Close Too Close (16 page)
Sumedha’s hand gripped the curve of Somavat’s buttock. Somavat let out a sigh and buried his head in Sumedha’s neck. Sumedha’s fingers moved down, he felt Somavat’s navel. Somavat let out a soft moan. Sumedha bored his finger deeper into the navel. Somavat moaned once again.
He rolled over Sumedha, wanting to take charge as usual, undoing his dhoti, his loincloth, spreading out his arms and legs. Sumedha’s tall, lithe body looked beautiful, stretched out on the ground. Somavat stood up and watched Sumedha’s eagerness call to him. The gentle tuft of hair stretching from Sumedha’s navel down to his manhood reached out in anticipation. The desire to possess and be possessed consumed him. His buttocks twitched, his thighs quivered. Somavat waited for a bit, staring at his friend’s body. So many times had they bathed naked in the village pond. But never had he experienced this raw urge spreading like a forest fire across his five senses.
Sumedha could not bear this teasing. Come, come, his flesh screamed, until Somavat finally lowered himself. The falling raindrops saw the white dhoti and the red sari intertwined like serpents, and atop them, the two boys holding each other, their brown bodies merging into one.
Sumedha looked into his friend’s eyes, their intensity enhanced by the rain-smudged lampblack lining. His jaw looked firm. Coarse stubble peeped trough the turmeric. He felt his strength, his passion, his determination. He spread his legs, wanting to accommodate his friend comfortably. He wrapped them around Somavat’s waist, not wanting to let his friend go, feeling his eager stiffness against Somavat’s belly. He ran his fingers through Somavat’s hair while Somavat bit his arm in excitement. Something about the pain that followed, and the red mark left behind, made it all real.
The sounds of lovemaking emerging from the cave excited the trees in the forest. Branches entangled with each other, while vine tendrils gripped the trunks more firmly. The forest-goddess let her thighs part to make room for the rivulets of passion sent down by the sky-gods.
Somavat wanted his friend to hold him tight, squeeze him, make him feel more wanted and more alive; he wanted to be the wife if that was what Sumedha desired, and husband too, if that was what he wished. Family and friend, husband and wife, these were just words. All he wanted was to be wrapped in the same skin, make Sumedha feel what he sensed.
‘Lovemaking is about pleasuring the other and finding happiness in their pleasure,’ the village courtesan had once said in passing. ‘Thoughts,’ she repeatedly stated, ‘are the enemies of lovemaking, interfering with passion, emotions, sensations, annoyingly seeking patterns and explanations and justifications. Banish them when the beloved is in your arms.’ Somavat and Sumedha dutifully banished all thoughts from the mind and devoured each other’s being, determined to make the other happy. Mounds of flesh rose and fell. Hands multiplied as lovers tried to feel more of each other’s flesh. Mouths multiplied to lick and bite and kiss more skin. Thrust followed thrust, forceful entries through open welcoming gateways, a rush of passion, turbulent juices, probing fingers, eager limbs. They clung to each other like serpents mating, arms and legs intertwined.
Their identities were lost. Somavat and Sumedha mingled and merged into each other. One ran his tongue on the inside of the other’s thigh. The other turned around and let the one move his fingers across his back, down his spine, to coax the softness down below. The inside welcomed the outside. The husband’s body opened up as a wife’s. And the wife felt the tenderness of the most affectionate husband. The world did not exist after that, every grain of sand, every rock, every blade of grass washed away by the waters of Pralaya, but the two were together, groaning and gasping, feeling each other’s breath and heartbeat, safe in each other’s arms, oblivious of everything, cradled upon a floating banyan leaf.
The rain stopped.
The sun burst through the trees and entered the cave as a golden shaft. Butterflies, sent by Aranyani, rose from the bushes and began to dance. The queen’s cow watched with amusement the imposters transformed into a real couple. Kama smiled from behind the rocks. Yama recorded it all. For this was desired, and destined.
F
irst, my arms are tied down. Then the blindfold.
‘Is it tight enough?’ asks Mandira.
‘It’s a bit too tight,’ I venture.
‘Who asked you?’ says Ruchi. ‘Just speak when you’re spoken to.’ Rough-gently yanking the knot so my head is pulled back. There’s a nervous titter – Vini? I’m not sure, but I subside obediently. Ruchi tests the blindfold, runs a finger expertly – it seems to me – between my cheek and the taut cloth first on one side then the other and says, ‘I think that’s fine, it shouldn’t come loose midway. Okay sweetie, you want another half-drink? Before we start? I’ll hold the glass for you.’ Tanu scoffs, ‘Such niceness! You are just not happening as a dominatrix!’
