The First Time (Love in No Time #1) (10 page)

And then he was getting up and walking out the door! What the fuck? Why does he keep doing that? Render me helpless with his relentless seduction and just when I am rendered speechless, he leaves! And then I hear him talking to someone who I immediately recognize as my brother. Shit! He left because he somehow heard my brother coming up the stairs and rightfully so, interrupted our rendezvous. Any second later we would have been in deep trouble. I knew my brother was going to finish speaking to his friend and then come in to check in on me. He is not stupid. He could smell hanky-panky from miles away. And I am sure he was smelling one now, enough to walk to its possible source.

But why was I acting so guilty? I had nothing to be guilty about, except for maybe my throbbing, blood red lips! Yikes, lips! I quickly took the remaining frosting atop my cake and smeared it across my lips. Hopefully it would seem like I was really bad at eating cake or really sloppy eating a very good cake! My brother entered, saw me and burst out laughing. And that was my way out—of an inquisition about a bad, bad boy who was getting a little too obsessive about me.

Chapter Sixteen

My mother was shaking me to wakefulness. I knew that voice and stylistic of bringing the dead to life—a pulling on the shoulder and that constant “wake up, wake up,” till it sounded like the drone of a blood-drunk mosquito. And the only thing you wanted to do was to take a fly swatter to that blood bloated gnat. But hey, this was my mother, who was just doing her due diligence in the Sharma household.

“Hi, mom” I rubbed my eyes sleepily and gave her a reassuring smile.

“Baby, he is outside, waiting for you. ‘Says you asked him to give you a ride to work today?” I didn’t know if she was stating a fact or asking me a question. My eyes probably gave me away.

“You didn’t.” She confirmed.

“So why is he here?” I needed to save this situation like right now.

“Oh, I must have said something. I forget now. Mom, could you tell him to wait for another five? I will be ready soon. My bus has probably left the station by now.”

I threw all this back at my mother as I ran to the bathroom, locked the door, and then ran to the window to see him sitting on his scooter, his green jacket shining in the sun, his aviators sitting well on his nose, his black slacks betrayed his formality that his green jacket tried to hide. Dear lord, I was in so much trouble!

I waved back at my mother as I sat sideways on his scooter. I was careful not to circle his waist with my free hands as I adjusted my ass on to the heated vinyl of the seat. But as we rounded the corner of the street, his arm reached back and pulled my hands to circle his waist. When he was satisfied with its placement, he patted my hand like one would a puppy’s head and returned to guiding his scooter towards the interstate highway and our respective destinations.

The one-hour ride was wordless. We were both processing what we wanted to say and couldn’t decide on what really to say that was appropriate. And then the ride ended. I slid off the side of the scooter even before it came to a halt. I turned around to face him but knowing not what to say or do in the moment. So I just waited, staring at his helmet enclosed face. He took his time shutting off his scooter and then took off his helmet. He was smiling! I smiled back without thinking why. It was just so natural. And then I extended my hand to shake his. I don’t know why but it just seemed the most ridiculously formal thing to do. His cocked eyebrow told me exactly how ridiculous my outstretched hand looked between us. Then he actually took my hand as if he was going to shake it. Instead, he pulled me towards him such that I was only inches away from his face and then he took hold of my mouth. He bit hard and then sucked on it as if to make the pain go away.

My whole body went into shivers and I immediately pulled back, “what do you think you are doing?” I did sound very indignant about a kiss that shook me to my core. I saw two vegetable vendors at the corner of the street staring at us. This was nothing new. Everyone in Delhi stares at everything that moves, especially women. I could stare them down but that wouldn’t change the fact that I was being brazen in a sexually repressed public culture. Kissing a boy in public—now what could be more brazen than that? Hell, if I was already marked then why not enjoy it? So I leaned back into him and kissed him back, even dragging my tongue into his mouth to take a swipe off his minty flavor!

I then turned quickly to run into the building but he caught my arm before I could and in a voice that sounded so urgent said, “I want to go on another date with you and please just say yes. I know you like dancing so I want to take you dancing. We could go to Ghungroos at Taj Palace. My cousin knows the DJ there and can get us in. We can do dinner first and then work it out on the dance floor later! Please don’t say no. I need a whole night of extended access to you. These small, stolen moments are killing me. So please have mercy on this poor soul and say yes, Otherwise it will get ugly. I will come and find you. I will bang your door down, throw you over my shoulder, smack your pretty bottom till you scream all the way to dinner, understood,
capiche
?”

