The Motion and The Act

By Jeanne Rejaunier

Jeanne Rejaunier’s international bestseller The Motion and the Act describes the overlapping lives of four complex California new age seekers. Paul, an ex-clergyman now a practicing psychologist, who teaches attainment of a “second Eden,”superior self-realization as a means to an “ultimate orgasm.” Lee, a beautiful, cosmopolitan woman involved in a successful career, in ecological causes, and in Oriental mysticism, travels the world seeking life’s meaning, and discovers answers back where her journey began. Sean, cynical, neurotic and devastatingly attractive Hollywood writer/director, finds personal and professional success elusive, despite conquest after conquest. And Virginia, an unspoiled, child- woman to whom love means everything, is willing to suffer anything – even humiliation and neglect – in order to keep her lover.

Bestselling author Jeanne Rejaunier, writes explicitly and movingly of how these four characters influence one another, how their passions become inexorably intertwined, of their relentless search for a way out of the problems that imprison them, and how they come to realize – or fail to realize – an integration of body, love and eros. Central to the book is the all-pervasive atmosphere of Southern California – Los Angeles, Hollywood, Malibu – with life-changing journeys to Big Sur, New York City, and Afghanistan. Woven throughout is the characters’ involvement with environmentalism and endangered species, life after death, gourmet food and ethnic cooking, cats, particle physics, opera, reincarnation, circumcision, the Hollywood system, Tantra Yoga, horses and thoroughbred racing, the history of games, Sufism, French poetry, Greek mythology, near death experiences, dreams, nighttime soul travel, and full orgiastic potency.

The Motion and the Act, an explosively candid portrait of men and women in search of sexual satisfaction, is an engrossing, fresh, extraordinary novel about self-realization, love, and the search for “supersexuality.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeanne Rejaunier
• Release date: Mar 27, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476427706

Jeanne Rejaunier

Jeanne Rejaunier graduated from Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, and did postgraduate studies at the Sorbonne, Paris, the Universities of Florence and Pisa, Italy, and the Goetheschule, Rome, as well as at UCLA. While at Vassar, she began a career as a professional model, and subsequently became an actress in Manhattan, Hollywood and Europe, appearing on and off Broadway, in films and television, on magazine covers internationally and as a principal in dozens of national commercials.Rejaunier achieved international success with the publication of her acclaimed first novel, The Beauty Trap, which sold over one million copies and became Simon & Schuster’s fourth best seller of the year, the film rights to which were purchased outright by Avco-Embassy. Rejaunier has publicized her books in national and international tours on three continents in five languages. Her writing has been extolled in feature stories in LIFE, Playboy, Mademoiselle, Seventeen, National Geographic, BusinessWeek, Fashion Weekly, Women’s Wear, W, McCalls, American Homemaker, Parade, Let’s Live, Marie-Claire, Epoca, Tempo, Sogno, Cine-Tipo, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and countless other publications. In addition to The Beauty Trap, Rejaunier also published six other novels: Spies 'R Us, The Motion and the Act, Affair in Rome, Mob Sisters, Odalisque at the Spa, and Everybody's Husband; and nonfiction memoirs My Sundays with Henry Miller and Hollywood Sauna Confidential. Rejaunier's Planes of Heaven spiritual series include seven titles: Planes of the Heavenworld, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Heaven but Didn't Know Where to Ask, The Kingdom of Heaven and 4th Dimensional Consciousness, The Afterlife in the Here and Now, Living in Eternity Now, The Eightfold Path and the 8th Plane of Heaven, and Here and Hereafter, Forever After. She is also the author of Astrology For Lovers, Modeling From the Ground Up, the Fifty Best Careers in Modeling, Titans of the Muses, The Paris Diet, Runway to Success, The Video Jungle, Astrology and Your Sex Life, Japan’s Hidden Face, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Food Allergy, and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Migraines and Other Headaches.As a filmmaker, Rejaunier directed, produced, filmed and edited the 4 hour documentary, The Spirit of ’56: Meetings with Remarkable Women. Some 200 of her videos are now posted on YouTube:at http://www.youtube.com/my_videos?feature=mhw4; additional writing is available on her blog, www.jarcollect.blogspot.com).

