by Bitsi Shar
To me, these were cries of help. He seemed to be asking rather loudly for some attention to himself as he walked barefoot on the melting asphalt. The asphalt clung to his feet taking his skin off with every step. I couldn’t look directly at this carnage of a human being. I could no longer feel the taste of the salad in my mouth. It tasted rancid and bitter. I sat it down on the table and began to absently rub my hands. This was clear sign of my agitation with what I was witnessing.
I saw him get up. He was fishing out the wallet from his back pocket as he stood up to his six foot frame. He started to take out a couple of bills as he started in the direction of my present angst. I saw him place the bills in the man’s hand, say something to him that I couldn’t hear. But the man seemed to immediately still and then I saw him fall to his feet touching, almost kissing his benefactor’s feet. He backs off from that show of reverence before bending down to lift the man up to his feet. He then turned him in the direction of a small tea stall on the other side of the road. I knew then without hearing any of his words that he was directing the man to eat some food at the stall with the money he now had. With a last piece of advice delivered, he returns to his salad and me.
He knew I was watching, most possibly with something like awe in my eyes. But he refused to look at me or my awe, just grabbed his empty can of salad, dumped it in the waste-basket and walked away to his scooter.
He was astride his scooter when he looks up to see me still gawking at him and called out, “Coming, sweetheart?”
I stopped gawking but was still suffering from my second shock of the day. In less than a minute, we were pulling out of the parking lot and in less than two minutes I had slipped my arm tightly around his taut stomach. I could feel his muscles spasm at my touch but I didn’t care if it was involuntary or that he liked my touch.
I cared that he had cared and my arm was meant to demonstrate that exactly.
Chapter Five
I quickly kissed my mother on her cheek before running out the door. I was late for my chartered bus. As I ran out, I began to stuff my face with the buttered toast while stuffing the lunch box into my backpack. I was also running while trying to swallow the dry piece of toast. Not the best idea. But missing the bus was not an option today neither was calling him for a ride.
I am sure he is processing as am I—the strange salad (!) of an evening. I feel it could get even stranger if we were riding together again this morning. I would certainly not know what to say or even do. I wanted to avoid the awkwardness after that kind of an evening. So here I was sliding into the line that was forming for the bus that was now turning into the lane to pick us up. The line moved as people started boarding. I was the last in the line of about fifteen people.
I turned rather casually to look behind me and see him turn the corner. He too was taking the bus today? Why? Scooter out of commission? Or was there some other reason that my befuddled brain could not formulate upon seeing him jog to our boarding line? He got closer and I saw that he was smiling, at me. I think I smiled back. But my smile disappeared as he stepped in way too close and breathed a minty “hi” in my face. I stare and he stares back. I am not sure how I was staring at him but he was staring at me like he was trying to remember my face, like he had temporary amnesia and my face might help him to power through his temporary disability to make him whole again.
He breathes another “hi” over my face and my eyes closed involuntarily. I feel like I am being swallowed by him. No, not by his body, no, for he hadn’t touched me at all. It's the way he smelled—that mixture of his heat, his cologne, and his brand of chewing gum that was creating a havoc in me. I could smell him all day and wouldn’t need food or water or even air for the duration. I could live on that smell. I could live looking at him. His was a sartorial style unlike any Indian man I had encountered in my young life. Today he was wearing a crisp white shirt and black slacks with a striped mauve and grey tie. His cuff links were an understated silver and his brown leather shoes shown like sparkling water. His distressed leather Hide Design briefcase screamed “style” and “taste.” He definitely looks odd amongst other men in the line and some in the bus now with their dirty grey shiny poplin pants matched with an equally dirty green shiny poplin shirt worn over a white vest at whose low neck sprout a hideous matt of black and grey chest hair. And there is of course the ubiquitous gold chain that only adds to the creepy quotient of this ubiquitous Indian male ensemble.
