Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

by Balli Kaur Jaswal

  Rita finally came downstairs after her husband had left for work and the boys for school. The house was still. Meera threw herself into her chores. ‘Can I help with anything?’ Rita asked. Meera coldly replied that she didn’t need any help. ‘All right,’ Rita said with a shrug. Meera could feel the younger woman watching her. She felt self-conscious.

  ‘You must think I’m very uptight,’ Meera said finally.

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘But you’re thinking it.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘No,’ Meera said. She picked up the laundry basket and marched to the washing machine. ‘I’m practical. I’m considerate of others. I’m not interested in hearing your nighttime activities.’

  ‘We’ll keep it down next time.’ Rita’s casualness infuriated Meera further. She searched the house for an impossible task for Rita to complete – perhaps washing the windows. The water spots always dried and left milky circles on the glass, making it look unclean. She was about to give her orders to Rita when she noticed that the laundry detergent was missing.

  ‘Where is it?’ she demanded. ‘Didn’t I tell you to keep the detergent on the shelf?’ Rita calmly pointed out that the detergent was better placed in the storage cupboard with the other cleaning supplies.

  ‘Rubbish,’ said Meera. ‘Is this how you expect to run a home?’ She marched over to the storage cupboard and found the laundry detergent. In the cupboard her hand also brushed across a box that she had not seen before. She reached into the box and found it full of clay sticks. They were rounded at the ends, with a particular length and thickness to resemble a certain part of a man’s body. She was about to return to Rita to confront her when she felt a breath on the back of her neck.

  ‘I didn’t think anyone would find those,’ Rita whispered.

  ‘I didn’t think you would need these,’ Meera replied, turning around. Her throat was dry but she managed to get the words out. It was rumoured that older women moulded these sticks out of clay and baked them to keep aside for when they were feeling an urge that their husbands could no longer satisfy. ‘You’re too young,’ Meera said.

  Rita’s laughter was like birdsong. ‘Too young? Oh, Meera. There’s so much I can teach you.’

  ‘You? Teach me?’ Meera retorted. ‘I’m your elder.’ But as she spoke, Rita had leaned forward and kissed her on the neck. Lightly, with her tongue, she traced Meera’s collarbone. Meera gasped and shrank back into the cupboard as Rita brushed her lips against Meera’s cheek and then finally, a full, deep kiss on the mouth. ‘I can show you lots of things,’ said Rita.

  Here, Tanveer stopped. The colour in her cheeks was high. She pressed her lips together and waited. The room was so silent that Nikki could hear the air stirring through the heating vents.

  ‘What happens next?’ Nikki asked.

  ‘They help each other out,’ Tanveer said. She couldn’t seem to meet the stares of the other women. Nikki nodded encouragingly at her. ‘I haven’t imagined that part yet.’

  ‘It’s definitely unusual,’ Sheena said, clicking off the tape recorder. The story seemed to have roused her spirits. She sat upright and regarded Tanveer with curiosity. Tanveer bowed her head as if expecting to be chastised. ‘Not in a bad way though,’ Sheena assured her. ‘Just different. Right, Nikki?’

  ‘Right,’ Nikki said, but she was aware of the thickening tension in the room. Arvinder was lost in thought. Gaganjeet had held a tissue to her nose to catch a sneeze that seemed frozen in place from the time Rita and Meera made intimate contact. Bibi nodded slowly and sagely, still processing the story’s details. Then she spoke.

  ‘This kind of thing is more common than you think,’ she said. ‘Two girls in my village were rumoured to serve each other as well, but I believe they just used their hands.’

  These words unfroze Gaganjeet. There was a sudden flurry of activity in her seat – sneezing, coughing, zipping up a purse and picking up a walking stick. ‘I really shouldn’t be in class when I am unwell. My apologies,’ she told Nikki. Her knees made a pistol-snap sound as she stood up and hurried out of the classroom.

  ‘You’ve scared her,’ Preetam accused Tanveer. ‘Why would you write such a story? This isn’t a class for women who do perverted things.’ Tanveer dropped her head once again. Nikki felt a flash of irritation with Preetam. ‘Tanveer has told a story about pleasure,’ she said. ‘I don’t think it matters who Rita and Meera find that pleasure with.’

