Cold Feet

by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan

  I didn’t even suggest we get out of the pool, didn’t care if the children saw us or if Nina came home unexpectedly. I didn’t plan on ever seeing them again. I let him move his hands underwater between my legs, and I let myself feel knee-shaking pleasure. When he was done, I didn’t offer to return the favour. He looked guilty, but I didn’t stop to comfort him. ‘I should go,’ I said, and almost added, ‘good luck with your marriage’ but didn’t, and then thought what the heck, and did. My rickshaw did a U-turn past the building and I saw the slight figure of Nina, stopping for just a second before she entered the house, her sunglasses on, her profile unbearably sad.

  So, that’s what happened with the Loons. I still don’t think I ever want to get married, I feel bitter and jaded, but then Des rides his scooter up to the shack I’m sitting in and I see him walk in and my heart constricts and I forget about my bad haircut, so who knows? Maybe I’ll change my mind again.

  22

  Distinctions, Not Differences

  Some things about dating an older man are different. Young men, the men I’m used to dating are all about exuberance and enthusiasm. I mean, it’s like their making out is all!!! Whereas Yusuf is a semicolon or even a comma, he is all pauses. At first, I totally hated it. Okay, hate is a pretty strong word, but I wasn’t used to it and so it felt weird that someone would spend so long giving me a hand massage (yes, that’s a thing, I never knew either) as opposed to trying to take my bra off. And then I started to like the hand massage, it felt quite good. I didn’t realize how much my thumbs ached at the end of the day. How much all of me aches, and Yusuf had a way of ironing out my knots, spending a very long time with that one sweet spot right up between my shoulder blades, and never asking for anything in return. That also threw me. I’m used to being an equally enthusiastic partner in sexual things. Sometimes, yeah, I do just lie there, but then I try to make the right noises and move my hips enough so it’s like I’m participating.

  The first time I tried that with Yusuf, he stopped halfway through and looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘What are you doing?’ I was still in the zone, still moving, still moaning, so it took me a little bit to realize he wasn’t moving and moaning along with me.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘Where’d you learn that?’ he asked, looking amused and then rolling off me.

  ‘Hey!’ I said, and then ‘Hey!’ again, pinching him, because he was just sitting up casually, taking off his condom, acting like he hadn’t just totally stopped in the middle of mind-blowing sex (okay, okay, not mind-blowing. I’d had better. Maybe … average?).

  ‘Hey yourself,’ he said, pouring himself a glass of water.

  ‘Why did you just do that?’ I asked, sitting up too. He passed me the glass of water and stroked my hair back off my forehead. I had a sudden thought—oh God, how obvious—of my father, doing the same thing—minus the naked sexing—when I was sick, checking my forehead, giving me a glass of water. Not sick–sick, that was my mother’s domain, but my dad always seemed to know when I needed a glass of water.

  Yusuf keeps a bottle by his bed, he had only just given up smoking and talked me into giving up too; using the best argument, ‘I don’t want to kiss an ashtray’, and so there was always water in convenient places, so we could have a glass instead of smoking.

  ‘You need to unlearn some stuff you think is sexy, Shay,’ he said, squeezing my hand. ‘I mean, I know you think that all guys want is some kind of porn star in bed, but trust me, it’s so much sexier when the lady is just enjoying herself.’

  ‘I am enjoying myself,’ I said, sulkily.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, waggling his eyebrows at me, ‘if you think that’s enjoyment, you are in for a treat, young lady.’

  I guess the dad stuff and the ‘young lady’ stuff should’ve creeped me out. But I don’t know, for the first time ever, I felt totally safe, and totally able to let go. And I saw what he meant, he spent several Sundays convincing me of his methods, and oh my God, that sex was mind-blowing. I missed the enthusiastic humping that the younger dudes did every now and then, but it was worth swapping it, I think.

  Yusuf may not be on the ‘go’ all the time, our sex life is maybe once or twice a week? But they’re good once or twices, they actually count. And the times when we’re not doing the, you know, penetrative stuff, he’s doing other stuff, so I’m pleased, generally. I can’t complain. He made me feel small and young and vulnerable.

