31: The Price of Passage

MARTIAL ARTS was not the only thing we studied as we plied the waters and traded our way up the coast. I’d heard of other arts, especially the tantras. I was trading in a port near the mouth of the Krishna when I came across a library. I immediately delayed our plans to sail and spent many days in the library—like many libraries around the world, part of a temple; this one dedicated to Lord Vishnu. The texts were filled with concepts and instructions—some with which I had passing familiarity—and were written in Sanskrit, which was one of the languages I could read without translation.

A young monk approached me and asked if I understood the passages I was reading. I asked in turn, “What is the meaning of knowing oneself? Can one not know oneself?”

“Awareness is the key you are looking for,” said the monk. “One may be very familiar with oneself, but still not know oneself intimately. This is a principle of oneness with the universe and with the gods.”

I was intrigued and sat with the monk for several days as we talked. I liked the young man more and more each day. One day he invited me to his inner chamber and suggested we practice one of the texts I had uncovered. We began by sitting on cushions in a more comfortable room than I imagined a monk living in. We faced each other and began by simply looking into the eyes of the other. It was an intense experience and I had to start over a couple of times. I felt he opened up to me and I to him. This was followed by exploring each other with our fingers, tracing the line of the jaw, the curve of the shoulder, the weight of the breast. I shivered a bit at the thought that we had worked our way to undressing almost without comment.

But the young monk did not rush toward my sex, nor I to his. We continued explorations, noticing when my nipples hardened, or his. I traced the bumps that raised on his arms when I swept his lips with my own. I was a pupil, not a teacher in this exploration. He pointed out areas of my body that were tense, and showed me pressure points that would relax that tension. We oiled each other with gingili oil and my senses were opened to his touch. I allowed myself to touch his cock and discover the veins and vessels within that pulsed in my hand. He found places inside me I had not known and I learned about my male self as well as my female self.

When we dressed, we had not had intercourse. Yet I was more euphoric than after any bout of lovemaking I had experienced as a woman or as a man. I returned to the boat in a daze and once in the infinity room, I lay on my bed in silence. As I lay there, unmoving, thinking about my experience, I was shaken by the most powerful orgasm of my life. Not just of my life as a woman, but of my more than two millennia on earth. And I knew I needed to teach this to all my people.

We stayed in that port for more than a year. Each day, I took women with me to study the tantric arts and the young monk was most helpful. While we were there, we duplicated volumes and transferred them to my library in the infinity room.

As we studied, we also discovered Drona, who was teaching us Kalarippayattu, also knew of these arts as an extension of his own. He had been working with select women for some time to introduce them to the sensual side of his yoga as well as the militaristic. The massage with gingili oil—an oil extracted from the sesame seed—was a major portion of the martial art that opened the senses and healed the body.

I had to return Lakshmi to her true form so she could learn the practice and discovered she was the finest of practitioners because she had such intimate understanding of both the male and female bodies.

That started a run which I did not hesitate to allow. From Nimia to the most recent addition to our harem, each woman wanted to spend a day in the body of a man. I granted this wish and during the course of their day, I made tantric love to each of them.

At last, it was time for us to resume our voyage and I found it was also time to resume my masculine form. Each of my women came into my arms before I made my transition, fondly caressing my breasts and my pussy. They all whispered how they would miss my womanly form, but they were eager to have my male form in their bed again.

Transforming from the slight but beautiful woman into a strong and powerful man again, made me feel I had left a part of myself behind and I longed to regain it.

Drona, who had long since been integrated into our society as a much younger version of himself, knew my true nature as a demon. He put a comradely arm around my shoulders after the transition as I complained about having left the womanly part of me behind.

“That is the price of a rite of passage,” he said. “You must leave a part of yourself behind. Do not lose what you have learned, and revisit it often. There is nothing saying you need to make a permanent transition. Your wives and concubines would like to switch places on occasion and your life will be richer for it.”

“Thank you, my friend,” I said. I set my face into the spray of the sea and sailed north.

And that brings me back to Liz. Remember? San Francisco, 1968? That’s what this story was about.

Lakshmi had just suggested that Liz spend some time as a man. That was not unusual to us in the infinity room by this time. Since the fourth century of the current era, each new woman who was added to our harem—I say our harem because it belonged as much to the women as to me—was given the opportunity to learn the martial arts, to practice the tantric meditations, and to become a man for a while.

Some declined the opportunity, but those were generally not women (or men) who became part of our inner circle. Often, they found lovers and life mates in the greater world of the infinity room. But those with whom I was most intimate—and especially, those I possessed—were immersed in all three arts.

And so, the day came when Liz said, “I’m ready. But am I supposed to simply pretend to be a man and make love to one of our concubines?”

“No, my love. What do you think of this body I’m wearing?”

“Um ... Well, I love you. You could stand to trim up a little bit. I really like a smooth face and chest. I love your muscles. They make me feel safe when I am in your arms. And I love your dick. I mean, I really love it.”

As she spoke, I worked an incantation and transformed her into the body I was wearing, along with the adjustments she suggested. She was right. I had let this body go a bit with the sedentary life of a shopkeeper. I turned her toward a mirror and she was shocked by what she saw. She did much the same thing I had done when I became a woman. She stared at herself, touching her face, her arms, and her dick. While she examined herself, I transformed myself into a likeness of the Liz she had been. She turned and looked at me.

“Oh, shit! Did we just, like, switch bodies?” She shook herself at the deep sound of her own voice.

“No,” I answered. “You are in your body. It is the way you are as a man. And my body—that looks so much like you—is here to be your mate if you will have me.” My own voice had raised and softened.

Liz stood staring at me. Looking at oneself in a mirror is not the same as seeing oneself, separate and apart. In the first place, we become used to everything being on the wrong side when we look in a mirror. Left is right and right is left. Looking at oneself from the outside is truly like others see us. She looked down at her growing erection and started to cover it with her hands, jerking her hands back when she touched it.

“I’m sorry. I mean, it just did this by itself. I didn’t mean to, like, get hard just because you are standing there, looking at me like that, and I like you, and you’re really sexy, and I want you. I mean, I didn’t mean that. To do that. Do I really look like that? I’m going to die of embarrassment!”

I laughed and invited her to sit facing me as we went through the tantric rituals of self-examination and examination of our partner. And we made love. For hours. Sometimes doing nothing but looking into each other’s eyes and sometimes with him buried in me as deeply as he could be as he bellowed out an orgasm and filled my pussy with his cream.

In the morning, I returned Liz to her own shape. She stopped me before I transformed myself.

“Wait. Please. Let me kiss you and touch you. I feel like I know you better than any person alive. I know how you like to have your breasts touched. I know exactly when you are lubricating in your pussy. I know how to kiss you. And all that means, I know myself.”