The Benefit Season Read online

  ‘Mornings’, I say, hoarsely.

  ‘So what do you do in the mornings, mornings person’, she asks, wrapping her pouty lips around the pencil again.

  ‘I run’.

  ‘So come run with me.’

  ‘I don’t like to be slowed down’; my pride lets the indiscreet words slip past the gates. But then I don’t hold the triathlon and steeplechase junior national records to this day for nothing.

  She laughs. ‘Nor do I; we shall see about that. What route do you take?’

  ‘I run along the beach, on the sand- barefoot mostly’.

  ‘I like running in urban spaces.’

  Urban spaces in India are a veritable maze of assholes, manholes and potholes. But who am I to chicken out of a dare to run a pencil and lips clad lady? ‘I’ll need shoes then, I guess’, I tell myself. Some plaster too perhaps; our streets are like a boot camp obstacle course- with no paddings.

  ‘Well then, be at Pazirani Junction at six’, she orders, turning her back on me’. ‘And don’t forget the shoes’.

  In her reflection in the French window, I can see her smiling mockingly.

  The geeky girl in the oversize designer eye furniture, always lugging the sheaf of papers in the corridor, tells me Pazirani is a spot on the Palm Beach Road, popular with jogger clubs and early morning coconut water vendors.

  Thither I head the next morning at five. I tie my shoes together, sling them around my neck and jog the couple of kilometers it is from my flat. Better get my sweat before some lady in skirt and boots slows me down.

  I reach the spot after asking my way and run up the stairs from the beach to the road where the cars are parked and some joggers are stretching before their run.

  She arrives sharp at five to six in an open black Porsche Continental GTC. She chucks her retro large-rimmed glasses with a casual flick of the wrist on the seat and swings out of the car without opening the door and wriggles out of the yellow tracksuit she’s wearing to reveal a body-hugging black speedsuit with nothing underneath; her large breasts are pinned to her chest and a cute camel toe is formed at the tight crotch. The joggers, the sleepy drivers and the bored coconut vendors freeze at the sight of this early morning treat stretching herself in ways inconceivable to one who has not gone beyond cracking the knuckles or reaching for the toes after a long day at the computer or the wheel.

  ‘What are you waiting for’, she smiles; I am quite a sight; standing dumbstruck like the others with my shoes hanging around my neck, and slurping noisily from a large, empty coconut. Before I can toss the coconut in a bin and shod my feet Monal has taken a few steps back; in an explosive sprint dived headlong across the 10 feet of open space between the embankment and a flagpole on the sand below, grasped it with her hands and swung down 15 feet, spinning lazily as she does so, and burst forth on the sand and vanished from view.

  I swear under my breath, take a couple of steps back and then go for the pole like she did, my outstretched fingers missing it by inches. I crash into it with my chest and groin, barely managing to grasp it as I slide down clumsily and land on my back. For a minute I’m dazed and wonder if I have anything that is not broken, but miraculously I’m ok, and swinging my feet over my head I flip over and land on my feet, while the curious onlookers above are still sniggering. Brushing the dust off my rump, I’m soon hot in chase of the lady who was supposed to slow me down. Someone remarks: ‘crazy for ass’.

  Soon I can see her in the distance; strong, easy strides kicking back wet sand. A light burst of speed and I am next to her. She glances askew at me and increases the pace. I keep a comfortable half-a-step behind her, overtaking at irregular intervals to break her rhythm and tire her out. I could keep this up all day. But she has other plans.

  As we run past the long and dark patch of mangroves, an inclined stone wall emerges- running parallel to the beach. She suddenly begins to head for the wall and as she nears it, in a strong burst of power approaches it at an angle, places a foot on it, and then pushes off to jump to a higher point, and then takes another step till she is over it and standing 10 feet above me on the road, before I can even blink.

  Stairs are for chumps. Why use them if you can walk across on walls? She stands with her arms on her hips, grinning and catching her breath, waiting for me to find stairs that are not there. Finally, I jump for the jutting stones, and crawl over the wall with hands and feet, chafing my knees and elbows. As I haul my bruised body over the embankment Monal is already across the street and waiting near the entrance to a building, empty at this hour. She pauses briefly to look over her shoulders as she jumps with precision on the small stones in the waterway running around the building, never missing a step. Then she hops on to the pavement and vaults over it, landing firmly on her feet onto the narrow steel railings in the street below. She vanishes around the bend and I don’t get to see her again till I run back along the street in the direction where we had started.

