The Hill

The guy to my left grunted a stifled cry in pain. He was asked to get up and walk back to his seat. I felt the presence of someone behind me. Fingers were lifting up my toes. I felt something sticky slipping over my toes and across my foot. It kept getting stuck. The person behind me was pulling on it until it was across the middle of my foot. It was a rubber band. I knew that he was going to snap the rubberband onto my soles. I focused on my breath coming in and out. A thumb and index finger caressed over my soles to grab the rubber band. I knew that it was coming. It would be sharp. I wanted to hold my breath to braise myself. The anticipation was difficult, but I focused on letting the breath inflow be natural - in and out. The fingers pulled the band away further and further. I felt the tension of the band on the top side of my foot trying to pull hard. The top of the rubberband started cutting. I knew that it would be a sharp snap. I could feel my heart beating faster. The fingers released. I felt a sharp, sudden sting. I focused on the warmth of it. I focused on the in-and-out nature of it how the sting became super sharp, mellowed and sharpened again. The intense sensation brought a certain aliveness. During my stressed work, I was always so rushed that I couldn't feel anything anymore. I finally felt something. I could feel like my body was awakening. The intensity passed to the point where I knew that I'd be out of the danger zone of reacting.

I heard two taps of a staff on the floor from the direction of the head of the monastery. I didn't know what that meant. Tests were supposed to be singular. I had passed the test. I wanted to protest that this was against the rule. I wanted to cry out that I had done everything right. But I knew with all the people in the room paying attention to me that I had to obey. I had to obey! I felt thick rubberbands for pickling jars pulled onto my feet. These weren't ceremonial tests. These would hurt really painfully! I panicked. I remembered to slow down my breathing. Maybe, they simply wanted to see if I flinched, but they would never cause such pain. Let the natural impulse of the breath keep flowing.

I felt those clumsy fingers caressing my bare soles again to get a grip on the rubber bands. I thought I detected an extra clumsiness like an uncertainty. They tensioned. I was sure that they wouldn't do it. The tormentor stopped. He seemed to get a signal to keep going. My feet were getting pulled off the ground because there was so much force being loaded in. I felt startled and out of my mind, yet also completely frozen in my pose to not draw any attention or fall out of line.

Lightning shot in front of my eyes. The visual came a split second before the pain. My breath hissed a little bit faster out, but I caught it quickly. I squeezed my pussy really hard - a trick that I had learned to re-direct pain from long sitting in meditation settings. The more the pain welled up - and it wasn't simply a quick snap, but the pain kept spreading along my soles like a fire - the more the pain welled up, the harder I squeezed my pussy. I directed all the sensation of pain into my pussy where I crushed it. And there was the odd thing of how my pussy muscle was starting to fatigue, but the pain kept fueling the contraction to be harder. And the flood of pain kept swelling and growing. I kept clinching my pussy hard to concentrate all the pain there. I knew from experience that it made my pussy cream - not like the slick runny stuff from sex, but a thick, creamy, sticky mucous discharge. The secrets that we develop in this practice of silence. We are so silent and obedient on the outside, while on the inside, we develop rich inner lives.

It felt like everyone was silently focused on me to wait for the pain to complete ebb. Finally, it did. My tormentor pointed with his stick for me to leave the room and go toward the kitchen. This was a reward. The people who didn't need any more meditation were allowed to serve food. Because the food servers spread their energy to everyone as they imparted the food with their energy, only the most pure ones were allowed to serve food. I had done well. When I got up, I almost messed up. The pain of standing on my feet was so intense that I almost hobbled, but I kept myself together to slowly walk out - a little extra slowly to ease my painful soles onto the ground, whose cooling was such a bliss.

After a five-minute walk through a seemingly abandoned monastery, I reached the kitchen. Hushed voices were whispering "10 cups of flour" and "stir it until it's golden." The practicality of preparing food for so many people required minimal talking. A monk with a chef's head waddled directly toward me, and whispered, "Hey, you! We need to get get a ten-pound bag of flour for the roue. Hurry!"

