One divorce, two long-term relationships and multiple one-night stands later, Meera was on a train to Kandivali, standing at the doorway of a general compartment, clutching like a nervous stripper the steel pole that usually anchors commuters in the face of waves of incoming and exiting crowds. It was 12.45 am, there were barely ten people sitting in the compartment, and standing next to her was Jeet, the Kandivali resident who was definitely in his twenties, had been her junior for the past two years that he’d worked at the same newspaper, and whose home she was going to with the intention of having sex. At least that’s what Meera thought she was doing. Surely no one travels an hour by local train to just make out? Turning her back on the blazing blue neon inside the train compartment, Meera looked out and tried not to think about how much older than Jeet she was. Not that she knew his age exactly. She really didn’t know much about him, except for the fact that he had skin that felt like polished cotton.
The train hurtled past neighbourhoods she just about recognised despite fifteen years spent in the city. Meera could see squares and flashes of light, silhouettes framed against windows, and darkness. She felt Jeet move to stand beside her.
He was tall, Meera thought to herself, taller than he’d felt an hour ago when he’d been sitting by her side during the farewell dinner her colleagues had thrown for her. Colleagues, including him. She reminded herself that they weren’t colleagues anymore. Today had been her last day. Jeet’s hand tentatively curved around her waist; a couple of fingers on the edge of her blouse, so close to the underside of her breast; the other fingers touching her skin.
It was when the train rushed past Goregaon station that Meera, aged forty years and four months, clutching a steel pole and pressed against the erection of a man whose age she didn’t know and whose article she’d corrected last week, faced up to the fact that she was going through a midlife crisis.
Jeet’s flat was a ten-minute auto ride from the station. Inside the rattling three-wheeler, he put his arm around Meera and pulled her close to him. Meera looked at the reflection in the rearview mirror. The two of them were in shadow. Occasionally, the yellow of streetlights slashed the darkness and she could see Jeet’s eyes, the sharp line of his nose, his lips pressed close together. She turned his face towards her own and, closing her eyes, kissed him, once, twice; the third time, she touched her tongue to the seam of his lips. His hand around her shoulder tightened. They opened their eyes at the same time. Jeet darted a glance at the driver.
The man was looking ahead with the studiousness of someone determined to not acknowledge that a middle-aged woman and a man in his twenties were making out at the back of his vehicle. Jeet’s nervous face broke into a quiet little laugh. His teeth were starry white. A small puff of his breath settled on Meera’s skin. She smelt the cheap rum he’d been drinking. She’d drunk vodka with tonic. She wondered if her breath smelled sour. Jeet held her face in his hands and whispered, “I can’t believe I’m doing this in an auto, but what the hell. Open your mouth.” And as he kissed her with intent and tongue, Meera melted, and in a far corner of her brain, the few cells that were still functional crossed their fingers in the hope that there wouldn’t be a wet patch on her sari when they got out of the auto.
The guard did a double-take when he saw Jeet and Meera enter the building premises. The silver lining, Meera told herself, was that clearly Jeet didn’t bring too many women home at 1.30 am.
“Hello Pandeyji,” Jeet said warmly to the guard. “All good?”
Meera realised she would probably have sex with Jeet soon. Except she didn’t have a condom. What if he didn’t have one? What if he didn’t use one? She started when she felt a hand at the small of her back.
“The lift is over there,” Jeet said to her. She smiled brightly at him. He lived on the tenth floor. In the lift, he stood a short distance away.
Meera saw the camera in one corner. She wondered if he lived with a flatmate. What if the flatmate was awake? What if he were a journalist? The doors of the lift opened, and Jeet walked out. “This way,” he said. Meera saw beads of sweat at the corner of his brow. Outside his door – dark wooden finish; small window with a grille at the centre; a Ganesha on the doorframe – he fumbled with the keys. He was tense, Meera could tell. Of course he was. She was like his boss. Had been. She had been like his boss.
The sound of the lock slipping back was loud in the late-night stillness inside the building. Jeet opened the door, stepped in and vaguely flapped his arm to usher her inside. Meera walked in and the still-active brain cells reminded her that in women, sexual desire led to a surge of testosterone rather than oestrogen. She felt her testosterone recede and panic rise, like a tsunami wave. Jeet pushed the door shut behind her and moved closer. She took a step back. Behind her was the solid flatness of the door; in front of her, a few breathless inches away, was all of Jeet. He leaned forward a little, his palms flat on either side of her head. She put her hands on his chest. Under her palm, his heart juddered. He was warm. One of her hands moved to slip a finger through the gap between two of his buttons. His skin was smooth and the body hair reminded her of the veins on a new leaf. He lowered his head and pressed a kiss on the skin behind her ear, another one on her neck and then another, lower, near her collarbone.
He really was tall. She could feel how much he was bending. Meera rose on her tiptoes, making it a little easier for him to fit his face against the curve of her neck. He opened his mouth. The warmth of his tongue and the edge of his teeth made her catch her breath. She could just about see over his shoulder into the room. The mattress on the floor had a mirror-work bedcover. There was a table lamp next to it. On the wall was a poster of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. A bookshelf that looked strangely precarious was crammed with books and festooned with fairy lights. On top of it were little action figures. One of them was definitely a miniature Hulk. In the middle of the room was a low table, its surface covered with glasses, an almost-overflowing ashtray, and used plates. There was a chair with a towel draped on the armrest. The air in the room had the faint bitter burn of cigarettes smoked hours ago.
Everything about the room screamed youth. Meera found herself remembering her hostel room from twenty years ago, even as her hands untucked Jeet’s shirt and slipped under to feel his skin. His waist had a gentle dip, and his stomach clenched when her fingers wandered from back to front. No washboard abs, but the firm yet soft tautness of someone whose body hasn’t slackened. Meera didn’t hear the sweet nothings he mumbled against her skin. All she could think of was that she was practically forty-one and Jeet was a boy. He lived far out in the suburbs, in a flat that didn’t even have a sofa. His bookshelf had a Hulk on it. If she looked at the books on that shelf, maybe she’d find Paulo Coelho and Chetan Bhagat. Worse, Ayn Rand. She’d kept Atlas Shrugged in plain sight in her bookshelf for years when she was in her early twenties. She didn’t know better. Maybe neither did Jeet – not just about what was on his bookshelf, but what he was doing now. With an older woman in his arms and cheap rum on his tongue. Jeet’s hand cupped Meera’s breast over the sari and blouse. The tip of a finger – did he have big hands or were blouses excessively low-cut? – touched the skin at the blouse’s neckline.
Meera pulled her hands out from under Jeet’s shirt and pushed at him. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this,” she said, her eyes squeezed tightly shut.
Jeet stopped and moved away immediately. He looked confused. Meera searched his face for signs of anger or discontent, but didn’t see any. His shirt was rumpled and a wedge of his chest was visible because she’d unfastened the top three buttons. She remembered doing that. That part of him did not look like a boy and for a long, uncomfortable moment, Meera’s brain struggled to reason with the messages being sent by her hormones.
“I’m not sure …”
“I should get a cab to go home,” Meera interrupted Jeet and reached into her bag for her phone. She opened the taxi app and held her phone out to him. “This is your address, right?” she asked.
Jeet stared at her for a moment and then took the phone. He nodded before handing it back to her. Meera watched the bobbing graphics that said the app was contacting nearby drivers.
Excerpted with permission from Lightning in a Shot Glass, Deepanjana Pal, HarperCollins India.
