Skip to main content

Pleasure (an amateur short-fiction piece about this intensely personal thing called 'self-love')



She lies back with a sigh, eyes closed. It had been such a long day.  Wandering around Commercial Street, trying to haggle for better bargains, trying to soothe baby.... Thank god, she had that steaming cardamom chai from Bhagatrams. And of course, Ram had to be late picking them up... Men!


Now, it’s 11 pm. She feels as tense as a bow string, ready to snap. She needs a release, but what if baby wakes up. God knows she doesn’t want to rock him back to sleep again. And yet, and yet, she wants, needs, to lose herself for a little while. Retreat to a place where she can let herself feel be free. No thoughts, no worries.


Eyes closed, she does the straps off, slides the elastic down. Gives herself into sensation. Ah, Ram, she breathes, you know exactly where to touch me. So good to feel a supple body, her body. Still toned, even at 38. Yes, the workouts are worth it, she tells herself. All that sweat and pain, waking up extra early every morning, for an hour, no more, no less. To feel this taut skin, I will do anything, she smiles. Exquisite sensation flares deep in her belly. She is lethargic and oddly excited, all at the same time.


Eyes still tightly shut, stop thinking, relax, she scolds herself. There’s all day to to think, to worry.  This is yours alone.


In the dark, everything is always so much more filled with promise. A hand brushes against her nipples, a finger strays deep inside, curling and circling, but moving away. Delving deep within herself, she remembers times past, stolen moments. How urgent they were then, any shady corner had them groping each other. To think, they made out in Cubbon Park, of all places! But then, half the excitement is the knowledge they can be caught. Now, that is something to tell baby when he grows up, she smiles to herself.


Meanwhile, in the here and the now, she knows the tempo must build up. How she loves this slow stroking. Amit? No, Samar, or do I mean Ram? No matter, kiss me here softly, softly, she whispers.   

It’s a slow, familiar dance--a touch here, an ache elsewhere. Threatening to touch her where she most wants it, but moving teasingly elsewhere. Till she cannot stand the waiting and wanting. Till she is maddened with impatience..


Her body is acting out a rhythm it knows so well, breasts thrust out, belly slanting upwards, legs opening out. Is anyone watching. She doesn’t care. Images fill her head, bodies locked in their private dances, licking, sucking. Don’t move, she urges. Go deeper, deeper. Ah yes, right there...she moans. A tide of emotion surges inside. Without being aware of it, her body is arching, tensing, waiting. She shudders, the pleasure is nearly unbearable, but oh so, beautiful.


Spent, she lies back. She doesn’t want to move. She doesn’t want to open her eyes. But already, she can hear Ram, not Amit or Samar, snoring, the baby whimpering. Her life comes crashing back to her.


In the dark, she is in her own private fantasy, a world inside her head. There, she is no longer mother, wife, professional. She is pure sensation, in a place where she alone knows what she wants and how she wants it. A world she can love herself. Where, even if it is only for a sweet, short while, she can lose herself in pleasure.


Sighing, she straightens her clothes, lies back down. Who needs men, anyway?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Why is it...

Why is a magazine always more interesting when your friend is poring over it? For that matter, when you stop at one of those little ricketey jewellery shops that dot M G's and Brigades, why is it that you're suddenly surrounded by an inquisitive crowd of men, women, boys and girls? I guess that's just human nature. Or like that other universal law of nature -- when you desperately need to flag down an autorickshaw, you won't find a single one and the roads will be emptier than the Sahara during a dust-storm. But when you don't want an auto, you'll find those little black and yellow beetles-on-three-wheels sidle past you with the drivers giving you the onceover through their rear view mirrors! But then when things go wrong, the day begins wrong. You wake up with the feeling that you've had a terribly embarrassing dream in which you've done rather weird things/stuff that you wouldn't admit to in the waking world. Then the coffee filter refuses to well,

An eight-legged ode to life

Shared a ride with a spider the other day. Didn't want to, actually. Just didn't spy it (him? her? well, not sure), in time, else I'd have vaulted out. Still, now that we were together, I was forced to acknowledge this other presence. And forced to, for once, actually observe a spider in action. Each time our auto swerved--and believe you me there were potholes aplenty on our route-- spider would swing precariously on an unbelievably thin thread. The auto went right, spider swung left. The auto braked hard, spider was flung up, furiously. Cars honked, cyclists tottered dangerously close, other autos trundled past at breakneck speed. But spider didn't get dislodged. Spider didn't perish. That silken thread was pulled tortuously taut more than once, but it didn't break. And spider's balance never slipped. Watching this most un-comely of creatures perform a tightrope dance to survive in our urban jungle, fascinated me. Spider's confidence that it

Never just a cold

Sometimes it's just a sniffle Still feels so awful. Makes me want to waffle. Sometimes, it's the sneezing. So constant it's not pleasing. Incessant, very unpleasant. Sometimes, it's a whooshing in my ears. Head feels cloudy and unclear. And that I can't really bear. Sometimes, I just can't breathe It even makes me wheeze. Causes me so much grief. Sometimes, it's that streaming nose Terrible to lie comatose, Feebly trying to stem the flow. Because a cold is never, ever just that. Leaves me like a wet rat And knocks me out flat. _______________________