by Bitsi Shar
My man returned with drinks and I momentarily lost track of the sex on the dance floor. But I took a big swig of my rum and coke to calm my nerves a little—too much stimuli in the first hour of being in this harem-like setting! My poor petite body was being zinged and stretched to dangerously high voltage. But suddenly the drink was taken away from my hand as a pair of lips pressed into my forehead.
“What?” I looked into a pair of smiling eyes.
“Baby, go slow on the drink. This is not just Coke but Coke mixed in Rum. This needs to be nursed slowly with caution, okay?”
“Okay,” I replied before reaching for my glass to take another generous swig, daring him to say something. His one-eye brow cocked as a smile twisted on his lips. But he doesn’t say a word. Instead he plonks down next to me, kisses my forehead again while slipping a hand around my waist as he leans back into the sofa rest. I lean against him with a slightly tilted glass in my hands whose straw is stuck between my lips. No, I was not letting go of the rum in the coke. I needed it inside me like I needed something else inside me, desperately. The chest-breath combination on my back was adding to my desperation. I know requiting it would be the result of a fried brain or even a dehydrated one in my case.
Wady and continue their conversation in hushed tones behind my back, literally! I don’t care for their conversation. My eyes are once again feasting on the sex-play on the psychedelic parquet floor. The constant rubbing of warm fingers on my back, the rum and coke flowing through my system, and the hypnotic movement of lights and lights on swaying bodies was enough to make me go into a trance, where I lost sense of physicality, of where I sat—my arms, legs, and active processing consciousness. I didn’t even feel myself laying back against a solid front that smelled of some cologne that I cannot name. But it was heady, titillating my olfactory buds. I snuggled back into his arm that came around my rib cage just below my breasts and tightened. I felt his chin on my head, occasionally rub back and forth.
God! Is it possible to be horny and sleepy at the same time? I guess it is. I held on to his arms holding me, rubbing them gently. I liked the feel of hair along their length and suddenly the music changed from slow to thumping. The dance floor came alive! I wanted to dance suddenly. I moved to get up but the band of arms under my breasts refused to relent. I wiggled a bit. No, no go. He wasn’t letting go this easily.
“Do you want to dance?” A breathy question whooshed into my left ear. I shivered visibly like an icy draft of cold air had escaped into the warm space. I look at him sideways and nod. His lips are on my cheek again as was the smile.
“I’d do whatever you want to, love.”
“Oh! Okay. I needed to get up and feel my body again and the DJ was playing my song. So I wiggle out of his grasp and push against his thigh, urging him to either let me slip past him or to accompany me to the floor. He immediately stands and in the next second pulls me to the dance floor. I am suddenly vertical and flushed against him. He twirls me and we are dancing! My feet are creating rhythmic shapes along the floor, I am swirling my hair like I am possessed, and my bums cannot let go of the drumbeats—they are unstoppable! I am uncontained. Music does that to me. My body feels alive and my proximity to this man enhances that feeling by ten times.
I open my eyes to see him semi-stationary before me—his feet planted on either side of me, his hand turned at his elbows in a semblance of movement synchronizing with the music. His eyes are glued to my face as he half smiles at me. He slowly extends his left arm to pull me into his parted stance and we begin to move together—our hips joined on either side, our faces close enough to feel each other’s breaths. I immediately close my nostrils. I don’t want to breathe him in. His hips and groin swaying against me are heady enough. If I smell him too, I would lose a little of my semi-conscious state. I need to be alert at this time just so I can enjoy these feelings radiating through me. The man cannot dance for nuts but the man could pretend to dance for a dollar. His mock-stationary stance on the floor is his signature style. As he moves to his left, his semi-hard state connects with my semi-liquid state and I stumble a little. As he steadies me back into his semi-hardness, I reel again. The music makes this other kind of dance legitimate but barely. And despite my chagrin I am alight with previously unnamed, undiscovered desires that are obviously no longer undiscovered though are still unnamed.