  ‘It’s unnatural. It may as well be science fiction,’ Preetam said. ‘And these two women have husbands. They’re cheating.’ She shot a pointed look at her mother.

  ‘Maybe they consider it practice. Or something which enhances their bedroom lives,’ Sheena said. ‘In the next scene, their husbands return home and our Rita and Meera put on a little performance for their husbands. That’s a good night for everyone.’

  ‘Why do their husbands have to come home?’ Arvinder asked. ‘Maybe these women are content like this. We don’t have to have men in all the stories.’

  ‘Intimate relations are to be shared between men and women,’ Preetam said. ‘You’re encouraging these sorts of stories as if all of us were dissatisfied with our husbands.’

  ‘You’re lucky your husband treated you well. Not everybody had that luxury,’ Arvinder shot back.

  ‘Oh, Mother, please. He provided for you didn’t he? He gave you a roof over your head? He worked; he fathered your children. What more could you want?’

  ‘I would have liked some of what the women in these stories are getting.’

  ‘It sounds like you did get it,’ Preetam muttered. ‘Just not with the man you were married to.’

  ‘Don’t judge me, Preetam. Don’t you dare,’ Arvinder said.

  Preetam’s eyes widened. ‘I don’t have any secrets. If you accuse me of anything, you’re just lying.’

  ‘That’s right. You don’t have any secrets. You have no reason for any secrets. Your marriage was happy. Have you ever stopped to think about why that was? Because I let you have choices. I said no to the men who emerged from every corner as soon as you came of age. I didn’t care if they said my daughter was pretty and could marry into a well-known family – I wanted you to have your pick.’

  ‘Maybe we should stop for a while,’ Nikki suggested, but Arvinder shushed her. ‘Nikki, don’t try to play the peacemaker. Some things need to be said and they’re going to be said now.’

  Arvinder returned her firm stare to Preetam. ‘The adjustment period for some women was horrific. You weren’t still a little girl like Tarampal. She was ten. You weren’t like me – hastily mismatched with a man a foot shorter than you because both families were trying desperately to consolidate some drought-stricken land before it lost its value. Your father felt so small around me that his stick was limp all the time, and when I dared to complain once that we never had sex, he threatened to throw me out of the house.’

  The outburst stunned everybody into silence. Nikki’s mind raced. Of all the revelations hammering around in her mind, she could only focus on the most horrific. ‘Tarampal was ten?’ she whispered. The room was so silent her words seemed to echo across the walls.

  Arvinder nodded. ‘Her parents brought her to a pundit when she was ten and according to his palm reading, she was destined for nobody else but him. He told them that she would have five sons with him, and that they would all be wealthy landowners who would not only take care of her but also ensure the prosperity of their grandparents. They were so excited by these prospects that they disregarded his age – thirty years her senior – and got her married to him. They came to England about ten years later.’

  ‘What happened to his predictions then? Tarampal only had daughters,’ Sheena said.

  ‘I imagine he blamed her for it. They always do.’ Bitterness laced Arvinder’s voice.

  ‘Most of us were about that young but we weren’t sent to sleep with our husbands until we were older,’ Bibi said.

  ‘How much olde
r?’ Nikki asked.

  Bibi shrugged. ‘Sixteen, seventeen? Who can remember? The next generation got away with marrying a bit later. Surely your mother was about eighteen or nineteen.’

  ‘My mother went to university first,’ Nikki said. ‘She was twenty-two.’ Even that seemed an impossibly young age to make such permanent choices.

  ‘University.’ Arvinder looked impressed. ‘No wonder your parents raised you in proper London. They’re modern.’

  ‘I’ve never considered my parents modern,’ Nikki commented. She considered all the arguments about short skirts, talking to boys, drinking, being too British. Pleasing them had been an endless battle that she was still fighting.

  ‘But they were. They knew how to speak English before they came here. We built Southall because we didn’t know how to be British.’

  ‘Better to keep to our own kind, or that’s the idea at least,’ Sheena said. ‘My mother was so nervous coming to England. She’d heard stories of Indian kids being beaten up at school. My father arrived here first and convinced her that Southall was a place with our kind of people and we would fit right in.’

