When I Die

KC Gets Laid

-0-

What happened was larger than life. Larger than mine, at least. That's the best way I can put it. The only way I can talk about things like these is tell them like I tell stories. It is in my nature to make things seem bigger than they are, it seems. That's how I always write. What you're reading is a story; I shan't waste your time trying to convince you it's true; I give not a fiddler's fuck what you make of it. I'm happier than I ever have been, and that is enough.

_____

-1-

"My cell's not working either," Ash says.

We're sitting inside a Honda City. Four of us. Nisha behind the wheel.

Around us people are swimming past.

Around us, there are approximately too many cars. All stuck. Just like us.

Water everywhere.

2 AM.

The night of 26th July, 2005, that's the morning of 27th.

26th. Note the number very well and refer the entry called Godquake.

Nisha's brother, Tony (not his real name, but that's what she calls him) tells Ash, "All services are down. Orange, Airtel, MTNL, you name it." He's sitting shotgun.

Ash looks at me, and I shrug. "That's why you don't want God pissing often," I say.

Nisha bursts out laughing. Her laughter sounds too heavy in the closed car. Windows rolled up. The water was about chest high on a five foot ten guy about twenty minutes ago.

People struggling past us, abandoning their cars, wading through, the water pushing them back.

The radio's stuttering. Some female RJ saying three dead bodies observed. Floating at Bandra. That's far away. Sure, that's far away.

I'm wondering if Mom's home safe.

There's no electricity anywhere.

Beside me, Ash tucks her feet beneath her. "My folks must be worried out of their skulls," she says.

"My Mom's probably rejoicing," I say.

"Quit it," Tony says.

"All right, boss," I say. "Want me to rub yer feet too, boss?"

He laughs too.

This situation is pretty serious. The windows could crack any moment and water could gush in. The car could get swept away. We could drown in here. But, look, if you can't joke at a time like this you're apt to go into mental deadlock. That won't help you anymore than laughing will, will it?

Ash swats her hand on my shoulder.

We've been in here for about two hours. Don't ask me where we were coming back from, because everyone who's stuck out here has a different answer for that question and it does not matter. What matters is we are not at home.

I bite into what's remaining of my frankie. It tastes like rain.

We've sung songs, played stupid games and done a lot of other things waiting for this fucking water to go down.

By now we're piss bored.

Someone knocks on my window. He cups his hands to the glass, and mouths: "It's going down. Rain's going down."

I give him a thumbs up.

"We should walk," I say after a while. "If we have to get home we have to walk. And now."

Nisha agrees. Tony looks out, gulps, and then says, "Maybe we could wait for some more time."

Nisha says, "No, I think we should go now. Ash?"

"Sure."

The only problem is what Ash is wearing would be like wearing nothing once it's wet. Think white, think thin, think cut off quite a few ways above the belly button. And so it would float up in the water.

KC being quite the brashy gentleman he is, removes his T-shirt and hands it to her. There is some murmur on seeing his white untanned scrawny torso and those pinkish nipples (for the record, none of them know my father was American) and that sprawling hair all over.

And so we jump out; the car fills up when we open the door, but screw it.

The water's running right up to just below my nipples. Ash's breasts make two camel-humps on the surface of the water. Kind of like an excessively curvy capital M.

Ash takes my hand and says, "We better walk in twos."

I do one better, throw an arm around her like she's my girl. She doesn't mind, and I kind of love it. Holding someone just for the heck of it.

We stand in front of the car, its lights illuminating us. Four bodies totally drenched. My T-shirt sticking to Ash's body and not showing anything that is not supposed to be shown to the whole world. "Wanna kiss for good luck, Nish?" I ask Nisha. "Tis a long journey before us and I sure could use some."

"Yeah but Tony'll kill me when he sees me kissing a fucking queer," she says. She's locked a hand with Tony, arm in arm.

"Of course," I go. "If you won't even leave gay people alone then where the fuck will he find love?"

We laugh on that, but not much.

Picture it: drowning in rain, almost, and laughing.

Those psychologists, they don't know jack shit about human beings. Or at least about the ones I know. Including me, of course.

I wipe my hair back on my head with one hand. And then shielding my eyes with that hand, look ahead. Cars as far as you can see--which is not really far, frankly.

Comfortably numb, I think. You gotta do this comfortably numb. If you can do it that way you can get home.

_____

-2-

The walking's okay for about twenty minutes, but then our limbs start feeling the mello jello, as they say.

The water's running in the direction we're headed, which is a fucking boon. It's cold like a motherfucker, which is not. And I don't have a T-shirt, remember.

My nipples, now I kind of wonder how pornstars can bear having them hard all the time. It hurts so fucking bad!

Nisha's got hard ones too, and Tony probably has them too, although he's wearing one of those sweater-T-shirt hybrids and you can't be sure. He's got a belly jutting out, so his chest is hidden behind, anyway. You wouldn't think he's Nisha's brother.

My jeans--our jeans--are heavy, and lifting a leg is starting to feel like lifting a ton of bricks.

And always that constant drip drip drip on our heads, on our shoulders. And wading water below us. Nary a shelter in sight.

On the footpaths, on the sides of the road, everything is raped. Shops blown away, vegetable marts filled with floating and already rotting greenies. Somebody on our left yells, "He's not breathing! He's not--"

I start walking towards that voice, but before I get two steps ahead it stops and I can't make out where to go.

So we resume walking.

Most of it is silent, but sometimes one of us talks.

Ash next to me, my arm around her, her's around my waist, walking in sync to some beat we can't hear. We have to be careful for open manholes. We don't want to die that way. We can't see the road below us; deep in water. Taking each step as carefully as we can. I'm thinking what if there are snakes floating admist. I don't speak that thought aloud; it's apt to scare the shit out of us.

