Devdatt Thengdi
My Dear Mary,
We have been enjoying a rather passionate time and correspondence together for quite some time. Eventually, the time has come to face the Word and also a particular feeling we share - guilt. I believe we have to address it. I am a married man. What you and I are doing is irreligious, unjust, and probably sacrilegious when it comes to my wife Harriet. The act of breaking a heart is enough to lose sleep upon. And I have spent enough sleepless nights just staring directly at her bare body into the mirror on the ceiling. Mind you, I am not going to be redundant and tell you that I see your face onto hers but sometimes when you manage to creep in the thought train, not all nights seem as torturous. The thought of your pale skin just lying beside me is both titillating and foolishly enlightening.
So I ask you, my dear lover, do you seek repentance?
Would you feel better if we could compensate her for this?
Could you convince her that our companionship isn’t resting on the tip of a knife?
Could you tell her that, you are nothing but Aphrodite herself?
Would you like to bed my wife?
To begin with, as a lover and a poet of sorts (unfortunately), such curiosities are not something you see commonly in my kind. But you see, I am a politician too. So when I ask you,
“What if we were to redesign the human body?”
I am speaking with a thorough understanding of my audience.
Not to add anything.
Nor to remove something.
Just to rearrange.
Resize.
Even repurpose.
The thought of you spread over her has kept my castles rising for enough cycles. One of your hands sliding from her thighs to the buttocks, through the curve, up the pit and, stopping at the elbows. And then back down. The other one simultaneously cuffing her hands into submission. Your tongue, creating the false narrative of being all over her, later moving down and inside her. Teasing her. Her pleading you. You teasing her more as the lips and clitoris are merely hovering over each other like chained lovers. And she pushes you straight through. I can see you smile even if this is just a fantasy. I have been there, in her place. The bosom is like your favourite traitor. It serves whoever comes to it. All you can do is make them touch each other.
But what if they can do much more?
What if the clitoris can do much more than just peeking into the abyss?
What if it could kiss?
I remember the night in your mansion, in your tower. One single candle in the window by the headrest. I believe hush-hush was of the highest priority. Several moments were spent staring into each other’s eyes before I said,
“Men wish for riches and gold and thus endless wars are fought.
Women as precious as you my dear, summon those over a drop of a thought”
Following that, the lips do what they usually when they are as close as these were. I could almost hear the percussion under your skin. Not just because of the couplet but also because of the hands fondling the insides of your thighs. Literal blood-red lips exchanging more than one fluid. But hold that thought for a moment and hear me out - Haven’t you ever felt like kissing, licking the pink off someone’s skin or vice versa? Only at a few specific locations. Two, to be exact. One being the lips. Imagine a person imagining (or reconciling) their lover slipping their fingers up the gowns through petticoats in the middle of a lesson or, getting pinned to the pillars by them at that passionless gathering. Or like you sneaking a peek at me while I was changing my robe earlier today because of the honey that you spilt. And suddenly, as the heat rushes to the nether regions, the blood rushes to your lips and renders them red as a plum. Because now you have the exponentiating urge to kiss me. Twice, on the lips, before you move around. For you want to mark every wrinkle with your attention, just as the bitch marks her dominion in pink.
Or we could simply go for the second alternative and let the blood flow to the cheek. One does find the pink cheeks a tad cute in the vicinity of knights. And let the pink flow through the cheeks after applying slight pressure. Not unlike what you did there- licking the cheeks right up to the brows. Harriet would’ve been your own personal Apache warrior.
“If wars did smell as sweet as the stories,
Would women scream at the sight of a battlefield?
Or cream over the fragrance of sweat?
Or scream the name of Gaby Everett?”
When I hit my puberty, I had this fortunate encounter with a peculiar excuse for a human called Lieutenant Captain Gaby Everett (Retd.) Most of his stories did reek of war, alcohol or some combination of both, but when it came to women, his filth could disgust a teenager. I remember this one particular claim about his last remaining ‘pair’ of upper teeth. He called them Norman and Gleason, “Boy! There used to be a time when this smile could drip the ladies dry. It’s just that now, Norman and Gleason have to work for it. Physically”
Followed by a burst of deafening and stinking laughter.
I know these are nothing short of masterpieces but hear me out again. What if this was the truth? What if sweat actually smelled as sweet as it seems on you, as it dewdrops from your chin while learning to make your favourite pie? Or better, how awesome would it be to taste as sweet like the honey you lick from the fingers, afterwards? Sometimes I wish that our nipples could taste too. In the scenarios, she would always push you back down as you slither yourself onto her nipples. If only could she taste its sweetness on herself, you could’ve never been able to leave. Sometimes I wish that sweat could taste as sweet as you do because you deserve nothing lesser.
And believe it or not, at the end when the storm has calmed, I always remember seeing you chuckling, paddling the loud reverberations like a battle canon as you slap her sleepy buttock. Another addition to this endeavour of modification or rectification.
There is an unending list of ‘suggestions’ that I planned to propose in this letter, including the ones we’ve already discussed (perhaps if you remember the case of The moaning navels.) But I’ve started a thought process now. And the tunnel will end only when I want it to.
So I pass the baton to you.
Knowing you,
I doubt the work will be as shoddy.
I believe you could design a better body.
Yours eternally,
Percy Bysshe Shelley