  ‘Bobo?’ he said, one evening. ‘Bobo’ was his name for me, I don’t know why. It didn’t sound anything like Shayna, but it seemed to please him. I just called him Yusuf, but I dragged it out when I was feeling affectionate so it sounded like Yooosuff. I let every letter melt on my tongue. That evening, I was playing with the dog, she was quite old, but liked having her ears stroked. You had to do it just the right way, a tug and a pull at the ends, and she liked a firm grip and a scratch on the furrows between her eyes.

  ‘I never know whether you’re talking to me or the dog when you say “Bobo”,’ I said.

  He laughed in his throat. ‘This time, you.’

  ‘What is it?’ I asked. The dog slipped her nose into my palm.

  ‘You good, Bobo? You have everything you need?’ He looked at me, and then, like he couldn’t bear to look any more, turned his glass to the light. I knew he was asking if I was happy with him, and I considered it, sitting there in that cool room, on the comfortable rug, dog’s head on my knee and a book I kept picking up and reading a few pages at a time lying face down on the sofa. That was also Yusuf’s doing, and to please him, I read it, and it all felt very grown-up, this life. On the coffee table, if I wanted it, was a Martini he had made for me, and the remote for the television. I had been spending almost every night there since the first week, my underwear tumbled with his in the washing machine, one of his T-shirts was ‘mine’ to wear around the house in the mornings. At night, I had turned into someone who slept naked, even though I had never done that before, but in his gorgeous, dark, climate-controlled bedroom, I felt I could. There was a light cotton quilt we could use if we got too cold, and sometimes, at night, Yusuf would turn over, completely in his sleep and spoon me harder than anyone ever had before, his stubble lightly scratching my back. I always woke up when he did that, but woke up in a good way, like you used to when you were a kid, in the backseat of your parents’ car, and you didn’t realize you had fallen asleep and you had been carried to the car, and your brother was asleep next to you, and you opened your eyes just a crack and you could hear your parents talking in low voices in the front seat. Like you were so loved.

  Yusuf was still waiting for an answer and I smiled at him. ‘Yeah, I’m good,’ I said, and then, because his eyes softened as he looked at me, I got up abruptly and said, ‘I’m starving. What shall we eat tonight?’ Man, I loved his kitchen. It was always so stocked and full of goodies. He went grocery shopping once a week, to this large food outlet all the way out in Malad, and one week he had taken me, but I had just been so awestruck by all the stuff, I couldn’t make a decision.

  ‘Pick something, Shay,’ he’d said, ruffling my hair. ‘I’ve got all the groceries. So you can get us a treat.’ So I got a twenty pack of microwave popcorn, which always felt like an indulgence to me, something only to be bought for special occasions, but he smiled, said, ‘Good choice’ and tossed it into the cart.

  He had a maid who came and cooked, better stuff than I had eaten for a while, because Yusuf was a Foodie with F-O-O-D in capitals. But most nights, he just told her what to prep in the daytime and then cooked himself. ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he told me once. ‘I used to hate cooking just for myself. I’ve eaten so much better since you came into my life.’

  He offered to teach me how to cook, but I had absolutely no interest, so this was the time when he busied himself with stirring and frying, and I either sat cross-legged on the kitchen counter, talking to him and nibbling on something or the other, or I spent watching TV or reading that massive book h
e had got me started on.

  ‘I thought I’d do Khow Suey tonight,’ he said, walking past me and kissing me on the forehead as he passed. ‘You like Khow Suey?’

  I was only very vaguely aware what it was, but I said, ‘Mmm, yes, totally.’ As it was, I had a total disadvantage compared to him, I’d never felt inadequate before, but Yusuf had read so much, done so much, that my life experiences felt very unformed.

  ‘Would you take her for a walk, please?’ asked Yusuf, indicating the dog. ‘It won’t take long to make and she’d love a walk, she’s been in all day.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, reaching for the leash on top of the bookshelf. The dog got super excited, weaving her way between my legs, dripping saliva on my feet in a loving way, as I tried to get the leash on.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, ruffling my hair again, but then making up for that daddy-gesture by grabbing my ass.