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The Motion and the Act

Jeanne Rejaunier

Published by Jeanne Rejaunier at Smashwords

Copyright 1972 and 2012 Jeanne Rejaunier

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Between the Idea and the Reality/Between the Motion and the Act/ Falls the Shadow.

- T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men

Chapter 1

From purely surface appearances, Sean O’Laughlin, who lay on Dr. Paul Carson Maddox’s couch, was a man who had everything: he was tall, bright, good looking, talented, and presented outwardly confident. Only his therapist knows for sure, Paul reflected, as he lit his briarwood pipe and inquired, How have you been? How was your week?

The best thing about it is a got a TV directing assignment. Two segments. I can use the cash.

Paul detected uneasiness in Sean today. And how’s your romance coming? he asked.

Presently still up, but –

But what?

Well, you know. I told you before. Virginia is lovely, but all loves are doomed. Besides, all women want marriage, and –

Why are you so bitterly opposed to marriage?

Marriage is obsolete. There was an edge of impatience to Sean’s tone. It’s going out of style. Actually, it’s never been a healthy institution. As far back as the eighteenth century, Samuel Johnson had some interesting things to say on the subject, and I think –

Sean, are you aware how often you tell me what you think intellectually, and how seldom you express how you feel?

This statement is an accurate description of my feelings. Sean’s retort held irritation. My feelings all point to not wanting to be possessed or pinned down.

Paul wondered why he had, over the months, identified most strongly with Sean O’Laughlin than with any other patient. At thirty-nine, Sean was only a few years younger than he. Tall and well-built, his black hair was shot with premature gray streaks. He was handsome in a ruggedly masculine way, with a nose that was just slightly irregular, enough to add character to a face that with its large deep-set mahogany colored eyes might otherwise have been too good-looking, too pretty.

As I said, Sean went on, everything is still up. It's just that I feel as though I'm heading for a change of mind.

What gives you that idea?

It's always like that. For the first few weeks you're flying, then there's a few months of hanging in where the steady companionship and sexual outlet are convenient, but then comes the dissatisfaction and you can't stay with it. I'm afraid, despite my present good feelings in this relationship, that this will have to happen. Actually Barrie Marlowe was the only woman I stayed with a fairly long time.

What do you attribute that to?

Barrie kept me on a treadmill. I'd be ready to break off with her when she'd beat me to it, and then I'd spend the rest of the evening trying to convince her not to. Sean glanced away, as though trying to avoid facing something. Anyway, my work is very much on my mind now. I've been trying to get my play rewritten before I take off for New York, but I can't get as much done as before I met Virginia—nearly a month now.

What is it you're afraid of with her, Sean?

Afraid? Virginia doesn't frighten me. She's harmless. I guess I haven't explained right. I love her, I love her for now, it's just that I sense an inevitable destruction—

Only if you allow it to happen. You can work at keeping it together if you want to.

Sean's eyes looked distant as he pursed his mouth thoughtfully, frowned and then reached for a cigarette. Paul prodded, Didn't you tell me you never spend the night with a woman?

That's right.

Why is that?

I have to get up early in the morning and work. I'm an artist.

Are you sure you're not using this as a cop-out?

Against what?

Fear of closeness and emotional warmth.

Impossible.

Do you realize, Sean, that you always either don't look me in the eye at all, or else have to make a conscious effort to do so?

No.

What do you feel now?

Nothing in particular.

How about your chest? Do you sense anything in your chest?

I—I have a problem in my chest, I told you that. I told you— Sean was floundering. My chest is rigid because of the whole trauma of my childhood. So there's a problem there, and—

With a woman, have you ever felt a swelling in your chest, a feeling of reaching out?

Sean almost looked as if he were going to cry as he noticeably sucked in air and composed himself. Sometimes with Virginia I almost start to feel something there, almost an emotion of love—I can feel it coming, almost happening, but then I cut it off, I reject it—

Why?

