Eliza Master [Master - The Scarlet Cord

T he exotic flower hovered, pink and friendly. The scent was familiar and delicious. Renata reached for it, but his shaft came instead, warm and thick. She devoured him as she was being consumed. Desire saturated her body and poured into her cleft, waiting for release. Renata heard a woman moaning, or maybe it was her own cry. She saw dark locks below her navel, and Alexas smile greeted her. Behind her, Adam was in a trance, moving in time with her friend. Thats what Im talking about, oh, baby, he said, and he spanked Alexa loudly. She laughed. Adam pulled Renata to him and entered her, but he started to kiss Alexa. Renata didnt mind one bit. After all, this was Alexas welcome home present for her.

Renata was thankful that Alexa had forgiven her. She had her lover and best friend back again. They had talked while Renata was away and realized how much they cared about each other. Alexa had fallen even more in love with her friend, and shed moved past the trauma theyd suffered together.

It was Renatas first night back in San Francisco, and Alexa had planned a big surprise for her, something she knew Renata would never plan for herself.

Alexa poured a dusty powder into some chocolate milk and placed three tall glasses on Renatas counter. As it dissolved, she wondered if it would work. Alexa had read the package, and it did say that the results werent guaranteed. But maybe just the idea would be enough to get her party going.

Handing one cup to Renata and one to Adam, Alexa proclaimed, Bottoms up! She tapped her glass against those of her friends, and the three drank down the thick liquid.

Its all naturaljust herbs, see? Alexa told them. She flashed the box at them. It looked like something from the vitamin store. The name Golden Lotus was emblazoned across the front. Underneath, it proclaimed Womens Formula.

So, its just for ladies? snorted Adam. Doesnt matterIm in touch with my feminine side. He smiled. He wasnt worried about the stuff working on him. The offer to enjoy a night with two women had come as a surprise. Alexa had made sure in advance Adam knew that there would be no strings attached.

I saved it for tonight, so we could all do it together. Adam agreed to come along as part of the surprise, Alexa said to Renata with childish glee. Adam blushed, and the girls laughed and clinked glasses without him.

R enata tapped her toes on the no-nonsense gray carpet in her office at Agri-Gen. It felt good to be back at work, to be useful and needed. Renatas oak desk was polished, and her office had been cleaned. She checked the inside of the desk drawers. Everything was neat and organized. She had been away for more than four weeks. She turned the computer on and went to her inbox, where she found more than two hundred new emails. After a while, the messages grew foggy in her brain, and Renata sighed deeply.

She pushed her chair back from the desk. After taking a deep breath, Renata tried to empty her mind. Her job and all that she needed to do loomed in her mind, so she felt energized, not quiet at all. With a second attempt at calmness, she pictured Hirono-sensei.

She saw him sitting on a small carpet. Shinji Hirono was the quintessential zazen monk. His naive smile and open face made him look like a child, even though he was an old man. Renata had always wondered how old he really was. She had never asked him; that would have been rude. In fact, she never spoke to him directly. No one in her group did. It hadnt seemed strange at the time, but now it did.

Renata had signed up for meditation training in Japan. Danny had told her that hed learned shibari from a Japanese master. She wondered if Dmitri had also learned his skills in Japan. This meditation training was a one-sided Vipassana experience, which meant that only the instructor spoke. The students manual had been very clear about it: no one was to speak at all. This was to allow raw, personal essence to emerge, unencumbered by the boundaries of language. Everyone participating had agreed to these terms. It was a relief for Renata, and she found she looked forward to the assigned time of not having to try to communicate. Instead, she could passively take in whatever wisdom came her way.

Hirono-sensei did talk, and in English. Sometimes it was just one phrase for the whole sitting. One time hed said, Entering the forest, he moves not the grass. Renata made herself memorize the line by repeating it over and over in her head. She fought against her minds running dialog. Her thinking was rebellious, always questioning the monk. Was it true that someone could enter the forest and not move the grass? Maybe that forest didnt have grass! And why was it always a he that did things? Was there some deep meaning she was missing? During the sittings, she constantly wrestled herself back into meditation.

Other times, Hirono-sensei would turn to someone in the group and say more specific things. He would say things that Renata didnt understand or that had nothing to do with her. Once he had opened his eyes boldly and turned to a Japanese man and said, Your daughter. He said lots more to the man in Japanese after those two English words. The man bolted up and left the room. Renata never saw him again.

Hirono-sensei had spoken directly to Renata only twice during the month she attended the meditations. The first time he said, Protect yourself! He growled it out like an attacking bear very unlike his usual calm demeanor. Within a moment, he was back in zazen mode. It was like hed never spoken. Renata wondered what the monk meant and if he had actually said that. Could she have imagined it? The others in the room didnt even turn their heads, and they continued on in what appeared to be peaceful bliss.

The other time Hirono-sensei spoke to Renata was on her last day before her flight back to San Fran. He recited a poem. Then he repeated it deliberately, exactly like the first time. He locked eyes with Renata while he said the verse. She had committed Hirono-senseis poem to memory, but she didnt really understand it. Shed often whisper it like a mantra:

A lonely hut on the mountain peak towering over a thousand others.

One half is occupied by a warrioress and the other by a cloud,

Last night it was stormy, and the cloud was blown away.

She whispered the verse mantra-style now from her office chair. It ushered out the buzzing thoughts that had been distracting her. The curtains of her mind drew apart, and Renata saw a brief vision of her office. She was standing on an intersection of many lines. She was in the center of a star. The universe had brought her to where she was supposed to be. Renata let the energizing feeling of the meditation ground her, and she gently opened her eyes

Renata checked her office again using her own system. She wanted to make sure no one besides the cleaners had invaded her workspace. Renata read the furniture like a blueprint. She inspected the angles of desk, chair, lamp, and even the files vertical positions inside the lower desk drawer. All of the files were off line, but only slightly. They were tipped to the right. It was as if the building had shivered, shifting everything minutely. Renata set up her security before starting work.

Working with the biggest object first, Renata lifted the desk and nudged the four legs into alignment with the four corners of her office. The room was a confident rectangle that resonated with Renata. Next, she lined up the floor lamp, setting it in its own virtual square in the middle of the right side of her desk, opposite the window. Who said a circle cant fit into a square? she chuckled to herself. The file cabinet and the drawer interiors were a quick fix. She thought of all the money people spent on surveillance, while she simply used the lines of the universe. In less than seven minutes, everything was righted.