  I guess if I told anyone else about it, even Vidur, who is normally the kinkiest person I have ever met, it would all come across as a little bit creepy. Yusuf was so much older than me, and I’m not stupid. I know there’s only one thing that an older man wants, usually, and it wouldn’t be my mind. But isn’t that what they all want ultimately? I thought of all the other boys I had been intimate with, three of them before Yusuf, and that’s three including everything, not just the ones I had had sex with. Actually, I’d had sex only with one other person. I probably come across as a lot more slutty than I really am. It’s something I do on purpose, I lower my voice and cross my legs so my dress rides up my knees, and I smoke, with hooded eyes. Except I couldn’t smoke any more because Yusuf made me quit. At least, he thought I had, but when I was walking the dog, I fished out one crumpled cigarette from my bra and snuck off to smoke it. I guessed he’d smell it on my breath and my clothes, but I was prepared to lie about it. I had before, and he hadn’t called me on it, but here’s the thing. I had gotten so used to seeing him in this dual father-figure-meets-lover role, I gave him the authority to ask me if I was smoking, all prepared with a little story, but he never asked.

  Just as I had taken the dog on two rounds of the building, my phone beeped thrice. Three text messages, like staccato bullets. The first one from Yusuf read: ‘Darling, dinner’s ready.’ The second one from Vidur read: ‘Hello stranger! Let’s go out and get shit-faced tonight. I have a new fellow who’s bent on breaking my heart.’ And the third one from my brother read: ‘Shayna, Mummy and I arrive tomorrow evening on the 7.30 flight. Please come and receive us at the airport and we’ll have dinner somewhere.’ I knew why my brother hadn’t called me instead; a call would’ve meant that I could have made excuses. This way, even if I texted him back saying that tomorrow evening was impossible for me, he’d pretend not to have seen it.

  I turned my thoughts to pleasanter things and Vidur’s text as I pressed the button for the lift. It would be awesome to see him. I felt like I hadn’t for ages. Of course, I still saw him at work, but we had had a hard time catching up there, being on opposite schedules that week, and usually, our gossiping was reserved for after hours, when we went for a drink. These days, I had taken to rushing home, either to stop at my own apartment to get supplies or straight to Yusuf’s, where he never seemed encumbered with his nine-to-five job and was always waiting for me with a drink. Some days—and this had started happening more frequently—he’d send his car for me. Just that afternoon, it had arrived and Vidur had spotted it as we walked outside, and he had tried mightily to keep from rolling his eyes, but hadn’t quite succeeded.

  ‘It’s just a car, okay?’ I said, feeling defensive. ‘He’s not using it at the moment.’

  Vidur spread his palms up and shrugged his shoulders in a what-you-gonna-do way and said, ‘Bye, Shayna!’ as he made his way to the main road.

  ‘Wait!’ I called after him. ‘Can I give you a ride somewhere?’ but Vidur just shook his head and said, ‘We’ll speak later!’

  I was pleased to get his text that night, it meant he wasn’t pissed and still wanted to be my friend. Plus, it had been a while, ever since I had started dating Yusuf—I did some quick finger maths—so, for eighteen days now, I hadn’t been out on the town. It was time to be myself again.

  ‘You have your determined look on,’ said Yusuf when I came in and unleashed the dog. I stretched, letting my T-shirt ride up, reminding him that his girlfriend was young and attractive and had to do young and attractive things.

  ‘I didn’t know I had a determined look,’ I said, and followed this up with, ‘wow, that walk made me really hot’ and stripped off my T-shirt, standing there in my bra and my shorts.

  I waited for him to come over and grab me, but while he smiled, he also said, ‘Are you hungry?’ and I was reminded all over again that this was not the kind of relationship where I could do that.

  We ate, I a little less because I wanted to feel sexy and not have a big food belly right after, and then I sent Vidur a text saying I’d meet him in an hour. Then I stretched out my foot and placed it on Yusuf’s crotch. We both watched the movements of my leg. I looked up at his face. ‘Hi,’ he said, smiling, and I stood up, shook my hair around and led him by the hand to the bedroom.

