Game of Cat and Mouse

Babu sat up. An idea that might work flashed upon him. He considered it from every angle. He found no flaw. Like all good solutions it was simple. It was based on the age-old barter principle. He worked on it and after two days got it all down on paper. He read the note with hope more than satisfaction. He waited for an opportunity to spring it on his unsuspecting spouse. He got his chance the next day itself.

* * *

Babu problem was as old as mankind, and its cause as old as womankind—his wife's determination to thwart him when he wanted to have sex. Babu's sixth-ninth birthday was seven days away and early signs that his tap would soon run dry were evident. He was desperate to squeeze as much as possible in the time remaining, but his wife obstructed at every step. Even at this age Babu believed he was capable of delivering three orgasms, but alas, not always. There was a time less than a decade ago when he had just to click his thumb and a masterful hard-on would appear. Nowadays it was becoming more difficult to prime himself to the task. And to his eternal sorrow there were occasions, sadly not few, when he had to abort the show half way owing to instrument failure. Even more poignant, at times it refused in spite of wicked and wickeder fantasying, to rise to the occasion.

He tried various solutions, but with little success. Blue films as a source of stimulation were disappointing. From the moment the titles display was over men and women were doing it incessantly to the sound of moaning. These men seemed to hold on interminably, and Babu had a strong suspicion that either they were using surface anaesthetics, or their organs were rubber attachments. After a few minutes he was so bored that he stopped the show. He wished these producers would take scripts like those he had in his mind where the story reinforced the sex scenes, and the sex theme complemented the story.

He tried erotic literature, but he found them inferior to his fantasies. Erotic images were better, but not significantly so. He downloaded images of many attractive women in various stages of disattire from the Internet and had them secreted in a sub-sub folder. It did not take much to imagine the snorting and sneering that would ensue if his wife (whose computer savvy did not extend beyond receiving and sending emails) were to click on these files accidentally. When his wife was away on one of her many social service activities he spent a lot of time classifying these photos under various subheadings. Very imaginative were the titles: 'Hills and Dales' was one, 'Allure' was another, 'Cornucopia' was yet another, and then there was on called 'Mewing'. No prizes however are offered for guessing the subject matter of this last mentioned file. In spite of all the pleasure he got out of his computer he graded it only slightly higher than erotic literature.

What then was it that really turned him on? This where his wife came in. What he needed was something simple, something homely, something quite readily attainable, and something absolutely in the rules book—the sight of his dear wife Mona going about her tasks in the house in the nude in undimmed light conditions. Was this an unreasonable demand? With doors closed and curtains drawn of course. But Mona never obliged. 'I am not a harlot,' she said and that was that. Babu groaned. He wished he knew enough of Sanskrit to quote the poem that defined a perfect wife so succinctly. It said that a perfect wife is one who is as patient as Mother Earth, as beautiful as the goddess Lakshmi, as wise as a minister, and as pleasing to her husband as a courtesan.

Mona was ten years his junior. She was attractive, and when she had dyed her hair she did not appear a day older than fifty. She was lively, and had the impishness of a teenager. She was friendly and outgoing and popular with men and women, old, and young, and when in the mood quite flirtatious. At home however she chose to wear the cap of a prude.

"Spontaneity, Mona, that what arouses me," he often told her. "From time to time you must take the initiative the way I do. Cuddle me when I act as if I am having a headache, and by various physical enticements like undressing, lying naked on me, rubbing me wherever you choose with your pussy and so on and so forth make me do it." She either pretended as if she heard him not or counterattacked.

"You seem to be forgetting that we are now grandparents. Merely because we live alone we cannot behave like honeymooners." Then will come the punch line. "I wish you had shown this same enthusiasm when we were young." This was her King of trumps. It hurt. Babu knew and Mona knew, and Mona knew that Babu knew that she knew that when he was young Babu was a veritable tiger when it came to sex. But how to refute such a blatant misstatement? Babu fumed and fretted and the female Machiavelli, having done the mischief, disappeared into the kitchen, but not before playing the ace: "When I was spontaneous in those days you were shocked."

