‘I have a terraced roof with low walls all round. At times I go up to do surya namaskar. On winter days I occasionally take up a canvas chair and sit in it for an hour or two.’
‘Not good enough,’ she said firmly. ‘Get a thick mattress with a pillow. And put a door with a bolt on the outside so you can strip yourself and let every part of your body be kissed by the sun’s rays.’
It was an attractive idea she had put in my head. I decided to get a carpenter to put a latch on the outer side of the door which opened out to the roof. And instead of one I would get the servants to put two rexine mattresses there. My imagination began to run riot about what Molly and I could do on the roof. The prospect cheered me up.
‘What are you smiling about?’ Molly asked.
‘What—nothing,’ I replied.
‘You were thinking dirty thoughts. I can tell by the look on your face, naughty boy!’
‘Never mind,’ I laughed and changed the subject: ‘What did you think of the India International Centre? It’s the most sought after club in Delhi. Good library, good restaurants, reasonable accommodation at reasonable rates. Something is always going on there in the evening: dance and music recitals, lectures, foreign films. I know many retired people who spend their entire day in the Centre.’
‘It’s no fun being at places where everyone knows everyone else. They want to know who a member has brought with him,’ she said. ‘Like that nosey friend of yours.’
‘That’s true of all clubs. A newcomer rouses curiosity. Next time I’ll take you to the pub. It’s a small, cosy place. Tipplers are too involved with tippling to bother about others.’
Molly was mollified. She slipped a disc of dance music into the stereo system. It was a tango. ‘Shall we dance?’ she asked extending her arms towards me. ‘This is my favourite tango—”Jealousy”.’
‘I haven’t danced much and I’m clumsy on my feet. You teach me.’
I got up and put my left arm around her shoulder. She had to guide me. I stepped on her toes a couple of times. She pushed me back on my chair and went through the steps all by herself, turning and twisting, long steps, short steps, till the music was over.
‘I thought you were good at everything,’ she said collapsing into her chair. ‘You can’t dance for nuts. I’ll teach you a few steps: waltz, fox trot, quick step and that sort of old stuff, then some rock-n-roll, twist and modern stuff. Didn’t any of your American women teach you how to dance?’
‘There’s not much of that on American campuses. Those interested go to dancing joints.’
‘We Goans have it in our blood; everyone knows how to sing and dance. You should come over during Christmas or carnival time. The taverns are full, feni flows like the Zuari river, couples spend nights on the beaches making love … There’s no place on earth like Goa.’
Her cheerfulness had returned. She chatted away during dinner. After dinner we sat in front of the fire; I on the armchair, she on the carpet, resting her head between my legs. We told each other with absolute candour about the affairs we had had. Hers were almost entirely with the whites she met in the health club or gave massages to in their rooms.
‘I can’t afford to sleep around with Goans. It would soon get around and I’d be branded a slut. With foreigners there’s no such danger. And although they paid me, I did not feel I was whoring because there was no talk of money beforehand, no bargaining. Everyone gave me a tip after a massage. If I gave them more than a massage, the tips were not a few hundred rupees but a few thousand—you can’t let that kind of easy money go. But my motto is: Have fun with the whites, marry only a Goan. Did you ever pay for sex?’
‘Never,’ I replied. ‘On the contrary many women gave me expensive presents after I had bedded them.’
‘I say, you’re special! You should have been a gigolo, then. I expect with a thing that size you’d have women willing to pay you a fortune to put it inside them,’ she laughed. ‘And I get it for free—get paid for it in fact, imagine! Oh, but of course it isn’t sex that you’re paying me for. You never pay for sex, do you?’
She was pulling my leg, but I enjoyed it. I enjoyed everything about that evening. Far from resenting what the other had done, we had become closer after our confessions. We looked forward to getting even closer.
I played with her hair till the fire died out. ‘I know it’s not the right time for you to be made love to,’ I said standing up, ‘but can’t we be in the same bed to keep each other warm? The nights are frosty and cold.’