Sean knotted his hands. I think it's better not to get into this whole area, because straight sex is easier. Like some of the best screws I've had have been with whores. There's a keener element of control I find exciting. If you don't have that you're in trouble, because there's the danger that a woman could get your balls. Besides, with most women something just doesn't quite come into focus. I can't explain it. It isn't only Virginia;. I feel this regarding all women, eventually. Anything more than a one-night stand.

When you're aroused, when you're in bed, what are your feelings?

When I'm aroused I feel it in my prick, Sean said impatiently, where I'm supposed to feel it.

Go on.

Sean was silent a moment gathering his thoughts. My prick feels like it wants to break through, to pierce, he continued. And I have the feeling I must at all costs assert myself. Take Virginia, for instance. Sometimes I get the feeling she's trying to assert or impose her sexual style and prejudices and it angers me.

How do you react?

I hold back. I don't want to be forced anywhere. I want screwing on my terms. A woman should follow a man's lead. That's why whores make such great lays. Sean's cigarette had burned to a stub and he crushed it out. I consider a woman to be lucky to get what I give sexually. It would be hard to find many men who have what I have to offer.

Really? What are you offering?

I have a great deal of prowess. I'm a highly sexual man. So sexual in fact that I even wake with a cold erection.

Do you know what that means?

Sure. That I'm an extremely sexual man.

No. It means a separation of feelings from your penis, a detachment, a split. It's genital feelings disassociated from the feelings of the rest of your body.

Sean glared. He glanced at his watch.

What are you feeling now? Paul asked.

Sean shrugged. Nothing much. Sort of average, I guess.

This says very little.

All right, Sean said, flaring. I feel challenged, how's that? Challenged because as far as I can see, I shouldn't have to be feeling anything. I live a great deal in my head, because I'm an artist and full of creative ideas. I can't see why you're always trying to make me uptight, as though I'm supposed to be dwelling in another area altogether.

"You aren't supposed to do anything."

Dr. Maddox, Sean leaned forward, and Paul could see he was preparing to launch into something he'd been waiting the whole session to say. I won't be able to come in for therapy for some time.

Oh? You're quitting?

For a while anyway. As I told you, I have these directing assignments. Then I've planned to drive up the coast with Virginia for a few days, and following that I'm going east for the holidays. I'm really not so convinced I need therapy right now anyway, besides which, there's the money situation. I'm going to have to watch it.

Are you sure the reason you're quitting isn't that we've started to hit too close to home?

Nothing's come up I couldn't face.

What about just now?

What about it?

How did you feel when I just spoke of the detachment of genital feeling from feelings of the rest of the body?

Sean laughed. Look, Dr. Maddox, if there's one area I'm fully confident in it's sex, so you're barking up the wrong tree. He shook his head. The fact is, I've tried every conceivable kind of therapy over a period of fifteen years. Nothing has ever really gotten through to me. I came to you thinking your approach might work. I was familiar with your therapy even before your book came out. A lot of your ideas may sound far out, but being an artist I can accept them. I admired your concepts, and if the things you claimed could be practically applied in life my hat would be off to you and I'd be a whole other person myself. However, I just feel my initial inspiration has gone dead. I feel arid now, as though I'm getting nowhere—

The reason you're getting nowhere is you refuse to face your feelings, you skirt them every time, you verbalize, you intellectualize, you run away.

Be that as it may, I need to save the money. I can't afford it any more.

As you wish.

Thank you, Dr. Maddox. Sean looked at his watch again. I guess it's time to quit now.

No. We still have a few minutes.

Oh. Sean glanced down. The silence was heavy. Paul could see Sean struggling against a strong emotion threatening to overtake him, and that he was desperately trying to think of something to say to combat the awkward moment. He took a deep breath and sighed audibly. Then he grinned distortedly.

Yes?

N—nothing. He glanced away. Isn't it time yet?

Almost.

He clenched his fists, looked up and smiled. I guess my watch is different than yours.

I guess so. Again the silence. Finally Paul said, It's time.

Sean rose, looking immensely relieved, shook Paul's hand, thanked him again and left.

I wish I could have gotten through to him, Paul thought.

Paul had just dismissed a patient and was tapping his Dunhill in the ashtray when the phone rang.

Paul? It's Roncie.

Roncie? He didn't know a Roncie.