  After, I lay on his chest and he stroked my hair. I tried to subtly shift my head so I could see the clock on the bedside table. Yusuf felt me stirring and sat up, pouring me the usual glass of water. I clocked the clock. If I left now, I’d be ten minutes late.

  ‘No thanks,’ I said to the water, and got out of bed, casually, super casually putting on my bra. ‘Where are you going?’ asked Yusuf, and I looked at him with practised blankness for five seconds before I said, ‘Oh, just to meet Vidur for a drink.’

  ‘Now?’ he asked and I said, ‘Yeah, he’s having boy trouble.’ And I made the sympathetic face you’re meant to make when your single friend is having trouble and you’re discussing it with your boyfriend; both of you feeling a certain degree of smugness that your own love life is so trouble-free that you can actually discuss other people’s problems. He lay there and watched me dress and vanish off to wash my face and then he called out something which I didn’t get. ‘What?’ I asked, sticking my head out of the loo door, toothbrush in my mouth.

  ‘I said, can you give me five minutes? I need a shower.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, looking at him smiling at me expectantly. I went back inside the bathroom and spat into the sink. There were two things I could do, accept and then sit there with him and Vidur all night, not having a chance to bond with Vidur at all, or tell Yusuf that I wanted a night out on my own. For a moment, I quailed and almost went with the easy choice, but then I shook myself and went outside again. Yusuf was sitting up in bed, apparently waiting for me, his eyebrows already raised.

  ‘The thing is,’ I began, picking up a hairbrush and trying to look busy, ‘I think it might be best if I went on my own. Vidur really wants to discuss personal stuff and he doesn’t know you very well.’

  Oddly, Yusuf didn’t look taken aback at this news, he just sat back, his mouth twisting. ‘I see,’ he said, ‘maybe the best way for Vidur to get to know me would be if he met me?’

  I was beginning to get annoyed. Now I couldn’t have a life of my own? Please. ‘I don’t think tonight is that night,’ I said, really wishing I had a cigarette right about then. And who had made me stop smoking? That’s right, this guy right here. He wasn’t my father, he wasn’t my father at all, and since when had I started letting boyfriends walk all over me?

  ‘Just so we’re completely clear,’ he said. ‘You don’t want me to come out tonight?’ He had this funny look on his face, but I wasn’t in any mood to analyse it or coddle his feelings.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, and almost added ‘is that okay?’ but didn’t.

  ‘Okay, see you,’ he said, and rolled over and closed his eyes. Well, if he was going to be like that. I stomped out the front door, startling the dog and proceeded to have quite a crazy night out with Vidur. He didn’t ask any questions about my relationship, except once
in the beginning, when he said, ‘All okay with the old dude?’ and I wanted to smack him, but I didn’t and it was slightly awkward, but we made it past that and it was like old times.

  Except, I missed Yusuf. I didn’t realize how much until I went back to my own flat that night and let myself in. The house smelt musty, like it hadn’t been lived in for weeks. No sign of Model Roommate. I wanted to talk to Yusuf, to tell him about my evening, but when I checked my phone, there were no messages from him. Two could play at that game. I still hadn’t heard from him by the next evening when I waited at the airport for my brother and my mother. By this time, I was beginning to get slightly concerned. Was I supposed to call him? Call me spoilt, but I had never, not once in my whole dating history, had to call a guy first after a fight. If you could even call this a fight. I wasn’t about to begin now.

  ‘You’ve put on some weight since I last saw you,’ said my mother over dinner. I rolled my eyes. Dinner with my mother would not be complete without her making some remark about my appearance. ‘We’ve all been watching you on TV, you’re doing a good job,’ she said next, unexpectedly. I mumbled something into my soup. My relationship with my family isn’t super strained or anything, it’s just that we seem to be adrift since my father died, all three of us on separate boats, and when we do meet, it’s like running into someone you used to know, at a cocktail party, lots of strained smiles, lots of avoided eye contact, and everyone’s counting down the minutes till you can be adrift again.

  My brother told me he was getting married, over dessert. ‘What? To whom?’

  ‘A girl Chachi found,’ said my mother. ‘She’s very nice.’