More than the Taj Mahal

I wheeled my suitcase out of the New Delhi Oberoi Hotel, numb from a three-day international conference on Sino-Indian border disputes and more than ready for the three days of letting down and experiencing that I'd added on to my itinerary. I was checked out of the Oberoi, though, as nice as it was. I didn't want any of my hoped-for experiencing to be mixed in with meeting any of the people who'd attended the conference with me. I was following the whispered directions of Horace, a guy I'd met at a Hindu meditation retreat I'd gone on as a lark and as an experience in my South Asian studies.

I had thought the meditation stuff was a bunch of malarkey, but for some reason I'd hit it off with Horace, a somewhat oversized black guy who said he thought his father was from Mumbai, what was formerly Bombay, and his mother, from the Bronx, but he couldn't be sure. Horace and I couldn't have been more different, other than we were both gay and had an interest in things South Asian. We shouldn't have gotten on, especially since Horace wanted to make me and made no bones about it, but we did. I would have liked to give him what he wanted--I'd seen that he was hung and I liked big cocks. But I just couldn't.

Horace was old--nearly fifty to my thirty-five and he was no beauty and was pudgy and soft. I went with men younger than I was, who were good-looking, muscular, and fit. I didn't have any trouble attracting the attractive young guys. And Horace was black. I was a blue-eyed, fit, white Midwesterner, recently out of the army as a South Asia intel officer and now teaching those studies at New York University. Horace was leader of some sort of Hindu center in the Bronx, who had been on a busman's holiday in the mediation retreat we'd both attended.

He was a glib talker and charismatic and there must have been something in what he did with a guy, because all of the other gay men went with him in the retreat and walked around dreamy eyed afterward. But there just was too much about him that didn't turn me on, so I hadn't. That hadn't kept us from becoming friends or him from trying to make me. He'd kept saying you couldn't judge a book by its cover and that sort of thing and that there were mysteries of the East and of Hindu sexual techniques, in particular, that I was missing.

When this conference came up, he got on my case, pressing me to try out Indian men while I was in New Delhi and to look past the window dressing and go for men who could give me the experience of the technique--he called it the male Kama Sutra. It's the exotic nature of the fuck, he said. Any man with the right technique can send you to heaven.

"It doesn't have to be me to begin with," he said. "You can easily find it in New Delhi. They are experts in the exotic techniques there." Then he gave me some pointers on what to look for and urged me to be open to it.

"Come back to me having experienced the techniques of the East without being influenced by external beauty," he said. "You don't know what you're missing."

That "you don't know what you're missing" resonated in my mind all the time I was flying from New York to India. I wasn't getting any younger. I was fighting the battle of body maintenance. At some time in the not-so-far-distant future, younger, beautiful men would not want to cover me anymore. This was my chance to give what Horace had been saying a chance.

One of the older men who had probably been stunning when he was younger but who now showed his age mentioned the "getting older" part to me when I noticed him coming out of Horace's room smiling and humming. As old as he was, he was a lot better looking than Horace was and I thought could do better--but he'd obviously been satisfied by Horace.

So, I had booked three days' stay in India beyond the conference I had attended.

Per Horace's suggestion, I wheeled my suitcase past the rank of hotel cars in front of the Oberoi and around the block where there was another line of beat-up old cars of the independent cab drivers. Most of the drivers were out of their cabs and congregating by one, leaning into the taxi's fenders--perhaps the only manner in which the fender was remaining on the car--smoking and jawing with each other.

Immediately forgetting what Horace had counseled, I picked out my driver by the look of him, not with any reference to the estimation of the endurance of his vehicle. The guy I picked--he couldn't have been more than twenty, but I knew enough about India not to ask if he had a license or even that he was permitted to drive his cab--was a beautiful, slender, berry-brown young man with a dazzling smile and an unruly head of jet-black hair, with a couple of locks dipping down over his sparkling, jet-black eyes. My first thought was to wonder if he was a top. My second one was to remind myself that this was exactly what I had been advised not to look for.

