Some weeks are idyllic. Like the last one.
After a brisk long walk, she comes home at 11 to strip sweaty clothes off starting at the front door. If she's still wearing her favourite amber ear-drops, she loves how they glint like her breasts in the warm incandescent light. They give her a glimmer of an idea and she rubs her stomach thoughtfully where the waistband of her skirt has left a blushing red imprint. Amber and red are her colours today.
She rubs in body oil and goat's milk bath gel and feels the grimy layers of the day wash away. She wraps herself in the citrusy orange towel that best brings out her tan. Now she could almost make love to herself, but she has always preferred the other.
She walks into the bedroom and locks the door. She knows he's watching and is sure of it when he puts down his Blackberry at once. Today there is no need to comment on crackberrying.
"When you hold me like this, do you do it because you like it or because you think I like it?"
"Because I want you to like it. And yes, they are soft.." and he lazily rolls a handful of breast around, characteristically tongue-tied.
She remembers the Maharaja of Patiala who cooled off in a swimming pool with chunks of ice floating in it. Bare-breasted maidens lounged at the edge of the pool. Occasionally he surfaced to fondle a breast or take a chotta peg.
"Well, then you can touch me anywhere and it would still turn me on. Why just the breasts?"
"Because they're not always visible."
Followed a long long night. She slept through the second time, but secure in the knowledge it was ok to sleep and she was loved still. The second was longer, he said later. She loved him more for that. And so she was incandescent, every day of the rest of last week.
