He looked ahead. Manan was pedalling in a wobbly way. Avik had a hand on his back.

Nah he can’t play anymore, Sunetra said, in a voice suddenly firm. He’s so out of shape.

He’s in far better shape than most men his age.

Trust me. Sunetra rolled her eyes.

Kaustav felt the slap. Tight and stinging, a nudge on his rib, so sharp that the pain hung on, drowsy. Her words sliced through you.

Good for Manan, she said. But the poor boy!

Poor who? Kaustav asked. Avik?

What, no! Not your boy, I’m talking about mine.

His boy? Kaustav’s, truly? Why were marriages made of spite?

Avik is a great teacher. Her voice was quiet. As long as he can shape you the way he wants.

Kaustav frowned. Ahead of them, Manan toppled over to his right.

He lost his frown. Exactly what the little boy needs now, he pointed to them.

Sunetra started to laugh.

***

It was a strange feeling. To realize that Avik and Sunetra needed him as they couldn’t be around each other. It was hard for them. Manan offered the minor distraction of love. The child sensed love whenever it hung around him, hugged him tight or light. And he loved back. Perhaps for his parents, home life was easy to ignore, routine offered the comfort of the nondescript. But a holiday asked for that difficult thing, a greed for each other. Pleasure was painful to create. But with Kaustav here, it was pretence no more.

Who wanted him more? Avik or Sunetra? Whose idea had it been to pull him this time?

Back in San Diego, did they sleep in the same bed? Here they had one bedroom where they kept Manan too. There was just another bedroom for Kaustav. King beds. They slept with Manan in between.

Perhaps, he and Avik could take one bedroom with Sunetra and Manan the other. There was something lovely about the night. When you could shut the door on the world. The chats with Avik would be endless, till they dropped off dead each night.

He had made things awkward at the hotel in Toronto. Perhaps he shouldn’t have touched Avik. Not even playfully. He had pinched him too hard, and he had winced. But how could he not? It had been so strange to see Avik’s body, unclothed, so different yet whisperingly familiar.

Why the hell couldn’t he touch Avik? The memories would never die. The strong, dependable shoulders in the crowd, the panting boy next to him on the bed, the raging bowler on the field. That body belonged to Kaustav too.

He was doing the dishes. Sitting at the dinner table, Kaustav saw his back. Those shoulders, swaying rhythmically as he dried the cleaned dishes with a washcloth. Softened, domesticated shoulders. Kaustav knew the kindness in those muscles. The kindness with which he did the dishes.

Sunetra sat at the table next to Manan. The boy was a lazy eater.

Goodness, Manan, she said. It’s pasta with bacon, and you stare at it like it’s your rival.

Avik put the last of the plates away; there was only Manan’s left, and no one knew when that would be done. Sunetra picked up the boy’s fork, twirled pasta around it, brought it up to his mouth. Manan opened his mouth.

Come on, Avik looked at Kaustav.

They stepped out in the hallway.

This quiet dance of marriage. They avoided being with each other entirely. Whenever one of them was with Manan, the other one claimed Kaustav. Sometimes Kaustav felt like playing with Manan. But he couldn’t do that. Not on this trip.

Avik put on his jacket. Let’s step out for a smoke. They closed the main door behind them.

What’s with you guys? Kaustav asked.

Gosh, this was a mistake. We just came because Manan wanted a white Christmas. The kid’s never seen snow.

Did you have a fight or something? Fuck man, forget that shit.

That was Avik! Definitely.

He slid an arm around Avik’s shoulders. What’s going on, seriously?

The whole thing is a fight, man. Avik took out a pack of Marlboro Lights.

Hey, you buying packs now? He had seen Avik light up cigarettes in parties but never buy a whole pack for himself.

This trip, Avik said sharply.

Su’ll flay you. Does she know?

She doesn’t give a fuck anymore. Stop worrying about her. Everything I do is pathetic, and now she has given up entirely.

You jumped into this marriage.

Yes, back during those thirty seconds of my life I thought I loved research and was fooled by smarts.

Fooled? Really, Avik? Imagine where she could have been today? Her talent, man! Cell in grad school!

And what she can still do. His own dreams flashed through Kaustav, suddenly.

Why the fuck did she marry me? She doesn’t need anyone in her life.

His voice became muffled. Something seared through Kaustav, a heated metal blade. It was so easy to break Avik, the large-shouldered baby.

But he had never seen him cry. Never heard his voice wet and broken.

He tightened his grip, pulled him into a hug.

The houses glimmered with Christmas lights. Montreal was a beautiful city, a slice of Europe in North America.

