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WARNING:  Do not proceed beyond this "warning"  if you are not a mature person and/or are  offended by explicit written descriptions of sexual encounters. 

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My Story (Part 27) by Sharmila Sanyal

      Bidyut and I drifted apart slowly but surely. In the next few months that followed, I found it increasingly difficult to keep up the appearance of being his "girl friend".  Had it not been for his singular interest in feeling me up and gratifying himself against my person, I might have continued to go out with him; but he had turned into this child who was suddenly allowed the taste of candy for the first time.

      What bothered me the most as a person was not the fact that he rarely brought up the subject of sex even while he did it on me. I was far more concerned by realizing that even while his hard manhood rubbed against my inner thighs — saree-clad as they might be — I felt little sensation of arousal anywhere in my own body. The very thought of maintaining a long-term relationship with a person who failed to arouse me physically scared me. So, my natural recourse was to withdraw myself slowly from him. And, while I was doing that, I was as much distraught as I was relieved to discover that it took very little effort on my part.

      Bidyut himself showed little despair; and I would be lying if I said that it didn’t trouble me a little. I was troubled not because he wasn't despondent over the ever-widening frequency of our rendezvous — for we had pretty much understood each other without any word having been spoken to that effect — I was troubled from the thought that maybe I was not good at judging people when it came to romantic relationships. I was quite grounded in my own sexuality; so, now I had to resolve my romantic self. But, that is not what this story is all about, is it?   However, I have never been able to divorce romance from sex, or vice versa. 

      Debi became more friendly with our attractive maid over the days following that early morning discussion. I tried to follow Debi's lead, but, in the process, ended up feeling really strange about it. I discovered that the class-conscious bourgeoisie in me needed a lot of work — even in matters primal.  Then it was time for Ajit's quarterly visit back, when I was obliged to spend the week at my parents'.

      It was during that fateful week in summer, that I found myself, along with my parents, rushing to my aunt's house to console the family. Sanju's dad had suddenly passed away after suffering a massive heart attack.

      It was a terrible period for all of us. While we lived several miles apart and seldom saw each other, at that time I felt a closeness with that family that is hard to express.  It was difficult to imagine that it was only a couple of years back that we were celebrating a wedding at that same house. As I arrived with my parents, I saw several people from around the small town teeming in and out of that old house. He was only sixty and was quite active in the political and cultural processes of that town. Being of the family that actually had owned most of the town at one time, he was revered too. 

      I went in, leaving my parents outside. They were stopped by some other relatives that lived in that town. The overcast sky, pronouncing an imminent shower, added to the glumness. The weather was the same the last time I was there during Chhordi's wedding.  As I crossed through their large doorway, I remember thinking about Nature's bewildering ability to frame both romanticism and mournfulness, rapture and dolor, by the same dark clouds of monsoon.  Perhaps, that's why the great bard had equated Death with Krishna.

      I found my aunt and Chhordi sitting in the drawing room with Sanju standing in his 'dhoti', with the mat in his hand.* He looked so helpless! I believe he was about seventeen then. His unshaven face looked even more juvenile. I had not known their family to be very ritualistic, especially not Sanju and Chhordi's dad.  Yet, like most other occasions, a death is always followed by the expected mourning marked by all the rites and rituals.  Even the staunchest of self-professed agnostics or aethists have been known to fall back on these traditions at such times. 

"Oh! Shona-di!" he came over to me and held my hand, trying to suppress his tears. I put my arms around him and he broke down. He was, by then, already a good six inches taller than me. I felt his warm breath against the back of my neck as he sobbed uncontrollably. I cried too. My aunt and Chhordi looked on with immense pain in their eyes, and soon the room filled up with the sounds of sobbing.

      As far as I recall, that was my first experience of a death so close to the family. I was absolutely unsure of what to expect and I had no idea what my own reactions would be. I was utterly caught off-guard by my own sentiments and unchecked emotions. We held each other for a long time. His body felt cold and I wanted to transmit some of my warmth into him.

      As I held Sanju, I felt something beyond simple grief. I felt a connection with my cousin that I had not felt before — not even during our most licentious times together. We slowly let each other go and I proceeded to sit with my aunt and my other cousin.

