CHAPTER 13
"Live long and prosper!" Each time they said it, a swell surged through them. It was power. It was hope. It was a vision. As vision, it had first been given to them.
Elements of the vision, but not full sight. For seeing was the core message of the vision itself, and something which could only be experienced as each blindly stumbled.
Stumbling was how Lil looks back upon the Courting years. Though she enjoyed "Game!" and though she had always been faithful to the twin imperatives: "Love as many as you can!" and "Do whatever you must!"...there was no sight, so she is now realizing, because there was no boundary—there was no cause for an assault on a forbidden area, for nothing was forbidden...they knew not the Game's source but they did know its end—expressed by a slogan they prodded each other with whenever one did hesitate to follow the two imperatives..."Not yet!"
This sufficed. "Not yet!" meaning that the regulations, the ordinations, the boundaries set once they became Twenty...when they entered into relationships... everything was permitted until then, so the teenagers shouted, "Not yet!"
Coupling—Lil is seeing Zav as boundary. What is he as now forbidden?
For most, they would Couple long and stumble often before they would gain "First Sight!"
That First Sight which was all that relationship was, and so, derivatively and essentially, what sexual Coupling evokes...Intimacy.
It was a First Sight into the meaning of "Live long and prosper!"
It was a First Sight of the flesh in its fullness...being whole as one soul, one spirit, as one Presence. Yet, to become as One and so fully one's own self—"one's oneness"—meant finding the boundary of self...which only came when your Lover found their boundary of self...then "I am" would be truly definable—"Know thy presence and so live long and prosper!"...another slogan of Coupling.
"Presence. This is what lives long and prospers!" Uttered by an Ancient One, long in service to the world, a dedicated being—one who was high in the hierarchy of realms secular and sacred, so they were told—to the girls. An Ancient One's voice—a Presence. As a figure, obscured. ("Why?!") Was it a man or a woman? "Does it matter?" answers the teacher, in that way which invites no further questions.
Cilla watched. Absorbed. She couldn’t even peek aside at Lil.
The shaded figure, the commanding voice: ageless, it had appeared once before, when they were thirteen, just being introduced to The Game.
"Do whatever you must." The Ancient One's phrase from back then. There had been much left unsaid, which is revealed now—"Because you can never do whatever you will."
Cilla thinks she understands. Lil is a bit more annoyed than perplexed.
The voice: "What is it you will?"
Cilla: Mark!
Lil: To blossom!
Despite the moment, Lil wasn’t thinking about Zav.
Ancient voice: "Presence cannot be willed."
Back then, the word presence had been introduced, but not ensconced with the special dignity, even mystery that pervades the Ancient One's tone. "You girls are the presence of The Mother. But so, now, as She was before she blossomed. It is Her desire to blossom through each one of you. Now and forever!"
As she listens...this voice so magical!...so Cilla sees herself blossoming. As she observed her own mother swell pregnant with her ninth and last child—Cilla being number four. As with her sister now in full bloom as her first is due, any day now. This aged voice made her see, cleared away a haze unknown to Cilla until just now, that blossoming was the living long through Coupling.
("Blossom through pregnancy?")
"All boys are farmers. They must work the land before it will yield harvest. They must labor with every tool they have to make the ground ready. Only then can sow seed. Only then can rightly anticipate the harvest."
"All girls—the farm"...a thrill, one curious, breath-taking—all which makes her feel as if she is the only one being instructed.
"Prosperity," the Ancient One, "is in the harvest." At once final. At once chilling. At once—Future.
"Live long and prosper," each greets, without exclamation...more, probing the other, inquiring, "Is it still you?"
They were back at the sorority. In the common room, each going to their separate apartment when Lil stops, waves Cilla towards her...it was a familiar gesture, so she follows.
For nearly half-an-hour they simply set about preparing for dinner. Then, out of nowhere, not an answer to a voice question— "I don’t know if I can do it"...exhaled, sloppily aired, between slicing the onions and the carrots...Lil knew that she didn’t really want to say it, to confess it, to utter it, but she had to...and only Cilla could hear it.
Cilla hears, but shakes her head, as if shaking a gift, wondering what’s inside...yet she is, also, instantly disturbed, not by understanding the full import but by the shared feeling—Lil is highly distressed; down.
Lil stops slicing and paring.
She gazes off, far distance—frozen and stiff. A cardboard cut-out. No motion.
Cilla pauses, her mind racing, avoiding but careening between "Just finish the meal and go!" and "Oh, no! Please."
It was now Lil drinking more than she has ever, more than she ought. But this is not of the moment. Cilla is not drinking at all.
"I have never been satisfied. Never."
Cilla retreats from pressing, Never?
"On my first night, I did what I had to. I did everything he asked. Even somethings he didn’t ask. And that’s it. I just wasn’t satisfied. No, more...wasn't filled." She presses her eyebrows as if trying to squeeze more thought from out her forehead. "No, I never felt the presence. Not, at least, as I thought it would be or could be."
Cilla wanted to say, "Maybe that’s all there is," but didn’t...just listened. Let her friend drink and talk, talk and drink—it wasn’t a conscious choice, just a comfortable one.
"I’m the one who kept asking for more. That he bring others. I even got them to always to agree to Tag Teams. Switcheroo! I liked women. I still do. But that wasn’t it, either. Even when they thought it was only for them...it was show, for it was for me."
Cilla hated Tag Teams—never liked the switcheroo!— not that she was shocked by Lil, in fact, it made sense. Lil was like that, but being like that was supposed to be a special sign, one that you were especially chosen to blossom. Curious.
"I’m a goddess. At times, I am the goddess. I just don’t feel like...no, I just don’t want to become mother."
Cilla—Who could have blamed her?...reached for the bottle of whiskey...poured herself a tall glassful—three fingers!
"Clever? You think you know what it means?"
"Girls are stupid. Don’t you see? They’re cows. Not like cows. They are cows. Dumb."
"It’s just a slogan. To live eternally. Get married and so live eternally, right?"
"Who knows? Yeah. Maybe. Maybe that’s how they’re told. Sure. Many believe that. Like me, they take it at face value. Will take the easiest meaning. But not this time. This time I’m the poet."
"So?"
"Females live short lives. Get it?"
"That means what?"
"Girls have sex only during their teen years. A short time. We’re the long timers." Pauses. Almost sneers. Avoids looking at Zav. Doesn’t give a damn whether he believes him or not. I know!"—internal monologue...out loud: "Women are even shorter. They bear kids, for what, twenty years, give or take some. Then what?" At this point, he does turn towards Zav. Stares at Zav. Consciously and intentionally stares...wants to see his response: "Then what?"