  She’s sitting coolly on the pavement, sipping from a steel bottle, oblivious of the small band of curious killjoys of myriad hues gathered around her, beholding her in stupid wonderment. The street is beginning to come alive, and shabby scavengers carrying empty white hessian sacks, sniffing from dirty shreds of cloth smeared with glue or whitener, pause to draw in the sights on their way to work.

  ‘That wasn’t fair- you’re a Traceuse- a parkour runner’.

  ‘No, I’m not. I’m a freerunner’; she laughs.

  I crash down besides her, examining my bruised edges.

  ‘You’re hurt’, she says with concern, as she sees my chafed parts.

  ‘You should’ve warned me- I wasn’t prepared to lose’.

  ‘I’ll train you. Then you don’t have to lose’.

  I shrug and look around. The traffic is picking up and I can feel the hot sun on my back.

  ‘Where is your ride- you should have someone look at those’, she says, referring to my bruises; tenderly stroking my thigh.

  ‘I’ll be fine. I don’t have a ride.’

  ‘How did you come then? Your place must be ten k or so’.

  ‘I came running. I thought I’ll work up some sweat before I take a walk on the beach with you- some walk’!

  We both laugh. She leans into me, nestling her head on my shoulder. ’Come I’ll drop you home’. She grabs my hand and pulls me up, leading me into her car, ignoring my timid protests.

  ‘You keep it simple, don’t you?’ she says, looking around the bare house. ‘Where do you keep your kit?’ she wanders into the bathroom and finds it there.

  ‘You’ll need a TT shot’. She expertly dabs me with colored cotton balls soaked in Dettol and then blows on the black and blue marks.

  ‘Now you are a nurse too?’

  ‘I am many things- you know nothing of.’ She takes a scalpel and rips my shirt down the middle. She combs the curly hair on my chest with her long fingernails filed to cutting edges, deepening the pressure in each swipe. ‘Would you like to find out’?

  ‘Find out what?’

  ‘The many things’; her nails are beginning to hurt, leaving white marks on my skin; ‘that I am, of’?

  I take hold of her wrists, tightening my grasp as she continues to dig into my skin.

  ‘Ah’, I groan and push away the hellcat as she draws blood. I’ll have real trouble explaining away these marks to Aarti.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry’, she says, with faux concern. ‘Have I scratched the surface? That’ll make quite a tattoo.’

  She sounds quite pleased really. I’m surprised she’s not laughing. You bet it’ll make some tattoo: only, wrong guy, wrong girl!

  ‘You look so hurt! Look at your face!’ she says, delighted. ‘My poor baby’! She cuddles up close and begins to rub her lips across my chest, dwelling at the perky titties; wrapping her busy fat lips around them. Suddenly she uncoils from me as a mobile phone somewhere on her hind side vibrates; ‘gotta run’, she says, looking at it, and in a moment vanishes from view.

  ‘We must
keep this up- see ya tomorrow same time place’, she sings down the corridor, just before slipping into the lift, leaving me dazed.

  ϖ

  At the appointed hour and place I turn up again, determined to walk on water and sail through the air- at whatever cost to my health. She is five minutes late, and barefoot this time. She laughs and says she can’t have me laid up in hospital so she’ll run me on the sand instead. Will sand hurt me, she asks. I smile clumsily and she takes that as a denial and goes lithely down to the beach, taking the stairs this time like the rest of us chumps. I don’t fool around with her like the last time- I know better now- and let her pace me. The tide is just beginning to come in, leaving the beach wet; I like the feel of the cool waves licking at my ankles. We avoid stepping on random obstacles: sharp objects washed ashore, busy little red crabs crisscrossing the sand, and large pesky seagulls swooping down in our path; unmindful of our presence in their search for the morning nourishment of sea weed and dead fish and human trash left behind by the nightly beach revelers.

  She runs and she runs down the sandy vale, she twists and she turns by the scraggy dale, she jumps over the stumps, she vaults over the turns, she leaves the beaten path and she heads into the dense mangrove lath.

