Company of Women

by Khushwant Singh

  We set out at around ten in the morming. On our way we called on Sonu’s parents. In an hour we were out of Delhi on Sher Shah Suri Marg. There was heavy traffic on the highway—trucks, buses, oil tankers, tractors and slow-moving bullock carts. We were in no hurry. Sonu fed the cassette player with tapes of Hindi film songs and crooned along. She was not very musical but sounded very happy.

  We passed through Sonepat, Panipat, took the bypass round Karnal and stopped at a lakeside restaurant for a light repast. Seeing the ivory bangles on Sonu’s forearms and the gold medallion dangling on her forehead everyone recognized us as a newly married couple. The waiters were over-solicitous. As we left, the manager presented Sonu with a bouquet of flowers. We continued our journey through Ambala, past Pinjore gardens, through Kalka and up the road going to Shimla. Timber Trail Heights was four miles up the road. The car park was packed. A place close to the entrance had been kept free for us. As we stepped out, there was a flurry of activity. The commissionaire ran in to inform the proprietor of our arrival and ran back with a couple of porters to take our luggage. Garg and Swaran were on the porch to welcome us. Mrs Garg had a silver salver with four oil lamps and a small mound of red kumkum powder. She waved the salver in front of our faces and with her thumb put kumkum on our foreheads. A crowd collected to watch the spectacle. Being Rai Bahadur Lala Achint Ram’s son-in-law clearly entitled me to many privileges. I felt a little uncomfortable.

  The Gargs took us down to their private apartment: a large hall with water cascading down one wall and big chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. In the middle of a circle of armchairs was a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice. ‘You must have a glass with us to celebrate before you go across to your suite on the other side. You should be there before sunset to see the view. I’m sure you will like it,’ pronounced Garg.

  He opened the champagne bottle himself. The cork blew off with a loud bang. Garg poured the frothing liquid into four wine glasses. I didn’t much care for champagne; Sonu had never tasted it. Swaran excused herself, saying she did not touch alcohol. But the occasion demanded politeness. I drank up and after Sonu had taken a sip, emptied her glass as well. Garg finished his glass. His wife stared at her glass of sherbet and kept smiling.

  The couple saw us into the cable car. Our suitcases were already in it. They waved to us as the car swung away from its moorings on its voyage to the other side. It was frightening. Also breathtaking. Below us we could see the silver trickle of the Kaushalya. On either side of the valley were terraced corn and rice fields and tiny hamlets. In ten minutes we were across the abyss. On the landing stage the manager welcomed us with a bouquet of flowers and led us to our suite. It was a large bed-sitting room. A table in the centre had a basket of fruits: apples, pears, bananas and mangoes. Also a bottle of Black Label Scotch. The manager opened the fridge: it was packed with miniature bottles of whisky, gin, liqueurs, and packets of potato crispies and dry fruit. ‘Sir, everything theek thaak?’ he asked. ‘If I can be of any service or if you have any complaints please send for me. If you want your dinner served in your room, tell the room bearer. Dinner starts at seven. The bar is open round the clock.’ He bowed a couple of times and took his leave.

  As the manager shut the door behind him, I took Sonu in my arms and kissed her on the lips. She was taken aback by the suddenness of the gesture but did not go stiff as she had done the evening before. Instead she stepped back, looked me full in the face and said, ‘You know what? I think you are a bit of a goonda.’

  ‘That I am,’ I replied. ‘And you being married to one are a goondee.’

  ‘There is no such word as goondee. Only the males of our species are shameless and debauched,’ she insisted childishly and I laughed. ‘Let’s take a look round the hotel garden and the hills before we unpack,’ she suggested.

  We went out to take in the scene. The village bazaar had a few shops and farmers’ hovels. It commanded a panoramic view of the plains below. We seemed to be perched on top of the world looking down on hills and valleys spread beneath our feet. The monsoon was almost over. It had washed clean the forests of pine, fir, deodar and rhododendrons. The mountains were of different shades of green and blue. Here and there mists nestled in the hollows of hillsides like gossamer caught between branches of trees. The setting sun lit up white clouds on the western horizon in different hues of red, pink and gold. We sat at a look-out point for a while. A young moon wandered into the deep blue sky. The air was clean and fresh. There was a throbbing silence, till the cicadas took over. ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ I asked Sonu as I put my arm round her shoulder.

