Vasu was riding his two-wheeler down Mount Road at unaccustomed speed. The eight lane highway was one of the few roads in Madras were one need not crawl at peak hours. He was returning home after a day spent in maintaining accounts for his firm dealing in hardware. His thoughts were on his relationship with his wife that has changed drastically lately. He waited for three weeks for the problem to go away. It did not. The time was ripe to sort it out.
His problem started at a party three weeks ago. The events at the party affected his wife Amulu in many ways. Though Vasu and his wife were orthodox Hindus they had acquired a taste for hard drinks, and when opportunity offered they invited themselves to parties to have some innocent fun with other like them who wanted to keep their weakness a secret. In the party they attended last there was another young couple. The young man very quickly drank himself into slumber, but his wife, an attractive woman, was filling her glass with whisky, but after a few sips was surreptitiously pouring it away into a flowerpot. She was flirting outrageously with a very tall and handsome single man. This man was also emptying his tumbler into another flowerpot when he thought no one was looking his way.
Vasu, who was seated on the sofa opposite, was noticing this. He had an explanation for the young lady's action. She was apparently filling her glass to keep company, but was careful to keep herself alert for driving back home. Vasu had no difficulty in placing the young man either. He knew that type. He was a predator. He came to parties not to drink but to make love to women whose husbands were no longer aware of what is going on round them. The women themselves were partly drunk and would be only too eager to have it with a man as handsome and charming as that young man.
Both Vasu and his wife drank enough to need to stretch out on the carpet to sleep it off. When they were fit enough to make their way home Vasu vaguely noted that the young couple and the young man had already left. The newspaper the next morning contained bad news—on his way back from the party the young man was involved in an accident and was in hospital in a critical condition.
Amulu wept copiously. At first Vasu did not mind it. Amulu always wept when she read of traffic accidents even if the person involved was not known to her for it reminded her of a brother who had an accident some years ago. But this time it continued day after day. When Vasu suggested, in an effort to console his wife that the slut must have spoiled the young man's concentration, Amulu flew into a rage. He had never seen his wife lose herself in anger to this extent before. A few days later Vasu again referred to that woman as a slut Amulu again raved irrationally. Vasu could not explain her strange reaction.
But stranger still was Amulu's attitude to sex. She, who was so reticent in matters concerning sex, was now flagrantly, and often immodestly demanding sex. She surpassed herself on the first Friday after the party. Friday was her weekly oil bath day. As always she asked her husband to rub oil on her head. Then she did something unusual. She removed all her clothes and asked him to rub oil on all parts of her body as she sat on a low stool in the middle of the drawing room. She went further. She asked him to give her the bath and while doing so she playfully poured water on him and thereby she made him have a bath too, with each rubbing soap on the other. All this of course carried Vasu to cloud nine. Till that day he used to complain that she never turned him on by taking any initiative for sex. After the bath they wiped each other and then walked to the bedroom and had sex which, given the novel foreplay they had, was very good. This became a Friday routine.
She has become fashionable in her dress too. Her large diamond nose rings were gone and in their place she now wore gold dots. Her hair was no long done in an old fashioned chignon but was now an elegant ponytail. She wrapped saris in the modern way with the blouse way up the chest, and the sari pleats way down to expose the umbilicus. But the most important change, the one that was bothering her husband more than any other, was the sadness that always pervaded in the background. Vasu could feel it. She was quite gay when he was about, but when he was away in office she seemed to be weeping. Her eyes would be red and often swollen. Once when he woke up in the night he found her sobbing. Vasu could not say what the cause was. He could not imagine that the accident to that young man could have so lasting an effect on his wife. He could think of no other reason for her misery.
*
Vasu pressed the bell. The door opened and Amulu was standing nattily dressed with her face wreathed in a smile of expansive dimension. Vasu looked into her eyes. They were red. Vasu decided to confront her that evening itself.
She hugged him and kissed him and led him to the washbasin to freshen himself for evening tiffin which nowadays was sumptuous, and to his taste. Always a trencherman, Vasu did full justice to the snacks. He withdrew to the drawing room sofa allowing Amulu time to clear the table and join him. Vasu looked forwards to the treat that would soon follow.
Amulu came to the sofa in skirts and blouse. She had no bra on and from experience Vasu knew that she wore no knickers either. She sat by his side as he undid the blouse and removed it altogether. He played with her breasts, sagging but large with prominent tits. He sucked it. He undid the skirt tape and pulled down the skirt. He went on his knees and kissed her pussy. He opened it out and kissed the clit. Amulu was spreading her thighs and gently shampooing him. She undid his dhoti and caught hold of his cock in a gentle grip and kneaded it.
"Darling you must tell me why you are weeping when I am away?" he said. Amulu looked into his eyes.
"I expected you to ask me earlier," she said almost as a complaint.
"I thought it would go away, but it has not. Now I must know for I have to do whatever I can to remove the cause."
"Yes, dear, I know I must tell you. I have to tell you even though the consequences to us would be bad. But I will risk it for if I do not I may burst. Give me some moments to get my thoughts into proper order."
"As much as you want, but you are frightening me."
"What happened was quite frightening." She came close to him and hugged him. Both were tense but that did not prevent them form enjoying the touch of their bare bodies.
"You must have thought of some reason for my sadness."
"Of course I have."
"That party and the accident?"
"Yes. In fact I could not think of any other. But the young man is now out of danger. Why should it affect you?"
"I weep because I feel I am responsible for that young man's troubles."
"You? How was that possible? You were hugging me and both of us were asleep."
"When you went to sleep I was hugging you, and when you woke up I was hugging you, but in between plenty happened."
"Plenty?"
"Yes, plenty. You may remember that I was passing critical comments about that lady for sitting so close to that young man and rubbing her thighs against his. Really I was envying her. I was annoyed that the man who was so much like the man of my fantasies should be with that woman rather than with me. Then I slept. I woke up. You were soundly asleep. The young lady and her husband had gone, but this young man was on the sofa snoozing. I was looking intently at him in admiration when he opened his eyes. For a long while our eyes were in contact. I smiled and he smiled. I must have slept off. I woke up again. I do not remember if the young man was still there. I went to the toilet. When I came out the young man was standing at the passage. He smiled this time, and I smiled back.
"Where is you friend," I asked.
"She left with her husband."
"Was he in a position to walk," I asked.
"He tottered with her support. Your man?"
"The same I suppose," I said.
"If you are OK we will sit behind that sofa and have a chat," he said.
"OK," I said.
