Under A Million Stars by Mindy Haig
Though as I daydreamt there was silence in the air around us.
My Sidra was watching me.
“I do wish the formalities could be cast aside,” she started. “I feel such desire to touch you, to feel you touch me.”
Her words made the small hairs upon my arms stand. Such a spell she cast. Surely we passed at least one lifetime together for her to be able to know my thoughts and rule me so completely in so brief a time.
And then a question came that I did not expect.
“What is love to you, Vatsya? What is love to man of intense pleasure?”
My mind went blank and still words came from my lips. “Love is Sutra. Love is the thread that binds all the other parts of life together. And you are my Sutra, that which holds me together. You are love, my love.”
“You say such wonderful things, and yet you write so coldly, so factually of circumstances that might be very affectionate, very tender.”
“I have never had a reason to be warm, to be tender, until now.”
“Your words make me love you and yet they say words are the most dangerous weapon and the blackest magic.”
“Yes, they say that,” I admitted.
“And you dispute it not at all?” she smiled.
“Words have the power to destroy and to hurt, but they also have the power to create and to heal. Sometimes it is more than just a word that makes the moment. It is the look that passes knowingly and the gentle touch that accompanies it. I long to be touched in love, Sidra. I long to hear words of love spoken in the acts of pleasure. I long to feel the lingering satisfaction of holding the one I love long after the moment of gratification has passed. Perhaps you don’t understand this need. I don’t expect you to understand when you have not known this part of life.
I write cold, factual words because they are simple. They are clearly understood. They convey just the very basic information. My work is of a nature that were the words passionate, were it not strictly instructional, it could not be read. There are situations that would be so colored by the actions taken that people would fear to enter such relations. And that is not my intent. So I write the simplest words in the coldest form and those who read them and follow them will add the amount of passion or pain they are comfortable with. It is only now, at this very moment, Sidra, that I truly understand how important the words are. If my words truly can make you love me, then I will give you soft, honest words from my heart always.”
And then she reached out to me and pressed her hand to my cheek.
In her eyes we were already lovers.
I turned my face ever so slightly, almost imperceptible, and pressed my lips to her hand. “Why do you break the tradition and touch me before the arrangement is made?”
“You know the answer, Vatsya, but I will say the words softly, honestly, directly from my heart. I love you. And I remember that a wise man wrote in his work that love does not care for time or order. You needed to be touched by someone who loves you and I needed to touch you. Will you ask for me as your wife?”
“Are you certain you can be happy saying yes? I fear death less than I fear your rejection, though I fear your rejection would be death for me as my heart would have no reason to continue beating.”
“Will you take other wives as well?”
“No! You would be my only wife, my queen. And I would worship you as thus.”
“Then ask, and you will be my king.”
And so it was that Sidra became my wife.
3.0.0: Earning Her Trust
3.0.1: On The Embrace
Custom is a cruel dictator.
And I strengthened his arm with my work.
It may well have been that my flippant statement that love cares not at all for time or order was the one thing I have written that was wholly true.
But love was like a hunted beast. It might flee and force a man to give chase. It might turn and attack the hunter with equal vigor. Or it might take a man by surprise and come to him willingly.
Marriage for love was but a novelty. That is to say that custom says a man should marry to increase his Dharma and Artha, and thusly when he has taken his wife into his home and his family, he should treat her in a way that allows love to grow.
It was sensible advice. A plain tenet of my work was encouraging that love to grow.
Oh, but that was not how it was for me.
No. I was in love; very much in love.
And so it was that I brought my wife to our home and just that suddenly I had no sense of reason. What my heart wanted and what my mind told me were at odds. I knew I needed to resist those desires of my body because I wrote the guidelines for such occasions.
How pompous was it that a man with no wife should think himself capable of telling others how to treat their wives?
Still, though my thoughts flitted and conflicted. I wished to show Sidra respect and kindness so that what spark of love she felt for me might become a burning flame.
I made her a beautiful room and I hated to see it because I wanted her to be sleeping beside me.
And to my surprise Sidra did not look pleased.
She crossed her arms over her chest and looked away.
I offered her kind words. I offered her fruits and cool drinks but she accepted nothing from me.
In desperation, I begged her to simply tell me what was amiss.
She looked up into my eyes for the briefest instant and I saw that she was hurt but I did not know why.
“Your home is my home but your bed is not my bed. So tell me plainly, what am I to you? You said you would not have other wives, but I did not ask the proper question. I did not ask if you would take other women to your bed...”
I dropped to my knees. “Sidra, I was only trying to please you, to build your confidence in me. Most women wish for time to become accustomed...”
