FULFILLING AMBITIONS

The shower stopped. Khris opened his briefcase and shook out the M&Ms, but no button-sized candies filled his palm. He slid in a finger, then peered into the pack. Empty. Yet he was certain there had been one condom in it. He rummaged quickly through files and papers, it hadn’t fallen into the briefcase. ‘Oh shit, shit,’ he said aloud, considering the implications and his erection. He was wary of unsafe sex, always worrying what lurked in wait within a woman’s pussy. He believed Maya had been a virgin before their first time together and that he was her only lover, but he was cautious not to believe women’s tales. He dreaded catching any disease, especially one through lust. Even if the women told him they were on the pill, and clean, he didn’t believe them—like Sharon, the VP of Axiomatics Inc. in New York, with whom he had an affair a year earlier, months before he met Maya. It had continued intermittently, on his flying visits, and finally she had found another man. He didn’t consider himself promiscuous, a predator of women, only an opportunist quick to grab the chance if it came his way. The other implication that concerned him was the possible pregnancy. She had murmured one impassioned night that she could go on the pill. He had angrily forbidden her. The pill implied promiscuity. It freed her from the constraints of consequences, freed her to fulfil her lust, freed her from his control. Why else would she want to take it? Lust in women made him uneasy. It was unimaginable. Women were meant to be chaste mothers, not devdasis offering their bodies to every man. He didn’t tell her that after Siddhartha was born, he had wanted another child and had persevered for a year, until the night he discovered the pills in Roopmati’s make-up bag. He had been furious at her for denying him a second chance at fatherhood. Khris had wanted a second son—no daughter, thank you—to inherit his empire. Roopmati had weathered his rage, calm, stoic, watchful, and he felt he was battering the impregnable walls of a fortress, the moat bridge drawn up, the great gates barred. She was a woman unafraid. She had made the decision for her own body, she had said, standing up to him. Then she smiled and added that she was also following New Delhi’s pragmatic dictum for population control: two for one. You should have consulted me, told me, he had said. I am your husband. Why? You never consult me on your decisions. He had admired her for that moment, but in his fury he had taken her right then, penetrating her like a battering ram against castle gates, gaining entry into her body, not her mind. She had been passionate too, enjoying his anger, but somehow, somewhere he felt she was watching him with detachment and a secret amusement.
Now, waiting for the bathroom door to open, he had to consider whether to fuck Maya without the security of a condom. Who could have removed the condom, he wondered. He considered Sridhar first. No, he wouldn’t have the temerity, and certainly not his secretary, Grace. They didn’t possess a sense of mischief. Roopmati, then? When? At the cocktail party, at some point, she had a fondness for sweets, and there in his open briefcase, signing papers, she had seen the packet. It had to be her. He sighed, his affair was revealed and he wondered whether she would mention it. No, she wouldn’t, she no longer cared about how he lived his life.
Maya came out of the bathroom, smelling of sandalwood and perfume, glistening with dewy moisture, scattered like diamonds over her earth brown skin. She had deliberately not dried herself, too aware of the erotic effect the gliding drops of water had on him. She had been asleep when he’d called to say, ‘On my way’, and, obedient as a courtesan, she had prepared herself for her master’s conjugal visit. Maya experienced no shame or embarrassment in being Khris’s mistress and, even with her slight knowledge of history, knew of the many women who had slid between the sheets of power, such as Christine Keeler, Mata Hari, Nell Gwynne. She’d also read the English translation of Devdas, the novel by the Bengali writer, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, in which Devdas, having lost his true love, Paro, and the courtesan Chandramukhi falls in love with him. Maya was comfortable with the role of living in the chinnawheedu while the wife had the big one. Though it was part of the city gossip, she knew for a fact that many politicians maintained a chinnawheedu, to spend their illegal wealth on, and many Tamil television serials even showed the mistress being welcomed into the man’s family. Didn’t the Mughal Emperor Akbar have 400 wives and 5,000 concubines? She had briefly considered herself as a concubine, but had decided against it after looking up the word in the dictionary and finding that it meant ‘inferior wife’. She didn’t think of herself as his wife at all; not yet.
