Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese [172]
“Did it hurt her? Were you …”
“Erect. Yes. No, I don't think it hurt her. You know the vagina has walls that are expansible, they can accommodate a baby's head—”
“Okay, okay,” Genet said. “Then what?”
“She started to move, showing me how till I understood. I did that till I experienced the ejaculatory response.”
“What?” Genet said.
“The contraction of the vas and the seminal vesicles mixing with pro-static secretions—”
“He came,” I explained. I'd learned the word from a scruffy little pamphlet authored by a T N. Raman, a writer of purple prose. My classmate Satish brought these pamphlets back from his holiday in Bombay. T N. Raman was responsible for most everything Indian schoolboys learned (or misunderstood) about sex.
“Oh … and after that?” Genet said.
“Well, I got up, got dressed, and left.”
“Did it hurt you?” I asked.
“No pain.” From his unsmiling expression, he could have been talking about getting an ice cream at Enrico's.
“That's it?” Genet asked. “Then you paid her?”
“No, I paid her first.”
“What did she say when you were leaving?”
Shiva thought about that. “She said she liked my body, and she liked my skin. That next time she would give it to me … doggy style!”
“What did she mean, ‘doggy style’?”
“I didn't know. I said, ‘Why wait till next time? Show me now.’ “
“You had money?”
“That's what she asked. ‘You have money?’ But I didn't. She let me do it anyway. From the back was what she called doggy style. This time I think she had her own … explosion.”
“God,” Genet said, groaning and sliding down in her chair, her face suffused with blood. “What's the matter with you, Marion? Where are you going?”
I had risen from my chair. The scent coming from Genet was overpowering, the air shimmering pink with it.
“What's the matter with me?” I was not as annoyed as I acted. “How am I supposed to study here, tell me? I can't believe you asked me that.”
The matter with me was that I was terribly aroused, hearing Shiva's story, and now seeing the sultry look in Genet's eyes, her body in touching distance, smelling her in heat, and knowing she was willing. If I didn't leave, I was going to have my own explosion in my pants. I had to leave. I shoved my biology notes into my jacket.
I found Rosina standing too close to the kitchen door and now pretending some special interest in the stove. Even if she wasn't eavesdropping or lacked any sense of smell, she surely saw the pink cloud wafting out of the dining room. She avoided my eyes. Mother and daughter couldn't seem to escape each other, with Genet determined to act outrageously, and Rosina just as determined to respond, and it was difficult to say who initiated their battles. Rosina was my ally in one sense, because she kept Genet safe for me. But it annoyed me to see her hovering in this way.
“I'm going to the souk,” I said gruffly.
“But you just sat down to study, Marion.”
I glared at her, daring her to stop me.
I TOOK MY TIME walking down to the front gate. I bought a Coke but then gave it to Gebrew. I sat in his sentry hut. I didn't want to go home until my mind and my body were back to baseline. Gebrew's long story about a troublesome nephew helped the cause.
Eventually, I bid Gebrew good night, and I headed back. When I turned up from the roundabout to the road leading to our bungalow, I saw that there was a light on in the toolshed. Shiva worked late there many nights.
Whenever I came this way in the dark, I felt dread as I neared the spot where the army man went airborne. There was a crack in the concrete of the curb that commemorated that moment when the BMW's front wheel had been arrested.
The tree trunks creaked and groaned. The rustling of the leaves sounded ominous, like a hand sifting through coins. I fully expected to see the army man rise out of the darkness. After years of imagining him, I would find it almost a relief when he appeared. Shiva had no such qualms because he stayed in the toolshed late