By Shevlin Sebastian
One day, Madhavi Menon was sitting with her friend Aparna Krishnan at a first-floor cafe in Kochi. Through the glass panes, they saw buses hurtling past, missing scooters and bikes by inches, while car drivers leaned on their horns, their eyes wild, and their mouths opened in a silent snarl.
Madhavi leaned forward and said in a low voice, ‘I’ll get you a dildo.’
Aparna’s eyes flicked, for no reason, to the deep cleavage in Madhavi’s red blouse.
As her ears felt hot, splotches of red spread across her cheeks. Madhavi’s lips pressed together, about to burst into laughter.
She said, “Oh my God, you are blushing.”
“I’m not,” said Aparna, as she took out a handkerchief from her handbag and wiped her face.
Madhavi laughed again. ‘It’s not hot, Aparna. We are sitting in an air-conditioned space.’
Aparna exhaled and said, “Okay, I am embarrassed.” Yes, she had read about dildos but had never seen one. “I don’t… don’t see the point of it.”
Madhavi smiled again, her eyes softening, as she said, “Wait till you try it. Then you’ll thank me from here to eternity.”
This time, it was Aparna who smiled.
Aparna and Madhavi met for the first time when they shared desks at South Park Kindergarten. Almost three decades now, Madhavi, ever-practical, was the first to marry through an arranged match. Now, a home-maker, she was the mother of a three-year-old boy.
Aparna, who always thought of herself as a slowcoach, had taken five years longer. Her husband worked in IT, while Aparna was involved with an NGO in Kochi that dealt with street children. She realised it was corporate career versus social service. Sadly, the marriage had not worked out.
For the past two years, Bijoy and Aparna slept, each facing the opposite wall. A pillow lay between them, a soft barrier. Rarely did they cross it. On nights when Bijoy came late, he slept in another room. She thought Bijoy was dull.
Once when she asked whether they could go to a painting exhibition at the Darbar Hall, he scratched his head and said, “Can we go for a movie?”
And so, they went to see a film at the PVR, Oberon Mall. He had no interest in culture, plays or books. Only interested in his work. Never asked me about my work. Sexually, he was on a single track; get on top; shoot; roll over; sleep. Mouth sometimes open. But no bad habits like drinking or smoking, true. Yes, that was good, but staid things bored me. Her heart, she thought, lived at the North Pole.
She once watched an American TV show where the anchor said women found it easier to reach orgasm when they were on top.
Aparna nodded vigorously and said to herself, “Yes, that’s right. The missionary position does nothing for me.”
There was talk about divorce, but neither had taken the next step of filing papers in the Family Court. Their eyes were laser-focused on their careers.
A week later, when Madhavi gave it to Aparna, she stared at the beautiful pink object, the pointed end giving it the look of an elongated penis. Near one end, there was a protrusion with its ends shaped like rabbit ears.
“That’s how it got the name of Rabbit,” said Madhavi. “This is used to stimulate the clitoris.”
Aparna’s breath caught as she held the rabbit.
Trying to sound casual, she said, “It looks so sleek.”
“Imported,” said Madhavi. “You can’t get it in India. A friend brought it for me three years ago. I got a new one. That’s why I’m giving this to you.”
For a moment, Aparna wondered whether Madhavi used it in front of her husband, Sreekumar, or in private. But she was hesitant to ask.
“How do you use it?” said Aparna.
“It’s battery operated,” said Madhavi. “Switch it on. It vibrates. Insert it, and guide the ears onto your clitoris. Trust me, once you use it, you’ll never need a man again, at least not for sex.”
Aparna looked up with saucer eyes. “Oh my,” she said, grinning.
Later, when Madhavi left, Aparna wondered if she needed it. She had been in a sexual desert for so long. Sure, she watched porn sometimes. It was satisfying enough, though she missed the foreplay. It was always, ‘Wham, baam, thank you Ma’am.’ That irritated her.
Her mother called one night from Chennai. “Aparna, we are coming over. One of my cousins, Meenakshi, has died. Pancreatic cancer. Do you remember her?”
Aparna closed her eyes, trying to remember. Then she said, “No, Amma.”
“We’ll be coming for two weeks,” her mother said.
Aparna wrapped the rabbit in a plastic bag, tied it with a string, and buried it under her clothes in the almirah. She only hoped her curious mother would not stumble upon it and wonder what it was.
Aparna had no children, and she was not keen now that the relationship with Bijoy was like being inside a dark tunnel. No light at either end. She never believed the old saying about a child bringing a couple closer. Conservative hogwash, she thought.
When her parents arrived, the rabbit was the last thing on Aparna’s mind.
Now and then, Madhavi would call and say, “Did you try it?”
Aparna kept replying in the negative. She could sense Madhavi’s disappointment, but there was nothing she could do. And then one day, while her father, a retired brigadier, sat in the living room, one leg placed over the other, watching TV, her mother beckoned her with a forefinger from the bedroom door.
When Aparna entered, she saw the open packet and the rabbit gleaming on the bed. A lightning bolt shot through her body. She was quivering, her forehead breaking into sudden beads of perspiration.
Her mother gripped Aparna’s arm, just like the schoolteacher she once was, “Why are you sweating?”
“I’m feeling hot,” said Aparna.
“Hot?” her mother exclaimed. “How can that be? It’s raining.
Monsoon time. The weather’s so pleasant.”
“I don’t know,” said Aparna, sitting on the edge of the bed and wiping her face with the counterpane.
“Anyway, what’s this?” her mother asked, shifting her gaze back to the rabbit.
