alright, so he took it out of his pocket and showed it to us. It looked like a small flying squirrel but was a marsupial. It sat on the table nibbling an oyster cracker and watching us in the dim light. Tjak said a new songline had suddenly appeared a few days ago and he had followed it here.

Dika said that was her. She had some people she wanted him to meet. Would he sit in on our second set and sing with her? He said he didn't know our songs. She said that didn't matter. He could just join in however he liked, anything he thought would fit. She asked him what he thought of the buildings in Leipzig? He said the church stones sounded beautiful. She asked if he could understand what they said? He said some of it, not very much. She sang a few notes of a Bach aria. He said yes, he could understand that. She said that was all he needed. He apologized to Nate for getting in his way. Nate said huh? Dika said Tjak was going to step on the bass line. Nate said oh, that was okay, he would just try to go around whatever he did. There were lots of notes.

When our break was over Tjak said he had to stow Mother in his backpack. Dika said bring her along. She reached out, and the glider climbed into her hand. She whispered a few words to her and handed her back to Tjak, who put her back in his pocket while listening to Dika. He answered in the same language. We started with a Bach aria from one of the cantatas. Before Dika came in Tjak started a throbbing baritone drone, shifting as needed, which freed up Nate to play other notes from the continuo part. Dika came in, and as she approached a dramatic cadence she reached out her arm toward Tjak, who was on the opposite side of the stage. Tjak raised his over his head. Mother had poked her head up and was looking around. There was some murmuring from the people close enough to see her. Now she raced up Tjak's arm, launched herself into the air just as Dika started her high note, spread out her legs, and glided across the stage. She landed on Dika's arm and scrambled up to her shoulder.

There was a gasp from the audience and a smattering of applause. We continued the piece with Mother sitting up and looking at everything from her perch. There was much applause when we finished. Dika lifted Mother into the air and said brava. She was echoed by the audience and a few people stood up. Dika handed her back to Tjak and she hid in his pocket. We continued with our set. Tjak mostly followed along with Dika on our other tunes, singing a response or blending his voice with hers. I could see some of what he was doing, but it didn't always work. Enough of it did, and everyone seemed to like our second set.

We invited Tjak to stay with us. We had two double beds so there was plenty of room. Illya and I were used to sharing one twin bed. We talked downstairs during breakfast the next morning. Illya and I asked Tjak if he would join the group for a while and see how it went? He agreed. He had a beautiful voice and wonderful musical sense, but we didn't know what to do with him. Should he work with Nate on the bass part? Should he and Dika sing counterpoint? Should we try to fit him into the harmony? So we went back and listened to the original recordings. Tjak got to hear where our music came from and what we did with it. The Bach was no problem. You could do anything with Bach. Other classical music was more limited. Different people had done different things with the jazz standards. Dika's parts were based on classic jazz solos by the masters. We looked at how the soloists in small groups worked with and reacted to each other. Tjak, Dika, Nate, Illya and I looked at ways to pull the different lines apart and weave them back together and still have room for solos. We took it tune by tune. We picked out few pieces and did different things with them and decided we had a starting point. Dika and Tjak talked to Mother and decided on a couple places to use her. Two weeks later we opened with our new expanded group and got a mostly positive response.

Just as we were starting to find our way, Dika said there was someone else she wanted us to meet. So the next afternoon we went to listen to a jazz trio with violin, guitar and bass. They did Joe Venuti, Stuff Smith, and Stephane Grappelli. Dika accosted the violinist afterward and brought her over to our table. She introduced us and we learned her name was Azin. It rhymes with seen. She was French. She didn't speak Italian and her English wasn't very good, so Dika and I talked to her in French. It was what I had studied in high school. Dika said we liked her music. Would she be interested in coming to hear us perform and then talk about playing together at some point in the future? She said she had already heard us, except for Tjak. She thought we were very good. She would like to jam, but wouldn't be able to do more than that any time soon. Dika said that was fine. We arranged for her to come to one of our practice sessions.

Florence was like New York. The one where I grew up. There had been a densely populated area of limited size separated from a very sparsely populated area by a wall. A bunch of rich people made all the decisions about the city. They lived in the city and wanted it to be successful. They artificially created a middle class for their own purposes. They told people what businesses they could engage in, how they should be run, and where they could live. New York was different in that it was all laid out all at once, although adjustments were made over time as it was built. Once it was finished there was no new construction.

