The Benefit Season (15 page)

‘
Are you a mornings
person, or are you’, she asks, her open legs finally coming to rest
directly across me. I am invited to gaze upon the fleshy seas that
have heaved and parted to show the Promised Land, but I have my own
scruples: though a healthy Tom, I shall not be caught
peeping.

She repeats the question, as usual. With
effort I bring my eyes to focus on her lips but the gaze keep
skidding off to the gasping chasm between the full thighs. If I get
a chance to bury my face there you’d have to dig it out with a
spoon.

‘
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.