Dave took his foot off the pedal and stepped on the brakes lightly, bringing the car to a a halt. We were now right in front of a small "paan" shack on the Bombay-Agra highway somewhere in Northern Maharashtra. It was 3 in the afternoon, and the sun was shining bright. Dave put the car in neutral and looked at me.
"You know what I want." he said.
I nodded and looked straight ahead.
"Can we..." I said tentatively, "well...can we drive a bit further so I can muster up the courage?"
"Come on, Pooja! This is the fifth shack already!" Dave said in a slightly annoyed voice.
"Yes, I know. I am sorry, but this location seems a bit risky. And the guy in the shack looks..." I turned over my shoulder to look at the shack. Dave turned and looked to and said,
"He looks what? To me, he looks old and thin. Minimum risk. And there are no other shacks, stores or houses anywhere in sight. The traffic is light too. Pooja, this is as safe as it can get."
I didn't say anything, and looked down.
"Frankly Pooja, I am starting to think this whole trip was a big mistake. What we had going online was better. Maybe we should call it off even now. I'll drop you off at your home, and maybe drive around India alone like any typical American tourist. Taj Mahal, Rajasthan, Khajuraho, Ajanta Caves, beer in South Bombay, and then back to the States. And you can do and get kick-started on your wedding shopping."
"No, Dave, please. All I am saying is, I need a little more time. Maybe half an hour. And then..." I protested.
"No! You've been using this half an hour excuse for four hours now. You know I don't like the usual Master-Slave drama like others, but you must remember, you agreed to obey me. I am going to put my foot down. I command you, do it now! Or I turn this car back, drop you in your home town, and I go my way. After all, if this simple task is so difficult for you, the rest of the trip is going to be impossible."
I sat there, conflicted. I did not want him to leave. I did want this trip. But I was scared too. And tense. But he was right. This was very simple. If I could not do this, then the rest of the trip was going to be unthinkable. I tried to psyche myself into readiness. It's a small thing, I told myself. Like ripping off a band-aid... or a wax-strip. Like jumping in the cold water and braving those first two minutes of chill. Like...
"Well?" Dave interrupted my chain of thoughts.
"OK, I'll do it. But, I have a request." I said.
"Could you please get out of the car and stand next to the door where he can see you?" I said in a pleading voice.
"Alright, since this is your first task, I will. But in the future, I make the rules, and you follow them, get it?" Dave said. He opened the door, stepped out of the car, and stood there. I took a deep breath, opened the passenger side door and stepped out too.
I slowly walked to the shack and was standing in front of the window-counter. The old man behind the counter, who was sitting on a stool, looked at me quizzically.
"One pack of big Gold Flake cigarettes and three packs of Benson & Hedges. And three bottles of water." I said to him in Hindi.
The old man reached to his right and took out the cigarette packets and plonked them in front of me. He then got up and went to the back of his shack.
"They're not cold. Is that OK?" he asked.
I had been busy craning my neck in either direction to make sure there were no pedestrians walking towards us. All I could see was Dave, leaning against the car.
"Yes, that's fine." I said. He got three bottles put them on the counter next to the cigarette packs.
"Anything else?" the old man asked. I shook my head. "That will be.... 265 rupees." and he started putting everything in a plastic bag.
And here it was. The moment of reckoning. The first step. I looked back at Dave with a pleading look on my face, almost praying that he'd tell me to just pay the man with money and get it over with. But Dave only gave me a stern look and nodded his head slightly, as if telling me to go ahead.
"Memsaab, 265 rupees." the old man reminded me again.
Memsaab.... the word made me smile a little. A word that was coined during the British rule of India to refer to British women. But now, all these decades after independence, if you used it to address a stranger, you were usually a poor person from the lower classes of Indian society. And that stranger was usually an Indian woman from the rich or upper middle class, dressed in Western clothes. And I did look like a Memsaab. I was wearing a knee length skirt which showed off my milky white calves. A t-shirt with some English gag written on it. And my hair was straight and streaked with blond highlights.
"Memsaab?" he said again, interrupting my irrelevant thoughts. I looked at him, and for the first time looked into his eyes. This was it. Enough stalling. It was now or never.
"I don't have money to pay you for this, but I have another offer if you are interested." There, I said it!
"Ug....huh?" he said confused.
"If you let me take all of this, I will take off my t-shirt and bra, and let you look at my boobs for one whole minute." Just saying it out aloud gave me goose pimples. Saying it in Hindi ('mammey' for boobs) The die was cast.
"What???" he almost shouted, and I repeated my offer in very calm words.
The old man swallowed nervously. He looked at me with renewed interest, almost checking me out. He then fixed his gaze on my ample bosom, my 34D boobs straining against the t-shirt. He then looked at Dave. Dave is a white man with a big chest and huge arms, and he stands at 6 ft 4. He looks intimidating even when he is wearing a suit. And on that day he was wearing a sleeveless t-shirt that showed off his tattoo-covered arms, and cut-off denim shorts which showed off his massive thighs.
"Won't he.... get angry?" the old man whispered.
"No, don't worry about him." I said, feeling a lot more confident. "So do we have a deal? All this for one minute of my naked boobs."
"Five minutes!" the old man found his voice and countered, holding up 5 fingers. When the study of human genomes gets advanced, I am sure scientists will find that Indians have a dominant haggling gene. Even in this situation, faced with the opportunity to see topless the sort of women he would never even get to talk to beyond a minute, the old man was haggling.
"Three minutes. Final offer." I said, holding up three fingers, suddenly enjoying this. I looked back and saw Dave laughing. He did not understand Hindi, but understood what was going on.
"OK." the old man said, and grabbed the plastic bag with my stuff in it. He then looked at a dust-covered clock on the wall and said "I will give this to you after three full minutes of your... show."
For a few seconds, I felt exhilarated, as if I had just climbed the Everest. But then reality bit me hard. As much as I had dreaded saying all this, it was the easy part. The difficult part still lay ahead. Holding up my end of the bargain. ------- I looked at Dave, and he gave me a broad smile of encouragement. I looked up and down the highway. There were no vehicles. And I looked at the old man, who was now staring at me with a very hungry look on his face. I'd better get done with this fast, I thought to myself. I reached down with my hands, and pulled my t-shirt upwards. I first pulled it slowly, stopping when the t-shirt was bunched up under my chin, showing the old man my bra-covered tits. His eyes grew wide and he opened his mouth as he stared at them.
I paused like that for two seconds and pulled the t-shirt over my head, taking it off completely. I held the t-shirt in my right hand and just stood there, suddenly aware of most of my torso being exposed. The old man could now see my flat stomach, my big bra-covered tits, my cleavage my shoulders, my belly button.
"Wow! You're so beautiful!" the old man said, but then his practical side kicked in and he reminded me, "Remember, the three minutes don't start until you take that off too."
He was right. I looked up and down the highway again many times. Still deserted. Then I reached back and unclasped my bra. The sheer weight of my tits always made sure that whenever I unclasped my bra, it fell forward instantly, hanging off my arms, bringing my tits completely into view. I heard the old man inhale loudly as he got a look at my tits. I took off the bra too, and held it in my right hand with my t-shirt.