Roncie Laven, we met at a couple of affairs— The voice sounded casual, yet intimate and husky. You don't remember—

Well, I—

I read your book and loved it. I've seen you on TV. I tried to get you sooner, but you're a hard man to reach.

I've been out of town a good deal over the past few months.

Are you aware you're all over the wire services? Listen to this: 'Maddox Teaches How to Achieve Authentic Orgasm.' Isn't that wild? 'Former Episcopal clergyman Dr. Paul Carson Maddox, author of the popular new nonfiction book Life of the Spirit, is back at his foundation in Santa Monica, fresh from nationwide publicity appearances. Maddox, prime mover of the Paul Carson Maddox Foundation, is the overseer of a special kind of therapy that emphasizes the religious components in sex and vice versa. Maddox staunchly maintains there is a difference between genuine orgasm coming from total union and the simulated mechanical one. At his headquarters in Santa Monica, Maddox, now a licensed psychologist, teaches his patients how to have those genuine 100 percent authentic orgasms!

Paul frowned. Trust the press to seize upon the sensational.

I'd like to get familiar with your Foundation. And I don't know whether you're aware of it or not, but I paint.

No, I didn't know that.

I think you and I could be mutually useful to one another. I'd like to have you look over my paintings with the idea that they could hang at the Foundation, and I've got to learn about those authentic orgasms. If I've been doing something wrong all these years then I want to know how to do it right. I need you to straighten me out.

Straighten you out? You mean you intended coming in for therapy?

Of course, Pauli.

Pauli! Why did she call him that? Pauli was his son's name. Hearing himself called Pauli bothered him.

Look, er—it's inconvenient to talk now. Let me take your number and call you back.

He hung up. Being called Pauli had jarred him, changed his whole inner balance. Pauli. His only child. Ah, Pauli—if only there were something I could do for you to change it all. It was quieter now. Paul gave a final tap to his pipe, crossed to the center of the room where the sun was receding from the carpet, opened the door and did not look back.

Shaving, Sean admired himself in the mirror, taking no notice of the area in which he stood, or that around his naked feet and on the walls above the mirror an army of ants was crawling. It was his habit to overlook his environment. Where one lived was unimportant; that one lived was what mattered.

He would have to remember that sentence, make a note of it. Perhaps he could use it as a line of dialogue in the third-act curtain scene of The Thin Hard Line. It would do quite well for Robert, the young pacifist-idealist-conscientious objector, to speak that line.

He interrupted his shaving to walk to the kitchen and help himself to a generous supply of vitamin pills and a glass of Tropicana. He left the glass unwashed on the stained porcelain drain board, above which was a child's crayon drawing of a man labeled Daddy that his daughter Alison had sketched and tacked up on her last visit over the summer. It wouldn't be long now and he'd be seeing Alison again. That reminded him that before leaving for the holidays, he had all his Christmas shopping to do. For a moment he dwelled on what to buy whom, until his Christmas list faded and Virginia came to mind, and he was filled with a warm glow.

She had honey-streaked hair and on her flawless skin wore almost no makeup. He usually went for tall, dark, lean women, while Virginia was rounded and not overly tall; but there was something in her manner he was taken with, something appealing about her, a certain honesty and forthrightness. She had nothing of the Hollywood broad about her, you could see there was something real, something original in her, and at the same time you could detect a loneliness, a sweet kind of sadness. Virginia had an open face, as though she had nothing to hide, in direct contrast to most of the girls in town (Noreen for instance, who was full of artifice and deceit, was not at all what she seemed initially). Virginia was the sort of woman he'd like to have on his arm jetting to London for the premieres of his plays. She'd be just right somehow, at West End parties.

He remembered the first time they met, how he'd discovered the depth and sparkle in her eyes. It was as if those eyes had told him everything, as if he had known her before. This morning he felt especially romantic. Romance was the artist's salvation, his muse, the gift to his creative fount. He was grateful that it was still new and exciting with Virginia.

He was about to settle down to a morning of writing when the phone rang. He decided to answer and was immediately sorry. It was Noreen.

Sean—please. I want to see you.

You know I don't appreciate being interrupted while I'm working.

