Play With Me

by Ananth

  ‘I am happily tipsy, you want to come home and take advantage?’ she asked with a wink as I walked her to her car.

  I did think about it for a moment but excused myself very reluctantly, telling her that with a flight to catch in the morning, a night of intense love-making would screw things up.

  ‘You choose which one is the better way to get screwed,’ she joked and gave me a long, warm hug. We kissed while the parking attendant stood staring at us. Normally, I would have spent the evening with Cara, but since leaving New York I had been thinking about Nat far too often, replaying our time together over and over in my head, particularly the kiss we had shared, and how happy I had felt.

  Later that evening, when I thought it an appropriate time for New York, I messaged her.

  Hey, you good?

  Loving it here

  Fab.

  Wish you were here.

  I know. I miss you too!

  That came out subconsciously.

  Are you okay?

  Yep. Packing for Goa.

  Have fun.

  I will. Come back soon.

  Can’t wait to see you!

  Kisses

  Stop it!

  Bye. LOVE YOU

  I wanted to say, Love you too, but resisted, and then dropped the conversation. I sat on my couch thinking about where I was going to take this. I didn’t know anything about her life other than the fact that she was not exactly a happy bunny and was trying to have a child. She was a lovely person, with a measured sensitivity – a stark contrast to the firebrand that was Cara, whom I thoroughly enjoyed being with too. But something had definitely begun to shift after that day in the hospital when Nat had been around all the time and something had changed in the way I felt about her after I realized how much I had loved spending time with her in New York.

  But Nat didn’t know what Cara and I were doing and I was probably deluding myself into believing that we weren’t in a relationship. Either way, I was or had become a hedonist, sort of. Living alone without parents and having to fend for myself had taught me a very valuable lesson about myself: when faced with a difficult decision, I often went with the first thing my heart settled on. And the accident, which could have been my last breathing moment here, had taught me yet another thing about myself that I hadn’t quite confronted

  – I sought love.

  The flight to Goa was quite uneventful. I left my luggage at the hotel, picked up my camera bag and left immediately. Fort Aguada itself was a beautiful ruin but someone had suggested that I ride up to the lighthouse to get incredible views of the bay. Halfway there the traffic – cars and buses laden with holidaymakers and their kids – put me off, and I turned into a smaller bylane, making a mental note to go back there another time.

  I followed the lane away from the main road until I found myself at a small crossroads in the middle of Saligaon. There was a grocer on one corner and a bus stand across the road. I pulled over beside the grocer’s and asked him if there was anything worth seeing around here. His surprise was tinged with annoyance. I smiled, realizing what I had just asked.

  ‘Is there anything to see here?’

  He kept staring at me.

  Then a young boy, who must have been twelve or thirteen, emerged from within the store and joined his father in staring at me.

  ‘Where do you want to go?’ the man asked finally.

  I had no idea. So I showed him my camera and said, ‘I am a photographer and am just looking around,’ and followed it with another idiotic question. ‘Any old homes? Or buildings?’

  ‘There are many here,’ he replied, ‘all of them old. The only new house belongs to a painter.’

  ‘Feroz,’ the boy added.

  ‘Churches?’ I asked.

  ‘Many. Which one do you want to see?’ the man replied, now definitely annoyed.

  It was time to leave. I thanked them both and took the road to my left. A mile from there I pulled over under a clutch of coconut palms, gave in to technology and looked up Saligaon on Wikipedia. It gave me two reasons to smile. The Mãe de Deus Parish Church built in 1873 and Mater Dei, one of Goa’s first English-language schools, at Bairo Alto. Started as St Mary’s in 1900, the name was changed to Mater Dei in 1909. I rode up to the church first, knowing very well that I might not photograph it. It was indeed an interesting building – old, intricate and painted white, looking magnificent against a deep blue sky pregnant with rain. I didn’t quite enjoy taking pictures of places of worship; I thought it was an insidious intrusion on the people who came there to seek their own time with Him. Walking into the compound, I sat on a broken, half-built wall and spent almost an hour taking in the place, allowing a sense of calm to steal over me.

