Don't Let Him Know (24 page)

The song changed. The crowd whooped in delight. The boy standing next to him grabbed his friend and dragged him to the dance floor. Avinash watched them being swallowed up in the steaming writhing mass of arms and legs and went and stood in the queue at the bar.

After a few minutes he noticed the young man behind him in line. He kept glancing at him and half-smiling. Avinash turned around to see if he was looking at someone else. But the man was looking at him. He was good-looking, perhaps in his late twenties, dark-skinned with a thin moustache, and when he smiled Avinash noticed his front tooth was chipped. He looked almost familiar but Avinash figured he saw scores of young men like that every day. He was wearing faded blue jeans and a black T-shirt. The T-shirt was shiny and clung to him like a second skin. It had a small alligator over its breast pocket but he was sure it was an imitation.

‘Hello,’ said Avinash hesitantly.

The man kept smiling, his expression slightly quizzical. Then he replied, ‘How are you? What’s your name?’ He spoke in English but Avinash could tell from his accent that it didn’t come naturally to him. Small-town boy, he thought.

‘A-Aveek,’ said Avinash, stumbling over his new name. Then he switched to Bengali and asked, ‘What’s yours?’

‘Rohit,’ said the man. There was something about his eyes that unnerved Avinash. He felt they were looking right through him, that they had caught the hesitation, the little lie. Avinash dropped his gaze.

Before he could say anything more the bartender said, ‘What will it be?’

Avinash almost asked for the special, some cocktail called Muggy Night in Calcutta. But in the end he played it safe – a vodka-soda, please. He wondered if he should wait for Rohit to get his drink but he felt too self-conscious and walked away after giving him a little nod. As he left the bar he glanced back to see if Rohit was looking at him but the young man was busy ordering his drink.

Avinash never quite figured out if Rohit came looking for him or whether he just ran into him again. It must have been at least an hour later. He had spent the evening hanging out on the fringes of the party, sipping first one drink, then another, savouring the cold liquor on his tongue, trying to make the buzz last. The party showed no signs of winding down as more and more men arrived, some in tank tops and jeans, some in demurely buttoned shirts, some freshly shaved, some with designer beards, their hair stiffly gelled.

He tried to make conversation with a couple of guys taking a break from dancing. They were polite but they didn’t seem too keen to chat with a middle-aged stranger. Everyone appeared to know someone else and would greet each other with loud shouts and hugs. Avinash could feel his shirt sticking to his back. He’d have to get it washed again he thought. He glanced at his watch – 11.21. People were still coming in but he was getting tired. Just as he was about to leave someone tapped him on his shoulder.

Avinash turned around. It was Rohit.

‘Having a good time?’ he said.

Avinash smiled broadly out of sheer relief at having someone to talk to. He shrugged non-committally and said, ‘It’s okay. How about you? Do you know many people here?’

‘Not really,’ replied Rohit. ‘A couple, but most of these guys are boys who went to college – you know, English-speaking men. Like you. Our worlds are very different. For a while I went with a young businessman I had met in a park. He introduced me to some of these guys. So I come sometimes.’

Avinash felt a gush of relief that he was not the only one feeling out of place.

Rohit, it turned out, lived out in the suburbs with his mother and sisters. It meant it took him almost an hour and a half in packed local trains every day to get to work. But it was all they could afford on his salary. ‘It’s not so bad,’ he said with a sly smile. ‘Sometimes in crowded trains you can have interesting experiences.’

Avinash flushed as an image crept into his mind of Rohit standing in a crowded train, pressed up against him. He tried to shake it off but the image spread inside his head like the stain from a leaking fountain pen.

Rohit was still talking. He had a younger sister who was taking her school-leaving examination. He had started college but after his father died in a factory accident he had dropped out. Now he worked as a chauffeur.

‘The pay is better,’ he said with a shrug. Avinash complimented him on his English. Rohit said it had helped him get his job. ‘I sometimes have to drive foreigners,’ he said.

‘Oh really?’ said Avinash. ‘What company do you work for?’

‘Just an import–export company,’ said Rohit vaguely.

