Disclaimer: I don't own Psych or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.
Rating: M, M, M, and More M.
Spoilers: Probably none: just a little AU smutty humor. LASSIET
A/N: While Warren Zevon's song "Monkey Wash Donkey Rinse" has nothing to do with Tantric sex (it's about life spiraling inevitability into death if you aren't familiar with it) the mad glee, the hindu-esque theme, and the general flavor of the title (to me) seemed to capture the essential spirit of this piece. So nyaaah.
Monkey Wash Donkey Rinse
"What've you got, McNab?" Lassiter growled.
"Sir, I've - I - I didn't know how to handle - " The big man's face blanched and he got to the point. "Robbery, Sir, inside."
"If the robbery was inside, why are you outside instead of in there taking witness statements and securing the scene?" Lassiter said.
Buzz flapped his arms once, helplessly, as though he wished to fly away. "Just…it's in there, Sir. They're in there."
"They who?" O'Hara asked.
A look that could only be described as abject horror was on McNab's ingenuous face. He merely shook his head and pointed at the heavily-tinted glass door of what the sign said was a Tantric workshop and New Age gift emporium. Lassiter and O'Hara exchanged a look and Lassiter pocketed his sunglasses. Hands on their weapons, they entered the building.
There were a half dozen couples inside the building, plus one turbaned and golden-robed instructor seated in the lotus position on a padded mat by the back wall. The couples were male/female, with the exception of one male/male, they were sitting with their arms around each other and their lips locked, and they were all very, very naked. Juliet couldn't tell if there was penetration but there was decidedly genital contact.
"What in the name of all that is good and holy…" Lassiter began.
"Inhale together, pull the energy up the Inner Flute, hold your breath, and visualize the light spiraling in your pelvis. Let it fill the area with healing warmth. Gradually expand the spirals of light so that they encompass the sex and naval centers of your partner. Imagine that your energies are beginning to melt and merge in this area. Each time you exhale together, be sure to send the energy and light down the Inner Flute and out through your genitals," the instructor continued, evidently oblivious to robbers and police alike.
Lassiter took the precaution of putting his sunglasses back on, though unfortunately they were not dark enough to block the sight from his eyes. "That sounds like a good trick to learn," he said in his loudest "pardon me I'm over here" voice. "I can never find my damn flashlight when I need it."
O'Hara snorted, bit the back of her hand, and hightailed it out the door. Lassiter felt like following her, but he kept his game face intact through Herculanean effort. A few gulps of fresh air and O'Hara returned, once more the consummate professional.
The instructor - yogi, Lassiter supposed, though the term always made him think of park rangers and pick-a-nick baskets - rose smoothly to his feet and bowed over folded hands. "Welcome, Seekers. Have you come to join our family?"
"Uh, we've come because of a report of a robbery," Lassiter said. "We're the police."
A faint grimace crossed the yogi's otherwise blandly placid face. "A most disagreeable business. I fear there will be terrible Karmic repercussions for this blatant act of disregard for spiritual harmony."
"Could you show us the scene of the robbery, please?" O'Hara asked. Unspoken was her obvious wish that it be someplace less naked.
"Of course. This way, please. Children - continue the exercise," the yogi instructed, as though his "children" were evincing signs of not continuing the exercise.
"Is this even legal?" O'Hara whispered to Lassiter as they followed the Yogi into a back area, which proved to be the New Age gift emporium, at least to judge by the number of crystals and bottles of essential oils scattered about. "I feel like I should be arresting people right now."
"If you want to handcuff the naked people feel free," Lassiter said, "but they're not sitting their bare asses on my freshly Armor-All'd artificial leather backseat. They're probably calling it a religious thing, anyway."
A young lady in a bright orange sari stood discretely behind what had once been a cash register in this part of the building, calm of expression but wringing her hands. Asked to do so, the yogi introduced himself by a name that sounded like "Margreesh" and the girl as his daughter, "Screech." Because he trusted O'Hara's cultural sensitivity, hearing, and ability to spell more than his own, Lassiter didn't ask for clarification. It appeared that Screech, or whatever her name was, minded the store while her father minded the naked people.
"Could you describe what happened, Ma'am?" Lassiter asked the girl. She immediately launched into a rapid-fire account of the event - in Hindi. "Beg pardon, could we get a translation, please?"