We've decided we'll make it to the college first, because that's closest, and then if things get bad stick around there.

About an hour later, Tony suddenly stops.

He clutches his belly.

"We need to rest," Nisha says. We look around, find an abandoned one-storey shop with a counter above the water level for now. We climb up on it, find a few people already huddled there, find a corner and sit resting on each other's back a la Forrest Gump.

I'm cold all over, and so are they.

_____

-3-

Don't think for a moment we are not scared. Somebody's telling someone else there are quite a few alligators floating in, escaped from the zoo. Now that's a thought ought to cheer you right up.

Five minutes pass, and then some more time, but I'm not sure how much because by then my wristwatch is dead.

Before leaving we massage each other's feet to get the circulation going again. The skin of our toes is wrinkled.

After we're sure Tony's in working order again, we step outside.

The rain's slowed down, but that's not saying much because it was horribly heavy to begin with.

Twenty minutes later--as far as my sense of time goes--a man about five minutes' trudging-in-the-water-walk ahead of us falls down a manhole. Right in front of our fucking eyes. One moment he's there, and the next he just falls down; sucked in. Like in a movie.

Nisha gasps.

Ash tenses up, and then her grip around my waist tightens, and then she holding me tighter than I am holding her.

Five seconds later the man gets out. He hasn't fallen all the way in. He's miraculously all right.

We look at each other and smile.

My lungs hurt.

My feet are probably dead. They're running on autopilot.

A lot of things happen--some good, some bad, nobody dies, lots of lightning, Nisha vomits, Tony and I piss right in the fucking water (and zipping our pants up is a hell of a task), the girls hold it in, Ash's breathing gets heavy, labored, and then I find that that's how it is with all of us--and then, finally, don't ask me how, we get to the street which eventually leads to college which eventually leads to our homes.

We get to the college building, and people are propped up on the second floor. Lots of them.

We get there, and Tony just slips down on the floor; flat on his back. Nisha sits down beside him.

"KC," Ash says, stuttering some. "Wuh-will you blow in my ear? I can't... I can't feel it."

So I turn her head and blow in her ear. Through my mouth--cause that's where it comes out hottest according to my schoolteacher.

"I'm so cold, man," Ash says. I hug her. She's shivering. Lightly, thank God.

"And you, KC?" Nisha asks, rubbing her arms in that discreetly feminine way all women seem to.

If this was an ordinary day I would've said my usual wiseass shit. Something like, "I's hotter'n Pitt on Viagra, m'am."

What I do say is, "I'm fine. Just feeling nekkid, is all."

_____

-4-

We rest there for about fifteen minutes, and then Nisha says we should all go to her house.

I think about it for a while and decide against it. You have to head south to go to her house from here and you have to head north to go to mine. I decide I'll go to my house.

"Me too," Ash says. She has to head north as well. But her house is not as close from college as mine is; nor is it really close to my house. It's in fact pretty far off. "I hope you've got room for two," she tells me.

Of course I've got room for two on a non-emergency day! I've got room for a fucking hundred in dire times like these. And besides it's Ash! What the hell is she talking about? She's one of my happy people.

"Sure I do, you dimwit," I say.

She punches me on the shoulder.

"I got room for you folks too, you know," I tell Nisha.

Nisha considers this, so does Tony. "Nah, we better go to our house."

"Let's get going, then," I say, and get up.

"KC?" Tony says.

"What?"

"Thanks, man."

Eh? "What for?"

"I don't know... trudging along, I guess."

"We's make a good team, hell yeah!" I say, and wink.

Nisha gets up and smiles the kind of smile you only get to see from someone maybe three times in your life.

"I'll call you when the phone starts working," she says.

This is the part where we shake hands and part. Only, I don't think shaking hands quite cuts it.

So I hug her and she hugs back.

Tony looks at me, and I say, "You're not getting that, faggot," but we do one of those hand-shake-half-hug-shoulder-to-shoulder-rapsta things anyway.

Ash and Nisha do their lesbian thing (although don't tell them I called them lesbians or crucify a certain KC they will).

Standing on the edge of the college's stairs, I ask Ash, "You're sure you don't want to stay here?" Cause she's looking pretty pooped.

The wind's really putting it on, and it rakes against my naked skin.

She nods. So we walk down huddled close once again, her body suddenly warmer--and welcomely warm at that--and turn north and wave Nisha and her brother seeya later, alligator.

The water's down to our waist now, and it's a little bit easier.

We don't talk quite much till we reach my building.

_____

-5-

When we reach my floor, my door is locked. I fish into my jeans pocket for the house keys--half sure that I've lost them in the water--then unlock the door, step in with her, close the door behind me.

We slump down to the floor, and rest our heads on the wall.

I close my eyes.

And that is the moment when all of the residual fatigue kicks in.

Suddenly I'm too tired to do anything.

Ash's head resting on the wall, me thinking if this was an ordinary day and she was sitting on the floor next to me, things could get to a place where I would love going but wouldn't be sure of wanting to get there, wouldn't be sure at all.

That's me: dead tired, but still sexed up. Fucking monkey.

"My legs hurt," she says. Barely a whisper. "I'm so tired, KC, my legs hurt."

"I know," I say. And then I don't know why I say it: "You made it look too easy."

And it's true. It wasn't easy by any means, but both the girls made it look as easy as it gets. Can't say the same about Tony, though. And hell, I probably whined along the way as well.

She runs her hand through my hair. "I should call mom," she says. "And where's your mom?"

On cue, right on cue, the phone rings.

"Hello?"

"KC? Thank God you're home!"

"Where are you, mom?"

"College. Almost everyone of the staff and a few students. Don't worry. Go to sleep. What about the rest? Did they make it--"

"Ash is here, mom. She's sleeping here."