She smiled at him, then crossed to the mirror, one of their first purchases. She moved with the arrogance of a queen clothed in silks and jewels, knowing he liked her more for being unashamed in an erotic yet innocent way. Sometimes, on her day off, she’d remain naked all day, wandering around the small house, working, cooking, watching television. What chance do I have for the luxury of nudity at home, except in the bathroom, she had told him. She lived in a one-bedroom flat, which she shared with her sister. All my life I had never seen my complete body nude, until now. In the bathroom I would stand on a stool to see my tummy and my crotch, and lose sight of my breasts and head, it was so disjointing, like I was apportioned, not a complete being. Fragmented. She had laughed, I felt like those dissected drawings of animals with arrows pointing to toes, feet, legs, thighs, stomach, breasts, head. You cannot get an idea of who you are unless you see your whole body naked—as an adult, I mean, not as a child, because then you’re only partly formed. A face without a body or a body without a face can’t be connected, except in your mind. A woman’s physicality is important to her, her body—every complex part of it—is her ornament. Her face, her breasts, her navel, her crotch, her buttocks and thighs. A man’s vanity is only his face and his erection, soft dicks aren’t worth looking at in mirrors. I became whole when I stood in front of this mirror for the first time. I examined myself minutely from head to toe and said, that’s who I am, that’s what I am, a woman, a human being, not bits and pieces.
Khris had grown up in a house with large mirrors and had never considered himself less than whole, and thought that was partly the difference between wealth and the less fortunate. After listening to her, he had examined himself in the mirror then, and saw his body, tall, gangly, with a growing protuberance around the middle and slackening muscles. After that he had begun to work out in the club’s gym to present her with a more desirable body.
Slowly and deliberately Maya combed out her hair. Wet, her hair was no longer ringlets, but shoulder-length shiny and thick. Her breasts moved rhythmically with each vigorous stroke, the erect nipples black against her brown skin. She was still smiling at him in the mirror, looking past her body as if it didn’t exist now. Her back was smooth and supple, curving at her tight bottom, and her long legs were muscled from her rowing days. He wondered at the complex games of fate, thinking that he might have seen her on the thick green waters of the Adyar River, sliding past the club lawns, not knowing that one day she’d be with him, naked and alone.
‘Are you ready?’ she whispered, still watching him, tightening her buttocks, coiled as a cat ready to spring.
‘No condom.’
‘I’m safe.’
He hurried to kneel in preparation, but before he was able to rise on one knee, she was upon him, her rowing muscled arms around his neck, holding him in a head-lock, snarlingspitting, a tigress for the kill. Her body was branded against his back, her legs locked around his waist, ankles crossed in front, squeezing his torso, forcing him down onto his belly. He sensed her blood pounding against his body with the exertion. He could smell the salty sweetness of her perspiration now, slipping between their bodies, her breath harsh in his ear. He bucked and struggled, but she clung to his back with the tenacity of a hungry predator. He wondered how this girl, uninitiated until they’d met, could reveal such strange passions. Beneath those demure clothes lurked a beast, prowling, snapping, snarling, unbridled. What thoughts had shaped her in conservative Coimbatore or did her blood carry the genes of sexual predators, devdasis, nautch women, houris, whores. The darkness in women’s thoughts and dreams that rose to the surface through their loins, were forces unleashed by their pussies which remained hidden from man’s view. She disgusted him, she enchanted him, she humiliated him, she inspired him, she frightened him, she emboldened him, she castrated him, she aroused him, she dominated him, she sublimated to him. It was a constant confusion of repulsion and attraction for him, the collision of such thoughts, like meteors and planets clashing in the universe beyond, leaving a debris of sensual uncertainty drifting through his mind and body. Still holding him in an arm-lock, she straddled him, her knees pressing in on either side like a vice. His arms were free. He pushed upwards with all his strength and turned, rolling over her, so she lay beneath him, the lock now loosening so he could slip free and pinion her arms and stare down into those mocking black eyes, while she bucked and fought him with all her strength.
It was she who had invented this game they played, disdaining the docile sexuality of his experiences, suppressing his dominance, imposing hers on his educated, refined but unimaginative mind. She worshipped the raw passion in animals, admired the savagery of sexual congress they exhibited. She wasn’t surprised by her fantasies and erotic longings; they had been there always in her dreams of sexual gratification. It was as if she always had this talent, waiting for a man’s touch to release it. He would have to be a lover, not a husband, for her behaviour then would be constrained and virginal , not wanting to frighten with her ferocity the man she married. Khris was her ideal experiment, a man who could one day discard her when her use was over and return to his Roopmati, sated and satisfied. She used his body for her own experimentations, to satisfy her demands, her longings, not caring whether he thought her the whore, the woman he kept chained in the small house to be used at his convenience.
She felt his erection pressing down on her stomach, refusing to open her legs but instead brought up a knee and pressed it firmly against his balls, watching him wince in pain and pleasure, pressing on until he had to release her. She twisted away and rose to her knees, and they faced each other like dwarf wrestlers on the bed, looking for the dominating hold, the body crusher. They circled on the bed, their bodies now shining with sweat, slippery as grease. He feinted, but she knew this trick, and let him, giving into him not easily but with a foreknowledge of his moves. He grabbed her, twisted her onto her stomach and knelt between her legs, spreading them as she struggled to escape his fierce hold on them. He shifted his grip quickly, before she escaped, grabbing her hips, lifting them and penetrating, thinking at that moment, as always, that Roopmati would never be so bestial and primitive. And then he was lost in his Maya.