  The trees are grown on stilts; their aerial roots curl in and out of the muddy flats holding the trunks and leaves high above the salt water line. The taproots gather the salt from the seawater, so that it doesn’t kill the plant, and deposit the salt crystals on their large supple leaves. They shed the leaves after awhile to rid of the salinity- to survive. The seeds float in the tide to take roots far from the parent tree. We skim across the mud splashing from puddle to puddle, avoiding the mudskippers, and fishing cats. Dawn bats feed on mangrove blossoms and crab-eating monkeys bounce across the dark canopy hanging above us. The most versatile ecosystem that has weathered the onslaughts of the toughest saline conditions on earth has fallen prey to the waste of human civilization. The mangroves have become a sink for human sewage and the mud flats have become slimy. Before I can warn Monal to be careful she slips after dodging a buttress root and skids across the muddy flats on her tummy.

  I stand by and gather my breath waiting for her to pounce back on her feet and tear across the mangrove forests into the clearing beyond. Other than a few floating dead fish and curious onlooking sea turtles, we are alone in the dark tangled skein. Instead of bounding up and away, Monal turns on her back slowly; her face, what little I can make of it in the mud-spattered layer, is twisted in disbelief. From top to toe, my boss is mired in sludge. I cannot but help laugh; a loud guffaw that sends the bats and monkeys scrambling into the thick foliage. The brows gather and the whites of her eyes peeping through the brown patches show that she is hurt at my mirth. I stop laughing and hold out my hand to haul her away but she groans in pain.

  ‘I’ve cramped my leg’, she moans, clutching the back of her thigh.

  ‘Hang on’; I sit on my knees at her feet and lightly lift her leg and grope under her thigh. The muscle is tense and knotted. I gently straighten her leg and raising it, slide underneath. I rest her ankle on my shoulder and extend her leg slowly, massaging the hamstring. Slowly the tension begins to release and I can feel the muscle returning to suppleness.

  ‘You like it’, I ask, as I feel her relaxing.

  She raises her head to look at me, and laughs. ‘ Yeah’.

  I rub my hands busily up and down the slushy thigh, and then over the knee to knead the calf. Slowly I bring her leg off my shoulder and rest it folded on the ground. She has folded the other leg as well, and now I am sitting on my knees between her parted legs. A faraway voice tells me I should get up now but all I hear is the roar of the sea waves pounding at the trunks of the mangroves and swirling in the mud around me. I grasp both her thighs and stroking them tenderly, look up. I feel as if we are two souls stranded on a storm-battered ship getting helplessly sucked into a black whirlpool. I wash her legs with the swirling tidewater, cleaning away the mud to reveal the smooth olive colored skin. I cup my hands and gather more water and pour it like a supplicant over her navel. Next I kneel over her and wash her chest, neck, face and finally wipe the puffy lips. I pour water over her matted locks and hold them up to flutter in the rising breeze. I lower myself on my elbows and linger above her perfect oval face, serene in stillness; her eyes closed in wait. Suddenly the eyelashes flutter and her calm eyes gaze upon me curiously. Holding that gaze I lower my face on hers; finding her lips with mine I part them open and unravel her secret mouth with my tongue. She lets me tire of exploring and sipping at her wellsprings: for I am hungry, and thirsty, and weary, in the wilderness. She fondles my hair softly, weaving her fingers through my curls. I leave off at her mouth and sip at her neck, and bury myself in her silken bosom. I draw her tank top off her lean shoulders and her warm and squishy breasts bounce and jiggle in my happy face; and I suck with longing at the upturned teats. She arches up towards me, filling up my mouth with her full vessels and I drink of that which I have drawn. I reach down and peel away the shorts from her wiggly buttocks, and am mesmerized by the sight of the baldness down under. With a swift swipe of the tongue I part the meat flaps open and feed at her damask clit- her fleshy nub- god’s bribe to woman for childbirth. She withholds not her manna from my mouth, and yields up her wellsprings for my thirst, locking my head between her strong thighs. When my breath fails me, I rise to draw in some air. She grabs my hair and pulls me up and rolls her tongue in my mouth, drinking of herself. She digs a hand into my shorts and yanks my trouser meat out, sucking the breath out of it in her clenched palm. She thrusts her hips with urgency at me, and guides my baby maker up her slushy birth channel. Our bodies are sticky with the salt and the flesh clings together. Yoked together we rise and fall like the tide, like the mounted sea turtles that drift by around us sometimes. I reach under her and clasp her in tight embrace, and drag us on the mud to a higher place, above the rising water line. I haul up Monal and lean her against a thick trunk, and lifting her hips in my arms, I ram into her with increasing urgency.

