Glaring Shadow - A stream of consciousness novel - Page 104/112

Swap for Nope

“Here is that fact beyond fiction,” he began to narrate with a parental pride that didn’t escape my attention. “What a handicap it was to be divorced, thought my son; self-service at home and harlot-solace in a brothel; what service and how much solace! Women were ever scary of even wealthy divorcees as if divorce underscores one’s incompatibility once and for all, and a whore was no answer for a wife. Surely some featureless young thing could be willing and that’s no choice of a wife any way; but a lucky guy could bump into a desirable dame in the blind alleys of the Cupid and that’s a rarity anyway; as for affairs, they were seldom, even for the well-heeled in their prime, but as life is meant to be lived, he resolved, one had to go about it regardless and how to make the best of time was the essence of existence.”

“Envisioning liaisons through friendship magazines seemed to him no more than chasing the mirages of lust,” he continued with the account of his son’s life. “But for an ad here and there from a genuine dame, the rest were all from the cravers of female flesh, and given the lack of proper response, one might wonder whether the ‘willing women’ were in deed real beings or merely fictitious characters meant to buttress the publishers’ bottom lines; even otherwise, with the exhibitionist tone of the machismo ads, going through the pages left one with a sickening feeling; pity the dames who fell for such guys. Maybe the saving grace was the insertions for wife-swapping that seemed genuine for they were all about give and take; but then, wasn’t he rendered a hors de combat for he lacked the means for a quid pro quo? What about Vimala, he thought as he recalled that evening when he was led into a lounge of a mansion where he found a score of whores in awkward postures, and as he turned his back on the gaudy dames in disgust, one lissome lass in a Turkish towel walked in. Enticed, as he followed her in a trance, she sauntered along endearingly in her semi-nude, and that ushered in an unusual romance between them.”

“It’s as if your son had stolen your address-book of those places.”

“Well,” he said after a hearty laugh, “it occurred to him that Vimala could carry herself to pass off for his wife; what’s more she was bound to tempt any hesitant husband to jump into the swap trap. What an idea to pay her for the favors of a MILF or two in the wife swaps though not all of them were honeys? So roping in Vimala, he went on a hunt for the promising, and soon succeeded in roping in the willing – an educated and sophisticated couple in their mid-twenties, who were married for some years by then; he was handsome and successful, and she was sexy and charming. While they led an active sexy life, their family cradle remained empty, and that let the ennui set into their otherwise wondrous life. So, they tried to enliven their life by seeking pleasures as their fancies suggested, but as the novelty of those diversions wore off, their cumulative exasperation increased reducing the span of their thrill; and back to square one, they realized that they had lost the capacity to enthuse each other, so bored to death but committed to each other, they dragged their feet on their drab marital course. But when their love for adventure made them think in terms of venturing into the forbidden avenues of human joys, they began searching for a suitable couple to make it a foursome for a fulsome life.”