Love

Her body still rested against mine when I woke up. I found her touch irritatingly hot. The same body I had yearned to hold, squeeze and play yesterday was detestable now. I had a mild headache but could not tell which part of my head was aching. It was bright outside the window and without switching the lights on I could see it was 7:00. More than the headache I was conscious about the irritation. Not always I get this kind of irritation after I wake up to remember I had made love to someone. But for yesterday ‘making love’ will be inappropriate as there were no smallest tints of love, I had slept with her, moved over her up and down. I didn’t enjoy it, I did it just like a cadet salutes his commander, he does not enjoy the process of saluting, hitting his boots forcefully on the earth, raising his chest high, see straight but not on the face but behind it, I felt like the cadet. I did it as if it was my duty and if I don’t do it, I won’t get paid.
I had met her in the pub but I had known her since she was a small girl. When she was born I must have been twenty-five or twenty eight and now I am forty eight. She is the daughter of my friend, a casual friend not a good one. I think he doesn’t like me, after all he is a family man not a women hound, a philander like me. I could see fringes in his face whenever his daughter talked to me though we never had a formal two way communication. Since we live in the same neighborhood I pass by his house every time I have to go some where and whenever I see them I greet them but most of the time its smile. Even when he greets back to me, I see contempt in his face, his eyes look scornful. I did recognize his daughter but I never thought about her, I didn’t know the shape of her nose, size of her breasts, posture of her body, color of her eyes etc.
In the pub she had come with some friends of her and when our eyes met she had smiled. It was just a formality; she would have smiled the same way if there was a milkman whom she knew, at my place. An hour later, she was tipsy and so were her friends. They were making lot of noise. They came towards the door where I was leaning against a pillar like a statue, I thought they were leaving. She was unable to hold herself and when she came toward me, she told her friends “He will leave me home, he is my uncle, my father’s friend and my neighbor”. Her friends left her without saying anything. I would have stayed for some time but now I had this responsibility so I put her in a taxi and sat by her. The taxi driver drove towards our home. Her hands were around my neck and she was talking something in random, it was about her father, her boyfriend who had left her a year back and her new boyfriend who was a coward. She said she wanted to enjoy life and her father was a tyrant who wouldn’t let her do so. I didn’t care just took out a cigarette and was smoking inside the cab. I must have puffed the smoke twice or thrice she looked at my face and said she hated cigarette, she took it from my lips and threw it. She had thrown cigarette without looking towards the window and instead of throwing it through the window on my side, she threw it towards the other window and it landed on the seat. I got it and threw it. She was still clinging by my neck. The taxi driver looked through the mirror and asked me if she was my niece. I said yes nonchalantly. We were at her house and I told her, her home had come but she won’t get out. She said her father will be very angry. I said even then she had to go upon which she said she wanted to go to my house. I said I couldn’t take her, she almost slapped me and gave a sardonic smile. She said “you can take so many of those bitches to your home, why not me”, I wanted to tell her she was not one of those bitches yet I asked the driver to roll on and we were in my home. I gave her a glass of lime water and sat her on the sofa. She didn’t speak a word for half an hour and kept sitting on the sofa with her eyes closed. She sat straight as if she were meditating. When she spoke after half an hour she sounded much better. She wanted to go to bathroom where she puked, washed herself and came to me. She looked sober but her tone was still unclear, she asked me to show her my bedroom. I took her to my bedroom like a servant escorting his master to his room. Without saying anything she fell into my bed. I bent to see if she was alright, she had me in her embrace and I couldn’t hold myself and fell onto her. I wanted to get rid of her embrace but she won’t leave me. There was lightening in the sky and the brightness fell into her face, she looked innocent. Her eyes were big. She gave me a scared look when the light fell into her face. She was all sober I wanted to believe though I knew I was wrong now but wouldn’t let me go. She asked me why don’t I make love to her. She slipped her hands into my shirt. I have no idea why I had been avoiding her but now I knew there would be no denial. I started working on her and there she was naked before me, I could see her like a shadow. I might have wanted to see her in light but I didn’t care, more than that it was all an accident and I was unprepared. I was over her and our body lay stretched against each other. All of a sudden she pushed me and I was in the bed yet I could feel the soft arm touching my arms. I didn’t say anything because I couldn’t think what was happening. She asked if its sane. I didn’t know if she was mocking me or talking to herself. Now I rolled over her, caressing her, squeezing her breasts feeling her whole body like a blind man feeling something strange to learn about its structure. I touched her lips and looked at her, she looked pretty. I thought every woman looks pretty when one is making love. She held me hard, her hand clasped my back. She asked me if I love her. I have hated that word ‘love’. It is so disturbing. I don’t know when I am giving everything I have to her, I have submitted myself to her woman still wants more. When I have not loved women I have known for a long time, slept with so many times. How can I love her, who didn’t even exist for me just an hour ago. How can she even think I might love her? My all excitement was gone, my brutality had ceased. I felt filth engrossing me. I hated her and wanted to throw her out. She must have seen that filth in my face as her hands freed me, I felt she was watching me. Now her hands were raised above her head as if it was a sign of submission, as if I were holding revolver against her. My body did what it had learnt to do against a naked woman, I took no pleasure. I didn’t even feel tired. It was like drinking pegs after pegs expecting the next peg will inebriate me and every peg let me down. I don’t recall when I fell asleep. When I woke up she was still asleep, when I tried to get out of the blanket I saw her bare buttocks. She didn’t get up, I thought she might be dreaming about being at home bearing the tyranny of her father. I didn’t wake her up, I had to go out. I left the room but as I pulled the knob of the door I looked at her, she seemed to smile in sleep. I wondered if she really enjoyed whatever happened last night. I left her like one leaves a whore in the whorehouse after sleeping with her whole night. I felt a little guilt when I put her in the position of a whore and I was surprised at this guilt. I left her and when I returned home in the evening a paper was stuck on the door which said the keys are under the door mat. It was such a humorous moment, if she had locked my house thinking the thieves might break in how could she put that pamphlet which everyone could see. She was so naïve and that was the first time I felt the real guilt, this guilt didn’t surprise me however.