He hadn't been with a woman for almost eight months. Stuck in a small town where he had been sent for his training and induction into the country, Hans was lonely and angry. He had made no friends quite simply because he didn't know their language and they didn't know English or French or Spanish - which were the three languages he spoke. It was only at the office that he was able to converse because the senior personnel spoke English; but they weren't friends, although they'd invited him out to parties occasionally.
Hans had completed his management studies and obtained his degree from the IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain. Now, he worked for a large European manufacturing conglomerate and had been chosen as one of three recruits to be sent to Asia. The other two had gone to developed countries; one to Tokyo and the other to Singapore. The recruitment board had told him that developing and underdeveloped countries were challenging, and hence more exciting. He had four more months here in the interior of the country before he could pack his bags and go back to the capital, where his firm had their regional headquarters.
Of course, the company had looked after his basic needs to the extent they could in this one-horse town. They'd rented a flat for him, arranged to have part-time cleaning and cooking staff, and had provided transportation -- they bought him a second-hand 300 cc BMW G310R motorcycle in the nearest large city and had told him to go collect it. For all this, he was grateful, but the gratitude had long run its course and he sometimes rued his decision to take up this assignment.
The only women he had interacted with over the last eight months were the two elderly ladies that worked at the office, whom all the men-folk called "aunty" for some reason.
And of course, there was the house maid. She must have been about 45 years old, often had a tired look with a few unruly strands of hair always bracketing the otherwise pleasant oval shaped face. While she came to clean his house every day, and cook an evening meal for him, Hans never saw her during the weekdays. The only time they met was on Saturday and Sunday -- she worked seven days a week -- when she would come over to the flat and complete all her chores in the morning hours before noon.
Her name was Maitri, which he initially had difficulty in pronouncing but finally settled on something that sounded like "Matty". It didn't really matter because they hardly exchanged any words, other than the standard greeting of "Namaste" which she uttered with her hands folded on arrival and departure.
Today, Saturday, it was almost 10:00 a.m. and he was expecting her at any moment. Sitting on the first floor balcony that overlooked a large meadow, he was ruminating about a series of random thoughts that haphazardly ran through his mind. He liked this spot of the apartment because the only houses he could see were on the other side of the meadow, almost two kilometres away. But the stretch was green and dotted with cows, goats, and the occasional shepherd tending to his livestock.
His thoughts went to Matty as he lit his second cigarette after breakfast, taking a tentative sip of the steaming hot coffee he had just made for himself. He knew that the maid, like so many of the people he saw here, was poor. She had a husband who worked in a cheap hotel nearby, but they needed for her to bring in some extra income. She had a family but Hans did not know how many children they had, or what ages they were. But every Sunday, he would give her some extra money; the first time he did that she bent low to touch his feet and shocked him with the gesture. He had chastised her in English but wasn't sure if she had understood. At any rate, she didn't do it gain but always spent almost a minute thanking him with folded hands each time.
Matty, or Maitri, was only a couple of inches taller than five feet, wore her hair in a messy bun on top of her head, invariably dressed in the traditional 'saree' and blouse, and had a pleasant demeanour. In the first few months when his frustrated hormones raged crazily at the absence of any sexual release, he had spent much of his weekend mornings ogling the deep cleavage between her breasts. Whenever she cleaned the floor and the drape of her saree slipped off her shoulders, he would get that inviting view.
Or sometimes, when she was cooking, he would make frequent forays into the kitchen in order to get a glance of her profile which showed how large her blouse-encased breasts were. Often he would have to fight the urge to reach out and touch her bare midriff. Her blouse barely covered her breasts and her saree was tucked into a petticoat worn low on her waist; the intervening swathe of naked flesh titillated him no end. She was a little on the heavy side so there was a layer of fat that formed a thin tyre just above the saree, but that seemed to add to her appeal.
He would just stare at the nakedness of her dark brown skin and ache inside at the proximity of her body. Hans was too scared to go to a local brothel or even organise a whore to visit; and besides, he had no idea how he would go about such a liaison. He had often thought about offering Matty some money and entice her to just give him a blowjob, or even a handjob, but again was too fearful of the implications. And of course, he didn't know the language or any other way of asking her. Instead, he would end up masturbating after she left.
Over the months, his mind had conjured up myriad ways of trying to get her to show some suggestion that she might be interested in him as well. There was a time when he had stood behind her while she was cooking and reached up to one of the high wall cabinets above her head, pretending to be looking for something. He had a massive erection inside his jeans and the bulge pressed against the maid's saree-covered backside while he rummaged inside the shelving unit. But she only asked him what he was looking for and tried to apologetically move out of his way. He had pressed harder against her as he reached deep inside the cabinet. But when he thought she may get suspicious after more than a minute, he quickly grabbed whatever his fingers touched and pulled it out. It turned out to be a broken handle from an old frying pan, and he had to say "Ah! That's what I was looking for!" before turning away and heading back to his living room.