Dev Dreams, Volume One (6 page)

“I will make you breakfast,” she said. She
opened his cabinets, but found very little. A few boxes in the
cabinet below the sink. Nothing in the cabinets above, which she
quickly realized he couldn't reach.

“You don't need to do that.”

“Do you have a steamer?”

“For idli? No. Listen, I have to get to work,
but I'll take you to the grocery store when I get back. There's an
Indian one too. I'm sorry to disappear on you, but there are books
and the TV and I'm going to have a friend stop by to check on you
at noon. She'll take you for lunch, okay?”

“Sure, sure,” Priyanka said. She watched out
the kitchen window as he rolled down the ramp on the side stairs
and into the garage. After he drove away, loneliness settled into
the pit of her stomach.

She busied herself doing the things she had
been told were wifely things. She wet a towel and scrubbed the
floors, finding tire marks throughout the house. She dusted the
bookshelves and entertainment center. Her eye caught on a book
about language acquisition in adults and she sat on the sofa to
read it, a dust rag forgotten on her lap.

At noon the doorbell rang. Priyanka peered
through the kitchen window again and saw a young woman who must be
the friend Deepak spoke of. She unlocked the door.

“You're Deepak's wife?”

She bobbed her head side to side.

“You speak English?”

“Sure, sure, no problem.”

The woman came in and sat down on the one
chair at the kitchen table. “He's a great guy. God, I can't believe
he's married. You've known him how long?”

“From two weeks.”

“Wow, I can't even imagine marrying someone
I've known two weeks.”

“It is a different way,” Priyanka said,
shrugging.

“I'm Rachel, by the way.”

“I'm Priya.”

“Let's get some lunch, then. Do you want to
change?”

“It is not okay? This?”

“Just looks kind of uncomfortable.”

“No, no, it is fine.”

As they drove to a restaurant, Priyanka
missed the chaos of home. Everything here was too orderly. Rachel
was good company, telling Priyanka stories about what Deepak was
like in college.

Over the next several days, Rachel came over
each afternoon. On the second day Deepak left some money and told
them to buy Priyanka some western clothes. Feeling that was some
kind of permission, she started wearing jeans and short kurtas and
even leaving her hair down.

Priyanka learned how to find the grocery
store and the Indian food store. She cooked a dinner for Deepak
each night. Sometimes he arrived home when it was ready, more often
she reheated it late at night when he got back from the hospital.
She quickly discovered that he would eat anything and she enjoyed
trying to find exotic dishes and unusual ingredients to shock him.
She was unable to find anything he wouldn't eat.

Each evening he told her about his day while
she oiled her hair and they went to sleep on opposite sides of the
bed.

One night Deepak told her, “We need to go to
this fancy function at the hospital where I work. I'll take you
shopping for a dress tomorrow. We'll take the subway, you'll like
it.”

He was right, she loved the subway. The mass
of people pushing against each other felt like home. When they got
on the train, someone moved out of a seat marked with a wheelchair
symbol. Deepak folded the seat out of the way and rolled into its
place. There was no where to sit and Priyanka was preparing to hold
onto the pole next to the door when Deepak grazed the back of her
arm with his fingers, then patted his lap. Gingerly she climbed on
and he wrapped his arms around her waist. It felt surprisingly
nice, like they fit together as puzzle pieces.

At the store, the sale's girl tried to ignore
Deepak's input, but he knew the event and Priyanka did not, so he
selected the dresses for her to try on. The sale's girl absolutely
refused to allow him in the changing area, so he sat in the store
and waited for her to come out in each dress. Priyanka modeled
dresses and twirled in front of him and he told her she was
beautiful. She couldn't remember the last time she had so much
fun.

Then she came out of the changing room and a
couple of girls were standing behind Deepak and speaking in French.
He was oblivious to them, since he didn't understand what they were
saying, but Priyanka did and she frowned. She walked past her
husband and said to the girls, “Je peux vous comprendre.”

Deepak pushed his chair around and stared at
her as the girls rolled their eyes and walked away.

