‘Not solely my designs,’ I protested, ‘mutually-agreed-upon designs.’
‘True. The fly inviting herself into the spider’s web.’
We finished our beer. ‘Would you like a bite? The cook’s left some fish mayonnaise and cold salad in the fridge.’
‘Are we not getting our priorities mixed up? Lunch can wait.’
She stood up. I took her by the hand and led the way to my bedroom. ‘I’m sticky with sweat. I’d like to get out of these clothes first and take a shower.’
‘Not a bad idea. I’ll join you.’
We stripped and went into the bathroom. I turned on the shower, took a cake of scented soap and rubbed it over her body—face, neck, breasts, stomach, between her thighs, on her small buttocks, down to her ankles. Under the cascade of water she gently took my member in her hands and remarked, ‘You really are the biggest I’ve ever seen. I did not notice it in Haridwar. Let me soap it for you.’
She wasn’t tall enough to soap my neck, so she concentrated on my middle—rear and front. It was exquisite. We rubbed each other dry, tossed the towels on the floor, went into the bedroom and lay down on the bed.
‘Get me a few cubes of ice from the fridge, I’ll show you the Sri Lankan boob trick,’ she said.
I did not know what she was up to, but got her a tray of ice nevertheless. She put some cubes in a handkerchief and asked me to rub it against her breasts. As I did so, her breasts began to stiffen and her nipples turned into hard black berries.
‘I know you men like them hard,’ she said. ‘Now you can warm them with your mouth.’ I did so, kissing and sucking and biting till she slid up and pressed her lips hard onto mine. We were lying on our sides; she put one leg over mine and with one bony hand guided me into her. I could not enter her fully in that position. ‘Come over me,’ she ordered as she lay flat on her back and raised both her legs. I went into her again. ‘All of it,’ she cried hoarsely, again and again. ‘All of it. ‘Nothing to worry about this time.’
I rammed into her. She was small but had no problem taking all I had. Every time I plunged into her she thrust her pelvis up to receive me. I bit her little breasts savagely. She egged me on. ‘Bite them harder and give me all you have.’
I did. We came in a furious frenzy. ‘By God, that was the greatest fuck I’ve had in my life,’ she said lying back exhausted. ‘And you?’
‘It was great,’ I replied. I did not want to be disloyal to women who had given me as much pleasure, most of all her predecessor, Molly Gomes. ‘It was great,’ I repeated. Perhaps she understood that it was not the greatest.
We set up a regular schedule of meetings. Our code word was ‘Operation Colombo’. She came over almost every Saturday—a holiday for her, a half-day for me. I would give my servants a half-day off and tell them not to return before five as I might be having a late siesta. Mid-week she would get me on my direct line and ask, ‘Okay for Operation Colombo?’ and I would reply, ‘All set.’ By the time I got back home, the servants would have left. I would be on the lookout. A taxi would stop next door. A small lady would step out, open her parasol and walk into Ranjit Villa. Her greeting was invariably the same: ‘Hi there!’ The only variation we made in our weekly meetings was whether it would be chilled beer and a cold snack before bed or bed before chilled beer and a cold snack. We would shower together in the nude and dry each other. I would then pick her up in my arms—she was a feather weight—and lay her gently on the bed and stretch out beside her. We made love at a leisurely pace—almost an hour of foreplay till she said, ‘Come, I’m ready.’ I would enter her and steadily work her up till she clawed my neck and head with her nails. I would then let her have all I had stored up during the week. Almost invariably we climaxed at the same time. We would have another clean-up shower and get back into our clothes. She would stay with me while I smoked my cheroot. I would drop her near a florist at the entrance to Shanti Niketan where she lived in a flat rented by her High Commission. She would step out of the car, open her parasol and glide out of view. She never invited me to her apartment.
Occasionally we ran into each other at diplomatic receptions. She kept a straight face when we were introduced to each other: ‘This is Miss Sue Goonatilleke of the Sri Lankan High Commission. This is Mr Kumar, a businessman.’ She would greet me with a namaste and always add, ‘Nice to meet you, Mr Kumar.’ And if we shook hands only a gentle squeeze, invisible to all others, betrayed the fact that we knew each other better, much better.