Aparna licked her lower lip. Her brain raced, levers pushing at high speed for a plausible answer. Finally, she said, “Oh, you’ll be surprised. It’s a vibrating machine. You press it against the back of your neck, and you get instant relief from pain.”
“Oh,” said her mother, picking up the rabbit. “Can I try it?”
Again, Aparna’s thoughts whirred at Formula 1 speed.
“Amma, you need imported batteries for that,” said Aparna quickly, even though the batteries were already inside the socket. “Madhavi gave it to me. Now she’s asked a friend in London to send the batteries. It’ll take time.”
Her mother’s eyes drooped.
“Oh,” she said. “I was so keen to use it.”
Aparna felt her breath release slowly as her heartbeat calmed.
Thank you, brain, for the swift answers, she thought.
“Amma, on your next visit, sure,” she said.
Her mother nodded several times, then said, “Listen, if it’s good, get me one as well.”
“Sure,” said Aparna, tying the packet with the string once again. Soon, her parents returned to Chennai.
One day at 10 a.m., before leaving for work, Aparna took the dildo into the bathroom and locked the door, though her husband had already left.
She sat down on the commode and switched it on. A dull, monotonous buzz filled the bathroom, like the whine of a swarm of mosquitoes. For a moment, she wondered if it was too loud, if the neighbours might hear. But the moment the rabbit touched her clitoris, her mind felt as if it was floating in the sky, her body gone, only a radiant spirit rising higher and higher.
Am I going to meet God? she thought, as waves of emotions rushed through her. She cried out in sheer excitement, then, fearing discovery, pressed her palm against her mouth. Wow, she thought. This is good.
In less than a minute, Aparna’s entire body shuddered, as if caught in an earthquake. Her thigh muscles trembled as she reached her first orgasm. “Oh my God, oh my God,” she kept murmuring, breath rushing out of her parted lips in hot bursts. She had finally reached an oasis in the desert.
Once, at thirteen, she tried, using her finger. But she pressed her ear to the door, terrified her mother might hear. She opened the tap to fill the bucket, to pretend she was bathing.
Then her Class Five teacher’s words came back: “Don’t look at boys. Your parents will find the right boy for you. Be a virgin until your wedding night.”
Aparna later told Madhavi, “I have to thank our conservative society, and our lousy sex education in schools for this.”
Then she inserted the rabbit and experienced wave after wave of ecstasy.
“It took me from zero to 100 so quickly,” she told Madhavi. “It was joy… I was having an explosion inside me after so long.”
Nowadays, the moment Aparna switches on the rabbit, her heart raced in anticipation. Without realising, she licked her lower lip.
“I am addicted to it,” she told Madhavi. “Thank you, thank you for this. I have to be honest with you. I wish I had got this before. I have lost so many years.”
Madhavi laughed as the two of them hugged. On the net, she read about the G-spot. Hidden somewhere inside, the experts said, is the most sensitive of places. Great, she thought, her mouth falling open. I never knew this existed. None of my so-called advanced friends ever told me.
At times she couldn’t reach the G-spot with the rabbit, so she learnt to manoeuvre it until she found it. “The moment it touches the spot, it’s awesome. I am guaranteed a physical and mental release,” she told Madhavi.
She also manipulated her clitoris with her fingers. The sighs that escaped her sounded like the satisfied sighs after a good meal.
When Madhavi asked how it compared to sex with a man, Aparna said, “The most significant thing is you don’t have to please a man. No shaving arms, legs, armpits. None of that nonsense. This is about me. That’s freeing. I don’t have to pretend. No man interrupts me. I am servicing myself.”
Initially, Aparna used the rabbit every day, but later she slowed down because the good feeling lasted for days. She smiled a lot more.
When she was alone at home, she sang Hindi songs in a low voice. Once or twice, she did a small pirouette in the living room.
These days she reaches for it three or four times a week. Five minutes later she’d be humming, a secret smile refusing to leave her face. As for the emotional effect, Aparna said she felt liberated.
“I don’t know if it gets rid of my stress, but it makes me glad when I do it,” she told Madhavi. “I would be very unhappy if I no longer had the rabbit with me.”
But there have been bumps on the road. Once when she was using it, the batteries stopped working. Aparna bit her lip so hard that she drew a bit of blood.
“I should have bought spares,” she whispered to herself. Desperate, she experimented with the dead rabbit, stroking her G-spot with the tip until she managed a climax.
No surprise that Aparna kept extolling the rabbit’s virtues to her friends, none of whom had ever used one. One unmarried woman admitted she had heard of it but never seen one. She reminded Aparna of her own earlier self.
Another friend, Roopa, ordered one from the Swedish company ‘Lelo’, but it got stuck in Customs. She could do nothing about it, since she could not involve her husband.
“That’s Rs 4000 down the drain,” Roopa said. “My friends told me to get in touch with anyone coming from abroad.”
When another friend asked to borrow it, Aparna shook her head and said, “Hygiene.”
Yet Aparna was candid enough to admit that sex with a man was different. “The warmth of skin on skin, the interlocking of tongues, the feel of nipples being sucked. None of this you can get from a rabbit,” she told Madhavi.
Madhavi grinned. “You can’t get a baby either.”
Aparna’s smile stayed fixed, as she had never told Madhavi about her marital troubles. She saw the image of Bijoy sleeping in another room. He has a good heart, she thought. I can’t deny it. Just lacks fire. When I touch him, it feels like touching a wet blanket. God, I’m so sorry I sound so mean.
(Published in kitaab.org, Singapore)
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