What Price Virginity?

"My cup is full, Karthi," she said sadly.

"Sorry mother. I have no intention of saving up for the man I marry," she said. "He certainly would have no more thought of my feelings than Dad has for yours." She went in without waiting for her mother's reply.

The next month was idyllic for Karthi. Bean came every day with no opposition from Karthi's Mom. She taught him all she had learned during her days when she was, unknown to herself, a pornographic starlet. Bean was not a fancier of the' both-can-view-TV' posture, or the woman straddling posture. He, being conservative, liked what the missionaries advocated as holy. At the end of the month Bean left for Chandigarh for study in the Central University. Karthi made no fuss at the parting. She joined a course in journalism. The course included the study of French and it was with the French tutor that she fell in love. He proposed, something her previous lovers had not done, and she accepted.

On the morning of the wedding Karthi examined herself in the mirror in the dressing room. Her breasts sagged for she enjoyed fondling, and always invited the two men of her life to play with her breasts. Her nipples were not pretty—large and rough like shell of peanuts. They were very sensitive and she liked men to suck them. She wondered if her husband knew the signs that a woman was not a virgin. She worried that if he takes exception to it their married life may not be a happy one. In the event if he had noticed her sagging breasts and swollen nipples he took no cognisance of it, and though he did not suck her on the first night he did later without any guidance from her. Theirs was a happy married life. After three years they had a daughter.

One day about seven years after the marriage Karthi was cleaning up the attic when she came across a bundle of diaries of her husband. He was an indefatigable diary writer. She pulled out volume of the year they got married. He wrote in French, which Karthi, even with her indifferent French, could make out. She came straight to their months of love and marriage. Mukund had made flattering notes about her. It started soon after she joined the course even before she knew him well, and continued in the same tone. She quickly turned to the page of their nuptial. She read:

'My nuptial day is one of disappointment. Well, not quite a disappointment, surprise rather. I had expected a virginal flower—it was not. When I undid the bra two shapely breasts fell out. They sagged with swollen but not pigmented nipples. Whatever had happened had not resulted in pregnancy. I knew that when the time came for penetration no blood will stain the sheets, and none did. I was not disappointed for I did not lay great store by virginity, but I was a bit annoyed. I did not expect the quiet and cultured young thing to have had so much of experience—the scars she bore were not from any causal affair. I have decided to take her as she is and love and cherish her for I knew that she has the root of the matter in her.'

* * *

Professor Karthi closed the book and replaced it on the shelf. She was happy that she had not belied her husband's faith in her.