Priyanka looked down at her shoes and said,
“They were speaking about you.”

“You can speak French?”

“A little. I've been studying.”

“You already speak Tamil, Hindi, Kanada and
English and you're learning French too. I'm impressed, I can only
speak English and bad Hindi. Why didn't you say you were fluent in
so many languages?”

Priyanka looked at him and he was gazing at
her with such pride that she blushed. “Daksha Auntie didn't think
it sounded right, I have the wrong kind of skills. I do cook,
though, I like cooking.”

“Yes, and you're very good at it. I like to
cook too.”

“You?”

“I'll make you a lasagna tomorrow, you'll
love it.”

She smiled. She never thought she'd have so
much fun with her husband, it almost made up for the lack of touch.
Her skin sometimes seemed to ache from the desire to be touched and
there were times she longed to just be held. She always pushed
those thoughts aside.

That night on the drive over to convention
center where the event was happening, Deepak said, “Some of my
colleagues are real pigs, just be prepared.”

He was looking exceptionally handsome in a
suit and tie and Priyanka herself had never felt more lovely, not
even on their wedding day. There were many people in the hall, but
it didn't feel crowded because it was such a huge space. Deepak
found their table with place cards that said Dr. and Mrs. Rao. He
rolled his eyes when he saw there was a chair at his place setting.
“Every single time,” he muttered. Priyanka stayed at the table
while he went to find someone to remove the chair. No one else from
their table had arrived yet.

When Deepak got back and the mix-up with the
extra chair had been settled, they wandered around the room
mingling. Deepak approached a couple of men standing near the bar
area and Priyanka followed a little behind, distracted by staring
at all the beautiful dresses. When she arrived, Deepak said to the
men, “This is my wife, Priyanka. Priya, this is George and
Eddie.”

“You lucky dog, since when do you have a
wife?” one said.

“Got her from the old country where they
can't say 'no', eh?” the other said, and both laughed heartily.

Priyanka looked down at Deepak and he was
staring at his knees. He seemed embarrassed. What the man said was
mostly true. Priyanka herself hadn't had as much choice as most
girls in these situations did, but there was always a choice. She
could have sold her gold necklace and taken her chances.

“I'm a woman, not a slave,” she said, “I can
always say 'no.'”

Deepak looked at her sharply, awe on his face
and the trace of a smile.

“Got a feisty one, did you? Good luck with
that, Dee.” They laughed again as they walked away.

“Sorry,” Priyanka said.

She was startled when, instead of speaking,
he took her hand and wove his fingers through hers. Affection
surged through her as she realized they were a team, close to each
other in a way that no one could touch.

That night, same as the others, she put on
her long night gown and lay on one edge of the bed. Deepak pulled
his wheelchair along the other side and looked at her. She sat up,
suddenly self-conscious. She covered her chest with her arms and
waited for him to speak.

“Do you find me grotesque?” he asked.

“No,” she answered truthfully, “Not
anymore.”

“Could I kiss you?” He looked hopeful and
scared, not like a husband exercising his rights.

She nodded and he moved to the bed, his legs
shaking slightly.

“Come closer,” he said and she slid up next
to him. She touched his arm and enjoyed the feel of his skin. She
grasped his upper arm and it was thick and muscular.

Her first kiss was warm and gentle. His lips
were soft against hers. He opened her lips with his tongue and
seemed to drink her in. He ran a hand over her body, lifting up her
nightgown and touching her legs, the outside of her thighs, her
stomach, her breasts. She could almost read his delight through his
touch. The surface of his fingers was like sandpaper against her
skin, and yet she warmed as he touched her.

The room seemed suddenly much too hot and her
nightgown was unbearably thick. She sat up and pulled it over her
head, abandoning it on the floor. Deepak took a sharp breath at her
naked body. She watched as he wiggled out of his pajama bottoms,
rocking his body side to side to maneuver them down his legs.

When she lay back down, he slid a finger into
her and she gasped at the new sensation.

