Sunita leaned back onto the roof and closed her eyes. The Professor rolled towards her and slipped his hands under her tunic. His fingers deftly stroked her hard nipples. His was an assured touch. Sunita arched her back and lifted her arms to let him peel off her blouse. His hands didn’t return to her breasts; instead, he lowered his head to them and took his time caressing each one with his tongue. The intense prickles of pleasure from this contact made Sunita gasp. All she could feel was his warm, wet mouth on her skin – the rest of her body had melted away. When he began to tug at the strings of her salwaar, she flung her legs apart. He looked up in surprise. He had probably never met such a forward young woman before. Just as Sunita was begin to regret being so eager, the Professor pressed his mouth to the throbbing, private place between her legs. His skilled tongue ran over her warm, wet folds and settled on the pulsing knot that gave her the most pleasure. Something began to build in her – a mounting tension that made her breaths shorter. The weight in her chest made her nervous. She wanted to sit up but at the same time, she wanted this escalation to continue. Never had Sunita experienced two opposing forces within her own body. Her thighs shivered despite the heat in her belly. Her toes curled although her shoulders were slack. She felt as if she was being dipped into a river that was so cold that it burned.
Finally, it happened. A bursting release that spread through Sunita’s body and shook her every muscle loose. She moaned, clutching the Professor’s hair. He looked up at her and for the first time, she felt shy. She turned her cheek so it was obscured by night shadows. Seconds or hours passed – she could not be sure because time was an illusion in these farmlands after dark.
Eventually, she turned around. The Professor was gone. She sat up, confused. Her salwar was tied tightly around her waist and she was wearing her tunic. Had it all been a fantasy? It couldn’t be. Those feelings of pleasure were too vivid. She leaned over the roof and looked into the neighbour’s home. The Professor’s bedroom window was shut and the curtains drawn.
Sunita didn’t want to grieve. Perhaps the powers of her imagination were so strong that she had willed this dream to become a brief reality but that only meant that it could happen again. Climbing off the roof, she thought about the men she had refused that afternoon, sitting with their families and plotting their next bridal viewing. She touched her hands to her mole. Her sweat had worn away the concealing powder. All along, everybody was wrong, Sunita decided. There was nothing unlucky about being able to see the world the way she did.
The women were captivated. They leaned towards Manjeet, sliding to the edges of their chairs to hear more. Manjeet maintained her straight posture throughout, her eyes shut as she drifted into Sunita’s world. She opened her eyes and shot Nikki a furtive look. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I get carried away.’
‘Don’t apologize. That was beautiful. Your story has such great details,’ Nikki said.
‘It all comes from Sunita’s imagination, not mine,’ Manjeet said.
‘Sunita is not you?’ Preetam asked. ‘You’ve got a mole as well.’
‘Ah, Sunita’s mole is a mark of beauty,’ Manjeet said. ‘Mine is just …’ She shrugged. Nikki noticed that she kept her hand cupped around her chin to cover her mole.
‘It’s beautiful, Bibi Manjeet,’ Nikki said. ‘Just like Sunita’s.’
Manjeet grimaced. Her face cheeks flushed with embarrassment. ‘Please, there’s no need to say such things. My mother was very concerned about my mole. She said it was bad luck and I’d never find anyone.’
‘Your mother had a lot to worry about if all you could think about was bedding men,’ Tarampal retorted.
‘Nobody’s saying you have to listen,’ Arvinder shot back. ‘If you’re so focused on your learning, you wouldn’t be paying any attention to us.’
Tarampal’s face reddened. It was hard to know if she was embarrassed or infuriated.
‘Obviously, your mother was wrong,’ Nikki said. ‘You found your husband.’
‘Yes, but I didn’t keep him, did I?’
The other widows exchanged looks. ‘Now, Manjeet,’ Arvinder said firmly. ‘I’ve told you, you mustn’t go down that path.’
‘Why not?’ Manjeet asked. Her eyes filled with tears.
‘Whatever happened, I’m sure you can’t be blamed for your husband’s death,’ Nikki said.
Manjeet let out a short laugh. ‘He’s not dead. He’s still very much alive. He ran away with the nurse who took care of him after his heart attack.’
‘Oh,’ Nikki said. Poor Manjeet. It made more sense now – the “widow look” that Sheena had mentioned. Manjeet dressed like a widow because it was more acceptable than being separated from her husband. ‘I’m very sorry,’ she said.
‘That’s all everyone ever says,’ Manjeet said. ‘They just apologize. But they didn’t do anything wrong. He did.’
‘That’s right. He did. He and that trampy little nurse,’ Arvinder said. ‘Not you.’
Manjeet shook her head and wiped her nose. ‘If I could live my life again, I’d be more like Sunita,’ she said. ‘She knows what she wants. That nurse, too. She knew what she wanted and she took it.’
‘Hai,’ Preetam said, dabbing the corners of her eyes with her dupatta. ‘It’s very tragic.’
‘You’re not helping,’ Sheena hissed. ‘Nikki, say something.’
Nikki didn’t know what to do. The women stared at her expectantly. She thought back to the details of Manjeet’s story and imagined Sunita lying on the roof, anticipating the rest of her life. ‘I think what Bibi Manjeet’s story has highlighted is that there’s a difference between being courageous and being malicious,’ she said. Sheena quickly gave the women a Punjabi translation of the word. ‘I think Sunita’s courage is admirable but to take somebody’s husband is greedy and hurtful.’
‘You have courage too, Manjeet,’ Sheena said. ‘You wouldn’t have told that story if you didn’t.’
‘I’m too afraid to tell people what he did,’ Manjeet said. ‘That’s cowardly, isn’t it? I’ve been pretending that he died on a trip to India so nobody would ask any questions. I even went to stay with my oldest son in Canada for a while so people would think I was doing my husband’s last rites.’
‘When did it happen?’ Nikki asked.
‘Last summer.’
‘It’s still very new, then,’ Nikki said.
‘Tell that to them. They’ve bought a home together,’ Manjeet said. ‘This nurse came to England from a village in India as well but she’s from a different generation, Nikki. Those girls know how to do everything men want before they’re married.’
‘In my time, you just relied on what your married sisters and cousins told you,’ Arvinder said.
Nikki could picture it – a young and blushing Arvinder surrounded by giggly sari-clad relatives, taking turns to offer words of wisdom. There was something enviable about the scene. She couldn’t imagine having such a moment before Mindi’s wedding. ‘That sounds nice,’ she said. ‘You looked out for each other.’
‘It was useful,’ Preetam said. ‘Like when my cousin Diljeet said “Use ghee to grease things up down there.”’
‘I was the one who told you that,’ Arvinder said. ‘Oldest trick in the book.’
Sheena burst out laughing. ‘Look at Nikki’s face!’ she cried. So, Nikki was obviously unsuccessful at hiding her mortification then. She had a mental image of Mum in the kitchen spreading a lump of ghee across the surface of a heating tava where it melted instantly. Now ghee had an entirely different association.
‘That’s right,’ Preetam recalled. ‘It was Diljeet who warned me to be discreet, and to always try to sneak some ghee into a small container during cooking without my mother-in-law noticing. Otherwise it was challenging to get big drums of ghee into the bedroom without the rest of the family seeing.’
‘Don’t you have those little tubs for the kitchen?’ Nikki asked.
‘Costco sells them in bulk,’ Preetam said. ‘Why are you wasting money buying small-small tubs?’
‘I was given a useful tip to please my husband if he wanted it during my time of the month,’ Manjeet said. ‘Let him put it in your armpit, then do this.’ Manjeet cranked her arm up and down.
‘You didn’t!’ Sheena exclaimed.