After the Morning After (9 page)

Sanjay felt her body convulse and stiffen around him, and he grabbed her hips as she fell forward, apparently spent. Keeping his dick within her, he quickly rose to his knees and began slamming into her doggy-style, his body driven to reach orgasm. He licked his fingers and reached around her body to fondle her clit, a shout erupting from him when she quickened around his dick again.

“Yes, baby, yes,” he encouraged her as she began to push back against him. He looked down, and the sight of his cock sliding between the plump cheeks of her butt as he tunneled inside her pussy was enough to make him come, shouting out his passion as he did.

Victoria followed the sound of Sanjay’s voice, and left his room to walk down the hall. She’d awakened to find him gone and had been glad to have some time to herself. She was completely overwhelmed. Spending the night with him had been eye-opening. She’d enjoyed it, in fact, had loved it, and that was what scared her. Her grandmother had been right: she was definitely falling for him. What the heck am I going to do? she wondered as she continued to follow the sound of his voice. How does he feel? Does he love me? Will he want to marry me?

She stopped in the doorway of a mostly empty room. Dressed in all white, Sanjay sat before an altar. Above the altar hung a large elaborately framed picture. She assumed the image was of Vishnu, and lifted a brow in surprise. He was blue, had four arms, wore a crown, and was standing on a flower. Each hand held a different object.

Sanjay was bowing before the picture now and chanting. Victoria stepped back, intending to leave him some privacy.

“Don’t go,” she heard him say and stopped.

“I don’t want to intrude,” she told him when he turned to look at her.

“You’re not,” he assured her and walked across the room toward her. He took her hand and pulled her inside. “Come in. I want to show you something.”

His hair was wet, and he smelled of soap, and the scent of him made Victoria grateful that she had also showered before coming to find him. He stopped when they reached the altar, and she looked at him with a question in her eyes.

He smiled. “Go ahead. Ask me anything.”

Victoria turned her head and studied the items on the altar. “I heard the bell,” she said, gesturing toward it. “Why were you ringing it?”

“It was to let God know that he is welcome and that I’ve come to worship.”

“And the food and flowers?”

“They are offered to the gods to bless. Blessed food is called
Prashad
.”

“Were you burning incense?” she asked, sniffing the air.

“Yes. I move it around the shrine in circles to purify the air and to leave a pleasing aroma in the room for the gods.”

Victoria looked at the painting, gestured toward it. “This is Vishnu?”

“Yes.”

She frowned in confusion as she looked at it. “Why does he have four arms, and what’s he holding?”

“His four arms are indicative of his all-powerful and all-pervasive presence. The two arms in front represent his presence in the physical world, and the ones in back represent his presence in the spiritual world. The objects in his hands symbolize many things, but I’ll tell you the most important ones. The conch shell he holds in his upper left hand lets us know that he is the primeval sound of creation. The conch shell produces the Om sound, which is the sound of creation.

“This here,” he said, pointing to the image’s upper right hand, “the chakra symbolizes the pure spiritualized mind.” He pointed to the lower right hand. “The lotus flower represents spiritual liberation and glorious existence. And finally, the mace he holds symbolizes physical and mental strength.”

“Wow,” Victoria said when he was finished. “There sure is a lot to learn about your religion. But tell me,” she began as they started from the room, “if you were told you could use only one word or phrase to describe Hinduism, what would it be?”

“I have something,” he told her, “but it’s more than one word.”

“Okay,” she said thoughtfully. “How about this? Can you give me the overarching theme of Hinduism?”

“There are a lot of religious traditions in Hinduism, but I will say this
—Hindus believe in
Dharma
,
Samsara
,
Karma
, and
Moksha
. Dharma means ethics and duties; Samsara is the continuing cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth; Karma is action and subsequent reaction; and Moksha is liberation from Samsara. We also believe that the soul of every person—the true self, if you will—is eternal.”