I wanted an easy life, dude, Avik looked ahead.

Is there such a thing? Kaustav wanted to ask.

And I got it.

There is nothing easy about her, Kaustav. Avik stopped, turned to him. She finds it dumb. Everything I do. My friends, whatever I do, my whole life.

The same people, the same jokes, the same curry and booze, Kaustav said. I’m glad I can get away, dude, but she can’t.

She should have married someone smarter, like you. I like these people, okay? They let me breathe a little.

You know, Kaustav, you can’t live with someone who thinks you’re way beneath them in every way, and who wants to throw up looking at you.

Something in Kaustav prevented him from saying anything.

The snake wriggled inside as he took a couple of drags.

Are you guys doing it? he asked softly.

Avik made a face, smoking silently.

A lot rides on that, dude, Kaustav said.

Are you kidding? Avik said. It’s like a shock if our hands brush against each other.

What the hell, man? You guys used to be teenagers even a few years ago.

What few years ago? That’s a long way back.

Avik was awkward about sex. Girls liked his big broad power, but he’d remained the pubescent Indian boy, clueless about what women wanted. He didn’t like talking about sex either, real sex as it touched his life. It left him fumbling for words.

The only person to whom he’d talked about the pangs of his changing body was Kaustav. The long, sultry days, snatches through college and graduate school, weird moments in the lab.

When his turn came and he took his honeymoon trip in a two- berth first-class coupe on Rajdhani Express, Kaustav had jumped on him. He had told Avik stories for years. Now it was Avik’s turn.

Dude, you’ve always had a thing for things on the move, didn’t you?

What rubbish! Avik had blushed. That’s your thing. Back seats of cabs, and buses and what not.

What was it like doing it in the train?

It had blown his mind, ripped his body open. This was the first time that he was fucking nervous. They had done nothing but kiss while dating.

Sunetra had taken over. She had been a whir, tossing big-boned Avik around like a twig. Avik had been shy and confused—I don’t know if I was hard with sex or pee—but she knew what she wanted and how to get it. Small against his big frame, she had ridden atop him and made him come like a schoolboy in a couple of minutes. Then she had laughed. The laughter had fought the singing friction of the wheels and had sounded sad.

Two minutes, man? Kaustav had said. What the . . .

It was impossible, dude, she was over me naked as a baby, pounding me, and the train pounded me from below, and she looked at me so dazed and I just couldn’t hold it any longer.

She didn’t come, Kaustav had said. No fun for her.

Why didn’t she? Avik had been confused. She was moaning a storm.

Girls rarely come like that, Kaustav had said, suddenly losing interest in the conversation.

He had lost interest in his own climax too. Satiety left desire cold. He enjoyed making his lovers reach their peaks, over and over again, his tongue and fingers rude and relentless, seedy hotel rooms in Calcutta, grad student studios in Toronto, warm with wonder at a woman’s endless capacity to renew her desire in minutes, arrive at her moment again and again with a jagged song, like she had been forever in waiting. Causing pleasure was the most overwhelming of pleasures. Avik would look at him funny if Kaustav told him that, like he was disabled, or ill with perversion. I can’t keep my mind whirring in bed like you, sick bastard. Avik couldn’t fathom the weirdness of his body.

Sunetra had slept with men before. She knew how to craft her desire, weave it into a story, induce her partner into it. Slowly, she had taught Avik how to play with her, prolong the song. He was always a bit shy and confused but she seemed to like that!

Happy laughter had shot through Kaustav’s blood. A grateful happiness at Avik getting to know sex. He was such a baby. Gasping through the afternoons at stories and gossip, bits from porn clips. Now, he had a lover who would show him how his body could be played. Imagining Avik with Sunetra, Kaustav had felt the thrill of experiencing sex for the first time, all over again.

They turned back. Neither of them knew the city. Manan would have finished his dinner by now. A quiet anxiety seemed to come over him whenever he was left alone with his mom and his dad went out of sight. He would eat quickly, gulp down his pasta.

All that, Avik said, is another life. She’s always wanted what she wanted, nothing else, and then she felt I was a big boorish pig good for making money and nothing else. And she hates money, you know that.

Avik, Kaustav said sharply.

There was so much of Sunetra Avik would never get. She just doesn’t care about the things most people want to use money for. The people around you anyway.

She wants to find something, Kaustav said. Something real and beautiful.

Life’s a bitch, he said, that she’s stuck in nowhere.

(Excerpted from The Remains of the Body with permission from Penguin Random House India)

(Appeared in print as 'Beyond The Kissing')