  ‘Thanks to Daddy,’ she replied, ‘this place was his idea.’

  We wandered around for a while till the twilight faded into night, leaving the pale moon to light our world. A bewildering crowd of stars twinkled in the vast sky as far as the eye could see. The hotel generator began to sputter phut, phut, phut—phutututut. The lights came on and ruined the after-sunset scene. It also turned chilly. We went back to our room. A small electric radiator glowed red. The room was warm. ‘Let’s have a drink,’ I suggested. I thought it would warm her insides and make her more amenable to what I had in mind.

  ‘I don’t drink,’ she replied firmly. ‘The stuff that Mr Garg gave me tasted like bad lemonade. I could have spat it out.’

  ‘You try Campari and soda. It is bitter-sweet with hardly any alcohol in it. I’m sure you’ll like it. If you don’t, just pour it down the sink.’

  She did not say anything, so I took it to mean that she would try it.

  I got out a miniature bottle of Campari from the fridge and a bottle of soda. It was a bit chilly for chilled beer so I poured myself a Scotch. I handed her the glass of bright red liquid. ‘Take a sip and see how it tastes.’

  She took a sip. ‘It’s like sherbet,’ she replied, ‘only somewhat bitter. But I don’t want to get drunk. Are you sure this thing has no nashaa?’

  ‘If you feel it has put it aside. People who don’t like alcohol drink Campari to keep others company.’

  We sat side by side, she sipping Campari, I sipping Scotch-n-soda. With one arm I drew her towards me, put both my hands round her face and kissed her passionately. ‘For God’s sake open your mouth so that I can feel what’s inside it with my tongue.’

  She obeyed without enthusiasm. I persisted in kissing her again and again, all over her face and back to her lips. She began to respond to my overtures. I slipped my hand beneath her blouse. For a moment she went stiff; then let me fondle her. I felt her breasts getting warmer under my palm and her nipples hardened like cherry stones. I wasn’t sure if it was the right time to take her. The bearer would come in at any moment to take the order for dinner. And we were still in the clothes we had arrived in. I decided I would wait till after we had had our meal. I was pretty certain she would not say no this time.

  ‘Shall we send for dinner here?’ I asked.

  She pulled out of my embrace and replied, ‘Let’s go to the dining room and see the raunaq—it will be lively there with all the people. If we eat here, the smell of the food will stay in the room all night.’

  In the dining room were almost a hundred people including a few married couples. We eyed each other without exchanging smiles or greetings. Sonu examined the menu. ‘Chicken biryani for me,’ she said. ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’ll settle for the same. And some daal.’

  The waiter took our order and asked, ‘Sahib, anything to drink?’ He handed me the list of beverages.

  ‘Another Campari? Or would you like to try some chilled white wine? Grover’s is not at all bad, almost as good as the French, better than Californian. Hardly any alcohol in it. Try a glass,’ I suggested.

  She nodded her head. ‘I’ll take what you like. If I hate it, you finish it.’

  I ordered white wine. The waiter lit the candle on the table. He came back with a bottle of Grover’s white and put glasses in front of us. He poured a little into my glass for me to taste. I savoured
it and said, ‘Theek hai.’ He filled our glasses.

  ‘First take the glass in both your hands and inhale the wine’s bouquet.’ I demonstrated how it was done. She imitated my gestures and took a sip. ‘Not bad, you’ll soon turn me into a sharaabi. Everyone is looking at us—an Indian bride drinking sharaab. What is India coming to!’

  ‘Let them go to hell.’

  It was an excellent meal. And the chilled wine went very well with the biryani. The dining room began to empty. We decided it was time for us to retire to our suite. I told the waiter to keep the remaining half of the bottle for our dinner the next day. Even the two small glasses of wine had made Sonu light-headed. She held my hand as we walked out and went up the flight of stairs to our room. For a while we watched TV. Sonu stood up and said, ‘I think I’ll take a bath. I feel slightly drunk. There’s running hot water in the bathroom.’ I assumed she had other, more welcome ideas in her head. She came back in her nightie. I followed her example. I took a hot shower and another shave and changed into my night clothes. When I came out, the TV had been switched off and Sonu was in her bed with a blanket over her head. I slid under the blanket. She made room for me, but said firmly, ‘Don’t push me too hard. I’m not ready yet.’

