We both knew why the door was closed and why this meeting had not taken place until the house was deserted. There were unspoken intentions between us and we both understood them. Whether she was playing a coy sort of game of the fear in the back of her eyes was real, but I knew that she wanted this experience, in the way that I wanted her body.
The room was bright with the noon sunlight and I suddenly felt it was blinding me. It was too bright for the clandestine acts I desired and I pulled back, suddenly unsure of everything I had planned to do to her. She was dancing. The sultry, rhythmic moves of the west, designed to entice. It was provocative. When she beckoned to me I could not resist and I joined her there in the center of the room, but instead of moving my body along with hers, I reached over and turned the stereo off. I did not want to dance.
"What's the matter?" she asked, and there was something like hurt in her voice.
"I want to know something," I said, and returned to my place on her bed, sinking in the mattress.
"What?"
"Have you ever slept with a man?"
"No. No," She said, first as if she thought it was a dumb question, a stupid thing to ask. And then, more shyly, with a lowering of her eyes that could have been coquette, or could have been fear or the pathetic sweetness of innocence.
I was quiet. I had thought that because Ashima was religious and from another world altogether her thoughts would reflect everything Indian. Instead, she swayed to American dance music and batted her dark eyelashes at me.
"What's the matter with you? Don't you want to be with me?" she asked. I suddenly realized how young she was. Her body was deceiving. The full curves of her breasts and the wide span of her hips made me think of her as a mature woman, not just a nubile teenager. Eighteen suddenly seemed too young for these games.
I patted her coverlet, close to wear I sat and she came and sat next to me.
"I'm sorry. I don't feel like dancing," I told her.
"But what should we do?" she asked.
Oh, God, I thought. Had she really asked that? What about understanding our intentions? What about waiting until her parents had left her alone to call me and invite me over? Hadn't she known what I would want? What I would expect?
"I don't know how to dance." I told her.
She giggled. A high girlish sound that shook me to my center. I wanted her.
"Come, I'll teach you," she said.
I let her draw me off the bed and back to the center of the room. But I wasn't aware of the staccato beat of the music or the movements of our two bodies. I could think only of the stretch of her t-shirt across her breasts and the smooth skin of her arms. Her breasts were too ripe and her mouth too soft for her to be a child.
She maneuvered her hips close to mine, so that on every other beat we brushed together, unapologetic and tantalizing. She put her silky arms around me neck, pulling me close to her. I let her lead me, swaying along with her. My feet were bare and seemed hardly to be moving. I slid my hand under her t-shirt, up her side, feeling the long smooth span of her waist and her ribcage. I found her breast, encased in a lacy bra-cup.
I kissed her. I wanted to say something, but could think of nothing. She was kissing me back, summoning up all of her miniscule knowledge, seeming to concentrate on how and where to move her lips. But her lips were closed. Demanding more, I pushed my tongue forward and traced it across her lower lip, pushing into her mouth. She resisted and pulled away.
"No, I don't like that," she told with a small shake of her head.
Her resistance only made me want it more. I tried again and again. Eventually she surrendered and let her lips part, only slightly. My tongue plunged inside.
And then that small victory was not enough. My hand found the clasp of her bra, in the deep valley between her breasts. I fumbled there, the back of my hand pressing into her breast as I bent the little metal catch this way and that, searching for the right method.
"Stop," she said. "You're making me uncomfortable."
I remembered the way she had lured me into this empty house, into this room, how she had furtively closed the door behind us, and the way her body had demanded I dance with her. After all that, it seemed impossible that I could make her uncomfortable. I ignored her claim and persisted. Her arms around me neck were pushing downward. She was trying in some subtle, hesitant way to force me to move my hands lower, away from her breasts. I let go of the clasp and grabbed at her breast, kneading it hard, pressing it into her chest. It was a low tactic, and I thought I might have hurt her.
She pushed my hands down roughly from under her shirt and stepped back. "Stop!" she yelled, and this time there was real anger in her voice.
She seemed to have changed her mind, so I stopped and picked up my glass from her nightstand and began to drink. She picked up her glass as well. We both sat down on the bed and we said nothing. But after only a moment, my drink was gone and I was ready for something more than dancing. I leaned toward her and the sheer force of my body seemed to shrink her and push her back into the pillows. She was easy to lead, like a lamb to slaughter. As if her outburst had never happened, I slid my hand inside her t-shirt again, this time going immediately for the catch. She pushed it down, looking irritated.
With a sigh, I lay down on the bed and let my legs trail to the floor. "I thought you like me," I said—another low tactic, something out of a bad movie.
"I do."
"Then why do you fight me?"
"You're moving too fast for me."
I rolled to my side and moved alongside her. This time she shifted and put her head on my shoulder. With hardly a moment's pause my hands found their way back under her shirt. She closed her eyes, but didn't try to stop me. After a while, I tried the clasp again, but she jerked upright and forcefully moved my hands out of her shirt. To my surprise, she placed them on her breasts, molding my palms to her curves; outside her t-shirt.
"Only the outside," she said emphatically, as if she were training a small child.