Victoria shook her head as they turned the corner into his bedroom. “Like I said, there’s a lot to understand here. Do you always get up at the crack of dawn to worship?” she asked him as she watched him gather clothes from various places.

“Nope,” Sanjay said. “I always get up
before
the crack of dawn to bathe before I sit for worship.” He pulled socks from a drawer and turned to look at her. “Let me…” he began but stopped when she hurriedly took a couple of steps away from him. “What?”

Victoria looked at him. He’d awakened her several times during the night, and always with the words “let me.”
Let me show you the Lotus position… Let me show you the Widely Opened… Let me show you the Congress of the Crow… Let me, let me, let me
! The man was insatiable. Well, she might have been a willing participant during the night, but now she was tired. Tired and sore, and she’d go running screaming from the house before she let him get his hands on her again. Okay, it would be more like hurried limping because she was so sore, but she’d definitely go.

“Vick?”

Victoria looked up from her musings to find him staring at her, obviously waiting for a response. She studied him, decided that he hadn’t been about to suggest more sex, and then gestured with her hand. “No, no, you go ahead. What were you going to say?”

“I was going to say let me catch a ride with you. I have an appointment downtown, and my
car’s in the shop.”

Feeling foolish but relieved, Victoria nodded. “Oh…okay. Sure, I’d be happy to give you a ride.”

Sanjay narrowed his eyes. Her voice was abnormally high, and she appeared not to know what to do with herself. She’d changed her stance three times just in the seconds since she’d stopped talking, and her hands fluttered from her hips to her sides several times. “Now you tell me what you thought I was going to say.”

“What?” The surprise was patently false as she smiled nervously and waved his question away. “I didn’t think you were going to say anything…uh, I mean anything
in particular
, that is.”

Suspicious now, Sanjay walked over to her. “Tell me,” he commanded as he took her by the waist.

“No,” she insisted. “It’s nothing. Now, will you go get ready so we can leave? I have to stop by my house for fresh clothes too.”

Sanjay turned to walk to the bathroom and then suddenly stopped. Turning back around, he burst out laughing. “You thought I wanted to teach you another position from
Kama Sutra
, didn’t you?”

Victoria’s mouth turned down sourly, and she rolled her eyes. “Yes, and how did you know?”

“Well, you were fidgeting an awful lot, I can smell your sex, and I suddenly remembered what I said when I woke you up all those times last night.” He walked over to her and pulled her into his arms. Kissing her on the top of her head, he said regretfully, “I’m sorry, darlin’. Are you sore?”

“Yes, but I’ll be all right. Just please go get ready.”

* * *

“What will your grandmother say about your staying out last night?” Sanjay asked Victoria as they walked up the porch steps of her house.

“God, no telling,” she said in a voice that told him to be ready for anything. “I did tell her last night not to wait up for me, though. And I left a note on her pillow telling her that I might not make it home, just in case I did spend the night with you.”

“So, you couldn’t tell her to her face, huh?”

“No way,” she said as she prepared to fit her key into the lock. “I might be grown, but she’s still my grandmother, and who wants to talk to their grandmother about sex? And unmarried sex at that.”

The door flew open before she could unlock it.
Oh, shit
. Aloud, she said, too brightly, “Nana, hi!” She hurriedly slipped inside, dragging Sanjay behind her. “I thought you’d still be sleeping.”

“You mean you
hoped
,” Ms. Stanton said with folded arms and lifted brow.

Victoria let out a nervous giggle. “Uh, this is Sanjay,” she said, pulling him forward. “Nana, Sanjay. Sanjay, my grandmother, Ms. Stanton.”

Sanjay smiled at Ms. Stanton and held out a hand.

She frowned at him and grudgingly shook it.

Victoria took no notice of this as she turned toward the stairs and escape. “I’m giving him a lift downtown. Can’t talk now. I’ve got to get ready for work,” she called over her shoulder as she rushed up the stairs, throwing Sanjay to the wolves without a qualm.

