Midnight 01 - Luisa's Desire

is done. Only the elders possess the secret and I'm afraid it is a power they do not choose to share. I do not even know how many of them exist. Two, according to my master, but I often thought he told me less than he knew. However great or small their number, they are shadow figures who rarely walk among their broods."
     
    "Pity," said the lama as if their presence would present no more than a chance for intriguing study. Luisa was beginning to see that nothing in this world or any other could cow these Tibetan monks. The medical lama pondered the ceiling, then turned to the holy abbot. "I must study her tsakhor. Please instruct her to undress."
     
    "Scusi?" said Luisa with a mixture of amusement and affront. She might not be a fount of modesty, but once upon a time she had been. Even now she drew the line at standing naked before three men—at least, three men she did not intend to bed. That Martin's presence inspired the most discomfort, she chose not to examine.
     
    To her relief, the abbot intervened. "Tsakhor are wheels of force within your subtle body. Examining them will tell Lama Songpan how your inner mandala channels energy. Your clothing would interfere with the emanations."
     
    "If I understood more than two words of that," Luisa said, "I might be convinced."
     
    Martin frowned at her as the medical lama threw up his hands. Calm as ever, the abbot smiled. "You must forgive us," he said. "We do not think of nudity as you do. To us the body is simply the vehicle of the soul. But perhaps you have something simple beneath those clothes? An undergarment that would preserve your privacy?"
     
    "I am wearing a smock," Luisa conceded, suddenly feeling foolish. These were men of science, not a science she understood but that did not make them satyrs in search of thrills. Nor, given her history, was she in any position to throw stones. With a shrug at her own illogic, she doffed her fur-lined cloak. Her Turkish-style tunic and trousers spurred no comment, since they were more familiar to her watchers than the ruff and farthingale she would have worn at home.
     
    Hiding her discomposure under her briskest manner, she stepped from the embroidered trousers and undid the tunic's pearl-studded buttons. The sleeveless shift she wore beneath fell past her hips, a cobweb silk woven by her own bottega, the best cloth-working shop in all of Florence. The silk was fine enough to pull through a woman's ring, as soft and shimmering as smoke. For all the shield it provided, she might as well have removed it. She kept it, though, perversely determined to maintain at least a pretense of maidenly reserve—not that Martin was likely to be fooled.
     
    She stopped disrobing once she'd peeled off her long black gloves. Feeling the cold now, she handed them to Lama Songpan, who exclaimed in wonderment as he turned them back and forth.
     
    "Not a crease," he marveled. "Not a single sign of wear. Her garments are as fresh as if she never had put them on."
     
    The abbot hummed and rubbed his chin. Only Martin seemed to view her barely clothed body as more than a scientific object. He had crossed his arms as she undressed and, while his face remained impassive, his knuckles were nearly white. Knowing his gaze was on her abruptly heightened her awareness of her flesh.
     
    Yes, she thought, you know I am a woman. A draft stirred her hair behind her back and a shiver swept her breasts. She felt a tightening at their tips as if they had been pinched by gentle fingers. Martin's eyes met hers, hot now, and not the least bit monkish. She remembered carvings she had seen in India's northern temples: gods with thick, rearing phalluses, their consorts small of waist and round of breast. Phantom hands seemed to grip her around the ribs, lifting her, impaling her even as she hung splay-legged in the air.
     
    It was not a position with which she was familiar. Then she knew. These memories were not hers. Martin wanted her. He was imagining how she'd feel. Tiny beads of sweat dotted his brow.
     
    Perhaps he did not, after all, prefer a woman to be a maid.
     
    She smiled at him and he immediately turned away—not, however, before she had seen the flush that tinged his ears.
     
    "I will light the brazier," he said. "She is cold."
     
    Lama Songpan, of course, had missed this little drama. "Hm," he said, circling her slowly on the rug. "In the average person, the earth's energy is continually being tapped for the replenishment of the aura.