Lovers on Tap

BALARAM'S TALE OF WOE

As the husband I did not quite relish listening to my wife flirting with her friend Dharman. Her bashful, tinkling laughter was especially painful. Equally painful was the tender intonation with which she pronounced the word Dharm, more often than was strictly necessary. I was not eves dropping. The phone in the passage was easily audible from my room, and Monica was not trying to be secretive. I closed the file before me; emotions jostling within me made concentration impossible. Has Monica launched into an affair?

The telephone conversation finally ended. It had lasted almost an hour. I was not timing it. It so happened that the clock was striking the hour when the phone rang, and it struck again soon after the call ended.

Monica went for her bath which today lasted much longer than usual. It was close to twelve when she came out of the dressing room looking fresh and lovely in a blue voile sari slung low down her waist with scanty sleeveless blouse that left most of her abdomen bare. Sexy was the word to describe her. She was ready for an outing. I did not enquire where she was going, but before she left she told me to tell callers that she would be back after 'two or maybe three hours'.

"You may take the car. I'll take an auto," I said.

"I am going by a cab anyway," she replied. I went on with my files, but found it impossible to concentrate.

Is she going to meet this Dharman? And if so was she having an affair? Must be, otherwise why is she going by cab? She certainly cannot park her car in front of his house. Yes, they are taking their relationship to the next stage. Monica was not dressed for shopping or even for a party. In fact I have never seen her dressed so daringly. An affair; there was no doubt about it at all.

My heart was racing and my hands were clammy. I was not angry, and I was not annoyed, but was I excited? Excited when I should have been raging.

At two I left for the library and returned at a quarter to four without doing any useful work. Monica had not returned. It was nearly four hours since she had left. I prepared some coffee and was sipping it when I heard a cab stop in front of the house.

The bell rang. I opened the door. Monica was standing on the mat as fresh and as lovely as she was when she left, but now she was a bit cross-eyed. A smile partly loving and partly mischievous was playing about her lips.

"Had a nice time?"

"Hmm. Very much so."

"You seem uncertain."

"Well I am."

"You could give me a chance to judge."

"Well it is not a matter that I can possibly present to you for judgment. I am in a hurry for a bath."

"Bath again? You had been to the gym?"

"No."

"Swim?"

"No."

"Table tennis?"

"No." Monica went past me looking away as if she did not want any more questions.

2

There was nothing odd about my behaviour. When an impotent man suspects that his wife is having an affair his response has to be subdued. My marriage of eleven months was unconsummated. I was aware that I had a problem even when I was in school. I had early morning erections, but when my schoolmates talked about masturbation I did not know what it was all about. By the time I was in college the early morning erections had ceased. I did not have the desire for sex that so harassed my friends. I found various excuses to put off marriage, but eventually had to yield to parental pressure. I was 34 and Monica was nine years younger.

Even though I knew my problem was not at the penile level I swallowed a dose of Viagra on my nuptial night. Monica came into the room dressed in a nightie made out of thin material. She offered milk. I took a mouthful and as per costume offered it back to her, and she took a sip and returned it to me. I hugged her and then I kissed her. I had a faint hope that confronted with a real woman my penis, which had not had that experience in recent years, would rise up. It did not.

We sat on the sofa. Monica, to my terror, had none of the shyness women were supposed to have on their first night. She held my hand and rubbed her cheek on my arm. She must have left the zip on the back on her nightie deliberately loose for her dress had slipped down displaying most of her breasts.

I moved to the cot and yawned. I avoided eye contact with Monica as she lay by my side. I had to take the initiative. I did not. Tired after the hectic four-hour long reception she, to my great relief, was soon asleep. I put off the light and did the same. Next morning when we were having toast and poached eggs I told Monica what she was in for.

"Monica, I have bad news for you." She looked up. "Yesterday we did not consummate our marriage. I know the reason. I could not."

"What do you mean?"

"I am impotent. I do not get penile erection."

"Never."

