Customer Service

She sniffed the air, taking notice for the first time of the odor of something cooking. "What's that?"

"Dinner," I said. "Beef stew, from scratch, not out of a can. They say every man has half a dozen special dishes he's sure he can do better than anyone else. My beef stew is famous from here to across the street." I hesitated for a moment before continuing, "There's enough for two if you'd like to stay for dinner. And there's beer, soda, and water in the fridge."

Her smile dazzled. "I'd be delighted. How do you secure this place?"

She helped me move the display cases into the van and draw the sidewalls around the fly. I ran the light up over the table, which Jen set with paper bowls and plates, plastic glasses, and steel flatware. I dished up the stew and put out French bread rolls and butter, and we settled down to eat. Conversation was light, inconsequential, until I brought a box out from the pocket of my cashmere sport coat, newly made for me by the factory owner's tailor, and slid it across the table.

"I came across this in Amritsar and thought of you. I thought you might like it."

She opened the box. Inside on a bed of black velvet a sterling silver khanda, the conjoined chakram, double-edged sword, and two crossed kirpans that is the symbol of Sikhism, hung from a fine herringbone chain, almost but not quite a choker. I'd had to guess at the length required to suspend it with the top at the hollow of her throat down onto her chest. I only hoped she would like it; I wasn't even positive Jen was a practicing Sikh, though her name and that of the health club she owned pointed in that direction. Her looks definitely connected her to the Punjab where Sikhism originated and its holiest site, the Golden Temple of Amritsar, is located. I prayed she would not be offended.

She took it out of its box and looked at it. Lifting her hair, she said, "Would you, please, Max?" and handed the necklace to me. I stepped behind her and worked the clasp, fastening it around her neck. She looked for the mirror; I fetched it and put it on the table. She looked into it, the pendant resting exactly where I had hoped it would, admiring it. She got up and hugged me, her eyes shining.

"It's beautiful! But how did you know I'm a Sikh?"

"Your name and the name of your health club are good clues. I took a chance. I'm glad I did. Oh, yes, I have something else for you."

I slipped through the sidewall, brought the carved box from the van, and presented it to her. "I hope you like this, too."

She opened it and her eyes grew large. I took the 40 x 80 inch pashmina out of the box and held it open for her. She turned her back and I laid the left edge over her shoulder. She spun to the right, winding herself - and me - in the shawl so she pressed against me.

"You're right. I do like this," she purred, turning her face up and kissing me, one hand twining into my hair as my arms went around her, pulling her in without resistance. She kissed me again, her lips closed but lingering on mine. She sighed and laid her head on my shoulder as I caressed her beneath the soft shawl that was more like a small blanket, snuggling in like she belonged there. Tired as I was, my lady-pleaser sprang to attention, which Jen could not help but notice. She shifted position slightly, making it clear she was aware my john thomas had joined the party and did not mind. I marveled at the feelings she evoked in me. We kissed again, only to be interrupted by the PA system clicking on.

"May I have your attention, please. Will the owner of the car with the license plate 'XRCISE' report to the office. Will the owner of the car with license plate 'XRCISE' please come to the office. Thank you."

Jen pulled away from me. "That's my car! What are they going to do, have it towed?"

I chuckled. "No, but they do like the parking lot cleared before dark. Don't worry, I think I can square this." I called the office. Sammi, to whom I often spoke on the phone and to whom I sent my emails telling the Bazaar when I would be absent, was still in the office. I explained that the car belonged to a customer of mine and we were just concluding a deal. She laughed and wished me good luck. I switched off and looked at Jen.

"All set. I think they're just afraid that someone was kidnapped or dropped dead and is lying somewhere on the field."

"Still, I'd better be going, Max." She came back into my arms and kissed me again. "We'll have to try this again when you aren't jet-lagged. Go to sleep now, you dear, dear man, and have only pleasant dreams." With one last kiss, she ducked around the sidewall and was gone.

Mechanically, I blew up the air mattress, spread my top sheet, sleeping bag and pillow on it, and stripped to my skivvies before climbing in. Her last words echoed in my ears: "We'll have to try this again when you aren't jet-lagged." Yes; that, and perhaps more. As I faded out, there was a smile on my lips.

5.