  ‘If you had any problems in this new country, your neighbours would rush to your side and bring you money, food, whatever you need. That’s the beauty of being surrounded by your community,’ Arvinder said. ‘But if you had a problem with your husband, who would help you to leave him? Nobody wanted to be involved in other families’ personal affairs. “You should be grateful,” they said if you complained. “This country is spoiling you.”’ She directed a stern look at Preetam. ‘I gave you all the happiness I couldn’t have. You loved your husband, your marriage. Good for you. I survived mine.’

  Once the last woman had trailed out of class, Nikki hurried from the building, a clear plan in her head. The high street was bright and warm with the lights from shop windows. The pot-bellied owner of Sweetie Sweets beckoned to Nikki from the doorway. ‘Gulab jamun and barfi all fifty per cent off,’ he offered. At the newsagents next door, a large poster announced the arrival of three Bollywood actors whose faces and names Nikki vaguely recognized from Mindi’s film collection. Her cheeks burned from the winter chill. Droplets of misty rain clung to her hair.

  Number 16 Ansell Road was a compact brick structure with a paved driveway, identical to most other houses on this street. A strong wind current carried the scent of cumin through the streets. Nikki knocked on the door. She heard the rapid thumping of steps and then the door cracked open. Through the chain loop, Tarampal’s eyes peered out into the world. Nikki saw the recognition, then the flare of anger in her eyes.

  ‘Please,’ Nikki said. She braced her hands against the door to keep Tarampal from slamming it shut. ‘I just want to talk to you for a moment.’

  ‘I have nothing to say to you,’ Tarampal said.

  ‘You don’t have to say anything. I just want to apologize.’

  Tarampal remained still. ‘You already said sorry in your note.’

  ‘So you received the tapes?’

  The door clicked shut. The hairs on Nikki’s arms stood straight against the chilly breeze. It began to drizzle. She took cover under the awning and knocked rapidly on the door. ‘Can I just talk to you for a moment?’ From the corner of her eye, she noticed Tarampal’s figure in the living room window. She went to the window and started knocking on it. ‘Tarampal, please.’

  Tarampal flitted out of Nikki’s view. Nikki carried on rapping her knuckles against the glass, aware that she was causing a commotion. It worked. The main door flung open and Tarampal stormed out onto the front steps. ‘What do you think you’re doing? The neighbours can see you,’ Tarampal hissed. She ushered Nikki into the house and shut the door behind them. ‘Sarab Singh will tell his wife I’ve got lunatics visiting my house.’

  Nikki didn’t know who Sarab Singh was, or why his wife mattered. She cast a glance down the hallway. This was an immaculate home, with the strong smell of varnish suggesting a recent renovation. She recalled the langar hall ladies mentioning damage to Tarampal’s property – clearly she had fixed up the place since. ‘Are your children here? Your grandchildren?’

  ‘I have daughters, all married. They live with their husbands.’

  ‘I didn’t realize you were all alone,’ Nikki said.

  ‘Jagdev found a place near his new job but he still visits at weekends. He was the one who read your note to me.’

  Who was Jagdev? Nikki had trouble keeping up. ‘I’m not familiar with a lot of people in this community—’ she began.

  ‘Oh yes, you’re a proper London girl,’ Tarampal said. A look of scorn crossed her face when she said the city’s name. In her own home, she had a haughty confidence. She was still wearing a widow’s outfit but an updated version of the white tunic – the neckline bare and the waist cinched to show her figure.

  The rain was spitting against the windows now. ‘Could I trouble you for a cup of tea?’ Nikki asked. ‘It’s very cold out there and I’ve come all this way.’

  It was a small victory when Tarampal grudgingly said, ‘Yes.’ It would be easier to convince Tarampal to return to the class over tea. Nikki followed Tarampal into the kitchen, where granite counters ran the length of the room beneath a sleek row of cupboards. The electric stove was the state-of-the-art model that Mum coveted, with a white coil seemingly drawn onto the surface, the heat filling it instantly in a digital glow. Tarampal had switched it on and was rummaging through her cupboard. She produced a dented stainless steel pot and an old cookie tin that rattled with the sound of seeds and spices. Nikki had to suppress a smile. If Mum had an ultramodern kitchen, she would probably still store dal in old ice-cream containers and use her simple pot for boiling tea leaves as well.