But New Yorkers had still wanted to move to the theme park version after the original Manhattan area was finished, so a two block by eighteen block section to the east was added. It was just as dense and would house another twenty four thousand people. The southern half represented Brooklyn and had been started first. It was mostly Jewish, but also Russian, Italian, Polish and African. It had Prospect Park, and included Bedford Stuyvesant so the A line bus would have somewhere to go. The northern half with garden apartments represented Queens and was a mixture of White, Hispanic, Chinese, Indian, Middle Eastern and Greek. Everyone wants to work, shop, and have other people live in a densely packed area, but have a big house with lots of space around it for themselves. A city works best when there are no suburbs or oversized apartments, so that was how it was done.

When I was twelve and she was seventeen Sis had asked if what we did was incest? We were lying in bed after our orgasms, and she was holding and spooning me. I said no, we had always been careful not to do anything that could get her pregnant even if we had been older and not using protection. She said a man might leak a little during tantra. I said that was true. Or he might come by accident and not get out in time. Some people would call it incest. Some people would call looking at your sister funny incest. Or holding her hand or seeing her naked. You could draw the line anywhere you wanted. What did she think? She said she felt okay about it. We didn't act like lovers and both knew it couldn't last. She didn't really care what other people thought, she had just wondered. She admired Mom and Dad for how they had raised us. It had been an enormous risk. They might have gone to jail if someone found out. I asked if they knew what went on? She said she was sure they did. It was just easier to maintain plausible deniability if they never said anything. Brothers and sisters used to share a room in traditional English nurseries. Mom had timed it perfectly and moved me out just before she got her first period. We were far enough apart in age that she could seem like a second mother.

I asked if she felt weird or embarrassed with others about our situation? She said only a little, but it didn't matter because no one knew. She couldn't tell boys she was having sex with about it, but she had fixed that by stopping what we did to each other. There were lots of good things about it besides the skin contact and affection, though maybe those were best. We had learned massage and anatomy. We had learned not to be embarrassed about our bodies and to set our own limits. We had learned how to listen and how to say what we meant. We had learned honesty and trust. We had learned care, responsibility, respect and understanding. We had learned how to love. All love had these last four things in common, whether it was siblings, parents, friends or lovers. When you loved someone you helped them and had an active concern for their welfare. You accepted responsibility for your own actions and didn't blame them for your own faults. You respected who they were and what they said and did even if you didn't agree with it, and you didn't try to impose your will. And once you got past the infatuation, you saw them as who they were, not as an image of what you wanted. An infant couldn't do all those things, and a child had to learn them.

When I was thirteen and she was eighteen Sis said she wanted to have sex with me. I asked what she meant? She said she wanted me to ejaculate inside her. I said yes, I wanted that too. What about incest? She said she didn't care. She would be leaving for college soon and had been hoping I would be old enough before she left. And now I was. She was grieving for the loss of our relationship and wanted to go out with a bang, not a whimper. Besides, right or wrong, she would regret it if she didn't. I said I was sorry and would miss her too. Then I kissed her. Whether or not you called what we did sex, we never had to stop and get undressed before we did it. She hadn't needed to use lube for a long time and didn't need it now. I climbed between her legs and slid back where I used to go. It all seemed familiar, like we had done this hundreds of times before. We sort of had. This was just putting all the pieces together. She was still taller than me but I was able to fill her properly now. I knew exactly how to move inside her, exactly how she felt, exactly what she wanted, what she liked, and how to give it to her. I knew she had her diaphragm and how long she wanted me to hold out. The only thing different was my penis moving inside her. So we did for the first time what we had always done with each other. After she came a few times I let my excitement increase, and after her next peak I let go and filled her with cum.

At some point later she said there was another reason. She knew I was going through a difficult time with girls and didn't want me to commit whozicide. I said I hadn't been thinking about killing myself. She said she knew that, she was just being careful. Saying she loved me and showing it were two different things. She also said she wanted to have my baby. It would be more hers than with someone else, but she knew it was a bad idea even though it takes more than one or two generations of inbreeding to produce idiot children. I didn't need to worry. I let that sink in for a moment. I still never knew what to expect from her and would miss that. I asked whose idea it had been to stick our fingers up each others ass? She said she didn't remember. At least we had discovered something we didn't like. There didn't seem to be much except the obvious.