Spring turned into summer, and as the temperature increased, the clothing of the women at the Bazaar decreased. The pulchritude factor was to some degree offset by what I privately called the Walmartian Factor. This was the public exhibition by some men and women of much too much jiggling flab, numerous badly executed tattoos, and the use of cheap cologne in an attempt to mask body odor indicative of improper or unbalanced diet.

However, there were women who knew they looked good and took advantage of the heat to show off what they had, wearing skimpy tops and shorts or miniskirts, often with wedge sandals. Umbrellas, wide straw hats, and parasols sold by a big clothing booth up by the food vendors were the fashion. The public exhibition of feminine assets made for pleasant girl-watching for guys like me who were stuck in their booths all day.

Jenefer took advantage of the heat by coming straight from work without changing out of workout gear. As her "uniform" leaned towards fluorescent tights, unitards, leotards, miniskirts, skintight bike shorts, and fitted tops that looked painted on, I (and every other male with normal testosterone production) had to restrain the Neanderthal desire to club her over the head and carry her off to the cave. But in my case it was to my cave, or at least my store, that she was coming.

She would arrive shortly before closing on Saturday, usually trailing a comet tail of horny admirers, carrying a reusable hot-or-cold bag and her purse over her shoulder. The bag always held food, good, healthy edibles that weren't current fad food. Sometimes it was a big bowl of mixed berries. After hearing me reminisce about falling in love with papayas on one of my first trips to South America, papaya with fresh squeezed lemon juice found a place in the rotation. Tandoori chicken over jasmine rice in a light curry sauce was a mutual favorite. So were bite-sized sirloin tips with mushrooms. Once in awhile it was a big batch of assorted appetizers, made fresh by Jen that morning. My contribution was the wine; I kept a bottle each of rosé and white in the fridge, and a bottle of a good red she was fond of to cover almost any food contingency. The Bazaar staff got used to seeing Jen's car parked near the exit after closing and no longer commented on it, though I expect it was a source of amused speculation.

We'd eat and talk, sometimes into the evening, and she never left without snogging and intimate caresses, though we went no farther. The walls of a tent conceal sight, not sound. The two of us established a personal comfort level I found quite pleasant, which under the right conditions could lead to even greater intimacy. Unspoken though it was, we had an understanding that neither of us wanted to provide the soundtrack for someone else's porn fantasies.

I was absent one weekend on a service call to Thailand that had another to Hong Kong piggybacked on top of it, for a total of ten days. Arriving back home on Thursday, I had the luxury of sleeping myself out before turning in my receipts and the report I had written on the interminable flight home on Friday before loading up the van and heading out to the Grand Bazaar.

I had a good day that Saturday. While I'd been in Thailand, I'd managed to squeeze in half a day at Bangkok's Challenger Center. They'd been holding a small show, a rehearsal really, of the Niche Jewelry division of the biannual Bangkok Gems & Jewelry Fair. And before going to the airport in Hong Kong I had visited the shop of a jeweler who specialized in pieces made before the Chinese Civil War. I had dropped enough money that before Ag 925 I'd have gulped and broken out in sweat, but the mindset of a merchant buying for resale is different. All I had seen was beauty and potential, and my understanding of what my customers wanted was verified in spades. Every piece of jewelry I purchased at the Niche Jewelry show that I displayed sold with no haggling, and a significant number of the Hong Kong pieces sold as well. Jenefer commented on the bare cases when she arrived.

"I seem to have chosen my stock wisely. Today I made back most of what I spent on new stock this trip, and everything I sell from here on is pure profit. And I brought back something for you I hope you will like."

"Dinner first," she said, kissing me gently as she took tubs of food out of her bag and put them on the table. "Bacon-wrapped oysters, four-cheese pastry puffs, miniature crab cakes coated with lemon butter sauce, and papaya chunks in lemon juice. White wine to go with, I think." She went ahead with setting up for dinner as I secured the sidewalls, officially closing Ag 925 for the day.

I fetched the bottle and glasses, and we settled in to eat. To my surprise, Jen curled up on my lap and fed me the bite-sized bits of food, smiling as I reciprocated. Part of my mind wondered at this. Remembering my abbreviated courtship of Heidi, I knew this kind of behavior could lead to other things, like bed. But here and now, with me unable to leave my shop and its stock, I took it only as an expression of her interest in me.