"Oh. Sure, of course. If you can't get the gas burner on, just eat stuff from the fridge. There's ice cream. There's lots of it. We're eating hot food here, don't worry about me. Okay and--"

Garbled speech.

"What, mom?"

"Listen: just eat and go to sleep. Don't worry. Tell her not to worry. Goodnight, son."

"Goodnight, mom."

I dial Ash's home number, but it gives a service-unavailable message.

_____

-6-

When I look at Ash, she is really shivering.

I trudge to my cabinet--can't fucking believe how much of an effort it is to walk now--and fish an old T-shirt and a relatively unused pair of shorts out. I almost close it, think better, open it again, fish out a towel.

"Here," I hand it to her. "Go change."

She goes into mom's room slowly, very slowly. Closes the door.

I make it to the loo and piss the whole Indian Ocean out.

After pissing, I start shivering like an earthworm thrown in an anthole.

So I psuedo-race back outside, strip my jeans (getting them off ain't no walk in the park), get a towel out, wipe my crotch, wipe the crack of my ass, slip into shorts (bending my legs to get into them almost lands me on the floor on my face), then wipe the rest of me off and slip into a heavy cotton shirt with long sleeves.

I start drying my hair with that already wet towel, and that's when she comes out, drying her red-streaked hair with her towel.

We catch each other doing the same thing and I smile. She smiles too, but that smile is so tired.

"Maybe you should try calling your house," I say.

She nods and taking heavy steps goes to the hall and rings her house. It connects.

"Mom? Yes... yes, I'm... I'm fine, mom. Yes, we--I'll tell you later. I'm at KC's house and where's Dad? Where's... oh, okay, thank God! Yes we're fine. He's okay. Yes, what? No, we left it and... never mind, mom. Listen, yes, yes, call here tomorrow but please call late I want to... what? Yes, a little. I don't... yes, I'm so glad, mom. Yes, yes, sure. Hold on. KC?" She calls me.

Her mom wants to talk to me.

"She's gonna tell you to refuse my amorous advances, or something," Ash says. She giggles. I kind of love her a bit at that moment.

I take the phone. "Yes?"

"KC? How are you?"

"I'm fine, m'am. And you folks?"

"We're all fine. Your mother?"

"In college. But safe."

"How is Ash?"

"She's a bit tired, yes," I say.

"How long did you walk, son?"

"Three hours? Five hours, maybe."

"And the others?"

"We came halfway in Nisha's car with her brother. I don't know about the rest of them, to be frank. I hope they're safe, though."

"Me too," she says. After a beat, she says, "Call me if you need anything."

Another beat, and then we burst out laughing. What's she gonna do, swim all the way over? We laugh some more.

I look at Ash, and she's probably wondering if we're kidding about her.

"Take care, son," she says.

"You too, m'am," I say.

We hang up on that.

_____

-7-

"You want something to eat?" I ask Ash.

"I just want to sleep, man." She hugs herself below her breasts--just like Nisha rubbed her arms earlier.

"Okay," I go.

Problem is, we only have one bed.

And I can't find it in my heart to pull the compartment under the bed to remove a mattress which I can spread on the floor; I'm dead fatigued.

But that's what I'll have to do.

She goes to the toilet, and meanwhile it occurs to me that we've been doing all of this in the dark without even caring about the light. Amazing. Sure, the cars outside my house are illuminating everything, but I don't think we care about that light either.

She comes out, opens the sink tap and says, "Man, there's water everywhere but inside the house."

"Must be the pumps. No electricity, so the pumps are dead."

"Yeah," she goes. "I could live without any water on my skin for about a week now anyway."

There's some comfortable silence--we did it comfortably numb, I think. We did it, thankee senor Floyd.

Then I see the lazy way she tugs at the round collar of the T-shirt and tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear, and I say, "Let's get you to bed."

She just goes to the bed and falls down on it. Fumbles with the blanket with her legs for a while and then rolls it over her.

I begin to begin the loathsome task of bending down to pull that extra storage compartment to remove the mattress and she says, "What are you doing?"

"Hiding under the bed," I go. "I'm removing stuff to make my bed."

"Nonsense, this bed is big enough, goofball."

The problem with that goddamn monkey is that it just doesn't fucking shut up. Fed on over a zillion Hindi films, a guy and a girl in a bed--despite my knowing better--only signifies sex. Goddamn fucking babbling monkey. But it doesn't give me a good enough reply to give her either, so I just sort of stand there.

_____

-8-

Finally, I say, "I can't sleep in this bed, Ash."

"Like hell you can't! It's your bed!"

"My mom's."

"Yeah, okay, whatever."

"But--"

"Look, if you're afraid I'm gonna rape you in your sleep you don't need to worry. I'm too tired to do anything but snore."

I'm surprised into a chuckle.

She's right. I mean, we've been sticking pretty close for many hours now anyway.

So I go to the other side, slip into bed, roll my blanket over me and suddenly realize how cold I feel all over.

Then I remember how cold she's been feeling for a while and I ask her, "Do you want some Crocin or Aspirin or something?"

She shakes her head, and she's so adorable I want to pinch her nose like you'd pinch a baby's. Just like that.

"You think Nish made it?" she asks.

I turn over to my side so I'm facing her like she's facing me. And again she's just so flat out adorable with both her hands beneath her head--palms together as if praying. "Yeah," I say. "Worried about the others a bit, though. Do you know--"

But she's asleep. Or perhaps it's I who dozes off. I'm not really sure.

_____

-9-

Someone of you is asking: so, did you cop a feel or what? No? Yeah, right, KC, and Santa is a football star.

Come on, you're asking, nothing happened? You fucking loser! A girl practically invites you into bed and you do what? Nothing! Fucking miserable retard!

Honestly, buddy, I don't know.