The painful thing was that she knew exactly what he desired. On those rare days when she was hot she did what she had to do to get her needs fulfilled. How to get her hot? Therein lay the secret to eternal happiness. Her mind was constantly on other things. First there was this whirl of social activity she was involved in, called charity work, but really gossip sessions. Then there was this habit of her to allow the trivial problems involved in running the house to divert her. At times in the afternoon, when in a placid mood, Mona allowed Babu to rub his cheeks against her arm. Some fondling followed, and just when Babu hopefully prepared for a soft transition into the next phase the wheels would come off.

"Babu, you must call the Water Works engineer and tell him to increase the pressure in our mains." And that was the end of Babu's plans for the afternoon.

* * *

The idea came to Babu quite suddenly. It was a pippin. But would it work? Babu got his chance to try it a day later.

"I need a pair of broad Kerala type gold bangles," said Mona one evening after they had had tea. Babu was at the computer playing the Hearts game.

"Rather ostentatious designs, aren't they? You never fancied them."

"It has suddenly come into fashion. All my friends have it." That of course was reason enough.

"Certainly," he said. "I must check if you have earned the points."

"I don't get you," she said. "What points and who earns it. Are you OK?"

"I have instituted the barter system in our day to day life," I said. "Not for food, clothing and the like, but for essential luxuries. Your bangles come in that category. If I want to upgrade my computer for example you allow it only if I had earned points."

"Babu, are you OK."

"Of course I am."

"Then why are you blabbering?"

"I am talking pure sense Mona. This is a super idea. It is the greatest thing that ever happened to the institution of marriage."

"I'll decide about that after you have explained."

"Listen carefully. It is a bit intricate. Take my computer upgrading as an example. I just can't call my computer man and ask him say, to add memory. I will have to get your consent first, and you will give that only if I have earned enough points." Babu looked anxiously at Mona. He thought he was too abstruse. Mona waved him on.

Babu continued. "You are sore that I do not accompany you to movies you like but I do not care for. Now if I go with you to these movies I will earn points. The same goes for eating out. If you order those exotic dishes you so greatly fancy I earn more points. In other words whenever I do things you like to do with me, and I do not like to do I earn points. When I have earned enough I get my computer upgraded. Is it clear now?"

"Perfectly my darling." Mona tried to conceal the smile that was breaking out, but failed. She wanted to say something but her cheeks cracking into smiles preventing her from speaking.

"What's so funny about this?" When he broached his idea Babu was concerned that Mona will get angry and was thinking of ways to placate her. That she should be amused did not occur to him, and he did not know how to react to it.

Finally she was able to compose herself to speak.

"You have told me what you should do to earn points. Now tell me what I should do?" Mona was smiling mischievously as if she knew what Babu would come out with, and Babu knew she knew. He was silent for a while, and then as if to get it done and over he pulled out the drawer and took out the bit of paper in which he had jotted his points and handed it over to her.

"You read it for yourself," he said. She took it and studied it for a while for her husband's handwriting was barely legible.

"It appears that the only way I can earn points is with my body. Am I right?"

"More or less."

"Babu you have donated your eyes. That was a wrong thing to do."

"What has my eye donation to do with this?"

"There is a connection. The person who gets your corneas will be shocked to find that he can only see pretty girls with them. What you must donate is your brain." Mona laughed outright and continued amidst the laughter. "Next to e=mc2 this idea of yours is the most remarkable discovery made by man."

"I think the cornea joke is in poor taste Mona," said Babu, but she did not seem to be listening. She was holding her sides in laughter. She recovered after a while.

"It appears that I earn points from doing the seven veils dance. If the cornea joke is in bad taste your idea is obscene. Five points for this. Reasonable. Ten points, rather meagre for the purpose you have mentioned. Fifteen points-well OK I should say. Eh! What's this? A whopper, fifty points. You have not said what I have to do to earn fifty points. I can read just one word 'That'"

"That's all. Just 'that'."

"An acronym?"

"No, 'That'"

"'That'?"

"Yes."

"O 'that'."

"Yes," said Babu. Mona looked at her husband from top to toe.

"Considering your nerve I think it is a better idea Babu if instead of just the brain you donate the whole of your nervous system to science." She paused. "You rest your case?"

"I do," said Babu.

"Judgement reserved," she said and left to get supper ready. Babu was nonplussed. He somehow had become the accused and Mona the jury and judge. Mona did not refer to the incident again that day or the next. She was busy shopping. Babu knew it was to buy him a gift for his birthday that she was going often to the shops. Mona derived great joy in choosing gifts for her near and dear, and she spent long hours browsing in malls for that.