"When I was very young I used to get, but not now. Yesterday for the first time I was with a woman and nothing happened. The only hope I had, spluttered out." Monica did not say anything. She munched the toast with a sombre expression. The disappointment must have been acute, but she did not show it. After breakfast Monica came and sat by my side on the sofa.

"You sound like one who has given up the fight."

"Monica, for a dozen years I have been chasing a remedy. I now know that doctors know precious little about my type of condition. It is in the mind. I have tried urologists, psychiatrists, various traditional systems, and I have even been to god men. None has been able to help me even one bit."

"I am not giving up Bala, be assured of it. If it is not anatomical and physiological we can find a way.

"Good luck to us," I said.

Monica was wonderful. With the uninhibited enthusiasm of a researcher she plunged into a study of my complaint. She twiddled my organ, and she excited its owner by doing her own version of the strip tease; she invited me to play with her body. Nothing worked. She was most supportive and tender, which only increased my misery.

One evening abruptly she asked me if I had tried other women.

"No," I said.

"The books say that men sometimes can't do it to a particular woman but are quite normal with others."

"I have read of that too."

"Why don't you try?"

"With another woman?"

"Yes?"

"Where do I get another woman?"

"Sex workers." Monica spoke with some intensity.

"Of course that way I can prove to myself that I can also do it. But what's the use. I want to do it to my wife and not to anyone else."

"Quite so, but the jinx will surely break if you succeed with another woman."

"If I fail the humiliation would be a knock out blow from which I may not recover," I said. She must have seen reason in my statement for she never suggested that remedy again

"Your problem, Bala is clearly in the mind. One day that block will go and you will be OK."

"I hope so."

"Your case is simple," she said with lips grimly indrawn. "The usual stimulus of seeing a naked woman does not work for you. You need a special kind of stimulus. Once we find that the rest would be easy."

3

About nine months after the wedding we were at a party when an incident occurred that was to be of such significance in our lives. The party was at a business acquaintance's house. The host was liberal with supplies of hard drinks. I took a peg well diluted with soda. Monica had maybe much more. Others at the party, especially two young men whom Monica knew rather well for they had been her colleagues in her former work place, were close to being inebriated. Monica had the ability to be free with men without flirting, but today she was rather freer with these two men, and these young men under the influence of liquor totally lost their grip. They held her hands and they rubbed against her, and at times they hugged her in a sandwich with all three laughing boisterously the while. I was close by in a corner watching them with interest. Not just interest but also with excitement—I was sexually stimulated. I was surprised that I should be sexually aroused under circumstances that, as one understood these things, I should have been thinking of murder and mayhem. Yes, I sensed, and by touching confirmed, that I was having an erection of some size. It was happening after a long, long time.

Suddenly I was aware that even as she was having fun with her colleagues Monica was darting glances at me, and such was my preoccupation with my penis that I thought that she was aware that I was having an erection. My first impulse was to hide it, but with an effort of will I allowed the bulge to be visible for her to notice it. I had faint hopes that it was to be my night of nights, but I was to be disappointed. Preliminary skirmishing that night did not yield the desired results—my penis had gone back to sleep. It was then that I decided that I had to release Monica from the ordeal I had got her into.

A few days later after supper we were on the portico enjoying the cool evening breeze.

"Monica." She looked up. "The time has come for us to take some hard decisions."

"About what?"

"Our family life."

"What about our family life."

"There is no point in pretending that there is no problem Monica. We must recognize it and find a solution one way or the other. I am impotent, Monica, no one has been able to help me one bit. I have tried everything, but with no success. I will come to the point straightaway. I see no reason why you should suffer with me. We will part, Monica. We will part as friends. "

"You mean a divorce?"

"Annulment rather, for our marriage has not been consummated" I said. Monica smiled.

"I will also come to the point straightaway," she said quite unemotionally. "If my presence round the house is reminding you of your problem you can get rid of it by doing what you suggest."

"No, that's not the reason."