“I am not most women,” she snapped.
I should not have laughed. I am absolutely certain that was the wrong response, but her words brought me such joy. This woman who loved me clearly knew me more intimately than I knew her.
She dropped her chin. I was still upon my knees so I saw the tears well in her eyes.
“Sidra, my love, I know well that no part of our courtship has followed the written rules. I only wished to get this one thing right, to make this marriage one in which you are well pleased, one where you will feel respected. I had only pure intentions. But I will tell you honestly, I despise this room.”
“Tell me why, Vatsya.”
“Because you will be here in my home and I still must not touch you.”
Sidra nodded. “If this custom is of such importance to you then I shall withhold myself.”
“The custom means nothing to me! I care only that you are happy here, that you do not feel that my desires and passions are forced upon you. But neither do I want you to feel unwanted because that is so far from any truth.”
“Then give me your embrace, Husband. I am not most women and you are not a common man. I want to know your touch. I want to know that when I look upon you and I am overcome with the desire to touch your cheek or place my hand into your hand that you will accept my gestures and not scorn or condemn such outward signs. I want to know that when I feel love for you I don’t have to be coy and pretend I do not feel such a thing until such a time has passed that it would be deemed appropriate. I want simply to love you and take pleasure in you. And I want you to love me and have that pleasure in return. I want to share your bed and awaken beside you.”
The God of Karma clearly mocked me, but I cared not at all. I stood and pulled Sidra so tight against my chest that I could feel every curve of her as she curled into my body and pressed her cheek to me. “I want all those things you want, my love,” I whispered.
And such was our first embrace.
3.0.2: On Kissing
And that embrace was followed quite closely by much kissing.
I kissed
But my Sidra was equal to me in passion.
She took my face in her hands and she pressed her mouth to mine.
Her lips were so soft.
My appetite for her was so great that I might have forgotten the importance of breathing. But alas she tipped her head back and breathed out a long slow breath. To my relief, she looked pleased. I did not release her from my arms, and neither did she push away. She touched my back gently as she leaned against me. And I thought I might feel rent in two when the moment came that we had to leave that embrace. No, I did know for a fact that I would feel rent every time she was not within the circle of my arms. “Sidra,” I whispered into her ear, “do you love me?”
“Yes.”
“Can you say the words to me?”
She did look up into my eyes then. What she saw I did not know, but she gently pushed me to sitting and then she walked away from me. Many times she said my words made her feel love and other such things that implied love, but only once had she said that she loved me. I should have been satisfied with her implied words. It was but the first day of our life together. And now she had walked away when I asked to hear the words.
How could my life have become so tangled into this woman that I had known for so short a time that I felt pain when she walked away without saying the words I wished to hear?
And I did know very well that it might be a good time before she would be able to say those words to me, that knowledge did not make waiting easier.
Just as my thoughts grew heavy, my sunshine returned to me with a tray of cut fruits and fresh juice of squeezed lemons. She tilted her head and looked at me and a moment later she was sat upon my lap, facing me. She took a piece of mangoe from the tray with her fingers and she brought it to my lips.
I opened my mouth. She put the fruit in and she ran her finger over my lips as I chewed and swallowed her offering. This she repeated with other pieces, and touching my forehead and my neck.
“I love you, Vatsya,” she said as she offered me drink.
I drank in the juice as eagerly as I drank in her words. She did love me. She did find in me something worth loving. And she was willing to show that love in this intimate way so easily.
I offered her the drink as well and we passed the evening sharing such affection.
3.0.3: On Union
Those first nights when she lay beside me were so stressful that sleep failed to come to me. My eyes could not stop looking at her. My heart could not believe that she was mine.
My body wanted her fiercely.
Each night I set a tray of Tambula at the side of the bed just in case she should need to relax under my touch.
But she did not need any such aphrodisiac.
I needed just the opposite, a means to lessen the potency of my desire.
And so it was three nights that we lay side by side, touching, pressing, and teasing each other before I did begin to use my hands in such a way as to ignite the pleasure of passion within her.
Watching her lose herself was perhaps more satisfying than my own pleasure.
Each touch I gave to her she returned unto me. Each kiss I placed upon her body she replaced upon mine. My excitement was feverish. Oh, I did begin to take such actions that I did wish to feel myself. Until at last that moment came where we were one; one heart, one soul, one body.
It could have been over nearly as quickly as it began, but Sidra wrapped her arms and legs tight around me, pulling me deep into her and thus she whispered into my ear: ‘slowly, my love.’
