[In case there are readers who don't understand the reference to oysters, I suggest a websearch for "sex position viennese oyster."]
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For as long as he'd been visiting India, almost his entire adult life, Richard had admired Indian women and been fortunate to have had loving and intimate relationships with a number of them. He liked their secretive but highly developed sensuality and sexuality. He found they liked to be touched and held, caressed and cared for; and also to be penetrated, plunged, filled and satisfied. His special liking was for young adult women, not girls, who had maintained their figures and not "run to fat" which was a tendency among the class he'd often meet. Apart from their dark doe-eyed beauty, he admired the way many Indian women in the villages and jungle-communities moved, and the suppleness of their limbs and joints. You can see this whenever they squat to clean a floor, or grind corn, or separate grains, or do the laundry. It is as if their arms, shoulders, waists, hips and legs are trained to be supple and bendable from an early age, as part of their home domestic training. It seems not to be true of boys and men.
Richard would say that he was a journalist. In fact, no one ever saw any copy under his name, and he didn't mention any journals or magazines in his correspondence or in conversation. His source of income was a mystery, as was his daily, weekly or annual activity schedule. All his friends knew was that he spent three or four months every year in India. He was unmarried, had no children that anyone knew about, and had led a mainly solitary life in Europe with occasional female companions but never anyone with whom he became "an item." At the age of almost 50, Richard was an entertaining and amiable fellow, whom many liked but no one really understood. He said that he was English but most people could detect a slight and soft mainland European accent; Flemish perhaps or Swiss German.
In October 1994, Richard was in Kerala, South India. He'd told friends in UK that he was researching the backwaters of various rivers, where new holiday destinations and resorts were being planned by big tourist companies. He checked in at the newly-opened Residence Hotel in Cochin City, as it was then still called. In his mind, he knew the sexual adventures he was seeking at this visit; he'd two special experiences in mind. He'd developed them in his imagination over a period of weeks and months.
Earlier, in July 1993, Richard had visited the area and had noticed more than one pretty woman whom he hoped to meet again if possible. On his third day, Richard left Cochin for the Trivandrum district, not yet called by its unpronounceable politically-correct name of Thiruvananthapuram. He travelled in an 4WD with its attached hired driver. Whenever he'd driven in India he'd found it to be a stressful but exciting adventure at best and a maniacal nightmare at worst. Now he let others to do the driving.
In Trivandrum, he'd rented in advance a little bungalow for a month, in a secluded compound, near a big village or small town of perhaps 1000 dwellings [mostly shacks really] and their 8000 inhabitants. The township was newly-registered as a panchayat [self administering community] named Vengalapuram. After emptying his baggage, he paid off the driver and made sure there was a return booking for one month hence.
On the second day in his bungalow, having recovered from the travel, he spoke with the nearest village shopkeeper in his rudimentary Malayalam, the local language or dialect. It was arranged that a number of the young village women would appear at the bungalow that evening for selection as cook-cum-housekeeper for the duration of Richard's stay. At the appointed hour, four appeared; all very suitable as domestic staff but one caught his eye and his imagination immediately for her attractiveness and match to his plans. She was called Pinkie and was the eldest daughter of a farmer, left on the shelf after her three younger sisters had got married. In her community, this represented a serious disadvantage to her own eventual marriage and she'd had a love affair with some man or other, which further damaged her credit in the nuptials game.
He thought to himself, "Pinkie? What kind of name is that? Is it a nickname, a child-name that's stuck to her, or just an affectionate name that people give her for some reason I can't see?" Whatever the reason, Pinkie she was and Pinkie was his choice for housekeeper. A daily rate of pay was agreed, and the list of jobs to be completed each day. Arrive to make breakfast and enough food for the day, clean the floors and dust the surfaces, wash any clothing he left out and peg it on a line in the garden, and tidy his bedroom and bathroom. So she would arrive about 8.30am and leave well before it went dark, normally about 4.30pm.
For a week, Richard watched Pinkie and they became friendly in his simplified conversations, and they smiled at each other whenever their eyes met during each day. His scrutiny of Pinkie's figure and movements confirmed his initial observation and his plan. She was short, not above 5 feet in height, with straight limbs, beautiful unblemished olive coloured skin, her breasts were still girlish and her figure not really womanly but pleasing; he judged her to be about 28. She could squat and move around the floors easily as she cleaned them; sweeping ans swabbing as it was called. It was almost as if she was designed to ambulate in that way, just as easily as other people move around standing up or kneeling.
On the seventh day, she made his lunch and handed him a glass of water from the 20-litre "Bisleri" bottle he'd brought with him. It slipped between their hands, and his lap was drenched. She recoiled with frightened eyes, muttering her apologies. He stood, letting the water drain down his cream trousers and to his feet but, instead of showing anger, he reached out and placed his right arm around her shoulder. He squeezed gently and she knew there was no problem. She also liked to feel the strength of his arm, the firmness of his chest against her left breast, and the quiet confidential way he'd given her comfort. She smiled, at first to herself with eyes down, but then with upraised face and directly into his eyes
He let his arm unwind from her shoulders but did not take it away. Instead he placed both hands on her shoulders at arm's length and smiled at her; down at her because of her height. For a moment, she looked disconcerted and did not make any facial or body gesture, but then she smiled broadly back into his eyes. Continuing to look into hers, he slowly nodded with raised eyebrows as if to signify, "Yes? Maybe? Yes?" She slowly nodded back at him but with the sideways nod, popping her head to one side, used in India to indicate agreement or having been convinced or willing to try something or asking for more explanation. He knew the gesture very well and bent his elbows so that he took a step closer to her, and pressed her to him, her breasts now straight against his chest through the thin shirt. The ice was broken. He knew that he could start planning some pleasure for Pinkie and himself.
The next day, they touched each other a little each time they passed or came close in their movements about the bungalow. Richard was writing away on his electronic typewriter, and she was cleaning and cooking. Each time she passed him or he passed her they would reach out and touch fingertips. Or she'd place a little stroking movement on his shoulder. By the end of the day, he'd be free to lay his palm gently on her waist, or the back of his hand against the side of her face. And she, by then, would be pressing her fingers into his forearm whenever she brought his food or drink; feeling the hairs on his arms and the firmness of the muscles.