  I could sit there not doing anything because the church reminded me of Natasha, who was half Catholic, and thinking about her made me feel warm inside. It was strange how often I had thought of her in the past few days, and while it was a feeling that I hadn’t quite figured out I found it comforting and let my mind wander there often, basking in the warmth that she so easily shared. I walked out slowly, almost reluctantly, turning once for a last glimpse of the building. I did take some pictures though, I should admit. There was a little kid selling cotton candy and I quickly shot off a series of those, to be filed away in an archive under ‘travel/magazine’.

  As I rode away from the church back into Saligaon I was tempted to message Nat; it was mid-morning and I knew she’d be back at work. I could begin by simply asking her how her trip had been and what she was doing. She would ask how Goa was or what I was doing and I’d reply. I was sure she’d throw in a smiley and say nice things, because that’s who she was, and that simplicity in her little gestures meant to make others feel special, made me feel needed and happy, and made her an extraordinary woman.

  But I didn’t message her. I messaged Cara instead.

  Hey.

  Hi. How’s Goa?

  Fab. Found a great shoot idea.

  Wow. What?

  A school. It’s an old one. 1900.

  Wow. When are you going to shoot?

  Today. Now. On the way there.

  Can I come? *doe eyes*

  No, really. I haven’t been to Goa. *doe eyes*

  What about your friend?

  Cara’s best friend from New York was over. That was the reason she was fine with me going away to Goa as soon as I had returned.

  Rhea? Can she come too?

  I was still thinking about it when my phone beeped again.

  You don’t want us to come?

  Ofcourse. Come. It’ll be fun. I can stay here a couple of days more.

  YAY!!

  I liked this girl. She was spontaneous and fun and now that I had invited her over I had to make sure she had a place to stay. Standing there, under the humid midday sun, I began to sweat. Longing for a beer I turned the scooter around and headed back to the hotel.

  Zipping along the small road through Saligaon, I found the warm air wonderful. On either side of the road were lush green paddy fields, the land separated and bordered by tall coconut palms. The man at the grocery store was right; the green landscape was peppered with white spires and I stopped ever so often just to absorb the ambience before continuing on again. I quickly pulled over once and took some pictures when a flock of heron soared into the sky, they were indistinct but would make a great shot in black and white, I thought. My photography had taken two distinct directions, one where I was constantly thinking of the archive, images from moments I could sell, and the other where I obsessed over moments that were technologically recorded fragments of time: a blur of colour, a cloud in a hurry, a calf dashing across the street, a symbol here, a hoarding there, women in colourful saris on a rickshaw – images I knew I would definitely not see again in the same manner, in the same light.

  Down a small lane closer to the hotel, I saw a vegetable vendor struggling to push his cart up the incline, and I stopped to help him, his cart a riot of colour against the stark red of t
he earth.

  Further down as I rode away, I recognized the crossing with the grocery store. As I headed towards it from the opposite direction now, a dirty brown board caught my eye: Mater Dei, the board said. The bloody school! It had been right here all the while I stood talking to the man and it hadn’t struck him to tell me. But in his defence I had asked for churches and old buildings. The school, which had been standing there for more than a hundred years, had probably become a part of his everyday existence, the mundane present distorting its valuable past.

  My first reaction when I saw the school was that of envy. I imagined young boys and girls sitting at their desks, inside large classrooms under a fan that was pushing down warm humid air, with a view of the lush green open fields. The school’s courtyard was very busy. Some students were on the playground but there were a lot of parents too, both at the gate and inside, probably waiting to pick up the younger kids at the end of morning classes. I was tempted to shoot but didn’t, and decided to return another time.

  I stood there thinking about what I would do with the school if I were to shoot it as a project. I had to have a narrative: Would it be the school itself? Or its history and architecture? Would I use Saligaon as a backdrop? Perhaps use the school as a fulcrum of the people around it? Follow the lives of some of the earlier deans, or a couple of teachers and students, their families and homes and show how the school was the harbinger of hope, for a better, brighter future. Briefly I also entertained the thought of moving to Goa and teaching photography to the high school kids. Fortunately, right then a truck went by, blaring its horn and derailing my train of thought. I kicked my scooter to life and rode back to the hotel.

