This is a sequel to my story ``A Brief Affair''


My visit to her apartment was reflected in Liu and my relationship at the
office.  Our demeanor when we met was less jovial, and our
previous banter was replaced by more serious conversation.  A topic which
came up with increasing frequency was Liu's devotion to yoga.  I have never
been a fan of new-age spiritualism and, because of its association in my mind
with yoga, I have never given yoga much credence.  Thus, when Liu began
extolling the beneficial effects, both mental and physical, that she
derived from her yoga program, I was skeptical.  However, after a while, my
skepticism gave way to curiosity.  What particularly intrigued me was Liu's
description of the pleasure she got from surrendering herself to the
demands which various yoga poses make on her body.  According to her, yoga
exercise aims at stretching and, quite literally opening, portions of the
anatomy to which one otherwise is inclined to pay little attention.  
Particular focus is on the joints and the tendons and ligaments which
maintain those joints in their customary closed state.  During yoga, 
these tendons and ligaments are stretched until the joint opens in a 
way that, for most people, it has not done since early childhood.  
The stretching process entails some mild discomfort, but Liu assured 
me that the rewards far outweigh the mild pain which one has to endure 
in order to achieve them.   

Spurred by what she told me and the idea of watching her lithe body
perform, I asked if Liu would give me a demonstration at her apartment.
Initially she hesitated on the grounds that she preferred not to mix two
important aspects of her life: one being sex and the other yoga.
Disappointed, I nonetheless respected her reasoning and did not press the
issue.  Thus I was surprised, when the following week, she announced that she
would like to give me a demonstration on the condition that she would remain
in complete control throughout.  Having no objections to the terms she
specified, I readily accepted her invitation.

Thinking that she intended this visit to be distinctly different from my
last one, I had not anticipated that Liu would greet me at her door wearing
a leotard and, it appeared, little else.  As distinguished from their state
during my first visit, both she and her apartment were carefully prepared
for my arrival.  Her hair was carefully plaited into a pigtail drawn to one
side so that it covered her right ear and rested on her shoulder, and her
scrubbed body radiated a healthy glow.  As for the apartment, the living
room had been cleared of all its furniture, and, besides the carpet, the
only thing on the floor was a thin foam rubber mat.  In addition, even
after I removed my coat, the room seemed rather hot to me, an observation
which was confirmed by the beads of perspiration on Liu's brow.

Once we entered her living room, Liu took charge.  Without further ado, she
began by having me sit cross legged on the floor a few feet from one end of
the mat.  Noticing my awkwardness in assuming and obvious difficulty in
maintaining this position, she suggested that I draw up my knees and wrap
my arms around them, thereby relieving both my legs and back.  Then,
satisfied that I was reasonably comfortable, she walked to the center of
the mat, turned to face me, dropped her hands to her hips, and slowly began
lowering her upper torso.  In concert with the descent of her body, she
raised her head so that her eyes continued to look directly into my own.
She stopped when her torso was horizontal, remaining completely
still except for the expansion and contraction of her ribs when she took
carefully measured breaths, always through her nose and never through her
mouth.  I was struck by the look of utter tranquility and
contented self-absorption on her face, but I had only a brief time to
study her features.

Dropping her head, she continued her descent until her chest was espaliered
to her legs, her face was resting against her shins, and her hands were
clasped to her heels.  Deprived of her face, my attention turned to the
aesthetically pleasing contours of her bent body.  As I have said, Liu's
body lacks the sumptuous curves of her Caucasian sisters.  Nonetheless, her
pose highlighted those curves that she has.  Above, her hips and upper
thighs flared on either side of her narrow waist, and below her ribcage and
shoulders hid her knees and most of her lower legs.  Wanting to have a view
from the other side, I rose and circled her in much the same way as an art
connoisseur might circle a statue, and like a piece of fine sculpture, the
view she presented from in rear was just as appealing as that from the
front.  Especially appealing was the way her buttock and the backs of her
upper thighs were displayed.  Like most Asian women, Liu's lacks the
padding that Caucasian women have on their buttock.  As a result, the
contours of her compact rear are more subtle but no less pleasing.
Similarly, there is only a thin layer of flesh to mask the sinews in her
thighs, and so the tension in them and her hamstrings were clearly visible.
In marked contrast to that tension was the serene expression on her face,
which peered through and was framed by her calves.  Succumbing to
temptation, I leaned forward to run my hand along her tightly stretched
muscles, doing my best to ignore any lascivious implications of what I was
doing, even when my hand passed over the junction at the top of her thighs
and grazed over the pouting purse of her vulva.

As soon as I had completed my inspection of her body and returned to my
seat in front of her on the floor, Liu released her heels and spread her
arms while raising and simultaneously twisting her torso, ending in a pose
in which her upper body was turned at a right angle to her hips with one arm
pointing directly down toward her toes and the other arm reaching in a
graceful line toward the ceiling.  In spite of the skewed position of her
upper body, Liu's head was at the same angle it would have been had she been
standing normally, staring at me with that same enigmatic composure
which it had had since she began her exercises.  I noticed that it was not
only her face but also the half of her body below her waist which were in
the same posture that they normally are.  Indeed, her hips and shoulders
had remained parallel to the floor, the twist in her body taking place
entirely at her waist.  After she had taken a couple of breaths, she
slid one leg forward until its knee touched the elbow of her lower
arm, at which point she wrapped her forearm around her leg and leaned back,
drawing her leg up as she rose.

