A Handbook For My Lover Read online

We lay in the speechless afterglow of that self-effacing moment. Your arms encasing me, your mouth drawing in the air from mine as if encroaching on the privacy of my pleasure.

  Then, candidly, you opened your mouth, rippling the texture of the stillness.

  ‘What do you think about when you masturbate?’

  I remember clearly how you uttered the taboo word, with a stress on the first and last syllable.

  What I forget is my reply. It must have been incoherent. I must have been surprised by the forwardness of your question. I wasn’t sure if it was designed to invade the secrecy of my fantasies or if it stemmed from your desire for knowledge that was otherwise forbidden.

  Later, so I could offer you an answer worthy of your intrusiveness, I sought out the origin of the word and found it was inherently deviant—manusturprare, to defile with the hand.

  I defile myself regularly. There are days when all I do is lie in bed and defile myself.

  Imagine the stark contrast of my ebony fingers nudging against the haughty pink of my cunt; the dialogue I conduct between skin and flesh; the reaching into my cavernous core; the time spent in shameless combustions; the momentary quenching of an eternal thirst.

  My fingers serve me best. They are dexterous and adventurous. They know and love the texture of my cunt; the soft, smooth edges of my labia; my perky, elated clit. They know of secret entrances, of shortcuts and escape hatches, of passageways that lead to buried treasure. They are high priests in this Holy Ground, my sanctum sanctorum.

  There are days when I drip despite myself as if writhing in silent ecstasy. I wake up wanting and cannot shake away the urge to defile myself. My feet guide my body through the restless world of the living, but my thoughts lie suspended in some other ethereal realm. I drip until I start to spill. My nipples are alert and graze against the fabric of my clothes. My pores are receptive to every slight brush of wind. I am all cunt, all receptacle, all slush.

  On days like these it is nature that seduces me with her wild scent of laburnum or chameli, or the silly feel of her grass against my bare feet, the fleeting banter of hedonistic pigeons making love in thin air, the cantankerous laughter of fresh, green leaves. I participate in this world outside my body. My surface exterior is deceptively calm. No one would know of the scent of wet earth newly born in my cunt. I tease myself. I continue the charade. I let the spill build into a flood, until I can no longer wait, until I must hurry to my bed and tend to my hysteria.

  I use the first three fingers of my right hand, the ones I use to write. My thumb waits outside, by the brink, for fear of drowning. My index finger and the tallest one begin to trace circles outside the mouth of my cunt.

  An orgasm is a tangible thrill. Imagine it as clay slowly slipping into being, guided by the contours of fingers held against the sleek, sizzling spin of a potter’s wheel, the dizzy circumference churning mud. There is shape-shifting, a delicate rise and fall until the walls evolve, until the reliefs acquire definition; sweeping curves, measured lilt. The peak is that immediate moment when the pot is suddenly complete and is separated from the wheel. Leftover are sighs, then the opening of eyes, the curling of toes, the clasping together of thighs, the return from Wonderland.

  Often I read. I lie in bed, let loose my hair, unfasten my clothes, hold a book a few inches away from my face and begin to swallow words. I don’t stop to chew, I let them slide along my throat into my belly so they can enter my blood and course through me.

  I read Nin, and Winterson. Miller. Anne Carson. Angela Carter’s Black Venus, Michael Ondantjee’s ‘Cinnamon Peeler’ (You could never walk through markets / without the profession of my fingers / floating over you), or recipes by Miss Lawson, or by Laura Esquivel, or Gertrude Stein, who has this to say of ‘Roast Beef’: In the inside there is sleeping, in the outside there is reddening, in the morning there is meaning, in the evening there is feeling. Please beef, please beef, pleasure is not wailing. Please beef, please be carved clear, please be a case of consideration, ‘And of Salad Dressing and an Artichoke’, Please pale hot, please cover rose, please acre in the red stranger, please butter all the beefsteak with regular feel faces.

  Words are aphrodisiacs. They evoke the smell and feel of the substances they suggest. They tempt and lure with their promise of tangible things, and of worlds outside of my reach. They inflict me with lust, they fill me with want. Words become substitutes for your touch.