I could only nod my head in the affirmative, too dumbed out by his intense tirade. “Good. I will call you today to set up the date. Ciao, baby.”

He kick-started his scooter and then was gone in a billow of smoke and dust. The man and his scooter were environmentally dangerous. I was becoming asthmatic now—positively dangerous.

Chapter Seventeen

I didn’t hear from him, no, not a peep for the whole week. After the first two days of being jumpy every time my office or home phone rang, I began to settle my heart, soothe my frazzled self by getting a ton of work done at the office. I answered all my mail, even managing to squeeze in two elaborate lunches with Dipta and Jaya that I had postponed because of him. Yes, they both made sure that I knew that they were miffed about these postponements.

They let me know what an unfeminist thing this was.

They felt abandoned, them who were my friends for life, for a guy who I knew only for a minute of my life!

They didn’t like that they came second to a female hard-on!

Ah! All the existential dilemmas of our lives. I tried to bribe their angst away by buying each a Wenger’s to-die-for jam roll. We stuffed our faces with this heart attack inducing pastry from the oldest and most famous bakery in Connaught circus and then walked around Janpath, buying trinkets and t-shirts from the roadside vendors. We ended our day with cold and hot coffees from the famous DePaul’s. I could drink (and often did!) gallons of this stuff. Maybe the rumor mill was right. He put whiskey in his coffee and that apparently enhanced the flavor. The bastard was selling liquor in the name of coffee. And Delhi was hooked. And he was rich. I wanted to be his smart.

Doing NGO work was all about heart and no money. Poverty was my vocation, sadly enough, but it still paid no bills. We, in the development business, had well-do parents. So in a way didn’t need the business to survive. Our parents were our back up plan. In fact, because they were our back up plan that we went into this business in the name of altruism. However, this was the irritant. I didn’t want my parents to be my back up plan. I wanted to be my back-up plan. Hell, I wanted to make lots of money doing something that wasn’t this altruistic. But in a closed economy unless you had family capital and political connections, making money was a foreclosed option.

Capitalism was a bad word and profit was equivalent to smuggling. So you had two options in college: never graduating from college or graduating from college on time and remain unemployed. Then you are two options: get married or do NGO work till you find someone to be married to. This is how I lived each other. I also lived with guilt, a critique, and a hope—a trifecta of contradictions that I would somehow resolve someday. But tomorrow was more important. I was going to indulge in guilty pleasure. Yes, I can do pleasure while still swimming in this sea of guilt and critique and doom and inflexibility that I didn’t feel the power to change.

I lay flopped on my bed surrounded by blouses, skirts, stockings, dresses, under wear and junk jewelry. This was the manifestation of all my confusion about how to dress myself for a discotheque at a chic hotel in downtown Delhi. I had never been to a discotheque so didn’t know how to belong in this space, inhabited by possibly rich Delhi brats and maybe a few white visitors, also rich brats marauding through exotic lands of beautiful bounty. I didn’t know how to address myself in sartorial terms in order to belong.

So I decided to go comfortable. I decided to wear my black slacks, tights, and a brown checkered flannel dress, enough clothing to keep me warm inside and outside. I decided on my gold hoop earrings and tied my hair into a high ponytail. I hate hair around my face. This may be a matter of habit. My mother always insisted on keeping my long hair braided. I was always Ms. Pigtails. My hair was never loose for more than half hour and only after I had washed it, which was always after three days. As my hair would dry, I would oil it rigorously, often with coconut oil, great for a dry scalp. So even if I wanted to keep my hair lose, I had become habituated to binding it and controlling it in the true Brahmanical, Hindu tradition.

Female hair, in this tradition, is associated with sexuality and loose hair with unbridled sexuality. A good woman always bridled her hair, whereas a not-so-good woman left it loose. I decided on being the good woman that night. So I bridled my hair. I slipped my Indian style shoes on, grabbed my tote bag and decided to wait for my man in the living room. I had barely sat down when there was a knock on the door. Wow! Speak of timing! Someone is super-eager.

I must have been smiling stupidly because when I opened the door, his smile immediately changed to the grin and he reached out for my hand to drag me out of the threshold and into his body. I kind of slammed into his body with enough force to totter us a little but he stood solid against my impact, tightening his hands around my waist. Before I could exhale the big intake of my breath as I felt his rock hard body and spicy cologne, his mouth descended and he sucked out all my breath. He pulled back after what seemed like the longest minute in girl world and looked down at me, eyes intense and full of some “being-defined” need. But the look disappeared as his mouth descended again but this time he rubbed his lips against mine so hard that all my lipgloss was now on his lips and his pink shiny lips looked like they had been somewhere else like my wet cunt. He might as well have been there because I was leaking like a broken tap.