At the sound of running feet, Sanjay and Ms. Stanton both turned away from each other to look up the stairs. They caught a glimpse of Victoria’s fleeing jeans-covered behind as it turned the corner at the top of the stairs. Sanjay grinned; Ms. Stanton scowled even harder.

They heard a door slam and turned back toward each other again. “She thinks she’s gotten away with it,” she told him as she looked at him, “but I’ll get her this evening. You’ll do for now. Coffee or tea?” she asked as she turned away.

“I’ll take tea, thank you, ma’am,” he said easily and followed her through the living room and dining room and into the kitchen.

“Have a seat,” she told him and busied herself with the tea. Once she was seated across from him and they were sipping from jasmine-scented cups, she said, “So you’re the young man who kept my granddaughter out all night and have her on the point of forgetting her religion, huh?”

Sanjay sipped thoughtfully and then put his cup on his saucer. “Yes, I guess you could blame me for her staying out all night, but we made the decision jointly. And as for me making her forget her religion, I’m afraid I can’t agree with that. Victoria hasn’t indicated anything of the sort to me.”

Ms. Stanton harrumphed. “I suppose you think I’m a nosy old biddy who has no business sticking her nose in her granddaughter’s business.”

“No, ma’am. I think that though Victoria has the right to make her own decisions, you have the right as her grandmother to be concerned about her.”

Ms. Stanton narrowed her eyes at him. “You’ve got pretty manners, and you talk in circles, but I know you’ve just told me that I should mind my own business.”

Sanjay lifted his cup to hide his smile. She was a crafty old girl. Saying nothing, he surreptitiously studied her. Her dark brown skin was mostly unlined and complemented the white-gray hair she kept closely cropped to her head. Victoria had her eyes and her frame, and he wondered if Mrs. Howell looked like them, or if the look had skipped a generation.

“Not going to answer me?”

“No, ma’am,” he said. “I make it a policy to try not to put my foot in my mouth twice in one day.” He grinned when she cracked a reluctant smile.

“Well, I suppose you think I interrupted your groove, or whatever you young people call it nowadays, when I showed up unexpectedly on Victoria’s doorstep yesterday.”

“No, ma’am.” Sanjay felt like those two words were imprinted on his brain. “I think Victoria should feel lucky to have you, the family elder, here. She should be glad that you want to spend time with her.”

“You really feel that way?”

“Yes, ma’am, I do. In my culture, when our parents are in their later years, they move in with the oldest son. Parents and grandparents bring the wisdom of age to the household.”

“Well, I like that idea. Would you like a slice of coffee cake? I baked it fresh this morning.”

Sanjay smiled with relief, glad to have started a thaw. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.”

“You’re welcome.” She rose to walk over to the counter. “Tell me, Sanjay. What are your plans for my granddaughter? ”

“Well, for starters, I’d like for her to come work with me in my new company,” he told her, smiling his thanks when she handed him a plate with a slice of cake.

“You have a company, do you? And what does that entail?”

Sanjay swallowed the cake he’d put in his mouth and explained what he planned to do.

She beamed at him. “Well, that sounds lovely. And profitable. Your parents must be quite proud of you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sanjay agreed and finished his cake. “That was delicious, Ms. Stanton.”

“Would you like another piece?”

“Yes, please,” he said with a grin. “I didn’t know how to ask without seeming rude.”

She cackled. “Those Southern boy manners of yours are making me think of my hometown in Alabama. I like them.”

“Thank you.” Sanjay dug into more cake.

“So what are your
personal
plans for my granddaughter after you woo her over to your company?”

“Now, that, Ms. Stanton, will be up to your granddaughter, but if it were only up to me, she’d be my wife by tomorrow.”

* * *

Victoria took the hand Sanjay offered as they crossed the parking lot of MoonandStars.com. “Ready, honey?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Now, remember, you’re just going to give them the proof, and then this whole mess will be over with.”

“Give them? I’m not
giving
them anything.”