Cheryl's Secret (Two Stories Series) (11 page)

“Say,” Mark said enthusiastically.
“Now I’m performing a concert at Carnegie Hall with a grand piano. I’m getting a standing ovation. I’m even dressed in a tux!”

“I think you really got this down, Mark
,” Tanya said. “Now, I have a very important question to ask you about all this.”

“Sure, ask me anything.”

“All this great stuff that you’re thinking about, how much praise do you think you should get for it?”

“Well, since
I’m only thinking about it, I suppose I shouldn’t get any praise at all.”

“Look, as much as the question sound
s silly, there is a point. You see, the same way that you don’t deserve praise just for thinking the ‘right’ thoughts, conversely, you don’t deserve any blame for thinking the ‘wrong’ ones. Always remember that in the imagination;
there’s no right or wrong.
We can only be judged by our actions.”

“
You've got a good point.”

“So how do you feel about Akiko now?”

“She doesn’t seem so important anymore. I’d like to know though, why do sex fantasies with Akiko make me feel bad? I mean, even when I’m completely alone and don’t have to justify my feelings to anyone, and the fact I don’t even have a girlfriend to ‘mentally cheat on’ I still feel bad…”

“First of all, this ‘
mental cheating’ business is total crap. You think a thought, so what? I mean really, isn’t it bad enough that when you’re in a relationship or you get married that two people practically own each other? Do they have to own each other’s thoughts too? Not every thought you have is completely your own, as a matter of fact very few of them are. You get thoughts from other people talking to you, from television, from books you read, and from your education too. So next time a girlfriend, lover or wife tries to make you feel bad about your thoughts, just tell them that you’re thinking about buying them a car, a house, and a million dollars in jewelry. When they ask you if you’re really going to do that, tell them that you’re not, but you deserve as much credit for those thoughts as you do punishment for the supposedly ‘inappropriate’ thoughts. They should get the picture,” Tanya said.

“But shouldn’t my woman be the most important
thing to me in the world?” asked Mark.

“Yes, she should be
the most important thing, just not the
only
thing. Let her know that, not only when it comes to your daydreams, but your career, your car, or even your PlayStation.”

“Objectively speaking, I do understand all of this, but
I’m still upset while having sex fantasies about Akiko. Why is that?”

“It’s because
SHE
upsets you. So really, if you had sex with her in real life it would also upset you, no matter whose permission you had to do it. She could consent, her husband could consent. Cheryl could consent, even TELL you to do it yet it would still make you feel bad. So just fantasize about someone you feel GOOD about instead.”

While Mark had his doubts about whether or not he wanted
Cheryl to be his real girlfriend when she was training him, he was
certain
that he wished Tanya was still his real girlfriend now. He felt this way
because
she was sharing with him what she’d apparently
never
share with a real boyfriend of hers. The irony of it was
killing him
.

“
I want to spend some time with you on the weekend, Mark. We’re going to drill a few things in the real world.”

B
etween Akiko and Tanya he was all talked out for the night. He thanked Tanya for the advice, said goodbye, and went to bed.

Chapter 13

Saturday morning came quickly, and the phone woke Mark up. It was Cheryl.

“Hi Mark.
Is it O.K. for us to talk?” she asked.

“We can talk a little bit, but I want you to know,
me and Tanya are still seeing each other.”

Cheryl
fell silent.

“Mark, does she know about, did you tell her…”

“Yes, I told her. She forgave me.”

“That’s a relief,” s
aid Cheryl. “You know, Mark, you’re a lot like Richard. That’s one of the reasons I spent so much time with you. But you know, sometimes I think Richard should be a little more like you are.”

“How are things with Richard?” Mark asked.

“I think I still have a chance, just got to wait it out.”

“Wait it out?
That doesn’t sound like you, Cheryl.”

For Mark, unbeknownst to
Cheryl, he only wished that this issue of Richard could be resolved so he could be with her. It would best be addressed when Tanya left for England. Whether he ended up with Cheryl or not, he would get his closure then. He changed the subject.

“Well,
Tanya is scheduled to fly off to England in about a week from now, and I want to spend as much time with her as possible.”

“
O.K., that sounds like a good plan.”

“
It is, and because of this, in the meantime, NO HAVING SEX WITH ME!”

Cheryl
found this very funny, and said “You’re really starting to sound like me. I like it.”

“Look, on another subject, Akiko saw me at the
café and told me about her and Akira’s ‘arrangement’ in full detail.”

“I can understand why she told you about
that
in person rather than on the phone. Did she try to seduce you?” Cheryl asked.

“
She gave me her number. She did tell me that I had
access
to her, but she didn’t touch me
at all
. She was fully clothed, and wore undergarments, as far as I could tell.”

“
Wow. That sure is different for Akiko. She’s hardly ever that honest. Maybe she feels different toward you than she does other guys. Hmm… do you think once Tanya has gone off to England that you’d be interested in seeing my sister?” Cheryl asked.

“Well, because
you
want Richard and
Tanya
would be gone, and since Akiko is getting divorced, technically speaking, I could very well go out with your sister.”