With her torso once again upright and one leg hugged to her chest, she
resembled an exotic water foul who can stand for hours
balanced on one leg.  The only sign that the maintenance of this pose was
less natural for Liu than it is for one of those birds was the increasing
evidence of sweat, which was no longer confined to the perspiration on her
brow and had begun to weld her leotard to her skin.  If anything, by now her
leotard only drew attention to every detail of the body to which it had
become plastered.  Apparently unaware of or oblivious to the exposure of
her body, Liu continued her exercise by lowering the leg which she had
raised and gracefully reproducing the same pose with her other leg.

When she finally lowered the second leg, she placed her hands on her hips
and acknowledged my presence for the first time since my arrival.

``What you have been watching is a few of the basic yoga poses.  As you
will have observed, yoga is distinguished from other forms of athletic
activity by the fact that it never involves herculean feats of strength or
heroics but only intense concentration and discipline.  The idea is to get
the body to perform in ways which would be completely natural if the
muscles which perform them had not atrophied from disuse.  Further,
yoga teaches you to use, rather than numbing it with calisthenics, your
mind to regain the use of those muscles.  Of course, the adage `no gain
without pain' applies to yoga as well, but here too there is a difference.
Rather than tough it out, in yoga one is supposed to surrender to and then
rise above discomfort.  That's the reason why an essential component of
the yoga discipline is to keep ones face impassive no matter what demands
one is making on ones body.  You surely noticed the expression on my face
never varied during my exercise.  Thus, you had no way of knowing which of
my poses entailed discomfort, much less how much discomfort.  The
best way for you to gain an understanding of what I am talking about is for
you to join me on the mat and find out for yourself how these subtle
exercises can teach you about your body and mind.''

With some reservations, I accepted her invitation and rose to my feet.
Before I had taken a step toward her, Liu pointed out that my clothes would
inhibit movement and instructed me to remove everything except my
underpants.  Once I had complied, she stepped forward and, taking me by the
hand, led me to the mat and had me sit on it.  Seeing that I was uncertain
how to position myself once I was seated, Liu knelt in front of me and, 
after placing a hand on each of my ankles, gently spread my legs as wide as
they would go.  She then rocked back to seat herself.  Looking me straight
in the eye, she next placed a foot on each of my ankles while reaching her
hands forward and indicating that I should place my hands in hers.
After clasping my hands, Liu outlined the lesson that she intended to teach
me.

``I gathered that what interests you most about yoga is its concept of
resignation: the willingness to surrender to the demands which you are
putting on your body.  Thus, I will attempt to teach you that concept by having
you experience such resignation yourself.  To this end, I am going to lean
back while bracing my feet against your legs.  As I lean further back, your
legs will be forced to spread, and you will experience a sharp sensation in
your groin.  I will proceed with care, but I will not spare you.  Indeed,
my goal is to make you accept what is being done to you and, if
possible, have you do so without allowing your discomfort to register on
your features.  If I succeed, by the time I have finished you will have
passed through a period of significant discomfort and emerged from that
period with sense of pride about what your body has been able to learn and
what you have learned about your body's capabilities.''

No sooner had Liu told me her intent than she began leaning back.  Although
she had moved less than half a foot, I immediately felt a twinge in the
tendons of my groin.  My instinctive response was to gasp for air through
my mouth, an instinct of which Liu clearly disapproved.  Telling me to close
my mouth and take measured breaths through my nose, she patiently waited
until my tendons had stretched enough to accommodate the stress to which
they were being subjected.  When she saw that she could continue without
doing me harm, she leaned back another few inches, this time drawing my
upper body forward over my splayed legs.  Again she waited until she saw
that my body was capable of proceeding, but, as soon as my breathing
returned to normal, she leaned back until I was drawn into a position in
which my chin was inches from her mons and my legs were further apart than
I had thought it possible for them to be.  With a hint of a smile on her
face, she lectured me while she watched me struggle to tolerate the strain
she was purposefully imposing on my groin.

``Continue to breath through your mouth and try to compose your face.
Having endured the same experience myself, I know what messages your
tendons are sending to you, but I want your mind to assert its dominance
by ignoring those messages.  It may take several minutes, but, in the end,
your mind will prevail and your groin will learn to accept its fate.  Since
I rather enjoy watching your plight, I am in no rush and am ready to
wait until your mind is victorious.''

Fortunately, my groin cooperated faster than I had feared, and the acute
pain which I had initially experienced began to recede after less than a
minute.  It was replaced by a not altogether unpleasant itching sensation.
At the same time, I became aware that I, like Liu, was sweating profusely
and that the intimate details of my own body had become just as visible as
hers.  Moreover, much to my embarrassment and Liu's amusement, by the time
that she released her hold on my hands, I had a considerable erection which
caused my penis to emerge in an obscene fashion through my fly.

``I am pleased to see that your torment has not diminished your libido,
which is obviously in tact.  In spite of my concern about allowing sex to
enter the part of my life devoted to yoga, I suggest that we complete your
initiation into the mysteries of yoga with a form of physical activity more
familiar to you.  With this in mind, I will await you in my bedroom.''

No suggestion could have been more to my liking, and shortly after she
disappeared I extricated myself from the splayed position in which she had
left me and, somewhat painfully, hobbled off to join her.