My Best-friend Suresh and I are both 24 now. His mom and dad divorced when he was about 5 as his dad had found love in another woman and had wished to marry her. Suresh he lived with his mom. Growing up without a dad was hard, so Suresh was treated as a family member in my family too. And so was his mother.
Suresh's mom, Mrs. Seetha Lakshmi Ramakrishnan a single mother ever since I have known her is a sweet lady. She cared for me as her own son and also insisted I call her mom, she felt equally for me and almost did everything she would do for Suresh. I used to call her Seethamma or mom at times.
Suresh was always in my house every day since his mom worked long hours. Mrs. Seetha didn't mind since or rather she did not have a choice. As Suresh was her only child and she had to work for their good life. In fact, she even stayed in the same house eversince, so that Suresh could have a good support from my family.
Growing up with Suresh I got to see a lot of Seethamma and let me tell you, she aged gracefully. She must be around 49 years old now. She is not what you call beautiful like a Model but she is very attractive with lots of curves. She was an accomplished Bharatanatyam dancer before her marriage and was a prodigy in her younger days. Like most iyer girls she graduated from IIT Madras and was a technical head a leading software firm till her early 40's. Post that she started her own software consultancy firm and is now its CEO.
Seethamma is about 5 foot 7 inches in height, long black hair, she weighed about 73 kilos. Big beautiful butt 38 inches and large pendulous breasts measuring around 36C. her waist size is 29 and she has lovely brown eyes. She was a perfect hour glass figure and wore shoes of size 8.
And above all she was a brahmacharanam Brahmin born in Arani in Tamil Nadu. A quintessential brahmin women, ethnicity in every sense. The fragrance of turmeric and jasmine was almost synonymous to her. She had long black hair almost touch her lower bum. But she was cosmopolitan in outlook as she had lived all her life in Bangalore.
Seethamma had a membership at the Bangalore club and she would take us there often. To swim, so Suresh and I spent many a day's swimming back there. she would often come out by the pool and join us, she usually just sunbathed. She always wore a bikini that barely held in her large breasts. She had her friends at high places and was an active part of the Page3 circles in Bangalore.
As the years went by Seethamma always occupied my fantasies, my adolescence was full of fantasies filled with seethamma and few other neighbour aunts. Suresh and me were partners and when it came to his mom I was solo. Finally the year arrived when Suresh and I graduated from Engineering. Suresh went off to higher studies in the US, but I joined work at a leading software firm in Bangalore, and pursued UPSC as it was my dream.
I always took the opportunity to visit Suresh whenever he was down for the summer; I would hang out every day at his house, what Suresh didn't know was that now I was hanging out with him just to be near Seethamma. I missed being around her.
Anyway, I went over to see Seethamma, and She answered the door. "Hi mom, how are you?"
"Come in Arun, you have been busy off late, you must come more often" Of course I knew that I just wanted to be around her so I pretended like I didn't know."
I sat there talking to her for a while. She kept looking strangely at me from top to toe, admiring as I could say. The silence was a bit too much when I said
"Oh man, guess I better go."
"Don't be silly Arun come on in, are you hungry? I can make you a quick dosa (a south Indian snack)."
"That sounds great, mom."
"Sure honey, here sit down."
I sat down and watched Seethamma make the dosa; she was wearing a nice silken nightie. Whenever she walked by the back door leading out to veranda it became rather see through, and you could make out her underwear and long beautiful legs.
My thought kept running up, the words of Suresh ringing in my ears that his mom was unwell and needed help and there was none around. But I was there, her son - in most ways. He was relieved when I assured him I would take care of her.
She certainly displayed many of the characteristics of Neurosis. For example, she always seemed to be ill and suffering from a variety of things that could never quite be pinned down, or ever got significantly worse (hypochondria). Likewise, much of her behaviour was about controlling her world and ensuring she was always the perceived victim (obsessive behaviour).
My subsequent visits brought us very close, MORE than we were earlier;
However, despite the fact I was never able to provide any apparent solutions to her problems, she made it clear having me around helped her in some way. I would listen to her whinging about the world without complaint, provide a sympathetic shoulder for her to cry on when she was miserable, and if she was really down I had to bear the brunt. I was always there for her and it was clear she needed me in some way, so I could never abandon her, even if at times she was like an emotional vampire sucking me dry.
Looking back, I think I was very confused by the situation. Mostly I felt trapped by a responsibility to look after Seethamma (because in truth there was no one else), and I wanted to escape both that responsibility and her thankless behaviour, but there was another part of me who occasionally 'enjoyed' the intimacy of being near her.
I was all of 25 and had normal sexual needs which I ardently acknowledged yet to address. Although I'd seen glimpses of her body, but did not have any kind of inappropriate thoughts, there were moments when I looked more at her than I should, and I think I instinctively saw these opportunities as some kind of shadowy reward for all the anguish she put me through.
As I said it wasn't conscious. Looking back, I think it may have been something to do with the fact she took sleeping pills for her nerves (and sometimes combined these with a small 'tipple' of sherry), making her unsteady in the evening, and less conscious of her attire. Her nightie wasn't held so tight and I could occasionally see the edge of her bra or the cleavage of her breasts. Sometimes she would lie on the sofa and show an expanse of her uncovered legs and thighs. As I said I never did anything, except maybe look when I should have turned away.
However, things changed between me and her after something occurred that made me question my understanding of her situation. It was a throw-away comment made by the man who came to repair our solar water heater that changed things and set me on a new (and controversial) path.
The poor old man in his fifties I guess, was struggling to fix the old thermal water heater, which kept breaking down. He was trying to explain to Seethamma how we desperately needed a new heater, but she wouldn't listen, berating him instead for not fixing it properly, and lamenting how the cold water was making her various illnesses so much worse and how it was all his fault.
He got it working, eventually. But warned us it would not last much longer, he hurriedly grabbed his tools, and rushed out to escape Seethamma's vicious tongue. I paid him and showed him to the door, and as he left he looked at me and raised his eyes to the heavens. "I don't know how you put up with her," he half-whispered. "What a neurotic woman! What she needs is a damn good mothering!" And left."
I confess I didn't understand at first what he meant by the term 'mothering', and it wasn't until later I realised, he was talking about sex. He was saying she was the way she was because she wasn't getting enough (or indeed any) sex.