He pressed his thumb against the outside,
while moving his finger around inside. While doing that, he was
touching himself, rubbing his genitals until they became hard. “I
want you to straddle me and put that in where my finger was,
okay?”

More than okay, she was surprised to find
that part of her body actually craving to be filled. She had an
urge to get something inside her quickly and his body was perfect.
She pressed up and down against him while he held her hips. The
sensation was like a million butterflies tickling the inside of her
skin throughout her body. She had never felt anything so
wonderful.

She leaned forward, her nipples grazing over
his chest, and nibbled on his neck. He dug his fingers into her
arms and cried out in pleasure. The sound caused another surge of
excitement like warm honey rushing through her.

She shivered and grabbed handfuls of his hair
as spasms shot through her lower body and she released a moan.

Moments later Priyanka lay against him in the
crook of his arm and he said, “I know you must have wondered what
bad fate led you here, but I think we can be happy.”

“Sometimes good fate is disguised as
bad.”

“Yes,” he said, sighing contentedly,
“Sometimes it is.”

The Happiness Pact

Sophie sat on one of the chairs and Alex sat
on the sofa at his parents' house. Paul pulled over another chair
and sat down. The three friends often met at Alex's house after
school, since he lived within walking distance and his parents were
rarely home. His family's house was also bigger than the one
bedroom apartment Sophie shared with her father and the modest
single story home Paul's family lived in.

“Did you get homework for English and History
today?” Sophie asked.

“Yeah,” Paul said, “I thought the teachers
were supposed to work out a deal where it was one or the
other.”

Paul was an odd child. He wore turtleneck
shirts everyday and carried a briefcase to his classes. He had a
baby face that looked many years younger than seventeen. Sophie had
just moved to town a few months before so she didn't know that he
had dressed the same and wore his hair the same since he was five
years old.

“Hey,” Alex said, “No homework talk. You guys
are such losers.”

Paul laughed. “So we're the losers, what are
you?”

Alex's twin brother, Jake, walked through the
front door then and saw them sitting in the living room. He paused,
looked them up and down, and started to walk past.

“You're welcome to join us,” Alex said.

“I don't know,” Jake said, “Can't get caught
hanging with the geeks.”

“No one is going to see you,” Alex said.

Jake was in the popular crowd at school. He
didn't talk to any of them there, but at home he wasn't so bad.
Sophie didn't know how it was possible that identical twin brothers
could end up on opposite ends of the social spectrum at school.
They were identical twins, and yet it didn't take long to tell them
apart. Alex's face was softer and rounder while Jake was all
angles.

Jake laughed and walked toward them, but as
he came up, he tripped and fell forward, grabbing the edge of the
sofa to catch himself.

“Jesus, Jake, we haven't even opened the
bottle yet,” Alex said, holding up the brandy he had stolen from
their parents' pantry.

Jake sat down and said, “I'm just really
tired, it's made me clumsy all week. Pass me that.” He reached over
and took the bottle from his brother and opened it. He took a swig,
made a face, and passed it to Paul.

“Are you sure this isn't cooking alcohol?”
Paul asked.

“No,” Alex said.

Sophie didn't take any, she held the bottle
gingerly by the neck as she passed it across to Jake again.

“Oh come on,” Jake said, “Don't be
prissy.”

There was something about Jake that made
Sophie feel embarrassed every time he talked to her. She started to
stammer something, but Alex said, “Leave her alone, she only drinks
water.”

“Seriously?” Jake said, his eyes back on her,
now actually looking at her maybe for the first time.

Sophie nodded.

“No tea, coffee, juice...milk?”

“No.”

“That's weird.”

Sophie nodded. She'd heard that before. After
the bottle made it around the room a few times Alex put it down on
the coffee table and leaned back.

“So if we're not allowed to talk about
homework,” Sophie said, avoiding looking at Jake, who was taking up
most of the couch, his legs spread wide and his arms behind his
head, “What should we talk about?”

“Sophie,” Alex said, “I'm certain you have
something more interesting in your life than homework.”

“Not really.”