I'm beyond tired at this point; I can count each muscle in my body because it's paining it's own pain.

Outside, somebody's car alarm is going on and off, and someone is yelling.

I'm still feeling cold, and part of me wants to move closer, snuggle in.

I'm not sure if that part gets to act, because at some point I fall asleep.

I don't remember dreaming.

_____

-10-

She wakes me up the next morning.

I'm sleeping on my side, and she shakes my arm.

When I wake up and open my eyes and look at her sitting in the hollow between my head and my curled up knees she smiles and says, "Easy, easy."

I roll around on my back, and then realize I've got my usual wake-up hard on. So I roll on my side again.

"Good morning," I say.

"It's 6 in the evening," she says. "But what the heck. Good morning."

I roll over my back again--consequences be damned--rub my eyes with my knuckles. "When did you wake up?"

"Ten minutes ago, I think. How are you feeling?"

"Okay. Can't be sure till I walk, though." And I also have a boner.

My body wakes up now, and with it comes the fatigued pain. Sore muscles. All of it all at once.

"I'm still pretty woozy," she says. "See this?" She raises a leg on the bed and there is a nasty scar on her calf. "I hope washing it with Savlon is enough."

I nod. My hand lands on a wet patch. "I didn't pee in bed, did--"

"Heh, no. The window was open, is all."

It takes me some time to realize how that relates to my bed being wet, and then it brings back most of yesterday.

I'm feeling hollow in my chest.

"Mom called," she says, and places a hand on my chest. Right where it feels hollow. "The streets have mostly cleared up in that area. She's sending the car to pick me up. Be here any minute."

"Good," I say, then yawn. "You made any tea, dahling?"

"I'm just a one night stand, you know," she says, and winks. "Not yer wife."

For a moment I'm wide awake, fully, totally wide awake, and then she bursts into giggles and I laugh too.

The best part about talking with her is that none of it ever feels real when you think about it afterwards. It's like we're always playing some role in someone else's script. Do normal people talk like this? Hell no! And I fucking love it!

I reach out and tickle her. She says, "Hey, no!" And so I tickle her some more. Before she can return the favor I get up.

I go brush my teeth, piss in the loo, and then someone rings the doorbell. Which means the electricity is back up (this is a late observation; because I have already switched the toilet light on when I pissed--without realizing it, of course).

"Mom," I say, meaning my mom.

We come to the door, and I look into the peephole. A guy I've never seen.

I open the door.

"KC?" he goes.

"Yeah."

"He's our driver," Ash says. "Ramu," she asks him, "Scorpio laya?"

"Yes," he says. "Parked outside the gate."

"Fine. Wait down for a few minutes and I'll come down."

The driver goes down.

Ash calls her mom and tells her she's coming home.

She starts picking up her clothes and I say, "Leave 'em here, Ash. No point in taking them now."

She considers it, then drops them down. "You're right. I won't wear them again, anyway."

"Me neither," I say. "By which I do not mean I have worn them before or--"

And we grin at each other--laughing hurts too bad.

"Could you sign them, though? In case you become famous or something? At least sign my shirt--"

"Don't make me laugh, man. Please," she says, and comes close.

We look at each other; I have nothing in particular to say. And neither does she, it seems.

"See you then," she says, and we walk out the door and I stop there and she starts walking away.

Right when she's about the disappear around the corner, I call out her name.

_____

-11-

I don't know why. No particular reason.

I just call out her name.

She stops there, and for a moment I think she's not turning around, but then she does.

She walks back to me.

There is no awkward silence here.

She kisses me full on the lips.

I'm too stunned to think, too stunned to do anything.

Her hands around the back of my head, pressing in, and my hands around her, pressing her in.

The way her breasts thrust up my chest, the way her leg ever so slightly swings in between my legs, the way her fingers curl my hair.

And I want to reach up and cup her breasts, I want to do it and feel them and I want to feel her everywhere I can feel her but I don't want to do that because I want to feel this kiss and nothing else right now. Savour it, savour it.

And then she tilts her head one way and I tilt the other and she opens her eyes and though we're still kissing slowly the way she is looking into me could kill me, really, completely kill me and I close my eyes.

I'm not wondering, not for a moment, how to go about it; what the hell do I know about kissing, but what I'm doing feels good and what she's doing feels good and that's all that matters.

I run a hand through the curve of her hip, through the curve of her neck, and she makes a sound I cannot describe and it fills me up, fills me up like nothing else ever did.

I don't know when we stop kissing, but when we do we stand in our arms and then she simply smiles and I smile back and then she walks away and I stand in the doorway hearing her car start or maybe someone else's car.

I'm breathing heavy, hard, gasping, almost, and I have a boner, and none of this feels real. I'm still feeling her lips on mine, her breath, I'm still feeling the small of her back on my palm, her sound in my ears, her hand on my chest, her fingers in my hair, and all of it feels real, but still none of it does.

I'm not thinking of anything else, anything at all.

Part of me wants to wake up, and part of me tells that part to stick that cliche-dream-theme up its ass, and part of me tells me that was mighty amazing as far as first kisses go and part of me tells me I haven't done anything a million, trillion men before me haven't done, and part of me is living it all over again, and part of me is stupendously happy, and part of me is telling me it feels too much like a book or a novel or a film or unreal and sentimental and monumental and scripted and legendish and grand, and part of me is stupendously glad it was Ash and it was so good, and part of me is saying Sonya was right like she always is and part of me is wondering how Wally'd take it when he finds out, and part of me is stupendously surprised at how I didn't fuck it up, and part of me is hilariously hard and wants to shoot, and part of me is wondering how amazing it felt to hold her like that, and part of me is almost asleep, and part of me is still aching from yesterday and sore and paining, and part of me--perhaps the biggest part--is aching already for more.

