Chapter 12

Ostara3/25Sat

Starting the day with yoga, still full to bursting with last night, was delicious and I held us in my head while I warmed up. I came out of padmasana, having noticed the soft conversation of people setting up, and the surprisingly quiet class began with Maya’s taking her place front and center of the studio.

The usual warm-ups would show a tendency, and this time it was emphasis on core strength. I supposed we were headed for crow (kakasana) pose, but Maya called out parsva bakasana which is a side variation. It’s a pose full of tension between arms and legs and it doesn’t work otherwise. Being in it means you are concentrating on your core, which means you’re concentrating and that’s the point. We would stay in parsva for about four minutes each side, and Maya recited Rumi while we kicked off spandas to stay fresh.

She brought us out, doing trikonasana to relieve our hip stresses, then uttanasana for the back, and we went into savasana where I felt ... all kinds of sensation I’d keep with me. Strangely, Beck and Bang-ja seemed present with me (I was still off) and I realized the trait they share the most is steadfastness. I’d have to say, or send, something about what they’d taught me.

We ended the class, rolled up, and I was home twenty minutes later. Maya’s a sub who likes to give oral sex. Flags are kind of cool, but I began to understand people had to mean it. Maya’s so centered, to say for many to understand “I want to be made to please someone with my mouth” was a lot of information.

Serge waved me off. “Done already.” “Serge...” “I meant to do it myself so if I meet anyone today I can say I did it.” I stuck my tongue out at him. “Look. This is an opportunity I never foresaw. It might not be a big deal. I might get to feed Vikings, and if I do, I did this.” “Still, Serge, I know people are going to love it.” He favored me with a big smile. “I know, too, Ash.” Huh. Serge is a top who wants white men to suck his cock, and I wondered about that specificity.

We began piling up picnic boxes and blankets and bottles onto hover floats and dragging them down to the Square. Auntie had in mind a spot that hadn’t been taken over yet, so we started setting up there. Auntie’s a top, duh. Dad launched our blue balloon and tied it to a stake, Auntie pointed to the places she wanted blankets and we laid them out.

1145 and I went home to change into my picnic clothes, and as I walked back Beck intercepted me. She put a hand on my ass and said “I want you.” ‘Oh, Beck, I want you too’, I thought. She bent her knees and rubbed her nipples on mine. “Ash, please save the Saturday, Litha 1/15?” “Sure, Beck.” “You don’t want to know why?” “When you ask me for something I can give, I will.” She hugged me and whispered “pony meet.” Her nipples had risen. “Absolutely, I will.” “Then get your jewelry and meet me back here, OK?”

I had to run back to the house, a round trip of five minutes, and when I was at Beck’s again she said “Better. I am going to tease your nipples all day.” “Oooh.” She gave me a wicked smile. “Bang-ja and I have decided your nipples will be up until tonight, and by then you’re going to need them handled.” My ass twitched and she laughed. “Oh, Ash, we’ll have so much fun with you...”.

At 1200 we had places for about a hundred people set up and 70 or so taken, so we put more places out and dealt out more picnic baskets and wine bottles. The wines were all whites or rosés, consistent with the various chicken and fish contents of the boxes.

Auntie was in her world, smiling, her short black hair whipping this way and that as she inspected ‘her’ set-up. She greeted people, she engaged in quick intense conversations, she introduced folks. She had a bunch of friends I’d have to meet later, there was ... something ... that connected them. And it was strange I knew it. I checked to make sure I was ‘off’ and yet that feeling persisted, so I was willing to bet I was observing real reactions, just ones people probably didn’t realize would show.

But Bang-ja and Beck had come up and we were going to help Auntie develop a cohesive picnic, so we went around the guests so far here. Among the three of us we could do most of the introductions.

Collective picnics are subject to their own rules. We have more flexibility with introductions; we have a dress code (don’t show too much to the juniors, a rule we were close to violating today; and don’t make kinky relationships clear with stuff like leashes); we don’t mess with our electronics. We never record images or sound, it’s as stupid and creepy as lighting a cigarette. We might push boundaries a little but if too frequent or too blatant one can find oneself falling off social lists, so people are generally circumspect.

Apart from the fact the confirmation/echo ritual is so ingrained it’s impossible to not do it, we don’t do the rise/relapse when a new person joins us, and there’s a constant flux of picnic-goers among knots of people. Conversation tends to be muted and that limits the number in a group. The idea is people get together to appreciate the social space they occupy, not to generate a big group whose members have to shout to be understood.

I noted Serge handing out bento boxes to John, Iain, some Vikings and a few nearby people who were curious about the sushi, and at that point it looked as though he’d doubled his contribution - how had he done that, I wondered. According to Batboy’s shoulders-forward position Serge was in for more than polite conversation. Ah, Serge, I hope it works well for you ... We greeted John and some of his friends, but we didn’t stay long. We wanted to get around the Square before Beck had to set up her quintet so we moved off.

Beck and Bang-ja, being much better known than I except among math and chemistry nuts, introduced me to maybe fifty people. Again I noted tiny reactions among those I’d met and a strange phenomenon: I remembered everything about each intro. I could go through each, not get stuck and name them all - and now knew to start saving flags with the people. It was something I’d had to work at before, but I was having feelings of somehow-special-ness of every person that made it easier. I had the decided feeling there would be a bunch of ‘let’s hang out’ messages on my tablet tomorrow, but that was fun, too.

