Losing My Virginity and Other Dumb Ideas (6 page)

‘Oh yes. Our sex would be wonderful. It would be a mutual bonding of our bodies, pleasuring each other at regular intervals till we need to complete the act. We would wake each other in the middle of the night and sneak out to the lawn and make mad, passionate love, hoping no one saw us, but secretly relishing the fact that we were being dangerous, risqué, different! We would sit by the river and see the beautiful French countryside and have cups of espresso and pastries. Our lives would be so perfect! We would have wine, see works of art and make love till we were exhausted, and then have some more.’

He looked at me now and said, ‘That’s what I would do with you. Is that more than one date? I’m sorry!’

I looked at him and smiled. That would have been so perfect and I told him that. It would have been a lovely life, not to mention an awesome date. There was only problem. I wasn’t attracted to him. And really, wasn’t that just too mushy for the first date? I mean, get a grip. You are, after all, a man!

We must have spent several hours together and yet I couldn’t feel the ‘spark’. I only started feeling icky from all that sweetness. I didn’t know love at all but I knew one thing: there needed to be some sort of chemistry, some sort of balance. And even if we were completely alike, I couldn’t feel it. It was uncanny.

I could see my life flash in front of my eyes. If we got married, we would do the same things together. We would complete each other’s sentences and we would never differ on vacations, children, art. We would be One—in the truest sense of the word. And after a while, we would get bored. We would
need
the difference. We would long for the new, the exciting, and the passion.

So I decided that we could be friends. And I left him with tears in his eyes and a broken dream of a forever with me. I also left him with a fake number in case he got psycho and started sending me more flowers to woo me back. I decided never to let my parents interfere with my love life again.

After going on a few dates I realized that even though I had opened myself up to the Universe, I hadn’t opened up to men. The men, to me, were useless. They didn’t contribute anything to me to allow myself to sleep with them, much less be my Great Love. After all, I was giving them a really precious part of myself. My heart. That had to be worth something, and for me, the memory of ‘the first time’ had to be special. So if no one fit the bill after two months of looking around, I didn’t think they ever would. And this was precisely what I was trying to explain to Aditi at Stop n Shop while returning gifts.

Aditi got gifts from her rich boyfriends that she seldom liked. So she would always go back to the store and plead with the manager to exchange the gifts she didn’t want to keep. So far, we had gone return-gift-shopping rather than actually shopping for something we wanted.

‘Please, sir, I can’t stand this gold chain. It’s just bad luck for me. Even more, after the man broke up with me.’ Slow tears started trickling down as Aditi continued to plead, ‘I need to move on and buy myself something nice in exchange for this.’

‘Fine. Just pick up anything of the same value,’ said the large, dark, bushy uni-browed, old storekeeper looking at it and then referring to the computer in front of him, ‘it’s for four thousand rupees.’

‘Four grand?’ Aditi exclaimed, her tears suddenly drying up. ‘Only?’ she said with disbelief. ‘What a cheapskate dude!’

I looked away and walked to the sunglasses section. She soon followed me there with her refund coupon muttering to herself, ‘The men of today are passing off cheap items to woo women. If only I’d known better, I would have dumped him a week earlier.’

‘Oh come on!’ I said exasperated. ‘Four grand is not cheap!’

‘Oh ya? For what I gave him, it should have been a car!’

‘Well at least you’re getting some. The only contact I’ve had with any man has been with my dentist,’ I grumbled.

And since I didn’t want to hear the details of her sex life, I turned to the lady at the counter with a pair of sunglasses in my hand and asked, ‘How much are these?’

‘Rs 1,500,’ she replied.

Aditi in a grand gesture told her, ‘We’ll take them,’ then looked at me and said, ‘On me!’ I smiled and thanked her while she continued saying, ‘Don’t worry about it. If men are good for money and sex, at least we should use it for our happiness. Speaking of which, have you got any lately? Money or sex?’ and she laughed at her own joke.

‘No,’ I said, walking up the stairs to the women’s clothing section. ‘I think all men are useless. They don’t stimulate me intellectually at all.’

She stopped mid track. ‘Honey!’ she drawled, ‘they’re not supposed to stimulate your brain. They’re supposed to stimulate your clit!’