‘I was thinking about the same,’ she replied. ‘But no jiggery-pokery. Yours or mine?’
‘I prefer mine. I get up early to let in the servants. I can lift you bodily and put you in your bed. You can sleep late.’
She nodded her head.
I went down to do my usual business in the garden and lock the doors. When I came up Molly was already lying in my bed. I brushed my teeth, changed into my night clothes and slipped in beside her. I took her in my arms and cupped her breasts in my hands. She pushed herself closer in my embrace and mumbled, ‘Thus far, no further.’
We spent the night in each other’s arms, enveloped in the warmth of our bodies. When two bodies have settled their equation, they can derive as much pleasure from simple physical contact with each other as they can from sexual intercourse. When I got up in the morning, she was still fast asleep. I went into the kitchen and put the kettle on the gas fire. I got out two rubber hot water bottles from my almirah and filled them up with boiling water, went up and put them in her bed to take the chill out of it. A few minutes later I picked her up, plonked her in her warm bed and covered her with an eiderdown. She murmured, briefly disturbed, then turned round and was back in her dreamland. I went down to unlock the doors and was back in my bed before the servants arrived.
I had my morning tea, read the papers, bathed, dressed for work. I had my breakfast alone. I was smoking my cigar when Molly emerged from her bedroom rubbing her eyes, stretching her arms above her head and yawning. ‘Good Lord! What time is it?’
I glanced at my watch and told her, ‘Eight-thirty. I’ll be leaving in a short while. It’s Saturday, half day at work, so I’ll be back home for lunch. I can take you out shopping in the afternoon. You should buy a few more pairs of salwar-kameez if you mean to wear them when we go out, or perhaps a few saris.’
‘Will you believe me when I say I’ve never worn a sari? I don’t know how to. Anyhow, it’s a clumsy dress. A working woman who has to jump in and out of crowded buses, ride scooters or cycles and work in massage parlours can’t afford to have all that drapery round her person. Salwar-kameez is more practical, better than a skirt, more elegant than jeans.’
‘Okay, I’ll take you to ready-made salwar-kameez shops.’
Before leaving the office that afternoon I cashed a self cheque as I did not want to use my credit card to pay for women’s clothing. I was back home in time for lunch. Again it was Molly’s cooking. A very sensible menu, light and tasty. Clam chowder followed by pomfret with mayonnaise sauce. No dessert.
Two hours later we set out on our shopping expedition. First South Extension market, then Janpath, and finally the state emporia with dresses and handicrafts, supposedly genuine, from the different states of India. Besides four pairs of salwar-kameez Molly bought a lot of other things like blouse pieces and cosmetics. I picked up two boxes of Havana cigars from M R Stores. I blew up a lot of cash. We went to Gaylords to have tea. In between munching sandwiches and hot pakoras she put her hand on mine and asked, ‘Are you as generous with all your women?’
‘If they are generous with me, I’m generous with them. So far you’ve been the queen of generosity so I grudge you nothing.’
She pondered over what I had said, then resumed attacking the sandwiches and pakoras till none were left on the plates. ‘I’d like a smoke,’ she said. ‘Do you have a cigarette on you?’
‘I switched to cigars some years ago—much nicer. I’ll get you a packet. What kind?’
I gave the waiter a twenty-rupee note to get me a packet from the vendors outside. She lit her cigarette, inhaled and sent the smoke streaming out of her nostrils. ‘When I have the curse on me, I tire quickly,’ she said, fanning the thick curls of smoke away from my face. ‘For two days I bleed like a pig being slaughtered. On the third day it’s much less. By tomorrow I should be right as rain. And at your service.’
She winked at me just to make sure I had understood.
By the time we came out of the restaurant Connaught Circus was bathed in grey twilight. Drowning the roar of traffic was the screeching of thousands of parakeets and mynahs settling down in trees for the night. As usual there was heavy traffic on the road leading to Maharani Bagh. It took us almost forty minutes of bumper to bumper driving to reach home.
