I immediately felt a rush of embarrassment. Asking this man if he knew something? Who the hell did I think I was?
“I’m familiar with the stories,” he said. If there was any resentment for my rudeness he didn’t show it. “What do you think about that? Western attitudes about sex, I mean.”
I shrugged again, and bit my lip. As I looked down I could swear I caught a flash of his tongue from the corner of his eye, licking his lip.
“They’re backwards, I guess. Other cultures are much more open.”
“We have a way of hiding that aspect of our lives from ourselves,” he said, fiddling with the little statue. “In other cultures, sexuality is not treated as a secretive or dirty thing. It’s part of every day life, as it should be. Even religion. Did you know that many pagan practices incorporate a sexual component? Even major religions outside our sphere acknowledge the power of sex.”
I nodded, vigorously. “Maybe I should do a paper on that.”
“Perhaps. I remember once I went on a dig in the south of France. My team and I were uncovering a pre-Roman Celtic ritual site. I spent most of my time there sleeping in the ritual chamber we uncovered. The roof was long gone, so there were only stars above. I think it’s important that we avoid the clinical, detached distance that Western scholarship advocates and immerse ourselves in the cultures and ideas we’re studying. Don’t you agree?”
I nodded, not really sure what that meant. It sounded good, though. I agreed that we were too detached, and “We’re too judgmental,” I said.
“Exactly. You mentioned the Norse myths. Are you familiar with the seidr?”
I shook my head.
“The sorcery of Scandinavian witches. I was looked down upon, for a time, for suggesting that the sexual epithets used to describe the ritual implements were literal, rather than mere metaphors. My colleagues were less than amused. It takes a certain bravery to challenge the establishment, especially in a slow moving field like this one.”
I nodded. “Thank you, sir.”
He stood up. “It’s fascinating what we’ve lost in our transition to a closeted society that fears its own sensuality.”
His fingers rested on my scalp and I froze.
“What are you…”
His fingertips sank into my hair. He loosed my ponytail and let my hair spill over my shoulders. I had two conflicting thoughts in my head. What does he want from me? and My hair is so greasy! When his other hand joined the first and he stood behind me running his fingertips lightly over my scalp, I felt an intense shiver of sensation that passed down through my body. It was like a wave that crashed against my toes and fingertips and spread back up, and I gasped. His fingers moved in lazy but precise patterns, and the feeling only intensified. It was like being dragged from a neutral state into sudden, full arousal. Heat pooled between my legs and spread up my stomach, and I felt an urge to tear away from him but my body wouldn’t let me. It was like I went from nothing to riding the edge of an explosive climax, all at once.
“Wh-what are you d-doing…” I managed.
“Intensity of sensation brings us closer to gnosis, a zero-state. A little crack in the universe.”
“The F-french call orgasm p-petit mort,” I said, not knowing why. “Little d-death.”
“Exactly.”
He continued to caress my scalp, and my hands clenched the arms of the chair. This was agony. I thought I would explode at any second, but I never made it over the edge. He just kept stroking my scalp, and when he changed up the pattern of his moving fingers the sensations only intensified and I started grinding my legs together, my hips rolling on their own. I moaned softly.
“Some mystics find the zero-state through intense pain, like the Hindus who drive hooks through their flesh and swing from chains. The pain clears away doubt and unfocused thoughts. Pleasure can have the same effect. Pleasure is sacred.”
I squirmed, rising up a little as my body clenched. It was getting so hot I was starting to sweat. He moved his fingers down the sides of my head and worked them into the neck of my sweater, and along my collarbone. Everywhere he touched me was like a scarlet line of bliss, like the aftertouch of something hot rolling across my skin, too quick to burn. He leaned forward and his hands pressed lower, his fingers moving lightly down the slope of my breasts to slip under the cups of my bra. He pinched my nipples sharply and I yelped and jerked, pulling my legs up. Still standing behind me, he withdrew one hand and began undoing his belt. He pulled his zipper down and drew his cock out of his trousers. His hand cupped the side of my head and turned me to face him. I put my hand down my pants and began playing with myself. I couldn’t stop.