"This is my gift to you," announced my wife, a mad twinkle in her eyes.
I batted my eyes doubtfully at the first floor bedroom. She had virtually dragged me away from the fete that my family had arranged for my thirty-third birthday, the drunken revelers: friends, family and the occasional uninvited straggler all lying around, or carousing in varying drifting states of unconsciousness.
She again nodded her head towards the room and before I could open my mouth, had started on her way downstairs.
My curiosity piqued, I ventured with adventurous toes towards the room, aforementioned. Heart hammering in my chest I put my hands on the handle and pushed the door open. I expected a kind of second surprise-mini party, an exotic bottle of wine perhaps, certainly not my wife's cousin Ranjana seated on the bed.
Started into silence, I searched around the dimly lit room for some trick or joke. Convinced that there was none, I began to excuse myself; an embarrassed flush on my face, when-
"Don't go Sej Baba," requested Ranjana, seated on the bed dressed in a dark green saree with a cut-sleeve blouse (my mind was registering such details with alarming speed).
"You are obviously going to retire here, Ranjana," I said softly and turned to complete my exit.
"Please Baba, I am so bored, everyone is drunk downstairs, and you and me haven't talked in a long time."
I paused in my hasty exit, and considered, what could rightfully be called my current predicament: my wife had announced that she had a gift for me. Good, great, but she had not specified what gift exactly.
And here seated like a Rani on her throne was her cousin Ranjana. It would be a riotous stretch of imagination to consider that my wife was offering her cousin to me on my birthday. My wife could never be bracketed into the "experimental" or "open" sort. And shit like this does not happen in India, period!
"Err...what exactly do you want to talk about, Ranjana?" I asked, fidgety as all hell. In truth I was kind of excited being in a room alone with my wife's cousin.
I will deign to explain why-ever since I laid eyes on Ranjana at my wedding I was constantly distracted by her presence. She was a dusky Indian girl, just the right shade of dark (the kind that sets your blood on fire). Her brown eyes seemed to smolder with a closeted fiery passion. She had high eyebrows, meticulously done up, a sharp nose that fit her face perfectly, and such luscious lips that they begged to be kissed. Needless to say I found myself looking at the wrong person at my wedding. It was during one such furtive glance that I shockingly realized that I too was the object of appreciation! Ranjana was gazing at me with a longing that threatened to turn my sanctified wedding dhoti on fire, and make an embarrassing tent in it as well.
I could not help but give her an appraising look, and though that momentous incident has never again occurred, the look she had given me still sends tingles down my spine.
"Just stuff," said Ranjana lazily, swinging her legs at the edge of the bed and giving me a tantalizing view of brown thigh.
Things were getting too hot in here. Man it was time I got out!
"Ranjana, I really have to go," I said and opening the door rushed downstairs.
"Hello Bhai, where have you gone?" All the inebriated's wanted to know.
"I ah, went upstairs to search for some more whisky," I added stupidly. But my pronouncement was taken up with ribald cheer.
"Hi I am Dulshan," said a young man pumping my arm.
"Do I know you?" I asked.
"I am Ranjana's fiancé," he replied smiling.
'Fiancé?' I thought, flabbergasted. Was this bastard in the know too?
"Ranjana, your wife's cousin," he continued, mistaking my look of shock, for bafflement.
"Oh Ranjana," I replied, as smoothly as I could, "how is she?"
"Oh she's fine," said Dulshan, frowning, "It's just that she is here, but I haven't seen her for the last half-hour."
"She may be upstairs with the other women," I responded vaguely.
He nodded, "If you do see her tell her to meet me."
"A sure thing," I lied, through my teeth.
I started upstairs again batting away, annoying well wishers. Let me tell you the truth. After meeting Ranjana's fiancé a fire had been lit inside me. I had not known she was engaged. But this excited me, wiping away any misgiving I might have contrived, in the interest of fidelity and decency.
As I hurried away, leaping like a monkey in heat scrabbling across several flights of stairs in frenzied leaps, I again thought of Ranjana on the bed. The recently hitched Ranjana- the recently promised 'gift'.
She was still there, brushing her lovely locks in front of the mirror, when I accosted her in the room.
"Your fiancé is down there," I blurted.
She did not pause brushing her hair. "So?" she asked.
If these people were playing some fucked up game, I decided to test her willingness.
I approached her near the mirror, from behind, and came to a halt, much closer to her body than can have been deemed appropriate.
She smelled like heaven. Only now I could make out the rose petals in her hair, the scent of her heady perfume touching me in a delicate embrace.
I looked at her fabulous back as it curved gently towards her ample rump. I then looked at the mirror drinking in her beauty, en-face.
Ranjana continued brushing her hair as if nothing had happened.
I gently placed my hands on her bare shoulders, and squeezed gently, all the time looking for some response from her reflection. There was none.
Slowly, I traced my fingertip down her neck, onto her back, slowly past her blouse, down her lower back all the way to the silver chain wrapped around her waist. She still continues her brushing, but I could see her body stiffen. When I repeated this goose pimples began to appear wherever I caressed her naked skin.
As I began playing with her waist-necklace, I saw to my absolute delight, that her saree was tied sensuously below her waist, at least a few inches below her navel, hugging her curvaceous hips. I could see through the mirror the soft curve of her belly and the depth of her navel. My self control began to unravel just then.
I leaned forward and placed a soft wet kiss on the back of her neck. I placed a few more kisses and with one eye open began to nibble on her neck, as I watched for her reaction.
I gently nuzzled my nose against her, tracing lines on her neck with one hand while continuously playing with her waist necklace with the other.
"Ummmmmhhh..." mumbled Ranjana and she dropped the brush.
I did not stop there. I continued placing a flurry of kisses down her spine, biting gently where the flesh allowed. She gasped whenever she felt the pressure of my teeth biting into her.
Soon I was at the tail end of her spine, where I lingered for a hot moment, contemplating her unbelievable behind.
I lifted her saree skirts with a faint rustle, seeing the back of her thighs, breathed in the scent of her beauty. She was wearing a matching green panty underneath.
Unable to resist I bit into her buttock tasting green nylon panty and lush brown flesh.
"My god!" moaned Ranjana, as I began to nuzzle her ass with my nose.
"Ah!" she winced, as I bit into her other buttock, perhaps a bit harder than expected.
"Ranjana..." I rasped, "You're so hot, your body is too good."
She mumbled an unintelligible response.
I deviated from my course a bit posteriorly and kissed the back of her thighs, her knee all the way to her ankle.
