He rolled away and lay on his back next to her. She propped herself on her elbow and looked at his flushed face, his heaving chest, his manliness, now spent and flaccid.
“That was something,” he said, running his fingers through her hair.
“What about me?” she said.
“Tell me how.”
She closed her fingers around his forefinger. “This is how.”
He obliged, until she convulsed with pleasure. The release was intense, and suddenly the world turned balmy—the afternoon, her thoughts, the beat of her heart. The vent blew cool air over her moist body.
Her eyes had started to close again, when she heard him laugh. She raised her head to look at him.
“Who would have known?” he said.
“Hmmm?”
“Who would have known that a shy girl like you can be such a bitch in bed.”
Did he just call her a bitch? She blushed happily.
They made love again that night, this time with protection he had bought at CVS Pharmacy, after he had taken her out to dinner at Olive Garden. For the first time, they had talked, over gnocchi soup and chicken parmigiana. He talked fall in Atlanta, baseball, sushi. He opened up about work, about the effing main office in DC that didn’t understand the value of his innovative suggestions, about his ambition of securing a management position, about his dreams of one day heading a Fortune 500 company. She absorbed everything he said with keen-eyed interest, nodding, asking questions, engaging him in conversation, like Amma had advised.
On Sunday, he took her to see Richard Gere’s An Autumn in New York at Regal Cinemas, after they had made love in the afternoon. She cried for the dying Charlotte; he complained about the soppy storyline.
On Monday, he came home from work and declared, “You gave me blue balls today.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s an affliction that tortures men when they are at work thinking about the wild weekend they’ve had.” He guffawed.
Her heart did a little jig, as if she were drunk.
That night, he lay sprawled on the sofa, nursing vodka over ice, glued to his laptop. She sat on the loveseat, absorbed in that week’s edition of Time magazine, educating herself on the Bush dynasty, especially presidential candidate George Bush.
“Hey, Tara.” She looked up at him.
“You want a sip?” He stretched his arm out. She took the tinkling glass from his hand and took a sip of the clear liquid, twirled the glass, sniffed the sweet odor, gulped a big mouthful.
“Don’t gulp it down. It’s not Coke.” He was mildly amused. “It’ll hit you.” She returned the glass to him.
On rare occasions, when he was in an exceptionally affable mood, Daddy had allowed Tara a few sips of his scotch and soda. But vodka was softer and smelled better than Daddy’s scotch.
Tara turned her attention back to the magazine. After a couple of minutes, he offered her another sip, then another, and she was beginning to feel lightheaded.
“I think I’d better stop. I’m feeling tipsy.”
“Come here. Let me show you something on my laptop.”
She glided next to him, rested her floating head over his shoulder, crossed a leg over his. Her eyes were glazed, giddy from the smell of his cologne.
The laptop had moving images; it was a video, a voyeuristic recording of a well-endowed ripped white male and a buxom blonde in the act. Tara’s eyes opened wide, and she clamped her hand to her mouth in shock. She giggled uncontrollably. She had never seen pornographic images before. There was nothing left to the imagination. It was all right there for the camera.
“Oh, my god!” she exclaimed. “Oh, my god! They’re doing it all.”
“Can you leave God out of it?” he said with a laugh. He snuggled closer, brushed her hair away from her face, and nibbled her ear. He slipped his hand inside her T-shirt and felt her softness. She warmed up immediately, her tips swelled. She had a sudden, alcohol-fueled idea. She kissed him passionately, then slithered to the floor, got up on her knees, and pulled his shorts down in one deft move, as if she were skilled at this. She did what she had just seen the woman on the screen do. Her hands, lips, and tongue took him to heaven.
Later, lying on her back next to a gently snoring husband, Tara laughed. She could only guess what had brought about the sea change in him. Perhaps he had discovered that he liked igniting her sexual side. Maybe it stoked his male ego. She had made her husband like her, even if it was just for one reason. It was a beginning.
Chapter 7
Tara had heard that the best way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. Sanjay said he liked Italian and Mexican food. After spending a considerable amount of time on the Internet researching Italian and Mexican recipes, Tara finally took the plunge. She would draw up a list of ingredients she would need, and if he was in the mood, Sanjay would take her to Publix when he got home. Her first attempt at making veggie lasagna was a disaster, but her refried bean enchiladas turned out better—the cheese had melted sufficiently, the sauce was still bubbling when she pulled the dish out of the oven, and the chopped black olives and cilantro added aesthetic appeal to their plates.
“It’s good,” he said, after the first mouthful; she savored the compliment all evening. There were days when he still preferred to eat out with his coworkers, but she thought four days out of seven was still a small victory for her attempts at making her marriage work.
Sometimes, when the craving hit her, Tara grabbed a fistful of coins from a little glass jar in one of the kitchen cabinets that Sanjay deposited spare coins in, counted out a dollar and some more, walked a mile and a half to Bharat Bazaar Indian grocery store late in the afternoon, and bought herself a pack of peanut chikkis. The store owner, a graying grouch, always checked her out in complete silence, the only sounds coming from his greasy till.
“Hello, Uncle,” she greeted him on her third visit.
“Hmm,” he grunted, eyes on the till, fingers clanging the math.
“Mister, does it cost you money to smile?” she yelled—inside her head, of course.
She did not see the taxi driver after her first solo adventure outside. She almost wished she would, if only to prove to him that she wasn’t that fresh off the boat anymore. Perhaps she would turn around and wave at him, or greet him with a casual, “How are you doing?”
She craved human interaction. Now, except when she was having sex, the silence that filled her emptiness was deafening. Then, one evening, on her way back from her evening walk, she saw a petite young woman from a distance as she approached her building. She stood in the parking lot, leaning against the back of a white Mini Cooper, feet crossed, keeping watch over her young boy who was on a razor scooter, pushing it up and down the paved, rectangular stretch. She was dressed in a short, paneled skirt and black tank top, but it was the pink streak in her short blond hair that called out for attention.
Tara wondered if she should greet her. But the woman beat her to it
“Hi! Are you my new neighbor?” she called out. Tara smiled, nodded. The girl was not beautiful—long, slightly hooked nose, deep-set blue eyes—but her smile was dazzling; it suggested a bubbly personality. She walked up to Tara and held out her hand.
“Hi! I am Alyona Patterson. And that is my son Viktor.” She pointed toward the boy who continued to push his scooter, oblivious to his surroundings. Tara noticed that Alyona had an accent that was not American. She didn’t say Victor like the Americans might.