How do I name the look that we give each other as our bodies nuzzle and settle and then unsettle into each other, especially our lower halves; how do I name the involuntary rubbing against each other in the name of music wrapping around us and wrapping us in each other. I am wrapped around this pelvis. I have found a comfortable discomfort and for some perverse reason, I decide to extend my discomfort and his in the process. I begin to grind my hips against his and even slightly hook my leg around his hips to ensure there is no breathing space between our legs. His eyes get rounder at my audacity but he smiles—it is bordering on roguish, I decide. And I immediately know what’s coming. I am in trouble, I know. His hand reaches behind my back to begin its casual slide to the back of my neck and then quietly slides into my slightly disheveled hair where he holds my head stationary so he can pierce me with his now blue/black eyes.
I am lost at this point and the night was just beginning. He bent his knees suddenly and without warning lifted me up towards his face. I am dizzy—no, I don’t like heights even if that height was me two meters from the ground. I balanced my arms against his biceps that were straining under that mauve sleeve to look at him—questioning, curious and desirous at the same time.
His lips hovered over mine as he breathed out, “Can I kiss you, Bits?” I gasp. He was using my pet name. We were getting personal at all levels this up and close. Ms. Sharma I was no longer. The distance this formality had created earlier has now been smashed to bits—no pun intended. I nod.
But his head is already dipped and my bottom lip is being sucked like a hard candy. Oh, god! I keep my eyes closed. I am suspended an inch from the pulsating floor having my lower lip being sucked into vacuum oblivion. I know I moan even though I cannot even hear my self in the din of my hammering heart, forget the music. The music is low compared to my heart, drumming like ten thousand African drums in an acoustically sound space. He licks the crack between my half closed lips and I open and he enters, sucking everything. As he takes greedily, my senses have exploded, keeled over, and buried deep into my stomach—fluttering like a million, confused, disoriented butterflies. He reluctantly releases my mouth but not before making a demonstration of his reluctance—his lips leave mine in a whoosh, like the air rushing into a vacuumed space called our mouths. My feet find hard. But I have no feelings in my feet left at this point. He knows. His arms remain wrapped around me. His forehead is now resting against mine. He is breathing hard and speaking of hardness, there is a significant increase in his tumescence. Thank god for dark jeans and an even darker space—where there is no shame in practicing sexual desire. I am sure everyone else on the floor is in the same state as us and feeling bloody good about it.
“Thanks,” he exhales.
And I am capable only of nodding before my face escapes into his shoulder.
I am shy, suddenly. I am not sure what happens now or what I must do now. I am at his mercy a little for he is refusing to let go of this power he is experiencing of sudden with me in his arms. His beard is rubbing against my forehead. It is not relaxing me one bit. I am aching for something that I cannot seem to name.
“Let’s sit down and maybe come back for a different song, ya?” He looks into my eyes and I go all shy on him. We walk back to the couch with me locked under his arms where we find Wady looking at me with a shit-eating grin on his face. What was he so happy about? I wouldn’t know but his grin makes me grin back at him. As I sidle into the seat, I reach over to give him a friendly peck on the cheek. And he responds with a smack on my forehead. It was over in two seconds but the arms around my waist yanked me to the body they were attached to and I hear a growl in my ear—�
�what was that for?” “What?” I looked at him, all innocence dripping into every word. I think I probably even batted my eyes at him.
“That peck on the cheek, darling.” “You know what I mean. And just a small piece of advice—don’t flirt with Wady. His heart and his pants would not survive it, trust me.”
And then he looks at Wady—“Am I right, buddy?”
But Wady was looking elsewhere, at a cute, black-haired petite miss in her short, short, black dress. Without taking his eyes off of his eye-candy, Wady threw back—“ I don’t know what you are talking about buddy.” “Why don’t you make the move, buddy? Looks like she wants you.”
“I will.”
“When?”
“Whenever I fuckin’ want! Why, do you want to?” Wady throws a testy one. “I am happy to entertain your girl in the meantime, more than happy.”
I look at my man, “do you want to?” “Want to what?” he re-asks knowing fully well what I meant with my question. I wait wordlessly, one eyebrow cocked.