Afterwards, cooled by the air conditioner that had kicked in in the midst of their passion, he asked, ‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course, I am..’ She knew his response, a litany, yet wondering whether she had told an untruth for his reassurance. ‘I should be on the pill.’
‘No,’ he said firmly.
‘  You said you’d come at ten,’ she said gently, being patient with him. ‘How did the meeting go?’ They talked after the first one, the break before the second more loving one.
  ‘I’m sorry.’ He looked at the bedside clock. It was 11.05, he couldn’t remain long. ‘Bharat and I have cut the deal. Next week, we’ll have the finance together to buy out Saturn TV.’
  ‘I’ll get my job, won’t I?’ She knew she would but needed the reassurance. She was dealing with powerful men.
  ‘What would you like to be?’
‘  Head of programming.’ She laughed. ‘With a big hike in pay.’
  ‘You bet. Without you we couldn’t have done it. In a buyout or a takeover, you need the real numbers, not the bullshit figures they give when you ask to see their books. They’ll show profits and when you buy the company, you discover heavy losses and debts. You got us the real numbers, the losses, and Muthuswamy gave us his fake accounts, showing a profit. So I’ve negotiated the deal, cutting him down to the bone and he knows that I know the real numbers. Saala, was he pissed off…but he needs the money.’ He kissed her, chastely. ‘Thank you.’ And lay back, sighing in contentment, the thought of the deal giving him an erection.
  ‘Another Murdoch?’
  ‘I wish,’ he sighed again, imagining girdling the globe, a colossus in communications and information, manipulating the minds of millions, fashioning their thoughts. He did have his ambitions. If Saturn TV succeeded, he would entice a Murdoch to buy it out, or he would buy another channel. The air waves were getting crowded and there’d be a shake out one day. He turned. She was watching him, with a smile, her inquisitive eyes trying to penetrate his mind. ‘What about Managing Director?’ he asked.
  ‘Me?’
  ‘You bet. You could do it. You know how it works, you’ve seen the numbers.’ She laughed and poured kisses on his face. He held her away. ‘But I will fire people too.’
  ‘You’ll never fire me,’ she said. ‘I’ll make you so rich.’
  They made love again, slowly. She expressed her gratitude with her guileful body, serpentine now in her serene sexuality. Her mind had been separated from her body by his offer. MD! She saw herself in Muthuswamy's office, sitting at that huge desk, looking across the sun-drenched city through the slats of the blinds. She felt the power of success coursing through her. When she succeeded here, she would move to Bombay or Delhi, the true power centres in communications and politics. Or, would she? She faltered in uncertainty, all ambitions ebbing away even as they climaxed and lay perspiring and panting against each other. How long would she have to exist in this chinnawheedu? She couldn’t imagine spending her life, like some women she knew, contented to be the mistress, waiting for hours and days for his uncertain visits. They never spoke of the future, the word ‘love’ had not been spoken either. The word didn’t ever teeter on their tongues. It was a secret neither wished to reveal, even if they possessed it.
  She walked him to the front door, still naked, and he shielded her from the prying eyes of Ramesh, who was waiting in the car. The rain was still beating down—they’d forgotten its fury in their passion—and the garden was flooding to an inch below the top step.
  ‘When will I see you again?’
  ‘Next week. I’ll be travelling.’
  ‘Where to?’
  ‘London first, then probably Chicago.’ He looked at the rain. ‘I’m leaving tomorrow morning by the BA flight.’
  ‘You should tell the landlord his house will be flooded if it keeps raining.’
  ‘I will,’ he promised, forgetting the moment the door closed behind him, not confessing that he didn’t know who it was. There were buffers between him and the rental cheque.
  It would always be like this, Maya thought. He would return to Roopmati and then in a few hours be on a flight, and he wouldn’t have mentioned it if she had not asked. She had accompanied him on a business trip to Kuala Lumpur, her first ever journey abroad, out of India, across a sea to a foreign land. They’d flown first class, as he always did, and he had fallen asleep the moment the plane had taken off. He was like a cat; he slept in an instant, yet woke up and remembered what had been said even if they had stopped mid-conversation. She returned to the bedroom and made her a call.
  ‘Hi, Sof, is it too late?’
  ‘No, no. I was watching TV,’ replied her sister, Sofia, once called Shalini. ‘What’s up?’
  ‘He’s going to make me MD of Saturn TV!’ She laughed when she heard her sister’s shrieks of delight and held the phone away from her ear.
  ‘I told you so, didn’t I? I told you it would happen.’
  ‘I know. It wouldn’t have happened without you telling me what to do.’