I called you last night and earlier this morning. You didn't answer so I kept trying. I just have to talk to you, Sean.

Noreen, I'm going to have to be very blunt—

Where were you? Shacked up with some bitch?

Now, listen. You'll have to understand, I think it's best we don't see each other any more.

But I'll die, I'll die without you! She began screaming at the other end. I can't stand living this way. I can't. Life isn't worth living without you. I love you. I need you—darling, darling, please, I need you, please, please, Sean. She was sobbing.

He hung up on her. When the phone rang a few minutes later he didn't answer it. Nothing, Sean reflected, was as dead as a dead love affair.

The sounds of a Joni Mitchell recording echoed from her stereo. Virginia King picked up her cat, Jennyanydots, sniffed her clean, tweedy odor and felt her tongue, like sandpaper, licking the tips of her fingers.

Her domain, three rooms. Three years Virginia had lived here now, amid the paper flowers and fake fruit, the plants, the shadowbox containing ceramic animals, the wrought-iron furniture, the Mexican shawl rug in the living room, her rock collection, the glass pieces picked up from excursions at the beach, and the now nearly empty bookshelves. Most of her books were packed, sitting in boxes in the cellar, waiting to be shipped to New York, where Virginia had been planning to move just prior to meeting Sean. Had she made the right decision in staying in Los Angeles?

It was comforting, Virginia reflected, to now have a boyfriend who took her to dinner every night, after four years of afternoon rendezvous with Jay, who was tied down to a marriage. If only sex with Sean could be as successful as it had been with Jay. There seemed to be so many obstacles. If only they could really get it together.

She stared out the window, where, of a smogless evening, everything was clearly outlined. A patch of indigo night-sky peeked through the banana tree. Elongated shadows reflected the dipping leaves on the adjacent white stucco wall. From above, behind the bamboo-enclosed terrace, came the voices of a gay Mexican couple babbling in excited tones. Hernando, their diffident parrot, was chained by his feet to a perch on the little balcony, hobbling back and forth within his few inches of space.

Any moment now Sean would be arriving. Oh, God, please, let things happen right, Virginia prayed. I want everything to happen. A home! A family! Love! A baby! A life! Oh please, God, let it all work out!

They were driving back from dinner with Sean's Malibu friends, Frank and Molly Buccellati (the only happily married couple I know). Sean's Mustang was littered with tennis equipment, magazines, Coke cans, and assorted garbage. The first time Virginia had to climb over the litter, he said he had just come from a camping trip with his daughter, but after nearly a month he had yet to clean up the mess.

Darling, I forgot to tell you, Virginia leaned her head on his shoulder, the Newtons have invited us to dinner Friday night.

Oh, really?

Do you not want to go?

Of course, darling. I think your friends are very nice. I don't think they have much of a sex life together, though.

Why do you say that?

I'm pretty perceptive in sexual matters.

What do you think's the problem?

Her. She doesn't come.

How would you know that?

You can always tell about a woman. At least I can always tell. Probably it's the whole marriage thing that's to blame in their case. Marriage is constricting.

I disagree. I think when people really care, there's nothing more beautiful and affirming than—

There's absolutely no rational basis for marriage. Fortunately it's a dying institution. Furthermore, fidelity is a false concept. People outgrow each other, they pass onto others.

But what about children? Look, you have a daughter, and—

Yes, Alison is the one good thing that resulted from that ill-advised, foul coupling. She's beautiful. You should see my daughter's eyes. They're huge and full of depth and intelligence. And her hair—so long and silky, the most beautiful hair I've ever seen on a child. My daughter is so utterly beautiful it's frightening. She's the joy of my life.

Virginia felt a pang in her chest. Well, you said the Buccellatis have a good marriage.

Did I? I don't know about that, but one thing I will say for Frank and Molly, Sean neatly changed the subject, is they've been wonderful friends to me. Especially Frank. I can really count on Frank, and that's a good feeling, knowing you can count on someone.

You can count on me. He made no comment. She stole a look at him as they pulled up in front of her apartment building. We always come here. I've still never seen where you live, she said. Are you ever going to take me there?

I'm not sure you'd like my place.

