Leo exited the room as Sage hugged her goodbye. A tug on the thread of connection they made strained until it came free, and she wished the timing of their departures had been better.
Anna gave Leo an A for being her gateway into a realm of intimacy she’d forgotten existed. Partnering with him was by far her favorite. She smiled to herself. Yes, it was true that certain firsts were worth remembering, and he had been perfect. No grabby hands or awkward attempts at conversation, and he was big enough to support her without crowding into her space. Plus, he smelled really, really good.
“So?” Elaine asked, looping her arm through Anna’s as they made their way out of the building.
Leo’s jacketed back was twelve feet in front of them. He slipped the strap of a cross-body bag over one distressed leather-clad shoulder, pulled a striped toque over his head, and turned right as he exited the building. Anna and Elaine turned left, bodies pressed together. Street lamps glowed in the chilly evening.
“So, what?” Anna asked.
“So, what did you think?” Elaine nudged her with an elbow.
Anna wound her scarf around her neck one more time and patted Elaine’s hand. “I never would have signed up for something like that on my own, and I’m happy you made me do it.”
“I have served my purpose, Anna Granger. Welcome to the next phase of your life.” Elaine whooped and pumped the air with her free arm. She wasn’t going to let it rest.
Anna groaned. “But this doesn’t mean I’m ready to move on to the next level.”
At the hotel’s spa, the masseuse’s oil-slicked hands continued where Gaia’s voice left off. Anna lay belly up, belly down, and belly up again and practiced what she could recall of Gaia’s basic instructions. She breathed in as fingers palpated sore spots along the back of her neck, thighs, and calves, and she breathed out as long strokes swept down her spine and over her buttocks.
Breathing while being aware of breathing was a novelty. She decided she wanted to get beyond a mechanical understanding of why this was such a good thing and get to the point where breathing and sensing and connecting to herself was closer to second nature.
Maybe she’d become Elaine’s acolyte and do whatever her friend instructed. She knew Anna well enough to know how close to the edge she was willing to go—even if Anna’s inclination was an inch or two less. And while she had originally thought the intimacy part of the workshop was about intimacy with others, she was pretty sure Gaia’s goal was intimacy with oneself.
Outer Anna had been able to get an idea of just how removed she was from Inner Anna, and if she wanted to regain a sense of integration, it would require work. She sighed a little on the inside and yelped when the heels of the masseuse’s hands found a particularly knotted section of muscles in her upper back.
“So?” Elaine asked again later, from their perch on high-backed stools at the spa’s white marble-topped juice bar. The two women were enfolded in thick, white, terrycloth robes and turbans, waiting for the hot oil treatments in their hair to set.
“So, what?” Anna was quietly re-tasting fragile bits of the day’s revelations. She didn’t want to talk. Not yet.
“Did you like your massage?”
“I could get used to this, El,” she admitted.
“You’re not hurting financially, Anna. Why don’t you treat yourself more?”
Too big a question to answer from her blissed-out state. She held up her palm and shook her head. “I’m letting you treat me now so I can get used to it. I’m a hedonist-in-training.” But there was one thing she could share. “Oh, and, I have a date coming up.”
“You have a date coming up?”
“Yes.” Anna sipped at the glass of fresh-squeezed tangerine juice one of the attendants handed her.
At least a minute ticked by before Elaine’s face relaxed from incredulous to surprised. “A real date, an imaginary date, a wishful thinking date? Anyone I know?”
“A boyfriend from college wrote to me on my birthday, and he wants to get together.”
“I’m listening.”
“At first, he wanted to come here, to the island. And now he wants to meet on a beach, in Mexico.”
“And what does Anna want?”
Elaine’s question was beyond loaded, and the turban was giving Anna a headache. She’d just spent hours opening herself up. And now she needed to tie it all back up so she could function. She could get used to being a hedonist-in-training. But getting comfortable with round-the-clock intimacy?
Anna signaled to their aesthetician. “Is it time to take this off yet?”
The young woman unwrapped one side and pronounced the process a success. “Come over to the sink, and I’ll wash you out.”
If only everyone had voices like hers, and Gaia’s, Anna could be persuaded to do anything.
“Your avoidance techniques are getting better.” Elaine lowered herself, all grace and cunning, into the chair by the sink next to Anna’s. “So, let me ask that again. What do you want?”
Anna extended her arm toward her friend. The tears leaking out the corners of her eyes weren’t induced by shampoo.
Elaine stopped pushing. “You can answer that later.”
Sunday morning in Vancouver was reserved for brunch and leisurely window-shopping. Anna used her new clothes to justify popping into a home goods store and purchasing a set of padded hangers and sheets of scented paper to line her lingerie drawer.
Elaine stayed in Vancouver. Anna skimmed through Gaia’s book during the three-hour ferry ride and earmarked a few sections. According to the headlines in the fifth chapter, she should be having regular orgasms. Rereading Daniel’s emails once she got home didn’t give her pre-orgasm tingles, but a quick look at the resort in Cabo San Lucas qualified as foreplay—visually stimulating foreplay. Every page she perused, she imagined herself there. Dining at all the restaurants. Lounging by the pools. Shopping in the
