The next morning found her, indeed later than most people, back at the temples, though watching the dancing rather than the sculptures this time. To her delight, one of the choreographers, whom she’d befriended the first day, was there, so she was able to sidle up to him and whisper a “Hi!” without interrupting the music. As expected, he greeted her in return but said nothing else until this dance was done, at which point they were able to talk until the next group of girls took the metaphorical stage.
Grinning hugely, he led her over to the side, where they could still watch the dancers but be more alone. For a second she wondered if he was going to try something, like he’d assumed Americans or redheads, and mostly likely American redheads, were total sluts who would go off with any man, but her mind was quickly assuaged as he told her to keep watching the dancers and try to mimic their moves, while he would give her pointers.
This is fun! she shouted to herself as she quickly put her left hand behind her head, the right on her hip, arms bent with elbows out. She‘d just gotten satisfied with the position when she noticed the dancers had their left legs bent similarly behind, bottom of the foot facing up, and she almost fell over in her haste to copy it.
It shouldn’t be, but it’s a lovely position, well worth a photo. . . if only you-know-who was here. On the other hand, this will be great practice, and once I get it down, he can shoot me all he wants. . .
“First thing, do not hurry. Even if you make a mistake, you must be graceful as you return to position.”
She nodded seriously as she squinted, because the dancers were now doing smaller movements with their hands. Determined to get it right, she moved her right hand in front of her face, palm facing toward her, then split the middle and forefinger above and below her eyeline. As she moved it to the right, her eyes followed it, then did the same thing with the left, even copying the slight seductive smirk of the dancer she’d chosen to emulate.
I wish I had that girl’s eyes. . . I wish I could have a braid like that!
This music is really cloying, though. Don’t see how it helps the dance.
Next she moved her head from side to side in classic Indian—or Egyptian—style, the head not leaning to either side, rather staying straight up. Again her eyes followed in the direction the head was moving, only this time the smirk was more than just a hint. . .
“Too much,” came the voice in her ear, causing her to become instantly serious. . . only to have his next lesson be, “not enough. Seductive, not cold or slutty.”
This is tougher than I thought. . .
The next few moves she classified as “cheerleader,” albeit quite a bit slower and a lot more sensual. Finally the dancers reached the meat of their routine, and Emily had to fight to keep the huge grin inside. Moving her body to left oblique, her hands grasped together at the fingers, she seemingly covered her eyes. . . only to lift the hands up and look right into the soul of whatever person happened to be in the right place. . .
“My dear, you are a natural.”
After that she stopped cataloging and simply enjoyed the flow, no longer worried about learning it. . . at least not right now. She was still grinning about it a few minutes later, sitting in a small café with her laptop open in front of her, enjoying some tea while writing an e-mail.
Beside me is a group of women wearing floor-length black robes and black head coverings, and nearby are several men in equally long white robes. Isn’t that the kind of info you’re yearning to know?
It didn’t take me long to find Emily, as she came out of a café or similar-like building right in front of me. I couldn’t help but smile at the view, which was probably visible from miles away: bright orange hair made even more fiery by the sun, that white skin. . .
“A human creamsicle,” I sighed, wondering how she’d react to that if I was ever dumb enough to tell her; hopefully she’d ask me to lick her all over. At least I felt really good when she spotted me and instantly smiled as she waved and came toward me. She might even be said to be running, though I immediately noticed she wasn’t anywhere as graceful like that, like she’d never learned to do it right.
Then I saw she was wearing thigh-high black leather boots. . .
“They’re really comfortable!” she insisted when she caught my glance. “I can dance in these!” Seeing I wasn’t convinced, she tried to quickly change the subject. “Hey, you’re wearing local clothes like I did yesterday. Cool!”
I didn’t see any sense in telling her this would make me stand out less. “There are some places in the world where I bring as little luggage as possible, because I can buy cheap here. I don’t worry about losing them, being destroyed by laundry people, or anything. I just get another one. But they don’t work as well in drier El Lay, so I just give them away before I leave.”
She beamed proudly and scrunched in closer, grabbing my arm and generally making it harder to walk, especially since she had to make sure not to plant the stiletto on my toes. “Hey, look what I got today!” Quickly she plucked a bill out of her purse, shoving it about an inch under my nose. “It’s a one-rupee note!”
“Wow, those are rare! Keep it as a souvenir.”
“I will!” Giving it a quick kiss, she stuffed it back into her purse, though rather haphazardly, for something she intended to keep, I thought.