Through my fogged senses, I feel him reach behind me to lock the main door, drop the key in my bag, and was now pulling me towards a car parked near the street. Car? Wait a minute. He didn’t have a car. I then spotted someone in the back of the car. Shit! This was going to be a foursome? We had company on our first date. There go all the bad intentions on my agenda. He asks me to slip into the back seat as he decides to give his friend company up front. His friend has now turned almost three hundred and sixty degrees in his seat to watch me with a knowing smile on this face. I smile back at him. He is a petite man but well dressed. Too young, however, to be wearing a silk scarf around his neck that matched his light pink shirt and bomber leather jacket. Hmm! Into serious clothes are we?

“So you are the one?” he asks in his giggly sort of voice. I immediately love him.

“I am what?” I asked him to rephrase.

“The one, the one who snagged his balls and is holding them in a vice-like grip.” My face was all heat. I was sure that I was going to burst into flames any second.

But I managed to say, “Sorry, I know not of any balls that I would like to hold, vice-like or otherwise.” He laughs so loudly that my ears hurt in that tiny dinky car of his.

“You certainly have him by the balls trust me, and before the night is over you will have him following you around like a puppy in heat with his tongue hanging out. I can’t wait. So let’s get this dog and pony show on the road, friends!” He winks and off we go. Someone’s balls were safe for now.

Chapter Eighteen

Wady, that was his name, he said. I had my doubts. I could have bet my wet knickers that this was yet another Anglicized Punjabi name—like Parminder became Pam and Sukhvinder became Sammy, all in the name of making non-Christian names easy to say for those habitualized to recognizing only Christian names.

In Delhi, the simple equation to “cool” was speaking in English, living in rich neighborhoods, having parents who were either entrepreneurs or in positions of power in the government that automatically opened all doors, streets, pipelines of opportunity for you without a plea being made. If you lived in Vasant Vihar in South Delhi, went to Delhi Public School and planned to attend St. Stephan’s College after finishing high school (and maybe go on to study further at an Ivy League College in America) then you had nothing really to worry about. Your cool quotient was out of the water and hanging in the stratosphere as the brightest of the brightest stars. You were untouchable as in free as free can be in the worst way possible—you could be involved in a hit-and-run and even the universe conspired to give the devil its privileged due.

So when someone said, “what is in a name?” no-one stopped to think of colonialism’s impact on “native identity”—or how for hundred years “natives” began to strip themselves of the familiar, including their names, in order to belong to a foreign occupation of their “home” in every sense of the word. The colonial body snatchers then returned new bodies to a new context, ones who couldn’t recognize themselves or didn’t even want to.

New generations of body-snatched still don’t know or care to know. They act out a programming that is two hundred years old. Old, yes, that is a good word to use but only in its chronological inflection. There is nothing “old” about its vice-like hold over native balls, especially. I can see Wady’s balls are in a vice-like grip, even when the vice-like grip becomes as comfortable as a jock strap, is even welcomed because without it you feel bereft, rudderless and very native. There goes the work of generations of privileged oppressed—to not be that, to never be that.

Wady wore his non-nativity well—in the way he spoke his English, wore his silk neck scarf and his bomber jacket with the perfect brown felt collar, and smelled like he couldn’t decide between his ten different colognes so he sprayed on a little of all. He was the epitome of Punjabi “sho-shaa” as they say in Delhi—showing off that which you want others to know, be dazzled by even though the clothes on your body might be borrowed! Maybe Wady wasn’t this, as I would know later, but his name pointed to the seriousness of the hangover or shall we say affliction that was two centuries old. But he was a sweet boy who really wanted to act cooler than he ended up projecting. The scarf didn’t do it for him. It gave him a middle-aged, army colonel look. Maybe he thought that the colonel look was cool or at least the ladies would like it. The army look might speak to his virility even when he knew it wasn’t a conversation piece for any occasion, private or public. There was nothing virile about Wady, at least not in the way he giggled, cracked jokes, or drove his diesel Fiat car at less than thirty-five miles an hour in a hundred miles an hour zone.

“C’mon Wady, you can do better than this, you slow poke!” he chimed into and interrupted my thoughts.