‘Shhhhhh … There are kids in here,’ I said, looking around and blushing.

Seriously, sometimes hanging out with Aditi was more an embarrassing experience than a pleasant one. But then she would do these nice things like buy me sunglasses without a thought and one couldn’t help but love her. She went hunting for a decent pair of jeans and I looked through the racks, following her.

I started off on a theory that had been brewing for the past few months in my mind, ‘Men are a complete waste of time. Look at what you are doing. First you have to shop for new clothes, new shoes and new accessories to impress a guy. Then you have to play dumb to get down to his level, then you wait for
him
to call, then you have a fight, which leads to a heartbreak, and then you start the process all over again. What’s the use, dude?’ I exclaimed in one breath.

Aditi took five pairs of designer jeans and a few tops and walked into the dressing room. The lady didn’t say anything to her, so I did, ‘You know you’re only allowed three pieces of clothing in there, right?’

‘Ya,’ she said. ‘But I’ve come here so many times that the dressing room lady knows me by now and figures it’s easier if I take all of them in at one go rather than be here for hours chewing her head.’

Point! So I kept quiet.

She came out parading a few jeans and decided to pick one. Half her budget was blown on that.

‘Isn’t it better to keep a gold necklace for later when you really need the money than blow it on a pair of jeans that you don’t need now?’ I asked prudently.

She looked at me as if I was a moron.

‘Later, I’ll be dead. Right now,’ she paused for dramatic effect, ‘I need to look good for the men who will buy me stuff for later anyway.’

One could never beat Aditi’s logic, and I had to admit she did look good. Her long, chestnut hair, carefully retouched in the L’Oreal salon every two months and a lean body that was worked out at the gym at least thrice a week made her look like a model in her size 28 jeans. Instead of being an assistant director in Bollywood, she should have been a heroine.

But today her logic about men was all warped for me.

‘Men,’ I started, ‘need to intellectually stimulate me for me to go anywhere with them … No! I don’t like that colour. It’s hideous!’ I said in between, referring to a pink paisley top she had chosen. ‘The men I’ve met are mentally vapid and physically challenged.’ Aditi and I had the kind of conversation most outsiders wouldn’t get. We could have one main topic and several side stories and never lose track of any of them. We multi-tasked with our discussions!

She poked her head out of the dressing room and asked startled, ‘You mean they have a small willy?’

‘Shhhhh …’ I said, for the second time that day. Then I looked around and added, ‘No, I mean they’re all average looking and short anyway.’

Aditi liked shocking people. That was her thing. She spoke loudly and laughed even louder so people would notice her and be scandalized. I had become so used to her that I knew when she would take off on something. But it still made me cringe sometimes when she couldn’t act normal, always wanting attention from everyone wherever we went. But I kept quiet. Aditi was a good friend and I really didn’t need to annoy her to prove a point.

She came out of the dressing room, carrying the clothes she wanted to buy on her arm. She signalled to me to go towards the cashier with her while she commented, ‘Look at the statistics. 60 per cent of our male population is below the poverty line and ugly. 10 per cent is rich and ugly. 10 per cent is old and ugly. 10 per cent is adolescents and ugly. That just leaves 10 per cent who are good looking. Now these men might be around our age, they might be married and they might even be too full of themselves to notice you. But to find someone who is intellectually stimulating
and
good looking, well the statistics are completely against you!’

I couldn’t believe she had thought so long and hard about that answer. Or maybe she was just bullshitting me. But I began to wonder. If you went by that logic, every single woman had compromised in her relationship. And that no woman was completely happy.

So I replied to Aditi, ‘We never compromise when we take up a job. We don’t compromise when we buy new jeans. So why should we compromise on relationships that are supposed to be the most important aspect of our lives? When I go to buy something and it doesn’t fit I don’t say, “at least” the colour is right, or if we have to buy a house, we don’t give a crore and say “at least” it’s in a nice locality even if it is too small. We don’t take anything in our lives we’re not completely satisfied and happy with. So why do we take crap from men? Or for that matter, crappy men? Why are we saying “at least” he is funny, or “at least” he is rich? Why do women compromise on the biggest thing of all? The men!’

