Currently Reading Saving Fish from Drowning: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle) By Amy Tan see related

Diseased

It has taken a deep hold of me. No matter what I do, no matter how I distract myself, I still go back for more. It prods me at all hours. Waking me when I am sound asleep, nudging me when I am filling out my timesheet, upsetting my well-wrought schedule, for a just little bit more. Unreachable, yet tempting. Reachable sometimes but barely. Lingering in thoughts of maybe-vacations, and a definitely-not living arrangements. It twists my rubber arm even if I pose a strict restriction, causing me to cheat. It rolls me over on my back and around again till I aquiesce. Sometimes it teases me with the promise of a breakdown, sometimes it forces me into hysterical submission. Sometimes it gently calls out, and by the time I reach out, it is ready and waiting to maul me. It won't cut me slack, it refuses to budge on its demands. It hurts me, yet I don't protest, in the silent shameful way that sadomasochists revel in that which shows the worst of them.

Desire possesses me, and woe that it won't relent. Woe that it lies and cheats and batters and bruises. Yet I run after it, smiling guiltily as I walk up the stairs. Trembling in my defenceless ardor. In my shameless surrender. I follow it all the way. Again and again. Exquisite in its ruthlessness, it chases me if I run, and leads me astray if I follow.

September 2, 2007

"Everyone loved you", he whispers, as we get into bed. Tired after a debaucherous evening with friends. "What's not to love", I whisper back, giddy with my success among his friends. A little too cocky perhaps, but I drift into sleep quickly, aware that this was our best night in a long time. Scruffy's new BFF is a sickening man whore, who if not for his affinity to "hose" without discretion might even be likeable (you are like my sister he says in one breath, and if he weren't doing you- I would he says in the next as he grabs my ass). Scruff in all his endearing naivete thinks he is a loyal friend and a terrific colleague. I think he is scum, and tell them both so, which for some unfathomable reason gets them both to burst into peals of boy laughter. I feel like the outsider with them, I struggle not to begrudge Scruffy his new found friendship, but in the pit of my stomach it aches. The nagging feeling that new BFF is all wrong, and is stealing my Scruff away from me. Insecurity? Not. I think I would be less fraught with despair and annoyance if BFF was a hot 20 year old with shiny legs and washboard abs.

A few weeks later, I find myself as India's lost generation. Between immigration and emigration, we are that sad lot who made the money, learned to roll our Rs, and came back home to find that TGIFriday's stood now where kathi rolls made boy-girl friendships simple. Our time apart hasn't helped me find peace.

48 hours in the air and without port, I land back at the country where I am least lost. My skin is scaly and lips chapped. My hair is dry, brown where it was red a couple of weeks ago. My eyes are glassy, from disappointment. I do a recheck in the mirror, to see if I am ready to meet and greet. As ready as I will be. I imagine.

It piques me when my hand quivers to reach out to him on his return. It piques me to see his hair cut so short. I see the picture hidden in the piles of innocent family shots I tore up from albums, and when Najiba walks in on my lazy morning, I throw it into the bedside drawer. I stole that picture from poor Mustafa, the Staff-maister. Them at the range. The picture with his impish smile, the naughty charm, the impossible kindness, the careless cruelty, the aimless wanderlust, the shifting feet, the pride of his wide chest, the secret fear of reading glasses. All there, all in one picture, my treasure trough. My nightmare.

Longing and Ending

Port after port after port after port. Shrivelled, tired of waiting, and longing, and begging, and being shocked. Never surprised. Not kissed any more, not held, not rocked. Only shocked. Yet and yet.

To Paris, I was singing. Now I am not.

I gave him his ticket this morning. Now he can Fuck Off and be the Bad Boy he is. It isn't a happy ending at all.

I will stay, till I make Financial Milestone Number 2. See, it is all about money. And I think money will make me happy. Yes, most definitely it will.

Currently Reading In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo By Michela Wrong see related

Long Time Gone

Early summer. Quiet swishing of unsettled breezes, preparing to storm the lowlands. Look away or you will get dust in your eyes. A bike ride at midnight through the narrow streets of old Delhi. Tank empyting quickly but seeing he doesn't seem worried, you silence the panic. Vicious carelessness ullulating in your head. A new freedom was rolled up in newspaper and presented over the new year. So anxiously grabbed, because suddenly it wasn't foreign. That which belonged to someone else, and that which you relentlessly sniped at being conservative intelligentia.

Twisted words, longing eyes, and ripe music. Favourite moments include kissing his neck after he twirled you in your high heel shoes, breaking his resistance. Finding a dark corner in the penumbra, to delay going home by that much. Lapped it up laughing, enjoying the onlookers' discomfort and surprise. Fluttering eyelids, callous, playing for gratification. Kissing without wetting, just to say everything that must be said, but can't be voiced. The deepest unrelenting kind of touch. Lazy mornings of breakfast and the Sunday paper where he teased your obsessive compulsive Type-A crossword behaviour; You see 33 Down - thats L-O-S-E-R.

Yet, you couldn't walk the bridge to the flip side.

The phone rings and wakes me out of my reverie, bring me back from ago. Its Easter Sunday morning, the time when he, Scruffy, is most unlikely to call. Unlikelier still when he is on a boat on far seas. His voice excitedly says Hi, the voice broken by inhaling glass fumes, now tempered by middle eastern winds and by the reluctance of the boat to let voices flow. In my excitement and desperation, I talk over him, the lag confuses our words, till its not a conversation but two logs of things done. I can see my impatience confuse the line, and he laughs to chide me for being impatient. In 10 days I won't have to worry about lags.

My aunt turned 60 the other day. When I called to remind her, she smarmily said you are almost half my age. I realised when you are old, the wrinkles gnaw at your humor. But the taste of your young days keep the lips upturned in tight smugness. I wonder if I will be the cruel old lady, the one who will not thank you when you walk her across the road, and tell you that when she was your age she had two children and a house and all you have is mindless wandering. I should remember next time to tell my aunt that when she was my age she had already chased herself away till she was left with only a shadow and a mortgage not even her own. While I have two sets of dreams, have had many lovers, and a passport full of stickers. Not to mention war stories, and scars to show for them.