"Oh, Sharmi," wept my aunt, "he was so fond of you and always praised your academic achievements!" The words, as sincere as they were, sounded rather out of place to me. It was perhaps her way of trying to bring me into the fold of her grief, but I was feeling their sorrow regardless of my own sense of loss (or the lack thereof) at my uncle's passing. I was sad for my aunt and my cousins, and my tears were for their loss, not that of mine.

"Yes, I know," I had to concur.

"You have to be near your brother over there," my aunt gestered to where Sanju was sitting on the floor, eyes closed, his head leaning back against the wall, "he is lost, and he loves you so much."

"I will, Mashimoni, don't worry about him," I said with the utmost sincerity, "I will stay close to him."

"He is very fond of you, Sharmi," Chhordi spoke hoarsely, trying to hold back another wave of tears.

"I know," I hugged her and nodded. Any other time, such observations from my aunt and my cousin would have made me quite conscious of our indelicacy, and thence uncomfortable; but I knew that they could not have read anything into his fondness for his "Shona-di".

      That night we hardly slept as everybody stayed up late and into the early hours of morning reminiscing about Meshomoni, our uncle. I never had been very close to either my aunt or my uncle to feel his loss to the degree that a lot of the others were feeling; yet the sadness in that drawing room was so palpable that it permeated my senses. I sat beside Sanju, holding his hand, and grieved for him into the morning.  I think he had graduated from high school that year; and I remember wondering how the passing of his father at such a time would be impacting his first year in college. 

      The morning that followed, everybody was exhausted — emotionally as well as physically. The maids and the servants, some of whom actually had grown up in that household, were running around trying to make us all comfortable. The old septuagenarian gardener produced flowers in front of the large framed photograph of our uncle. The steady stream of people, that showed up to offer condolences, would gradually ebb into a trickle that afternoon.

"Sharmi, darling, please go upstairs and keep Sanju company," Chhordi said as she came up to me on the verandah.

      I was sitting on a low stool leaning against one of the huge pillars that formed the facade of the ancient house. I was perhaps lost in my own thoughts, of which I have no recollection now, and I was startled at her voice.

"Oh, Chhordi, come sit down, won't you?" I stood up and offered the small stool.

"No, Sharmi, I need to go lie down," she smiled and said, "I am tired. You must be too, Sharmi! You didn't sleep all night either."

"That I am, I must say," I admitted, "Maybe I will go upstairs and lie down too."

"Why don't you?" Chhordi insisted, "Sanju must be alone in his room; you could go and lie down beside him. He loves you so much. I am sure he will like it if you kept him company now.

"I am sure," I said. Nothing else really made any sense that day, except the feeling that we could all be there for each other.

      Now, I must warn the western audience not to read anything into Chhordi's suggestion of "lying down beside Sanju." It was a very ordinary and innocent thing to say.

      It was eleven, and we had had a very late breakfast that day. Having resolved that I needed no lunch any time soon, I headed up to Sanju's room to keep him company.

      The door to Sanju's room was closed, and as I pushed against the two panels gently, they opened inward. I moved the drape aside and peeked in.

      He was huddled close to the wall on his bed. Except for the presence of a new and larger book shelf, little inside the room had changed.  I stepped in and looked around the room. There was a low dresser with a tall mirror that I hadn't seen before. It took up almost half of the space between the door and the right wall at the foot of the bed. The only window was closed and there was a stale dampness inside the room.

      As I moved across the room to open the window, I found my cousin fast asleep.  I could hear his steady breathing. Its sound seemed to blend in with that of the occasional wind gusts through the verandah. I looked at him and realized that he had the windows closed to keep out the moist draft. I grabbed the woolen shawl that lay on the chair and gently covered him. In that rather scanty clothing, Sanju seemed to need that. He didn't move.

      There was just enough space beside him on his bed, and I lay down there on my side. As I stared at the wall across the room, I wondered about Sanju and how distraught he must have been.  In a flash, the thought of comforting him — with what he had had wanted from me on our roof — crossed my mind. Despite the impropriety of my thought, it seemed to be the most humane thing to do for someone you cared about. Yet, I immediately brushed it aside and chided myself for thinking of such things at such a moment. It wasn't long before my weary body begged out for some sleep and I gladly obliged.