"In English, my daughter, in English," the yogi admonished gently. The girl took a breath and started over. Despite her initial linguistic miscue, she spoke English with what Lassiter could only describe as a Valley Girl accent, or at least vernacular. She related the tale of a nervous browser-turned-smash-and-grabber who threw the register off the counter and who, upon discovering that the now-broken cash drawer contained only about seventy dollars in small bills and change, stuffed a handful of crystals and aromatic oils (and, most likely, personal lubricants, of which there was an ungodly large stock) down his pants and left. She could not describe him any better than to say, "He was wearing, like, really baggy pants."
"Okay, were there any other witnesses?" Lassiter asked.
Both proprietors shook their heads. "No witnesses."
"All right, then," Lassiter said, as O'Hara capped her pen and closed her notebook. "Well. We'll start beating the bushes - er, I mean…we'll put out an APB for your Baggy Pants Robber and hope we catch up to him. Unfortunately he's got a pretty good head start and our description isn't very specific. But we'll do the best we can."
The yogi bowed over his folded hands again. "That is all that anyone can do."
Lassiter gestured to O'Hara and together they started toward the rear entrance, furthest from the naked people, about whom Lassiter was hard-pressed not to consider the double entendres of "rear entrance." But before they took more than a half-step in that direction, the yogi raised his hands to stop them.
"Before you go, I wonder if perhaps you might reconsider joining my class? Spiritual and sexual enlightenment would benefit both of you in your personal and professional relationship."
"I…beg your pardon?" O'Hara asked in amazement, and though Lassiter attempted to continue to push through to the door she stopped dead in her tracks.
"Both of you carry such severe tension, it is very obvious to me that much of it is directed inward, towards each other. Your energies draw you together but you resist, creating great stress. By confronting and releasing this stress you would find true peace and healing within yourselves and each other."
He knelt down and scooped up a couple of the scattered brochures that lay among the robber's cast-offs on the floor. "If you are uncomfortable with the idea of exploring your sexuality in this very public arena, these brochures contain several very simple and effective exercises which you may pursue on your own time in the comfort of your own home. Please take them. The health of a city in such large measure depends upon the health of its officers of the peace."
Lassiter did not take the offered pamphlet. For a blue-blooded wonder, O'Hara did. Lassiter watched with a disgusted grimace as the yogi handed her a bottle of pure essential oil of lavender. "Please take this as well, with my compliments."
"We can't accept gifts," Lassiter pointed out.
"He's right, but I'll gladly pay you," O'Hara said. Amazingly, she dug in her purse and pulled out her pocketbook.
"The cash register is broken," Screech pointed out.
"Not to worry, my daughter. Simply write Detective O'Hara a receipt." The girl looked at her father with an expression as blank as only a teenager could manage. The yogi sighed. "I will write the receipt."
Back in the cruiser Lassiter sat and chewed the end of his pen while he contemplated exactly what to put on the situation report he propped against the steering wheel while O'Hara perused her Tantric instruction manual. Lassiter tried to ignore it but it wasn't long before a species of sick wonder overcame him.
"Is that…a drawing of a naked woman giving a flower to a man's penis?" he asked, too aghast to be properly indignant.
"Yes, as a matter of fact, it is," O'Hara said primly. "It's a representation of a salutation ceremony before a healing of the Vajra. Apparently the man does roughly the same thing before healing the Yoni."
"Excuse me, what?"
"These are instructions for sexual massage," O'Hara said, so matter-of-factly that Lassiter was sure she was pranking him. "This is a step-by-step diagram for deep-healing massage, to relax tension and increase sensation. Vajra refers to male sexual apparatus, apparently, while the Yoni is the female."
"I could have lived my entire life not knowing that."
"It says here that people who have generally experienced disappointing sex are probably suffering from genital armoring, caused by lack of foreplay, expending too much focus and effort on their partner's satisfaction to the exclusion of their own, guilty masturbation, becoming sexually active at too young an age, too-forceful fingering - "
"O'Hara, this is nothing I want to hear about."
"The healing ceremony is for removing the armor, opening up the body to be more receptive to sexual pleasure. It says here, and I quote, that 'When the penis is healed, it becomes flexible, warm, and vibrantly alive when erect. In addition to the stimulation provided by vigorous sexual intercourse, this increased sensitivity enables the man to receive pleasure by resting his penis in the vagina in a gentle, relaxed, non-demanding way. Prior to healing, he may not have been able to feel anything without continued stimulation.'"