I immediately seconded the encouragement with “yes, you can, yes, you can!” (I know Obama stole my line!).

He looked at me with eyes that held some kind of warning: “you guys need to sit back and enjoy the slow ride, ok my dears?”

I didn’t know whether he was being sarcastic, facetious or just slimy smooth! He obviously knows something about us because why would he be here, driving us to a bad place where bad things happen? I am sure Mr. manicured beard has said something to his hobbit friend. I am sure my status has been discussed or even the impossibility of me being a girlfriend given that I am his best friend’s sister. This kind of knowledge makes or breaks friendships in men. This kind of knowledge requires absolute confidentiality and “lips are zipped.”

“So who is your date tonight, Wady?” I stop guessing to ask a different question.

“God, I wish you hadn’t asked, hon-bun.”

“Why?” I am not even considering that he just called me “hon-bun.” I am not sure where that came from.

“Should I tell her?” Wady looks at my man.

My man shrugs. “Why not? What is not to tell?” It is not as if she is a supermodel whose name you cannot reveal as part of any contractual obligation!”

Wady smirks and then looks back at me as if he is trying to gauge my current mood before he replies.

“Okay, c’mon who is she? An ex-girlfriend you cannot stop thinking about?” I persist a little evilly this time.

Both men look at each other and then back at me. They have clearly picked up on my curiosity. He shifts in his seat to give me his full attention. Uh-oh! This is not good.

“Why would I throw an ex-girlfriend on a pal? There is a reason why she is an ex—past, done, over, don’t care.”

And Wady chimes in—“I would never go out with his ex. She has pimples all over her face and wore the most horrendous clothes ever stitched by the worst seamstresses of the world!” He makes the face that translates his disgust more vividly. But then he winks at my man. There is a look shared. Uh-oh! Are they throwing me off here?

So I wouldn’t ask too many questions. “Wady, are you joking about the pimples?” I ask.

“Yes, she was not that bad. But I am not kidding about the clothes though. That was the biggest turn off for me. But our man here obviously likes pink on purple quite much to have dated her for that long a while.”

“That while? For how long did you date?” My voice is slightly squeaky now. I almost don’t want to know the answer but somehow couldn’t keep the question from popping.

He is sensing my unease for he turns quickly, looking me square in the eyes again. “Not for long. Less than 2 months.”

“That’s long enough,” I say petulantly. Months are better than years, I know. But I am in no mood to back down.

“No, its not.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it is not, babe.”

“Whatever.” I unlock my gaze from his and look out the window instead, at the passing sodium lights.

“Ms. Sharma . . .” he begins and I cut him off.

“Oh, stop with the Ms. Sharma. I have a name. I am sure you called
her
by her name!” I finish with a huff. I am not sure where this came from but got added on to a perfectly formed irritable sentence.

“Stop the car, Wady,” I hear him say.

“Here? We are on the freaking highway, man!” Wady is almost shouting.

“Ok, so get off the highway and stop,
man
.”

“Why?”

“I need to get in the back seat.”

“No, I don’t need you in the back seat with me, thank you very much.” I snap without looking at him. He ignores me.

“Wady, find an exit and stop for two seconds,
now
.” Wady snorts, I think but soon he is slowing down. Before the car could stop fully, he is out the front door and sliding next to me in the back. Hell, I am damned if I look at him with that glaze of tears in my eyes. No way, man. The inside of the car is too quiet. I am damned again if I attempt to break this silence. I know both men are looking at me now not knowing what they must do in order to change the mood.

Finally he speaks—“Wady, drive and don’t look over your shoulder no matter what you hear or don’t. Am I clear, man?”

“Sure, whatever you say.” Wady knows when not to enter which battles. I sneak a look at Wady. He grins and I grin back at him! This boy-man is something else. He could easily flip his friend and the night would end and we would all move on. Instead he is backing out to turn on to the highway once again. He begins to hum, rather badly. He is breaking every tonal law that I know but its his way of tuning out the backseat, giving us the privacy demanded of him earlier. But I am being stubborn and continue to look out the window. The tears have returned to their ducts because I feel no wetness on my cheeks. I hear him squish closer to me on the vinyl seat till his thigh is pressed against mine. I jerk at this touch but his hand snakes out to hold my thigh against his. I squirm. His hand stills me. Now I am sitting with my legs slightly apart—not what my mother taught me! His face is so close to mine that I can feel his breath on my neck and in my hair.