Avinash sensed he was crossing a line and didn’t press further. He was a little relieved that Rohit didn’t ask him the same question.

There was a moment’s awkward silence as they both stared out at the dance floor. Then they both suddenly started speaking at once. Rohit laughed and said, ‘You first.’

‘Oh nothing,’ replied Avinash. ‘How did you know about this party? Do you have a computer?’ He stopped short, embarrassed. Of course, he wouldn’t have a computer at home.

Rohit laughed. ‘No, I log in at Internet cafes. They are everywhere.’

Rohit intrigued Avinash. Avinash didn’t think he had ever had a real conversation with someone like him. Their lives had no reason to intersect, certainly not at any of the parties Avinash went to. In his everyday world Avinash could have been in the back seat of a car telling someone like Rohit, ‘Take me to the Tata Building.’ He wouldn’t even have paid much attention to his face. But instead here they were tapping their feet to the latest Hindi remixes talking about sexuality and trading growing-up stories.

‘Would you like another drink?’ said Avinash, feeling generous.

‘Maybe later,’ said Rohit. Then he looked at Avinash and said, ‘Do you want to dance?’

Avinash, startled, said ‘Dance? Me? Here?’

‘Where else?’ said Rohit, chuckling.

As they pushed their way through the crowd, Avinash tried to capture the moment in his head. For a split second he wanted everything to freeze, the laughing faces around him, the boys with their hands in the air, the men dancing with their arms on each other’s waists and himself among them, and Rohit’s chipped grin.

‘You know, you dance quite well,’ said Rohit.

‘You mean for an older man?’ replied Avinash with a smile.

‘I like older men,’ Rohit said, and touched Avinash’s hair. ‘I like grey hair. You should stop dyeing it.’ Then he leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. Avinash felt the room tilt. I shouldn’t have had that second drink, he thought. He moved closer to Rohit and felt Rohit’s hand on the small of his back. He liked the way it held him. It was almost possessive.

As the song changed, Rohit looked at him and said, ‘What do you say we get out and go somewhere?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Avinash, surprised. ‘Where can we go?’

‘Surely a man like you has a nice flat with a view,’ grinned Rohit. ‘Or would the night watchman see me go up and wonder?’

‘No, it’s not that,’ said Avinash sheepishly.

‘How about we just go for a walk? It’s too noisy in here,’ Rohit suggested. ‘I know a park.’

You are mad, said a voice in Avinash’s head. You are drunk. But Rohit was already walking towards the door. Avinash meekly followed him out of the club and into the dark night. He paused at the door for a moment and looked back. No one was looking at him, no one was marking his departure. Within the disco light of the club-for-a-night he had somehow felt cocooned, as if nestled in the fantasy haven of the Internet where he was still FunMan and this was his wondrous adventure. Now, as he smelled the night air and heard the taxis honking, that dreamscape was evaporating. This is real, he thought. This is happening. He took a deep breath and shut the door behind him. Immediately the noise and laughter disappeared, wiped out by the familiar hum of the city night as efficiently as a wet rag on a blackboard. After the heat of the club, the night air felt cool. He shook his head – even his hair was sweaty. Rohit laughed and pulled out a carefully folded large white handkerchief from his jeans and wiped his forehead.

‘Very hot in there, huh?’ he said rather redundantly.

As they walked, Avinash felt awkward and self-conscious. He wondered if the city settling down to sleep around them, the cab drivers idling at the street corner were noticing what an odd couple they made. Everything seemed larger than life and he felt he could see himself reflected on every surface. The corner stores were closed. He could see little coal fires burning where people were cooking on the street. The charred smell of chapatti suddenly made him hungry again. ‘Babu, a little money?’ said a small boy running up to him but without much hope in his voice. He noticed the boy didn’t approach Rohit.

‘Hey, clear off,’ Rohit said, shooing the boy away. He grabbed Avinash’s hand and said, ‘Come this way.’

As they turned into a narrow alley, Avinash wondered if he should just take Rohit home. He could always pretend he was the new driver or something.

