How to Be Single (16 page)

“Oh my God!” Alice screamed. Jim only had two more thrusts in him until he came as well—he had been having a hard time containing himself up to that point, what with all the excitement going on.

“Oh my God,” Alice said, catching her breath as a new thought flashed across her mind:
I can do this! I am really going to be able to do this.

Now, as any dieter knows, the minute you tell yourself that you're not allowed something, that is precisely when you can't stop thinking about it. Serena hadn't had sex in four years and her sex drive, due to lack of attention, had driven far, far away. So the minute she was told she would never be allowed to have sex again, well, that was just the thing to kick-start her lifeless libido.

Serena was now stationed at a yoga center in the East Village. This particular yoga organization had branches all over the world and Serena managed to get stationed in a beautiful brownstone less than two miles from where she used to live. Walking around the East Village with her shaved head and her orange outfits, she was aflame with the most dirty thoughts imaginable. Each morning, as she sat cross-legged on the floor of the meditation room, the scent of incense wafting through the air, her mind raced with thoughts of naked flesh and men on top of her. She had a recurring dream in which she was walking down a New York City street and just kept grabbing men and making out with them as they walked by. She would wake up sweaty and shocked. Serena had just assumed that for her, taking a vow of celibacy was merely a formality. This deluge of pornographic thoughts took her completely off guard.

That is why it was so easy for everything to happen the way it did. One of the jobs given to Serena, now known as Swami Durgananda, was to wake up a little earlier than everyone else and prepare the altar plate. This meant getting up at 5:45, cutting up some fruit or arranging some dates and figs on a platter, and then putting it on the altar as an offering to the Hindu gods before group meditation began at 6:00. And every morning, Swami Swaroopananda, otherwise known as the “hot swami,” would be at the kitchen table, reading a book and looking hot. At 5:45 in the morning. Serena wasn't yet sure what the rules of engagement were for swamis at the center, but as she opened the refrigerator to decide what to offer up to the gods, she decided to say something.

“Is this when you normally like to read? Early in the morning?” Serena whispered softly.

He looked up at Serena and smiled. “Yes, it seems like the only time I have to read is at this hour.”

“Wow. You actually wake up early to read. That's impressive.” She took out a pineapple and put in on the counter. She got out a long knife and started skinning it. He went back to his book. As she chopped up the pineapple she would steal glances at him. For a man of Vishnu he was really built. Was that really just from doing yoga? Were swamis allowed to go to the gym? She didn't think so. His face was hard to describe, but it was the face of a real man. His head wasn't completely shaved—it was more of a very close buzz cut, and it was a look he was made for. He looked like he could maybe have been an army sergeant—tall, with a muscular chest and long, ripped arms. And his orange swami robes, instead of making it all seem silly, made him seem, well, super orange hot.

They would talk only briefly, but Serena didn't need much to fan her flames of desire. Each morning she got up a little earlier just to talk to him. And every morning, he'd be sitting on a stool at the counter, quietly reading, little circular glasses on the tip of his nose.

Tuesday at 5:30
A.M.
:

“Good morning, Swami Swaroopananda.”

“Good morning, Swami Durgananda.”

“How's your book? Are you enjoying it?”

“Yes, it's one of the better ones I've read about Pranayama.” He put his book down this time. “By the way, how are you adjusting to your new life?”

Serena made her way to the refrigerator. “It's been surprising, some of the things that come up, you know, when you're trying to calm the mind.”

Swami Swaroopananda crossed his arms over his chest and looked at Serena. “Really? Like what?”

Serena felt her face get red and she wondered if, without hair, her entire head would blush as well.

“Oh, just the flotsam and jetsam of a cluttered mind, you know. So, how long have you been a part of this organization?”

And then they began to really talk. He told her that he was from New Zealand (
that's the accent
) and he'd been a swami for eight years. He told her about how his meditation practices had gotten so intense, the experiences he was having were so blissful, that he felt compelled to take the next step and become a renunciate. Serena wanted to know more. While they talked, Serena assembled quite an abundant offering plate.