Welcome to heartache.

_____

-12-

This is absurd: the song playing in my head goes, we are the champions.

The rest of the day is a blur. Mom comes home an hour later, and shows a heck of a lot more affection than she usually does. The radio sputters to life and informs of a lot of tragedy and loss due to the rain.

I do not care about those things. Narcisist to the core, I know, but how many times do you get your first kiss, anyway?

I used to know what electrifying meant, and now I'm feeling it. I used to think I wasn't really missing out on much life had to offer, but holy fuck was I wrong. Maybe I'm making it mean more than it is like I always do, but I don't care.

The phone goes dead soon after mom comes home, and the lights go off for a while again, and she goes to sleep and I sit and think of things; a lot of things.

How I know the phone is not dead anymore is Nisha calls. She's reached safely and all, she says. She's still half asleep and will call when she is not. Tony has high fever. Goodnight.

Most of the others call and are safe. Rishi doesn't call but he's not in city anyway.

No electricity again, so I whip out my old paper journal and write by candlelight: I can't believe it's been over an year since I wrote in here. You won't believe this, but Freddy got fingered. That's Spanish for KC got kissed. I won't write more, my hand's aching and all, but let me tell you: anyone who says smooching the first time ain't no great shakes obviously didn't kiss the right person.

I can't sleep all night.

_____

-13-

The next day, everything's back to normal like nothing happened. Mom's off to college, the streets are not clear but traffic's normal, most of the broken cars hauled away.

My city's very efficient at forgetting things. Except for the wasted foodgrain and the rotting corpses.

I'm still muchos elated.

Patience ain't in my job profile, but I can't seem to ring Ash up. Each time I pick up the phone I keep getting some sort of stall-attack.

Scared wussy, or something.

She calls me up at 1:45 PM. You tend to notice such things at such times.

"Kay?" she begins.

"---"

"What?"

"Yes, I mean yes, it's me. Don't hang up."

"Sleep well?"

"Not much. You?"

I get the feeling we're getting rid of the pleasantries; like someone else is in the room with her.

"Me either," she says. "But we slept all day yesterday anyway."

"And you wet my bed."

"Your mom's bed," she says. And then: "I wanted to stay."

I wanted you to. "Must've been my fucking bad breath." I feel like slapping myself. For once in my life I want to be serious, dammit!

I want to ask her to meet me, but where? The radio says almost everything is still clogged up.

"You're alone, huh?" she asks. She knows I wouldn't use profanity if my mom was home.

"And you're not," I say.

"Uh-huh."

"And that's why you're not saying what you really want to say."

"Uh-huh."

"Well I can say what I want to say and it was fantastic, Ash!"

"What was?"

"The ice cream we didn't eat, what the hell do you think!"

There's that full laughter again.

"Ash," I say. "I have to see you."

"Me too, Kay. There's so much I want to--"

"Say?" I say.

"No."

"Do?"

"Yes."

I feel her breath just above my lips. Call it a gift, call it a curse: I remember things as vividly as if they were happening right then and there. Always have.

She has a way with words.

"I'll... I'll call you when I can see you," she says.

"Not before that?"

"I can't bear to," she says.

"Okay," I say. "And Ash?"

"Yes?"

Again, I have nothing particular to say. So I say, "Say hi to mom."

"That's it?" she says, and now I knock myself on the head. Say hi to mom? Say hi to mom? What the hell is wrong with me?

"Kay?"

"No, there's something else. You're tops, m'am."

You're tops? Man, that's an improvement or what? Somebody hand me a fuckin baseball bat; somebody do one better and hit me with it. Someone find me Romantic Conversation For Dummies, beg ya.

But what d'you know, she lowers her voice and whispers this into the phone: "Thanksies, sire." And then: "Je t'aime."

And she hangs up.

I look at the phone. Stunned.

I love you. Three simple words. Told and hear countless times since as long ago as perhaps ol' Adam Pa and Eve Ma.

I ask myself: do you, KC? Do you?

Right at that moment I have no answer.

_____

-14-

The thing is, everybody does it: blow it way out of proportion. Love, I mean.

I certainly am guilty.

The thing with me is, I'm not even sure anymore what it means.

She's terrific to be around. Sexy as hell. Completely devoid of shit as far as I can tell (and I can tell pretty well, do ya). She can kick ass as I have said before. In dick-lingo, she's a perfect 10 (does that phrase sound ridiculous or what?).

Can I say that about any other girl I know? Sonya, perhaps. But I love her in a completely different way--the kind I'm very sure of.

Anyone else? Hell no.

But do I love her?

You don't really love anyone the way you love your first love.

But this is something else. There have been signs; I might have mentioned a few here. I've liked her for quite a while. Loved?

Look, I don't even fucking know what that L word is anymore; and that's as honest as I can put it. I might've had some inkling of an idea--or an illusion of and idea, if it does ya--during the often hazy days of teenagedom, but as of now I only come up with blanks.

I do have something for her; perhaps it's just that monkey jumping up and down, but thinking of her gets me feeling something; and I can't say that about any other girl (or boy, thank you very much) I know.

And if what I'm feeling for her right now isn't love, it's still good enough.

That's so typically KC, you know.

_____

-15-

Amy? Yes, Amy. You've all told me, I know, forget her, she's dead, blah blah blah.

So is my Grandpa. I still treasure his memories. What's wrong with treasuring hers?

I love her, the kind of love you probably hear about in a good painting. Undescribable, somewhat insane, irrational.

It is, for what it's worth, though, a past love. Just like any other. Your heart aches a little when you think about it, but if you're sane enough you understand that there will be new loves. And although in all this time I never actually felt anything beyond casual kinship for anyone, I did not for one minute think I'd be one of those renegade poets who would spend his life mourning one dead love and have no other. My monkey simply wouldn't allow me to.

