At 12.30 p.m. this afternoon, I bid you goodbye. You were on your way to the airport. I’d helped you pack, had rid the fridge of all things cursed with a short shelf span, had ironed your Nehru coats so you could wear one at the lecture you were slated to present in the land of our former coloniser. We held hands in the taxi. We snuck our private gesture behind our handbags so the driver wouldn’t be witness to our intimacy.
Eight hours later, I’m slipping into a summer dress, trying to disguise my reluctance. I’m not sure why I agreed to reacquaint myself with L, a man I’d spent one night with sometime last year when you were away. He happens to be in town for a few hours and he’s intent on seeing me again.
I contemplate faking a last-minute illness. I can predict the flow of our conversation and I know he would like it to end with me poised beneath him. I was sure I didn’t want to go there. Not again.
I repress the urge to curse you.
I’m still upset about the other night when I was about to collapse into the welcoming arms of sleep. You came to bed later and wound your legs strategically so your feet lay pressed against my c****.
“Are you fast asleep?” you asked.
“What do you want?”
“Could you please press the tips of my toes?”
“Do I have a choice?”
I pressed the little gaps between your toes, then pulled at their tips. When you were satisfied, you turned your back to me and asked me to relieve you of the itch on your back.
I felt sympathy. You are allergic to so many things and this past week the skin on your back had broken into a rash and I couldn’t even begin to imagine how frustrating it must have been for you to not be able to reach the regions that itched most. I scratched your back. You purred like a tomcat.
Then you buried your head in your pillow and were about to break into sleep.
“That’s what I’ve become,” I said. “Backscratcher and masseuse.”
“What do you mean?” you asked.
“You see me as a spare set of hands. I have a body too,” I said.
“Well, I’ve told you before; consider finding a younger lover, someone who can satisfy you.”
At which point I succumbed to my angry pose and turned against your body, slipped into a corner and threatened to sleep without kissing you goodnight.
But I relented.
“You deserve to be satisfied,” you added.
“It isn’t about satisfaction,” I replied.
“Then what is it about?”
“Touch. It’s about touch. You used to touch me in a certain way and you don’t anymore,” I said as I uncoiled myself from the fetal position I’d assumed and lay flat on my back, my palms spread against my head.
“You mean like this?” and you encased my fingers within your fingers so your pulse could invade my own.
By then, despite the current that passed through me, a tear coursed past my cheek.
I waited for the surge to subside and when I was sure you had passed into sleep, released my fingers from the bondage of your “touch”, turned around and tried to negotiate my passage through the underground of sleep.
When I woke up the next morning I could taste the anger on my tongue. As is my style, I said nothing. I answered your every remark with a monosyllabic smile. It took three such instances for you to finally catch on.
“Are you pissed off?” you asked at last.
“No. Not at all,” I said faking reassurance.
You didn’t pursue the matter, went for a walk instead and asked me to make you a bowl of porridge for breakfast.
When you returned, you noticed my face was still twisted in the shape of a grimace. So you did that corny thing you do where you smile at me patronizingly and expect that like a monkey, I’ll mimic your smile and erase my frown.
It didn’t work.
“I guess I am pissed at you,” I revealed, finally.
“Why? What did I do this time?” you asked most innocently.
“It’s okay, fuck it.”
“No, tell me.”
“You insulted me last night.”
“How?”
“By suggesting I take on a younger lover.”
“But I’ve said that to you before too, it can’t possibly have come as a surprise.”
“That’s the thing! After everything we’ve been through, you’re still suggesting I take a lover.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll take that back.”
“You should. It’s disrespectful.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s just that before, you used to touch me in a certain way, and I find, increasingly, that you don’t. You want me instead to administer to your aches and itches.”
“I’m sorry.”
Later, when I was scrubbing the dishes, you snuck up behind me and put your lips to my neck and your fingers against my crotch. I turned to liquid, my body smouldered in the warmth of your breath.
“Hmmm... Don’t touch me like that,” I said teasingly.
“Oh really?”
“No. Don’t not touch me like that!”
Despite that make-up touch, I’m still pissed off at you for your suggestion, and for having generally reduced me to a Lady-Macbeth-like caricature. Each time I make love to another, I find I wash myself repeatedly until all traces of digression have been shaken off and my body is a blank slate once again, clear and vacant enough for you to write anew upon my skin.
This wouldn’t have happened if you had enforced monogamy.
If you had laid down rules and asked me to abide by them. But you don’t care for cuckoldry. You don’t care for possession. You prefer to let me make my own rules, be with whomever I wish.
The ex used to say the same thing, except he’d make too much of a grand gesture out of “giving me” my freedom, “Your body doesn’t belong to me,” he would say. “You have every right to be with whomever you want,” he’d add. “Just don’t tell me about it, I don’t think I want to know.” I was young then, even younger than I am now. And as long as he was around, I never faltered, never indulged in other bodies. But when he left this city of djinns, during my second year of University, things fell apart. I discovered the world of men, and the thrill of conquest.
I assumed the role of picara and made my way through the landscape of lust and desire. I never sought out lovers; they just seemed to find their way into my body. The structure was common to all: first the sighting, then the pursuit, which was almost always literary, followed by contact, followed by words. Yes, men made for good muses. Sometimes I couldn’t tell if my writing depended on adventure, or if the adventure was incumbent in order for me to write.
