Jai and Malenna

"You don't mind? That was delightful! You have wonderful hands and just the right touch."

"Just like you taught me." He said but immediately felt the deflecting flattery that Lana had pointed out to him. He resolved not to resort to such simplistic tactics. Charming a woman required something more elegant, something to match Malenna's dancer's stride. He just didn't know what that might be. He felt so young, so incompetent.

Not only Thursday but Monday too, Jai massaged Malenna's legs. It was three weeks into the summer when she finally asked him for what she really wanted. He felt her request like a hammer inside his chest.

"Jai, baby, please, could you rub out the knots in my butt. It is so sore."

Jai complied but concentrated on finding the hard knots and attacking them with a certain single-minded relish. He avoided thinking about how her ass felt in his hands or how it felt to have his hands on that part of her body. He'd gone to the library and read up on deep body massage and copied the techniques he'd read about. The next week, he went and had a massage himself and paid attention to how the masseuse worked him over. It cost him $150 but it was worth it. The techniques brought moans from his mother as he worked on her thighs and ass. He retreated to her feet, and still she moaned. His hands were getting stronger and he could keep working on her for longer then when he began.

Despite the sensual potential for him, this proved an inhibition because to do anything overtly sexual seemed like a violation of some implicit trust, a crude intrusion into this private time they shared. He fantasied about her turning over, pulling his hand to her pussy and closing her eyes.

She never did.

She lay limp under his assaults, letting her breath wheeze in and out as he massaged her aching legs. So he was stuck with this, utterly unhinged but unable to figure out how to extend the massage into something that would get him soundly slapped. There real reason wasn't a lack of imagination or options, he thought of lots of ways, starting with sitting on the backs of her thighs and massaging deep between her legs until he found the heat of her pussy. The reason he demurred was that he didn't want to stop the massages nor did he want to rob Malenna of the pleasure they brought her.

The third time he massaged her ass, rubbing her legs for nearly an hour, she came out of the room after he left, bent over him where he sat on the couch watching TV and kissed him on the cheek. It wasn't a peek, it was a warm, wet, rich, kiss that lingered, tantalizing him. He hadn't shaved yet so she encountered the bristles of his pending beard but she didn't seem to notice.

"Thank you, my son. You are a mother's every dream."

Later, lying in bed reliving that luscious moment, he decided she'd bungled the word order, meaning to say he was every mother's dream, not a mother's every dream. That put a hitch in his breathing because it meant she was rattled and didn't get her words right. That meant something, right?

The whole thing changed the next week. Suresh announced that Thursday would be the last he could work for a while. He had a project back in India, working with a supplier manufacturing and finding replacements for a bankrupted supplier who had provided 45% of their clothing inventory.

Jai arrived home around eight, expecting to find his mother lying on the bed waiting for him. He'd gone over to a friends and played Xbox but had quit to return to massage his mother's legs again, not that he'd said so. She wasn't there. He called her and she said she was late, having gone out with some of the other women. He told her he'd go help his father close up the shop. He hung up.

He left a note for Malenna to remind her where he'd gone and walked through the gathering gloom of the city, winding down in the summer heat. The smell of the city made him wistful for childhood when they played stick ball or soccer in the streets during the evenings. He turned the corner across the street from the shop and stopped. A woman was in the shop, illuminated by the light. She held Suresh's face in her hands and then she kissed him. Not a casual kiss, either, but one where her mouth was clearly wide open. Her arms went around his neck and they kissed, deeply, passionately. His father turned the woman's back to the windows and Jai could see his hand on her ass. She was a young woman, but she wore a long traditional Indian skirt, green and black and Suresh's large hand clasped her tight bun, outlining her pleasing shape.

Jai was shocked, standing stock still in the shadow of the building. His father pulled up the woman's blouse, pushed the bra away from her breast and kissed and sucked at it, hidden by her arched torso but unmistakable to his eyes. Jai was astonished but strangely, he felt a curious elation, an elation he'd not comprehend until later that night. He watched his father half undress the woman and then they turned out the lights. Suresh went to the door, opened it and looked around. Jai sank back into the shadow. Suresh closed and locked the front door. The woman remained inside with him. The little light, though, glinted off her bare back at one point and Jai thought he saw her, pinned by his father against the counter.