“What? You think I want to entertain Ms. gyration there?” I don’t respond. He drops his head closer to my face.
“You think I want to?” I still don’t answer. A question in response to a question doesn’t make an answer.
He came in closer. I squinted to keep his face in focus that was now all hair and smell—of cigarettes, vodka, coke, and a minty gum flavor. My nostrils struggled to make sense of the complicated smells. He suddenly swoops in to give me an open-mouthed kiss. My eyes close as I moan back into his flavor-fucked mouth. He swallows my mouth like a Popsicle. I forget myself, everything about me—where I was, the context, the question, the friend, the music, the cute bombshell—everything. It was a soul-stirring moment. I was beginning to feel lost in him, in his seduction, his physicality. He became my special.
I break the kiss as I dip my head in the crook of his neck, breathing his scents deeply, trying to slow my breathing a little. I felt him kiss my forehead simultaneously asking the server at our table for two a glass of water. I sigh as I lay back against his chest, his smell and warmth entering me slowly as my breathing slowed too. His arms curled against my breasts to secure me to him. Another deep sigh.
This was way too good, comfortable, soothing, and annoying as hell! I didn’t think an Indian man deserved my attention let alone an under-breast hug. This Indian man, however, was not only getting my attention he was getting access to my insides via my mouth into which he had already drained enough crazy flavors that no amount of mouth-wash would expunge. Not that I seriously desired it but just saying!
I watched two firangi (white) women in their rather sedate looking printed frocks but crazy curly blond tresses make their way to the center of the floor, making whooping noises as their bodies tuned into the gyrating Bollywood music. Suddenly the dark spaces come alive as the hitherto non-existent bodies hiding in the deep recesses of the leather-clad booths began to pay attention to the white sparks on a brown-black floor. The firangi women just by their presence were questioning a certain sequence of seduction and its requiting. Sex could happen right here, right now. The unhibitedness of their movements made sheer mockery of ours. We were only pretending to mate on the floor, they were mating without a mate! And sure enough moths were gravitating to the flame—ugly, dark, and men without good intentions. I watched as two such ugly, sad moths buzzed closer to the firangis, who oblivious to their intention continued to move their bodies to the sounds they couldn’t care to interpret. Their hands were being caressed even as fronts were being carefully attached to backs. I started to cringe in the arms of my man. I knew what was coming and I wasn’t feeling particularly thrilled for the firangis. But then again, they were about to get laid and they probably knew or even wanted to. I watched the predatorial dance before me. I immediately wanted to get out of there. I wiggled in his arm as I turned to look at him. Damn! He had been watching me all along.
He says, “Do you want to go?” Damn! He even knew what I was going to say/ ask. I nod.
“Okay, we are out of here. Wady, you staying or leaving?” Wady was already draining his glass as he stood up from his vantage point.
This reminded me to drink my water too. I needed to dilute all the rum and coke swishing around inside my stomach. I didn’t need a hurling session to make mine or anyone else’s day! We exited. I flanked on either side by two very different male bodies. I hooked my arm around each distinct waist as we walked out of the dark into the other dark of the night. It was a good night.
Wady dropped me off my apartment in Vasant Kunj. Yes, just me. Though later I wished it wasn’t just me. After being ravished in the back of Wady’s car for the entirety of the car ride was enough for me to want more. But wanting more scared me shitless. It was also irritating. I was twenty-six years old and possibly a virgin. I was scared for the pain. What if I bled? I don’t do blood at all. No wonder that my plans for becoming a doctor got scrambled early on. Even all this silly scramble in my head couldn’t prevent me from seeking his mouth for a good night kiss. And it was a seriously good kiss, one that scrambled my head even more. He gave me a searing look before he suddenly turned and left. I locked up and decided to go to bed. I needed to get off. It was an imperative. I wouldn’t last through the night without it.
