[sakurasan]

Chapter 20 Out for Delivery — Part 1

Friday morning Isha walked toward the car. She was in a saree, the pallu across her chest, the steel lunch carrier in both hands. Rohan was in the car.




He still could not stop thinking about the last two days, when she had attacked him in short clothes.

He felt pity for everyone around them, gorgeous casualties of the curves peeking out.

“Good morning, madam,” he said with a teasing smile.

“Don’t start.”

“I am only saying good morning.”

“I know the meaning of the look.”

He laughed. “I was just remembering a wild cat from Lonavala.”

“This is my campus dress. I cannot dress like that here.”

“Campus is empty.”

“It does not matter.”

He looked at the carrier, then at the road, and drove. In the campus parking she got out, and he took the carrier. They walked to their block, where the corridor lay in shade.

“It feels like a ghost town,” she said.

“This month, very few are on campus. None on our side.”

“If I shout, you will come for me. Right.”

“I will think about it. What is your plan today.”

“I will be in the lab. Cleaning.”

“That is a big job.”

“Months of dust. It is a real job.”

“All right. We meet for lunch, then.”

“Yes. I will call you.”

She took the carrier and went ahead to her lab. He took his keys and went up to his room. He saw the long list of syllabus work he had written himself. He was in a race against time. The dean's email, asking every day for a status update, was no help either.

He sat down and opened the first book.

The thought of having Isha alone in her lab was too tempting. The memory of eating the cake from her breasts flashed across the page. He scolded himself, then set his hand back on the page and started the unit again.

Isha walked into the lab and shut the door. She switched the lights on and saw spider webs on the window frames, in the corners, and around the legs of the benches. The shelves were thick with dust.

She saw that the pallu would trail in the dust and the hem would come up black. Cleaning in the saree would not work.

She shut the windows. The two cameras came to mind. She shifted the equipment along the benches and wiped where it had stood, and she left it in front of both lenses.

Then she took the saree off, folded it on a chair, and set it clear of the dust. In her blouse and petticoat she reached up to one shelf and her breasts rose, then dropped when she came down to the next, and sweat poured into her cleavage. She turned from shelf to shelf, and her belly twisted with each reach.

She lifted the petticoat and wiped her face and her breasts with it, and the panty flashed. A thrill went through her, as if the camera were still watching. She looked at the cameras and saw both lenses blocked.

She gathered the petticoat, pulled the length up, and tucked the extra cloth in at her hip, and the hem sat on her thighs. Then she cleaned at full speed, both hands hard on the cloth, and she went back over every streak until the shelves were clean.

By an hour past noon, the lab was as clean as she kept it every day.

She set the cloth aside and rested against a bench. Her thoughts drifted to Rohan, and to the two days she had spent teasing him. She wanted to keep teasing him, so she took the saree from the chair and spread it on an empty stretch of floor, then set the steel carrier in the centre.

She opened the door, saw the corridor empty, and shut it again. She sat on the saree with the petticoat still tucked at her hip. Savita had stitched this blouse with a deep cut, and the pallu had covered it in the car.

She held the phone out, the carrier and her cleavage in the frame, and took the picture. She looked at it. The cleavage was not enough. She lay back on the saree and pushed her breasts up in the blouse until the cleavage filled the cut. She held the phone over herself, the carrier and that cleavage in the frame, took the picture, and sent it to Rohan. Under it she wrote, “Lunch ready.”

In the faculty room he still could not keep his mind on the reference book. His mind went back and forth between the syllabus and Isha. His phone lit against the open page. He went hard in his trousers. He was ready to eat both things in the picture, the lunch and her breasts.

He was not going to sit in that room and pretend he could read. The draft could be checked in her lab. He stacked the reference books into a tall pile, set the draft on top, and carried it across the corridor at a fast walk. She opened the door, let him in, and latched it behind him.

She reached for the pile. He lowered it, and she took the books from his arms and laid them along both sides of the saree. His shirt was stuck to his back. He had brought his work to her. She was happy. He had been missing her too.

“You need to read all these.”

“This is not even the full list.”

“Okay. Let’s eat first, and you can see these.”

He sat cross-legged on the saree. The petticoat was still tucked at her hip.

She opened the carrier and leaned across to set his box in front of him. Her breasts came forward and spilled over the deep cut of the blouse. Rice and a potato fry, still warm.