  Hell is a world bereft of words. There are days I live through it, when episodes of language lie constrained inside my lungs, when residues float to the surface betraying the script I had in mind. I, the onanist, take shelter in the dark, warm cave of my cunt. I inscribe upon my walls, I make word paintings, I write songs. I scribble at will and colonise every inch of available space. I mark my presence inside my body and listen to the echoes of spoken words. My vagina is the archive of all my greatest works that I can never read.

  Sometimes I make love to silence. To elusive, wordless sounds; the interstices between raindrops, or typewriter keys, the pauses in lyrical refrains, the soft gasps of breath between syllables, the lines buried between lines, the vacant silence of vacant hallways, the imagined solitude of abandoned cities, the second-long break between the flapping of bird wings, the hush that follows after bells have tolled, the loneliness of crumpled sheets, the wordlessness of the mute, the grand echoes of mountain passes, the curled silence between the ebbing and flowing of tides, the wisdom of angels and the aftermath of their delirious, choral songs. To these, and more, I come.

  I don’t wail as I do. I listen to my body gush. My skin quivers, my head stretches away from the rest of me, my feet gasp, my heart beats vociferously, you can feel its raging pulse anywhere you touch, my eyes shut themselves, my lips part; so my mouth is now open and what follows from the bit of my being to the tip of my tongue are cries as delicate and lively as a swarm of butterflies. They flutter by and leave their wings behind.

  Sometimes I make love to you. I rummage through memories … of the first time we fucked on the night we first met. I couldn’t help myself, you would say later, when I asked you why you did what you did, why you unmasked my body and plunged into my depths. I wanted you. I had to have you. You lost your tongue inside my mouth the first time we kissed. I had to remind you of the lateness of the hour, the vanishing of the moon, that I lived in another part of town and had to get home before dawn. How you pinned me against a slice of wall and sprawled your lips against my nipples.

  You’re not going anywhere. And how you groan when you come, like a warm, suffering thing. Mornings when you hurl your body against me and tweak my nipples like they were switches you could turn on and off. How you lick my teats and kiss my knees, the feel of your beard against my breasts, the hunger in your breath, the scent of sunlight basking on your skin.

  Sometimes I recall the taste of you in long-drawn moments with my mouth between your legs. You close your eyes and lie still and erect. I wet you with kisses, then lick you with my tongue until you start to spill. I make all kinds of patterns against the blackboard of your skin. I draw you in and out. I place you deep inside my throat as if I were swallowing you whole. You gasp and stretch and clasp my hair with your fingers. I plunge forward and retreat, repeatedly, in a soothing spree. You relent. You feed me all there is to feed. You are a secret recipe, one I can never untangle with my tongue; such perfection of taste, such exacting proportion of salt to spice, such delicate consistency.

  Sometimes I make love to this city under the cover of the open sky. I cocoon myself in the cool breath of the evening sun. Trees glisten, flowers prepare to close for the night. Amid forsaken rooftops, birds take flight for a final search of scattered grain, some swoop against the tops of trees and make vertiginous circles in the air. I too take flight. I begin my ascent towards dizzying peaks, altitudes I could never surmount with my bare feet. I traipse along the outskirts of the aether, I touch the voluptuous flesh of clouds, I submit to the burning skin of evening stars.

  A
n Ex-lover’s Discourse

  He slips into the dressing gown suspended from the hook of the coat stand that is part of the minimal mis-en-scène. He settles into the chair placed on stage for him, reaches for the hot water bottle resting inches away on a stool like a prop. Finally, with the air of an aristocrat, he pours himself a glass of Scotch. Words fall into place: the anonymous quote on the invite—A dressing gown, a hot water bottle and some whisky, if you can procure it, are really all you need. They are the absolute essentials for a writer.

  If only that were true.

  There isn’t a single vacant stretch of space. The audience spills over, the exits have to be unlocked to contain the crowd of listeners and worshippers. I park myself on a step that is a member of the staircase that connects the stage to the exit like a clogged artery. I’m here on a one-point agenda; to have him inscribe his signature on my copy of his book, a pocket-sized collection of fables gifted to me by an ex-lover.

