Wedding Cancelled and Other Stories by Shobhaa De

Author:Shobhaa De
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: null
Publisher: S&S India
Published: 2020-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

PEACE, AT LAST

I knew I had married the wrong man on the wedding night itself. My husband got it up, but he couldn’t get it in! He struggled for a few seconds, pushed my body around, muttered under his breath and finally gave up. I kept mum. He didn’t.

‘It’s your fault… the position of your legs was all wrong,’ he said.

I apologised and stroked his back, ‘Let’s try after some time… I will adjust my legs.’ My voice was soft and humble, my eyes were downcast. I had apologised for something - but what? I had apologised for nothing! But I had unwittingly given him an alibi. A face-saver. He was a lousy, inexperienced, inept, clumsy, insensitive and selfish lover.

That’s the truth. I had nothing to apologise for - but I had done it. I had said ‘Sorry!’ How stupid of me! Just to maintain peace and not damage his ego. I didn’t want my marriage to start on the wrong note. His ego. It was always about his ego. What about my ego? Was it less precious? His hurt feelings - no thought spared for mine?

So many years later, I now realise, had I saved the apology right then on our marital bed, I would have saved myself several subsequent hurts and insults. After that fateful flop of a sexual encounter, our sex life fell into a predictable groove. We had a pattern in place - if he couldn’t penetrate or couldn’t achieve an orgasm it was because the fault was entirely mine. Either, I did not know how to ‘please’ him, he said, or my body was ‘of the wrong shape’. Had he not seen his own shape?

Sex is the key to marriage. Good sex keeps a marriage going. Bad sex kills it. When sex stops - the marriage ends. I know when my marriage ended. It was the day I decided to end sex with my husband once and for all. Not because sexual desire had left me. But because I was finally strong enough to say ‘no’ to my husband’s unreasonable and far- too-frequent sexual advances. I felt my ‘duty’ was over. We had three children, who looked just like him. So, the world would know our marriage had been ‘normal’. No fooling around! Paternity well established and stamped all over the children.

But now, I had made up my mind that enough was enough. My body was my own. And I could no longer oblige my husband sexually. This decision was taken a good ten years after menopause. Ten long years during which I did not protest or resist, even though my hormones were rebelling and my heart hurt. I tried. I didn’t want him to lose interest in me and start looking for sex outside the home. We were set in the standard comfort zone of most middle class marriages. Enough food. Zero sex.

So, for ten long years, I would automatically part my legs and let him in - even though my vagina was dry, and I was in pain.

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