My friendly wife

I met him quite accidentally, when I was on my official tour. (I am a marketing executive (age 30) of an MNC pharma company) We were old friends – studied in the same School. As it happens in such occasions, there was an initial euphoria, and when it was over, we decided to celebrate the occasion in a roadside bar. He made a call to his wife, telling her that we would have our dinner outside. I was happy sipping a beer and was remembering our old days, when, to my surprise, I found him gulping down almost half the bottle of whisky and still ordering for more. I signaled the waiter to stop as I was an occasional drinker, and I was hungry. We had a heavy dinner and I paid for the bill, amidst protests from my friend. So, after a few good byes, I thought of moving to my lodging house as I had some hectic work to do the next day.

But, when I finally convinced him that he had had enough and brought him out of the pub, he was so drunk that he could not even insert the bike key in its slot. Knowing that if I allowed him to drive, it was a sure act of suicide, I decided to drop him home, before moving to my hole. But I never thought he would be so drunk that he could forget the way to his own home, and after going round and round over a few streets, I took out his visiting card from his pocket, and enquiring here and there, reached his house around 11 in the night. I was happy that light was still burning in his house.

I honked the horn twice and a sleepy face peeped through the window. After a few seconds the front door opened, and a very young girl of around 20 came out. My friend gave that foolish grin as would such drunkards do, and tried to introduce me to her. His mouth opened to say something, but instead of words, a stream of vomit, a mixture of whisky and snacks, sprayed on my shirt before I could react. His job finished, he faltered and started to fall. Even forgetting the stench killing my nostrils, I rushed to stop him from falling. And his wife joined.

With much difficulty, we carried him into his bedroom almost dragging and laid him on the bed. By that time, he was totally gone, quite oblivious to what was happening to him and into the deep drunken slumber. She looked up at me and said in a very low voice “There is a bathroom in the hall; please change your dress and also take a bath. I will wash them up shortly.”

I had nothing to say, so I obeyed. When I returned from the bath room wrapping a towel around my waist (my dresses were in the suitcase), she was standing in the hall looking very sad.

I thought I owed an explanation. “We are friends during school days”. I sounded almost apologetic. “We met again after 10 years gap, and he wanted to celebrate. Perhaps, I should have stopped him much earlier”.

“It is okay” she replied in a matter of fact tone. “I have seen him in much worse condition”. Her words were interrupted by the deafening sound of snoring coming from my friend’s bed room. I was shocked to hear that. A wife so beautiful like her, recently married as was evident from her mangal sutra, there was no reason for my friend to behave like that.

“Why?” I wanted to know, but she ignored my question. “Here is some milk?” she extended a cup of hot steaming milk and asked “Would you like to see some TV news?”. I nodded in assent, as I had that habit of watching late night news before going to bed.

She switched on the TV, changed it to news channel and started moving towards the bathroom. “I may be late. Shall be washing your clothes & others. There is your bed room” She pointed her beautiful hand towards a closed door and I nodded. She went into the bathroom closing the door behind her and I heard the water running. She was washing my clothes, I thought sipping the milk.

She looked very beautiful, and though I felt guilty of thinking like that about a friend’s wife, I could not help remembering her wonderful body. She was very shapely, and from the contours exhibited through her night dress, I could see her breasts very firm and her back intoxicating (you know, I was already slightly intoxicated by that strong beer). She was lean but not skinny, and she had the curves that made her very sexy.

Shaking my head to drive away these thoughts, I tried to concentrate on the TV news which was discussing about the sudden drop in stock prices on that day and I got absorbed in it. I had staked lots of money in the stocks and a 5 percent drop meant a lot of money.