They were walking to her door. Virginia persisted. And your work. You said I could read something.

"Plays are meant to be read aloud. Maybe when I finish The Thin Hard Line I'll read it to you over at my pad."

That's the controversial one about the U.S. Army?

Right. The shit will really hit the fan when that one gets on the boards. I've got two others I'm doing revisions on.

Minutes later they were on her bed in the dark. Virginia nestled in his arms and felt his rib poking her.

Sorry, Sean apologized. That's my weird rib cage. There was a deep ridge going down the middle of his concave chest, from which his ribs protruded inordinately far at the bottom.

Why's it so weird?

Oh, it's a long story. To make it brief, when I was eight, my parents thought they couldn't have any more children, so they adopted a boy named Robert. I raised hell over it. I beat the kid up, made his life miserable, and they ended up sending him back to the orphanage. Next year they adopted another boy, Frederick, with the same results. Guilt got the better of me, and caused this minor deformity. He poked his rib cage. I found out in therapy I considered myself to be the psychic murderer of my two stepbrothers.

His sigh was audible. Virginia reached toward him, feeling pain for his pain, wanting to reassure him. And then at length he was inside her. Let tonight be different, she prayed. The chemistry between them was so dynamic, it was almost incredible that in the three weeks they'd been going together she had yet to be satisfied—and she had never been a difficult woman to gratify, that was the irony. Now they almost seemed to merge in a brief split second and then Sean's thrusting took on a frantic quality. Almost. Always almost. What was it about Sean, that every time she knew herself to be approaching a climax, that it would happen in only a few seconds if they continued in the same exact rhythm and friction, he moved away from her, emotionally, physically, psychically, spiritually?

I love you, he said, smoking a cigarette in bed afterward. Sex is very important. If you have that together it's a great indicator of everything else. Other things can grow out of it.

What other things? Virginia held her breath, almost not daring to hope.

All kinds of things. He tightened his hold on her. "By the way, darling, Alison's asked me for a picture of myself for Christmas, so I'm going to have to have one taken. Would you like

a copy?"

I'd love one.

He squeezed her arm. You know, you're the best thing that's happened to me in years. Or probably ever. This is the first good relationship I've had with a woman.

Why do you think that is?

You don't seem to have any of the normal female hang-ups.

Such as?

Competitiveness, castrating, trying to play the man's role, gimme-gimme—

She mustn't tell him he didn't satisfy her. If she kept playing her cards right, maybe things could work her way. Virginia, hand behind her back, kept her fingers crossed.

What caught Paul's eye driving home were the young girls with their tawny straight hair, dressed in appliquéd blue jeans and chunky-heeled shoes. They were lithe and free, those long-legged California beauties, not uptight the way his generation had been. No matter if it was the beginning of December, most of the girls wore no coats or jackets, and he could see most of them didn't wear bras either. The sight caused him a pang of longing, as there came the realization that his own youth had long since vanished. Paul glanced in the rear-view mirror, noting the strain in his eyes, the sallowness of his skin.

Suddenly Sean O'Laughlin came to mind and Paul was aware of the gnawing feeling of having failed there. At the same time he was somehow envious of Sean. But why should he feel that way? He was in far better shape psychologically than Sean, and look where he was: an eligible widower; a celebrity with a considerable private income, plus holdings, investments and substantial royalties this year from his book sales; as well as being a successful practicing therapist. He had made a name across the country. Why then did this dissatisfaction with himself so often occur?

Perhaps it had something to do with the way he had been feeling about his books: Life of the Spirit, despite a healthy sale, had still not skyrocketed the way he had hoped, and as for the next book, would he ever be able to get it committed to paper? To date it had been like pulling teeth.

Paul sighed. Some five miles past Trancas now, he steered his beige Mercedes 250S onto a private road. Through big puffy eucalyptus and pepper trees the Pacific was visible, its soft lull reaching his ears. Behind the greenery of silk and acacia trees stood The Maddox Retreat, rough-hewn, of redwood, glass and concrete, its pivotal Frank Lloyd Wright facade of flowing arches giving the appearance of being poised on the crest of a wave ready to cascade to shore.

