She of the Mountains (9 page)

Many of the differences in their physical attributes could be explained by their racial differences. When Smith took off his black T-shirt, he nodded with a feeling of déjà vu. Every shirtless male body he had seen, save for the males in his own family, had looked like Smith's: lean but muscular, smooth chest, hard stomach. Smith's body was every man's body. In
GQ
, the Sears catalogue, movies, and porn, he had digested copies of it countless
times. He expected it. He worried about Smith's expectations, given that Smith had most likely never seen a naked brown body before. Before her, just the idea of the words
naked
and
brown
together had seemed incongruous, even to himself.

Being brown meant he had much larger nipples, two puffy Hershey's Kisses, and an abundance of hair everywhere. When Smith later jerked off both of their penises, he was uncomfortable with how much darker his penis was than Smith's. He was convinced that if their penises were at war, his penis would be typecast as the evil one, the villain.

What bewildered him most about being intimate with another man was the absence of the
Eureka!
moment he had been anticipating and had even been promised by gay males he knew, now that he was finally with the right sex, the same sex.

Don't worry. Once with you're with a man, everything will make sense
, they had said.

But there was no great confirmation of his homosexuality with

Smith either through

more frequent orgasms,

or harder erections

            
or the sound of trumpets

or a sweeping feeling of superior satisfaction

or freedom

or truth

or home
                   

or peace.

When he put his lips around Smith's penis or pushed his own penis into Smith's firm ass, he felt an undeniable pleasure, but not undeniably more than the pleasure he had experienced with her.

It was just different.

In the minutes before sunrise, when Smith's desk, bookshelf, and their pile of clothing on the floor would gradually bear the light of a new day, he found himself thinking about her. Missing her. Her face, the colour of palaces in Jaipur. Her upturned lips that smiled even while she dreamed, her crown of curly hair, her eyes that were stars in their own right.

SATI

Even in my human life, my heart belonged to Shiv.

Long before Ganesh and Muruga were born, I chose to be born to a human family. For years, they had had difficulty conceiving, and I was a gift, unbeknownst to them, for their generations of great piety. They named me Sati.

From an early age, I was captivated by the stories of the recluse god who lived in the mountains, even though my human father despised him:

He wears only the skin of a leopard.

And the crescent moon in his hair.

He refuses to speak—to anyone! How arrogant!

Why is he a god? What is so great about him?

Being mortal clouded my memory. I didn't know who I was or who Shiv was, but I knew I was drawn to his alien-ness, perhaps because he embodied the disconnection I too felt to my human body. Every night, I prayed:

Dear Lord Shiva:

Please appear for me.

I adore you.

Another reason that I had adopted a human life was that we both agreed it would be a new way for us to experience each other, love each other. From the day I was born, Shiv was equally captivated by my human form and its vulnerability, and watched over me from above like a second father. He was amused by my devotion to him and couldn't help but entertain himself further at my expense. Occasionally, he would appear in my peripheral vision and then suddenly disappear so that I would think that I was imagining him everywhere. This only heightened my yearning for him.

To celebrate and bless my coming of age as a woman, my father arranged a ceremony and feast, and everyone from the town was invited. The gods were invited. For every day that passed, I added one brightly coloured flower to my hair in anticipation of meeting Shiv. On the day of the event, my entire head was covered in a crown of flowers.

My father walked me into the hall toward the blazing sacred fire, which was surrounded by priests cloaked in cream-coloured robes, chanting loudly in unison. I scanned the hundreds of faces, friends and distant relatives, trying to find the one blue face that mattered.

Before I sat down, I whispered to my father:

I don't see Shiva. Do you think he will come?

Shiva? Ha! Why would I invite that freak?

He wasn't invited? But all the gods were invited. It would be a grave insult …

Sati, now is not the time.

You are just jealous that his greatness surpasses yours, aren't you!?

The fire rose and crackled with the sound of my voice.

Silence, Sati.
My father motioned me to sit at the front of the hall next to the chief priest.

As the prayers continued, I gazed at the fire ahead, comforted by the only presence in the room that understood my burning sense of betrayal and disappointment.

How could my father be so cruel? And so foolish? Without Shiv's presence, the ceremony would be inauspicious. Cursed, even. Surely now I would never meet Shiv.

Contemplating my misfortune, I became mesmerized by the streaks of blue in the flames until all I could see was blue.

Shiva! There you are! I knew you would come
, I said. I stood up and walked into the fire, arms open. This was the end of my human life.

Shiv, who had been watching the ceremony from above, swept
down to pull me out of the fire, hoping to bring me back to life.
Wake up, Sati, wake up!
he yelled, lifting my body into the sky. His own body vibrated like thunder, trying to re-energize mine.

Shiv circled the earth with my lifeless body folded over his shoulder for years. He forgot who he was, forgot the commonness of death, and in the process, forgot who I was. Although my human body had died, I of course had not.

I waited patiently for him in Kailash, not wanting to disturb him. I was fascinated by—perhaps even jealous of—his strange attachment to this human body. What was so special about it that it had deluded him? What was so special about it that he had forgotten that his beloved Parvati still lived?

Every morning, when the sun arose, my first words were to him, in my heart:
Wake up, Shiv, wake up …

He never heard me. As I watched day after day surrender to darkness, I pushed against the urge to do the same.

As years turned into decades, the other gods and demigods began to lose their own sense of self and purpose watching the Lord of Destruction so confounded. For the sake of order, my brother Narayana intervened. He shot his golden discus into the air and sliced Sati's body into pieces. Seeing the hideousness of the human body cut up, Shiv remembered its expendability and immediately returned to his mind. And to me.

The first thing he said, without my even asking was,
I needed to know what it would be like to lose you.

What are we doing?
His eyes were determined and focused on her.

We are talking?
She was just as focused, but on her plate, her closed mouth moving leisurely in a circle, savouring the slice of pumpkin cheesecake they were sharing.

Don't you think this tastes like … clouds?
she continued, her tone as light and airy as her metaphor.

No, seriously. What are we doing?
He stayed on course, dropping any lightness in his voice.

Eating cheesecake?

No. I mean you and me. Us,
he said slowly, careful not to exude impatience.

Oh.

She put her fork down.

I miss you. Like, really miss you.

She looked up.

What are you saying?

They had always blamed biology, namely his biological gayness and the destiny that implied, for their inability to be together, to stay together.

I am saying, what if we gave this a shot? A real shot.

It was also biology—their elevated heart rates, their perspiration, and the dilating of their pupils when in each other's presence—that had made being just friends impossible.

How would that be different from before? How would we not end up in the same place? You're gay …

Their explicit physical responses to each other's pheromones, appearances, voices, and brains: her wet vagina, his erection.

I don't know what I am. I know that I have dated boys and slept with boys, and I still want you. My body craves you.

Based on the evidence, it wasn't logical to consider biology as the reason to continue living in the shadow of The Great Love That Couldn't Be.

If anything, it was a reason to get back together.