Was I aroused? Hell, yes. But Dharma’s allure was something far more than sex, the grace and simplicity of her maneuvers unencumbered by her nakedness, her serene expression exuding an inner peace that had always eluded me … or my past lives, if the Buddhist therapist was to be believed.

Dharma stretched until her muscles shook. Turning to me she spoke, her voice scratchy but strong. “I have questions, but first I must bathe.”

She waded chest-deep into the river, her swaying hips clearly sending a message. As I watched, she massaged the tetrodotoxin gel from her skin before submerging to cleanse the residue from her long ebony hair, her features luminescent in the riverbed’s soft emerald glow.

After just a minute or so she surfaced, her hands smoothing her silky hair back over her forehead. “Join me.”

My heart pounded, the increased blood flow registering in my groin. “Don’t you want to know where we are?”

“Are we safe?”

“For the moment.”

“Then be in the moment and join me.”

I disrobed like a clumsy teen on prom night and took two strides into the river, the cold water (reported by ABE to be 52°F) blasting the air out of my lungs while shriveling my manhood into something more deserving of a diaper. “Gee … zus, it’s like ice! How can you stand it?”

“The meditation of g-Tum-mo frees the mind to control the central nervous system.”

ABE, redistribute my body heat by—

“Wait. Before you use your bio-chip, allow me to guide you.”

By now my teeth were chattering, my body shaking uncontrollably as she waded over and hugged me. The sensation was incredible, her torso exuding the heat of a stoked fireplace on a winter’s night, and I clung to her like an addict.

“Do not just feed off of me, create your own heat. Close your eyes. Now imagine your belly is a furnace, your lungs the bellows that brings the flame. Breathe in slowly and inflate your stomach. Feel your heart move the liquid heat into your extremities.”

With each breath I inhaled, she exhaled; with each exhalation she inhaled. After seven breaths I stopped shaking. After three minutes the feeling returned to my fingers and toes.

When I reopened my eyes, I was fully aroused.

She smiled her approval. “What a good student you are. Tell me, Robert, how long has it been since you have engaged in the art of lovemaking?”

“About twelve million years.”

*   *   *

We exited the river forty-five minutes later, my body tingling more from the wild Kama Sutra ride than from the cold. Dharma allowed me to wrap the blanket around her, then she sat on a rock and watched me dress.