  Sitting at the bar by the pool, a can of Budweiser in hand, I made some notes in my Moleskine about the morning as I realized Saligaon by itself might be a nice story: population of six thousand, the school, the churches, the fields, the people and their lives. Just when the waiter brought my Singapore laksa it started drizzling suddenly and he offered to lay a table inside the restaurant by the window. The rain was beautiful and the soup delicious. I began the Murakami I was carrying and ordered another can of beer. It was a lovely day so far and I was looking forward to Cara, and the madness that usually came with her.

  18

  I hired a car so I could pick up Cara and Rhea from the airport. I didn’t have anything much to do in the morning and the trip from the hotel to the airport would give me the opportunity to drive through another part of town along the river.

  It was the first time I saw Rhea in the flesh. Cara had of course shown me many photographs of the two of them on Facebook but the one little detail she had forgotten to mention was that Rhea was just as hot as her and had a fantastic body. I couldn’t stop looking at her as she walked out of the airport building. Dressed alike, they could have been sisters, twins even.

  Rhea insisted on sitting in front and, after persuading Cara to take the back seat, slid in next to me. I noticed her long legs topped by hot pants which rode up further when she leaned forward to change the music in the dash. I couldn’t stop ogling. She was wearing a black bikini top under a thin, cotton sleeveless shirt, and a pair of flip flops. She forced her iPhone into a pocket, which I didn’t think had the space for it, and said, ‘I love when it vibrates,’ winking. ‘And you might want to look ahead when you drive’, she continued, patting my thigh.

  ‘I am looking where I should,’ I replied. ‘It’s your hands that are not where they should be.’

  ‘Do you want them on the shift?’ she asked, and just when I was hoping the conversation would get interesting, Cara intervened.

  ‘Stop it, both of you! I’m still sitting here!’

  ‘Chill, sweety,’ Rhea replied, turning to look behind at Cara. Then, with an evil grin, she removed her shirt, leaned over and whispered, ‘Cara’s told me all about your super moves in the sack!’

  I looked pointedly at Cara in the rear-view mirror and she blew me a kiss. The three of us started laughing.

  When we got to the hotel and checked in, Cara was unhappy to learn that I had organized a separate room for Rhea. Had she actually thought all of us would crash in one room?

  ‘Why another room?’ she pouted, pulling my arm to slow us down. Rhea was walking away ahead of us.

  ‘What do you mean, Cara? We couldn’t all have been in one room!’

  ‘Why not? She’s my girlfriend, I can’t ask her to sleep alone! Duh!’

  ‘And what am I supposed to do?’

  ‘C’mon, Sid, we can share a bed for a couple of nights, I am sure she won’t mind’.

  ‘You’re not serious!’

  ‘Yes, I am. Anyway, now that we’ve checked in we’ll use the room tonight but tomorrow you can tell them that we’ll be using the one room.’ And just like that she screwed any potential for a wet and dirty weekend.

  This was the first time we were away together and I was really looking forward to Cara in a bikini and lots of sex. It just wasn’t meant to be!

  ‘C’mon, don’t be unhappy, I’ll make it up to you back home!’ Cara comforted me, squeezing my butt.

  That afternoon, just as the sun began to set, we decided to go to the pool. I was lounging on a deck chair, Mojito in hand, watching Rhea and Cara in the pool. Cara was wearing an aquamarine bikini that left very little to the imagination and though I had seen her naked so many times, seeing her frolicking in the pool in a sexy bikini was making me impossibly horny. Rhea, in her black bikini top which she had paired with a yellow bottom held together by strings on the hip, was looking equally delicious. The sex gods were playing an evil trick on me. It was cruel. Here I was with two superhot women, one of whom was my girlfriend, and I was destined to a sleepless celibate night!