In the darkening December light, over the swell of the surf, Paul heard the plaintive wails of his cat, Judas, whose iridescent malachite eyes now appeared at the rear of the garage. It was a greeting and a nightly ritual request for a supper of beef hearts. Entering the house, Paul paused in the living room to turn on a recording of Tannhäuser, and then proceeded to the kitchen to appease the cat. "Dich, theure halle, grüss ich wieder, " sang Elisabeth in the Hall of Minstrels in the Wartburg. He briefly joined in her aria walking from the kitchen to his study, to look over the mail Mrs. Tipton, his three-times-a-week housekeeper, had left on the desk. So much remained to be done—correspondence, more TV promotion, hopefully. And work on the sequel to Life of the Spirit. If only he would be able to tackle the job soon.

He couldn't help worrying how Life of the Spirit was holding up saleswise, after four months on the market now. Fortunately, over the weekend he would be seeing his editor, Chuck Andrewski, visiting from New York. He was eagerly looking forward to discussing things with Chuck, at the same time hoping for encouragement and reassurance regarding his ability to do the next book.

Paul decided to set about making supper. Mrs. Tipton had left him a tuna casserole; he sliced up some fresh tomatoes, poured himself a glass of white wine and sat down at the kitchen table facing the water. It was totally dark out now; the days were growing increasingly shorter.

Tannhäuser cried, "Heilige Elisabeth, bitte für mich," the chorus told of his salvation, the strains of the opera died out and Callas singing Norma resounded in their stead. Paul's mind now reached back to his childhood when he had first acquired a taste for opera, and to the mother who had taken him to his first opera as his introduction to music and had encouraged him to study the harp.

Lately he had felt as though his entire body were being pricked with electrical needles, as though he were being charged; there was the intensity of flashes of his life going by at a clip, scattered scenes of long ago, all links to his present existence, to the continuity of his life—there were mental recalls of his mother's opera libretti in trunks in the cellar in the old home in Garden City, Long Island, and of his own bedroom with stars on the ceiling. He used to gaze up at those stars when he was five and have fantastic flights of fancy. He remembered the Grimm's Fairy Tales his nanny used to read him, the raptures he felt over The Arabian Nights, the nightingale intoxicated with the rose and genii coming out of bottles; he remembered the Persian rug in the old dining room, the harp he faithfully practiced. . . . All of it paraded before his vision, a part of today, as if it were trying to convey a message to him, as if all those years had been leading him to now, to a cohesive truth, an epiphany that he was close to touching.

Then there came a picture in his mind's eye of his late wife, Louise, dead nearly four years, and suddenly Paul was aware that his emotions were raw and dangerously near the surface. How was it that all this had the power to affect him still, when in truth he and Louise had not had that close a marriage? Despite himself, the tears came, silently, unbidden, and Paul brushed them away.

Paul moved into his study once more. His harp stood in a corner, above which was a scene from Bosch's Garden of Delights, a human figure crucified on the strings of a harp. He took his seat at the instrument and began playing. The piece was one of his favorites, Fauré's "Une Chatelaine en sa Tour," based on a poem of Verlaine, and as he became deeply absorbed and the music evoked a swelling presence, he was drawn ever closer to the awareness of planes beyond the earth. His eyes went to the Bosch figure, the human crucified on the harp strings seeming symbolic of man crucified every day of his earthly existence, yet given hope, the bridge between heaven and earth. And now as Paul felt himself reaching out, wanting to unite with the Presence, he was flooded with a feeling of longing.

Each night as he prepared for bed it was with anticipation: what new cognition, what emotional connections would come to him in his sleep? His whole being was caught up with the process of night traveling, known to Egyptian, Persian, Indian and Orphic esotericists, now made more universally popular by his book. When the human consciousness is focused on the inner planes in sleep, the liberated soul communes with its own nature, partaking of the invisible world, visiting temples and halls of learning in the heavenly world: for in my father's house are many mansions. In the state of passing from sleep to wakefulness, the ancients taught, there lies a precise moment at the threshold in which can be felt the greatest link to life beyond the physical. It is at these instants that an attuned soul is most deeply impressed returning from its night travels.

