I recently wrote about A’s and my visit to a shamanic sex cult’s temple. I didn’t, actually, tell you much about our experience there. Rather, I laid the table.
When I left off, I was nude, cross-legged, on a massage table, making small talk with the preternaturally beautiful (if-only-just-above-drinking-age) J about her recent sojourn to Peru, where her experience had not been dominated by the country’s civil disturbances, because she had been on an eight-day shamanic sex training conducted by the International School of Temple Arts. This place looks… wild.
Anyway: A entered, freshly showered, and removed her towel. She deposited her lovely, curvy body (and yes, her pubic hair, much to my delight) across from me on the table, and we wrapped our legs around one another. J positioned herself behind me, wrapping her legs around my back; G did the same behind A. The four of us sat there, and G instructed A and me: close your eyes. Touch each other. Take deep breaths. Exhale. Etc.
It was, basically, a three-minute guided meditation as we anticipated what (who) was to come (us). She had us open our eyes for the last minute or so, and look into one another’s eyes.
A and I are of a certain age; when we look into the eyes of someone that close, it’s not really seeing that we’re doing. A had three, or maybe four eyes. They were blurry. I couldn’t focus. Probably just as well: had we both seen clearly into one another’s eyes, either or both of us might have descended into giggles. Not that there was anything especially giggle-worthy happening: it was a pretty benign situation. But it was unmistakably woo woo, and we are not. And together, I would say, we are especially not. [I’m capable of rising to some woo woo; I suspect A may be as well. But that’s not where our relationship rests.]
So, we gazed into (or sort of around) each other’s eyes for a final few seconds before G removed A to the adjacent room. And J asked me to make myself comfortable on my belly on the massage table, and commenced her ministrations to me.
A’s and my plan had been to receive what we imagined would be a couples’ massage, together, in the same room. As J was stroking my cock, I had hoped to be able to turn my head to the side and see G’s fingers pressing on A’s clit, or into her cunt. I had hoped to hear the sounds of A’s breathing growing quicker, her moans, and of G’s fingers sliding in her wetness. All that, though, was happening a room away, and all I heard was J’s and my own breathing, and the Spotify playlist of tantra music she’d dialed up.
From here on, I received what I would call a top-ten-percentile sensual (happy-ending) massage. The massage itself was sensuous, relaxing, soothing. Good pressure, nice touch, a little – but not a lot – of teasing of my inner thighs and balls. And then, the flip: I lay on my back for a few minutes as J stroked my cock to tumescence with a particularly intuitive grip (and particularly off-putting eye contact). She invited me to sit, and she sat in the same position in which A previously had sat, my legs wrapped around her, as she massaged my cock with one hand, her other wrapped around my back at the base of my spine. This, she did for a few minutes before, again, she invited me to lie back. This time, she said, “And if you would like to ‘release,’ you should do so in the next few minutes.'”
In my ideal such “happy ending” massage, the “ending” isn’t the happy part; it’s the massage. I could happily spend two hours (or more) on my back with a beautiful (or, frankly, a not-beautiful) woman ministering to my cock. In this configuration, I got to do that for about five minutes. A pretty plain-vanilla “tug” at the end of my “rub.” Not a lot of attention to my taint or asshole. Not a ton of creativity. Just a good old (if good) hand-job. So that was the second bit of disappointment, after A’s sequestration apart from me.
Notwithstanding the brevity of the cock-stroking, the orgasm was indeed delightful. (No, not all are.) It was powerful, and my body shook as J expertly drained my cock. I’m not sure what happens in the sex cult, but it seems J, at least, has learned some expert technique both at stroking and after-care.
She toweled me off a bit, placed an eye-shade on my eyes, and drew the sheet on which I lay over me cocoon-like (sarcophagus-like)? She wished me a peaceful shavasana, and said she’d be back in a bit, but said, “This time is for you.” Who was all the other time for?
She was gone for a while – four or five minutes, I would guess – and when she returned, she invited me to get up “slowly, gently, mindfully.” This, I did, and she handed me my towel and directed me to my second shower in about sixty minutes. I showered, returned, and J and I once again engaged in small talk while we waited for A. It seemed G and A “ran over a bit.” Was this because A was having a hard time coming? Because G lost track of the time? I had no way of knowing. Eventually, though, A did return. We said our farewells to our hosts, and we exited the temple.
We walked up the block and went to a nearby SweetGreen. We got ourselves some nourishment, sat ourselves down, and debriefed as we ate. A’s massage, it seems, had been sub-par. (Mine hadn’t. Or maybe my standards are lower. Or both.) A hadn’t been as put off by the age of our providers. She’d expected them to be younger. I’d somehow expected women in their 30s or even 40s. Notwithstanding the photos on the web site which, in retrospect, should’ve tipped me off. A and I shared disappointment about having been apart. The basic point of the trip – to have an adventure together – had been somewhat neutered by the separation. We did our best, in the debrief. Would we do that again? Probably not. But if we did, definitely in the same room.
Would I do it again? Probably. I have something like an infinite appetite for, as I’ve said, attention paid to my cock. And as woo woo as it all is, as the whole shamanic sex cult thing is, I’m curious about it. I like the idea of spending some time mindfully exploring my sexuality with people who’ve spent a lot more time doing that, who have a spiritual and intellectual scaffolding and structure for their relationship to their sexuality. I don’t imagine that I would necessarily find it… persuasive, but I do imagine I’d find it fascinating, and compelling.
In the days after that, I read up on ISTA, on the scandals involving sex abuse by those who facilitate their trainings, on the organization’s insistence on blurring all sorts of boundaries and manipulating people’s trauma histories and relationships to sex to extract sexual interactions with participants. And while all that turns me off, tremendously, I also remain… curious. I don’t think, realistically, that I’m ever going to spend eight days in rural Peru exploring my sexuality with 20-40 strangers. But I think I would find it really fascinating if I did….
Anyway: A and I are pondering what other adventures lie ahead. I wrote a list of ten possibilities. One (this one) we’ve now done. The others, for the most part, don’t appeal to her. I have to engage somewhat mindfully with what she’s seeking, with what she’s struggling with. I’m good at my fantasies; I have to engage with hers a bit…. Stay tuned.