The most difficult thing Mohan Kumar had to deal with in his adult life was the loss of his sex drive. This happened about a year after his affair with Susanthika Goonatilleke ended. Even when he fantasized about the women he had enjoyed and others he fancied, there was no stirring in his groin. He tried the wildest of fantasies and looked at pictures of naked women in Playboy and Debonair to induce erections. There was no response. He did not like this. Sex was the most important thing in his life: with the sex urge gone, there was little left for him to look forward to. However, after a while there was a mild compensation: he paid more attention to his business and began to socialize more than before.

But he could not accept impotence as natural in a man not yet fifty who had lived such a full sexual life. He tried tonics—ayurvedic, unani. He went to health clubs for different kinds of massages: Kerala, Ayurvedic, Swedish, and simple maalish by pehalwans (wrestlers). He felt the better for them but they did not reactivate his libido.

Kumar’s business took him to Bombay. He checked into the Taj Mahal Hotel near the Gateway of India where he usually stayed. After calling on his business associates he returned to the hotel in the evening. He sat in the lobby watching the coming and going of guests and visitors. How very desirable some of the girls looked in their slinky saris or tight-fitting jeans, flaunting their big breasts and wiggling their buttocks as they walked past!

He went to his room and took out his bottle of Scotch. He asked the room bearer to fetch him a bucket of ice cubes, a couple of sodas and some snacks. The bearer rang up room service. A few minutes later another bearer arrived carrying the things Mohan had ordered and laid them on the table. He opened the bill folder for Mohan’s signature. Mohan put a hundred-rupee note in the folder as a tip. The bearer thanked him profusely and left with a deep bow. The room waiter was watching. He asked if sir would need anything. ‘No,’ replied Mohan.

Mohan had his evening quota of three large whiskeys and polished off the plate of canapés. He did not want to go down for dinner; he had had enough to eat. He rang for the room bearer. After the bearer had cleared the table, Mohan gave him a hundred-rupee note. The bearer was pleased and asked if he could be of any other service. This time, without thinking, Mohan replied, ‘Can you get me a woman?’

‘Sure, sir. How much?’

‘Anything. Five hundred to a thousand. She must be young and attractive.’

A few minutes later the bearer came back leading a woman of about thirty. She had short, neat hair and was smartly dressed in a long grey skirt and a low cut yellow blouse. She did not look like a prostitute. The bearer left them together. Kumar asked the woman to sit down. She sat down on his bed and said, ‘You pay first.’

‘How much?’

‘The bearer fixed a thousand for one time. You can pay me more if you like it.’

Kumar took a thousand rupees from his wallet and handed them to her. She counted all the notes and put them in her hand bag.

‘Tell me when you are ready.’

‘Take off your clothes and let me see what you look like.’

She obeyed: the blouse and the skirt came off first; then the bra and the panties. Mohan’s member stiffened. He was delighted. In that one instant all the anxiety and frustration of the past several months was wiped out. He was his old self again. He pulled down his pants and showed her what he had. ‘For that I should charge you double,’ she said. ‘Most women who see it want it for free,’ replied Kumar with a leer.

There was no passion in her movements. When he tried to kiss her on the lips, she turned her face away. She let him kiss and suck her breasts. But her nipples did not harden. He went into her. She tried quick heaves to get him to come fast. He took his own good time; he had not had sex for months. When he came, she feigned a climax. It was all very mechanical but he was satisfied; relieved that he had not become impotent.

She cleaned herself in the bathroom and got back into her clothes. Kumar gave her another one hundred rupees. ‘If you want me I can come again. Don’t ask the room bearer or anyone else. He takes his cut, the pimp takes his commission, I get less than half of what I earn.’

‘Come tomorrow evening, same time. What is your name?’

‘No name,’ she replied. ‘I will come tomorrow through the main entrance. There will be another bearer on duty; he does not know me. Keep your door open.’

The woman with no name came the next evening as she had promised. This time dressed in a sari, a bindi on her forehead, sindoor in the parting of her hair, looking like any respectable middle-class housewife. As far as her pimp and the room bearer were concerned, it was her day off. The money she got from him would all be hers. She did not ask to be paid in advance. It made quite a difference to her performance. She was not the indifferent, get-on-with-it-and-finish-as-soon-as-you- can woman of the earlier evening. She was gentle, almost loving in her endearments. Her nipples responded to his kisses and nibbling and she was wet when he entered her. She was eager to prolong the intercourse and came when he came: no feigning. When Mohan gave her money—with an extra hundred added as a tip—she did not sit down to count it, but gave him a kiss on his lips.

‘You use no effel?’ she asked, using the old word for condom.

‘I do sometimes. But I was not expecting sex in Bombay,’ he replied.

‘You should,’ she advised, ‘it is safer.’

‘You won’t tell me your name? What if I want you again when I come to Bombay?’

‘No name. I am a married woman with children. I do this dhanda because my husband does not earn enough. You ask the same bearer to get you the same bai he got for you last time.’

She gave him another kiss and slipped out of the room.

Mohan Kumar returned to Delhi, reassured that he had not gone kaput.

Mohan recovered his zest for living. Sex had lost its old urgency but he was content with the knowledge that if the opportunity came he would not be found wanting. He was out wining and dining with his friends every other evening. Twice a week he had a party in his home—the best food and beverage in town. His friends noticed how high-spirited he had suddenly become after months of moodiness. ‘What’s happened?’ asked the young wife of one of his friends at a party in his home. ‘Have you won a lottery? Made another couple of millions? Or have you found a new sweetheart?’

‘All those and more,’ he replied and added cryptically, ‘I have rediscovered my manhood.’

‘Go on with you!’ she quipped. ‘You’ve always been the macho man of Delhi. A kind of “sarkari saandh”—a stud bull employed by the government to impregnate cows. If half of what I’ve heard about your prowess in bed is true, you’ve always been a favourite with women. So what’s new? What’s made you so bloody cheerful?’

He did not tell them. They had lots of fun and laughter at his expense. He did not mind it at all.