      Sanju's warm breath on my soulders woke me up, it was getting dark outside already. I realized that I slept for a very long time. My back was still towards Sanju and he had an arm across me. I didn't move, trying to figure out if he was still asleep. I felt a warm hardness against my buttocks and it was pressed against me ever so gently. I knew that men sometimes get hard-ons during their sleep, but I wasn't sure if Sanju was indeed asleep. There was little between his hardness and my saree except a thin layer the dhoti he was wearing, and I could feel its heat. He didn't move, but his member did. It throbbed against me and I could feel it swell up some more even as I lay still, motionless, trying to wake up my brain and compose myself at the same time. After several minutes, I decided that Sanju was still asleep and it was time for me to slip away. His libido was already affecting mine.

      I gently lifted his arm from over me and slipped out from under it. As I slid off the bed, I almost rolled onto the floor. I managed to sit up straight on the bed instead, and, in that last light of the day, looked at my cousin with the same tenderness that I had felt before falling asleep beside him. I looked down where his erection peeked out from under his dhoti and I could see the redish head trying to free itself from the confines of the prepuce. I was amused to see the suggestion of the dense curly darkness at its base, covered by the dhoti. The last time I saw Sanju, he had barely had started to sprout down there.  I remembered the silky feel not without fondness.

I pulled the woollen blanket over him to cover his very intimate reaction.

      I didn't feel awkward that he might have had a stirring of some intimate memories, for I knew that it mattered little in his time of grief. I was there, body and soul, to comfort him. I remember that I had felt like obliging him, and maybe I would have right then; but it was getting to be evening, and soon there would be people coming to look for him.

      So, I took control of my feelings and quietly left the room. I went to the bathroom and freshened up before heading downstairs.

      Chhordi was talking to some people that had come to express their condolences. She looked up at me approvingly and smiled.

"I see you slept as well," she said.

"Yes, I barely could keep my eyes open," I acknowledged, and then added, "I didn't wake him up. Should I have?"

"Don't bother, I will send Jyotsnaa," Chhordi tried to say.

"Never mind, I will go," I interjected quickly, "They must be busy doing other things." I didn't want the maidservant to find Sanju with his enormous hard-on. At that moment I felt rather protective of Sanju's privacy and the thought of another person seeing him in an aroused state seemed like an usurping of a privilege that was supposed to be exclusively mine. So, I rushed upstairs to wake up the rest of my cousin.

"Oh ... Oh ... " he sounded embarrased, especially since he was supposed to be in mourning.  He looked even more handsome.

"Don't worry, it is natural," I tried to sound casual about it, but the sight of the "tent" had started a reaction in my body. I chided myself again and left the room.

      I didn't want to wonder about Sanju, his predicament, and how he would hide it without the privilege of any underwear. I was not a little bewildered about my feelings at that very moment. I tried to figure this out — this incongruity of my emotions. It was hard, it was terribly hard.

      As I descended the stairs, I could think of nothing other than Sanju's warmth against me, and of the sight of that erection in the semidarkness of his room.

I was too preoccupied even to notice that it had started to rain again.

"I was looking for you, Sharmi," I was brought back to reality by my mother's voice, "Where were you all afternoon?"  The sound of her gentle voice blended into the sound of the rain drops that hit the edge of the verandah in a steady rhythm of their own.

"Oh ..." I took a few seconds to compose myself, "I was sleeping ... in Sanju's room."

"Oh, did you sleep well?" She asked quite naturally, "His bed isn't big enough for two!"

"Well, we managed," I answered, "I just went there to lie down beside him and fell asleep."

"Good," she said, "I suppose you needed it. Listen, I will have to go back to Calcutta with your father tonight and will be back the day after tomorrow. Do you want to stay here and keep Sanju and Anju (that would be Anjana, my Chhordi) company?"

"Okay," I had no idea what else to say. My college was closed, so I had no need to rush back to Calcutta, and Debi was in her husband's arms. So, there was no reason why I would not feel obliged to stay back and keep my two cousins company.

"Stay back, Sharmi," my aunt almost pleaded, "Sanju will have somebody to talk to."

"I will," I said calmly.

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End Part 27 (to be contd.)

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**In Hindu tradition, the sons of the deceased have to maintain a austere mourning period of eleven days to a month. During this time, the sons are not supposed to wear any sewn clothing, and are supposed to sit only on mats made out of pure wool or out of a tall grassy plant called "Kush". A homage ceremony marks the end of that mourning period, when the sons must shave off their heads and any other facial hair.