"Look at the hands," Horace had said. "And, yes, look at the crotch if you must. But look into the man's interior, past the flash of the exterior." Then, when I'd given him a blank look, he had said something about a meditative Hindu would know what to look for and how to do it and, giving a sigh, had changed the subject. But he returned to it with, "You'll be in India. For the time you are there try to be India. Go for the touch of the hands, not what is pleasing to the eye."

In this instance, that was too late, though. The young man had seen me pick him out with my eyes.

"Taxi, mister? I take you anywhere you want to go. Cheap. Fast."

Ah, good, I thought, he spoke understandable English. Most here spoke English as well, if not better, than I did. But they weren't all understandable by an American. It was we, the Americans, who were insular in that regard, not others in the world. Immerse yourself in India. Be India, I said to myself, pursuing that as a mantra.

"Yes, please," said, and I hardly had the words out before he had the trunk of his taxi open and my suitcase stowed away. The trunk lid came down, and there it was. I was his captive now. From the look of him, I think I could live with being his captive.

"Enter, handsome sir," he said, opening the rear door of the cab. I got the impression that he was the one who would have to open it--that I couldn't have figured out how to get it open as beat up as it was on the outside. "I take you to the Meena Bazaar, yes? Very good tail there, sir. All of the most beautiful young girls."

"Take me to the LaLit Hotel, on Connaught Place, please," I said. The Oberoi was a five-star hotel, but so was the LaLit. The difference, other than I needed a change of venue for the experiences I hoped to have, was that the LaLit was a gay-owned hotel, with a gay bar and nightclub in it. It was another recommendation by Horace. "Do you know where that is?"

"Yes, of course," the young man said, giving me a fresh assessment look that told me that he, indeed, knew where and what the LaLit was. "My name is Sahil," he added. "How long will you be in Delhi?"

"Three more days," I said, after I'd gotten inside the cab. It was cramped for an American, especially one who worked out and maintained a muscular body as I did, striving to hang onto some semblance of youth and fitness into my thirty-fifth year. But the inside of the taxi wasn't the shambles that the outside was, which had more the aspect of bumper cars than conveyance.

Once Sahil got in the front seat, I saw him turn a photograph around on his sun visor. It had been a pinup of a busty South Asian woman in just a bikini bottom. It was turned to a beefy guy in just a bikini bottom. I found that amusing. The driver obviously adjusted to his assessment of his fare. At least there wasn't any trouble in establishing my interest here. I wouldn't have to listen to any hard sell on finding a "woman." And there wasn't, I was sure, a better place for a foreigner in India to start hooking up with a man than the hotel he already was taking me to. At least that was what Horace had advised. Of course, I didn't see any reason why he should have decided right off the bat that I was on the hunt. I was, but I didn't see that I was conveying that.

"Three days. You stay with Sahil then. I know all of the places. You want a man--European man or Indian man? I know the best, the most handsome men of Delhi, both top and bottom. You English or American?"

"American," I said. "Just the hotel, thank you." He'd cut right to the chase. Had he caught on to me from the hotel reference, or was he able to assess that I was hunting for a man from the look of me and the look I'd given him when I picked him out from the rest of those leaning on the taxi? Was he gay too?

Was it a handsome man I wanted? No, certainly not a man handsome on the outside, having come this far and been primed by Horace. I could get a man in New York--I had gotten men in New York before Horace started encouraging me to branch out with my fetishes. No, I wouldn't say and I didn't want to even think it, but what I wanted was a master of Hindu sexual techniques no matter his own physical attributes. What had Horace called it--the male Kama Sutra?

Horace had said that most men who mastered the technique did so because they were lacking in the physical attributes they couldn't do much about. I knew he'd said that because he wanted to make me himself and he was not a great physical specimen.

Still, the other men at the retreat... they'd gone with Horace and had come back staggering and fully satisfied. I had to struggle to overcome my prejudices.

"You want young guy?" he asked, persistent, and when I didn't answer that from the backseat, he said, a bit under his breath, "or a dog?"

"No, not an animal of any kind," I said, quite hurriedly. "Just the hotel, please."