"In that case I do not see why we must part. We are friends aren't we? We have many common tastes and expect for this sex thing we are pretty much a made-for-each-other pair. Am I missing having sex? Not by much. It is something I can do without. In your researches you might have read that for women sex is not the central purpose of life. I can assure you that it is true."

"Children?"

"We will do what countless childless couples do—adopt, or maybe try therapeutic insemination, after a while though," she added hurriedly.

"I may broach this topic again some time later, but now I have to tell you one more thing. I just want you to listen, but you should not reply now or later. It might hurt your feelings, but please believe me it is not with any intention of hurting you that I'm speaking.

"You are being mysterious, Bala. Give me time to digest you instructions. I should listen and not say anything about it now or ever afterwards."

"That's correct." Monica sat pondering and then nodded.

"Ready?"

"Quite ready."

"I have no objection at all to your having discrete affairs with other men." I got up and walked swiftly away.

It was shortly after this that Dharm came into her life.

Monica and some of her friends got it into their heads to have a reunion of their schoolmates. Monica and another classmate Saritha appointed themselves as the organisers. They called those who were in the city, wrote letters to those in the districts and e-mails to those abroad. She gave me detailed account of the arrangements she was making.

"Bala we have solved the matter of hotel arrangements."

"How?"

"We are leaving it to Dharman, Saritha's brother who is a bank manager. He is such a wonderful organiser. Tomorrow we are having a meeting in which we will finalise the arrangements."

The next day Monica started on all the wonderful arrangements Dharam (Dharman no longer) was making.

"He's great. His personality is such that he only has to ask and people say yes." And so it went on, less and less about the reunion and more and more about the bank man.

"Poor Dharam," she said one day.

"In what way."

"His wife is a mental case. She is in institutions most of the time. He lives alone in a flat." Another day she was talking about his negotiating skills.

"He has got us four star rates from a five star hotel," she said. I did not see anything remarkable in that, but I held my peace in order not to disappoint her. The reunion was a thumping success and Monica in her report said that Dharam's arrangements were just about perfect.

I gradually became aware that the relationship between Monica and the bank man was not only continuing after the reunion but was growing by the day. There was hardly a day when Monica was not at the phone talking to 'Dharam'. She must be doing the calling for though I often took her calls I never had to pass on one from Dharman.

"One day he'll be the top man of his bank for the whole country. I am sure of that," she said. " When I saw the cross-eyed look of Monica as she stood on the doormat that afternoon I was inclined to agree.

MONICA'S TALE OF JOY

After my second bath of the afternoon I joined Bala in the drawing room. I had extra large size T-shirt on and nothing else. Bala could not take his eyes off me. Stranger still his body language was something more than passion—it was lust. And strangest of all I could see the bulge of his rising organ.

His eyes roving over me gave me a funny feeling. I took up a weekly magazine with an attractive scantily clad woman on the covers and pretended to read. Ever and on I darted glances at my husband who was having a newspaper in his hand, but was restlessly moving about the sofa with eyes on me rather than on the newspaper.

I stretched on the sofa allowing the T-shirt to come up to mid thigh, and then higher still. Just a bit more and my pussy would have been out when I dropped the magazine and retrieved it and lay down with the T-shirt modestly rearranged. I pretended to be absorbed in reading. I fidgeted and got the T-shirt moving up again. This time I wanted full exposure. Bala had stopped all pretence of reading. He was leaning forward with goggling eyes focussed on my crotch. I gently pulled up my T-shirt. That triggered him to action. He fell on his knees and hugged be at the hips and pressed his mouth on my pussy.

"Get off," I said. "I can't do it twice within an hour."

But Bala was not listening. He was licking wildly in frenzy.

He peeled my shirt away. He goggled momentarily at me and then he undressed to nudity. His penis was rigid. I quietly shifted to the carpet and he was on me. I inserted his penis in and embraced him with my legs.

Just when we were well set his penis started shrivelling. I had to take proper measures quickly lest it plop out for good.