When we'd consumed the last morsel, she squirmed around a bit, doubtless feeling my prick poking into her thigh, and put both arms around my neck. "And what is this neat thing you thought I might like, pray tell?" she asked, smiling at me.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small leather-covered box. "These," I said.

She opened the box, looked, then leaned in and kissed me. "Max, you are a tease. A loveable tease, but still a tease." She slipped the hooks of the silver temple dancer earrings through her earlobes and kissed me again.

This kiss lengthened and her arms tightened around me as I began to caress her through her unitard. Her nipples poked against the fabric of her muscle shirt top, marking her interest and arousal, not resisting my attentions at all. She sighed and rested her head on my shoulder.

"Ohhh, I like that," she whispered in my ear. "I love your hands on me. But we should be more discreet, even inside this tent."

"What about having dinner together after I finish up here tomorrow?" I proposed. "We'd be away from here, with no time pressures. What do you say?"

"There's a steakhouse out by the highway, just as you turn onto the road that brings you here," she said. "I like a good steak. Tomorrow at six PM?"

"I'll be there," I said. She leaned forward and sealed our agreement with another long kiss before she reluctantly got up from my lap and started to clear the table.

I took my time packing up on Sunday and pulled into the Texas Longhorn Steakhouse at six o'clock. Ordering a Bloody Mary with lemon juice and no Worcestershire sauce, I took a seat in the bar where I could watch the door, waiting for Jen to arrive. She appeared about fifteen minutes later in a filmy green skirt, black stilettos, and a fitted black top with a built-in bra and scooped neckline the same shade as her skin that looked like it had been painted on, the khanda I had given her hanging above her bust. Her jet black curtain of hair was pulled back behind her ears, held in place by a shining sterling hair band that allowed the temple dancer earrings to be seen. She was wearing a musky perfume that whispered, "Here I am, if you have the courage to come and get me."

I stood up so she could see me; she smiled and came to me, taking my arm. Eyes followed us as we were guided to a banquette in a quiet corner of the dining room, for though we were of a height the color contrast of our skin and hair was as great as it could be. In today's more enlightened times, the murmured comments that drifted to our ears had more to do with our looks than our ethnicities.

We ordered dinner, steak with mushrooms for both of us and a bottle of the Australian Shiraz Jen liked, and talked about ourselves. I told her how I'd found, wooed, wed, and lost Heidi. In her turn, Jenefer told me her family's story.

"As you guessed from my name, my ancestry is Sikh. But not from the Punjab, at least not for seven or eight generations. My family has always been traders and merchants. A year before the Indian Mutiny, my multiple great-grandfather, who was the second son, left India to seek his fortune in Africa.

"He linked up with a British expedition looking for the source of the Nile and wound up in the northern part of what today is Uganda, establishing a trading post there. He made a go of it, but this is where the family history gets interesting."

"How so?" I asked, sipping some wine.

"After he'd been there about three years, he sent a letter back home, asking his parents to find him a bride. When a year went by with no reply, he grew tired of waiting and took a woman from the Acholi tribe to wife. By the time his parents finally arranged a marriage with a Sikh girl and sent her out to him, his Acholi wife had given him two children and died of cholera. His Sikh wife adopted the kids and raised them as her own. The family has daguerreotypes from that period. My greats standing with six kids sitting in front of them, four Punjabis plus a boy and a girl who look just like their father but pitch black.

"More Sikhs followed my pioneering ancestor, and a Sikh presence grew up in that part of Uganda, with the Sikhs gradually coming to dominate trade in the whole country. My family stayed there, and the family photo albums mostly show typical folk from the north of India - but every once in awhile, the black Acholi skin pops up along with the fine straight hair that goes with it in my family."

"Is it a shock when that happens?" Jen frowned, but answered the question.

"More of an embarrassment than a shock, given the family history." She speared a mushroom cap and ate it, then continued.

"My family were 'Ugandan Sikhs,' completely assimilated into Ugandan life, loyal subjects of the British Crown and then of the Kampala government after Independence. Uganda had been our home for more than a century, after all. Then in 1972, Idi Amin expelled all Asians from Uganda, including the Sikhs. Most went 'home' to India, and some emigrated to England, but Grandfather chose to go to America. He'd read reports of the way the Ugandan Sikhs were being treated in India and Britain, and thought we'd do better in the United States. So, he brought Grandmother here and started over, building a new business. It's what we do. They became naturalized Americans. I'm second generation American-born.