So it was rather disconcerting to see him dress like they do in the proverbial west. He should not know how to do this differently than anyone, for the context does not allow him to be imaginative, especially regarding his clothes. Clothes are clothes. They are meant to cover you in all the right and wrong places. They are meant to keep you cool in the summers and warm in winters. Clothes should be functional and not decorative. They should be comfortable. You are not meant to look good in them. Looking good for whom, pray tell us? Who is asking or admiring or telling? No one. But here he was looking good, smelling even better, and getting everyone’s attention in the process. So clothes can have affect, huh! He was certainly producing his own affect—he was the man amongst boys (or men who never grow out of their adolescent vagueness and their mother complexes; who never really look at themselves in the mirror to find themselves only to comb their spectacularly stupid looking hair or shave).
He, on the other hand, knew how to look in the mirror He knew what he wanted or to be. I was so glad that I was sitting with him rather than some pickle-smelling, pot-bellied adolescent, talking loudly to his co-riders, cracking mind-wrenchingly bad jokes and following it with a game of cards played on the bus over a worn out, steel-rimmed briefcases.
But what was this? He was actually interested in chatting up the adolescent than me?! What’s with this polite, social conversation with those who do not measure up to you in either the dress-up or smell departments? I was miffed. So I turned away from him and looked out the window. I prayed that his social politeness ran its course and his attention dragged my way on this one hour drive to our respective work places. And it does—faster than I thought. I turn towards him and find him looking at me.
He smiles and then asks—“So how are you Ms. Sharma?”
His voice is low and deep. The low is for me, I know and the deep echoes through my heart making it skip its next beat. So basically my heart and mind are both off their rhythmic kilter at that simple question.
I say, “good” and then ask, “So how come you are traveling with ordinary people like us in a bus? I thought you hated public buses?”
He smiles again—“Just didn't feel like driving today, Ms. smarty-pants.”
He then leans into me, close to my right ear, trying to look awkwardly conspiratorial and hits me with, “I knew you would take the bus today. I knew you weren’t going to call me for a ride after last evening. So I thought why not take the bus with Ms. Sharma and see where her mind is at today.”
I blink at him. Again, I am speechless. His face is almost in my face. I cannot even squirm under that heated gaze.
He doesn’t take his eyes off my confused eyes and then his lips move again—“You look so pretty in pink, Ms. Sharma” and then he takes a whiff as if he is smelling me, “hmm, you smell good too—What is it? Soap, perfume?”
I weakly say, “soap” and then deliberately break the contact with his eyes, turning to the window once again. My gaze is unfocused because my senses are all in a major twirl. I can feel his eyes at the back of my head. My head feels warm just by that fact alone. I feel compelled to turn around. He is looking at me like he cannot look anywhere but at me. He smiles suddenly and then ever so lightly raises his index finger, dragging it ever so slightly across my right cheek. My vagina clenches even as my breathing stops for the second he touches me.
Okay, time out. What the hell? What is he doing? And what the fuck am I doing? He is my brother’s best friend for goodness sake. So what if he looks and smells good? So what if his one touch strikes a f
ire in my belly, producing wet panties like never before? My brother has other friends but I have never felt like this with either one. And they probably never felt like this about me. Well, maybe they did but they knew I was my brother’s sister and that some imaginary line may not be crossed between them and I. He, on the other hand, did not get the memo and so did not know of any line that existed or may not be crossed with me. So he crossed it many times over without any fear of probable consequences. He was saying, “You in pink and smelling like you do is doing things to me, Ms. Sharma.” And I am sure if pink would show on brown, my cheeks would be flaming red.
I keep my eyes away from his. My body has broken into a sweat and so has my vagina. This is not a set of sensations that I am at all familiar with. But god! It feels sensational.