I’ve had a couple of slow Bloody Marys and am just mildly buzzed. Ordinarily, another drink would be welcome, but I don’t want to be too swimmy; I’m going to need my senses to be sharp – as sharp as the taste of the crushed salt from the frosted glass rim still lickable on my lips. Someone’s in for a treat. Eyes closed behind the blindfold, arms strapped to armrests, I say that we can start.
There’s whispering, then suddenly loose fabric brushes my knee. A kurta or a dupatta or a skirt. That rules out Vini, who’s wearing a tucked-in shirt. Tanu’s dupatta and Neerja’s scarf are doing duty as restraints on my wrists, and I don’t think their tops are all that long or loose. But I don’t have too much time to think through any of this consciously: two fingers placed below my chin tilt my face up, a hand comes to rest lightly on my shoulder and ice-cool lips press against mine . . . then almost at once a tongue tip flickers across the hollow between my lips, prising them minimally open. I let the tip of my own tongue greet my kisser’s and a tiny current passes between us, its charge building up as we explore each other tentatively and then more decisively before the other tongue is suddenly withdrawn, the person straightens up, and crazy cheers and whoops fill the room.
‘Come on, Jo – guess who?’ That’s Mandira asking. I think, that was either Mandira herself, who’s in a skirt, or Bins or Abhay. But Mandira’s on some medication and is drinking green tea, and this person’s lips were ice-cube – or chilled-beer – cold. It wasn’t Ruchi because I got a good whiff of her bestest-itr-e-gil-bought-in-Lucknow-during-the- conference while she was blindfolding me, and there was no heady wet earth after the first rains in my nostrils just now. No aftershave either, so it probably wasn’t Abhay, who’s unusually in a kurta today, but maybe he isn’t wearing any cologne? ‘Bins?’ I say. I sense though I cannot see the conspiratorial smiles and I hear shushing gestures, then Vini intones as she writes the log – ‘Num-ber
One
. Jyots-na guess-es Ben-
ai
-fer.’
Bins pipes up, ‘Assuming that was me, I hope it was a good kiss. Was it?’
‘Too brief,’ I complain. ‘And it stopped just when it was getting somewhere.’ Tanu says, ‘You know the rules, J. No lingering beyond the time limit.’
‘And no – umm – hitting below the neck,’ adds Neerja, quite gratuitously in my opinion. Rules indeed! You’d think we’d been doing this forever, instead of it being only the second time, and the first was nearly seven months ago. But lesbians learn quickly, and have long memories. Not that Abhay is a lesbian or even a woman. And Ruchi is always reminding everyone that she’s this marginalised-among-the-marginalised bisexual, while Neerja likes to grandly or wistfully refer to herself as HLT (short for Hothead Paisan Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist). Most of us really just call ourselves queer when we have to call ourselves something. Certainly this is one hell of a queer game we’re playing.
So, a brief look at the others in the cast. Mandira, architect: recovering from a bad breakup, a bit of a health-food freak. Vini (given name Vinita) and Neerja (HLT): in a relationship, a fact they refrain from advertising on FB; our only live-in lovers. Tanusri: quintessential Bangla girl-next-door who sings Rabindrasangeet while cooking machher jhol and poshto, not that you should take me too seriously. Benaifer: works in her parents’ furniture store in what the newspapers, indifferent to the vast public oblivion regarding the term, persist in calling SoBo. Bins and Tanu were an item for a while, and may still be for all anyone knows. But do you really care yet about who does what or who does who, dear reader? Although, as a good or trying-to-be-good feminist I should certainly tell you about myself: I’m a gambler, and my favourite colour is . . . oh well.
Vini says, businesslike, ‘Jo? Score please.’ Thinking that it’s bound to get much better than this, and how I can’t go higher than ten even for the most knock-out ones, I say, apologetically, ‘Four.’
‘
Baap re
, fail score
ho gaya yeh to
!’
*
Bins wails, ‘Oh I am so devastated! In case that was me-ee!’
‘It’s okay, calm down, people. Some of us just might get a second chance later.’ Whispers, huddles, giggles, rustles, the plonk of ice cubes, an sms beep. Ruchi asks, ‘Ready for next?’ and I nod.