Paul woke in this state at dawn, and reaching for a pad and pencil by his bedside, wrote:

"High above me was a huge dome, beaming in light energy sparkling like diamonds. All around the air was vibrating with this energy, which then was transformed into aereated pale blue.

The walls of the temple were magnetic; walking close to them, even without touching them, their energy is absorbed into you. The great hall of this temple is very tall, resembling a diamond cathedral; stalagmites and stalactites of beautiful designs shimmer everywhere and their surfaces reflect beautiful colors. After this, I approached an incline below which was a pool composed entirely of human tears. One cries into this pool tears for a person or experience not properly appreciated or understood in one's past. After having been cried, the tears lose their colorless state and are transformed into shining jewel like colors of turquoise, sapphire, blue and lavender.

Yes, he remembered now, he had cried his tears there for Louise.

Sean woke feeling tired and lethargic. He had drunk too much wine the night before with Virginia, he had smoked too many cigarettes, and his back was aching, his head stopped up. In a fleeting irrational thought, he blamed Virginia for his condition. Why was that? He would have to discuss it in therapy today. Therapy? He had quit therapy. Suddenly he was filled with a sensation of emptiness as years of uncertainty seemed to well up in him. Angrily he rejected the intruding thoughts and tore the sheet away. He would have liked to have spent the rest of the morning sleeping, but he had to get to work on his play, finish it in the next two days so there would be time to have it xeroxed to take to New York with him.

Stumbling on his way to the hall, he cursed himself and Virginia both for having stayed up so late the night before. He had a real thing for her sexually, that was the problem. What was it in Virginia that attracted him so? She was neither hippie nor establishment, she was something different, something other than he had ever known. Perhaps it was the writer in him with his insatiable faculty of curiosity, but Virginia intrigued him—he wanted to find the secret that made her what she was for him, to discover the source of her fascination.

He was attracted to her delicacy and fragility, intrigued by her tiny gestures, and he loved her bright smile— heartwarming, as though she were receiving him into her expanded self. There was something irresistibly feminine about her, something soft and lovely that he found adorable. The way she hung onto every word, so completely enthralled every minute he was speaking was flattering as hell. And he liked the way she accepted his words as final. It made him feel masterful that she never challenged him. Virginia sometimes seemed to him like a poor little lost soul. He sensed she'd been lonely prior to meeting him. Many of the friends she'd made throughout life were scattered and dispersed. She somehow seemed a woman in an alien land, dispossessed—he found himself thinking of her as a gypsy, romantic and sad. Her little life seemed occupied with its main daily event of eating lunch in health-food stores (I hate to cook for myself, even a sandwich), going shopping but seldom buying anything because she had little money. Often days when she wasn't working she mostly drove around the city visiting Ohrbach's or the Akron, and that night she'd tell him, I bought a pencil case at White Front today. He found that touching yet vaguely irritating at the same time. Perhaps it was her beauty, after all, which was the secret of her fascination.

The phone rang and his business manager was at the other end. Just phoning to tell you your account's getting very low. Sean, it won't be worth our while to keep you on unless your balance increases. Right now—

"Haven't you received the checks from 'Roger Lowe, M.D.' yet?"

No. You said they were forthcoming, but nothing's come into the office on your account since the summer.

Sean was glad it was a phone connection so Len couldn't see his embarrassment. But he wasn't going to allow this phony Beverly Hills S.O.B. get to him. He would retain the upper hand. He was the employer, Len was just a guy who worked for him, and goddamn it, he had no right to keep forgetting it, to play his games and keep trying to take over.

You'll definitely be receiving a few thousand in the next several days. I suppose with Christmas the payroll office has been overworked. You'll also be receiving some residuals soon, so really, I can't see what the problem is, Len. Everything's cool.

I hope so, Sean, I hope so for your sake. I told you it was a mistake to buy that stock on the franchise deal.

Are you kidding? I'm very grateful to Dick Conroy for giving me that tip. You know, Dick bought several thousand shares himself.

Yeah, but Dick Conroy's in a different income bracket than you, Sean.

Sean flinched.

If they call for those options you'll really be in trouble. Sean was annoyed when he hung up the phone and walked