Schaum
infinity both beyond and within limits. Transgression for them was a ritual that left behind all taboos- not by rising above but by indulging-and stripped them of power. That included all taboos-unclean sex, eating human flesh, consuming excrement, in rare cases even murder. Pushing the limits of the decent, of the "human," in order to transcend humanity. And yet Tantrism was also about restraint. In most Indian versions of the sect, they practiced intercourse without ejaculation. That energy was turned back inward, aroused but not expended, summoned and redirected as the ultimate discipline. To these devotees abridged desire was a form of immortality. It occurs to me that sex and death are not opposites, as Freud thought, but siblings. The body in rapture is still the body that will one day decay. A complicated concept. It turns me to the Internet, that teeming ether. My first mistake. What swarms into view is a congregation of soft porn sites. Unleash your sex! Unbridled sex! Deeper, Harder, Longer! Sonia's Tantric Secrets! Despite their inappropriateness, none of them even seems especially erotic-what, I wonder, is so exciting about the "unbridled"? I think back on the novelist's language; what intrigues and arouses is its element of reluctant confession, almost unwilling intimacy. The scintillating thing about Cortazar's shadow is that it resists. These sites seem to have missed all the points of rule breaking and restraint, not to mention their more arcane omissions. I envision new websites: Cannibalism for Couples! True Tantric Transgressions! Unleash Your Bowels! Join the Movement! Meanwhile, my own body breaks all the rules. Today again it surges and swells, as if for a moment it remembers youth, then suddenly relents and propels me back into mid life. Sex. Death. I recall the clock beginning-the first menses, at twelve or thirteen, marking that wondrous, terrible entry into time. For the nexE forty years, your body ruled by moons and cycles, tides that rise and fall. And now this reversal back into timelessness-a less than graceful exit, I confess. The phase of change is always chaotic, unpredictable, defiant, shattering everything we think we know, everything on which we base our lives. I stare at the pneumatic breasts and caricature cocks on the screen. Small wonder the Tantrics wanted to escape this carnival. But were they right? That the only way out is through? WE HAVE A CALENDAR on our wall whose squares, orderly as a chessboard, fill up each month with a scrawl.of notes and symbols. Ultrasound on the seventh. Pick up tax forms on the tenth. Fourteenth ovulate. Twentythird arrive Madrid. Life lopes on. Jim and I have planned a trip to Spain in May. Much like hitting the slopes for the weekend, it's a rest for h~m, a break. Mortar between the tiles of work. For me, right now, I'm hoping it's a way to corral my wayward thoughts. 174
FUGUE#29