Saumya loving Saumya

As he sat in the crowded bar, Saumya hoped that the loud music would drown out his thoughts. He had always been shy and nervous – so it wasn’t too surprising that he was the only one in a group of twenty new joiners who was not on the dance floor, enjoying himself. His colleagues had tried to be friendly, but he had been tongue tied too often and mostly mumbled vague responses to their attempts at conversation. It soon became awkward for everyone, and they just stopped trying. So Saumya sat alone, nursing a glass of coke.

Saumya hadn’t noticed her taking the bar stool next to his. He looked towards her nervously, and she smiled at him. She seemed so beautiful in her simplicity, and the warmth in her smile so genuine, that Saumya was blown away and yet felt strangely at ease at the same time. Despite himself, Saumya blurted out “Hi.” Her smile widened and she said “I noticed you were sitting away from your group. I guess you are a loner like me – I didn’t realize that this office retreat would become so awkward for me. So your company is also having a retreat?” “New joiner’s orientation..”, Saumya replied. “..And your situation seems exactly like mine – too shy to have a proper conversation.” She laughed. “Just like me. But we’re having a conversation, so let us try and keep it going – what’s your name?” “I’m Saumya – what about you?” She giggled and said “I am Saumya too – funny, you have a girl’s name.” Saumya froze for a moment, all the mockery he had endured from his school days on his feminine name and his slender frame came rushing to him. He expected more cruel jibes from his namesake, and was starting to tense up, when she said “I find that cute – it’s such a great conversation starter! And it takes a real man to carry off a woman’s name.” She sounded so genuine in her words of praise that Saumya felt his chest swell with pride. He felt like he was in a dream, his mind floating as the music seemed to fade away and all the light seemed to focus on her. He couldn’t believe he had missed her earlier when he had observed the team she was part of, and thanked his lucky stars that she had decided to come over.

They continued to chat over a few glasses of coke. After a bit, she asked him if he had ever drank alcohol. When he shook his head, she leaned over and whispered into his ear “Neither have I – I always wanted to but never did. Will you please share a drink with me? I’m a bit nervous.” So they added rum to their order of cokes. The conversation kept flowing, and Saumya felt that he hadn’t opened up so much to anyone like this since he stopped writing in his diary. He spoke to her about his overly protective family, how he had absolutely no privacy at home, and how he planned to do all the things that he wasn’t allowed to do; or was too embarrassed to admit wanting to do; while he was living with them. She was the perfect companion, and they didn’t realize when they had ordered more than a few extra rounds – nor did they pay any attention to the bartender, who was eyeing them quizzically and shrugged his shoulders as he gave them their next round of drinks. Saumya’s head was swimming, and he was in no doubts that he was drunk. It was then that she took his hand in hers – she was gazing at it, taking in every minute detail, and after what seemed like an eternity, she looked at him with a longing that seemed too much to be contained, and said – “You have such beautiful hands!”

There was hardly a word spoken as they hurried to his room. Every so often, when they spotted an isolated corner or an empty corridor, they kissed hungrily. The taste of alcohol overpowered the taste of her, and it was a strange yet satisfying feeling. Before they could realize it, they were in front of the door. The entire journey from the bar to the room was a blur, but it didn’t matter. His heart was pounding loudly in his chest, and he felt it would explode as he fumbled for his keycard. He found it and pushed the door open. They stumbled towards the bed, kissing and attempting to undress. Saumya unzipped his trousers and got them down to his thighs when he felt himself falling back onto the bed – almost immediately his manhood was enveloped in warmth. The rhythmic motion felt rough and dry at first, but as she continued to move up and down, it all became perfect. Despite the darkness in the room, he could see her clearly – every inch of her naked beauty, the ecstasy on her face. He closed his eyes yet continued to see her – he realized this would be an image that would be etched in his memory forever as they both climaxed. As he was falling asleep, she took his now messy hand and said in a satisfied voice – “Your hands are so beautiful!”

