I looked at him, trying to understand what he was saying. But he tried to impress me some more and continued, ‘Kaveri, Gaudi is more than just a painter, an artist or an architect. His work carries meaning to different realms. He uses nature to depict something larger. It’s actually quite fantastic!’ he said, smiling to himself.
I looked at him then. A part of me wanted to hear more about this, to listen to this man talk forever. He inspired me. He motivated me. He understood me. Wasn’t that what a perfect man was supposed to be?
But that voice of Reason came back and my headache returned.
‘Please, Arjun. Stop. I can’t talk about random stuff anymore. I don’t care about the tattoo. I care about us. Will this end as soon as we finish dinner? Will we have nothing more to go on with?’ I rambled. I sounded foolish even to myself. But I was a little lost girl in this forest of love.
He took my hand and looked into my eyes, ‘Not if you don’t want to.’
He had really opened up to me. If he was truthfully saying his marriage was over, then why shouldn’t he move on? After all, a man also needs some fun in his life and he needs to have friends. What was the harm in me giving him that fun, and being a friend? This relationship was becoming more and more acceptable to me as we chatted. But a part of me was still angry and hurting. I blurted out, ‘You should have told me you were married. I could have had the choice then to remain friends before …’ I caught myself from saying ‘falling for you’. I stopped mid sentence.
‘I’m sorry I led you on. But please give me a chance!’
‘But you’re married Arjun,’ I said softly shaking my head. ‘I can’t be … I’ve never been … my morals … I’m …’ I struggled to get the correct words.
He took my hand and put both of his over it and held it tight for a long time. Then he looked at me and brushed my hair away from my face. ‘Please. Stop saying that. It doesn’t matter. Sometimes you find your soul mate after your marriage … You’re so beautiful,’ he whispered. ‘Just give me a chance.’
Was he my soul mate? Was he supposed to be anything? But my brain told me to get over the married part and look at him more clearly. Was he what I had wanted if he was single? And the answer was right there in front of me. I knew then what I had to do.
‘Arjun,’ I said softly. ‘How about you come back to my room and we chat there for a bit? The music is too loud here,’ I said trying not to sound desperate.
He looked at me as if it was a test. ‘Are you sure, Kaveri? I don’t want you to regret anything later and blame me for it.’
‘I’m a grown woman. I know what I’m doing,’ I said with more stubbornness than confidence. I was actually a little tipsy and didn’t really know what I was doing. But you only live once, I thought. Maybe I’ll never find the right man. Maybe, when I told the Universe I wanted to lose my virginity, it didn’t answer back with, ‘Here’s the perfect single guy who wants to spend the rest of your life with you, Kaveri.’
I didn’t want to wait till the perfect single guy came along. I might have to wait for years, and by then I would be old and haggard. I mean, look at Aditi who has been sleeping with all the wrong men and she still hasn’t come across the one person she loves and is willing to marry. Arjun was my Great Love. There, I said it. I had found him. The man I was looking for, to give me what I needed, yearned for and desired all my life. My Great Love. Who cared if he was married? He was there. And he wanted me.
I could either take that chance now, or wait till I got married to someone else. Besides I had promised myself that I would be true to my ‘values’. The conflict had been killing me all day. It had to stop now. He paid up and we went to my hotel room.
Yes. I had made up my mind.