Probably two minutes elapse before I feel his palm cover mine. My head whips around to his, terrified now at this seemingly innocuous display of PDA. I don’t want anyone on the bus to see. It would be so embarrassing if they do because they will talk. They will tell someone who will tell someone and finally someone I know will know what happened in the bus on a certain fateful day. There will be questions, many in fact. And finally the proverbial line in the sand will be drawn, proscribing certain behaviors in public even though it was never meant for the public.
I try to snatch my hand back, but his hold tightens. As I try again to wiggle free from his grip, I see that our hand lock is actually hidden from any public view by his gigantic leather briefcase now sitting on his lap.
The briefcase is serving its camouflaging potential real well in the moment. I stop fidgeting immediately. I let my palm rest in his as he slowly relaxes his hold on me. I now get to touch the fabric of his pants. His thigh feels sinewy, seemingly bunching and hardening as I gently smooth our locked hands over it. I am not sure what else I could do within the permissible parameters of the hand lock.
So I just sit there taking in the warmth of his clasp, now spreading to the crook of my elbow, my armpit, and finally through the area under my breast. I am a little lost around his audacity but welcome the thrills coursing through my nervous system as a result.
He slowly turns my palm inside out to begin making feathery circles with his index finger. I didn’t know that certain nerves in the center of my palm are directly connected to my stomach. One of them explodes at his touch and my breath expels like I have been punched in. I am all sensation and no thought. My brain had stopped doing its work. It had probably short-circuited by now. Did I care? Na! I wanted him to continue doing what he was. But I also wanted this madness to stop. See, short-circuit? Don’t know what I want or what I should want. The lines have been blurred, on the verge of erasure, I would say. I know my stop is approaching. I need to stop him before he starts becoming imaginative in this boring public bus. I need to get off, breathe again, and manage the rest of my day like I would any other day.
The bus conductor announces my stop. I snatch my palm and this time he lets me go. I snatch my bag and prepare to sidle past him. He doesn’t move his knees to assist in my careful sidle. He stays, his knees stay where they were before. But his hand comes up as if to assist me in my precarious sidle. Instead, his palm cups my left bum for approximately ten seconds and drops. And I am left bereft. My warmed bum and my confused self step off the bus onto the burning asphalt. As I walk towards my office, I fear a long, long, long day of trying to work and failing . . . miserably.
Chapter Six
The phone rang at work, again and again and again. My heart jumped faster with every ring. I deny that I am expecting his call but I am.
I am still thinking of his hand in mine and on my bum. Hell, that warm palm on my bum could be just my imagination. Maybe it never happened and my mind had begun to hallucinate in the wake of eroticized hand-holding. Bum-holding may have been the residual to the hand-holding affect. But the warmth lingers. This is not an imagined sensation. I feel imprinted upon like a decal on a runner’s vest.
Every time I get up for a glass of water or a paper from the stationery cupboard, I gently rub over my imprinted bum, not to accomplish its pretend erasure but to remind myself that its there. Maybe I want to push it further into my skin, hopefully in some indelible way. I know everyone has noticed my stupid smile all day. Yet no one has said or asked anything. I feel grateful for not being inquisitioned today. I would know not what to do except maybe go red again or remain a mute.
“Ms. Sharma,” Dipta addresses me formally from the doorway. I look up and see her smiling. “Is there a Ms. Sharma available to take a call from Mr. SexyNobody today?” She winks at me! I feel the warmth rising from my stomach all the way up to my face. I smile at her but without saying a word walk past into the phone room. I pick up the receiver feeling like my heart’s racing at the sound of hundred decibels per second. Its deafening.
My bum is searing now.
I say a hello into the phone but no sound emerges. I try again. This time there is a sound but a barely recognizable sound. I am officially deaf now.
“Ms. Sharma” he is saying, “Am I intruding?”
Before I can attempt another unrecognizable sound, he continues, “Sorry, if I am but I calling to inquire about your bum—hope it is feeling roundly happy this morning.”