  ‘You want sugar?’ Tarampal asked.

  ‘No, thank you.’

  The kitchen became briefly awash in headlights. ‘That’s probably Sarab Singh leaving for his night shift,’ Tarampal said as she added the milk. ‘I don’t think he likes being home alone. A few years ago when Kulwinder and Maya went to India for a holiday, he worked double shifts every evening. God knows he needs even more distraction now.’

  ‘Kulwinder lives there?’ Nikki asked. She went to the living room and looked through the window. The driveway of the opposite home matched Tarampal’s.

  ‘Yes. You came to Maya’s wedding sangeet didn’t you? It was there. I thought they should have rented a hall because there were so many guests but …’ Tarampal threw her hands up as if to say it wasn’t up to her. Nikki had no time to correct the assumption that she had been a wedding guest. Tarampal had returned to the kitchen and was bringing out two cups of steaming tea. Nikki followed her.

  ‘Thank you for this,’ Nikki said, taking her cup. ‘I don’t have homemade chai every day.’ The chai from the market stall earlier had been too thick and sugary.

  ‘You British girls prefer Earl Grey,’ Tarampal said. She wrinkled her nose.

  ‘Oh no,’ Nikki said. ‘I enjoy a cup of chai. I just don’t live at home.’ The aroma of cloves made her surprisingly nostalgic for the afternoons spent visiting relatives in India. An idea came to her. ‘Would you be able to write down the recipe for me?’

  ‘How would I do that? I can’t write,’ Tarampal said.

  ‘Maybe we could work on that together. If you came back to the classes.’

  Tarampal set down her teacup. ‘I don’t have anything to learn from you or those widows. It was a mistake signing up in the first place.’

  ‘Let’s talk about it.’

  ‘No need.’

  ‘If you’re concerned about people finding out about the stories—’

  At the mention of the stories, Tarampal nostrils flared. ‘You think those stories aren’t a big deal, but you have no idea what they can do to people’s minds.’

  ‘Stories aren’t responsible for corrupting people,’ Nikki argued. ‘They give people a chance to experience new things.’

  ‘Experience new things?’ Tarampal snorted. ‘D
on’t give me that. Maya was a big reader as well. I saw her reading a book one day – the cover had a picture of a man kissing a woman’s neck outside a castle. On the cover!’

  ‘I don’t think books are a bad influence.’

  ‘Well, you’re wrong. Thank goodness my daughters weren’t like that. We pulled them out of school before they could get any funny ideas.’

  Tarampal’s sternness was frightening. ‘How old were your daughters when they got married?’ Nikki asked.

  ‘Sixteen,’ Tarampal said. ‘All were sent to India when they were twelve, to learn to cook and sew. The matches were made there and then they returned here for a few more years of school.’

  ‘What if they hadn’t agreed to the matches? They were so young.’

  Tarampal gave a dismissive wave. ‘There’s no such thing as disagreeing. Only accepting and adjusting. I had to do that when my marriage was arranged. And when my daughters’ time came, they knew their duties.’

  This interpretation of marriage sounded like an endless list of chores. ‘It’s rather unexciting,’ Nikki said. ‘I would think that girls who grew up in England would want romance and passion.’

  ‘Hai, Nikki. That just isn’t how we did things. We didn’t have these choices.’ Tarampal almost sounded wistful.

  ‘So when it came time for your daughters to get married, you wanted them to have no choice as well?’ Nikki asked, knowing she was on dangerous ground but not knowing how to tread lightly on this subject. The softness in Tarampal’s eyes vanished.

  ‘Nowadays, girls run around with three or four men at the same time, deciding when they want it to happen. You think that’s right?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Nikki asked, leaning toward Tarampal.

  Tarampal looked away. ‘I didn’t say you were like that.’

  ‘No – what you said: deciding when they want it to happen. When they want what to happen?’

  ‘Oh, don’t make me spell it out, Nikki. Girls here are spoiled by their choices. A man can’t just storm into a room and take off a young girl’s clothes and tell her to spread her legs. Somebody at the temple told me that there’s a law in England against a husband doing it to his wife if she doesn’t want to. His own wife! Why does a man get punished for doing this? Because the English don’t value marriage like we do.’