There was a little staircase attached to the kitchen. The stairs were narrow and cheap like a service pathway usually is. I went down there. The floor was earthen and rough. This felt like an old part of the monastery. The air temperature was chilly cold as the cold air settled down there. It felt cramped. There were a dozen doors to different storage closets and rooms. One was clearly the freezer. I wasn't sure where to look for flour. I opened the first door. The door got almost knocked out of my hand because a monk came quickly out and closed the door.

"Don't go in there," he said sternly.

What I had seen in the half-light of the room had startled me. I thought I had seen a naked woman on her tippy-toes with her head tilted back and a string around her tongue to keep her standing tippy-toed.

"What's with that woman?" I blurted out.

"There is no woman. It's simply bean bags hanging from the ceiling," he answered short and authoritatively. He locked the door with keys.

The ghastly eyes wide open of the panicked woman stuck with me. What was going on? I returned with the flour to the kitchen. Maybe, my eyes had played a trick on me. Another startling thought came to me. A girlfriend had told me over cosmo at a rooftop bar: "What!? You are going to that cult!" I had told her that it was not a cult. It's simply Taoist monk traditions, which happen to be outside of mainstream Western habits.

The continuation of the stay was rather uneventful. Perhaps, everything was simply how startling every entry is. I remembered the first time, I was crying for half a day and screaming. And the most gentle woman would simply tell me that everything was okay over and over. This stay, I ended up doing a lot of chores in the vegetable garden: tomatoes, cucumbers, and bell peppers were starting to grow small, green fruits that would ripen later. I enjoyed watching the ants crawl around and the spiders scurry around when I touched their webbing. In the evening, we walked a circular path of corridors for a walking meditation. Dinner was pasta with garden vegetables. The day was filled with calm and pleasant activity.

At night, I got to sleep in the dormitory - a huge room with four rows of field beds and space around them. Snoring and breathing sounds created a blanket across the room. I would wake up sometimes at night because I heard a monk making the rounds, seemingly looking at every sleeping person. It must have been a health check to make sure that everyone was okay. Some people come here when they are in a really bad place. Suicide watch is probably something that has to be taken seriously to make sure that nobody gets harmed.

I saw Cherry was in the field bed next to mine. I recognized her foot. When I woke up deep in the night because a clumsy first-timer went to the restroom, I looked at her face. She had big cheeks and an angelic expression on her face. There were deep furrows on her forehead, suggesting a dark and hard life before she came here. Her closed eyes appeared to be big. I took a liking to her. I watched her sleeping, how her chest raised and lowered. The human connection felt so good.

Waking up in the morning felt blissful like the sleep had really restored me. I no longer had a guardian. I was allowed to follow the schedule of coming to the morning meditation, serving food, and working in the vegetable garden on my own. Occasionally, when I was really sure that I was alone, I raised my eyes to look around. The most beautiful thing about the monastery was the play of sunrays hitting the big open spaces full of darkness from windows. I'm not a strong convict of their meditation practice and rules. I rather simply like the peaceful place and getting myself into a good state of mind. I don't think much of pausing for a moment and admiring the beauty. I'm not like the devoted people who try to follow every rule to the dot all the time and strive to achieve some kind of - I don't know even what.

When I carried a big bucket of water to the hothouse, a monk tapped me with his stick. I brought the bucket to Cherry and returned to the waiting monk. He seemed in a business kind of mood. He was probably doing some kind of project that he needed my help with. He had a bit of a belly and wore his clothes very square. I thought I saw a hint of vanity in his feet. He seemed to file his calluses off. I nicknamed him Marty.

He walked me into a little room with a table. Laid out on the table were a red string and a braided red string. There was nothing else. I got a foreboding feeling.

"You may not speak," he instructed me. "If you know what those are, simply nod."

I nodded.

"You tried to run away once yesterday. As you are here for the third time, this can't be excused anymore. Put the single-strand band on your right wrist," he instructed me.