‘You know something,’ he said, clearing his throat slightly embarrassed. ‘My name is not Aveek. It’s Avinash, actually.’

Rohit shrugged and smiled. ‘Mine is still Rohit.’ He let his hands fall to his side, his fingertips gently grazing Avinash’s. A young couple passed by on a scooter, the phutphuts loud in the night. Avinash snatched his hand away. He noticed neither of the couple was wearing a helmet.

‘Would you ever visit my home?’ Rohit said out of the blue.

‘You’d want me to?’ Avinash could not keep the surprise out of his voice.

‘It’s not that far. Only a few stops by train. I have my own room,’ said Rohit. ‘I could show you my books. My sister would like you, I think. You could tell her what to study in college.’

Avinash smiled. His heart was calming down. ‘What park are we going to?’ he asked. Rohit didn’t answer but just whirled around and kissed him. Avinash’s eyes opened wide. ‘It’s okay,’ said Rohit. ‘There’s no one around. No one can see.’

Avinash flushed. There was something sweet, almost romantic, about the way he said that. He wondered with a pang whether he would ever see this young man again after tonight. It would be nice to see his room, he thought to himself. He imagined mentoring his sister, going through her books, while Rohit made tea for them on the stove. He reached for Rohit’s hand the way a small animal nuzzles for comfort. Rohit gripped it in return and led him confidently towards the park.

The park, Rohit explained, was actually closed at night but there was a part of the wall that had crumbled and they could sneak in through there. Avinash just followed, letting him take charge. Rohit held his hand out to help him as he stumbled over the bricks and stones.

The park was poorly lit but Rohit clearly knew his way around. Still holding Avinash’s hand he guided him down snaking pathways, past flowering bushes, their pearly pink flowers fragrant in the heavy humid night air, over scrubby patches of grass littered with plastic wrappers. Avinash was rapidly losing his sense of direction as Rohit led him into a thicket of trees.

‘Careful,’ he said. ‘It’s really dark here.’ Avinash almost tripped over the protruding stump of a tree. He could still hear the rumble of the trucks and cars on the main road but it was muffled now like distant thunder. All around him were newer noises, darker sounds, rustling leaves, the scampering of small animals.

‘Scared, dear?’ Rohit said, laughing.

Avinash shook his head and reached out for him, squeezing his chest through his shirt. Rohit grabbed him and kissed him, pressing up against him, this time, a lot more urgently than at the party. Avinash finally closed his eyes and kissed him back. Now he could really taste Rohit, a mix of cigarette, alcohol and fragrant almost sickly sweet paan masala. The mixture went to his head making him dizzy.

I can’t believe this is happening to me, he thought. I am even finding the smell of paan masala sexy. When he was a young man he wouldn’t have been caught dead with the stuff. He always thought of it as something terribly unsophisticated. If he needed a breath freshener he would go for chewing gum.

Rohit kissed him harder, his hands moving under his shirt, touching his bare skin. Avinash followed suit, feeling Rohit’s body and the tightness of it. The rough springiness of the hair on his chest made his knees go weak.

‘Don’t bite my neck,’ Avinash said. ‘It will leave a mark.’ Rohit stopped kissing him and smiled. Then without a word he reached down, took Avinash’s hand and placed it on his crotch as he started fumbling with Avinash’s belt. Avinash’s heart started thudding again but he made no move to stop him.

‘Shit,’ swore Rohit. ‘What complicated belts you people wear.’

Avinash chuckled and unbuckled it for him. He felt Rohit’s hand undoing the button of his trousers and tugging down the zipper. Following him, action for action, like a partner in a ballroom dance, Avinash did the same to him, his heart beating wildly as he touched him through his underpants.

Avinash felt his trousers puddle around his feet and he felt Rohit’s hands, his fingers rough and callused, pulling his underpants down. Panic welled up within Avinash. It was no longer about just getting caught in the park. Everything was moving too fast. Things were spiralling out of control. He realized he had not thought this far ahead. They had not talked at all about what he was willing to do. Nervously, Avinash tried to slow things down. ‘Wait a minute. What do you want to do?’ he asked.