  In between silences, I peep into the first page and re-read the dedication:

  Ms Chocolate Truffle,

  Gardez en memoire les moments que nous avons passé ensemble. Continuez d’ecrire. Je croire en vous. Julien. (Preserve the moments we have spent together. Continue to write. I believe in you. Julien.)

  You can’t but appreciate the choice of words, his attempt to downplay our intimacy. Gardez, he wrote, using the imperative. It must share roots with the word ‘guard’.

  He loosens the dressing gown and after fielding several questions is too fatigued to continue the conversation. The crowd begins to shuffle towards the exit. I hurry instead to the foot of the stage, draw his attention and place the book in his hands.

  ‘Should I address it to you?’ he asks politely.

  ‘If you want to. It doesn’t matter, really,’ I assure him.

  He opens the book, like etiquette demands, to arrive at the page on which he would have to sign after carefully crossing off the printed version of his name. But he stumbles instead upon the page that bears the ex-lover’s inscription.

  ‘This is a revelation,’ he says.

  ‘An ex-lover,’ I explain.

  ‘There’ll be others.’

  ‘There already are.’

  I’ve never cared much for labels. In fact, the first thing I do after I’ve bought a brand new dress is rip off the tiny strip of cloth that’s attached to the back of the collar. It makes me itch, or pops out at the wrong times to reveal too much and signify too little. Even my kitchen shelves are lined with bottles I’ve rescued from the imprisoning arms of paper labels.

  I prefer ambiguity.

  Given my disdain for categories, I find myself struggling for a term that would adequately describe all the men who’ve ventured inside the folds of my body. The momentary men, the beads on my rosary of conquests, the subjects of my dated affairs; these one- and two- and three-night stands that meant everything and nothing; the ones I was careful not to fall in love with for fear of interfering with the intimacy of the immediate.

  Would it be inappropriate to refer to them as lovers?

  A lover is one who loves in ways that are yet to be anthologised.

  An ex-lover is one who has had the privilege of having once been my lover.

  I keep returning to Botton, whose words I’ve scribbled out on a scrap of paper and blue-tacked to the wall beside my bed. It’s an excerpt from The Romantic Movement. To date I cannot say for sure whether I agree with his philosophy or am vehemently opposed to it. To go to bed with another is in some way to collide with the memories and habits of all those they have ever been with. Our way of making love embodies the mnemonic of our sexual history, a kiss is an enriched model of past kisses, our behaviour in the bedroom filled with traces of past bedrooms in which we have slept.

  I’ve always approached my lovers as present-tense beings. Each unique in matters of the body, each with their own philosophy of lips and touch, each an individual adventure with a different plotline. At best, I see them as fragments of a patchwork quilt held together by delicate threads.

  You do not belong to this tapestry.

  Not yet.

  J was a sleep-fucker.

  Our affair was brief. I met him four years ago, just a few days before I was to leave university to return to my city-by-the-sea, in keeping with my rule of meeting at least one person on the brink of departure who I could regret not having encountered before.

  We met at a house party where he spent all evening circling around my periphery, dipping in now and then to incite me with some callous comment or a suggestive statement or with his quick-witted touch. He had a presence about him that stemmed from pride. He could disarm and destroy you with his charm. That’s what he did during the course of that first evening; he whetted my appetite, and when I was ready to indulge, withdrew the feast. I spent more time there than I wanted to, looking for scraps to chew on. He turned indifferent. So I went up to him to say goodbye.

  ‘I’m sure we’ll see each other again,’ he said.

  ‘I doubt it,’ I said. ‘I’m leaving the city in less than a week.’ I hoped at least now he might understand the urgency of this passion.

  ‘Well, too bad,’ were his last words.

  So I found him online and explained to him I didn’t have time to play. We fixed a date.

  We watched a Bollywood flick at a shady cinema hall in RK Puram. A deliberate choice. Multiplexes are too mainstream.

