title: The Politics of Innocence
author: tim4or5
summary: Naked in Central Park.
keywords: mf, MF, cons, inc, voy, poly

This story contains sexually explicit material.
Email comments to twalden4 at juno dot com with ASSTR in the
subject line.
Copyright 2016.  All rights reserved.


The Politics of Innocence

1

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
out 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.