by P. J. Fox
“She and my father are still close—as friends. There was never anything more to their connection, that I know. But he’s intelligent, and she’s intelligent, and they’re both schemers.” He laughed mirthlessly, a short, ugly sound. “I suppose their marriage has been quite successful, really; they’ve both gotten what they wanted, and are satisfied.”
“But wait—they never divorced?”
Ash seemed surprised. “No.”
“But he—”
“Belle, my father has—had—three wives.”
“Oh.”
He smiled slightly. He seemed to find her surprise rather endearing. “Although polygamy is technically illegal for Hindus,” he explained, “it’s been practiced in India for centuries. Marriage in traditional Hinduism was meant for progeny; particularly, for the bearing of sons. Love was one thing; fidelity another. The former was common enough, but the latter was a luxury that few in power could afford. No son meant no secure hold on one’s empire.
“And while polygamy became illegal in 1955, the practice remained. Even now, across Asia, the trend of keeping concubines is on the upswing. It’s seen as a status symbol, now as much as it was in the middle ages. A man demonstrates his wealth, and his power—not to mention his ability to satisfy more than one woman—by his installing a series of beautiful twenty-somethings in different flats and buying them all cars.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
The corner of Ash’s mouth twitched in what might almost have been a genuine smile. “Indeed. But unlike Kamala, Uma—my mother, her name was Uma—wanted the dream. She wanted love, a happy ending. Everything she’d read about, growing up, in romance novels and even in our own scriptures. You might think her naïve,” he added, “but you have to understand that for a girl of her age, raised in her environment, it wasn’t. Krishna, the very embodiment of love in the Hindu tradition, was married to multiple women—at different times, and for different reasons, but he loved them all. And they loved him.
“The existence of other women has never been seen as a bar to love in our culture. At least, not historically. Krishna’s relationship with Radha, his one true love and better half, lasted his entire life. No amount of other women distracted him from worshipping the very ground on which she walked. And I think—regardless of the circumstances—that’s what most women want. To feel cherished. To know that, among all the women in the world, they have no competition.”
“But that’s not romantic,” Belle objected. “To know that your husband is sharing someone else’s bed but—what? He’s thinking of you?”
“Oh, but isn’t it?” Ash countered. “Love isn’t about a lack of options, but about a commitment. That Krishna loved other women as well only cemented the commitment he had for Radha—a commitment that never wavered. Because true love overpowers the mere inducements of the flesh.”
“So it’s alright if a man sleeps with other women?”
“I do,” he pointed out. He sipped his drink.
Belle didn’t respond. She’d heard similar arguments before—from Charlotte—but didn’t understand them. Charlotte fancied herself a woman of the world, and she’d been known to quote the position of some famous relationship expert that sex alone isn’t a basis for a strong, committed partnership. And that was certainly true. Love and trust were. But how could a couple share those, if they weren’t sufficiently committed even to sleep in the same bed? What could words like commitment mean if they weren’t ever put into practice?
“You’re speaking of feelings,” he said.
Belle started; she didn’t realize she’d been speaking aloud, and was mortified.
“For me it’s recreation.”
“I don’t want to be recreation,” she said quietly.
“And you’re not. I’ve never talked to them, any of them, like this.”
“I suppose I should feel flattered.”
“I’m explaining something, because I want you to understand it.” His eyes held hers for a long moment, before he continued. “My mother wanted love: not just to be loved, but also to love in return. To share something real. And she idolized my father, growing up I heard that from everyone. He was handsome, and brilliant, accomplished at everything.
“And I suppose he was kind to her, in his way. He hadn’t chosen her, any more than he’d chosen his first wife. Sometimes love grows from arranged marriages—often, in fact, in the case of the average couple. Because they’re…arranged isn’t really the correct term. Assisted is more like it: well-meaning mothers and grandmothers and family friends get together and match people up on the basis of real things. Shared desires, or a sense of humor. It’s a different thing entirely when money was involved. My father and mother had nothing in common, except his desire for certain land use rights and her father’s desire for a pension.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Things might have worked out; they might have limped along together, with her never knowing what she was missing, if he hadn’t met his third wife. Stephanie.”
A log exploded in the fireplace, and Belle winced.
“Regard, even a certain species of fondness is one thing. But when people are in love they’re on a different planet. Unreachable. My father came home from a business trip and my mother knew she’d lost him. No,” Ash clarified, “that she’d never had him in the first place. That she’d been, as everyone else apparently already knew, lying to herself all along.
“Stephanie was the daughter of a family friend; her father had grown up in Abbey Gate, Kent and my father was well familiar with the area. He and Lord Fairfax used to shoot grouse together. They both regretted, I think, having been born too late to experience the Raj. Both were certainly far more suited to that time.
“He met Stephanie for the first time when Fairfax brought his family to India for a visit; she was twelve or so and he well into his twenties. She was impressed with his seat when he played polo and looked up to him, I think, as something of an especially dashing elder brother. He, in turn, treated her as politely as could be wished for.