"Jai? Jai, come away from there."

Jai flinched like he'd been struck with a whip. It was his mother's voice.

"Mother..."

"Shhh. Come away."

He felt her behind him, her hand on his elbow and then in his hand. She pulled him back into the shadows and then walked him away from the shop, all the way back to their apartment, only dropping his hand when the came out into the light of a street lamp.

His temples pounded, his body felt like every muscle had been pulled as tight as it could be without snapping free.

They went up to their third-floor apartment.

"Mother..."

"Jai, no. After, after Suresh goes back to India, I'll tell you all, all I know. Please, don't say anything to anyone until we can talk, until I can explain."

"He needs to do the explaining..."

She lay a finger against his lips. They pursed of their own free will. Jai stopped just short of kissing her finger and tipping his hand.

"Shhh. None of that. You wouldn't interfere in anyone else's marriage would you? Please leave this alone for now. I promise I will explain. When Suresh is gone, if I can, I will explain."

The five days till his father left were devilishly difficult for him. He kept imagining the woman's breast, his father's hands pushing the blouse up and the bra away from it before kissing it, right there in the light of the store. It made him angry but the anger felt like someone else's that he was simply borrowing, it did not feel like it was really his. The night before his father, Suresh, Jai started calling him only by name in his head, rather like he had taken to calling his mother Malenna in his mind but for vastly different reasons. That night, he finally felt the pressure inside him ease and he lay down and closed his eyes. The emotion welled up in him, the one he'd felt and pushed down, buried and denied with all his might. It returned but this time he couldn't ignore or deny it.

Elation.

The third thing that had countered his plan to get his mother to slap him so he could tell of his lust for her had been his father. He did not feel good about having that lust for the woman his father loved. Now, though, it seemed this was not the case. Suresh was sexually involved with another Indian woman. The elation came from the stark realization that his mother owed no fidelity to the husband who dallied with another woman. In that moment, in the dark of that last night, his world shifted and the plan rose once more to the forefront of his mind. Jai knew he had to pursue his lust and try to seduce his own mother, or his life would never be normal and he'd spend it looking to duplicate her, not only an impossible dream but a horrible injustice to any woman who consented to be with him. Such was his fevered rationalization.

Ten minutes after his father left for the airport, they say down at the table. It was Monday, the shop was closed.

"Jai, listen, let me explain. Your father has changed. It started after you left. I think he believed I'd be the one pining for you. It was not so. He came face to face with the fact that he has grown old. His youngest son who has grown into a man and his life will decline from that moment on. You will soon eclipse him in skill and ability, strength and stamina. His days of dominance are gone. He took up with Shelia," here Malenna smiled. "That's what I call her. I don't know her name. His brother came and I heard them talking. Raj has a mistress. He was telling Suresh about her and how great it was. Suresh asked how he kept it from Anya and Raj said he didn't bother. Anya accepted his need to have another woman before he was too old to appreciate it. He told Suresh every man should have at least one mistress."

Malenna dabbed at her eyes.

"He was never the same after that and soon it became known around the neighborhood that he had taken up with her." She stopped and stared at the handkerchief twisted in her long, lean hands. The tendons on the back of her hands rippled like liquid.

"Are you going to leave him?" Jai asked softly. "I wouldn't blame you if you did."

Malenna looked up at him. She smiled a wistful smile.

"Suresh has been a good husband and a good father. I could not ask for better. Shall I turn away from him now, when he needs me most?"

"But mother..."

"No. Jai, don't say it. Suresh never cared about mortality or thinking about growing old. He lived today, joyfully doing what needed doing each day. I have never had a complaint. Oh, we have struggled but he has shown me the greatest respect at all times. We learned to be a couple from our parents even though ours was an arranged marriage. I did not love him but I love him now. This changes nothing.