We felt welcome even with groups that weren’t so close to us. Mx. Gervais - uh, social rules, Tak - had a fair-sized and varied group to whom we were introduced, and where we instantly got into conversations that had nothing to do with English history. I met a man who gave me a beautiful explanation of water management for rice irrigation in Japan - I thought of my grandmother, calves-deep and bent forward in the water he was talking about - and here was another recent major who wanted to make friends until my majority and then play with me. “Sure. What do you like doing?” “Water-skiing. Can you drive a boat?” “Never tried a power boat. Small sailboats like Nacras.” “OK, I can always find another person and it needs three minimum anyhow: one to drive, one to watch the skier, and one to ski.” “At least you didn’t say rock climbing. My brother does that and we fret about him.” “May I have his name?” “Serge Boakye.”

His eyes popped open. “Did you know the factory made fewer than 4000 cars like his? It’s magnificent and after he let me drive it, he showed me pics of how it had arrived at his door. The man is a perfectionist! That machine is like a very capable ball of silk that tries hard to please you.” I smiled. “A while ago I asked him if he were happy with it and he said ‘I’ve been happy with it since I got it’. For Serge, the journey’s the point.” “And for you?” “Too early to tell, still trying my wings.” “Then try driving the boat, OK?” I nodded. “I’d be happy to, thank you, Jean.” We swapped digits and coordinates. Oh. Way out on Ramo, not so far as to be considered a hermit, but those were big places in the foothills, separated by hundreds of meters from their nearest neighbors and it was a long CVA trip ... unless I started messing with combustion cars, or got an electric of my own.

“Can we have Ash back, please? We are supposed to traverse the Square before I play.” Beck and Bang-ja, stiff nipples and all, asked Jean.” “Ah, sorry, we just fell to talking. Do either of you water-ski?” Bang-ja said yes, Beck made a see-saw motion with her hand. “I can fall with the best of them, but staying on the skis...” Jean laughed. “I’m out most weekends, and the more people the more fun. I’m going to try to get Ash on skis during the dead week, if you feel like it come with us.” “Thanks.”

Bang-ja and Beck firmly directed me away from there. “He wants you to fuck him.” “And I might want to fuck him. He’s a major, of course, and Mabon 1/3 will kill me if I let it. Learning to water-ski wasn’t high on my agenda but the dead week is slack.”

They both said “Slut!” and I bowed, then they took me by the arms and we continued going around the Square.

At 1315 we were not even a hundred meters from Beck’s so we walked her home to get her instruments and then back. We snagged a blanket, a picnic basket and a bento for Beck, and a bottle of Corbières from Auntie’s picnic. We walked her over to the little shell near the clock tower. We ate, Beck quickly. She dipped her sushi into the wasabi-soy mix and mmmed and yummed as the contents of the box disappeared.

As Beck met her compatriots Bang-ja said “Here we are, and it’s exciting, Ash.” “How do you mean?” “My dearest friends showing off their bodies, we hanging out, knowing how much you’re going to be straining and sweating when we fuck you.” I looked at her nipples, which were - as they’d been most of the morning - hard, like mine. “It’s exciting.” “We noticed. We are going to help you enjoy many, many times like this.”

She pulled my head back into her lap. She stroked her fingernails lightly on my stomach and that excited me. “See, desperately sensitive and wants to fuck.” She was right, I was thinking of her pussy and how, um, agile it was becoming. “Uhhh...”.

When Beck’s quintet came out and took their seats there was a hush. No one said anything, they simply launched a baroque piece of, I thought, Purcell’s.

People began to gather at the periphery of those of us seated and they listened. Auntie showed up with maybe thirty of her friends. The carrying power of Beck’s oboe and the bassoon were improved by the shell, and what we heard out on the grass was well balanced. Beck clearly led the musicians with small movements of the bell of her instrument.

The lessons I’d had about listening to other players came forward for me. This was ensemble playing at an intimate and confident level and as the piece closed there was meaningful applause.

I didn’t know the second piece at all, I guessed it was Thomas Tallis, and in this one Beck switched to the English horn a couple of times. Again, baroque and solid and somehow a little mournful in the afternoon sunshine.

The third piece was modern and one of the strangest compositions I’ve ever heard. It started out dissonant and I was inclined to think I didn’t have the ear for such a thing but it hinted. It hinted where it wanted to go and the players, with deliberation and knowledge, allowed it to do so until the discordant and confusing sounds resolved into a major ninth. It broke itself back down until the end met the beginning and I was intrigued - and my musical memory suggested that it was indeed a set of nested loops. Each instrument played a loop. Each loop was of a different length. As they rolled together the five loops converged exactly once, at the halfway point, in the major ninth, and then deliberately diverged again. I wondered who’d been so patient as to have composed such a thing, and I knew I had to talk it over with Beck.

After the applause her quintet broke down and I could see they were happy with the pieces, and the audience. Beck and the bassoonist fussed with their instruments, that is simply how double reed players are, but at last the antique and mellow woodwinds were stowed away. She found us, she was flushed and excited.

“I can describe the nested loops”, I said. “Yah, I know your math face when I see it.” She and Bang-ja burst into laughter. “Did you figure out how van de Hulst composed it?”

“That was the problem. I see how it works, I can’t see how the composer managed it.”

“Weeks of time on his personal DEC VAX, early ‘80s. He had to let the loop lengths vary even to the beat counts. It became a complex problem.”

“What a wild idea that was, holding that much in your head at once must be strange.” “Anton van de Hulst was strange and wonderful. He composed little, all of them cut from similar cloth - the funny thing about each is they all drop hints of where they’re going, and you get involved in spite of yourself.” I nodded.

We had hours before dinner so we saw more friends. We met the other members of the quintet and sat for a few minutes with them. I said “my fam is hosting a picnic, there’s still plenty if you like.” They concurred and I brought four new people to meet Auntie.