“He never forgot her, though, and when they met again years later, after she’d just turned nineteen, they began a torrid affair. It was at Wimbledon, of all places. He was smitten with her and wanted her to come home with him. She was young, and had never left England for more than a few weeks at a time, and moreover refused his suit on the grounds that he was already married. Twice.
“But those marriages were both marriages of state and this was his choice; the girl he’d loved since she was a girl. He won her over somehow, though, in the end, and they were married. And she returned with him to India, fully expecting to step into the role of lowly third wife.”
“How discouraging.”
“It was my mother who couldn’t take the strain. She refused to share her house with a much younger and, in her mind, much prettier rival. Stephanie was—is—a sweet sort of person. She’s impossible to dislike, which right there makes her unlikable. At least to me. She sings and dances and embroiders things and simply loves tennis.” He shook his head. “She and my father were always going on walks, and rides, whenever he was home. I think he tried to give attention to my mother, but she knew that the gesture was out of guilt and she rebuffed him.
“It was an impossible situation—for everybody. I see that now, of course, but as a child I can assure you that I did not.” A shadow passed over his face. “I loathed my father. Loathed him. My mother carried on like a madwoman, tearing apart the house as her drinking got worse and worse and once she tried to poison Stephanie’s breakfast. My father beat her for that, and badly. Our lives were like something out of a Gothic novel and I blamed him—for all of it.
“And then I went off to school. After what I’d endured at home, the hazing and the racism at Harrow seemed like a joy. Being raped in my bed by upperclassmen was nothing compared to waking up in the middle of the night and finding my mother in my room, with the gardener. The sad part was, I hated her too. For abandoning me
to progressively worse situations, while my father chased after his pretty young wife and, eventually, his other children. I just couldn’t admit it. Because she was weak, and pathetic, and couldn’t do any better.”
“That’s not true,” Belle said with feeling. “People can always do better.”
“I’m inclined to agree with you—now. And I know it wasn’t Stephanie’s fault or, gods forbid, her children’s. She was just as much of a victim of my father as anyone and her children were blameless. She had a boy,” he added, “who inherited her green eyes, and two girls.
“I tormented them all, until I was sent off. Samarth still tries to follow me around, and make me into some sort of brother. He asks to come visit, periodically; I tell him no. He, like Anish—whose visit I also refused, last night—considers himself well intentioned but only wants to moralize at me. And while they, and you, might think I live this way because I’m too ignorant to understand that I have other options, that’s not the case.
“I’m not sitting here, this drink in hand, mentally undressing you because no one ever offered to pray over me.”
Belle laughed in spite of herself. The tension in the room ebbed a little, at least for a few seconds. “What do they think will happen,” she asked, “that they’ll describe the joys of sober living and you’ll immediately become a monk?”
“I do already live in the hills; it would be convenient.”
“Your harem would have to become nuns.”
“You’ll never meet them,” he said suddenly. “There’s no reason for you to. They don’t have the same privileges you do and…they want to be here.”
What if I’m curious? thought Belle. Part of her, morbidly, was. She wanted to see how, exactly, these women lived; and she wanted to know what kind of woman was actually willing to spend her life lounging about on pillows and having recreational sex. And, if she were really being honest with herself, a deep down part of her wanted to know what exactly it was that Ash did with them. How kinky did things get?
Instead she asked, “what happened to your mother?”
“She killed herself, while I was off at school. I came home in time for the funeral but I never saw her face. She’d already been wrapped in a shroud.
“After she died, Stephanie did her best to make me welcome. But I never wanted to go back. I hated the idea that some stranger was trying to make me welcome in my own home. I hated her,” he added, “with all the passion of an eleven year old boy who doesn’t understand why his world is changing.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said truthfully. Whatever she felt for him, she wouldn’t wish that kind of experience on her worst enemy. And, in a much smaller sense, she knew something of what it felt like to have a parent let you down. She supposed, too, that his childhood might explain something of the person he was now. The man who referred to himself, quite calmly, as having no soul.
“Don’t be,” he said bluntly. She wasn’t much of a mother.”
The silence returned.
TWENTY-SIX
He stood up. “Come with me.”
She didn’t move.
She couldn’t.
She’d tried, and discovered that she was frozen to her spot on the couch. The time she’d dreaded since she was first taken captive at that wretched club, and done her best not to think about ever since was upon them. Instead she stared at him, wide-eyed. She’d thought he’d be upset with her, he who saw himself as the heir of sultans and who expected to be obeyed. But he seemed, instead, to understand. His expression softened. He waited.
She found her courage, and uncurled herself from her corner of the couch. Her safe corner. She was acutely aware that her dress hid nothing. It would be easy to, as he put it, mentally undress her. She stood facing him. She crossed her hands over her chest and then dropped them. She didn’t know what to do with herself. She thought about what Luna had said, that this was no different than a blind date. That she shouldn’t make a big deal out of it.
