Things That Bang

His wrinkled hand touched the knob of the bathroom door and trembled. He was a horny 60 year old bastard lusting after a 36 year old woman. He wasn't getting any and neither was she. They were the only two sex deprived adults in a household where the other two adults, his son and his wife, were getting on probably every other night.

The water fell in the bathroom and he imagined himself in there with her and feelings of shame and lust made a nasty heady cocktail in his mind. He let his body go a long time back. He had a round belly that made him look four months pregnant and his breasts looked as if they had worked double shifts at the breastfeeding factory but these body image issues did not deter him from shamelessly sniffing his daughter in law. He imagined his shaft poking deep within her bushy nether regions and her soft mouth open in a perfect O.

His pecker had come to hate him and turned him into a dirty old man. It had been over ten years since he had sex. Vibha's death had closed the chapter when it came to enjoying female companionship but also irrevocably on his sex life.

Five years later, tragedy struck again when his younger son died of a car accident on the Jaipur highway along with two of his friends.

The car had come into a headlong collision with a truck that had only one working headlight. He turned his mind away from the call that came, the identification of the blood crusted broken bodies, the pyre and the coming of his shell shocked daughter in law to stay with them from Jaipur.

He put his head on the door of the bathroom and remembered how she cried into her pillow late in the night and he stood out side her door letting his tears run down his wrinkled cheeks as well. His other daughter in law saw him standing outside Sheetal's door crying and returned to her room to give her stoic father in law privacy to grieve in peace.

But one night they heard him cry out loudly and they stepped of their room to see their shell shocked father standing in the dark corridor with Sheetal. His son switched on the light and gasped. Sheetal had shaved her waist length hair and the warm yellow light of the cheap Chinese bulbs pooled against her clean bald head. She glared at her flabbergasted brother in law and his wife.

She held out her dead husband's electric razor which Gaurav, her brother in law, took and they watched her walk back to her room and lock the door. Gaurav shook his head and returned to his room, grumbling about midnight dramas were getting on his nerves.

His wife, Sonam, put a solicitous hand on her father in law's arm and asked him if he needed anything. He shook his head, told her gruffly that she was a good daughter and went back to his room. Sonam felt like his daughter but not Sheetal with her baleful eyes and cold silences.

Gaurav and Sonam bounced back from the tragedy within a year since the birth of their son came as a balm to their arid souls. There was laughter in the house again but Sheetal remained somewhat aloof and in a world of her own. She doted on the little one, cradled him in her arms and showered him with baby gifts but interaction with the family was cut and dried as if she was roomie sharing space with them and nothing more.

Sheetal found a job and left in the morning and returned in the evenings. She shared household duties with Sonam like a automaton, served dinner, held the baby for a while and then promptly left for her room. Sonam shook her head, Gaurav shook his head and so did he while the cherub slept in his withered arms.

The pattern was shattered when Sheetal had bought a friend unannounced home for dinner. Her name was Bina and she was the antithesis of quiet Sheetal. Over dinner she ribbed Sheetal for her cool exterior and her soft beating heart for she willingly took up the work of an ill colleague and time and again stood up to their mean spirited boss. Bina filled the silence in all its cold pockets with her incessant chatter. She praised Sonam's cooking skills, said Gaurav was a thoughtful father and him- she looked intently in his quiet old brown eyes and told him that Sheetal thought he was the father she wished she had instead of that cold brute who left her mother.

His lips had trembled in response and he let his eyes slide over his silent daughter in law who refused to meet his eyes and trailed narrow lanes between her pooris and subzi. Her hair had started growing back – the fuzzy black had given way to a shaggy mop that she had neglected to style. He felt something twist in his heart and his chest tightened. He cleared his throat, nodded and gruffly asked for his pooris.

Sheetal never bought Bina back home again but the family were heartened to hear Bina's perky voice ask for Sheetal on the phone. They took it as a sign that Sheetal was beginning to pick up the threads of her life but they gave her space. They all had gotten used to her morbid self absorption but unlike his son and his wife he now found himself noticing small things about Sheetal. Like that crisp Monday morning when she finally moved on from wearing flat shoes to heels, when she began to wear more shapely blouses instead of the baggy sacks she used to wear to work and he remembered when his pecker moved a little when he finally saw the pink lipstick on her lips.