  We spent the evening by the pool, drinking, until the moon came up. The girls decided they wanted to go for a walk on the beach. ‘After a bite,’ I said and we headed to the restaurant. Cara pulled on one of my shirts which she had left unbuttoned and Rhea wore a short kurta over her bikini.

  As we walked in and occupied a table, I summoned a waiter and ordered another round of drinks for us, then walked over to the buffet station and filled my plate with a mix of cold cuts and salad. The girls joined me at the station, giggling at some private joke which I could tell was about sex from the way they were acting. Rhea walked over to the dessert counter, picked a cherry from a salad bowl, swirled it in chocolate sauce and fed it to Cara, who licked off some of the sauce before taking it in her mouth slowly. The guy behind the counter stopped whatever he was doing and stood there staring at them, and a middle-aged man, who had been piling food on his plate, dropped the plate eliciting peals of laughter from the girls.

  ‘Cara,’ I called.

  She turned, smiling, clearly enjoying the effect she was having on everyone in the restaurant, and sashayed her way to our table.

  ‘Sid, have you gone swimming in the sea at night?’ she asked.

  ‘No, if we do, it will be my first time,’ I replied.

  ‘Wow! You absolutely should,’ Rhea piped up. ‘I’ve done it so many times in Jersey,’ she continued. ‘It’s great fun, the water is black and cold, and my nipples always get so hard they even hurt a bit,’ she added, with a naughty smile.

  Cara noticed again that I couldn’t take my eyes off Rhea and kicked me under the table.

  ‘Ouch!’ I looked up at her surprised.

  ‘Cara, stop playing footsie with him. If you are so horny, the two of you should get a room. Wait, you already have a room!’

  ‘Babes, we have a room,’ Cara replied, throwing her arm around Rhea. And the night is young, you can join us too.’ Both girls giggled again.

  The waiter came over just then to clear my salad bowl and both of them straightened up.

  ‘I’d like another large vodka and lime, please,’ Cara ordered.

  ‘Make that two, and double,’ added Rhea.

  The guy brought over our drinks along with the bill, which I signed off on. We grabbed our d
rinks and headed for the beach. On the way Cara picked up two towels from a rack by the pool. When we reached the gate between the hotel complex and the beach the guard objected to the three of us leaving that late at night, drinks in hand.

  ‘C’mon, you can see where we are going, don’t worry,’ Rhea cajoled, batting her eyelashes at him.

  Strangely enough he obliged immediately.

  Both girls thrust their drinks in my hand and ran straight to the water’s edge while I followed. We found a spot, a flat patch of soft sand midway between our hotel and the next. It was wet, being constantly refreshed whenever a large wave came all the way in. We threw the towels over a catamaran nearby and sat down. The cold wet sand felt great in the otherwise heavy humid air.

  ‘I am going into the water,’ Rhea announced, as she stood up and raced away.

  ‘Cool! See you in a bit,’ Cara called after her, leaning back on her palms, her breasts straining against her tiny bikini top. She waited for Rhea to get out of earshot before she said, ‘I find her really hot,’ emphasizing the last word. ‘What boobs, man!’

  ‘Yeah, she’s got a great body,’ I agreed.

  ‘I know! Every time I see her I just want to jump her bones,’ Cara went on. ‘Man, you must have had a boner just sitting next to her in the car!’

  ‘Cara, what’s wrong with you? I mean—’

  ‘Don’t tell me you aren’t thinking of doing her! She’s so fucking hot, look at those legs, and she’s been bikini waxing regularly since she turned fifteen. Even I don’t do it all the time. She’s smooth as a baby down there!’

  ‘Cara!’

  ‘What?! I want to eat her, man. You haven’t seen her naked, Sid, I have.’

  I waved to Rhea, motioning her to come over. She waded through the surf, walked up to us and slumped down on the ground with Cara and me on either side, lusting after her. She noticed.

  ‘I’ve been working on this washboard, you know,’ she said, patting her abs.

  Cara sat up and slowly traced the letters C-A-R-A in cursive on Rhea’s body, beginning between her breasts and stopping just above her bikini line.