SENTENCES

I had sex last night.

At first, the warmth of his skin surprised me. I remember it because it was the temperature of the tea he had made me. The leaves were strained – all of them. The milk was the perfect amount. It was carefully prepared, I could tell, and it was flattering. The other boys didn’t know how to treat a girl. I was so tired of the noisy love that filled our corridors. Words springing out of mouths like vomit, plastering the walls with promises and missing and heartache and heart break. I didn’t have time for any of it.

I had sex last night, for the first time.

Do you know how it feels when someone looks at you as if they already owned you? The first time I saw him, he had this look as if I was a book he had misplaced and finally found, appearing in a sea of old editions and new paperbacks stacked in a place you never expected to see them, like a public bathroom or a tennis court. He couldn’t believe his eyes. They questioned me, ‘Where were you? How have you been? I want to touch you.’

There are not many firsts I remember. The first time I rode a bike was significant. I had fallen down and lost a layer of skin on my right knee which burned even more when my dad tried to fix it with alcohol. The first time I cooked a meal – a full hour of leafing through instructions in small fonts next to large images of good-looking, unachievable food. I had slipped on a tomato and bashed my head on the granite kitchen counter. I don’t remember the rest.

There are not many firsts I remember. Significant things have happened to me, of course. But those memories are loose ends I never bothered to tie. Not like the memory of last night, the knots of which I will spend the rest of my life untangling.

The knot in my chest is still there, next to his cologne that rubbed off from his neck as he made his way down my body. It smelled like a hotel room affair or an expensive buttoned down shirt, cool and breezy, casual and sexy. It smelled edible. His lips were whiskey warm and his fingers ice cold and at some point they were both pressed against my lips, taking turns to kiss me and to silence me.

I had sex last night, for the first time, with my high school teacher.

We had to be quiet, he warned. The walls were too thin and at any moment someone could arrive.

‘I only want you to arrive,’ he joked politely, too much of a gentleman to use high school terms like ‘come’ or ‘fuck’ or ‘let’s?’ The other boys were too silly, too shy, too aggressive, too much. He was just right. He never asked me if I wanted him. It never crossed his mind. Of course I did.

I had seen movies. It was my favourite thing to do. I saw women being swept off their feet. I saw them being chased. I saw them being loved, adored, lusted after, complimented, cat-called and placed on pedestals, worshipped or burned. I saw them encounter gentlemen who opened doors. There were so many things to be opened. Doors, jars, whiskey bottles and legs. And here was my man. A gentleman who was wise enough to know what I wanted. Who chased me and swept me off my feet, straight into the empty teachers’ lounge, his right hand at the small of my back, his eyes darting across the corridor, his left hand opening the door and ushering me in like a precious diamond he stole from a window display.

‘You want tea,’ he said. And then he started making me some.

‘One sugar,’ he said, just the way I liked. Then he poured himself a large peg and sipped on it like an ad-man from the 70s, Don Draper droopy eyes in 5 quick sips. My tea, like me sat untouched.

‘You don’t like it?’ he asked his first and only question. This was tough to answer without actually drinking the tea. So I picked it up and swallowed whatever amount I could before he  gulped his large drink and swooped down and began kissing me, urgently. His lips searched and searched while his hands undressed me like a tablecloth trick, quickly and smoothly. It took some time for him to coax my legs open but soon he had hit home, in quick and urgent strokes that fought against time, racing against the night watchman’s usual rounds and my teammate’s increasing suspicions of my whereabouts. It was over as soon as it began. He looked apologetic about not lasting too long. This was a compliment to me. Next time it would be different. Better. I had a lot to learn. And clearly he was going to teach it all to me.

I had sex last night, for the first time, with my high school teacher, and nobody heard us.

Sound travels slower than light, confirming what we’ve just seen, reminding us in case we missed it. The thunder claps for our attention when we avoid the sky for too long.

Sound travels slower than light, but quiet things happen too, quiet things happen all the time, quiet screams but always too late, it was too late, the hour, and everyone had left, except for the debate team, across the the building. So many hours, learning to argue and I couldn’t say a word to him. He didn’t say a word to me. I didn’t say no. I didn’t say yes. Nobody heard it, but this quiet thing happened.

I had sex last night, for the first time, with my high school teacher, and I didn’t want to.

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Nandini Godara is a freelance writer based out of Mumbai, India. She writes poetry, fiction and ads. Her first ever short story was published in The Bombay Literary Magazine. This is her second. She is well pleased! You can follow her on twitter @nandini_godara.