"This isn't supposed to happen," I told myself. I only planned on being a week here. I guess the rules have changed now that I'm returning a third time. I can't stop this anymore. I put on the single-strand band around my wrist. I got the hunch that Cherry must have covered for me because I tried to escape twice, not once.

"Very good!" he said. "Next, I will give you a task. If you fail the task, you will get the braided band instead. Nod if you understand."

I nodded. The braided band would keep me here for at least two weeks. That was so much time to earn extra infraction and prolong it even more. I remembered the letters that I had to send to my friends and family. They said that I would be gone for an indeterminate time and to not expect me back soon. I had thought these would be part of the process to make it feel more real and to cover all eventualities. I suddenly realized that I had prevented anybody from looking for me. There was a certain realness to the situation and a stark feeling of the power that the monk held over me. He seemed so plain like a low-level manager, but any of his whims could cause me trouble.

"Well then, let's go to your task," he said and walked ahead of me out of the room. There was another room across the floor. He slid a key in and opened the lock but held the door shut with a display of force like he expected a fight for the door to open.

"There is a new guest in the room, who requires calming," he explained. "She has been trying to escape. If she gets past this door, you get the braided bracelet. If you keep her inside, you keep the single string, which you can atone for later."

I was unprepared and dazed by the events when he opened the door. The first thing I saw was the wide-open eyes of a woman my own age. They were panic-stricken like someone who has a meltdown. I knew that she would dash for the door right away. I myself was terrified of the braided band. I rushed forward into the room with no other plan but to throw my arms around her and hold her back. She sprinted forward. We collided I grabbed onto her torso hard and locked my hands behind her back. Her hands feverishly pushed against my face, my body, and my arms, anything that she could get a hold of. I suffered a crushing wrist to my nose. The gloves came off for me at that point. I dragged her deeper into the room. I pressed my body on top of hers to pin her down. Her feet started kicking against me, trying to get under my groin and belly to have something to push against.

We rolled over. I got a glimpse of the monk's face. It was full of sadism and lust. At that point, I understood that the monks had a kind of impunity when nobody else was around. For a moment, the newcomer and I were deadlogged in an embrace where I was locked tight. She couldn't pry me away and was running ragged. It gave me a moment to think. And I realized the lesson was not only for the newcomer but also to feel my own desperation and how much I was willing to do for a band. It made me think of the Asian woman and how fiercely she might fight.

The woman was breathing hard in my embrace, our breasts heaving against each other. She had brown eyes and still eyeshadow to make them look more dramatic. She must have come earlier in the day. Her black hair was styled with spray to look very spiffy and dynamic. She seemed like she worked in sales. She could have been white, but she also had a bit of a Latina look to her. Her body saw workouts but also had a bit of baby fat to give her a roundness and homely feel.

I couldn't tell her to calm down or explain to her what the days would be like. We were locked in an embrace with our eyes locked into each other, breathing hard. I knew that if I only moved the slightest, she'd try to get away. She knew that I had her in a hard lock. She simply kept breathing and looking into my eyes. In that deep longing gaze with her iris and all the details of their striation and shine right in front of me, we seemed to form a sort of bond of trust. Her breathing started calming down. I started understanding: Being locked in can create an utter sense of panic. And if you get even more restrained, the panic grows. But she was starting to calm down. Her clear thinking seemed to return. She seemed to recall the frame of mind of how going here would help her deal with whatever mental battle she was fighting with.

She tapped me on the shoulder that she was good. Very guardedly, I let go of her lest this be a ruse to suddenly run. The last moment before we parted, she gave me a longing look that seemed to beg me to stay with her only a moment longer to feel my company. I paused for a moment, but the monk tapped me with the staff. I had to walk away. He sent me for the evening meditation.

A strange sense overcame me without any objective evidence. I felt like people reacted differently to me now that I had the red band on my wrist. We were all supposed to look on the ground, but we all try to figure out what was around us. A quick look at someone's wrist is easily stolen. With all the silence, we start to notice pauses and changes of gait. Even the energy of people around us becomes suddenly palpable. I got the sense that I was no longer part of the main group who only stays for a week. Perhaps, I had become a resident.

