Chapter 105: Girl Talk - 2
"You're kidding. Why do we have to wear these? I know that there must be less⦠perky⦠outfits out there." Gauri remarked, picking up the half-coconut shell looking thing that passed for a bra.
"This is belly-dancing. Dressing provocatively is the art-form's birthright!"
"Yea okay! The point of this is not to be queened the most scantily clad belly-dancer in the world! Besides, you really want all those men there to see you in this?? Think about it!"
"Why? Are you worried that Shiv would not be able to stop ogling me if I wear this?" Thalia teased and Gauri grinned. "Please dear! I am sure he's seen way more illustrious bosoms than yours and escaped intact!"
"Hmm⦠maybe he's a rear-end sort of man rather than a headlights man." Thalia offered thoughtfully.
"No girl, he is a VIP member of the mile-high club." Gauri said now as she lifted a tights-clad leg and placed it on the edge of the sofa to run her hand up its length.
"Of course! How could I forget?" Thalia laughed.
"Why? Is Shashank a "headlights" man?" Gauri lifted her eyebrows in question.
"Why, you don't know?" Thalia appeared surprised.
Gauri removed her leg from the sofa and gave a small smile as she walked back to sit on the adjacent couch. "No, we didn't have that kind of a relationship."
"Nothing?"
Gauri shook her head.
"Not even a kiss?"
"On my forehead and occasionally on my cheeks."
"You mean, the cheeks on your face?" Thalia asked and Gauri threw a cushion at her.
Thalia caught it easily and laughed. "I can't even believe that you were going to marry him with just that! Have you never felt passion girl? Have you never been turned on? How can you just be okay with kisses on cheeks when you are 28 years old??"
When Gauri didn't answer her question, Thalia walked over closer and sat on the sofa next to hers.
"You have! Just not with Shaan, right?" Thalia observed, reading Gauri's expression.
"That's not trueā¦" Gauri thought her denial sounded weak even to her own ears.
"What's not true? That you never felt turned on? Or that you never felt it with Shaan?"
"I will have you to know that I am very uncomfortable with this discussion." Gauri looked up at Thalia, trying to affect a serious face.
"Then get comfortable! Because I want to hear this. When was the first time a man turned you on?"
"I am not talking about this with you, Thalia!" Gauri threw her head back against the couch in exasperation.
"I'll tell you mine." Thalia offered and Gauri looked up.
"When I was young, I used to have certain⦠let's call them issues. I used to call Shaan whenever these⦠issues⦠became unbearable. And he always came. He would climb in through the window into my bedroom, actually. It's what he had always done. This stupid house is so bigā¦" she gestured now looking around. "Anyways, there was this one time when I was eighteen when I called him after I had had a particularly rough time. He came and helped me and stayed with me until I fell asleep, like he always did. He didn't know this, but I only slept well when he was with me. I would wake up as soon as he left. And this time too, I woke up as soon as he left my side. I thought he had climbed out the window like he usually did, so I got out of the bed, but then noticed that my bathroom door was still open with the light on. I knew he was in there, but I didn't want to alert him that I was awake, so I sort of sneaked over to take a peek to see what he was doing in there with the door open." Thalia paused, appearing lost in thoughts for just a moment, before she continued, now no longer looking at Gauri. "He had gotten his shirt stained with my blood." Gauri looked over in surprise at that statement, but Thalia didn't notice. "So, he had taken it off to wash it off. He was only eighteen and had had a long lanky body that boys like him often do. And I remember standing there, looking over that door at his naked back, watching the muscles move along with the motion of his movements." She paused again for a moment before she continued, "We had never gotten along, he and I. And we had the strangest relationship because he was the only one I called when I was weak. And I was always really mean to him. But that day when I stood there, not being able to look away from his body, I realized why I was so mean to him. I didn't just need him when I was weak, I wanted him even when I wasn't⦠And so I turned around and went back to bed and pretended to be asleep when he came out of the bathroom, holding the now completely wet shirt scrunched up in his hands. He looked at me one last time before climbing out the window. I left Delhi the week after that and never came back to stay for long even when I did return. And I never called him again to rescue me when I was⦠in a bad state."