Thirteen
Hotel room. This is not how I imagined it. He draws the curtains. Lights switched off. A warm glow comes from a corner. I look around and see it. Lavender scented candles. How? Hotel gift shop, he says. I’m so scared. And yet eager. He approaches me. I’m shy. He kisses me. Confidently. Deeply. Gently. He pulls my hands over my head to take off my shirt. Not yet, I whisper. He holds me tight. Gently. I ramble incoherently. He holds my chin up. You don’t need to, he says, it’s okay. I confess, this is new. He hesitates. I draw him in. I want it. I take off my shirt. I’m self-conscious. Gasp. You’re gorgeous! he mumbles. I fumble with the buttons of his shirt. He looks deep into my eyes. Not judging. Just wanting. Hoping. I see him. Striking body. Stunning bronze skin. He moves his hands down my back and draws me closer. He nuzzles my neck. I run my fingers through his hair. I’m so unsure. Maybe I should stop. I try and speak. Unsuccessfully. He smothers any words that may emanate from me. Sure movements of the tongue. Deft. I sigh. I stumble back, and we land on the bed. He swivels me around and kisses my back. His hands tenderly move to my breasts. I want more. He gently lays me down. I quiver with anticipation. He kisses my navel. Glides down. I stop him. Too soon. Silence. He continues. Oh God! What have I been missing! It’s so wrong. He’s not mine. He finds me with his mouth. I moan. He breathes me in. Don’t stop, I beg. He smiles. Are you ready, he asks? No. Yes. Now. He pulls me down, holds my leg and begins to slide into me. I groan. Should I stop, he asks afraid to hurt me. Yes, no, don’t stop, I beg. He moves in deeper. It burns. Long, slow strokes. Softly. Surely. Gently. So good, I murmur. Faster, harder, rougher. Pain. Pleasure. Oh, I know now. My back arches. He holds me tighter, breathing heavily. My nails dig into his back. He smiles at me as he moves. A half-smile. Eyes locked with mine. Not flinching. The room smells of us. Of love. Of lust. Of sweat. Sigh. Minutes become hours, night becomes day. Our bodies still entwined. Am I doing this correctly, I think. And then, right there, I know. I let go. He unwinds. We smile. I say with my eyes—I’m a woman. I’m Yours. I’m Whole. He knows.
Coffee. That was my first thought. I have no idea why but I guess since I’ve never been too much into alcohol, the first comfort, warm feeling I wanted was from a hot cup of coffee.
So I got up and made myself a cup of coffee. It was almost dawn now. The most beautiful sky I’ve ever seen lay before me as I sat on a chair near a window overlooking the sea. My body trembled from all the action of the last few hours. My skin couldn’t stop tingling. My heart was overwhelmed with the feeling of being loved and my body was exhausted from being appreciated. It had been fantastic and I had no more words left.
He got up and sat on the other chair by the window. In my hotel room. With his cup of tea. The sun was hitting him from behind the large windows. God, he was good looking! If he hadn’t been, it wouldn’t have been worth it. Really, that was shallow, but it was true. The fact that his amazing smile and personality added to his looks helped. But no, I was digressing from the fact: HE WAS MARRIED!
Shit. That made me The Other Woman, I never thought I would be! Especially, when I’d been a virgin till only a few hours ago. But I didn’t want to think about that. The more I tried to shut my mind to that fact, the more it kept coming back.
I remembered that Alanis Morissette song, Ironic. The one thing you really want from life and when you get it, it turns out to be at the wrong time. So we sat in silence and finished our coffee and tea. It was my turn to speak and he respected that. So I made him wait. I didn’t know what to say anyway. I should have asked him to leave, and told him that I never want to see him again.
But then, I was in love. In love with a married man.
Love.
One word.
So many questions and never any right answers. A word that makes people do extraordinary things—in my case, extraordinarily stupid things. My senses had deserted me. A word that is most clichéd and yet most potent. I knew now what I had been missing. But I also knew that it couldn’t have been with any of those men that I had met earlier. No. This was destiny. Fate had brought us together at this stage to share our bodies and our lives and know that it didn’t take a lifetime to get to know a person. Sometimes it took seconds.
And let’s not forget the Love-Making.
I thought it would be awkward but it was not. It was tender and gentle. Yes, it hurt, but it was this lovely feeling, like when you jump into a blue, inviting, cold sea on a hot day, it stings at first but the feeling when you’re in that water with the sun on your back, it was like that. It was exhilarating. It felt like I was finally free.
The memory would not be bitter if we had to part now forever. But, oh god, would we have to part forever? I felt guilty and yet so happy. I smiled at him. I had got into this knowingly, from the beginning. But I was beginning to feel crummy about what we had to do now.
‘So what should we do now?’ I asked, hoping for some answer that would make me happy without the guilt pangs.
He looked at me, shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Take a shower?’
I smiled. ‘You know what I mean.’