_____

-15-

I think a lot of some of the things you read above most of the day, and let me tell you, knowing everything I know, strutting as far away as I have from the commercial kind of romance, it's still no easy task: thinking about it.

Part of me understands I'm over analyzing and obsessing over it, but then that's what you do when you've got nothing else to, stuck in your house.

Sure beats the shit out of thinking about studies or that dead dog outside with the deadly alive eyes and the bees and the earthworms around his carcass.

And overall I'm feeling so fucking fantastic I'm a bit ashamed at not feeling any sorrow at how my city's suffering.

The buses have started running, there's electricity, the phone's working, the internet is not.

Do not ask me how I fall asleep (thinking up a story about a family seperated in the rain starring Salma Hayek and for some reason William Hurt), don't ask me how I wake up (totally pissed off, from a fantastic dream about talking with some kind of peacock-zebra hybrid), don't ask me what happened of Nisha's car (she doesn't know either at that time; she told me so), don't ask me what I do till Ash calls again.

She calls at five fifteen in the evening. Mom is home.

Mom picks it up: "Hello, oh, hello! How are you? I'm all right, beta. Oh, sure, here." She calls me and I take the phone from her hand and she tells me it's Ash and I wish wish wish my Mom would go take a bath or something.

"Ash?" I say.

"Can you meet me right now?"

Of course I bloody can! "Let me check my skejool."

"At my house."

"Yeah, sure."

"And--"

The fucking phone disconnects. I almost yell, "Motherfucker!" right at it.

I dial her number, fuss it up (those fucking keys--you tend to hit 8 when you want to hit 0), redial, and she picks up. "And what?" I go.

"Just..." Random static. "---"

"Ash? Ash?"

"Look just come over this line's cutting up."

"Okay," I say. Hang up.

Grab my rain gear, grab my wallet, grab my ass and haul it out.

_____

-16-

I get a bus in thirty seconds, and I don't think much along the way.

Get down at the stop I'm supposed to, land one foot in a puddle, but I got me some mean Woodlands, I do. Wally's the one who introduced me to those rugged mothers, and they serve me very well.

Her building watchman tells me to take the stairs cause the lift is off duty. I always take the stairs anyway.

Ring her bell, and ask myself to stop twitching my fingers and then find I'm not twitching them but am feeling I'm twitching them anyway. Mental hiccups.

What am I expecting? Nothing. Everything.

If you're thinking I'm not like a guy about to watch his first naked picture, you're wrong.

If you're thinking I'm not thinking I'm about to--as they say--get laid, you're wrong.

If you're thinking those two things are the only two things I'm feeling right then, you're dead wrong.

Her mom opens the door. No, I'm only thinking so, again. Mental hiccups.

Ash opens the door.

And I'm thinking, this is the part where you fade out in a PG movie.

I think that almost all romance lives in the land of make believe; this is the third time I'm writing this part, and it feels just as corny and sappy as any Sydney Sheldon novel. Finding a sober, non-sensational, sitting-down-instead-of-jumping-to-the-moon voice is impossible, I think. So fuck trying to make it sound serious. I will not try to tell you that what happened did not feel like it was much more than what happened, even though right now I know that that's what it probably was; and that zillions, literally zillions of men before me have been there. This is the land of make believe. Time slows down here (and sometimes it races), and cursed with recall as I am, every movement, every moment creates ripples.

This is how it happened:

_____

-15-

She steps back, and I step in.

Her hands behind her back, one leg crossed over the other, hair tucked loose over her head, kohl-rimmed eyes. Once you look at those eyes you cannot look anywhere else.

I give her my hand, she takes it.

Her palm is cool, and just a little bit wet. The kind you sometimes feel all over upon waking on a cold night.

I draw her close, and she reaches behind me, closes the door, then rests that hand on my back.

I'm still holding her hand, her fingers curled around my thumb, and I touch her face, and I'm heady all over again.

This is what they really mean when they talk about making love.

She looks at my lips, and I look at hers. The smooth, full curve of them.

I brush my thumb against the corner of her mouth, and then I kiss her.

It's just like the first time. Soft, full, wet, lovely.

Do you know what it's like to know someone wants you? Really, totally, wants you?

Her fingers still curled around my thumb, I guide that hand behind her, and then pull her closer, and she tilts her head up and her hand is trembling. I close my eyes because I can't bear looking at her.

"Kay," she speaks into my mouth. She opens her eyes. "Kay?" Her mouth doesn't leave mine, and she says, "Come."

She pushes away--too gently--and then leads me to the bedroom.

This is where I ask myself, just how far are we going to go? How far are we going to go, and how do you go about it? What the hell do you know about this, KC? Two days ago you never kissed a girl and now, and now, now you should've already come in your pants and oh what the fuck do you know--

She brushes the back of her hand on the side of my face, and there's a question on her brow. "What is it?" she asks, so low, so low.

KC loses his tongue.

She says, "I want us to. Can't you tell?"

And there it is.

-16-

Later.

She says, "This is what we would've done that night if I hadn't fallen asleep."

"You--we--were so tired, Ash," I say.

"I wasn't sure, you know that?"

"About what?"

"If you... you know."

"Liked you?"

She nods. "I was kind of mad about you."

"Couldn't you tell?" I ask.

"There were times, man, but you're just so... so fucking mysterious, you know? Nobody even knows when you're serious."

I don't usually like anybody talking about me, because most of that sounds patronizing bullshit. Right now I'm not sure if I mind.

"Mysterious, huh?" I go. "You make me sound like a--"

"M & B stud."

"That's my line!"

"I stole it. So?"

"Sure. Don't be surprised if I steal something of yours, though. Tit for tat."

She gives a half-grin, then says, "Days, man. Sometimes I thought there were signs but then you acted the exact same way with everyone."