Chapter Nineteen
It was December 30. It was the first thought that came to me when I woke up the next day. And my head hurt. This was my second thought. I needed food, I needed water, and maybe a good long shower. But I couldn’t drag myself out of bed to make good on my need. My mind began to slip to the night before as my body stirred to some form of alertness immediately. I touched my lips. They still felt swollen and abominably dry. Goddamn! The man had sucked off my heavy-duty lip balm, my natural moisture even—leaving my already full lips feel like they had been pulled to the point of pain by a set of pliers. Did I mind? No, sir, no ma’am, or whoever is listening. I felt my lips again and my groin responded, “I need,” plaintively. “Me too.” I said to myself as I heard the phone ring.
I almost tripped over myself in my hurry to reach it. I still managed to thunk my toe against the door! Damn! That hurt. I held on to the pain with one hand while picking up the receiver with the other. It was him.
“Hi, are you alright?” How does he know to ask what at what time?
“Yes, I thunked my toe!” I blurt. I am snitching about the big, bad door’s revenge on my delicate toe. Gah! I am really pathetic.
“Oh, I am sorry. Does it hurt bad, baby?” The “baby” went straight to my groin and my vagina clenched happily.
“Yes,” I sound really pathetic.
“Oh! Sorry baby. If I were there, if you hadn’t sent me on my way after we were getting somewhere with whatever is happening between us, I would be kissing your toe all well and bringing you breakfast in bed, too.” I am rendered voiceless.
Really, who is this man? How come I spent at least ten years of my virgin life not knowing that a human god existed two doors from me? Why am I finding it now? What a waste of my time wondering if there was “the one” out there?”
“Did I get your tongue, baby?” I am still voiceless. There is a sexual innuendo here that I get but don’t have a response to.
“So the reason I called was to actually invite you to a new year’s party tomorrow evening. Wady’s sisters throw a fabulous party, the works and I always go because Wady is family. And of course Wady would love for you to come. He will be calling soon to extend his invite. I just wanted to beat him to it!” I hear the smugness in his voice.
“Yes.” Not exactly the most appropriate response to his spiel but I had just accepted the invitation to the ball!
“Good. I will come collect you around 7:30, even though the party doesn’t begin till about 10:30 or so—gives us enough time to catch up, eh?”
“Sure, I look forward to it, Sir.” I smile that I am sure he can sense.
“And, Bits, I am staying the night . . .” I hear the click of a disconnected call.
Holy shit balls! He had just invited himself to my place for the night. And I knew in my gut this was not going to be an ordinary night. It was a night that would change everything—everything around me, in me, and about me.
Chapter Twenty
I have no clothes. I am pouting as I look around pathetically at my wardrobe. I have no time to find myself a dress, anything suitable for the evening. I had never been to a new year’s party before. So I didn’t know what to expect or how to pre-empt contemporary fashion.
He promised to pick me up at 8:00 p.m.. I knew he was not going to be late. I had three hours to be ready and waiting. I finally decided on a deep blue halter dress that clung to all the wrong places or right ones, depending on the standpoint, a pair of deep brown clogs, and a Rajasthani jacket to protect from a cool night. I straightened my hair out and let it fall across my back in shiny waves. I liked my shampoo. It smelled good and kept my hair healthy. My make-up was minimal—a thin cover of foundation, a thin line of charcoal colored kohl outlining the upper eyelids was all I put on. But then decided to go the oomph route by putting on a coat of deep wine red lipstick. I was ready. And then the lights go out.
Dammit! I should have been prepared. Now, I had to get used to the dark before slowly making my way to where I think I could find some candles and a matchbox. My feet moved just when I heard a sharp knock on the door. Dammit! He cannot be here this early. But what time is it anyway?
I inched my way to the front door to call out--“who is it?” I got no answer.
Oh, dear. Was someone playing a prank? Did someone know I was alone at home and was just messing around? My armpits broke into a sweat as if on cue. I was now scared. I didn’t know whether to call out again lest the fear show in my voice for whoever was on the other side of the door to get creative in his/ her harassment.
Then I heard my name through the door. It was him! Oh, thank fucking god! I was so relieved and so eager to open the door that I ran smack into a metal side table. It hurt! God, it hurt like hell. My eyes watered. I sat down to press hard against the throbbing toe.