It was amazing that our two-year-long intimacy did not become a topic for gossip. The credit for this goes entirely to Sue. Most in my circle of friends came to the conclusion that at long last I was going straight. It was a simple formula: if you fucked and were found out you were debauched, a goonda, unacceptable to society; if nobody got to know about it, you were a respectable citizen. In the two years I had sex with Sue, my image changed from that of a sex maniac who paid all kinds of women for their services to a man of impotent respectability.
It was also strange that though Sue and I enjoyed each others’ company neither of us used the word love in our endearments. Our bodies craved to be locked into each other, her yoni ached to receive my lingam—the cosmic union! Our bodies spoke to each other—endearing words of how loving and lovable the other was. Perhaps at the back of our minds was the knowledge that our relationship was not for ever and could soon come to an end.
The end came sooner than I expected. Sue’s third year in the Delhi posting was about to finish. She hoped her ministry in Colombo had forgotten about her posting in Delhi. It had not. She received orders of transfer to the Sri Lankan consulate in New York. She was given a month more in Delhi, following which she would need to return to Colombo for another month for briefing before proceeding to her new posting. She told me this as casually as saying, ‘I will not be able to make it next Saturday.’
‘What will we do?’ I asked in dismay.
‘We will make love as long as we can,’ she replied calmly. ‘It was good being with you. We knew it was not for ever. We must have no regrets.’
We made the best of the three Saturdays that remained to us. Our love-making was more intense, the last one deliberately prolonged as if it was for eternity. When she was about to leave I gave her a pearl necklace and a gold ring with a blue sapphire. She made me put the necklace round her neck and slip the ring on her third finger. Her eyes brimmed with tears. I kissed them away.
‘You will keep in touch, won’t you?’ I pleaded.
‘Of course I will. I’ll write to you when I can and may be ring you up from New York to tell you how I’m doing. You must write to me as often as you can.’
When I dropped her at the Shanti Niketan turning after our last meeting, her parting words were: ‘Operation Colombo, complete success.’
Bless her!
Sue rang me the day she arrived in Colombo, and again when she left for New York, and then from New York the day she moved into her own apartment. I did not ring her up. Perhaps her calls were monitored even there. We wrote to each other every week. We used words of love we had not used while making love. So it went on for some months. I felt closer to her than I did when she was living only a few kilometres from me and was available once a week. Then I began to miss her calls and her letters became shorter and less frequent. She always had a valid excuse: she had to go to Washington for a briefing or she had far too much work. Six months later she informed me that she was engaged to marry a fellow Sri Lankan diplomat posted in Washington and we should stop writing or calling each other on the phone. She assured me that she would for ever keep a secluded corner in her heart for me, and love me as she had from the day we first met.
It would not be honest to say I was devastated. But I was deeply saddened. Eventually, I reconciled myself to losing her: losing a woman is not the end of all there is. While there is life, there is hope. I was not yet fifty and had much to look forward to.
A strange feeling of lassitude bordering on leth
argy overtook me. I did not want to do anything. I lost interest in my business. It went on nevertheless. I had no desire to go to Haridwar anymore. The two persons with whom it had come to be closely connected in my mind—my father and Sue—had gone out of my life. I wrote to the ashram secretary, saying that I would not need the room any more and it could be let out to anyone who wanted it. I posted the key of the room to him.
About this time I wanted to see my children more often. They were not receptive to my advances. Sonu had thoroughly brainwashed them. I was a bad man who had done the dirty on their mother. They were allowed to come over to see me whenever I asked but I could see that they did not enjoy their visits and wanted to get back as soon as I let them. I gave them expensive gifts; they accepted them without enthusiasm. I asked them how they were doing at school. The usual answers were ‘Okay’ or ‘So, So’. Ranjit had not inherited any of my mathematical gifts and often failed in his arithmetic, algebra and geometry exams. Mohini showed a little more affection for me but was scared of her brother sneaking to her mother. Once I asked Ranjit what he wanted to do when he grew up. He replied, ‘I don’t know. Something or the other.’ I told him I had a running business which he could take over. He replied, ‘If I go into business, I will start something of my own.’ When I told him that the house was registered in his name and would become his after me, he just looked around with disdain. ‘Daddy, what are you going to give me?’ asked Mohini. ‘The same as your brother, paisa for paisa. Shares in my company, cash and jewellery for your wedding. If you want a house, I’ll buy you one before you are twenty.’ She was satisfied. ‘Can we go home and tell our Mummy?’ I knew they wanted to get away. I let them go.
