Catherine Auman, LMFT

Laurel sighed.  Another perfect moment in paradise.  The sun blazed behind the big blue umbrella as she lunched on a pasta dense with garlic, sautéed zucchini, and garbanzo beans.  Geno’s tray, on the other hand, was piled high with naked raw food: at least six tomatoes, two whole cucumbers, sliced; slender stalks of celery, a mixed green salad with sprouts and jicama, pineapple chunks, and a quarter of a watermelon.  Dessert, she guessed.

He looked up to see her examining his food.  “Got to keep my strength up,” he said, squeezing a lime over the cukes.

Geno was one of the most handsome men she had ever laid eyes on, even here at the ashram, where she was becoming rather immune to the whole issue.  He stood at well over six feet with a body that spoke to years in the gym, and his hazel eyes and tanned skin glowed with vitality and health.

Early in the group, he had informed everyone that he had a partner back in Italy and was therefore off limits, although he was available to do exercises with.  Many women had shared a ping of disappointment.  This morning, Laurel and Geno had chosen to do the sensual massage assignment together.  When it was her turn to be the giver, she had watched in amazement as he didn’t even flinch when she neared the vicinity where most men take notice.  His touch on her was rough and insensitive, not at all in tune with her response or lack of it, sleepy and unaware.  He got somewhat excused for this by his otherworldly good looks, but not completely.

She hadn’t told him how unsatisfying it had been.  In true good girl fashion she had told him it had been “nice.”  Someone taught her once that “nice” stands for “Nothing In me Cares Enough about you (to tell you the truth),” and she supposed that was true.  It was not an unpleasant diversion, however, to sit at his table and gaze at that face.  And that body.

“What’s your girlfriend in Italy like?” she asked.

“She is a great and famous teacher of tantra,” he said. “Right now she is giving a seminar in Tuscany.”

“Oh,” she said, thinking back to his touch devoid of sensuality. “You must be learning a lot about tantra from her?”

“Oh yes,” he said.  “She’s an amazing woman.”

“Then why are you here, studying tantra several thousand miles away from her?”

“She says I need to learn more about being on my own, and she is right.  I want to lose my tendency of codependency.”

That buzz word, I hate it, Laurel thought.  “What exactly does that mean anyway?  It seems to me it’s a way to put down people who value being in a relationship over being alone.”

“Here, I hope to deepen my aloneness,” he said, “and then take it back to be with her.  In a more authentic way.”  He moved the tray with its mound of peelings and rinds to the other side of the table, and poised his spoon over the melon.

“A relationship is like climbing a great mountain,” he continued.  “It is a journey that is difficult and long and takes much preparation, much training.  It is the only thing in life that is of value.”  He dipped his spoon into the watery red fruit and took a bite.  “I don’t understand these men who come here just to sleep with any woman.  It shocks me; I don’t understand it.  It has no……,”  he scratched his head.  “Ah, my English is so bad.  What is the word?”  His eyes turned up into the back of his skull, searching his memory banks for an Italiano-Inglese dictionary.

“Rispettare….no?…No!”  Laurel shook her head.  She certainly had no idea.

“Decoro….stima….Ah, ah, I must know.”  He was frantically looking around the crowded lunch area, for what she couldn’t fathom.  “Ah!”  and he sped off over in the direction of the fountain.

Suddenly Laurel found herself sitting alone, not really understanding what had happened.  She shrugged it off to just another strange ashram occurrence.  First she was having lunch with a gorgeous Italian raw foodist, and abruptly she wasn’t.  She reached over and took a dripping bite of his watermelon, then replaced the spoon.

Geno finally reappeared holding a tattered book in his left hand.  He leafed through the pages, shaking his head and muttering.
“Ah hah!”  he trumpeted.  “Nobility!  That’s the word.  Nobility.  It has no nobility.  That’s it.  To sleep with so many women has no nobility.”  He got up and left the table to return the book.

© 2009 Catherine Auman