Aditi didn’t reply. Instead, she changed the topic, which was so typical of her. She could never be wrong. And when she didn’t have an answer or was uncomfortable with a question, she would change the topic completely and pretend as if the earlier conversation was over with her last statement. It was a very ostrich way of living life, but she had mastered it.

‘Now we need to pick out some new clothes for you. With your new haircut your old clothes are not making you look glam enough.’ Aditi went on to pick some brightly coloured, shiny shirts and some short skirts.

‘I’m never going to wear these short, overly revealing things!’ I exclaimed in exasperation since I was feeling too lazy to even try them out.

‘Trust me. You might not wear them now, but when you do find a man, you’ll want to.’ She shoved me into the dressing rooms and I went off muttering something.

I was so glad that she had forced me, because when I emerged, I looked amazing! She was right—as usual. So I went and spent a small fortune on new clothes to wear and no one to wear them for. But at least I was ready!

I was ready to fall in love and get married. Oh sorry, lose my virginity! Did I just mix the two? Maybe the lines were getting blurred after all.

I met
him
in Goa.

I was actually there on work, chaperoning the Princess of Finland, along with her many bodyguards. It was extremely hot in the afternoon on the second day of her visit and the Princess couldn’t take the heat—coming from a land of icebergs. So she decided to stay in the hotel and go for a spa. She gave me the rest of the day off.

I quickly changed into a red off-shoulder blouse and white mini skirt that Aditi had picked up for me and went off by myself to find a shack and drink away the afternoon and most of the night. After walking on the beach to find just the correct shack to sack in for the next twelve hours, I came across Sunny’s. The shack was closer to the rocky edge than the beach and there weren’t too many people at two in the afternoon. So I got myself a table overlooking the sea and ordered a beer. Surprisingly, the shack was cool despite having no air conditioning and just an air cooler blowing at the tables. And since it was secluded, I didn’t have to deal with pesky couples, kids or rowdy office parties.

I started humming to the music playing in the background. This was the life! Soothing retro music, cool breeze, a beer and solitude. These were the times I loved my job as a freelancer. Just as I was about to call out to the waiter for some fried calamari, a man walked in and sat at the table next to me. Madonna’s
Like a virgin
faded in.
Irony
was my aunt.

The man was gorgeous.

No, that’s an understatement. He was a Greek God personified. Everything about him screamed, ‘Model’. He was tall, with dark, wavy hair, light brown eyes and a body that could pass off as one of the bodyguards from Finland. He was wearing a white linen shirt and khaki shorts and sunglasses. He sat down at the table next to me and placed an order. I was trying hard not to stare, but it was difficult.

After some time, the waiter appeared with a plate of fried calamari and put it on my table. I said flummoxed, ‘I didn’t order this.’

The Greek God spoke, ‘No, I did.’

‘Sorry,’ said the waiter and switched the plate to his table and left.

His voice was melodious. Not the waiter’s, the Greek God’s. A lovely deep baritone. I nodded towards the plate and then looked around for the waiter, ‘That actually looks good,’ I said, ‘I’m going to order one myself.’ The waiter was already on it. He knew anyone who came to Goa could never resist a plate of fried calamari especially on a hot afternoon with a chilled beer already in place.

‘Here, I’ll lend you some till you get a plate.’ The Greek God said unexpectedly.

‘No, it’s okay,’ I blushed. I took off my sunglasses and pushed them to the top of my head so he could notice my eyes, the only good feature about me apart from my wrists, but that hardly counted.

‘I’m serious. Here, grab one.’ He handed the plate to me and I took one piece and put it in my mouth. Then he took a fork and picked a calamari with it. I was mortified. Why hadn’t I thought of using a fork? I had unceremoniously touched his plate. I didn’t know what to say. I began to blush again. But he seemed nonplussed and introduced himself.

‘Hi, I’m Arjun.’ The Greek God had a name, a name that was eulogized in Indian mythology. I was swooning. I needed to get a hold of myself. Maybe it was because I had too many drinks on an empty stomach, or maybe because he oozed sex. I felt as if I was swirling.