Wednesday at 5:15
A.M.
:

“Good morning, Swami Swaroopananda.”

“Good morning, Swami Durgananda. How are you this morning?”

“Very well, swami.” Serena started getting out flour and honey and walnuts. She was going to make her famous banana nut bread for the offering this morning. After all, she had to do something with all her time while pretending she wasn't flirting with a man of the cloth, forgetting entirely that she was now a woman of the cloth herself. Besides, she reasoned to herself, what better way to start the day than with the nice aroma of banana bread floating around them while they meditated? And besides, they could have the rest of it for breakfast. She began mashing the bananas in a bowl.

“How is your meditation practice going? You mentioned a lot of thoughts coming up, yesterday. Do you have any questions about the practice itself?”

The only question Serena had now was how she could have sex and still be celibate, but she knew that wasn't something she should say. So she made something up.

“Well, yes, I do, swami. When I meditate, I feel my thoughts slow down; I feel calmer, more at peace, more in touch with a higher power, so that's good. But I don't have any visions. No white lights, no colors swirling in my mind. I'm just meditating, you know?” Serena was now pouring flour and sugar in another bowl. She cracked an egg and started mixing it up by hand.

Swami Swaroopananda closed his book. “That's perfectly normal. There shouldn't be a goal to your meditation; that's the antithesis of the practice. The point is merely to be still. Everyone's experience is going to be different. The last thing you should be hoping for is fireworks when you're meditating.”

Serena smiled. She poured the mashed bananas into the batter and stirred them together.

“Now, speaking of fireworks, Swami Durgananda, tell me. Have you been thinking a lot about sex lately?”

Serena looked up from her stirring. She wasn't sure if she had heard right. By his expression, which was serious and unembarrassed, it seemed like this was a normal spiritual question. She turned to the cabinets. While her back was to him, she admitted, “Well, actually, yes. I have been thinking a lot about it. Like not being able to think of anything else, really.” She pulled out three loaf pans from a top shelf and brought them to the counter. She tried not to look at Swami Swaroopananda, but couldn't resist. She peeked up and he was smiling at her.

“You shouldn't be ashamed, that's part of the process. Your mind is just reacting to your body's desires. It will quiet down soon enough.”

“I hope so. It's just like when I'm fasting. I can't stop reading cookbooks the whole time.” She poured the batter into the loaf pans and pushed them one by one into the oven. Serena looked at the clock. It was only 5:30. She had no idea she could make banana bread that fast. There were still thirty minutes before meditation.

“I guess I'll go in and start, you know. Meditating.”

Swami Swaroopananda closed his book. “Don't rush off. Why don't you sit for a moment. Let's talk some more. Where are you from?”

Serena smiled and shyly sat on the stool next to Swami Swaroopananda, also known as Swami Swaroop. He looked at Serena closely, and for the next thirty minutes he asked her questions about her family, the jobs she'd had, and what her favorite music used to be. In the basement of this yoga center, the smell of banana bread in the oven, as she sat next to a man wearing a bright orange dress, both of them basically bald, Serena realized she hadn't been on this great a date in years.

By the following Monday, Serena was baking fresh, yeasted, wake-up-early-so-you-can-make-the-dough-let-it-rise-and-punch-it-down-and-then-do-it-all-over-again bread. And he would always be there, sometimes reading, sometimes watching, but always talking to her. By the end of the week, they were mixing and kneading together.

For that past week and a half, Serena couldn't think about anything else but him. The beatific, blissed-out expression on her face, which might have been construed as spiritual awakening, was really just dumb puppy love. All day long, all night long, she thought about seeing him the next morning. And then in the morning, when she was with him, it wasn't so much that she was talking and listening to him as she was
absorbing
him. During meditation and yoga and chanting and working, she was supposed to be trying to become one with God. But instead, each morning as she made the most elaborate altar offering plates in the history of the Jayananda Yoga Center, Serena was becoming at one with Swami Swaroop. The way he said things, the opinions he had, seemed so in tune with how she thought and felt that when the words came out of his mouth and hit her ears it was like they mutated into a warm ooze that spread throughout her brain.