“That
’s correct,” Cheryl said, in a very controlled manner.

“But I really don’t know. It’s not a fair question, considering I’m still seeing Tanya
.”

“I understand Mark.
You don’t have to explain any further. You’re an exceptional man. Tanya is lucky.”

I’ve heard that before.
Oh Cheryl, what do you want? Whom do you want? Can’t ask you now, but when Tanya goes away, we’re having a deeper conversation than this, I assure you.

After ending the call,
Mark had lunch, cleaned his place up, showered and got ready to see Tanya.

Tanya picked Mark up and drov
e him straight to the park. Without much chatter, they commenced his training.

As
both of them sat at the park bench, Tanya took a deep breath, looked very thoughtful, and asked “How many women did you check out on the way to this picnic table? Remember, I’m not your girlfriend, and it’s O.K. to be honest with me.”

“I saw five or six
that I liked. I wasn’t counting.”

“D
id any of them show any interest back?” asked Tanya.

“No”

“That’s not a surprise,” replied Tanya. “I can only imagine how much attention you gave
them
. It must’ve been a lot.”

“How did you know?” Mark asked.

“I just know,” Tanya said. “If you didn’t have this issue, we wouldn’t be here, would we?”

“I guess not
.”

“
O.K. now, this is what I want you to do. Look around here at every attractive woman you can. Don’t worry about them noticing that they’re noticing you. Just go ahead and have a visual feast. There’s no law against it; you know.”

“
O.K.,” Mark agreed, and then proceeded to check out every woman there. He saw blond women wearing tank tops. He saw a lot of teenage girls who liked to show off their shoulders. He was especially happy about the women that weren’t wearing any bras. This went on for about 10 minutes.

“
O.K., I think I’ve seen enough. What’s the point of all this?” Mark asked.

“I want to know how you feel now
,” asked Tanya.

“Well, it was fun to look at them, but to be honest, I fee
l something is missing. I feel
altered
by it. I think it was all their sexual energy.”

“Well,
you’re half-right. It’s not ‘sexual energy’ per se. It’s
your energy
, and they’re
taking it away from you
at a mad rate, no less.
”

“How is that
?” inquired Mark.

“I
f you look at your attention as your energy, your very
life
force
, you’ll realize that you’re
wasting
your life force giving your attention to people who aren’t giving it back. After all, what do you want from them anyway?”

“Sex, of course
,” Mark said.

“Th
at’s
such
a typical answer, Mark. If that’s all you want, why not just see a prostitute? You don’t have to answer that. Anyway, sex may be a fun thing to have, but what you really want from them is their attention, and the fact you don’t get it drives you, or any man, completely nuts! So nuts that he spends more and more of his attention hoping that he’ll be getting some back. Now sex does include attention, very
concentrated
attention. Even then, the man loses out physically and spiritually on that one. It’s
exhausting,”
Tanya explained.

So, maybe
I should get
their
attention?”

“
Exactly! Now you might not be getting attention right away, but the most important thing that you can do for
your own
mental balance is to STOP giving away your attention!”

“That
’s kind of tough with all these attractive women around.”

“Look, it’s not like they
’re all going to go away and be gone next week. So for once, sacrifice an opportunity to look at women and take an opportunity to be
looked at.”

I like this
. Keep talking…

“Now, if you look at yourself as a vessel that attention goes through, and this vessel has only one “pipe” to flow attention through like its water or something like that, then imagine this.
You’re sending your attention out through this pipe. How in the world are you going to be receiving attention if all you ever do is send it out? Nothing can come IN if something is always going OUT.”

“Is that why I always seem to find someone when I
’ve given up on it?”

“YES, exactly!
You hollowed out your ‘pipe’ so that you can receive attention.”

Mark processed this, and
Tanya patiently awaited his response.

“Continue,” Asked Mark.

“Now, we’re in a pretty conspicuous place here in the park. Take this book. It’ll give you something to focus your attention on besides
them
. Just read it. I’m going to leave for a bit, but I’ll be watching you,” Tanya said.

Mark picked up the book and started to read.
He decided not to pay attention to anyone, only to the book he was reading. He didn’t even look to see who was paying attention to
him
.

Tanya
came back after about half an hour. She asked Mark how he felt.

“I feel pretty good, like I got some of my life energy back.”

“Well, at least you weren’t spending it so much. You were really wearing yourself out there earlier. Now, you don’t know this, but as soon as I started to walk away, I caught at least two hot women looking at you,” Tanya said.

“But don’t they care that
I’m with you? I’m sure that they’re assuming you’re my girlfriend.”

“Really Mark, does the fact that some woman is with a guy stop YOU from looking?”

“No.”

“Good, so let me continue. I also saw more women looking at you when I fell out of sight.
One of them even pointed you out to her friend.”

“That sounds nice.”

“Yes, it
is
nice. You see, if you were to look at yourself as a battery, and them as batteries too, you’ll see that you’re mostly positively charged, and women are mostly negatively charged. You made yourself negatively charged, changing your polarity, which allowed a few women to change their polarity to being positively charged.”