* * *

"Babu," said Mona softly shaking him gently by the shoulder. Babu opened his eyes and blinked. "Happy birthday, darling and many happy returns of the day." She hugged him and kissed him on the lips. She lay on him and caressed his cheeks, his nose and gently tweaked his ears. Babu lay relaxed like a cat fussed on by its mistress. He did not purr though. She fished under the cot and pulled out a gift-wrapped box. She watched anxiously as Babu undid the wrapping.

"Scrabble CD, the latest version," said the delighted Babu. "How did you know I was wanting it?"

"That's a wife's business isn't it to know what her lord and master wants, said Mona, "though this wife will only let him have them in amounts that are good for him." She laughed, a gentle tinkle, and showered a cascade of kisses all over his face. "Now get up and brush your teeth shave and have your bath; there is more, much more, much much more waiting for you."

Babu had hardly settled on his cane chair after his bath when Mona came with a tray of his favourite plum cake, hot vadai and coffee. She pulled a stool and sat in front watching him eat. She loved watching him eat her special offerings.

"You rest," she said and went for her bath. Babu's seventy-year-old heart (He was 69 but his heart was beating before he was born.) started fluttering. Surely when Mona said there was more, a lot more for him she must have meant the treat that was shortly to follow. She gave it on every one of his birthdays, but Babu was a bit worried that this barter plan of his might have put Mona off her ever-fickle moods. Babu hoped for the best. He checked that the door and made sure that the curtains were all drawn, and waited like a hunter in his hide.

"Babu." Mona's head peeped out of the partly open bathroom door. "Is the door closed? I have forgotten to take my clothes and towel." She waited not for Babu's reply. She was out of the bathroom in her birthday suit, wet and dripping. Babu's lower jaw dropped, not a husband's normal reaction to see his wife in the nude, but his case was different. He did not move but drank in the sight as she in a leisurely manner rummaged through the chest of drawers to collect a towel. She turned round facing him and wiped herself part by part. She picked up a skirt and a sari and then apparently not satisfied she put them back and took another.

Babu watched with eyes goggling. He admired those folds round her waist, those wide hips, the smooth rounded buttocks and the splendid pair of pendulous breasts. The thighs were not as smooth as peeled banana-trunk stems they once were but still it had the capacity to 'take his breath away'. Babu's focus however was on the darker brown of the marble smooth mound of her pussy shiny after a fresh shave, and at the slit on the slope of that mound—a thin line unflawed by leafy protrusions. In Babu's reckoning it was the perfect pussy. In Babu's eyes she was female beauty at its very best.

Mona replaced the clothes in the drawer and turned and faced him full; their eyes met. She smiled totally unselfconsciously. She came towards him and lent forwards with her hands resting on the back of his chair. She moved the tits of her swaying breasts towards his lips. Babu parted his lips ready to catch them. In his excitement he mistimed several passes but when he did succeed he grasped one and feverishly worked on it. Mona lay in him holding the breasts as if she was feeding her baby. They moved to the bed.

"Except 'that' Mr. President," she said and giggled.

"Except 'that'," agreed Babu. He used his lips, his tongue and even his nose to stimulate her sensitive nipples, first one and then the other. She pushed his head down and she spread her legs and gently caressed his cheeks with her thighs. She worked her fingertips of his scalp as he stimulated her. She trembled as he worked to a crescendo and then he slowed, stoking slowly and rhythmically waiting for the floodgates to burst open. That duly happened, and she trembled and moaned as her energy cascaded in waves.

"Fuck me Babu darling," she screamed. Her husband liked her to demand so loudly that the neighbour can hear. "Fuck me." As he ejaculated she had her first orgasm. Wait she said, and she waved him on for a second, and than a third.

"One more," he said. She giggled.

"Your banana cock has become a chilly pod, and has slipped out." This time she laughed. They lay exhausted savouring the pleasure in silence. After a long while she spoke.

"I must have earned a lot of bonus points," she said.

"Plenty. Worth a pair of the best bangles."

"Rather ostentatious, aren't they, those bangles?"

"Undoubtedly."

"Aren't diamond studs better?"

"Yes, better." They lay in cosy warmth for a long while. She left to prepare the special birthday lunch. Babu lay on as contented as a cat that had spent the night of its life on the tiles. He moaned with pleasure. The groaning would come later.