He looked at them and forgot the box.

“I cooked this for your mouth, not your eyes.”

He laughed and took a bite from his box. She ate from hers. After a few bites she pinched rice and potato from her box and held it to his lips. When she leaned, the cleavage filled the cut, and the tucked petticoat left her navel bare.

He opened. Her fingers came in with the food.

“You said this is not even the full list.”

“Eight here.” He took the rice. “I opened the first one this morning. I am still on that page. The rest are in my room.”

She took a pinch from his box and fed him. A smear of potato stayed at the corner of his mouth. She took it on her thumb and put it on his tongue.

“Nine days,” he said, after he swallowed. “Then the campus opens. He wants the file before the students are back. Every morning he sends a mail asking where I am and when he will get it. If I miss one, the next mail is there before I have eaten.”

He gathered rice from his box and held it out. She opened her mouth. He set it on her tongue, and his eyes went from her cleavage to her navel.

“Will lecturers do this much work,” she said, after she swallowed.

“Most sign off last year’s work. I cannot. It is the students’ future.”

“True that.”

“That is why the dean put all of this on my plate.”

She put the last of the rice in his mouth and let her fingertip stay until he let it go. Both boxes were finished. She put them back into the carrier and shut the lid. The eight books lay along the left side of the saree.

He pulled one book into his lap and opened it in his left hand. He set the draft on the saree to his right and took the pen in his right hand. When he had a line, the pen went to the draft.

She took the carrier to the lab sink, washed both boxes, and set them to dry. Then she came back and sat on the saree, watching him. After a while her eyes grew heavy.

“I feel sleepy.”

“Come. Use my lap.”

“I will disturb you.”

“You sleep. I read. It is fine.”

She stood, untied the petticoat, and set it on the saree. She put her head in his lap. Her hair spread across his thigh. He kept the book open above her hair.




“Your leg will go numb.”

“I will manage. Sleep.”

He read the heading. His eyes dropped to the blouse.

“The book is in your hand,” she said, her eyes almost shut.

He looked at the page again. His right hand was in the air, shaking the pen.

She reached up, caught that hand, and set it on her breast, the pen still between his fingers. His left hand stayed on the book. The blouse was warm. The weight of her filled his palm.

“You look tense. Use my stress balls.”

She used the petticoat as a blanket and put it over herself. Then she went heavier in his lap, and her breath slowed. The petticoat slid down below the blouse, and he saw the bare skin under the hem, her navel, and the shadow where the blouse lifted from her. Her breast rose and fell under that hand. He brought his eyes back to the page, then down again to the dark of her cleavage. He pictured walking into that dark, the soft flesh closing on him from both sides, and holding him there. He went hard in his trousers.

The book stayed open in his left hand. The pen lay against her blouse.

She slept. He tried the page. His eyes kept leaving it for the valley of her cleavage. He lifted his right hand, took a book from the left of the saree, opened it, and laid it over that dark, over both breasts. He went back to the unit. His eyes slid to her navel. He opened another book and set it there, the page on her belly.

She slept for two hours. The draft had three lines. He was still on the first unit.

She woke and felt the weight on her chest and on her belly. She lifted her head from his lap, and the books slid. She caught the one on her navel before it hit the floor.

“What are these books doing on me.”

“I was using you as bookmark.”

She looked at the draft, then at his face.

“How far did you get.”

He showed her the three lines.

“This is all you wrote in two hours.”

“I know.”

“Give me a book. I will help.”

He smiled. “You cannot help with these.”

“Why not.”

“They are not your subject.”

“I can read.”

“That is not the same.”

“Then what. Putting books on me.”

“That was part of the process.”

“I challenge you. You say a topic. I will find it in the book in sixty seconds.”

“Impossible.”

“Let’s make a game out of it.”

“What do we play for.”

“There are six buttons on your shirt. My blouse has four, and my bra has two.”

“I am liking the sound of it. Go on.”

“If I don’t find the topic in a minute, you remove one hook from me. If I find it, I remove a button from your shirt.”

“What are the stakes.”

“If I win, you let me help. If you win, you can drink my boobs.”

“Sounds delicious. Let’s start.”

“Just one more rule. We both unhook only using the mouth. No hands.”

“Even better.”