"O'Hara. Enough. For God's sake, enough."
She shrugged and buried herself in her sex-book again.
"You don't…buy into all that Tantric crap, do you?" he asked after a brief silence.
She shrugged again. "I don't know a thing about the religious aspect, but it's interesting. Sex is always interesting, don't you agree? And once you peel away what I suppose you'd call the 'hippie talk,' there are some compelling ideas in here, and some very valid points. Tell the truth, Carlton - haven't you ever felt that you just weren't getting as much out of sex as other people seem to get?"
Lassiter gaped for a moment, then stammered out, "No comment."
He stowed the clipboard and started the engine, and drove to the station casting frequent nervous glances at his partner, who sat reading her brochure with a strange half-smile on her lips.
That night, Lassiter sat in his apartment with a fifth of bourbon and attempted to drown out the events of the day, most especially his partner's all-too-indiscreet dissemination of information. He had enough trouble keeping his thoughts professional under the best of circumstances, he certainly didn't need to be thinking about her Yoni, of all things.
The doorbell rang. Warily, Lassiter rose to answer it.
"Hey, buddy - got a light?" It was O'Hara, in a short blue dress, and oddly enough, she didn't look intoxicated.
"Neither of us smoke, O'Hara," Lassiter said, confused.
"I know, but I lost my flashlight, and I thought maybe you'd been practicing that genital light technique you were admiring."
Lassiter stared at her. "May I come in?" she prompted after a long moment. Mutely, Lassiter stood aside and held the door for her.
O'Hara held up the jar of essential oil of lavender and waggled it in front of his face. "Do you know what the brochure says this stuff is for?" she asked.
"I shudder to think," Lassiter said.
"Well, it says that it's a natural non-abrasive germicide," she said. "You're supposed to mix a few drops in a solution of filtered water and douche with it - vaginally and anally. I tried it. It's the sweetest my ass has ever smelled, I'll tell you that much."
"You told me too much," Lassiter said. "O'Hara, just what sort of incense have you been inhaling tonight?"
"I am perfectly straight and sober, Detective, which is more than can be said for you, I'm afraid. You smell like an Old Crow," she giggled.
"It's Jameson's, thank you," he said with some asperity. "And I've only had one double-shot. Thus far."
"That stuff is soooooo bad for you," O'Hara sing-songed. She held up the little purple gift bag she held in her left hand. "There's better ways to relax. I went shopping and got you a couple of presents."
"I'm not filling my home with power crystals and scented candles, O'Hara."
"Just look at what I got you," she said, and shoved the bag into his hands.
He reached into the bag and pulled out… "All-natural botanical massage oil? An ostrich feather? Water-soluble…personal…lubri…" He trailed off mid-word and looked at her in mixed horror and hope.
"I couldn't find any lotus blossoms on such short notice," she said, and pulled a pair of long-stemmed thornless red roses out of the décolletage of her dress, "but I figured these'll do in a pinch."
She handed him one of the roses. He tried not to think about why it felt so warm. His throat was suddenly utterly parched. "What are…what are these for?" he croaked.
"The healing ceremony," O'Hara said simply. "You wouldn't read the brochure, so I'll do it for you first and show you how it's done."
"But…but…but…"
"No buts, unless they're of the double-tee variety," O'Hara said with finality. "Yogi Margreesh was right: there's too much tension between us, and too much stress. It gets in the way of our work, and in the way of our friendship. I think it's high time that we simply confronted this mutual attraction head-on. Repressing this isn't healthy for either of us."
Lassiter's eyes, which had been tea saucers ever since he found the tube of personal lubricant, turned into dinner plates. "…Mutual…?"
Juliet put her arms around his neck and stretched up to whisper in his ear. "Enough talking, and into the bathroom with you. I won't make you squirt lavender water up your ass unless you feel like it, but you should clean yourself out and up all the same. And I'm afraid I'll have to insist you file down your fingernails before you go digging in my garden. I did mine - after all, I don't want to hurt you when I'm prospecting for your prostate."
He jerked back but she held onto him and spoke soothingly. "Relax, partner - that's only if you decide, at some point tonight, that you're comfortable enough for that. Mainly I want us both to relax, explore each other, and practice that 'light and energy' thing until you're lit up so bright that I can open my mouth and shine the Bat Signal on the ceiling."
TEASINGLY, TORTUOUSLY, FIN