Excerpted with permission from A Handbook For My Lover, Rosalyn D’Mello, HarperCollins India.
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Eight hours later, I’m slipping into a summer dress, trying to disguise my reluctance. I’m not sure why I agreed to reacquaint myself with L, a man I’d spent one night with sometime last year when you were away. He happens to be in town for a few hours and he’s intent on seeing me again.
I contemplate faking a last-minute illness. I can predict the flow of our conversation and I know he would like it to end with me poised beneath him. I was sure I didn’t want to go there. Not again.
I repress the urge to curse you.
I’m still upset about the other night when I was about to collapse into the welcoming arms of sleep. You came to bed later and wound your legs strategically so your feet lay pressed against my c****.
“Are you fast asleep?” you asked.
“What do you want?”
“Could you please press the tips of my toes?”
“Do I have a choice?”
I pressed the little gaps between your toes, then pulled at their tips. When you were satisfied, you turned your back to me and asked me to relieve you of the itch on your back.
I felt sympathy. You are allergic to so many things and this past week the skin on your back had broken into a rash and I couldn’t even begin to imagine how frustrating it must have been for you to not be able to reach the regions that itched most. I scratched your back. You purred like a tomcat.
Then you buried your head in your pillow and were about to break into sleep.
“That’s what I’ve become,” I said. “Backscratcher and masseuse.”
“What do you mean?” you asked.
“You see me as a spare set of hands. I have a body too,” I said.
“Well, I’ve told you before; consider finding a younger lover, someone who can satisfy you.”
At which point I succumbed to my angry pose and turned against your body, slipped into a corner and threatened to sleep without kissing you goodnight.
But I relented.
“You deserve to be satisfied,” you added.
“It isn’t about satisfaction,” I replied.
“Then what is it about?”
“Touch. It’s about touch. You used to touch me in a certain way and you don’t anymore,” I said as I uncoiled myself from the fetal position I’d assumed and lay flat on my back, my palms spread against my head.
“You mean like this?” and you encased my fingers within your fingers so your pulse could invade my own.
By then, despite the current that passed through me, a tear coursed past my cheek.
I waited for the surge to subside and when I was sure you had passed into sleep, released my fingers from the bondage of your “touch”, turned around and tried to negotiate my passage through the underground of sleep.
When I woke up the next morning I could taste the anger on my tongue. As is my style, I said nothing. I answered your every remark with a monosyllabic smile. It took three such instances for you to finally catch on.
“Are you pissed off?” you asked at last.
“No. Not at all,” I said faking reassurance.
You didn’t pursue the matter, went for a walk instead and asked me to make you a bowl of porridge for breakfast.
When you returned, you noticed my face was still twisted in the shape of a grimace. So you did that corny thing you do where you smile at me patronizingly and expect that like a monkey, I’ll mimic your smile and erase my frown.
It didn’t work.
“I guess I am pissed at you,” I revealed, finally.
“Why? What did I do this time?” you asked most innocently.
“It’s okay, fuck it.”
“No, tell me.”
“You insulted me last night.”
“How?”
“By suggesting I take on a younger lover.”
“But I’ve said that to you before too, it can’t possibly have come as a surprise.”
“That’s the thing! After everything we’ve been through, you’re still suggesting I take a lover.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll take that back.”
“You should. It’s disrespectful.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s just that before, you used to touch me in a certain way, and I find, increasingly, that you don’t. You want me instead to administer to your aches and itches.”
“I’m sorry.”
Later, when I was scrubbing the dishes, you snuck up behind me and put your lips to my neck and your fingers against my crotch. I turned to liquid, my body smouldered in the warmth of your breath.
“Hmmm... Don’t touch me like that,” I said teasingly.
“Oh really?”
“No. Don’t not touch me like that!”
Despite that make-up touch, I’m still pissed off at you for your suggestion, and for having generally reduced me to a Lady-Macbeth-like caricature. Each time I make love to another, I find I wash myself repeatedly until all traces of digression have been shaken off and my body is a blank slate once again, clear and vacant enough for you to write anew upon my skin.
This wouldn’t have happened if you had enforced monogamy.
If you had laid down rules and asked me to abide by them. But you don’t care for cuckoldry. You don’t care for possession. You prefer to let me make my own rules, be with whomever I wish.
The ex used to say the same thing, except he’d make too much of a grand gesture out of “giving me” my freedom, “Your body doesn’t belong to me,” he would say. “You have every right to be with whomever you want,” he’d add. “Just don’t tell me about it, I don’t think I want to know.” I was young then, even younger than I am now. And as long as he was around, I never faltered, never indulged in other bodies. But when he left this city of djinns, during my second year of University, things fell apart. I discovered the world of men, and the thrill of conquest.
I assumed the role of picara and made my way through the landscape of lust and desire. I never sought out lovers; they just seemed to find their way into my body. The structure was common to all: first the sighting, then the pursuit, which was almost always literary, followed by contact, followed by words. Yes, men made for good muses. Sometimes I couldn’t tell if my writing depended on adventure, or if the adventure was incumbent in order for me to write.
Excerpted with permission from A Handbook For My Lover, Rosalyn D’Mello, HarperCollins India.
