Trust,
love and TANTRAWe invited our former columnist Cate Jacobs back for this story of transcendent sex and seroconversion...
It was a cold grey day in October when I took his hand, stood him beneath a towering fir tree and uttered those immortal words - "Trust me."
I reached above his head for one of the boughs hung with raindrops and shook the branch. A million tiny crystal droplets cascaded down upon him. Behind him, in a split second shock, the sky seemed to crack open and a stream of sunlight illuminated us.
Innocence and surprise flickered across his face. Looking deeply into his eyes, laughing, I began to tumble like Alice down the rabbit hole, falling, falling endlessly in love. His arms reached out and caught me in the moment. Scooping my head in his hands he tilted my face towards his and kissed me. I floated away on the edge of his lips into the depth of beyond, carried on the swirl of energy that flowed through the two of us, connecting us as one before releasing us as two. We walked hand in hand into the rest of our togetherness.
We loved each other at first tentatively, then tenderly and - finally - Tantrically.
I have always believed in the possibilities of love and soul connection. We are able to experience so much more in lovemaking than we are often prepared to lend time and practice to. We're so focused on fucking we can so easily forget the sacred elements of joining together with another.
But in this case, strangely, as one of the gifts of his fear and our differing HIV status, we began to explore our physical loving slowly. Sometimes we would spend the whole night just kissing, passionately, softly, at times almost imperceptibly brushing one another's lips. Totally present in the timelessness of the moment between us. Every tiny sensation and feeling heightened by the ache to consummate further.
He would touch my skin and every cell of my being rose to meet him. Even now if I close my eyes and breathe into the long-passed memory, I can still re-experience the sensation of his skin on mine. It's imprinted on my soul.
Finally, from that place of such connection, we made love. And for the first time in my life it really did feel like love was what we made.
Tantric
sex takes time, a willingness to connect spiritually and energetically. It requires
an open mind. There are moments when you may well feel like a left over hippy
from the 60s (my kids would argue that I am that anyway), but if you serve the
sacredness of your own soul and honour your partner's, I can guarantee you will
have an experience you'll never forget.
It also makes possible meaningful intimacy without having to have penetrative sex - which has all kinds of benefits! Sex can last all day and the orgasm at the end of it is enough to send you into orbit, as the energies of it rush through you. The places that your mind can take you to are truly paradise and way beyond any hallucinogens known to mankind.
But paradise or no, that dreaded moment still happened when, in one of the most loving moments of my life...the condom burst. And HIV passed from him to me. No manner of care, technique or belief could save me from that.
But it made it somehow easier for me to bear without needing to blame or be angry with my partner. It became the saddest accident of my life and eight years on I still struggle to come to terms with the apparent unfairness of it. Yet somewhere in the midst of it all I find a truth in the saying "that which does not kill us only makes us stronger."
"Trust me", I had said. Trust me: HIV/Aids may 'get' me one day but I'm prepared to give it a run for its money. It may claim my body, but while I'm still willing to risk loving and being loved, it will never claim my soul.