  ‘You seemed to be quite ready before dinner; what has happened now?’

  ‘The mood is gone. Give me time.’

  I got out of her bed and climbed into mine. ‘Don’t be cross with me. I’ll tell you when I’m ready,’ she pleaded.

  I was angry, frustrated and impatient. I tried to go to sleep. It had been a long day, I had driven over 200 miles. But sleep would not come to me.

  Around midnight I was woken up from my half-slumber by a flash of lightning and a thunderclap which made the hotel building shake. Then more lightning and more thunder. When the monsoon is about to end it does so with a terrifying display of rage. It began to pour till I could hear nothing except the rain battering on the corrugated tin roof.

  Sonu got up and stood by my pillow. ‘I’m scared. Can I share your bed?’ she pleaded.

  I made room for her. She clung to me like a frightened child. Every time there was lightning and thunder she dug deeper into my embrace. I soothed her nerves by holding her close to me. We began to kiss; this time she opened her mouth to let me explore its depths. She let me fondle her breasts. I took each in my mouth, sucked them like a hungry babe. She was thoroughly aroused. I slipped my hand between her thighs. I felt the dampness there and gently massaged her. She began to moan. ‘O God! don’t stop,’ she cried. I thought the moment had come. But before I could mount her, she climaxed and became like a corpse.

  ‘That was not fair,’ I protested. ‘You had all the fun, leaving me high and dry.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked. ‘Didn’t you like it?’

  ‘Take a look at this,’ I said taking her hand and putting it on my painfully stiff penis.

  She felt it very gingerly. ‘It’s like an iron rod! A very big iron rod. If you thrust that in me it will kill me!’

  ‘Come, now. Calm down,’ I whispered, massaging her back. ‘You can take it. You’ll like it after the first time.’

  An hour later we started kissing again. Again I fondled her breasts and slipped my hand between her thighs. She was damp again. ‘This time no cheating,’ I warned her. ‘No one way traffic.’

  ‘Okay,’ she murmured, ‘but be very, very gentle.’

  I was. I knew she was a virgin. I had never had a virgin before. As I proceeded to enter her, she twitched with every move I made. I could not hold myself any longer and lunged into her. She let out a loud scream of pain and slapped the sides of the bed like a live butterfly flapping its wings when a pin is stuck into it. After months of celibacy I had a tankful of semen stored up. I pumped it into her.

  She continued to whimper for some time. ‘You brute!’ she said, ‘see what a mess you have made of me!’ She switched on the table lamp. The white bedsheet was splattered with blood. Semen oozed out of her. ‘What will the room-bearer think when he comes to do our beds?’ she demanded.

  ‘They must be used to it,’ I replied. ‘This is a honeymoon suite and most virgins bleed when their hymen bursts. Anyway, I’ll put it in the tub and wash away the stains.’

  We got up, pulled out the bedsheet and put it in a bucket of hot water. I washed myself as I had blood on me as well. She had coagulated blood and sticky semen between her thighs.

  ‘Now we are well and truly married. Our marriage has been consummated.’

  ‘Like bloody hell!’ she snapped. ‘I’m sore. It hurts.’

  We had no choice but to sleep together in her bed. Soon she was fast asleep. By the time we got up the clouds had lifted and a bright sun shone in the rain-washed garden full of chrysanthemums in bloom.

  We ordered breakfast in our room. We bathed, dressed and decided to take a stroll along the mountain path which ran from the hotel into the pine forest. ‘I’m sore and stiff. I can’t take a long walk,’ complained Sonu. ‘It’s all your doing.’

  ‘Put some vaseline or face cream there and you’ll be right as rain, ready for more,’ I said kissing her on her forehead.