After Sis started college Mom offered me her room. I thought about it but said I would rather leave my stuff where it was as long as I could use the room when Sis wasn't here. She said okay. If she did know what had been going on, she didn't give any indication of it.

Now does not exist. It has zero duration and is gone before we are aware of it. Those who deal with real time, musicians, dancers, athletes and fighters, must depend on reflexes. We directly experience only the past three or four seconds.

7

Tjak stayed with Dika as her guest, and she helped arrange for Mother to get into the country. Sometimes she looked older than seventeen. I don't know what her passport said. We sent Azin recordings and arrangements of what we were working on. She kept us informed of what she was doing. She sent us a track of a Venuti tune and told us her ideas. We added an accompaniment and sent it back. During spring break Dika flew her to Haifa for a week of rehearsals. That summer we opened at a club in Arles. Dika found someone to take care of Mother while we were away. Azin was supposed share a room with Illya, but Illya didn't sleep there. Two days later Azin came in and said she wanted to share our room. She pointed out that after transgender locker rooms, sharing a bedroom with a bunch of non rapist men wasn't a big deal. She would just turn her back when she changed her underwear. I asked what about the sex? She said it wouldn't bother her. She didn't have to look and it wasn't as bad as snoring.

I had made a list and visited all the nearby places Van Gogh had painted. The Langlois Bridge, the cafe terrace, the old mill, the pedestrian bridge, the hospital garden, the arena, where his yellow house had been, where he painted the sky over the Rhone, various wheat fields and orchards, a beach where fishing boats had been, and sunflowers. Places and things people wouldn't care much about if he hadn't painted them but which seen through his eyes were magic. Illya went with me to some of them, but Nate turned out to be more interested. Tjak wandered around the city listening, often with Azin.

The Metropolitan Museum in my New York had an extensive Van Gogh collection and all his best known works. They weren't the originals, but they were not ordinary copies either. The paintings had been laser scanned, and the copies were 3D printed so you could see all the brushwork. The colors were adjusted to reduce the fading that had occurred over time. The same versions were available from the gift shop and were advertised as better than the originals. That might not be true, but art students did come here to study them and the other paintings on display. The museum had been turned around so it faced the park rather than being located within it. It was free and usually crowded during the day, but it was open twenty four hours and I studied the paintings at night. There were still quite a few people there.

I usually slept with Illya, and Dika and Nate slept together. Which with three to a bed would have worked out fine, except Azin started have sex with Tjak. So we traded off. Some time later I found her next to me when I woke up at night. I assumed she was asleep, but she said she wanted to tell me about her and Tjak if I didn't mind. I said it was none of my business. She said please. I said I would be happy to listen to her if she wanted to talk. She was wearing a sheer white cotton robe and blue panties, what she usually wore at night. The blue was the same brightness as her skin, so if the light was too dim to see colors it looked like she was naked. She said she tried to be a devout Muslim. She mostly followed the rules but interpreted them in her own way. Something she had learned from Jewish people. The prayers she cheated on by often saying them to herself. She wasn't supposed to let men see her naked so she wore panties or turned away. She wasn't supposed to let men touch her, but she was a modern woman and touching with the hands was okay. She was supposed to remain pure for her husband, so she had Tjak wear a condom so he wouldn't touch her or feel her or ejaculate inside her. She kept her panties on and asked him not to look as he approached her. What they did wasn't sex.

She stopped. So I said I tried never to judge anyone but couldn't fault her logic. After a moment she asked if I would not have sex with her? I knew what she meant but her wording was too convoluted. I didn't want to do anything unless she expressed herself more clearly. She turned away, pulled up her robe, and backed her rear against my erection. She took my hand from her hip, kissed it, and put it inside her robe on her breast. I kissed her neck and her shoulder. I felt the softness of her breast and the firmness of her nipple. I moved against her slowly. She moved with me. My hand wandered over her ribs and thigh. After a few minutes she moved it into her panties and raised her knee. I moved my fingers over her smoothness and down into her as her movement against me continued. I stroked her clitoris and heard something between a gasp and a sigh. I felt the movement of her breathing all along my arm. After another few minutes she reached under her pillow and handed me a condom. When I backed up to put it on, being careful not to bump into Illya, she lowered her panties in back and drew up her knees. I approached her without seeing anything and slid inside. We moved together. I reached down again. She hadn't lowered her panties so much that she couldn't spread her knees. After a few more minutes her breathing changed and I felt her spasm several times. We continued doing that. Then I pushed a little harder and ejaculated into the condom. I thought I heard her whisper god be praised.