I am rendered soundless now. Not just speechless, no, I retract. I am feeling peeved with his audacity, his little risqué playfulness. So I respond with a huff, “fine.”
My voice is a little clipped now. He gets it immediately. “Oh, baby, I am sorry if I offended you. I just couldn’t help myself. You really have very delectable, touchable bums. I felt helpless before the pair of them.”
The “baby” makes me warm all over. But I refuse to let go of my peevishness, “You took undue advantage of my sidle and for that you are no gentleman, Sir.” I shoot back at him.
He laughs! And then says, “Oh, Ms. Sharma, I have been a gentleman for far too long. I have endured your flirtations for too long without flirting back even when I so desperately wanted to. I liked you sitting behind me on the scooter and holding me with your pretty hands as if I was your anchor in this world, as if I am one you have been waiting for all through your young life. And yesterday, I decided I am going to start playing the One you have been waiting for even if you might disagree with my perspicacity. I couldn’t resist anymore. So I kind of made my intentions a little clear hoping you would not misunderstand them. I don’t want you to misunderstand them. But since touching you I cannot get you out of my mind. My fingers have been twitching all morning and I have watched them involuntarily take the shape of your delectable bum again and again and again. I seem to have no control over what my hands are doing anymore. So I had to call you and ask you—does your bum feel me? Are you feeling me? What do you want to do now, Ms. Sharma? And please don’t say anything as stupid as ‘I don’t know.’ You know and I need the truth right now.”
He stops, breathes hard into the phone as if he has just run a hundred meter dash through his office space. Of course, I have no words or sound. I try to formulate words that would not sound stupid or worse, inane. But I can’t. He has in fact rendered me stupid with his spiel. So I just wait for something to spark in my brain. He waits too. No, I don’t think of anything after maybe five minutes of being silent on the phone.
So I just say, rather stupidly, “Sir, please . . ..”
He immediately cuts me off and asks, “Please what, Ms. Sharma? Please come back and reacquaint your bum with my hands? Please come back and hold your pretty hands as you come into your pretty panties? Yes, Ms. Sharma I know what that squirming is all about. My hands can do things to you that you only read in your Mills and Boons romance books. My hands are at your beck and call, honey. They are yours, if you’ll have them. I can come to you right now and we can broker a deal between my hands and your bum. I look forward to that—very much so.”
I drop the phone in its cradle. I cannot bear to hear anymore. I am moist everywhere. I know the veins around my vagina are b
eginning their strange throb and I am at the verge of exploding without much ado.
Goddamn! I hate this man, I say to myself.
But I know it's a lie.
Yet the question is: What has gotten into this man?
Since when did he become Mr. Sexy Verbosity? After all those weeks of remaining relatively uninterested, why is he suddenly unleashing on me? Is he testing me—to see whether the gauntlet he is throwing down is the exact response to the gauntlet I seemingly have thrown down at him since the first time I sat behind his scooter? Or is he trying to scare me away with all this sexpertise? Is he telling me that he knows what I am doing and that I better know what I am doing because he is up for a challenge?
My head is beginning to hurt. This was meant to be easy or did someone fool the heck out of me?
I decide to go home, blacken my windows, throw together the darkest curtains in my room, take a nap and get rid of this pain everywhere.
Chapter Seven
The phone is ringing, again! My life and phones—it is becoming a rather sordid story. I am slow to open my eyes. Its dark. As I come to, I realize that I am waking up from a nap that instead of being short has become a rather long one. Its close to 7:00 p.m.
I have napped into dusk, my least favorite time of the day. Dusk is depressing, especially if you nap like me. It is that time of the day which is neither here nor there. It’s neither day nor night. You really cannot do anything substantive in terms of work or even entertaining yourself before night falls and when the night falls sleep is nowhere to be had. So you are up for an incredibly long night of reading, wondering, tossing, and turning your mind inside out over silly one-sided phone conversations. So life is stuck between an in-between time while reality slips into the surreal.