After the evening meditation, we started leaving the hall. There was a group of monks standing at the exit. They seemed to discuss people's meditation practice with silent signs. I had always felt like they were focused on guiding people to develop meditation skills. They would sometimes give tips, tests, or inform the head of the monastery on what to lecture about. With the red wristband, I seemed to draw extra attention from them. I felt like they were watching me as I approached and was about to move past them. I got a stick touching the front of my shins to stop me. I recognized the huntress. She seemed to be a personal assistant to the head of monastery. I paused and waited for her instructions with my eyes cast down.

She started walking in front of me. She walked me towards the dorms. However, we stopped in front of the showers. I figured that it was time to shower, which was something that we only did every few days in the monastery. The constant washing and beauty applications were a vanity that was no longer necessary. The monks who controlled our schedules would pick groups of us every three days or so to send us to the shower. I didn't think much of it except that I wasn't in a group.

The changing room had a long bench. Everything was made of beautiful wood. I placed my clothes into the hamper. There were shelves with fresh clothes sorted by size. I walked into the shower area where one shower was lined after the next. It had already been dark outside. I turned on the shower and waited for the temperature to adjust to something comfortable. The odd thing was that the Huntress had followed me.

Her staff tapped me on the chin to force me to look down more and remember to look on the ground. She was just out of reach of my vision so that I couldn't see her feet. It was strange that she was in the shower room with me. I stepped under the running water. I let the water run down my head and roll off my hair. I started applying soap. She tapped me with her staff to where I was missing a spot. This was strange. It was like she was supervising that I got really clean.

Perhaps, this was a kind of purification ritual. She placed a bowl of salt on the floor next to me and tapped it. I realized that she wanted me to rub the salt on my skin to exfoliate. There was a strange energy in the room. I felt an intensity of attention, like a group of five people were watching me. The staff kept poking me to keep my chin down. I kept wanting to simply get a quick glance. The staff told me where to rub to get every bit of my body. I thought I heard a bated breath from a man, like a breath that someone couldn't hold in. Still it was so soft that I wasn't sure. She made me turn around and rub the salt over my butt cheeks. I thought I heard soft foot steps over the sound of the water. I felt like half the room was filled behind me, watching me naked. I couldn't look. The staff controlled my gaze so well.

She held me back for a moment when I was done. I felt the attention behind my back disappear like we were alone again. I picked up clean clothing from the shelves and dressed myself. I looked like before. They had lots and lots of the same kind of clothes that they kept laundering.

The odd experience faded into the back of my mind as the usual monastery routine and the beautiful days in the garden with Cherry continued. On this particular day, I woke up to a screech coming from the restroom. Ready to run for help, I jumped out of bed. I could immediately feel what had happened. I felt the pain shooting up to my feet. There were sharp gravel stones on the ground. It was a test. Walking on these required very carefully placing the weight to avoid the pain. Whoever had woken up early to go to the restroom wasn't experienced on walking on these pebbles. I called this day sand day. It usually happened the day before the last. It was a test of sorts that visitors had become mindful enough to walk calmly and transform pain into sensation. Realizing that it was the last day to get rid of the band to be allowed home on time, a sense of panic set in. I wondered what I could do. So I observed carefully.

The Asian woman with the leather bands on her ankles had a peculiar habit. At the end of morning meditation, she wouldn't walk to breakfast like everyone else. She would walk to the front and kiss the head of the monastery's feet - both of them. She'd linger for a while, waiting for a reaction. Then she'd walk off. She'd kneel in front of monks and kiss their feet, always waiting for a response. Usually, she was disappointed, but a couple of times, the monk would walk her away. I got the sense that she was asking for a task, begging for atonement, desperate that this was the only path out for her.

I wanted to find out if my guess was right. I walked to the front as everyone else shuffled outside, careful to avoid eye contact or bumping into each other. I kneeled in front of the head of the monastery. I kissed his right foot. His foot smelled like vanilla lotion. I kissed his other foot. He gave no reaction. I got up and walked away.