Her body was like ivory, perfect from the band at her neck to the small rings on her toes, and her breasts billowed full and geometrically round, a long necklace of pearls nestled between them. As Hawksworth stared at her dumbfounded, the drummer commenced a finely metered rhythm timed exactly with his heartbeat.
She moved to Hawksworth's side and slid her left hand beneath his open doublet. "The very first note of a raga can contain everything if it is sounded with prahna. And the first touch between a man and a woman can become the OM, the syllable that carries the totality of creation."
Her hand glided over his body with the gentleness of a feather, and in moments his ambassador's ensemble slipped away like some superfluous ancient skin. He looked at her again, still overwhelmed by her physical perfection, and reached to touch the curve of her breast.
Her hand stopped his in midair.
"Shiva, in his dance, had four hands. But he did not use them for touch. Do you want to feel the touch of my breasts? Then feel them with your body."
She guided him over, across the round bolster, then rose above him.
"Your body is hard and firm, like the stone lingam of Shiva. But your skin still has a hidden softness, like a covering of raw silk."
He felt the hard touch of her nipple as it began to trace the crease of his back. It moved slowly, tantalizingly, trailing just at the skin. Now the musk of her perfume had begun to hover about his head, fogging his mind even more. But the sensation of her touch, and the knowledge it was the breast he wanted exquisitely to hold, attuned his starved senses to everything around him, even the quiet rhythm of her breath.
Suddenly, without warning, she slid the tip of her long red fingernail sharply down the same crease in his back, where his nerves strained for sensation. He felt a delicious burst of pain, and whirled to meet her smiling eyes.
"What . . .?"