Read Online Good Indian Girls: Stories by Ranbir Singh Sidhu - Free Book Online Page B

India.”
    “What is it?” He lifts the penis to his face. He holds it in the palm of his hand, level with his eyes, and shakes it, watching it wobble. A molded jelly dessert, he thinks.
    “They don’t teach you how to wear one!”
    “Wear what?” He brings the penis to his mouth, holds it up against his lips, slides his tongue along the rubber foreskin. How do women do it?
    “Hold on.”
    He stands and fits the rubber penis into his open fly and walks to the bedroom door. With every step it shivers like the real thing.
    “Honey?” he knocks.
    “Soon.”
    He waits, a hand idly playing with his second cock.
    Anu appears in the half-light of the hall.
    “Get on your knees,” he orders softly.
    “What?”
    “Get on your knees and suck my dick.”
    She is dressed in a silver and blue sari, awkwardly, nothing right about it but he can’t say what fails, what is wrong. Before he can look closely, she is on her knees, her mouth around the rubber cock.
    She pulls back, the penis in her mouth, and lets it fall. “Oh god,” she cries, drops with her back against the wall. “Oh god.” She looks up, laughing, at Hari. “I hate you. I thought it was . . .”
    “Yes,” he says, getting down on his knees. She is beautiful in the half-light of the hall, in the disordered sari, the surprised grin on her face.
    “Kiss me,” he says.
    “Later.”
    “What’s going on?”
    “I had to staple it. Staple it everywhere.” She is almost in tears. “Look at me. I’m a disaster. I don’t know how, I don’t know anything. I’m supposed to be an Indian woman. This is what I’m going to teach my daughter. God, I hate myself. I can’t do anything. Not anything.”
    “Here,” handing her the joint.
    She takes a long toke, hands it back, and picks up the rubber penis. “I couldn’t resist. I saw it there today and I had to. You understand?”
    “I’m flying,” Hari says. “That’s all. I’m flying.”
    “You are. I want to know. Tell me everything.”
    “I don’t know what it means. I can’t feel my arms.”
    “Yes?”
    “No, I mean, I feel my arms. It’s like.”
    “Yes?”
    “I feel my arms for the first time. It’s like I never felt my arms before. These are my arms. I feel them.”
    “That’s wild.”
    “They’re so there. On my body. Like they’re real. Like they’re real and they’re real at the same time. Like I think they’re there and there they are. They are there.”
    “You have arms.”
    “I have arms.”
    The telephone rings. The landline. He jumps but she stops him with a hand on his shoulder.
    “I’ll get it,” Anu says, taking short, unsteady steps, her legs caught in the tightly wound sari. She looks Japanese, a geisha in a kimono, gingerly carrying the rubber penis.
    “Hello, Mom,” she says.
    “What time is it over there?”
    “What?”
    “The time. What time where you are?”
    “The same time as you.”
    “Oh.” Her mother lets out a laugh. “I was talking to India. I got confused.”
    “I’m busy, Mom. Is there something?”
    “Nothing. Well, yes, something.”
    “What?”
    “Oh, nothing. Maybe another time.”
    “Okay. It’s Hari’s birthday. Do you want to say hello?”
    “No, you tell him happy birthday.”
    “I will.”
    “Wait. Just one thing. Where does he carry his cell phone?”
    “What?”
    “Where does he keep it? In his jacket pocket or his trouser pocket?”
    “I don’t know. Why do you want to know?”
    “I’m worried. You’ve been married for four years, and nothing. No baby.”
    “Yes, Mom, we’re waiting. We’re taking precautions. When the time’s right. We’ve talked, I’ve told you this.”
    “Tell him to be careful. Not to keep his phone in his pants. I read today it damages the male sperm. The radioactivity. It makes monster children.”
    “Mom? Hold on.”
    “What?”
    “Another call.” She clicks on the other line. “Hello?”
    “Anu? Is that you, Anu?”
    “Mom? Hold on, I’m on the other line.” She