The Henna Artist(67)

I didn’t know where I was or how I’d ended up here. The room was dark. Was I dreaming?

“What time is it?” I was groggy with sleep and shut my eyes again.

He turned on the bedside lamp and checked his pocket watch. “A quarter past twelve.”

I sighed.

“What’s the emergency?”

Reluctantly, I opened my eyes. He brushed the hair away from my forehead to examine the swelling. His face was inches from mine. I could see the copper rim of his irises, their olive centers. How long his eyelashes were! And the feathered lines at the corners of his eyes—deeper now that he was frowning. I reached up to smooth them with my fingers and let my hand linger there. I caressed his cheek, the skin soft but the whiskers rough against my fingertips. I trailed my thumb across his lower lip.

He watched me with a puzzled smile.

I smiled back. He always made me feel safe. He was my comfort, made the big problems go away. Like when the owner of the Rajnagar land didn’t want to sell to a woman, Samir had stepped in and talked him into it. And when he loaned me money for herbs when I first arrived in Jaipur. He was on my side, always.

I parted his lips with my thumb and felt the wet flesh inside. Still looking into my eyes, he licked my thumb with his tongue. When my breath caught, his lips closed around it and he sucked. My belly tightened. I flattened my hand against his chest, feeling the thaka-thaka-thaka rhythm of his heart. The top two buttons of his chest were open. I slid my fingers through the opening and trailed my fingernails on his chest, felt his heart beat faster.

He leaned closer and brushed his lips along the low neckline of my blouse. My breasts swelled. My back arched. My skin grew warm.

I kissed him. He kissed me back.

I pulled his shirt out of his trousers and dug my nails into the muscles of his back. He undid my blouse, snaking a finger along the elastic of my bra until he found the hooks in the back.

His tongue was warm and wet on my nipples, sending an electric charge between my legs. My entire body hummed—the soft flesh under my armpit, my belly button, the tender place inside my thigh. I pushed Samir to sitting. I lifted the shirt over his head and kissed his nipples. He groaned. So this is how it feels. This is what she feels.

We rolled over on the sheets and I straddled him. Pulling down the zipper of his pants, I stroked him. He moaned and sought my lips. He kissed me hard, and kept on kissing me, his tongue exploring my mouth, my tongue, my neck, the underside of my breasts. He loosened the drawstring of my petticoat so the pleats fell out and my sari unwound around us. Out came my notebook and my pouch, my pocket watch. Samir swept them off the bed. He took off his trousers. His thighs squeezed mine. I pulled on his mouth with my teeth, inhaled his cardamom breath. He turned me on my side and flattened himself behind me, his stomach pressing my buttocks, his lips on my earlobe, my shoulder, his hand stroking the warm skin between my legs, rocking me back and forth, back and forth, like water lapping the riverbank. As he entered me, I could no longer think, only feel pleasure. I no longer felt bound to my body, or to the bed. I felt everything and nothing at once.



* * *



I awoke with a start, unaware I had fallen asleep again. Samir was getting dressed.

For the past hour, I had shut everything out except desire. I hadn’t told him what I’d come here to say.

When he saw me watching him, he smiled and pulled me to standing. He helped me into my petticoat and bra. He hooked the eyes on the front of my blouse.

What I was about to say could change everything between us. Where should I start?

He pulled my sari, wrinkled now, off the bed, gathered it and began tucking it into my petticoat. His movements were sure, exact, as if he had done this a thousand times—no doubt he had. He straightened the pallu across my shoulder and took a step back to inspect his work.

He smiled, leaned in for a kiss.

I put my hand on his chest to stop him. “Samir.”

He cocked his head, bemused.

“There’s something...”

He raised his eyebrows.

When I failed to say anything, he felt for the cigarette case in his trouser pocket, lit a Red and White. I watched as he took a drag and blew out a stream of smoke. Then he sat on the bed and spread his hands in a gesture that said he was listening.

I cleared my throat. “Your son and my sister...have been...” I glanced at the scrambled sheets on the bed and he followed my gaze. “Spending time—together...like this.”

He looked at the bed, then narrowed his eyes at me. He smiled tentatively; he thought I was joking.

“They met at the holiday party.” I pressed my lips together. “She’s pregnant.”

“What? Who?”

“My sister, Radha, is pregnant.”

“Pregnant?”

“Radha is pregnant. Ravi is the father.”

“Your sister’s only...”

“Thirteen.”

“But—how do you know it’s Ravi’s?”

It was a reasonable question, though it was maddening to have Samir ask it.

Radha had been so secretive that I, too, had asked myself the same thing. But I saw the way her face glowed when she talked about Ravi; it was answer enough. Still. It was one thing for me to doubt my sister and another for Samir to do so.

“I believe her. But you should ask your son.”

“No, no, no, no, no!” He stood, shook his head and pointed his lit cigarette at me. “We’ve had trouble with servant girls before.”