Mirror of My Soul by Joey Hill (book club recommendations .TXT) 📕

coursed down her bare back to her thighs and the smooth curves of her buttocks. The soft lips of her sex were revealed by her pose. She was too thin, but then he thought of her with her teas and the way she savored the simplest bite of food. Ascetic. Marguerite maintained the discipline and simplicity of a monastic.

She was creating a place of stillness and peace for herself, like a person in a bubble of light separated from the darkness of hell only by that thin, transparent layer.

He knew from his own experience how blessed that quiet bubble was. But he’d

learned it was the same as staying still after taking a painful wound. Moving might hurt worse than anything but if you didn’t move and get help you’d bleed to death.

She rose and tilted her head, giving him her profile, though her back was still to him. “Do you ever intend to respect my privacy?”

“It’s not looking like it. Not as long as you keep avoiding me for all the wrong reasons.”

“Maybe you should tell me the right ones.”

He bit back a smile. “What kind of yoga do you practice?”

“Kundalini.”

“Tell me about that instead.”

Her slender shoulders lifted in a sigh. If she were truly annoyed with his presence, he would have left, slipping away as quietly as he’d come, but he saw the loosening of her fingers, the easing of the tension in her back. Understanding dawned, making his heart lurch. It also made him rise, go and stand just behind her.

“They didn’t tell you I was still here. You thought I’d just left without saying anything.”

When she folded her arms up against herself defensively, he slid his around her.

Crossing his limbs over hers, his palms against her shoulders, he held her in a close embrace, his clothed body against her bare one. “Marguerite, I would never do that to you.”

“You shouldn’t matter this much to me. Let alone this soon.”

“I know. Kind of knocked me on my ass, too. Tell me about this kind of yoga. Stop worrying about it.”

Her lips curved and she closed her eyes, shook her head. “It raises the energy coiled at the base of the spine—the serpent power—and draws it up to the crown chakra to connect you to Divinity. There are two forms of energy, Divinity, Shakti and Shiva, 30

Mirror of My Soul

male and female. Kundalini is the synergy of them. Their union brings energy and power, peace.”

“So the bringing together of the male-female helps open you to divine guidance.”

He turned her to face him, threaded his hands through each of hers, palm to palm, holding them up on either side of them, a tranquil mutual breathing pose. “Sounds like a wise strategy.”

“Do you ever give up?”

“Do you want me to?”

She stared up at him. “No,” she said at last. Her cheeks flushed with color. “But it’s not about what I want. It can’t be, because I’m not what you think I am.”

“And what do I think you are?”

“I’m not like Leila, or your others.”

His fingers squeezed her, mild reproof. “I know that, angel. You’re Marguerite Perruquet, an extraordinary Mistress, a Ka-See-Ka who takes her submissives to unparalleled levels of physical ecstasy and emotional fulfillment. You’re also the woman who trembles in my arms, who becomes something entirely different when I dominate you, a woman who craves my touch, my cock. You’re not a submissive in the normal sense. You’re nothing in the normal sense. You’re extraordinary,” he repeated.

“You’re idealizing me.”

“No. I’m telling you that I want you, light or dark, every shade in between. That’s the formulation of trust, unconditional acceptance.” He locked his gaze with hers.

“Remember, I swore it to you. No matter what happens between us, I’ll always be there for you.”

After she gazed up at him for several moments in silence, with thoughts obviously swirling behind those vivid eyes, he noticed a slight change in her expression.

Somewhat more calm, a wary acceptance of his presence.

“Teach me this,” he repeated quietly. “Let me do this with you.”

She closed her eyes again. He pressed his hands against her palms. “Should I

undress?” he asked.

“No.” She opened her eyes in alarm.

“It’s not necessary?”

“No…it’s Chloe and Gen. They might have heart attacks. And good staff is hard to find.”

“How about you? Will you have a heart attack?” Reaching out, he caressed her

throat with his fingers, his eyes laughing.

She recaptured his hand, put the palm firmly up against hers. “Behave. This is spiritual.”

So was touching her throat, he thought. As well as watching the changes that

occurred in her body, her eyes. But he let his hand be retained.

31

Joey W. Hill

“Yoga uses a combination of poses called asanas, breathing techniques and

chanting to reach a certain meditation state where the finite self can merge with the infinite, achieving a higher state of consciousness.”

“Are we going to chant?”

“No.” She appeared amused at his look of male concern. “For me, the breathing and the poses are enough. I like the silence, prefer it. You hold the pose, integrate it with the breathing. As you do so you think about that base power center, the coiled serpent at the bottom of your spine. You imagine the track of the breathing as circular, moving up from the base all the way to the crown chakra and then looping back again. The way of all spirituality is circular, cycles.”

“You use this at The Zone. When you had Brendan breathe with you at the first.”

She acknowledged his insight with a nod. “Part of that was a method called

quantum breathing, which is a way of synchronizing yourself with the energy of the other person, for healing or connection. But there’s some of this in it as well. Through this, I can get to the soul and consciousness of the subs I choose, connect with them more easily. It also helps keep me focused. I don’t always know when I walk in what my intention is with the sub I’ll choose but the ritual of the breathing, the