She chewed her lip, and studied the floor.
She felt his arms around her, pulling her into an embrace, and she tensed. He was all the things Luna had said: good-looking, cultured, funny and rich. But he was also the man who’d bought her at auction for an undisclosed amount of money and who intended, now, to force her into his bed whether she willed herself there or no. This wasn’t how she envisioned any time being, much less her first. She’d wanted so badly for that to be with someone she loved. Trusted. Who’d take care of her, and who wouldn’t hurt her.
Tilting her chin up with his finger, he kissed her. His lips were cool and firm, not sloppy with desire but controlled. The few boys she’d kissed in high school were eager, desperate; she could tell that they’d done little more than she had. If that. But Ash…his experience was obvious. He slid his fingers up, along the line of her jaw as with gentle but insistent pressure, he forced her mouth open under his. Just a little at first, and then more.
She felt like she did on the roller coaster, inching toward that first rise and then, as the car gained momentum, shooting straight down. Her stomach dropped and everything tingled. She’d never been kissed by someone who knew what he was doing. His mouth tasted of anise and scotch, and he smelled of soap and cologne. Billy Myers, the first boy who’d kissed her, hadn’t smelled of soap at all; he’d alternated the same two sweatshirts every day and hadn’t washed either one of them overmuch. But this….
Ash was right: the body did decide for itself. She couldn’t deny that she found him attractive. Any woman with a pulse would. But she didn’t want this. To be dressed up, played with…used.
He pulled back slightly. “Belle,” he asked, “has a man ever put his hand up your shirt?”
“No,” she said in a small voice.
He processed this—apparently to him, startling—piece of information. “What’s the furthest you’ve been, with a man?”
She thought about the question. “I’ve kissed people before.”
“How many?”
“Three, if you count kisses goodnight. Otherwise, then, two.”
He seemed alarmed.
“I’m a virgin,” she reminded him, somewhat defensively.
“The virgins I knew back home had done everything but,” he said finally. “They were virgins in name only. Most of them had been letting men bugger them up the ass since they were fourteen. They weren’t….” He sighed. “This is a first for me, as well.”
Being with someone who didn’t know what she was going, he meant. “Wait,” she said. “People…do that?”
“Do what?” And then, “oh. Yes.” His tone was firm. “They do.”
“But why?”
“Because it’s intensely pleasurable for both parties.”
“Charlotte said she got drunk once and let a boy she was seeing do it to her—like that—and it hurt terribly. She was in pain for days.”
“Then he was doing it wrong,” Ash said matter-of-factly. He put his arm around her and led her out of the room. “I’d like to meet this Charlotte,” he said. “So far, from what you’ve told me, her sex education curriculum has been sorely lacking.”
Belle wasn’t sure, but she thought Ash might have just made a joke.
She let herself be led into the bedroom. His bed dominated even that huge space, a massive carved thing of some age-darkened wood. Generations of people must have slept on that bed, or done…other things, some maybe even as reluctantly as she was about to. And, judging from the style of the bed and the nature of the carvings, it had been made in the area or perhaps to the northeast in the Black Forest. The Rhine Valley was famous for its woodcarving. And her mind was wandering again, focusing on every unimportant detail, just so she wouldn’t have to acknowledge what was happening.
But somehow, even so, she found herself standing next to the bed. So close that she could reach out and touch the carvings.
“I bought it at auction,” he said behind her.
Like her, then.
“It’s quite convenient
, the four posts.” He paused. “I might tie you to one or all of them, but not tonight.”
“Oh,” she said. She’d transferred her attention to the bedspread, which had been heavily embroidered by a skilled hand. The velvet underneath the thread of gold was a deep midnight blue. Almost black. Like his eyes, when he studied her in the firelight.
She felt his hands on her shoulders again, bare flesh to bare flesh. His breath was on her ear, the only part of him that was warm. “We’ll go slowly,” he said. And then, “it will be alright.”
“I don’t think so,” she whispered.
“The first time, for a woman, is…unpleasant. Or so I’ve heard.”
“You’ve never…?” She let the question trail, still not looking at him. He talked about sex so matter of factly. As if it were any other transaction.
“No,” he said.
“What was your first time like?” she found herself asking. She didn’t know why she’d asked; she didn’t want to know anything about him. The more she knew, the harder it was to hate him. And she’d told him the truth, earlier: she wanted, needed to hate him. To do otherwise was a betrayal of herself. He was keeping her, here, against her will and he was about to rape her. She’d told him no, hadn’t she…?
“Confusing,” he said simply.
She waited, tense.
“Belle,” he said, not ungently, “turn around.”
She did, the bed behind her. There was nowhere to go. He slid a finger under the tiny strap of her dress, caressing the flesh underneath. His touch was slow, curious, like she was some rare and newly classified organism. Or a piece of treasure and he, finally, the explorer who discovered it. He seemed in awe of her. He pulled the strap down, over her shoulder.