“You’re a little wacky, but in a nice way.”
She decided she liked that, according to her grin, then beamed some more as I claimed I needed lunch before we set off back to where we’d rather be. At this time of the day, with the usual lunch crowd gone, it was easy to find an empty table, though it didn’t help when a local gentleman next to us wanted to talk religion, which was enough to put a damper on anyone’s good day.
Wisely I let the redhead do most of the talking, and in actually she amused me by being her usual perky self even when getting metaphysical. Every time the man tried to draw me into the conversation, she easily brought it back around to her, making me smile as I realized this was the first time I’d liked a woman I was with being an attention whore.
Finally I saw an opening, standing up and gathering my things while telling the man, “No one gets to their heaven without a fight.”
He looked surprised. “That is very well said, thank you.”
Yet another reason to be grateful for being a Rush fan. . .
Heading back to the hotel, I told her my driver would take us to the temples, if the guy could be pried away from his laptop. Emily agreed to this plan–as I knew she would, considering her stiletto boots–and walked beside me as calmly as she could, though that didn’t last. Finally she gave in to her feelings, begging for my attention with her anxiousness–needing-the-restroom level bounciness–until I finally had to ask what was on her mind.
“Where did that quote come from, you atheist, you?”
“Hmmm?”
“No one gets to their heaven without a fight!”
“Oh, that.” Grin. “Rush.”
“Rush?” she gaped. “The rock band?”
“Indeed.”
She stared at me while she thought about it, but finally deemed it “Awesome.”
Fifteen minutes later, rather than photographing more temple carvings, she took me to a place she’d spotted before, where a couple of men were in the process of forming new statues, standing life-sized ones. Grinning, the men nodded their permission for her to dance among the unfinished products while I shot her, though I grumbled that this would have been so much better with her sari.
It was more fun when she danced around them rather than with them, and again it looked rather strange with her in jeans and boots, but often enough I moved the telephoto in close to not worry about the statues, considering how absolutely gorgeous she was. At certain times the sun was behind her, casting an amazing sheen on her bright red hair, gorgeous enough so that it didn’t matter that the rest of her was in silhouette.
“You enjoying yourself, bub?”
“I’m not the only one.”
She thought this meant she had an audience, but looking around she found no one other than the sculptors; I caught a great shot of her chagrin. Finally she realized I meant the sculptors, or at least one of them, who was either slack-jawed at her beauty or actually drooling. For the rest of the session she pretended to ignore the man, looking straight ahead at the camera, but her eyes followed him suspiciously, giving the photographer a good laugh.
Finally she proclaimed herself tired of dancing in thin heels, so I took her to a shady spot I’d found on a previous day, where as soon as she sat yoga-style next to my lying figure she begged to see the photos I’d taken of the temple carvings. Figuring that would keep her quiet–well, not quiet, but less bouncy–for a while, I did so, wondering what she would come up with. . .
Humming happily to herself, she examined each photo carefully, not for their artistic quality but rather as close-ups to the sculptures themselves, knowing she’d missed plenty of detail on the really high ones. Every single shot begged the word extraordinary from her brain, and again it wasn’t so much how perfectly they were sculpted as the sexual nature, filled with men and women in every conceivable posture of intercourse. She was particularly entranced by a shot of a standing man holding a woman’s legs over his shoulders, which wouldn’t have been particularly unusual were it not for the fact that the woman’s back was against his chest with her head twisted to suck his penis.
The redhead didn’t think there was a human alive who wouldn’t have found the sculptures stimulating, but she was desperately trying to tamp down her lust and keep digitally flipping through the photos. Such intricate detail and creativity! Some of the couples are just entwined and kissing, but so many are contorted into impossible positions!
Playing it safe, she murmured redheadishly, “Some of these postures aren’t even possible!”
I definitely wasn’t asleep, she saw, or else she’d woken me up, but that would do her no good as she dutifully closed the laptop and laid it next to me before standing up and brushing off her jeans, mentioning she possessed a great admiration for a country that was not only so unashamed of sexuality, but also highly valued it.
But before I could say anything about that, she remembered what her dancer friend had told her, about that attitude being in the past and the people now being very repressed–and felt sad at having been born too late. Then she got mad that the entire country and culture had made her sad, and determined to do something about it, get back at them for being the catalyst of her feelings.
To be continued one more time
;o)
LoganBruin--An Unauthorized Autobiography 📸✈️ 