"Signs like?"

"Things you said, things you did. Never mind now."

"How about that," I say. "Wait'll they hear it. Ash has the hots for me." Am I feeling some sort of silly boyish pride saying this? You bet your ass I am.

She swats my shoulder. She starts to swat me again, and I catch that hand.

For no particular reason, I speak her name.

She gives me a warm, lingering kiss on the neck, and I'm hot and bothered again.

_____

-17-

We do it again, and it's lovely.

After some time, a long time, she tells me her folks'll be home soon.

And we get up, and we put our clothes on lazily, almost under protest, like a kid who just doesn't want to go to school, and lemme sleep, Mommy!

I want to stay, but I can't handle her parents after this. I really, really can't.

Come to think of it, the way I'm wobbling, I can't handle a heck of a lot at all.

I get to the main hall, and I start pushing my feet into them ol' Woodlands.

"You'll call me, right?"

I look up, and she's standing there, hands behind her, one leg crossed over the other. Just like when I came in.

"You're just a one-night stand, remember?" I say.

She almost frowns, then perhaps remembering her comment from yesterday, smiles. "I love you," she says.

My heart skips a beat.

"I know it sounds stupid," she says, "but I need to hear it, Kay."

I stand up and say, "I never slept with a girl before, Ash. You tell me, do I love you?"

She is stunned. She searches my face. "You're not kidding," she says. An observation.

When I'm down one flight of stairs I look up, and she's looking down. I wave; she waves back.

_____

-19-

Outside I stand at the foot of the building, smelling the soggy air. It's grown very cold. I zip my raincoat up, tuck my hands in its pockets, and walk slower than usual--which is slow anyway.

The watchman looks at me like he totally knows what I've done.

Everyone at the bus stop and everyone in the bus looks at me like they know.

Might have something to do with the stupid grin on my face--I can't hide it no matter what.

A girl asks me the time, and I look at my old wristwatch (the new one's really gone for good) and then she turns to her friend and whispers in her ear.

I almost tell her I had sex! I fucking had sex! I fucking made love! I totally lost my virginity! I lost it three times in one day! Talk about amazing! Here lemme buy you a cookie.

Buying reminds me of something, so I get down at a stop earlier than my house and go to the only open general mart.

I'm assuming they'll have condoms out on the shelf and I can just pick 'em and get them to the counter. Tough luck.

Well, I have to buy it, so fuck it.

I go up to the counter, tap the wood so he looks at me, and say, "Condoms."

"Any specific type?"

"You mean brand?"

He nods.

"Hell, I don't care as long as it does its job."

"Yeah, and what's that?"

My God, whats with everyone being so damn funny these days?

I say, "To protect." Duh.

He looks at me strange and removes a 3-pack of Durex, a 3-pack of Kama Sutra, one of Kohinoor and one of some other half assed Indian brand.

"You want ribbed or dotted or--"

"Do they really do anything?" I ask.

"I don't know."

I almost ask him, "What, you're a virgin?" but don't.

I consider it. Then say, "How about you give me one of each Durex and Sutra?"

"That'll be ---"

I randomly hand him a hundred rupee note and absently stuff the change back into my wallet, put the wallet in, and the look at the two 3-pack cards lying on the counter. I pick them up and stuff them in a raincoat pocket.

He flashes me a thumbs-up sign and I want to crack his nose.

Fucking prick.

Outside, I strip the cards away and stuff the square wrappers into my wallet. Here's looking to the future.

_____

-20-

I come home and the rest of the day goes by in a random blur full of terrific, sexy, memory-daymares.

Sonya calls.

At first I pick it up and yell hello hello hello cause no one's answering.

Then she says, "KC, it's Sonya."

Like I wouldn't recognize that voice.

"Hey!" I go. "How are--"

"How are you?"

"I'm fine and--"

"Thank God! I was so damn worried! You didn't even fucking mail me. Why didn't--Ah, well, doesn't matter. How's everyone else?"

"Mom's fine," I say. Look at mom. "Everyone's fine. I checked with your bro and he's fine. The phones only got working a while ago, and I still can't connect to the internet and... Jesus I have something huge, m'am, something muchos, muchos huge to tell you!"

"What?"

"Well if I could tell it I wouldn't, wouldn't I?"

"Oh, yes, dammit, my card's running out. Mail me when you can or maybe I'll call you later. Everyone's so worried over here about you, man. Wally's going apeshit, and Max called me up cause he can't get through just like me for some weird reason and... I really gotta go. Love you."

She hangs up.

I'm bursting with a secret but I can't tell anyone.

In the night, in the dark, with nothing else to look at and nothing to hear except distant street sounds, my hands tucked behind my head, it slowly creeps in: the hugeness of it all. Not just what happened at Ash's house today, but all of it, starting from that walk.

There's blood pumping in my dick, but I curl around my side, and although I can't sleep most of the night, along with those glorious daymares (which now are so lustrous and blown up it's like watching a movie in a dome) I keep thinking: here's looking at you, kid. Here's looking to the future.

_____

-21-

I get up from bed at 6, and begin writing some of what you read.

I call her at nine. While Mom's sleeping. I simply can't wait any longer.

Her father picks up. He hands it to her.

"Hi!" she says.

"Hi!"

"What'd you do?"

"Nothing half as good. Listen, today's a holiday, did you read the paper?"

"Yeah. I know." The disappointment in her voice is unmistakable.

"Mom's not going, and I don't think your folks will either."

"Nope. We could meet somewhere."

"That's what I was thinking. How about Shandy?"

"Anyplace, man."

"All right. When?"

"Right now?" she asks.

"Heh, have you brushed your teeth?"

"You think I could sleep yesterday?"

"Well, I did," I lie in a way she's sure to know I'm lying.

