‘We should have another barbecue while the cold weather lasts.

Maybe a beer and

barbecue lunch,’ said Akash.

‘I’m game—since you do all the hard work,’ Priya grinned.

‘I enjoy it,’ Akash said with a shrug.

‘But please, next time let’s leave out the Pauls—Tarun and his oh-so-glamorous wife.’

Akash laughed. ‘Oh? Now what did they do? Have they replaced Dileep and Anuradha
on your hate-list or have you added them to it?’

‘You can joke, but Tarun gives me the creeps.’

‘Since when?’
‘Since a long time. But especially today. Didn’t you hear all the stuff he was saying?
About wife-swapping and all?’

‘Sure, I did. I think he was just sounding off. I’ve noticed he likes to say things just to
shock people.’

‘I don’t know. Sounded very real and creepy to me.’ Akash poured himself a vodka and
tonic. He needed to unwind a bit, he said. So Priya left him alone and went to the
bedroom. She turned on the heater and began the teeth-chattering job of stripping off her
clothes and putting on her flannel nightdress. Eight years in Delhi and she was still not
quite used to its winters. She undressed quickly, creamed the make-up off her face and
eyes and rushed through her pre-bed rituals. Maybe Akash was right, she thought.
Maybe Tarun says stuff just to shock people. She didn’t know how the subject had come
up, but when she tuned in, Tarun was already in full flow, telling them about parties in
Delhi and Gurgaon where people slept with each other’s wives and husbands.

‘Ew. Gross,’ Jasmeet had crinkled her shapely nose as if she’d smelt something rotten.

‘Delightful,’ exclaimed Vivek with a grin.

‘Haw,’ said Shaili.
‘You mean seriously?’ Mihir asked with interest.

‘Chhee,’ said Anuradha, offering her own bit of chaste outrage.

‘I’ve heard of these things too,’ Dileep said.

‘Oh, yeah, so have I, of course,’ Priya said. ‘But I hardly think they are as common as
you’re making them out to be, Tarun.’

‘You’d be surprised, sweetie,’ Ramola said, blowing a perfect ring of smoke and
watching it dilate and trail away. ‘It’s rampant. RAM-PANT,’ she added, rolling her
tongue around the word as if it was a popsicle.

Tarun described what went on at these parties in such lengthy and lurid detail that it was
clear to everyone that he and Ramola had first-hand experience. He did throw in an odd
‘I believe’ and ‘or so I have heard’ now and then, but Priya was sure that no one was
fooled. ‘I assure you, people, wife-swapping can be an invigorating and liberating
experience,’ Tarun said, grinning and stroking his beard, while Ramola narrowed her
heavy-lidded, kohl-lined eyes and pushed out her lips into a pouty smirk. ‘Nothing like a
bit of organised adultery, a teeny- weeny bit of structured peccadillo, to pep up the chilly
marital bed.’

Of course, Kulsum had flared up at the first mention of the phrase ‘wife-swapping’.
‘Hello, excuse me, why are we calling it wife-swapping, pray?’ she demanded. ‘It’s
husband-swapping too, isn’t it? The women get to sleep with other men too, right? Or do
you mean that the wives are chattel, without any say in the matter, and can be passed
around at will? And if they did have a say, they’d cling to their husbands for dear life?’

‘Ah, Kulsum, ever our linguistic conscience keeper,’ Tarun said. ‘I apologise. And stand
corrected. The politically-correct term ought to be spouse-swapping, though it doesn’t
have quite the same ring. It’s also called swinging, I believe.’

He ignored her after that and held forth on the subject some more. Kulsum got up and
stood near the balustrades, turning her disapproving back to them. Everybody else was
rapt, almost as if they were watching porn, or having it narrated to them in fleshy detail.
Priya wondered later why that had shocked her. She who had been having an extra-
marital affair, who had brazenly jumped into bed with another man, she ought to have
been the last person to be outraged by their friends’ interest in the matter. Yet, watching
all of them lap up Tarun’s tales of swapping and swinging, watching them grow
libidinous like cave men and women around a fire, Priya felt uneasy and afraid.

‘Tell me one thing, how do you know so much?’ Vivek exclaimed.

‘And since you do, why don’t you get us all passes into one of these parties, eh?’ Mihir
added with a wink.

‘Mihir is so drunk,’ Jasmeet said, shedding her everlasting smile. Then she got up and
said, ‘We really should be going now.’