He could hear a faint banging sound. As his grogginess cleared slowly, the banging became louder and louder, until the pounding on his room door seemed to echo in his head. Saumya looked around to see that he was lying alone in the corner of the large bed – the blanket hardly had even a wrinkle on it, except for the part covering him. He was still dressed in his shirt and trousers. Hardly anything in the room seemed to have been touched. He scanned the room again, but she wasn’t there. The banging continued – with great effort, Saumya got up, glad that his exertion didn’t make his head explode. He pulled up his trousers and zipped up before getting the door.

Ashok, with whom he was supposed to share the room, was furious. “What happened to you last night? We kept knocking on the door trying to get you to open up. We even thought of getting a master key to open the door. In the end, I went to Shashank and Ravi’s room. Anyway, take a shower soon – there’s just one hour before they stop serving breakfast. Phew, how much did you drink last night?!” Saumya looked outside into the corridor, but it was empty. “Did you happen to see anyone on your way here? I thought I kept hearing some sounds.” “Well, you certainly took your own sweet time hearing the door pounding now! But there was no one else. Now hurry up.”

All throughout breakfast, Saumya’s eyes searched for her. But she was nowhere to be seen. Before long, he saw the other people from her company whom he had noticed the previous day. He went up to one of them and asked for her. “Saumya? Sorry, we don’t have anyone in our group with that name. Are you sure she’s not part of some other company?” Saumya couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He had to see her again – to tell her how much last night meant to him, not to lose all the joy he had found. He ran up to the reception and asked for any other companies that were having a retreat, but there were none. After much pleading, the receptionist agreed to check in the register for a Miss Saumya – after scanning through the register, she shook her head. The only Saumya who had checked into the hotel was him.

Saumya was distraught. How could she disappear without a trace – did last night mean nothing to her? Had she changed her name just to make a fool of him, to mock him? His eyes welled up as he thought of her joking about him to her friends. He had thought she had seen him for what he was, that she had been sincere – but now he realized he had been played. He felt cheap and used.

As his mind was racing with these thoughts, he noticed the bartender who had served him. He walked up to him, hoping he would be able to give some details – after all, he had been pretty friendly with everyone who had been there. Before he could say anything, the bartender spoke. “Hello sir, are you ok? You had a little too much last night. I have to admire your capacity! I’ve never seen anyone order two drinks at a time and down them as soon as you did. I felt doing cheers with a glass in each hand was a bit weird, but whatever your technique is, it works. By the way sir, I couldn’t find you to give the bill, so it has been charged to your room. You can check the bill during checkout.” Saumya was confused. “I don’t understand. I wanted to check if you knew anything about the person who was with me.” The bartender stared at him for a long time before saying “You were mostly alone, except for a few of your colleagues initially.”

Saumya's head was spinning. He could not understand what was happening. He tried his best to recollect every detail of last night, but all he could pull up were flashes. The clearest moments were before she joined him, when he was sober. The harder he tried to remember, the more difficult it became. As he tried desperately to piece together anything he could remember, the realization hit him – her face was not clear in his memory. He could only remember her body, which seemed unreal now, like in a movie. Had he been dreaming?

He went to the room and locked himself in the bathroom. He had had sex, there was no doubt about it. He could still feel it in his penis. Had he been drugged? A sense of dread came over him, and he splashed water on his face in an attempt to wash away the feeling. As his hands cupped his face, Saumya froze. He looked at his hands as it slowly dawned on him.

Saumya had never masturbated before – until last night. He had always wanted to try it, to release his pent-up sexual urges, but it wasn’t possible at home. He had always wondered how it would happen, what scenarios would be running in his mind, whether it would be purely mechanical or if it would be the imagination that would get him to orgasm. He knew the mind was the most powerful sexual organ, but he didn’t know how it would actually happen. Saumya was shocked at his own imagination – he had always had imaginary friends to deal with his loneliness, but never had they been so vivid. Or had they been? He couldn’t be sure anymore.