He took a sip of his drink and said, ‘This is nice and hot. You know how to make it exactly as I like it.’ He was moving away from the topic. I felt uncomfortable. I had led him on. I had made him sin. Adultery. I felt ashamed. ‘Thank you. I have a knack,’ I said nonchalantly to his compliment on the tea. I think he guessed my tone.
Unsure.
He nodded and continued, ‘I think you’re the most beautiful, intelligent, enigmatic woman I’ve met. And I have no idea what to do from here. So, what you want to do is completely up to you.’
I stayed quiet, thinking this over. I finished my coffee and kept it back on the table in front of us. I wanted to ask him if he loved me the way I loved him. But I knew that was a stupid question. Because I think only women are capable of feeling such strong emotions within such a short span of time.
‘I want us to remain friends,’ I said finally.
‘Just friends?’ he asked, too quickly and eagerly. Thankfully.
‘I’m not so sure that this relationship can be any more than that,’ I replied. I wanted it to be more and yet I had all these conflicting emotions. What would my parents have thought of me if they knew the truth?
‘Kaveri,’ he said, putting his cup down firmly, ‘I want more than a friendship. What we had …’ he stopped and took a deep breath and continued, ‘You know what … whatever you say is okay with me.’ And that’s all he said. And then he got up and went to take a shower.
Did he want a relationship or a commitment or a fling? What exactly did he mean, I wanted to ask? But I just stayed quiet, happy in the thought he wanted something at least. But we had a whole lot of issues to clear up. So I asked after him, ‘Arjun, you’re married. How do we take this further anyway?’
‘Arjun!’ I asked again, hesitantly.
He came out of the shower after five minutes with a towel wrapped around him and said dispassionately, ‘You know, we’ll just have to be careful. I don’t want us to be seen by anyone where the news might go back to her. I want to break it to her once she’s back from her mom’s place in Assam.’
So I nodded and agreed. It would hurt his wife. He was right in being cautious.
‘And,’ he continued, as he gelled his thick black hair, ‘we’ll have to see how we feel about each other and take our relationship forward.’
See how we feel? I’m already in love with you, I wanted to say. But he didn’t feel it. He wanted to test the waters, which I suppose was a logical thing to do. Maybe I could show him how much he could be in love with me. I thought I would prove what an indispensable, desirable, devoted girlfriend I could be and then he would realize that he was in love and marry me.
‘Sure,’ I said nonchalantly and headed to the bathroom. But he pulled me closer to him and held me tight.
‘I want whatever you want. I’ll spend as much time with you as I can and we’ll see where this goes once we go back to our daily lives, okay?’ I nodded and before I could say anything, he pulled me down on the bed and moved his head towards my neck again. He started kissing me softly on my ear.
‘I have a whole lot of tricks that you haven’t seen yet,’ he said in a naughty tone and I smiled and said, ‘Show me.’
Later when I was in the shower, I stared at my reflection in the mirror. I knew I had changed in the last three days. I had gone from being a woman who didn’t know anything about men to one desperate to hold on to the man she had just slept with. So what if he was married? I had taken on challenges in my life and this was just another one. He himself had said his marriage was on the decline. I just needed to push it down the drain. And then I would be Mrs Arjun D’Souza. I didn’t want to wash away this smell of him that was on me now. I didn’t want to dissolve the feeling on my body of sweet surrender. I didn’t want Greek God to be a fling. I wanted permanence. My plan was already hatching in my head when he entered the bathroom and kissed me. He dragged me back outside and we went back to a routine we became familiar with only a few hours ago.
Then after taking a shower and making love for the third time that morning, we quickly packed and he drove me to the airport. We parted like lovers and promised we would meet during the week once he came back to Mumbai. I was looking forward to meeting Aditi, and telling her about my plan. Oh, she would be so proud of me!
Fourteen
Once I was back in Mumbai, the first person I wanted to call was Aditi. I really didn’t know how she would react to me seeing a married man, and to top that, sleeping with him. I decided to go over to her place since she text messaged that she was at home, cleaning her cupboards.
