“This is not condescending dude; I am trying to prattle my way out of your agony”. Anastasia whispered in my ears. Before I could say anything, her soft hands were all over my body. When we can’t talk, integument takes over.

I met her while fishing in a gully a few days go. We don’t get much rain here. Outside the monsoon belt, we get magenta skies year round. Orange rains are the norm of November. Once the acid has worked its way through the ponds, we go fishing with colanders. Blue fish floating dead in turquoise waters - that’s our idea of an exotic delicacy.

Anastasia was drowning in a culvert when I found her. She grew up in the streets of Quetta. She was half Baloch and half Bengali, which made her 100 percent Hindustani. She never learnt how to swim. In a world of swim or sink, her existence itself was a miracle.

I struggled to freed myself from her clutches. Waxed with love, her claws were more treacherous than ever. I can’t keep myself close to these dicey waters anymore; I stood up near the bedpost, stark naked.

“When this is over, I am going to write a book. I will laminate every copy with latex, the kind of stuff they make ultra thin condoms. So when people touch it for the first time, they know what it is all about…”. I told her with a dopey smile, constructing a plot in my mind. I almost congratulated myself for the bona fide innovation.

“You will make a terrible writer, Hunny!. Slimy book covers doesn’t kick off unless you deliver it straight to their bathroom. Are you gonna do that too?”

Till then, I haven’t given much thought into that. From then on, my erotica will flutter away from the realms of the lascivious. Much like the ’80s filmmakers, they would chase wax statues and animated keyholes. I couldn’t choose between oiled heavy metal machinery and machinations of the integuments. What’s more sexy? Coiling snakes or slushy earthworms?

Earthworms are hermaphrodites. They have sex by juxtaposing their loins with each other. Wonder what patriarchy and feminism means to them!

As passion and its images were tormenting me, I yearned for unbridled ecstasy. You know, Love doesn’t make much sense without these images. Art gives us images that would loom into larger emotions. Without these uncanny images, a disturbed hormonal equilibrium isn’t even a thing! Is that why the carnal trumps mysticism most of the times?

As I drifted away from normalcy, Anastasia’s voice brought me back to senses.

“Do you want to try BDSM tonight?”

You see, the answer is quite clear. I didn’t have much of a choice.