Ch. 1: You're a hot and sexy woman
***
This story spans several years and three countries - India, Germany and Egypt. Chronologically, it opens at the very end. Everything else is a long flashback that zigzags between the three countries and all those years.
*****
"You are a hot and sexy woman" said Riya from the back seat of the car. She was speaking to my wife Poonam who was seated next to me in the front seat.
It was almost midnight, and we were driving home from a party, with a detour to first drop Riya at her residence. As a divorcee in Delhi, Riya had to be careful about driving alone at night. And she had to be extra careful because she is also very beautiful. Five feet six inches tall, with a voluptuous hourglass figure toned to perfection by yoga, lustrous thick hair worn open below the shoulder, and with the clear skin, dark expressive eyes and full mouth framed by a perfect heart shaped face that betrayed her Bengali ancestry, Riya was every man's wet dream. In her mid forties on that night, she had a sensual maturity that added body to the bouquet of her beauty. She looked no older than thirty two or thirty three. maybe less.
When we first got to know her, well before this story really began, she was still on her way to that divorce. As friends, all of us naturally pitched in to try and help patch the two back together again. Slowly it became apparent that sexual incompatibility was the major reason for their drifting apart. She confessed to Poonam one drunken evening that she had decided to divorce her husband because he had become both too boring and too envious of her rising success as a fashion entrepreneur. And then she asked Poonam if she was happy with her love life.
'Pretty much." Poonam had replied, a little embarrassed.
"What keeps the fires burning and the earth moving?" asked Riya.
"Well, we're past that." Poonam had replied with a smile." We're into married sex now. Maybe you should try it."
Although Poonam and I had never explicitly discussed it, sex was possibly the most important part of our marital relationship. Since we had been married for some years and had two kids, our sex life had settled into the easy familiarity of married sex, as Poonam had described it. For us, married sex meant two unspoken rules, which we had arrived at heaven knows how. The first rule was that on every night possible we would get naked and spend some time cuddling each other, with me inside her for at least a few minutes if possible. Neither of us needed to orgasm or even move much, but I must needs be inside her for some time. And the second rule was that we could talk about anything we wanted while coupled like that, unless it was something very stressful for either of us. So our conversations veered off at all kinds of tangents in bed. We had even discussed the price of vegetables while joined quite tightly at the hip.
"Not a chance." declared Riya emphatically. "Bikram is a lot more tight-assed than Ashok. Like I said, he's too boring and he's becoming too envious of my success in the fashion business."
I discussed that statement later with Poonam one night when were lying in bed naked and very relaxed.
"I can understand what Riya meant by Bikram becoming envious" I said. "But what did she mean by too boring? He can be quite the life and soul of a party and has lots of interests."
My wife smiled fondly at me, in that way which always makes me feel I'm a eight year old asking a stupid question.
"Dear Ashok" she replied. "You're very sweet and nice."
She pushed me onto my back and rolled on top of me, and kissed me softly a couple of times.
"Riya's very romantic" she said.
"Romantic?" I chuckled." I thought sex came first with her."
Poonam pushed herself up on one elbow and looked sternly at me. Her soft breasts touched my chest.
"That's just the trouble with you men." she said with mock severity."You don't even try to understand. You think romance only means love, flowers, chocolates, marriage, children. That sort of thing."
"No? Then what does it mean." I asked amusedly.
"Romance is the experience of anything that is different and attractive. Books can be romantic. A painting. Or a song. Or travel. Or simply the colour of something. Anything that touches the heart. Or the soul."
I squeezed her buttocks and pushed her crotch down over mine.
She gasped briefly and resumed.
"Poetry is romantic. You know my favorite poem" and she recited it while kissing me softly.
"Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain winds be free