  By the afternoon her soreness was gone. So had the memory of what had caused it, and she was looking forward to repeating the pleasure it had given her. She smothered herself liberally with vaseline: no pain, undiluted pleasure. The third day she wanted it in the afternoon as well as at night. On the fourth she wanted it early in the morning to wake her up, after lunch to get a sound siesta, as an appetizer with her sundowner and then at night before going to sleep. She did not seem to tire. She knew how to rouse my interest. She would come out of her bath wearing a see-through half shirt. I could see her breasts through the shirt and half her uncovered bottom. She would brush her hair vigorously in front of the full length mirror: her breasts wobbled. She would bend over to daub her middle with cologne so that her half covered buttocks were fully exposed. She knew that the slow strip-tease yielded dividends. She would walk up to me and look directly at my crotch. ‘I can see what you have in mind,’ she would say. ‘Come along, let’s get down to it.’

  She was in top form on the fifth evening. A full moon lit the mountains. She switched off the lights. Moonlight flooded into our room. She opened the window which overlooked the Valley of the Kaushalya and leant out to take in the scene. Her gossamer thin chemise exposed her rounded buttocks. ‘Come, Mohan, see how beautiful it is.’

  I stood behind her with my head resting on her shoulders. She pushed her rear back, into my crotch. I unbuttoned and entered her from behind. It was not very comfortable but very blissful. From experience I knew most women come quicker when entered from the rear. She stayed at the window surveying the scenery. ‘It will be better in bed,’ I said, barely able to hold out. ‘Let the full moon see us making love,’ she said, relieving herself of my pinion hold. She removed her chemise and lay on the carpet with the moonlight playing on her body. I lay on top of her. We prolonged our love-making as much as we could. By the time we finished, the moon was no longer shining through the window. A cold breeze blew and chilled our bedroom. We lay in the same bed to warm ourselves.

  The next morning Sonu came down with a heavy cold and a sore throat. She could hardly speak. I rang up to ask Garg if there was a doctor in the hotel. He sent for one from Kalka and came to fetch us. ‘I’m going to move you into the lower hotel,’ he said.

  We stuffed our things into our cases. Sonu wrapped herself in a hotel blanket and we slid down by cable car to the lower hotel. Swaran took Sonu to her guest room. Sonu’s eyes were streaming. The doctor took her temperature: she had mild fever. He forced open her mouth with a spoon and examined her throat. ‘Streptococcal infection,’ he pronounced. ‘I will prescribe some antibiotics. You must take complete rest.’

  Sonu shook her head vigorously. On a piece of paper she scribbled, ‘I want to go home at once.’

  I asked the doctor if it was wise to drive her to Delhi in that state. ‘I don�
�t advise it,’ he replied. ‘But if Madam insists, you may undertake the journey. Keep the windows of the car closed and wrap her up in a blanket. I will give her some Aspirin. It will relieve the pain in her throat and make her sleep.’

  The porters put our suitcases in the car. Swaran lent us a woollen blanket and pillow. Sonu swallowed a couple of Aspirins with hot water and stretched herself on the rear seat. I went to the counter to settle my bill. ‘Don’t shame me in this way,’ protested Garg holding my hand. ‘I will settle it with the Rai Bahadur. Please ask him to ring me up to tell me of your safe arrival in Delhi.’

  I drove down to Kalka, had my petrol tank filled up and the speed controller removed. I did the return journey without a stop in a little more than four hours. The Rai Bahadur and his wife who had been informed of our departure by Garg were waiting for us in their garden. There were no smiles of welcome for me. My mother-in-law said very acidly, ‘The first time you take our Sonu out you bring her back sick.’ The Rai Bahadur said nothing but his manner made me feel as if I had committed a crime. I accompanied Sonu to her bedroom and waited till their family doctor arrived. He took her temperature.

  ‘High fever,’ he pronounced giving me a baleful look.

  ‘She has a very sore throat,’ I told him. ‘The doctor at the hotel said she needed antibiotics.’

  He gave me another accusing look, examined her throat and assured her, ‘Beta, there is nothing to worry about, I’ll get rid of your fever and bad throat in a couple of days. All you need is rest, you are suffering from exhaustion and exposure.’ He gave me yet another accusing look.