Nirvana
I stood before him in my best cotton sari, watching as he lit the oil lamp on the corner table, bringing the gift of light into my humble room on this, the fifth night of Diwali, our annual Festival of Lights. He was a beautiful man, my Illya, slender of build and rather pale, even for a westerner, and he radiated everything I have come to love in a sexual partner- - strength, virility, sensuality. As the lamp flickered and darkness retreated, he glanced up, and his eyes met mine. Such blue eyes! I have never seen a star sapphire, but when I try to imagine what one would look like, even now, I see his eyes.
He reached across the bed - my room is very small, you see - to close the wooden window slats, shutting out the pop of fireworks and the joyous music of the sarangi and tabla bands drifting up from the street below.
"Please, leave them open."
"I thought you might prefer privacy."
I shook my head. When I spoke, I felt grateful that my voice was steady. "The evening breeze is pleasant. It is quite warm in here."
He said nothing, but merely smiled. Oh, the thousand promises in that smile! My thighs began to quiver, my insides turned to jelly under the heat of his gaze. Instinctively, my fingers formed the prana mudra- - three fingers together, two straight out- -to invoke tantra, the sacred sexual energy. My body sang with need. I was a vessel, filled to the brim, spilling over with lust and waiting to be emptied. I was an empty vessel, desolate, incomplete, desperate to be filled. I was on fire.
"Rana," he said, stretching out atop my bed. "Come." He held out his arms, and I melted eagerly into them, as I had on each of the previous four nights.
Our mouths met in a kiss so gentle and sweet, I thought I would die from the beauty of it. His lips on mine were soft and full, and tasted of honey and saffron, and the almond sweetness of the badam phirni we had fed each other in the marketplace. His teeth nibbled tantalizingly at my bottom lip; his tongue teased mine until I couldn't breathe. It was heaven. The kiss deepened; a flood of sweet sensations erupted in my core. I wanted more.
As though he'd heard my plea, Illya reached up to unfasten the decorative clasp holding my sari in place. As it gave way, meter after meter of saffron-colored fabric began to unravel from my body, exposing my breasts to his gaze.
"Beautiful," he murmured, pressing kisses upon my bare shoulders. "But where is your choli?"he asked, referring to the undergarment favored by respectable Indian women.
"I'm not wearing one."
His eyes grew large, and I watched his irises darken to the color of a twilight sky. It was plain to see that the thought of such a proper girl foregoing her undergarments aroused him. I sighed with pleasure.
Before I could say more, his lips fastened upon my nipple,and I gasped at the jolt of electricity that went through me. It was like a lightning strike, instantaneous and blindingly bright. I had imagined my body was alive before, but this - - this was indescribable. Every cell of my being was on fire with life. First one nipple and then the other received his expert ministrations as I lay there, moaning and writhing with pleasure. His hands were busy as well, exploring in the vicinity of my hips, edging the fabric of my sari lower, and lower still, until I felt the cool breeze from the window touch my skin, and realized that I was completely naked, without a clear memory of how I had gotten there.
I reached for him, my hands shaking with desire. One by one, I undid the buttons of Illya's shirt, and pushed the offending garment from his shoulders. I bent to kiss the jagged scar on his chest, a terrible wound long-since healed, whose story I would never know.
He sighed.
Emboldened by his response, I pressed myself against him, rubbing my naked body across his crotch. Illya groaned; his body arched reflexively, and he muttered something incomprehensible in Russian. Impatient now, I unfastened his belt and cast it aside. The pants came next, and since it is Illya's preference to "go commando"as he calls it, he was now as naked as I. I was wild with desire at the sight of him lying there beside me, his pale flesh flushed with desire, his penis rock hard and ready.
"Please - -" I heard myself gasp. "I can't - - I have to - -"
Illya's mouth left my breasts, and for an instant, I was bereft. Moments later, I became blissfully aware that his kisses were drifting lower, much lower, his tongue tracing a path of seduction down my trembling belly and past my my thighs, his warm breath coming to rest at last upon threshold of my womanhood. Suddenly, I couldn't breathe.
"Is this what you want?" he purred.
"Yes. Please, oh, yes!"
His mouth fastened on my clitoris, and he began to suck, his tongue tracing urgent circles around the sensitive spot. I was hot all over, my body moaning and thrashing without regard for the sensibilities of my neighbors. I was lost in ecstasy, oblivious to anything else. And as if that were not enough of Heaven, suddenly his fingers penetrated me, and with a cry of delight that surely must have been heard in Calcutta, I came.
My body was still throbbing with pleasure when he entered me. I gasped at the size of him. He filled me completely, a fullness I had never known before, nor have experienced since. He paused to allow me time to accommodate him, and then he began to thrust. His powerful hands held my hips in a vise grip, rocking, encouraging me to move faster, thrust harder. We were both panting now, aching with need, desperate to prolong our pleasure even as we strove to find release. Illya's head was thrown back, and the muscles of his neck stood out like the marble pillars of a temple. His eyes closed, and he groaned as the urgency of the moment took over. One last thrust and he came, a massive orgasm, crying out my name. Rana. Rana. My body, strung taut as a bow, arched in climax, and I matched him gladly at the Gates of Bliss. Surely, I thought, this is Nirvana.
We collapsed in each other's arms, laughing with joy, and utterly spent. Wrapped in the crushed remains of my sari, we drank cool, sweet tea and listened to the sounds of the festival, which was drawing to a close after five glorious days of celebration. Lord Rama had once again defeated the Demon King. Once again, Good had triumphed over Evil. I prayed that it might always be so.
Illya kissed my bindi, painted with vermillion powder for the festival. He kissed my hennaed hands. "Thank you," he said. "I will always remember this."
We made love twice more that night, each time with increased desperation, knowing that in the morning, Illya would be gone. Sometime in the late hours of the night, I watched the oil lamp, exhausted of fuel, flicker out. The street beneath my window was deserted now, the townspeople gone at last to their beds. I listened to the silence, broken only by the sound of Illya's gentle breathing beside me. The air was redolent with the scent of frangipani and sex; I took deep breaths, determined to remember it forever. I watched the moon rise, its light shining through the window, casting our bodies in a mystical blue glow that precisely matched the color of my lover's eyes.
Two travelers, destined to meet on the Great Wheel of Karma, receiving a momentary gift of respite from the challenges of this hard life. For an instant no longer than a breath, the Wheel stops turning, and my dark, honeyed skin becomes a pillow for my lover's abalone paleness, nada and pingala in perfect union. We make love, Illya and I, on a sea of saffron-colored cotton, and the moon smiles down upon us through an open window.