There was a log fire in the sitting room. Drinks had been laid out. After the hours of shopping even I felt tired. I took a hot shower, got into my night clothes, woollen dressing gown and slippers. Molly did the same. When she emerged from her room, she looked fresh and cheerful. She brought parcels of her shopping with her and spread out the pairs of salwar-kameez she on the carpet. ‘Which do you like best?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know; they all look nice to me.’
She picked up the kameezes in turn and held them against her chest, turned sideways to examine herself over and over again. She folded each item carefully and took them back to her room. I poured her a drink. She put on the stereo when she returned, this time a Tchaikovsky waltz. ‘Too tired to dance,’ she announced, ‘but music goes nicely with booze.’
We drank, listened to music and chatted. We had our dinner by the fire.
‘Can we sleep together again?’ she asked. ‘I’m still not quite clean, by tomorrow morning it should be over. Messy business! Will you tell me why God put this curse on women and not men? Seems so unfair.’
‘I haven’t a clue. I’m told though men don’t menstruate they have a menopause when they turn fifty. Some begin to behave very oddly. They have a final bout of womanizing, pawing young girls, using bawdy language or exposing themselves. Others turn religious and waste hours in pilgrimages and prayer.’
‘Yes, that’s true!’ agreed Molly. ‘Women at least know that after they’ve had their menopause, they can’t have children. Even their appetite for sex wanes. But men seem to get randier. Even if they can’t get their peckers upright and hard they try to poke them into women. Have you seen a fifty-plus man squirming with lust? It’s the saddest sight. So disgusting! They make such fools of themselves. I feel sorry for old men. They never learn to leave their limp old dicks in peace.’ She laughed uproariously. ‘Now to bed. Yours, I expect? And nothing doing this night as well. Just cuddle and go to sleep.’
It was the same as the night before. We snuggled into each other, kicked the hot water bottles out of the bed and slept with the warmth of our bodies.
It was Sunday. No office. I slept longer than usual. I picked up Molly, carried her to her room and tucked her into her own bed. ‘Sleep as late as you like. It’s Sunday. It will be a late breakfast—early brunch. Take your own time.’
She mumbled something I couldn’t make out and turned over and went back to sleep.
I opened the doors, picked up the Sunday papers lying in a heap by the gate and went back to my room. I switched on the electric radiator and got back into bed to read the papers. The bearer brought me tea. In half an hour I had run through the six papers and their colour supplements. There was nothing much to read. I went up to the roof to check the arrangements. The two rexine mattresses were lying next to each other, drenched in dew. I walked round the roof. It was higher than the roofs of the other houses. I could see my neighbours, they could not see me. The rooftops were a forest of TV and dish antennae as far as the eyes could see. While strolling around in the chill morning, it occurred to me that I had missed out on my surya namaskar for many days. I stood facing the rising sun and went through all the motions. I felt the better for it.
I bathed, changed into a sports shirt and slacks and put on a thick sweater against the cold. Molly emerged from her room after ten, freshly bathed and in one of the salwar-kameez sets she had bought the day before. ‘How do I look?’ she asked looking down at her long shirt.
‘Very nice! I suggest you wrap a shawl around you. This weather can be very treacherous.’
She went back and came out with a hand-knitted woollen scarf, which barely covered her front. We sat down in front of the electric radiator. I lit my cigar, she lit her cigarette.
‘It promises to be a bright, sunny day. The mattresses are on the roof and I’ve got a bottle of herbal oil to put on my skin. We can sunbathe all afternoon till the sun goes down.’
‘That will be lovely,’ she replied.
We had a light brunch: hot Chinese sweet-and-sour soup and ham sandwiches. The servants cleared the table and left for their quarters.
‘Come and take a look at the bandobast,’ I said and led her by the hand up the stairs to the roof. The sun was bright and warm. It had dried the dew on the mattresses. A bottle of herbal oil was warming itself in the sun. Molly walked round the roof to make sure that no one could see us.
