India - 1

The time seemed right. Indeed, it is time.

Thought is, at best, successfully navigating five lanes of traffic to the exit you need to get off on. Experience is violently rolling your car.
--Anon

We know the air is unfit to breath and the food is unfit to eat and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had 15 homicides and 63 violent crimes as if that's the way it's supposed to be! We know things are bad! Worse than bad!
[...]
First you've got to get mad! You have to say, "I'm human being, god dammit! My life has value!"
--Network (1976)

In years past I've ventured into many uncomfortable situations. I've done the whole "drug" thing, the whole "get fucked and fuck the world" thing. The "proof of existence" thing. The fact of the matter is that nothing shakes the Nitro as much as when I existed in Southern Asia. I spent some months there; there in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal...and the in between. I think I'm a better man for it, but I can't tell you why. I seek to submit you into my experience; my time there. It seems like a lot of semi-colons but I think they are justified. The story(s) forthcoming are disjointed and highly reliant on memory that I'm not too sure I grasp completely. Unlike so many of my favorite writers I have only my disjointed memory to rely on. I hope to impose on you, readers, something that might entertain...and even move forward some sort of something. Please read with an open mind, for everything after this is a relation of actual events (sans names other than my own admission of self).


PART ONE: THE BUS TRIP - APPX THREE MONTHS INTO INDIA

There is no easy way to ease you into this story. Bring it.

In March of that year I embarked on what would become one of my most memorable trips in India. Upon (what respectively was a nonchalant type of trip for us) a trip to the beautiful beach area known as Gokarna, I noticed a change in the entire dynamic of the prior travel we had previously embarked on. It was a large group for travel in India: five of us. Coordinating the rickshaws was tough enough, but given our "landmark" (some random same-name store on the corner of "what street" and "who gives a fuck") it was a bit more than we'd bargained on. Me and the girls pushed forward in two rickshaws best we could, but the labored effort ended in us getting separated. Along the way me and Ar and Cat decided it was the perfect time to start drinking. We became the more forceful of the two rickshaws...to get to the actual destination. The destination where the bus was to pick us up was the utmost importance. Fuck the trafficlightspeoplepissstops, we were making the goddamn location where we were told the bus would pick us up and take us to The Magical Gokarna.


"Okay, I brought some 8PM," Cat said as she pulled out a small pint from her backpack. It was the whiskey we'd been sipping on for the past three months. Smooth tan-glow.
"I've got a litre in my bag." I replied.
"That's fine, but we should start with this."

It was hard to disagree with this statement. We had a 11 hour bus ride ahead. There was no sympathy, but also no objection from the rickshaw driver, as we started on the 8PM. The lights of downtown Bangalore flooded us like clicked landmines as we sucked on our sanity nipple. Ar eventually, third pass, opted for a chaser.

"Coke? Anyone?" Immediate engendered bottle of the beverage was attained.
"Thanks." She sighed out after taking a long drought. The 8PM slid along with the likely hour of our bus' arrival. We'd stopped at several points to talk with people who thought they might know where we were going.

We were lost. We were not lost. We were in Bangalore (kind of, we think). We talked. We rode. We arrived.

About ten minutes after the bottle of 8PM was cashed, we found ourselves at "The Bus Stop". As is tradition for travelers, we paid the rickshaw driver his absurd (145 Rupee) due, and hoped we were in the right area. It was a lit (all you could ask for) kind of ally, off the main road near some sort of park. I had to piss, and I whipped it out like an India pro right against a wall near where we were standing. After knocking doors with some of the other people randomly standing around we determined that we were in "the right place". We were late. We were Indian late (around 15 minutes). We were on time. The bus was Indian late.

Twenty minutes later the bus arrived. Our plus-two on the other rickshaw had yet to show. Cell phone calls proved a wash after three voicemails to Ash when we realized she (nor any of us) had no idea how to check our voicemail. It was a series of non-verbal glances that betrayed our intentions:

"Alright, shit's here." I said.
"Well," Ash.
"Fuck't lets go." Cat.

-----

The bus. Sleeper bus. On the right when walking in were the single bunks; one person per; double stacked. Confirmed tickets. The right double-stacked double beds. Found our row with the double. Packed in cross legged. Grappled in my bag for the 1L of 8PM. Bottle of shitty wine also manifests. No one claims responsibility. Music turned on. Window cracked, cigarettes sparked.

The bus arrival and our subsequent boarding acted out as if practiced. The lights of Bangalore started moving at an accelerated pace as "Why?" played over the tiny speakers we had set up on the double bed.

"Have you ever read 'Food for the Gods'?" Ar asked.
"I haven't." I replied. Cat was quiet; staring out the window.
"You'd like it. It's about how shaman's and shit use drugs to attain a higher sense of consciousness."
"Sounds like something I'd like.
"Yea, you should read it."