And then we were there. It wasn't that long a drive from the Oberoi to the LaLit, even in the godawful traffic of this South Asian city. I handed over appreciably more money than Sahil told me the ride cost. He smiled and said, "I will stay nearby. I will take you wherever you want to go. I will show you a good time and make sure that no one cheats you. No questions, no worries. Sahil is your man. You want instruction on the male Kama Sutra? Sahil's your man."

Now, how had he known--or guessed--that that was exactly what I was looking for?

My natural gut instinct was to let Sahil be my man, but that would negate what I'd extended my stay in India to pursue. Horace had been quite explicit about India being my opportunity.

I got out of the cab, and stood in a crowd of men of various ages clutching at me and begging to be of service or to receive money while Sahil retrieved my suitcase, and then I followed him into the hotel lobby, as he refused to give up on connecting with me.

Setting my suitcase down by the reception desk, he murmured to me, "But perhaps you aren't interested in the male Kama Sutra or you don't know what it is."

Telling myself I didn't have time to be coy about this, I answered, "Yes, Sahil, I have heard about it and am interested in it."

He beamed at me. "As I said, I will be nearby for when you need a guide."

* * * *

The LaLit Hotel unabashedly hosted a gay bar and strip club, Kitty Su, which I went to that evening. The place was crowded and I got a lot of attention. There weren't that many non-Indians in the place that evening. I wasn't really in tune with cruising bars, though, so I drifted around with a drink in hand and smiled at those who smiled at me. I danced a bit on the dance floor with other men, some of them quite attractive--too many of them attractive for what I was looking for--drifting in and out to move with me, often suggestively so. The club had several rooms, which became more intimate as you moved through them to the club's inner sanctum. As the evening progressed, I moved into the core of the place. I was looking for someone who I thought Horace wanted me to hook up with, but, unsurprisingly, the clientele just wasn't anything like Horace. The hotel and this bar obviously were where the cream of the gay crop in India congregated. I had to believe that Horace wanted me to hook up with and melt to someone like him so that I would return to New York and give myself to him.

I eventually reached the inner sanctum of the club, where thong-clad young men languidly danced the poles and came off the stage from time to time to give a lap dance here and there. The strippers were young and willowy and tasked my resolve to look for something different.

It was my fortunate to receive such a lap dance--and from a small, beautifully formed young guy who looked to be in his late teens. It was a form of heaven. It also was a form of torture. I'd never been in such a position before. The stripper came right down off the stage, with a spotlight following him, and crouched over my lap, rubbing his thong pouch against my crotch, with all of the men around us egging him on. Most embarrassing is that I looked over toward the doors to the kitchen area off the room and saw that the taxi driver, Sahil, was standing there, in the doorway, and grinning at me.

The situation, the rawness and the arousal and unfamiliarity of it--added to the fantasy I had about the whole fetish thing when I came to India--got the best of me, and, before the dancer laughed and danced his way back on stage, I creamed myself in my briefs. It was like I was a silly youngster again with some sort of wet dream.

As soon as I could gracefully withdraw, I did so. In the lobby of the hotel, I found Sahil, still grinning, standing between me and the bank of elevators.

"Come with me," he said. "I will take you where you can live your fantasies."

Sahil had no idea what my fantasies were--what I was looking for in this visit. I had little idea myself what I was looking for. I hadn't made the "be India" connection that Horace had. "No... thank you, Sahil," I said. "I think I've had enough for tonight. I want to do some sightseeing tomorrow--the Red Fort and maybe go to Agra for the Taj Mahal--and I really should get some sleep."

What I really needed to do was to go to my room, get out of these sticky briefs I'd come in, take a shower, and regroup on why I thought I was here trying to have sexual experiences I'd never had before. Was I too old for this? Was thirty-five over the hill? Was something wrong with me to be turned on by the desire to have sex with beautiful men younger than I was? I bet the stripper in the Kitty Su was less than half my age. But then he didn't look like a top, so I'd managed to resist him.

I had had responded to another young man on the dance floor, making the mistake of asking--as if in amusement, but I really wanting to know--why he was interested in me. "Is it because I'm American and may be rich," I'd asked.

"It's because you are American, may be rich, and are handsome in the turning age."

"The turning age?" I asked.