As Saumya tried to come to terms with what had happened, his mind went back to a word he had picked up during lunch the previous day, when his colleagues were discussing a movie. He laughed as he realized that there couldn’t be a better example for the word – last night had provided meaning to the word in more ways than one. He whispered to himself, shaking his head - ‘Mindfuck’. 

Author's Note: Thanks to Sujith - this is what comes out of our crazy conversations!

Speechless!

All the world's a stage, and I have stage fright!!

Surprising as it may seem to some of you, I suffer from glossophobia (albeit a mild version, I think). For those of you who are scratching their heads or opening a new browser tab to check the meaning of the word, glossophobia is the fear of public speaking. I think that’s one of the reasons I have taken up writing – it gives me the sense of satisfaction that I am getting my thoughts across to more than a handful of people (though, ironically, that’s exactly how you could describe the number of readers I have, but that’s besides the point), with the comfort of doing so in privacy, and without the fear of soiling myself. In any case, I have proven once again that I am as common a person as one can be – in one of his stand up acts, Jerry Seinfeld mentions how in a survey, the fear of public speaking was voted the greatest fear, surpassing even death (which came in at number two).

At one point of time, I was required to do a speech on derivatives at college. It was at that time that I had to face my great fear. I looked up various suggested techniques to overcome the fear of public speaking. Among the regular, boring suggestions like rehearsing in front of a mirror, visualizing a standing ovation, and repeating your speech over and over again; I came across a hidden gem – imagine your audience in their underwear! The rationale behind this was logical enough – mostly the fear of public speaking is an extension of the underlying fear of being ridiculed. So if you were to imagine your target audience in a compromising situation, rather than them holding rotten eggs and tomatoes aimed at you, you would be more confident and less likely to mess up.

As some of you may have guessed by now, things didn’t work out too well. In hindsight, I am not really surprised. I mean, really, have you ever been terrified and aroused at the same time? Actually, no need to answer that. That’s how most horror and slasher movies work. Anyway, things got messed up pretty much the moment I got on stage and reached the podium. One look at the audience and I panicked. “Remember; just imagine the audience in their underwear.” As I looked up from my notes to the audience, my mind went blank. The crowded auditorium looked like the set of the biggest orgy. Given my only experience with women’s underwear were the innumerable porn movies I had seen, all I could see was lacy underwear, stockings and in some cases, really high heels. Of course, I was simultaneously grossed out by the sea of semi-nude dudes – it didn’t help that in most cases, girls tend to sit with their legs crossed while the guys spreads their legs wide while sitting. My mind was scrambled with all the conflicting emotions going on.

Needless to say, my speech was one to remember, for all the wrong reasons. I stammered and stuttered through the opening sentences, trying desperately to erase images from my head, and get through the notes I had prepared. I was way beyond the point of trying to maintain eye contact with the audience (I didn’t even dare to look anywhere in the general direction of straight), checking my voice modulation, or any of the other million things you need to be careful about during a speech. “Umm.. uhhh.. I… uhhh…” – I was so confused; I was making more noises than Kristen Stewart in the Twilight movie. And that was not even the worst part. Every time I got to the words “exotic derivatives”, I ended by saying “erotic derivatives”. After many more mistakes, including “securitization” becoming “screw-tization” and “organization” turning into “orgy-nization”, I got to the part of the speech where I thanked the audience for their patience. As I moved away from the podium, the audience, who were upto this point muttering their disapproval of my speech, or discussing the sorry state of affairs of our nation’s economy, suddenly stopped and let out a collective gasp. It took me the entire, slow walk away from the stage to realize what had happened – as I moved away from the podium, the audience got to see that I was pitching a tent.. in my pants.

I guess this could be called a life-changing event. I am still trying to break the code to become a confident orator. And there are many more equally innovative, infinitely less risky techniques out there. For example, the standup comedian late Mitch Hedberg used to wear sunglasses during his performances as he suffered from stage fright. Hopefully, some innovative technique like this one should help me out as well. Meanwhile, I am also doing the occasional search for how to hide a boner in public – just in case.