The bus truged along as we sucked on the bottle of wine with the occasional pull of 8PM. The lights went from distinguishable yellow-white blobs to streaks of ivory strung along some sort concrete. Then there was nothing; the moon lit a non-populous area of low-growing farmland. The windchill was palpable through our curtain covered alcove, but the alcohol and cigs kept the window open. Then there were trees with long leaves, so long and sagging, you could tell there were either bananas or coconuts attached somewhere. We didn't really talk. We lit cigarettes and passed wine and 8PM in a regular manner...but sometimes you had to reach for it. Sometimes, you got lost in the blur of something other than City. Movements were limited to swapping alcohol and skipping songs on the MP3 player.

Slow-bass took us through the first few hours. Few words were exchanged and we mainly stared at the moon. We were a stable atomic compound. I felt them around me and in my veins; we flew around each other in a still way. Ar and I caught each other's glance. She waited as I sipped the bottle of no-name red wine; she waited until I caught my breath before reaching for it.

"I feel like they are missing out"
"Right? Wonder how far along they are?"
"Don't care, to be honest…not in a mean way though. We are doing our thing and they are doing theirs."
"True. Think we'll meet up?"
"What, in Gokarna? Hope so. They said they took a bus that way."
"But you know how that goes…"

Ar trailed off under a sip of the red wine and it sank between her legs like led. We didn't have anything to do. Cat started talking on her cell on a million-mile call to her ex-boyfriend, Me and Ar swayed with the dubstep playing on the mini-speakers. We had about eleven hours to go before we made it to Gokarna. The lights of the city had stopped and we relied on moonlight silhouettes when looking out there window. There were some fields, farms that seemed to have no purpose, and banana trees everywhere. The only thing that seemed to ground us was the occasional brush of skin-against-skin and the 750mL bottle of noname red wine passed between our legs.

The temperature was a windchill plus our radiating body heat. It was comfortable.  A bob and a bump later it seemed like we were at the first and only planned stop of the eleven hour bus ride. It had been approximately "quick" (my time).
----

Shoed up and off the bunk we shuffled along the trail through the middle of the bus. I rubbed against the man in front of me. I couldn't tell if he smelled the alcohol, but I knew I was obviously drunk. I didn't take a second to sway along to the music playing in my head. On de-board we recognized the stop: A restaurant that survived only on buses traveling on the [Insert Cardinal Direction Here] route out of Bangalore and surrounding cities. We knew better than to eat anything other than rice from previous trips.

"Shit, already?" I stated to no one, stepping out and lighting a cigarette.
"Right? I'm kind of drunk." Replied Ar. Cat stumbled out (it is worth mentioning here that we had forced Cat to keep up with us, drinking wise, the entire trip up to this point . Cat stood about four feet tall. Ar and I apexed at about five-eight and five-eleven respectively).
"Fuck't I'm pissing." I wandered off toward the toilet unceremoniously. When I walked out, my body tensed up and my knees went numb.

Sneaky. Vampire-ghost-arm in the air-grip and pull towards my body. No words. Ignore her struggle, soon she'd know it was me.

Against me I held Brit, one of our missing crew. Her dreds pushed into me as if I was hugging folded clothes.

"Brit. What the fuck."
"Holy FUCKING SHIT!"
"You with Ash? Get your bags."
Apparently it was no big thing to just add people to your bus (or subtract them from another, as long as you had paid). We learned this. Their bus, without them or their gear, pulled off and estimated ten minutes [actual time] post our arrival. A serendipity that trended throughout our trips and India in general had triumphed again. To Indian's I'm pretty sure it looked like rape when we hugged each other in the harsh florescent lights outside the diner. We didn't care.

----


"Oh my god, shut the fuck up!" Cat rolled off the bed, nearly faceplanting into the bordering bunk.
"Hand it over." Someone took the new bottle of wine, contributed by our new additions. The moon was still nearly full and screaming against the sparse landscape of plowed field and banana plantations.
"What the fuck are you doing?"
"Shut your goddamn mouth Ash!"
"Really? Really?"
"Brit, what the hell are you doing?" Brit was scratching her arm. It seemed to be red. It seemed to be red even against her tattoos. It seemed to be red even in the weak moonlight.
"Mo-skweeetoooossss!" she cried. (Not a phenomena we were unfamiliar with, and apparently not one we were unprepared for.)
"I've got some eucalyptus oil, come here." Ash produced the balm and Ar took it into her hands like and expert. Brit's arm extended, almost automatically, toward the balm.

At this point I knew what was going to happen…or I had guessed what would happen. My sixth sense had been heightened in India. My very soul seemed to vibrate with these people and the intention of the growing tension in the air seemed to move toward one thing. I looked to my left. Brit's right hand curled against the shady sheets they laid out on the bunks before we had arrived. Her left arm remained limply extended in Ar's massaging grasp.


"Gotta piss. Be right back."

No response. I hop off the bunk and fumble around at my personal one-man bunk for the one-litre bottle I had brought along for this expressed purpose. There was and underlying urgency in my subconscious-sixthsense-tension that was screaming for me to hurry up. The road was bumpy. My piss time was longer than I would have desired.