"I can't do it twice within an hour," I said again.

"So you have been doing that."

"Of course I have. And such a wonderful man he is. He saw me coming and ran half way down the stairs and hugged me and kissed me there and then. My blouse and bra were off even before I entered his flat. Any neighbour walking up or down would have had a free show." Bala was stiffening again. I piled it on.

"He stripped me naked in the hall itself with the windows open. He did not seem to mind it, but to me it was positively thrilling. And then he lay me down on the dining table and he entered me. Yes, Bala he fucked your dear wife on the dining table with all the windows open. I do not know how many neighbours saw us. His maid came into the room to lay the table for dinner. She stood feasting her eyes on us as we fucked. He did it to your wife, your wife, your…"

Bala was ejaculating. We lay exhausted in each other's arms. Bala, mentally exhausted, was soon soundly asleep, but I was widely awake.

2

I crept to the phone in the next room.

"Lallu, it's I, Monica." I spoke in a hoarse whisper. I did not want Bala to hear if he should wake up.

"What happened? Did it work?"

"Perfectly Lallu, just perfectly. He blithely swallowed."

"Swallowed what?"

"You dirty creature. Swallowed the story of course. Hook, line and sinker."

"Congratulations."

"Thanks, Lallu, but I am not happy cheating him. His eyes when he opened the door on my return were so full of sadness that I feel I have been a beast. He's such a gentleman Lallu. When he permitted me to have affairs he really meant it. He stands by it, but there is a sadness."

"Moni it's all make-believe. It's pretending. There really is no man."

"True Lallu, but he thinks there is and that's what matters."

"Don't tell me you want to confess."

"Not that Lallu, but I feel I shouldn't be cheating him though it is only pretend cheating. But from now on will he be normal?"

'No way Monica. The thought that you have just been in another man's arms is what arouses him."

"Masochism, you say."

"Yes, in its purest form. The more you humiliate the stiffer it would become."

"Must I go through the whole drama every time?"

"More or less, Monica. You have to use your imagination and vary the theme though. Dharam may not do the trick the next time. You may need another man. Next time…"

"So funny that he should be so Lallu," cut in Monica for it was not a topic she found interesting. But Lallu found it so fascinating that she continued. Her imagination had taken wings.

"One day you can say you went swimming with your friend and coupled in the water, and another day it can be an excursion when you lay in a corner of the lawn and coupled. If you find him not aroused enough for your liking you can think of wickeder situations like orgies, and wife swapping, and MFM sandwiches. Oh! I envy you Monica. You have just to get it all in script and rehearse to perfection. I wish I had so many lovers on tap.

"Cheat him every time I want to make love? Rather hard one me isn't Lallu?"

"You are lucky Monica. There are men who will be aroused only when they actually see their woman making love to another man. Be thankful your man is not that. Hey wait, why thankful; that would be fun too."

"Lallu, you are the absolute limit."

"Whenever you feel like having sex rub the lamp and summon your genie, whatever his name is at that time. Almost all women in your position resign themselves to their fate, but you observed sexual excitement in him while flirting in a party and when you told me I got this idea and it has worked. But was it a contrived flirtation?"

"No Lallu. I had taken more liquor than usual and I was flirting shamelessly. Maybe lack of sex was an added factor. What I was doing with those two men was quite awful."

"Anyway good has come out of it."

"Indeed it has. Thanks to you. More than you it is your dirty mind that got this idea. Thanks to it. But I still think I am cheating him."

"Then happy cheating, Monica."

"You know he is so innocent, so open. He's lying on the carpet sleeping like a baby. I feel like cuddling him."

"Lusty girl. You are angling for another'

"I am, Lallu. I have some catching up to do." She laughed bashfully, the laughter of a girl in the thick of her honeymoon.

But it was not to be, that day anyway. Free for the first time in decades of the rodent gnawing at his heart Bala was in a deep sleep. Monica lay by his side and hugging him she wriggled to fit her curves into his. Soon she was asleep too.