The idea of inviting another woman to be my mistress no longer appealed to me. I scanned the photographs and letters of the remaining six or seven who had responded to my invitation and tore them up.
I had become irregular in my surya namaskar and had begun to develop a paunch; my hair started turning grey. I often forgot to recite the Gayatri mantra. I became like a rudderless boat adrift in an endless ocean.
To fight the feeling of emptiness and the restlessness that came upon me in the evenings, I took to recording the events of my life. This is what you have read—not exactly as I put it down, because I’ve asked my writer friend, Khushwant, to tinker with these words a little; I am no writer. He can do what he likes with these pages; I have been comforted by the memories of the women I have loved in my own way. That much is enough.
III
The Last Days of Mohan Kumar
The most difficult thing Mohan Kumar had to deal with in his adult life was the loss of his sex drive. This happened about a year after his affair with Susanthika Goonatilleke ended. Even when he fantasized about the women he had enjoyed and others he fancied, there was no stirring in his groin. He tried the wildest of fantasies and looked at pictures of naked women in Playboy and Debonair to induce erections. There was no response. He did not like this. Sex was the most important thing in his life: with the sex urge gone, there was little left for him to look forward to. However, after a while there was a mild compensation: he paid more attention to his business and began to socialize more than before.
But he could not accept impotence as natural in a man not yet fifty who had lived such a full sexual life. He tried tonics—ayurvedic, unani. He went to health clubs for different kinds of massages: Kerala, Ayurvedic, Swedish, and simple maalish by pehalwans (wrestlers). He felt the better for them but they did not reactivate his libido.
Kumar’s business took him to Bombay. He checked into the Taj Mahal Hotel near the Gateway of India where he usually stayed. After calling on his business associates he returned to the hotel in the evening. He sat in the lobby watching the coming and going of guests and visitors. How very desirable some of the girls looked in their slinky saris or tight-fitting jeans, flaunting their big breasts and wiggling their buttocks as they walked past!
He went to his room and took out his bottle of Scotch. He asked the room bearer to fetch him a bucket of ice cubes, a couple of sodas and some snacks. The bearer rang up room service. A few minutes later another bearer arrived carrying the things Mohan had ordered and laid them on the table. He opened the bill folder for Mohan’s signature. Mohan put a hundred-rupee note in the folder as a tip. The bearer thanked him profusely and left with a deep bow. The room waiter was watching. He asked if sir would need anything. ‘No,’ replied Mohan.
Mohan had his evening quota of three large whiskeys and polished off the plate of canapés. He did not want to go down for dinner; he had had enough to eat. He rang for the room bearer. After the bearer had cleared the table, Mohan gave him a hundred-rupee note. The bearer was pleased and asked if he could be of any other service. This time, without thinking, Mohan replied, ‘Can you get me a woman?’
‘Sure, sir. How much?’
‘Anything. Five hundred to a thousand. She must be young and attractive.’
A few minutes later the bearer came back leading a woman of about thirty. She had short, neat hair and was smartly dressed in a long grey skirt and a low cut yellow blouse. She did not look like a prostitute. The bearer left them together. Kumar asked the woman to sit down. She sat down on his bed and said, ‘You pay first.’
‘How much?’
‘The bearer fixed a thousand for one time. You can pay me more if you like it.’
Kumar took a thousand rupees from his wallet and handed them to her. She counted all the notes and put them in her hand bag.
‘Tell me when you are ready.’
‘Take off your clothes and let me see what you look like.’