"Coming back up! Got room?" as I grasped beneath the pulled curtains, prepping for my launch onto the double bunk. I could sense the impending sex on my hands.
"No! No room!" It was Brit, a very recognizable voice.
"You're fucking kidding me. I'm coming up." Ash and Ar giggled at the reply.
"No! Girls only!"
"Well give me my shit back!" Not wanting to violate my restraining order, I groped under the curtains for my bottle of whisky which was yet to be finished, my MP3 player, and my headphones.
"Go away!"
"You're fucking kidding me. I'm not leaving [groping] without [find the MP3 player docked into the minispeakers] my shit!" I ripped the MP3 player out with probably more force than was necessary. There was silence for a moment.
"Give me my fucking bottle!"
"We can't find it."
"You're kidding me." I stalked off like a boy who'd just stood up to the school yard bully and asked one too many favors.

I snaked up into my bunk, wrapping my feet underneath my 90L expedition pack (which I'd been used to), cut the sliding window open and mulled over the silhouette scenery. A couple minutes later a female hand hesitantly ventured through my curtains. Woven through her fingers were my headphones, and in another hand, the rest of the whisky. It seemed an offering. Damn fuckin right!

I was an offering. I accepted without saying a word. In fact, I grasped at it as if starving. I ravished the first draught and shoved the earbuds deep into my ears. Fuck. This is my trip then. I resolved, watching the banana tree silhouettes assault my window. The moonlight turned a softer shade of white.  It transformed closer, as I sucked on my 8PM, to a sepia tone. My eyes closed.

----
Bump explosion. The noise of not-my-sound became jolted me like an electric shock and I was aware suddenly of something new,

"Unnnnnnhhhhh, Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Ohhhhhhhhh."

The sound of sex was slipping through my tightly closed curtains. I became defensive, and pushed through the curtains like someone caught in their sheets.

The ground hit my feet before my feet could realize it.

"Shut the fuck up guys!"…No response, but there was less noise. It had reduced to an unmistakable friction rub of body against fabric. It was the best I could hope for. Before climbing back into my bunk I shucked my curtains wide open. In any given northern direction from that double bunk there were four people; given what I'd heard, anyone on the back half of the bus could hear the commotion. It was an unmistakable sound.

In a state of hyperalertness, I laid upon my bunk and stared out on the middle isle, lit minimally like a plane during "night hours". There, in my mind, was a strong possibility of two things: One, a mob of Indian women would swing legs over their bunks like embalmed corpses and converge upon "my girls"; the other possibility was that Indian men would do the same. Neither of which ended well, it was either a road-side stoning or mid-ride raping. I was having neither. My muscles remained taught for either, and the first person that got out of their bunk and turned our way was subject what I like to call, "My zombie apocalypse reaction". It would not have been pretty.

A few moans later things seemed to subside. My head rolled toward the dropped earbud and I transcended. My eyes had closed again and it was every color flying by my head as if I'd hit warp speed. Everything was perfect again, silent in its own way. I had my music, my last sip of 8PM, and my sanity left. My esophagus fought the last sip. I became a flaccid paralytic with the occasional appropriate twitch to the music pulsing in my brain. The bus jumped over bumps, and I was on a water bed. Everything was perfect.  A hand gripped my inner thigh. Things, I thought, are about to changed.

It was not a good change. It was not a bad change. Basically, Shit, as I said, got real, real quick. I had a moment for a breath before she snaked up my leg like a skilled sex-python and triggered every little trip-line that had been laid out softly to betray such and intrusion. In a silk-like threading she arrived completely encompassing me. I can't explain exactly how, but the bitch had ened up through slickpushandsleed into every vunerable part of my body. There was no clean esacpe; there was actually nothing I could do…but drop a grenade>

I took hold of her like a wax candle that might break, slowworking that pliability that had nudged up against me. Soft tugs and pulls arranged my keens between her thighs and leveraged that sexual body towards mine. But we melded like music. After her interjection onto what I had throbbing in my body, we coupled like a well sychonized flash-mob.
"Do you want to go over to the other bed?" I asked, hesitant on what response might…
"Okay." She didn't move. I pushed toward her knees with my hips, toward her with my torso; toward her.
"We should move over to the other bunk. It's fucking freezing over here."
"Yes."
"I need you to unwrap yourself a bit."
She moved a leg as if it floated, and I rolled like a rock off the bed. I didn't know what the fuck was going on but shit had gotten real, and I had to make a move. I dropped onto the tacky checkered floor like a neutron star…and I figured everyone felt me. I was the "bump in the night." I ruined their soft slumbers as I helped her down (quiet like a flimsy tumble of flesh might sound…muffled flesh against metal entirely too loud). It was too loud for what we anticipated, but we contained the violence into a thirty-second segment that no one would pull fully out of a dream for.

We fucked but we didn't ever penetrate. It was a wild semi-conscious connection to which I responded willing to her every command. The hope that was once gauged upon became a sloppy-seconds touch'n'go situation where we played around with each other's bodies in a way that might seem juvenile to the observer.

Fact, of the fucking matter was, me and Ash played around with our respective naughty parts for the better part of two hours before the bus finally stopped for good. I could interlace details about the time we stopped for an hour for a dead tire where we had wait in the sun (I had dismounted and pushed against a tire in confirmation) burned our skulls full of white phosphorus. I could tell you about our dismount into sanity…but it would  serve no substance. Our story was told. \
This is the story of the All Girl Three-Way.