"The age where you no longer are a young man but are still handsome enough to make a man hard and will be more grateful than a younger man to be given the attention."

That stung, but I had asked for it, and I think he'd probably nailed the stage of life I was in and that I was following Horace's directions at all.

"Yes, well, tomorrow I'll be back at 9:30 in the morning to take you to the Red Fort," Sahil said. "We are very close to it here--and I will take you to Agra and Taj Mahal. And I'll take you to so much more in Agra. I know what you want. I know what you want to do."

I started to say that wasn't what I meant. I wasn't engaging his sightseeing services for the next day any more than I wanted to hire him to take me cruising tonight. Well, I did, but I was all mixed up, and I'd creamed my shorts... and this just wasn't working out as I imagined.

Then I did blurt out. "Do you really know what I want, Sahil? Do you know what I'm looking for? I don't fully know myself. I certainly don't know how to find it."

"I think you are looking for what will touch you and move you at the core," Sahil said. "And I think that Sahil can help you find it. You are interested in the Kama Sutra."

"Why do you think that is, Sahil? Is it because I am of the turning age." I wondered what he would know of that.

"Yes, sir, I think it is because you are of the turning age but are still to be highly satisfied--both you and your teacher--by experiencing the Kama Sutra."

I knew it then. What I wanted was to feel fulfilled and look like I was as those men did who left being covered by Horace at the retreat. I wanted Horace. That's why I had remained friends with him. I just couldn't accept that he wasn't as beautiful on the surface as the men I went with. I wanted to tell Sahil that and ask him if he really could help me find that--if he could make me be part of India, the part below the surface that touched me to the quick. I couldn't say any of that, though, because as soon as Sahil had said he'd take me sightseeing the next day and that he'd help me find what I wanted, he'd turned and was gone. I hesitated, intending to go after him and tell him I didn't want his help, but just then the elevator arrived, and, sighing, I boarded it.

* * * *

Upstairs, in my room, I stripped down and took a shower. After drying off, I put on the terrycloth robe I found hanging on the back of the bathroom door--nothing else--and went into the bedroom, sat at the foot of the bed, and fiddled with the TV on the wall opposite that. This being a gay-owned hotel, with a gay nightclub in it, I wasn't surprised to find a couple of TV channels with gay male porn films running. I'd found packets of condoms and tubes of lube in the nightstand too. When I did, I wondered if they charged for the use of those and, if so, how much? I did find they were listed on the beverage charge list, and my eyebrows went up at what they cost. Of course, this was a five-star hotel even if it was in India, and it was quite a special service.

One channel I found was all South Asian guys, and I noticed that, in contrast to most of the porn I saw on the Internet in the States showing guys with great bodies, the Indian films I saw here had a mix of body styles. But it also had a mix of sex positions, many of which looked quite arousing. The word Kama Sutra kept being mentioned in connection with those films. So, this was what Horace had been suggestion.

I watched movies for a while, moving up and stretching out on the bed, with a pile of pillows under my neck and flaring the robe and stroking myself off. I didn't come, though. I kept thinking of what I hoped to indulge in by prolonging my visit in India, and it wasn't to do with what I could do on my own bed in New York City in front of my own TV running Internet porn, even though some of these films were a lot different from what I watched in New York.

That's when I remembered arriving at the hotel this afternoon. Being a well-known gay-friendly hotel and this being India, there had been swarms of men to wade through on the plaza in front of the hotel, all offering much the same services as Sahil had offered me when he picked me up at the Oberoi.

I easily could pick up one of the men down in front of the hotel. They'd all been eager to hook up. I just needed to build up the courage to go ahead and do it.

Steeling myself to get to why I had extended my stay, I rose from the bed and dressed again, in clean clothes. I took the elevator down to the lobby floor and went out in front of the hotel. Maybe there would still be men--of all types and ages--offering themselves out there, I thought.

There were as many, if not more, than there had been when I'd checked in that afternoon. And, with the coming and going of men to the Kitty Su nightclub, there was quite a brisk hook-up business going on out in the street. There were small bonfires in old, cut-down oil drums, with men sitting cross-legged around them and calling out to men leaving and entering the hotel.