Aditi had taken the decision to live in Lokhandwala all her life. When I had first come to Mumbai, she had just moved into a two-bedroom apartment away from her parents’ in Pune. She wanted a roommate. And so I had become her first roommate. And we loved each other’s company, not to mention the apartment itself. It was on the fifth floor overlooking a mangrove, which was so rare for an area like Andheri. It had two small bedrooms with attached bathrooms, but the living room was large and extended out to a balcony. We had bought colourful throw cushions for one corner and a low divan as a sofa for the other wall. We used to sit most evenings contemplating life over cups of Irish coffee. Sure, we could barely afford it but, as she said, if it wasn’t a nice space, it wouldn’t have been so much fun.
Then her parents visited us and soon enough, started regularly occupying her room while she slept on the divan outside. Feeling it was much too crowded for me, I moved out and found a place in Bandra while her parents permanently settled into ‘our’ apartment. By now they had presumed it was their place, too, and Aditi occupied my old room.
I felt awkward about talking to her in front of her parents about this new development in my life, but since she had insisted that I come over, I had no option. I greeted her parents and sat with them in the living room and answered politely all their queries about work and laughed appreciatively about becoming grey before a man came into my life, as her mother fondly gave me tea and glucose biscuits.
Then Aditi said she had to finish cleaning her wardrobe and we were excused while her parents went back to watching TV, which was on mute even when they were conversing with me.
‘So how was your vacation?’ Aditi asked, as she opened her light brown cupboard door and threw out some clothes from the bottom shelf on to the bed.
‘Good,’ I said casually, going towards the window to look at the mangrove below. I missed seeing it every morning. Over a period of time, Bandra had become one concrete jungle and trees were a rare sight.
‘Don’t give me that. I know something is up. Tell, na,’ she said, as she sat down on the bed folding the clothes into piles.
‘Okay,’ I sat down on the chair next to the window, still holding my cup of tea that had become cold. It was much too sweet for my liking anyway. ‘Can I please have some coffee, with sugar separately?’ I asked.
‘Nandu!’ she bellowed, in the direction of the kitchen to their full-time servant, ‘Ek pheta hua coffee, cheeni alag se. Jaldi! (One brewed coffee with sugar served separately, and make it quick!)’ Then she turned towards me and raised her eyebrows in question again, all the while sorting out her
clothes.
‘I met someone …’ I said quietly so that her parents wouldn’t hear.
She almost squealed till I raised my finger to my lips and pointed to the door reminding her of her parents. I couldn’t imagine how Aditi, being so outgoing, lived with her parents, especially since she had come to Mumbai to find her freedom.
‘They can’t hear, yaar! They’re too obsessed with watching the new Sony serials on full blast. So tell me, who is this gem you’ve managed to find …’
I was careful as I spoke, ‘He works in Mumbai. He’s from Goa, though. And I think I’m in love with him!’
‘What?’ she asked incredulously, ‘How long were you in Goa? A year? How can you be in love so fast?’
So I went on to describe the first date and Aditi listened in rapt attention with ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ at the same places where, a few days ago, I had been thinking the same thoughts. When I finished, I had omitted the part that was most important.
But she jumped up and came to me and gave me a big hug and said, ‘I’m so happy for you, Kavu! Tell me all about it? How was the first time?’
‘Well it hurt pretty badly but he went slowly over a long period of time and we did a whole lot of other things that made it really comfortable.’ She waited for me to continue, but I didn’t want to elucidate, all of a sudden. I felt that this was really private and it should be so. It should not be discussed in detail with even your best friend. I wanted it to be a memory I would cherish and not something that Aditi could take apart for her pleasure. So I shrugged my shoulders and said, ‘That’s it.’
‘That’s it?’ she shrieked. ‘Shut up! Tell me what he did and how you felt. I still can’t believe you did it with a total stranger!’ I knew she would think that. That’s why I didn’t want to tell her that I did it with someone who was my ‘soul mate’.
Explaining that to Aditi would have taken longer than describing the experience so I just threw my hands in the air and said, ‘See, you’re off the hook now! Mission De-virginization accomplished!’
Losing My Virginity and Other Dumb Ideas Page 8