"Sikhs are a rarity even in the cities here, and most look like the people they showed in Bend It Like Beckham. It's a small community even on the national level. So when I was born a hubshi I was not seen as a freak, but a novelty. Then I hit puberty and wound up fashion-model tall, with a figure straight out of some dreamgirl fantasy website. That was enough to scare off every Sikh male, boy or man, that I met.

"I went to college down here instead of in a northern city because a study I read indicated there were lots of tall guys here. But they don't suit me - or rather, I don't suit them. Dating and hookups, sure. But relationships or marriage ... not so much. They're either self-involved, only after sex, or looking for an air-headed piece of fluff who will flatter them worshipfully while being arm-candy. I don't like boys who have all the maturity and brains of a butterfly. I'm looking for a man, not a boy no matter what age he might be. Maturity is intensely attractive to me.

"Being a man and white - white? Try 'fresh fallen snow!' - you have no idea what it's like to be a dark-skinned woman. You wouldn't think it, but even among blacks the men have been brainwashed to prefer light-skinned African-American women. Same thing with the few Sikh men I've dated. Whether they're aware of it or not, they still feel inferior to the gora-log from the days of the Raj. You even saw it in old Hollywood movies like The Rains of Ranchipur, where a brown-skinned doctor, the heir of the local Maharani, was in love with a pale white British woman!

"All the young Sikh men are looking for skinny, pale-skinned, black-haired, black-eyed Barbie dolls, or at least light brown bimbos. It proves their virility or something. As a group they think of dark-skinned women as inferior, useful only as breeders. They see dating a dark-skinned girl, never mind establishing a relationship with one, as settling for a sooty ho because they can't do any better. I'll be damned if I'll put up with that!

"And white guys are no better. They see women like me as exotic, novel, someone to impress their friends with how 'woke' they are, how open-minded, blah blah blah. But all they really want to do is nail me so they to put a check mark on a list of life goals: Fuck an exotic-looking, non-European woman. They can go to hell too!"

She fell silent as she chased the last bite of steak around her plate, stabbing it with more emphasis than it really deserved. I motioned the waitress over and inquired about dessert. Crème brûlée sounded both good and innocuous to me; Jen held up two fingers to indicate that was fine with her. By the time dessert was served, her equilibrium was back to normal. A couple of bites restored her normally sweet nature, and I felt confident enough to ask some questions of my own.

"I find it hard to believe a woman as stunning as you does not have a string of men beating your door down begging for dates. It's really that tough out there?"

"For a Sikh woman in a Protestant part of the country with my skin color and height, it certainly is. I forgot to mention guys who are shorter than me are so intimidated by my height and figure that they won't come near me, be they white, black, Hindu, Asian, Sikh, or Christian. This is the first date I've had in six months."

"We're going to have to do something about that. But first, let's talk about that temple dancer necklace you've been dreaming about. I've thought of a way you may be able to get it."

"I can't afford to buy it - " she began. I cut her off.

"Not with money," I agreed. "But there are other ways."

Jen looked as if I'd slapped her. "You expect me to whore myself for a necklace?"

"That isn't what I meant at all! What I meant is I buy silver as well as sell it. You told me once you love sterling silver. I bet you have a lot of jewelry you have outgrown, things you wore in high school or college that you think are too young for you now, or presents you were given that you never wear. Maybe you have some old serving pieces, demitasse spoons, silver coins, things like that. Am I right?"

"Yes."

"All right, then. Go home tonight and go through your jewelry drawers, shelves, and treasure chest. Set aside anything that no longer brings you joy, and any flatware, goblets, a tea service, serving pieces, salt and pepper sets, whatever, that you're willing to part with. I'll come over tomorrow with my scale and my phone so I can check prices. We'll find out what your stuff is worth based on the spot price of silver, what coins fetch on the collector market, the rarity and purity of serving pieces, things like that. We see how close to the purchase price that gets you. If you can come up with the balance in cash, the necklace is yours. Does that suit you?"