It was joy. For every minute that she was with him, she felt the undeniable sensation of joy. The thought of adding sex to this intense emotion had almost become too much for her to fathom.
Almost
too much for her to fathom. And in the meantime, the entire yoga center was gaining weight, gorging at breakfast on hot bread, walnut loafs, and muffins.

On Thursday, at 4:30 in the morning, as she walked into the kitchen, Serena looked for him, her heart beating fast, worried that for some reason he wouldn't be there. But he was standing by the counter. He smiled shyly at her. Long gone were the formal greetings of “Good morning, Swami Swaroop” and “Good morning, Swami Durga.” They had now been replaced by two people who met each other in the morning by beaming wordlessly at each other.

All the kneading and rising and mixing had to lead to something. And on this morning, Swami Swaroop walked up to Serena, took her by the shoulders, looked to make sure no one else was around, and kissed her on the lips. Serena wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back, deeply. Now, her eyes closed and her body finally touching his, Serena finally saw the white light, the one everyone talks about, of unity, peace, and divine happiness. Finally.

So Serena still got up at 4:30 in the morning, but the altar plate went back to being a few dried-up grapes and a couple of figs. They had finally figured out what else they could be doing during that time, and they were doing it everywhere they could get away with it: the pantry closet, the furnace room, the basement. If Serena was the kind of girl who could get out of control over a couple of buffalo wings, you can imagine what she was like now that she was having sex with someone she was madly in love with. Eventually, they couldn't wait until the morning, and were recklessly finding places to meet during the day as well. When Swami Swaroop took the center's van to Hunts Point to do grocery shopping, of course he needed help and why not ask Swami Durgananda? So there, too, in the back of the van on the side of a road in some industrial wasteland in the South Bronx they unleashed their forbidden swami love. It may have taken a vow of celibacy to do it, but Serena finally had a sex life. Her dry spell was officially over.

Back in Rio

When they talked about this samba school party, I had an image of a dance school with mirrored walls and ballet barres, and maybe some streamers draped around and some punch in a punch bowl, with instructors available to teach the newcomers samba. But no. Flavia, Alan, Caroline, Anna and Frederico, Georgia, and I drove in the minivan to one of the poorest neighborhoods, called Estácio, far from the fancy tourist areas of Ipanema and Leblon. We parked by a massive concrete structure that looked like it used to be an airport hangar, except that it was painted blue and white and covered in beautiful graffiti artwork of stars and beams of light. In big white graffiti letters was the name of the samba school, G.R.E.S. Estácio de Sá. People were pouring into the place, and we joined the flood into what can only be described as a huge high school dance and block party combined. The place was the size of a football field. Everyone was walking around with plastic cups of beer, and the floor was already littered with empty cups and cans. The excitement of knowing I was about to witness something that most tourists would never get to see already had my heart racing.

But that was nothing compared to what the drums would do to me. From the moment we entered, the loudest, most vibrant drums I'd ever heard shook the building, cutting right through my heart. From a raised set of bleachers about forty drummers were whipping the crowd into a frenzy.

We made our way up some stairs to a little VIP balcony that looked out over the entire scene. At the far end of the hangar were two singers on a raised stage, shouting out joyfully. This was not the crowd of young people at Lapa, dressed up for a night on the town. These were men in jeans and t-shirts, shorts and sneakers. There were women wearing some of the tightest jeans I have ever seen stretched over a human form, and some skirts that were so short I wanted to throw a jacket over them and send them to their rooms without supper. It's true what they say, the Brazilian women do have the most beautiful butts, and tonight they were all on display. Most people were sambaing, talking, drinking beer. And there were others dressed in red and white outfits just milling about. I wasn't quite sure what this place was, and what we were doing there, but I knew I would never have gotten to see it if it weren't for our new best friend, Flavia.