"I must endure what is happening just as if he had a disease. This is like that. It only seems that it is of his own making. It isn't. Others have asked me if I will forgive him and I say nothing. I say nothing because there is nothing to forgive. His body is his. We are partners but I do not own him and, unlike our ancestors, he does not own me. I have enjoyed that freedom when many women around me did not, they suffered with their husbands as I never did. Yet they stayed. Is a blow to my female ego worse than a blow to the face? Jai, forget what you saw.

"I am sorry I let that happen. I knew what you would find and I realized too late that you'd said you were going to the shop to help him close up. I have watched them several times. He seems happy, happier at least than the last few years with me. I do not make him happy in that way any longer, so I cannot begrudge him the right to seek it elsewhere. It is a freedom society has denied to men and mocked women who endured it. I will have him back, eventually, he will come back to me but I fear, perhaps even know that that part of our relationship is forever gone."

Malenna bowed her head.

"I cannot go back to him. I do not want you to see us separate. We are friendly, we get along. We negotiate for our individual benefit and do not take what we want regardless of the cost to each other. He is still very considerate of me. I cannot hope to find this stability with anyone else. Ever. Raj made him crazy but I think it was actually your leaving that brought him face to face with his own mortality, the darkness that awaits us all."

Jai's heart clinched in his chest. His mother sounded so bleak. He stared at her, astonished but also devoid of words. He found no response to her words, so utterly contrary to conventional morality. She seemed empty of outrage, resigned to the situation and yet saddened by the loss of her husband as lover, but willing to negotiate a new role for him inside the marriage, despite the disdain he seemed to show for her feelings in the matter. As if she felt his thoughts, she lifted her eyes from her elegant cliched hands.

"He told me, after Raj was here, he said he wanted a mistress. He suggested I take a lover. He said unless I had sex with him again, he wanted a mistress. I agreed. I guess I didn't think he would. I thought he'd come back to my bed. He didn't. I didn't try to lure him back either. It felt, it felt easier to let him go. I changed too. Jai, I watch them and you know what I feel?"

Her big eyes fixed on him. Jai felt her demand for an answer.

"No. I don't." He said aloud, his voice barely a mumble.

"Jealous. I felt jealous that she could feel such passion directed at her. I wanted that but I had no idea how to get it from him. Passion is either there, or it is not. Contrived passion is still contrived. It is like plastic flowers, beautiful to the eyes as the real thing but never as wonderful."

"But the real things wither and die." Jai whispered, feeling his mother's pain but also touching her strength.

She nodded, smiling, that bleak smile from before again.

"You do understand. I knew you would. Please, this is between him and me. It is not your fight to win or lose. He will always be your father and I will always be your mother."

Just like that, the subject closed. With barely a pause, she moved onto something new and, as it turned out, something wonderful.

"Jai, I want to ask something of you. I know this might be odd but I want to do something. The New York Ballet is performing next week and I was going to ask one of my dancer friends to go but honestly, I'd far rather be escorted by my handsome young son. No one needs to know. They can look at us and think that I have seduced that handsome young man and now I am shamelessly parading him in public like a show pony." She laughed, covering her mouth with three fingers.

Jai couldn't help it. He laughed too.

"Show pony? Is that what I am?"

"The other ladies will all be jealous!" Malenna said. "So you'll go?"

Jai managed to contain his excitement, keeping it out of sight below the table. His plan to get slapped just got enormously easier.

Jai and Malenna-Chapter 2: First Time

The night arrived for the ballet. Jai wasn't sure what to expect. Western culture hadn't been at the forefront of their family traditions so he'd never gone to the ballet. His father hadn't railed at Malenna's love of western dance, ballet and jazz both, but he'd certainly sniffed at it. Jai had copied his father's attitude, one he reexamined with introspective vigor leading up to the night for both reasons, his father and his mother.

In the meantime, they'd made other arrangements. Malenna had decided to shift the Thursday hours to close at eight, a half an hour before she left dance class, to give Jai time to get home and be ready to rub her legs, or so she said. He'd gotten a job loading trucks at a local warehouse. He'd negotiated to have Tuesday and Thursday free so he could run the store. With Suresh in Punjab, Malenna needed time to find and secure stock for her store herself. The people who knew Suresh knew her but he'd handled most of the acquisitions, often by being in the right place at the right time when manufacturing went awry or standards shifted or styles changed. Jai would work Saturdays and Sundays at the warehouse so he could have the two days free to rub his mother's legs. The shift nearly always went late, which was the least popular shifts but he got overtime and so everyone benefited.

