Chapter 5: New Friends

Just before the door is closed, it opens. My wife is looking at me in confusion. “What are you doing? Why are you not coming inside? Who are your friends?” she asks.

All of the riders are scanning my wife’s body. They are not being subtle at all. I can see them salivating.

“Actually we wanted to point out that your car has a puncture, but your husband just didn’t stop”, one of the riders says to my wife.

“Oh you are the guys who were, according to my husband, chasing us?” my wife says and laughs. She says giving air quotes to the phrase “chasing us”

The guy who gave the excuse immediately starts laughing too. Two more bikers join in with very forced laughter and the other three don’t even laugh.

“Let me introduce ourselves...” the person takes my wife’s hand and places it on his palm. He keeps his palm over her hand, squeezing it. My wife doesn’t pull away.

“ ... I am Ramesh, he is Suresh, Nilesh, Umesh, Sailesh, and finally Lokesh”, he introduces everyone.

“Hi!” My wife says to everyone, “I am Pia, he is Ravi, my husband. Nice to meet you all”. They all nod their heads. Nobody even acknowledges me. Her hand is still between Ramesh’s hands and they are looking at her like they have X-rays in their eyes.

“Anyway let’s go”, she says to me. She finally pulls her hand away.

“By the way, we are regulars here, we can hook you up with discounts on drinks”, Ramesh says.

Getting drinks from strangers in a seedy bar is a really bad idea, so before my wife can accept, I reply, “Actually, we are not planning to drink much. We are here to just dance and have fun”

Suddenly everyone looks at me. All the riders look like they want to kill me. But Ramesh chimes in again, “you can drink today, can’t you?”

“We are not really drinkers”, my wife says. “I have always been crazy wild without any drinks...” she laughs and adds” ... can’t imagine what monster I would become if I drink”

“Anyway thank you very much for the offer”, she says and looks at me and tells,” let’s go”. My wife turns towards the bar. I turn to look at the gang of bike riders. All of them are staring at her half-uncovered butt. My wife also looks back but instead of being horrified, she smiles and steps into the bar.