  I reach around her slim waist and lift her off the ground and press her into the tree. She folds her legs around my hips and I try to enter her again. But her flaps are sticky and salty and so I dip a finger in my mouth and curl it in and work up the juices. When the rusty pipes are flowing again I spit on my wiener and quietly slip it in without further formality. Monal suddenly goes stiff in my arms and then shudders violently. Like a leaf she trembles in my arms, her body wracked by ripples of release. I wait for her to be done, and gently grind my hips into her. She sighs and whispers; ’don’t come inside’.

  I nod and rake up the tempo- her hips slamming into the squishy trunk. When I feel I can hold the tadpoles in no further, I dig myself out and rub the wiener on her belly till the penis-pudding catapults from my sausage pistol and is squashed all the way up to her breasts. It’s my turn to lay my head on her shoulder like a well-fed baby and sigh with relief. When the baby is done nuzzling and the water is risen till the knees, ‘tis time to leave.

  ϖ

  Long after the act, shame, like the darkness stretched out against the sky, casts a gloom upon my generally sunny view on life. The chirpy bird is mute, her ditty lost to the city. The shade is cast wide from the tree; the leaves flutter aimlessly in the breeze. The cookie crumbles lifelessly in my mouth, the coffee is stone cold. Simple Aarti fades from view, Monal glitters as gold.

  ‘What’s up, dude?’ Aarti says.

  We are seated in a sunny coffee bar, empty mostly, save for an odd couple, and an old Parsi lady sitting alone having a milkshake. The afternoon is warm and we had both decided to meet up for a quick coffee and chat as some office work had brought us together in the same neighborhood. We are seated by the tall, freshly polished French windows, overlooking the bustling sidewalk.

  I still find it hard to dismiss the thought of the soft edges of Monal’s belly, where the golden brown loaves of her thighs start their journey to her pink to
es.

  ‘You’ve been silently stirring that lone lump of sugar for the last half hour’, Aarti says, her voice coming from a distance.

  ‘Oh!’ I take the spoon out and take a sip of the coffee gone cold, and grimace.

  Aarti laughs and motions to the pale Nepali waitress with the flat chest to fetch another coffee for me. ’Make it piping hot- the last one literally sent him to sleep’.

  ‘My hero’, she says, addressing me with her straw, ‘always fighting office battles. What’s bugging our soldier this day?’

  ‘This, and some of that’, I push away my cup and her toes that have crept up to my knee.

  ‘Papa doesn’t want to play with mama today’, she says, and lights up the table with a wide grin. ‘Papa only wants to work’.

  I look at her and shake my head. She is every inch perfect- but suddenly perfectly plain. She has the right dimensions: she rises to the correct length from the ground, and then fills out in perfectly rounded contours. She is of robust design and provides year-round comfort; warm enough in the wintery nights and cool and shady when it’s heating up. Her surface area is without blemish, and her façade pleasant to the sight. When you shelter in her you feel blessed and you feel saved; she lengthens your days. She is all of mother, and sister, and woman, and savior.

  Monal- she’s the salt seasoning of life. Olive-skinned, with eyes that gleam in mischief; her dangerous and forbidden allure is what compels men to soak weed and wage wars. Thy neighbor’s coveted, fornicating wife- she’s what god had in mind when he wrote with his finger on a stone tablet the tenth commandment on Mount Sinai.

  Having tasted of her meat, all else is grass to me.

  ‘Are you even here?’ Aarti taps on my temple to snap me out of my reverie.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘As I was saying, my dad is gathering my trousseau. Can you imagine the old man doing it? And guess who’s helping him?’

  ‘Yeah, he sure needs help’. My attention is riveted on the ripples in my cup as I swirl the coffee with a finger.