We continued to work on our music. We tried new things during our solos and arranged more tunes. Since their voices dominated when Dika and Tjak sang, half our tunes were instrumentals. Azin became more adventurous during her solos and inspired the rest of us, but was also good at comping. Not all violin or fiddle players were. She and Dika and Tjak did three part harmony with the violin acting as a voice. I usually had sex with Illya, but sometimes did with Dika or Azin if I found myself next to either or both of them when we went to bed, or when I woke up at night. Waking up after first sleep and talking, having sex, or getting up for a while used to be common, especially during long fall or winter nights back when candles were expensive. I was glad I wasn't trained out of it. Often I had been alone, but sometimes someone else was up. Mom and Dad must have been careful not to see me come out of Sis's room after I moved out of it. I did listen for them before I opened the door. They couldn't help seeing me in the morning but pretended I had just gone in to visit for a while before getting dressed. I talked to Azin after or instead of having sex at night. The others weren't usually awake.

Her father had wanted a boy, and had changed his chosen name from Azim to Azin when she was a girl. He was from Algeria and she grew up in Lyon. She used to listen to his jazz records with him, and when she said she would like to be able to play like that, he asked if she would be willing to practice? She said she thought so. He asked what instrument she would like to play? She didn't know of any female saxophone players, and she liked her father's recording of Satin Doll by Stephane Grapelli, so she said violin. They didn't have much money and she didn't think anything of it, but a couple months later he bought her a student violin from a pawn shop and arranged for her to take lessons with a student from the Conservatoire. She was embarrassed that he had taken her seriously but did her best. They sometimes went to Le Jazz Club Lyon St George, and to the jazz festival in Lyon and those in Montreux, Vienne and Marciac, and once to the Django Reinhardt festival outside Paris. She did practice. She studied books and played along with CDs of Grapelli, Smith, Venuti and Coltrane, doubling their solos and comping. Since they never stopped to let her solo, she sometimes played counterpoint during theirs. She found a guitarist and played on the street for tourists. They didn't do too well, but she learned a lot about live performance and showmanship. She couldn't act as shy as tradition demanded, but since she was second generation that wasn't too much of a problem.

At the end of the summer Azin asked Tjak to marry her. He asked if she would come back to Australia with him? She said oh. Was he planning to go back? He said he didn't know. He was waiting for his songline to take him back there, but so far it hadn't. She said what about their music? He said there would always be music, but it might not be the kind she was used to. He would like her to come to Israel and continue not having sex with him. Or having sex if she wanted to. That last part might have been an acceptance of her proposal, I couldn't tell. She asked what Illya and I were going to do? I said we had another year of college. I would like to stay with Illya after that, but we hadn't talked about it. She asked Dika. She said she would be around some times and not others. Azin told Nate she knew he would stay with Dika. She said she wanted the group to stay together. Illya and I said we wanted that too. I said I would like to make a living with my music, even though that wasn't what I was studying. Illya said oh and looked at me. Dika said to Azin why didn't she come to Haifa with us? She could be her assistant caretaker if she wanted. The group could continue to work part time. Or maybe she could find other work. There were lots of musicians in Israel. Azin said she would have to think about it. After a minute she said yes, she would like to come with us. She would decide what she wanted to do after she got there.

Stillness p 56. Follow the path of yin and you will become a ghost. Follow the path of yang and you will become an immortal. Taoist internal alchemy teaches us to accumulate yang fire in the morning and expel yin energy in the evening.

Kabbalah p 35. Out of the clash of these two opposites, humanity is aided immensely in approaching an enlightened awareness of God. Instead of wasting one's thought trying to break through to the essence of divinity, the mind will be illumined by pure morality and sublime power, which sparkle from the divine light and chart the paths of life.

Stillness p 143. Let the mortals of this world hurry and awaken.

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