“What?” I snap and turn around in my attempt to be offensive. Defense was not the best option here. But I realized that he was closer than I thought, actually inches from my face and lips. My heart skips a beat before running off in his direction, leaving me all huffy and puffy. But I still refuse to be stared down. He decides that he will not be stared down either.

And I saw him slowly move closer to my lips and slowly breathe into me: “She didn’t matter, doesn’t matter. You do.”

I feared that if I moved even an inch I would touch his lips. I wanted to touch his lips—no, no, I didn’t. I knew I would never be able to stop if I did, even if by accident. So I just stared up at him, seeing his eyes slowly crinkle in amusement at my lack of articulation. “You have very beautiful eyes, you know, Ms. Sharma. They always say what you don’t with that delectable mouth of yours.”

“And now,” he paused, “I am going to kiss you, ok?”

And then his lips are on mine, lightly increasing the pressure so I am forced to part mine to allow his mint-laced tongue to enter and tangle with mine. He burrows in deeper, sucking harder on my tongue as I am sure he would my nether parts if I allowed him to! He sucks on my mouth till there is nothing to suck anymore. But all the suction fuse our lips so tight that plucking them away would hurt, I knew. Sure enough, as he slowly withdraws our lips separate with a loud, wet whoosh. I drop my head on his shoulder and he immediately cradles it with his head, laying a kiss on my temple. His shirt smells of spices and oranges and I want to burrow deeper into him. But then I remembered my lipstick and kohl and how badly this could stain a white fabric. I try to move away from his shirt. But he keeps me where I am, not worrying about what I was worrying about.

“Are you done canoodling, you love-sick kids?” Wady’s voice intercepted our love-fest. I giggle and feel him smile in his chest.

“For now, you pervert.” “And how come we are still not there? Is you sense of direction failing you like your failing eyes?”

“No, you unseeing bastard, my eyes are better than the day I was born. My concern was you and how you might just explode in your pants if you didn’t get in the back with Ms. Scarlett and at least got to kiss the poor girl!” Wady’s eyes twinkle like a rabbit’s in the dark.

He continues, “Shame on you for preying on little, doe-eyed virgins—you really have no conscience, do you? Or if you do, it is probably in your small dick? Just FYI for you sweetheart!”

Wady’s amused, bruised expression was to die for—so we did—died laughing in the back of his car till he grinded his car to an annoyed halt at our destination, two hours after we left the house! I wasn’t complaining because the length of the ride allowed me to feel more amenable towards the man who had decided to make me forget his ex-girlfriend. My love of dancing and being at the disco for the first time with my guy no less were making me beyond amenable. Wady guides his car into a parking lot right behind the elevators, switching the ignition off.

As I start to open my door, he said, “Wait, not yet.”

“What, why” we asked back in unison.

“We need to prep ourselves for a great night, don’t you think?” Wady giggles (yes, he did that a lot!) at our confused expressions.

“God, you guys are really novices at this lifestyle, eh?” Lifestyle? Coming to a disco is a lifestyle? I guess Wady was a pro then since this was my very first time.

“Ok, Mr. Pro enlighten us on the lifestyle you lead and how might we partake in its grandeur?” We say in union—a stunning superimposition of thoughts to words; words that are said precisely in the same measure. Our eyes lock registering the uniqueness of this moment and in a way of our compatibility before we both laugh out aloud. It is a gleeful laugh—as if we had somehow realized we belong to each other!

“Ok, love birds you guys are making me diabetic with all this eye-balling, gooey stuff. I was expecting this crap from you—well not you—but her. But you are worse than her, dude. What happened to you, my friend? You weren’t like this with her . . .” And bam, we were back to her, his ex. Wady couldn’t stop his involuntary comparing of me with her. I guess it was his way of making sense of what he was watching happen in the back of the car. I feel him glare at Wady.

“Man, you really don’t have filters. Now, I need a drink. You are not making this night easy at all for me, you idiot.” Wady grins again, not looking at all apologetic.

“Right, so here goes—Grey Goose or Monk?”

“What, you have liquor in the car?!”

“Of course, I never go anywhere without it. You never know when you might need to tank up, like now. Thank god for me, I think of everything!” He exclaims with a flourish, passing around three Styrofoam cups. I decided on some Rum and Coke. Yes, he had a fizzless bottle in his car. The boys decided on Vodka neat.

“What no lemon wedges or ice cubes?” I needled.

“That is just not right, if you are entertaining in your car. This is not the way to go, friend.” I wiggle my finger at Wady.