"Yeah. Know what I did? I mean after... uh, exercising my fingers."

I lean back on the wall, cradle the phone in the groove of my neck, and say, "Walk the dog?"

"I don't have a dog," she says.

"Yeah but now you have dick." Those are my words, they're coming out of my mouth, and I don't recognize them.

"Virgin too," she says. Then adds, "Digital," so that whoever's there in the room--father, perhaps--would think she's talking about the audio company, or something.

"Heh. No more, lady, no more. And it's all your fault. Stop blaming me for crimes I did not commit."

"Then maybe I should blame you for the ones you did."

"Like?"

"Wish I could say," she says.

My mom opens the bathroom door and I hear her walking out. Time to sign off.

I say, "Make it eleven."

"Who's that?" Mom asks.

"Hold on," I tell Ash, mask the mike on the phone and tell Mom it's Ash and I'm going out at eleven.

"Oh. Okay." She doesn't ask me why, and I'm glad for that. "You'll be eating out?"

"Yeah, maybe. Ash?"

"Yeah," Ash says. "Eleven."

Fifteen minutes later Mom tells me I can't go and she's got some--a heck of a lot of--work for me.

Fuck.

I call Ash up, tell her I can't make it, but tell her we could meet in the evening. Five o clock, for sure. She says okay, but her voice is definitely not okay, and I tell her I think my Mom's spying or something, and she says then we'd better make sure you don't have any evidence and I tell I only have six rubbers in my wallet and if Mom asks I'll tell her they're there just in case. Better safe than sorry, take care of your lorry.

And then I do Mom's work and kind of hate every second of it.

Especially when the clock ticks past eleven.

I finish Mom's work at one twenty, and I want to get out immediately, but it's raining like a motherfucker outside and so I can't.

What I do is boot up and write some of what you're reading.

Come four-thirty and I'm out.

I'm sitting inside Shandy (there's no inside to that place, to be frank) at five-two (stupid motherfucking traffic), and just when I begin thinking about a particularly interesting bunch of kids playing in puddles, I see her.

I wave, and she waves, and she smiles, and her hair is blowing in the wind, and a few locks fall on her face, and the T she's wearing clings to her body and ripples.

It's raining, sprinkling. And some of her hair is wet, and so is her forehead when she wipes her hair back.

We kiss a short kiss--because that's considered obscene in public (how the fuck can kissing be obscene, man?)--but then whoever heard of short kisses, anyway? Fuck the public.

Then we sit on the wall.

I rub my hand on her back--it's only wet in places.

"I still can't believe it," she says. "You."

I know what she's talking about. But I ask, "What?"

"You know, being a virgin and all."

I say, "When did I say that?"

Question mark on her face.

"Note my exact words: I have never slept with a girl before. Doesn't mean I never done it, dood. Loads of other species, and stuff." Then I say, "Well, wasn't spurting the first time you touched me enough proof?"

She snuggles into my arm. Feels great. "I forgot to clean it up after you left." She chuckles. "I told the bai it was Limca."

And I laugh. Jizz. Limca. Amazin'.

"And when she said it didn't look like a dried soft drink stain I said must be the rain."

"What about the jellyfish?" I ask.

"What?"

"You know, Fight Club?"

"Oh. Those. Being the bright, obedient girl I am I carried the trash out in the morning."

"I don't know about bright, m'am."

"Very funny."

"Have you heard the one about the idiot who keeps calling everyone else an idiot?"

"Yeah."

"You keep calling me dummy."

"I don't mean it, though, you dummy." She messes with my hair.

"Sonya called," I say. It's wonderful how it sounds like nothing has changed--we're talking the way we would've before all of this. And really, why should it be any different?

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, I told her you carried me home all the way."

"Did you tell her--"

"Nah, Mom was home."

"Oh."

"Yeah." Relatives. Bah.

Those kids playing the puddles, they're screaming with laughter.

Someone's walking a dog.

It's still drizzling.

"You think this city'll ever go back to normal?" she asks.

I look behind us, and say, "It always does. That's what's so magical about this place."

"My Dad didn't sound so sure." She criss-crosses her legs.

I shrug. "It's kinda hard to feel sad right now, you know."

"I know."

After a while she says, "So you, like, are just a penetration virgin" --she laughs at how it sounds, and I laugh too-- "or are you a--"

"Full version?"

She nods.

"Yeah," I say. "And I was, goddamit, not am! You're making me think I dreamed it up or something."

"Yeah. You know how strange that is, don't you?"

"No, of course I do, you dimwit."

After a beat I say, "I was just hoping I'd find that damn clit, you know. T'was easy, though. Can't say I have a clue I knew what I was doing."

"Maybe we could teach you, keed."

And why does that sound so delicious?

I say, "Maybe I shall learn, Yoda sir. Where's my fuckin sabre?"

She looks at my crotch and raises a brow, amused.

I am slow, man. I get it two seconds later.

And for some reason I think of those toy light-sabres you get in the market. Only they look like dicks. Battery operated.

Battery operated. Gets me laughing.

And what do you know, it's closer to six, but the sun is up, and the clouds have actually parted enough to let it peek out, and we're laughing, and the day feels wonderful. A rainbow would complete the picture, but that would make it a fairy tale or a song.

She leans on my shoulder, and her wet hair smells that lovely smell I shall probably never forget.

She says, "I can't wait till we're alone."

"Me neither," I say. "But... but isn't this gorgeous too? Just right now, right here?"

"It's lovely," she whispers. Looks up and kisses the corner of my mouth. Then she rests her head on my shoulder again, and I rest my hand in the curve of her waist, and nobody bothers us for a long, beautiful time.

_____

-22-

And this is where you get off, recede, pan out, zoom out, fade out, blur out.

_____

Pleasant Nights