Thalia looked back at Gauri now, remembering suddenly that she was there. Her cheeks flushed with color and Gauri knew that it was a story that she had never shared with anyone before.
"It's incredible that it took you both this long to get together. I really can't even believe that neither of you did anything about it for so long."
"We "hated" each other Gauri. I am sure you can relate to that pretentious sentiment."
Gauri smiled now, but didn't answer.
"Alright, so I told you mine. Now you have to tell me yours!"
Gauri closed her eyes in surrender as she asked, "What exactly do you want to know?"
"Most erotic memory. After marriage doesn't count, because obviously with Shiv for a husband, I am sure it's been a six-month marathon of erotica."
"Most erotic memory before I got married?" Gauri asked now, stalling for time by repeating the question.
"Yes!" Thalia was nothing if not persistent.
"This is strictly between us. Do you swear?"
Thalia nodded.
"Cross your heart and hope to die?" Gauri looked dead-serious as she made the gesture over her heart and Thalia burst out in laughter.
Gauri lifted one eyebrow and Thalia stopped and made the same gesture and relented. "Cross my heart and hope to die."
"Well, this happened when I was twenty-six."
"You were dating Shaan then?"
Gauri nodded. "For about a year."
"Alright, go on."
"I was at Smitha aunty's houseā¦" she started.
"You mean, Shiv's house." Thalia interrupted.
Gauri closed her eyes and took a deep breath before she said slowly, "yesā¦"
"Just checking, go on."
"And this time, without interruptions?"
Thalia nodded with a smile.
"Smitha aunty had asked me to get something from their pool area and I had gone there in search of it. I had opened the door and walked in before I realized that anyone else was in there. In fact, more than one person⦠but it was too late by the time I realized that I had intruded on something very private, because there was Shiv making out with some girl against the far wall on the other side of the pool. Well, more like the girl was all over him and he has half-heartedly receiving her attentions, not pushing her away, but not really drawing her in either. I don't know why I couldn't move. I just stood there rooted to that spot, my eyes bulging out of my face, just watching this happen. He noticed me almost immediately. But rather than looking alarmed or pulling away from her, he stared right at me for a few moments⦠and then he started kissing her back⦠but with his eyes focused on me. I still couldn't move and stood there like a perfect idiot as he started running his hands over the girl's long skirt and up her hips and then over her bare waist. She was wearing some sort of choli thing with a flimsy blouse, which I saw left nothing to the imagination in the back when he moved her hair aside. And then, still looking at me, he bit the side of her neck."
"Holy shitā¦" Gauri heard Thalia say in wonder.
"And when his hands finally inched towards the tie that held her blouse together, I came back to my senses and turned around and ran back out. It must have startled the poor girl, I am sure."
Gauri stopped and Thalia looked at her curiously.
"What?"
"What do you mean, what? What happened after that?" Thalia asked in impatience.
"What do you mean, what happened? I made up some excuse about missing some study group and left their home."
Thalia fell back against the couch. "Damn Gauri. He is something else! How do you handle a man like that?"
"You don't. You see why I asked you to seduce him? He is so sexually potent that I am sure he can make women orgasm just by looking at them."
"And yet you held him off for all those years... I am sure he must have tried with you in some way, no?"
"Never directly. God, I dread to think what would have happened if he had. I would like to think that I would have skewered him, but you never know. Besides, I didn't want to be one of his girls ā I am hoping that that would have brought me back to my senses even if he had tried."
"And now?" Thalia asked with a grin.
"And now what?"
"Is he all that he's cracked up to be?"
"You have no ideaā¦" Gauri couldn't help a sigh that escaped her and Thalia laughed.
"Glad to hear it."
"What about you?" Gauri asked, returning the curiosity.
"What about me?"
"Oh come on⦠I know Shashank is different with you. Nothing at all like the tame gentleman that he was with me."
Thalia's face took on a flush again. "Let's just say that I am experiencing the longest foreplay known to mankind."
"Foreplay. Really? Even after that sex-potion?"
"He's determined to wait until we get married. But the problem is that the waiting period is filled with everything else except for⦠that⦠and it's driving me up the wall."
"God, he has that much control?"
"You have no ideaā¦" And this time it was Thalia's turn to sigh while Gauri laughed.
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