Part of him was heartened that she had finally begun to move on and part of him hated himself zealously for the reaction that came from a place he thought was long dead. He couldn't sleep the night his pecker came alive. Next morning he had a hard on because his widowed daughter in law painted her lips in front of him. He was a pathetic old bastard.

The tightened muscle felt good in all its 9 inch glory but his conscious tore him into pieces. She gave an absentminded smile to her little makeshift family and left for work. Sonam asked whether he was willing to hold the wailing two year old while she collected the dishes? He nodded and she plonked the frisky one year old on his lap and he gently moved the boy away from his boner and placed him on the floor next to him. It was all so wrong and yet felt good. He felt like a young man and as his boner shrivelled up and nestled back against his enlarged balls he told himself no harm had come. It was the way of men to hide the lust and dike the destruction it could deluge on those men loved best.

Five years of lusting and pining for a woman who thought of him as her father had made him feel like a teenager having wet dreams about a woman he knew he could never have. And the romance of it sang in his blood. He lay against his hard pillow and had fantasies of her, he gave in to desire once in a week and cleaned himself up with tissues later and made sure he never looked at her for too long when others were around.

He caressed the door behind which she took her bath. Five years had passed and she was a changed woman and he a changed man. Death had done that to them. He straightened his back and told himself to be a man and knocked on the door. The sound of water running stopped and a hesitant yes answered his knock.

He cleared his throat and spoke “Beta! Giresh will be here soon. He called and said the movie will start in half an hour. You better get ready fast.”

“Yes Babuji!” there was excitement in her voice. She had slowly thawed since her boss steam rolled into her life. The same obnoxious mean spirited slave driver of a boss fell for the iron willed Sheela and proposed marriage.

He stepped away from the bathroom and went into the living room and picked up the newspaper and blindly stared at image of a politician giving a toothy smile with a fat marigold garland around his thick neck. Minutes ticked by and there were sounds of horns blaring and the door bell ringing.

His grandson spilled inside with his school bag and mother behind him. They both wore big smile and behind them walked in Giresh. Tall, young vibrant Giresh juggling flowers and gifts for the family.

Sonam gave a girlish laugh “Babuji, you have to tell Giresh not to bring us gifts every time he comes over. He is spoiling Anil. He pulled in right behind us and got Anil all excited.”

Anil gave a toothy smile, his teeth were already stained with chocolate and Giresh put the gold Rocher wrapper in his pocket and strode over to his side and handed him a small sleek rectangular box and said “I thought of you when I saw this.”

He gave a weak smile and opened the wrapping and saw a Mont Blanc pen in it. His pecker felt puny and bullied in front of Giresh. He sighed and sat back and gave a weak smile “There really wasn't any need Giresh.”

Giresh shrugged and his eyes looked beyond the living room. His eyes lit up when he saw Sheela walk into the room and like Giresh's eyes his eyes too took in her silky shoulder length hair, the easy smile and the skip in her step.

“Time to go? We have a dinner reservation.” Giresh took her arm and she nodded.

They began to walk out. Anil like an incorrigible spaniel crowded around the two and they both gave him a tight good bye hug and Sonam behind them teased Giresh to bring her sister in law back home in it and no naughty business till they got married.

Giresh ribbed back that he respected the traditions of the family and had utmost respect for Babuji.

Giresh's words made him feel like a wriggling worm on a fisherman's pole. He remained seated on the leather couch with a stained smile on his face.

The car on the driveway started and he felt like crying as if his favourite toy had been taken away. His heart broke and he wiped his tears.

The door opened again, he raised his eyes and watched her in walk towards him in her vibrant red silk top and figure hugging jeans. She had come a long way from the grieving widow to a woman willing to love again.

She stood before him for a minute then bent down and touched his feet and softly said “Thank you Babuji.”

He touched her head and replied “Be happy, that is all that I ask.”

She stood up , flicked away the tears and left the house.

He sighed, picked up the paper and began to read. His pecker on the other hand wailed its horny existence.