Fear that I was causing her pain or anxiety slowed my pace, but she did not stiffen. She reached for the tray near her head, took a Betel Nut between her fingers, pressed it to her lips and then between my own lips.
“Take your pleasure slowly. Show me those things you have written. Let me match your passion so I might be all that you need.”
But she was not the only one who learned something that night. For it was wholly true that when the union of the body was made in love, the pleasure was more than can be imagined by one who had known every kind of congress but had never committed to love.
And so it was that Sidra was for me Sutra, the link between my integrity and character, my prosperity, and my fulfillment.
She was also that which set me free.
4.0.0: Moksha
4.0.1: On Consciousness
To say that Sidra set me free was not to imply that she left me. No. Quite the opposite, her hold on me was ever the sheltering embrace of love. But that shelter, the unconditional aspect of that bond she shared with me did free me from convention and the confines of worrying upon what the citizens thought of me, my life, or my work. In effect, she gave me the wings of a bird and the ability to soar in every way. Her love let me transcend even the limits of my mind. So open was I that my creativity and compassion were completely unlocked. With Sidra I was truly alive, and thus we lived in what I saw as a perfect state of understanding, where we knew even without words, but simply by touch what the other needed or wanted.
The entirety of the universe was ours.
We were liberated from the confines of the fears that accompanied doubt and mistrust.
We were perfect harmony.
4.0.2: On The Stars
Oh, but time did pass too quickly.
Thrice Sidra bloomed into the curves of womanhood as she brought our beloved children into the world, but always she remained that girl whom I first looked upon with the fire that burned in her eyes. And it seemed but an instant before our children were grown and I was an old man.
But I refused to leave this life.
I could not leave my Sidra.
She did worry over me, for we both knew my time was come. My last breath was near and then they would place the coins upon my eyes so that I might pass to the next world.
So I would not close my eyes.
“You must rest, My Love,” she would say.
I could not rest. “What will happen if I go? Who will care for you? What if another man claims you...”
“I will never belong to another man, Vatsya. And we have two strong sons who will care for their old mother.”
“How can I endure the passage without you?”
“I think where you are going, time does not have the same meaning as it does in this world. I do think it will be but a moment in the eternal land before I am at your side again.”
Her words were a comfort, but a small one against my great fear. “What if this is the last time, Sidra? What if this was our seventh incarnation and that is why we knew each other so intimately? What if there will never be love like this...”
She pressed her fingers to my lips. “Do you think the stars can live but seven lives of men and then they should suddenly cease to light the night? Do you think the sky would crash down upon the earth? It is not so, my love. This spirit that lives within me, that which has loved you since the moment I saw you looking at me, is like the stars. It shall go on loving you endlessly. So each lifetime that you should find yourself walking the mortal world, when you look up to the heavens and you see Sirius, you will know that I am searching for you. Ever and always our spirits will meet. That is love.”
She kissed my head.
And I did close my eyes.
* * *
“Why are you crying? You didn’t like it?”
“You died.”
“I died with your promise that our love would continue just like the stars. I thought you would like that promise.”
“I never want to think about you dying. I know I contradict myself, but I just want to think that we’ll be together forever.”
“Eternally?”
“Yes.”
“Then next time I will give you
* * *
Shades
First:
The full moon hung low, a heavy burden being dragged across the dark night.
I pitied the sky for having to hold it there, as I pitied the earth for having to bear me.
Death seemed to double the hardship, for not only did my bones rest haughtily enclosed beneath the soft blanket of her soil, but my spirit stubbornly sat in this place, night after night, week after week, perhaps year after year.
Time held no meaning just as life had held no meaning.
And that was why I sat alone among the stones as night towed its charge to the top of the heavens and then let it slowly roll back to the horizon.
Morning broke each day, and in that instant when the first ray of light split the darkness I could see the gate.
But it did not call me.
It did not open in welcome.
I always expected that there would be angels singing, but there was nothing.
So I walked.
I walked among the living, a shadow seen from the corner of an eye, a breeze felt upon flushed skin, gone from their lives and their days. I was nothing but a photo on a shelf and a sad story of life cut short.
Second:
When the bustle of the day settled into the calm routine of evening, I grew bitter.
The thing I missed most about living was the one thing I did not have in life.
I missed warmth, but not just temperature, not a warm shower in the morning, but the warmth of being hugged. The warmth of touching another person.
The warmth of humanity.
The warmth of love.
I just didn’t really understand how I could miss the feeling of connection, when I’d never made that connection. I’d never made any connection. Perhaps my spirit remembered it from another lifetime. I wouldn’t have entertained such a thought in life, but my life ended and still this shade remained.