I went to lie next to him on the bed.

I lay on my left side and almost at once he leaned over to touch my forehead with his own, before sitting back calmly to observe the effect. If truth is to be told, with this gesture he opened my mind; this is what transpired:

He had always reminded me of a leopard because he was beautiful and languid in appearance and movement but with the underlying threat of volatile instincts. He also kept a large wooden statue of that creature in his room and, furthermore, had given me a book of the same name.

I sensed his spiritual power but had always attributed it to the animal personality, so when my body began to react to the opening of my mind I was certain that I too was being transformed into a leopard, especially so we could make love as equals of the same ‘species’.

This, of course, was rather an extreme interpretation, and even I, in my burgeoning transcendental state of consciousness, acknowledged the danger of accepting such a course of action with blind faith. Was it wise or safe, I wondered, though only in the back of my head as I was, by then, so fully committed to the action.
I was also, it must be said, tranquilly but determinedly content to have succeeded in reaching this critical point of an initiatory engagement.