How often do you pamper your wife?
Author's Note:
This work of fiction is copyrightedΒ© to LuckOfTheDraw 2021 and may not be reproduced in any form such as printed, hardcopy, softcopy, in the cloud or any other virtual method, handwritten or any other way, without the express written permission of the author.
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"How often do you pamper your wife?"
Airports are the damnedest places, I thought to myself. We had met less than half an hour earlier, and here she was, a stranger, asking about my married sex life. Only in an airport could this happen. There's something about talking to a stranger, knowing that you'll never meet again, so you may as well say and ask all those things you'd never dream of talking about with any of your friends.
Especially when it was very late at night. We were at New Delhi's Terminal 3, waiting for the boarding announcement of a red-eye Air Asia flight to Bangalore. Ours was the last flight out and had been scheduled for 23.55. Now it was past midnight and the counter staff had informed us that it would be late by "at least an hour". Groans had greeted this announcement, but there was no other flight anyone could change to. Like everyone else, I settled into a seat in a far corner of the departure area next to Gate 39. I could sit wherever I wanted - the passengers on the Air Asia flight had the entire Departure area, with twenty-odd gates, to themselves.
The seats were arranged in rows of two facing each other, with a broad aisle in between. To my left stretched the open area towards the travelators and the gates on the other side and the glass frontage of the terminal. I was alone in my row and seated on the side from which I could see the counter and boarding gate. There was no one else on my row on my side of the aisle. I was the ultimate backbencher that night, with no one either behind me or on my side. By a strange coincidence, everyone in the rows to the front of me was facing away, towards the counter, just as I was. I stretched my legs out and started to aimlessly scroll through my phone.
A movement on the edge of my vision caught my attention. A young woman had stopped exactly abeam of me in the open area. She appeared to be looking for a place to seat herself down. For some unknown reason, I continued to look at her. She was not particularly striking in appearance; a little short at around five three or four, very slim in jeans, a muted top in a pastel shade, and the mandatory windcheater over it. A backpack was slung low over her shoulders. Her black hair was pulled back and held at the neck by a simple elastic band. On her feet were the inevitable and comfortable trainers. I could see that her face was oval. Overall, a pretty girl, but not especially striking. Not a head turner.
Then she turned her head and looked directly at me, and I saw what made her attractive beyond her looks It was her eyes, which were bright and sparkling in a way that gave hints of enjoying fun. Her smile was also very nice, and I found myself instinctively smiling back at her. She caught my eye and held it for a long second. Then she seemed to make her mind and walked towards me.
"Do you mind if I sit here next to you?" she asked with the same smile.
"Sure" I answered. "Be my guest."
"All the others seem to be asleep or locked into their phones" she said as she settled into the seat. "You seemed to be awake, and I don't feel sleepy at all. Do you mind if I talk to you?"
"No problem" I replied, finding that I was also smiling. "I like speaking to new people. Especially at airports."
"Why?" she asked laughing.
"Because people are never likely to meet again, so they are always more free with what they speak. Makes conversations so much more fun."
"You're right" she said, still laughing. "I've had the same experience."
"You live in Bangalore?" I asked.
"Yes. And you?"
"Both Bangalore and Delhi" I replied. "I have a lot of work in Bangalore, so I spend about 15 days a month there, but my wife works here in Delhi."
And so, we spent the next twenty minutes discussing where we were from, what work we did, and so on. I told her my wife and I were both from the South, that I was an engineering consultant, she told me her family was from Bihar, and that she was with a small software products company in Bangalore. She even gave me a short sales pitch about her company's product. I was beginning to get concerned that this was starting to go the direction of "let's stay in touch in Bangalore and see if we can do some business together". In other words, one of those boring airport chats that go nowhere.
Then suddenly the conversation took a different turn.
"I'm returning from a wedding in my family" she said. "My God, the amount of pressure everyone is putting on me to be the next to get married! I had to agree to meet three different guys during the past two weeks. I said no to all of them!"
"That's normal in India" I laughed.
"Yes" she said. "But I don't know what to do. My family keeps pushing me."
"Maybe you can tell them that you'll simply find your own husband."
"No" she said decisively. "I don't want that. I've had two boyfriends and I would never want to marry them. I want a standard Indian arranged marriage."
"Why?" I asked.
"Family relationships give security. With a boyfriend, you never know everything about him."
I started to ask what kind of boyfriends she had had but decided against it.
"Then why don't you simply say yes to whoever your parents suggest, like a traditional Indian girl?"
She shrugged.
"I don't know. I just wish I could be surer of him before we get married. What if he turns out to be something different from what everybody expected? It's taking too much of a chance."
I thought it was time to give her some wise old uncle advice.
"Don't worry about that. Almost all marriages turn out well in India. They may not all be fully happy and content, but most married couples stay together till old age. Then they understand that companionship is what is really important."
"What about you?" she asked, looking at me with a smile. "Was yours a traditional arranged marriage or a love marriage?"
"Me? Well, mostly arranged, I suppose, although we had met socially earlier, since both our families are from Bangalore"