FIRST MEETING:
Roger first met Auntie on the way to the Laundromat one Saturday morning. The large overfilled cloth bag he was dragging along got stuck between banister railings, and Auntie who was coming from the other side of the corridor pulling an equally large bag administered a deft kick to release the bag.
"Thanks Auntie," said Roger.
"Welcome," said Auntie.
"I am Roger."
"I am Auntie," said Auntie and both laughed.
'I don't think we have met before?" said Auntie.
"No Auntie. We have been here only for five days."
"I have been longer but not by much; just five months."
"Minnesota winters I was told are terrible. How did you find it Auntie?"
"Well, I come from Indiana which is not warm by any means. It is cold here. Where are you from?"
"L.A."
"Like this place?"
"No Auntie. I hate it. Though it is early summer it is colder than the coldest day in L.A. I have no friends here, and this Mankato has no amusements to offer a young person."
"You can come to my room and listen to music, lots of it."
"Movies, Auntie?"
"Not much of that, but board games in my room, and pool game in the basement should do nicely."
"Thank you Auntie. I was almost turning crazy mooning about by myself."
The Laundromat room was empty on that working day, and between them they both used all the six washers and dryers in the Laundromat, and while waiting for the machines to do the job they talked. Roger came as Rajkumar from India when he was two, and by the time he was in pre-school he had become Roger. His dad was a doctor and his mother a nurse. Auntie was twelve when she came with her parents from India. She had never been back to the country of her birth. She was in the health business too, a physiotherapist.
"Which part of India, Roger, your complexion is exceptional, not Indian, not Western but something in-between."
"I believe we are from a coastal town South of Goa," said Roger rubbing his cheeks with both his hands as if testing the quality of his complexion. His friends have remarked about this it too, but they compared it to a woman's. It annoyed Roger, but not now. He was pleased that Auntie admired it. "My father says my complexion must have come from some distant unknown Arab ancestor," he continued. "He says that for thousands of years Arabs came in their dhows and traded along the coast, and some great-great grand mother must have fallen to the charms of one of them." Auntie found this Arab connection funny. She laughed. Work over they trudged back, this time carrying the bags slung on their backs.
"Room 235," said Auntie as they parted company at the corridor fork, "feel free to walk in without bothering to call first."
Roger went to his room, threw cloth bag on the carpet, and lay down. He liked Auntie. Thrilled rather. She was not young, double his age—thirty-nine or forty. There was no need to know her age of course. A woman is as young as she looks and Auntie was young looking indeed. And she admires his complexion and maybe more. Though he was twenty he had not much luck attracting women so far, and he was pleased with the new experience.
Filling three washers, emptying them and transferring the clothes to three dryers and removing the lot, and bundling them, and carrying the heavy bundle up one flight of stairs was back breaking work. Roger was tired. He slept.
Auntie was never far from his thoughts the next three days. He did not have the courage to visit her though. He went along the corridor of her flat hoping to meet her. He took clothes to the Laundromat once but no auntie appeared.
SECOND MEETING:
On Wednesday Auntie called.
"Roger?"
"Auntie."
"Out of sight out of mind, Roger?"
"No Auntie. I was thinking of you all the time."
"I am pleased to hear that Roger. Why didn't you drop in?" Roger held on to the phone not knowing what to say.
"Hello, are you there?"
"I am Auntie. Well to be frank, I was rather shy." Auntie burst out laughing.
"Now come here straightaway," she said amidst laughter, "Wednesday is my off-day. We can go down to the playroom for a game of pool. You play pool?"
"I do Auntie. I am supposed to be good at it."
"Then come."
The walls of her flat were full of decoration mostly Indian (subcontinent) artefacts. Auntie was in shorts, very short shorts and loose shirt. Soon they were in the basement playing pool. There was no one in the hall on this working day. Even on holidays the flat occupants, mostly senior citizens, retirees from a factory that had kept the local economy buoyant half a century ago, rarely used the games room.
Auntie was good at the game but Roger, an expert under normal circumstances, was far from normal that day, and the reason was Auntie herself. Auntie exposed thighs, were magnificent. That was disturbance enough. There was more. She had a loose fitting shirt on with unfastened top buttons, and, as he found out soon enough, she had no bra on. The result was that whenever she bent down to play Roger saw most of her breasts and they were large and splendid. Roger trembled with excitement, and pocketing those balls with any accuracy in such a state was not possible. To make matters worse his brain was working overtime draining away whatever power of concentration remained.
'These breasts are certainly not virginal,' he said to himself, 'No, nor are they breasts that have suckled. Divorcee or may be a widow. Or is she just a woman who has had a good time?' Roger lost every frame. It has never happened to him before, and what is more never had he so hugely enjoyed losing.
"Jolly game," he said. They were back in her room. Auntie changed to a turtleneck T-shirt.
"Let's play draughts," she said. The turtleneck sweater provided no distraction but Roger lost badly nevertheless; Auntie was a skilled player. He did not say 'Jolly game' at the end of it.
"Why are you keeping your neck stiff?" asked Auntie with a professional air.
"I sprained my neck doing dumbbell exercises this morning Auntie."
"I'll make you OK," said Auntie and immediately proceeded to do so. She made him take off his shirt and lie face down on the divan. The skin of his body was the shade of ivory, and devoid of hair. Auntie ran her hands over it feeling its smoothness. That done she went on with the task of releasing the muscles of their stiffness. She pressed the muscle at the base of the neck and the back. She pulled, and she kneaded, and she drummed; it was painful at first but soon Roger was finding it pleasurable. She knew exactly where it pained, and her soft but firm hands did the rest.
"Stiffness anywhere else Roger?"
Roger blushed.
"No Auntie."