They went to the ballet and Malenna was enthralled. For Jai, it was a chance to see two things. One was the dance that his mother loved in all its excellence and the other was his mother breathless with wonder and delight. She was like a young girl, her hands clasped before her, her eyes shining as the music swelled or the pas de deux played out before the audience. At the first intermission, however, the night yielded its main significance, at least while they were at the ballet.

True to her word, Malenna paraded around with her white gloved hand tucked tightly in Jai's elbow, beaming like a new bride. She'd rented a tux for him and he felt like the moment was equal to his appearance, or perhaps the other way around. They walked up and back, neither one caring for a glass of bubbly, but wishing to stretch their legs before squeezing into their seats once more. It was on one of these turns around the foyer that a striking blonde woman approached them.

"Is that Yves latest? That dress looks fabulous on you!" The woman said, speaking to Malenna. "My god, I wish I had those legs, I'd certainly show them off too!"

The woman was blonde but younger than Malenna by perhaps ten or twelve years, around thirty or so. She wore a sparkling blue dress that caught light and scattered it in scintillating splendor. Malenna's dress was a white version but toned down. While the blonde's dress screamed "look at me", Malenna's dress asked "can you see me" in demure fashion, except for the little detail of the slit up the left side. Each step she took exposed her leg nearly to her hip. She wore nothing, no stockings, no hose, so what she displayed to the eyes that saw her, was her fine dancer's leg, but just the one and only for fleeting moments before the drape of the dress closed around it and hide it from view. The rhythm to her exposure mesmerized and hypnotized those eyes she caught and they were many. Jai noticed. She preened in the light and this woman's attention glittered in her eyes.

"I'm Beverly Depaolo." The woman said, extending her blue-gloved hand.

Jai had to turn away. He suddenly had the impression that she was wearing one of Michael Jackson's famous gloves from the 1980s. The thought made him want to laugh so he turned away. This impulse inadvertently set a hook in the woman, a hook she found impossible to dislodge.

Jai ignored the two women, despite being aware of his mother's hand clutching tightly to his elbow. They talked fashion and his concern for fashion was mostly restricted to the body in the dress, not the book cover. Accordingly, he undressed several of the strutting women around him while his mother discussed her store, her dress, and the woman's dress. When the blonde woman finally drifted away, Malenna leaned in and whispered in his ear.

"Do you know who that is?"

"Beverly Depaolo" Jai said automatically.

"Yes, but she is one of the women who set styles in New York. Not the high fashion elite, but for people like us. She wants to come to the store, she wants to see my stock. She said if it is half as nice as this dress, which I had to admit I skimmed out of my own stock, then she thought I must have the best boutique in New York."

Jai only half listened. He kept his mind on the strutting beauties around him in order to mute the sensual delight of his mother's girlish ecstasy and the very real feel of her hand on his elbow. He loved that feeling.

"She, she said you were the handsomest man here." Malenna continued. Her voice lowered an octave and rasped when she spoke next. "She has a reputation as a woman who enjoys young men, men your age. What do you think? Would you like to have sex with her?"

Jai reeled in his attention from a gallon of redhead stashed in a pint of dress. He looked at his mother, not sure he'd heard what she said.

"I beg your pardon?" He asked softly.

"Would you like to have sex with her? I hear she adores young men and she never took her eyes off you the whole time she was talking to me. It really was quite rude."

Jai was tongue tied but fortunately the lights blinked and they forgot the subject on the way to their seats. The rest of the evening was more of the same. His ass hurt from the flimsy seat and he felt the tension of being in a tuxedo begin to wear on him. They'd closed the shop with a sign, "off to the ballet" which he hoped didn't invite visitors. They'd cleaned out all the cash, so burglars would only be people with fashion sense to get anything of value, he hoped.