  He’s French but his Hindi is impeccable; not once did I need to translate a thing. We watched the film obediently, with controlled abandon, in the darkness of the hall. Not once did he lean across to touch me or have his hands callously graze against mine. He’s much too proud to make the first move. He’d rather I relented, surrendered gracefully to my lust. The credits rolled, we exited reluctantly, then walked the length of the road like two restless travellers afraid to go home. We found a brick wall around the corner of the street and parked ourselves there and continued to talk. He told me about his cat, his home in Chantilly, his ex-lovers, and finally, his inability to engross himself in ‘casual flings’. Later I would remind him of his reluctance. ‘What makes you think this is a casual fling?’ he would reply.

  Hours passed. The sky broke down like it is wont to do in the peak of summer. But we didn’t care to honour the downpour. We continued to feast on conversation showed no concern for time and going well past 2 a.m.

  His body was still too separate from mine. It had been three hours since we began and he hadn’t shown any signs of surrender.

  I can’t remember much more of the conversation, all I know is that just when I doubted his intentions, the mosquitoes surfaced. They started to nibble at the flesh around my calves, my feet, and my neck. I’d carelessly slipped on a thin, flair cotton skirt before our date. I didn’t have time to take a shower and get dressed. Just an hour before, I’d been with another lover, T.

  I continued to listen and listening still, reached into my jhola and fished out the roll-on repellent I carried with me at all times; a gift from the Swede. Without interrupting his monologue, I uncorked the repellent and rolled the ball against the surface of my calf and the insides of my thighs. When I looked up to punctuatethe conversation with a random reply, I found him transfixed.

  I decided it was time I returned to university. It was the end of the semester; I had papers overdue. We walked towards an auto, negotiated a price. The driver revved the accelerator. I slid closer and pressed my lips against his. We kissed.

  He lived just outside campus. But he was unwilling to escort me back home. He said he would if we first dropped by his place and had a drink. Old Monk is all he had. I willingly relented. We went upstairs.

  In the five nights that followed, I discovered his sleep-fucking quirk. After the final moan, the twilight sigh, I’d fall asleep naked beside him. He had no bed, just a mattress on the floor. I’d be busy rummaging through dreams as I am inclined to do in the middle of sleephood until I’d slip out of sleep to find his lips burried i
n the niche between my neck and my collarbone. His body would rise to greet me. His pack of rubber was always kept strategically below the mattress. I began to understand why. Half-awake, half-asleep, he’d enter me lightly and cocoon himself until I took flight.

  A week before J, I’d had my first brush with the Turk who redefined ‘cocky’. We had known each other before, had exchanged wit on several occasions, but had our first serious conversation at the same party where I’d encountered him. We spoke for hours, it seemed, until a French woman threw a tantrum because the Turk wasn’t paying her any attention. I left with T, the Turk tagged along, and we began our walk from Munirka to campus. Home was closer for T and me, our hostels only a kilometre away from the gate.

  The Turk lived in Brahmaputra Extension, the hostel at the end of the universe.

  So I lent him the keys to my bicycle. And then didn’t hear from him for at least twenty-four hours, during which I had been liaising with T.

  It was a beautiful bicycle, a Hercules racing bike. Tall and gorgeous, just like A, the lover who’d left it for me when he’d returned to his country.

  I resorted to email, the subject-line brief and stately: ‘Bicycle Thief’.

  I offered to visit him at Brahmaputra to pick up the bicycle.

  His reply was unprecedented.

  You can’t just come and pick up your bike like that! If I was that simple, life would have been easier for many people. Come and we can decide on the terms.

  Obviously, I had to go.

  I knock on the door and find it is ajar. He tells me to come in. I do and find him busy at his desk, cigarette in hand, a can of beer on the table.

  ‘You’re late,’ he says as he turns to acknowledge my presence.

  I examine his room. There are posters on the wall, of consciously tacky, ‘exotic’ things, there’s a mosquito net spread across his bed like a veil, a map of Delhi taped against the wall beside his desk, and in one corner, an ice bucket filled with cans of beer. I help myself to some beer and sit on the edge of his bed.