Serious Men

He tried to hold her legs, but they were now glistening in sweat and his hands slipped. That made her laugh. But her demented laughter soon become wails as he finally managed to prise open her legs and plunder her with an inhuman strength. But it was a brief attack. In less than a minute, he fell on her breasts and rolled down on the floor panting and laughing.
    He did not know such pleasurable violence was permitted outside the myth of pornography. The amused smile of the young Lavanya, that look of a patient zen master condoning the imperfection of an apprentice, was what he had thought the face of woman’s love to be. But what had happened just now was different.
    Oparna was looking at him, breathing hard, lying on her mauled breasts. She and Acharya stared at each other as if they both knew they were going to die and had accepted this death. It was a long time before either spoke.
    ‘What have we done?’ she said, with a smile.
    ‘What have we done?’ Acharya repeated, more seriously than her. ‘What now?’
    ‘What now? You can’t steal a woman’s line. That’s not allowed.’
    ‘It’s a woman’s line?’
    ‘Of course. Anyway, it’s too early to say it.’ She rolled to his side and put her head on his chest. He felt her finger probe his navel. ‘You have such a big navel,’ she said, ‘It’s very deep too. And there is a lot of lint.’ She showed him what she had scooped out.
    ‘Your wife is away?’ she asked.
    ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You seem to be very experienced.’
    ‘In what?’ Somehow it was a question that had only uncomfortable answers.
    ‘How many lovers have you had?’ he asked.
    She looked at the ceiling, toying with her hair. ‘Is it true that we follow the decimal system because we have ten fingers?’
    ‘Most of us have eight fingers.’
    She looked confused, but then her face lit up in comprehension. ‘Eight fingers and two thumbs?’
    ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Why do you want to know about the decimal system?’
    ‘I was counting my men,’ she said, ‘and eight fingers and two thumbs were not enough.’ She lifted her head to see his face. ‘Does it annoy you that I have slept with so many men?’
    ‘Yes. And I hate them,’ he said.
    ‘And that’s a nice thing to say to a woman,’ she said.
    She looked at him fondly. He was like a cuddly giant seal. His eyes, usually bright and furious, now stared in the diffused glow of affection or gratitude. They lay together on the floor in silence for over an hour. Then something crossed her mind.
    ‘At The Talks,’ she said, ‘you remember the speech you gave at The Talks?’
    ‘You were there?’
    ‘Yes. I was there to letch at you. You said something then.You said, “Maybe we cannot understand physics at the quantum level without understanding other things which are not considered physics today. Other things like…” Then you stopped. I thought you wanted to say something, but did not think it was right to say it.’
    ‘Was it that obvious?’
    ‘What did you want to say?’
    He became thoughtful and distant. She set her chin on his chest and tried to understand his face. Beautiful lips, she thought, full and somehow smug. As if they would accept the kiss of a woman as a deserved right. She was offended by this. She should have made him suffer more before yielding. He must not think she was his right, like a Nobel or something.
    ‘Tell me,’ she said.
    ‘There are things that a man like me cannot say in public,’ he said. ‘There are things that physics does not accept as its own. That’s why I could not say it then.’
    ‘You can tell me. A man can tell a naked woman anything.’
    He did not speak for what seemed like a long time. She waited.
    ‘I have not told anyone this,’ she heard him say. And he fell silent again. He found it odd that he must say this now, in the dampness of a nudity that was somehow comical, and say it to a woman he did not know beyond the temporal anguish of love.
    ‘Physics has to go,’ he said, like a dying revolutionary wishing freedom for his real estate. That disappointed her even though she knew what he had to say was going to be, of course, about physics. She had hoped it would be about something else.
    ‘Nobody is admitting it, but physics is stuck, physics has to change,’ he said. ‘The current laws are not enough. It needs something else. It has to accept something. Bombarding particles in a nine-billion-dollar collider is useless. It has to accept that. And