‘You get into a light dressing gown,’ she ordered, suddenly very professional and in command, ‘I’ll get into my working clothes’.
We waited to let the sun get warmer. When we went up again, it was exactly overhead. And no breeze. ‘Perfect for sun bathing,’ pronounced Molly. ‘Take off your dressing gown and lie down on your stomach.’
I did as I was ordered. She took off her cotton nightie and tossed it on the ground. Not a stitch of anything on her except the gold chain round her ankle. She came over and sat on my back—astride, as if riding a horse. I could feel her pubic hair tickle the base of my spine. With both her hands she kneaded my spine from bottom to top, over and over again. She pressed her thumbs hard into my shoulder blades, then twisted them, rinsing out all the tension. She filled her palms with warm herbal oil, smeared it on my back, and repeated the process: up the spinal cord, behind the neck to the base of the skull, round the ears, down to the shoulders and back to the base of the spine. She got up, stepped over me twice and again sat down on my back, this time facing my feet. She put more oil in her palms and went over my buttocks and between them, circling my anus lightly, then to my thighs, legs, ankles, down to every toe. This went on for almost half an hour. It was very soothing and sensuous. Every inch of my body was aching to be ministered to by her loving fingers. She stood above me and ordered, ‘Turn around.’
I turned around and lay on my back. I got a worm’s eye view of her thighs and what they concealed. She sat down on my stomach. She ran her fingers round my nipples. I had not realized a man’s nipples could be as sensitive as a woman’s. She poured oil on my chest and with open palms rubbed it into my torso many times. Once again she changed positions; now her buttocks were towards my face. As she stretched forward and back, her pubic hair grazed the line of hair running down from my navel to my groin. She slapped a liberal palmful of oil beneath my testicles and rubbed it into my inner thighs, down to the ankles and the feet. She had to lean forward to massage my feet and I had a splendid view of her anus and pubic fluff. I began to react. My penis sprang to full life and slapped against her thigh as it did so. She slapped it down and away. ‘Patience!’ she admonished.
The massage went on for an hour. I can’t recall ever having experienced anything more pleasurable and sensual—even more than sexual intercourse. She wiped her oily hands against her sides and lay down on her mattress, face down. This time I went over and sat astride her, my balls caressing the small of her back as I moved. Though I had not massaged anyone before, I imitated her. I massaged her body from her neck to her toes, first the rear then the front. I glued my lips to her nipples in turn and slowly entered her. It was heavenly. I stayed inside her a long t
ime, both of us motionless. Then I pulled out and asked her to turn around. She lay on her stomach with her legs wide apart. I positioned myself between her thighs and began to massage her buttocks. Come to think of it, a woman’s buttocks excite a man more than any other part of her body—more than her lips or breasts or her pussy.
And Molly’s were beautifully rounded and firm. I found them irresitible and slowly entered her cunt from the rear. She gave a long sigh of pleasure and let me go further and further into her. We did our best to prolong our bliss. Every time I felt I was coming I pulled out and sat still till the crisis had passed. Then we resumed our search for the ultimate truth of bodily existence: at times she pressed into me from above with my hands squeezing and pressing her buttocks to urge her on; then I on top with her nails stuck into my posterior. When neither of us could hold out any longer, we went at each other like wild animals, tearing and clawing each other’s flesh. The climax was the most prolonged that either of us had experienced in our lives.
No words were spoken. Words were superfluous. We lay on our mattresses and let the sun dry up the oil on our bodies. We had been at it for almost three hours.
After worshipping the sun with our bodies in our own unique way, we went downstairs to cleanse ourselves of the oil on them. I fetched two loofahs and gave her one to run over her limbs after she had soaped herself. There is nothing better than a loofah to scrape oil or dirt off one’s body. I felt cleaner than ever before. I got into my woollen dressing gown, switched on the electric radiator and lit a cigar. Molly joined me a few minutes later and lit a cigarette.
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