She obeyed: the blouse and the skirt came off first; then the bra and the panties. Mohan’s member stiffened. He was delighted. In that one instant all the anxiety and frustration of the past several months was wiped out. He was his old self again. He pulled down his pants and showed her what he had. ‘For that I should charge you double,’ she said. ‘Most women who see it want it for free,’ replied Kumar with a leer.
There was no passion in her movements. When he tried to kiss her on the lips, she turned her face away. She let him kiss and suck her breasts. But her nipples did not harden. He went into her. She tried quick heaves to get him to come fast. He took his own good time; he had not had sex for months. When he came, she feigned a climax. It was all very mechanical but he was satisfied; relieved that he had not become impotent.
She cleaned herself in the bathroom and got back into her clothes. Kumar gave her another one hundred rupees. ‘If you want me I can come again. Don’t ask the room bearer or anyone else. He takes his cut, the pimp takes his commission, I get less than half of what I earn.’
‘Come tomorrow evening, same time. What is your name?’
‘No name,’ she replied. ‘I will come tomorrow through the main entrance. There will be another bearer on duty; he does not know me. Keep your door open.’
The woman with no name came the next evening as she had promised. This time dressed in a sari, a bindi on her forehead, sindoor in the parting of her hair, looking like any respectable middle-class housewife. As far as her pimp and the room bearer were concerned, it was her day off. The money she got from him would all be hers. She did not ask to be paid in advance. It made quite a difference to her performance. She was not the indifferent, get-on-with-it-and-finish-as-soon-as-you- can woman of the earlier evening. She was gentle, almost loving in her endearments. Her nipples responded to his kisses and nibbling and she was wet when he entered her. She was eager to prolong the intercourse and came when he came: no feigning. When Mohan gave her money—with an extra hundred added as a tip—she did not sit down to count it, but gave him a kiss on his lips.
‘You use no effel?’ she asked, using the old word for condom.
‘I do sometimes. But I was not expecting sex in Bombay,’ he replied.
‘You should,’ she advised, ‘it is safer.’
‘You won’t tell me your name? What if I want you again w
hen I come to Bombay?’
‘No name. I am a married woman with children. I do this dhanda because my husband does not earn enough. You ask the same bearer to get you the same bai he got for you last time.’
She gave him another kiss and slipped out of the room.
Mohan Kumar returned to Delhi, reassured that he had not gone kaput.
Mohan recovered his zest for living. Sex had lost its old urgency but he was content with the knowledge that if the opportunity came he would not be found wanting. He was out wining and dining with his friends every other evening. Twice a week he had a party in his home—the best food and beverage in town. His friends noticed how high-spirited he had suddenly become after months of moodiness. ‘What’s happened?’ asked the young wife of one of his friends at a party in his home. ‘Have you won a lottery? Made another couple of millions? Or have you found a new sweetheart?’
‘All those and more,’ he replied and added cryptically, ‘I have rediscovered my manhood.’
‘Go on with you!’ she quipped. ‘You’ve always been the macho man of Delhi. A kind of “sarkari saandh”—a stud bull employed by the government to impregnate cows. If half of what I’ve heard about your prowess in bed is true, you’ve always been a favourite with women. So what’s new? What’s made you so bloody cheerful?’
He did not tell them. They had lots of fun and laughter at his expense. He did not mind it at all.
It must have been more than six months after his return from Bombay that Mohan’s health began to deteriorate. Till then he had not suffered a day’s illness. Regular surya namaskars kept his bowels clean—constipation, he knew, was the mother of most diseases. He hardly ever caught a cold, and if he did, it lasted barely two days. He did not need glasses: his vision was perfect. So was his hearing. All thirty-two teeth were in perfect condition: he visited his dentist once every six months just to make sure he had no cavities and nothing was wrong with his gums. He had never suffered from the fevers that visit Delhi periodically: malaria, dengue, typhoid, cholera. No coughs, no breathing problems. Nothing. He had never been to a hospital as a patient, only to visit sick friends. His robust good health giving up on him disturbed him.
Company of Women Page 23
