Parvati

Returning to their luxurious room, Jennifer and Bruce undress, and naked, slip into the silken robes provided by the hotel. They turn down the lights and lie side-by-side, exhausted and slightly tipsy, on the bed.

Bruce has begun the lovemaking in his usual, annoyingly desultory way. It's been an amazing day though. As Jennifer lay there exhausted, with her eyes closed, she could feel his tentative-hand, moving across her tummy, under her robe, testing, seeking her acquiescence or a rejection.

And then a most unusual thing happens: Parvati has come to life.

Jennifer has become aware of another body on the bed. Parvati is exploring her labia. Parvati's fingers are lightly caressing her breasts in a new, erotic, way. 

She can smell her musky scent. She knows it's Parvati. She's no longer the cold bronze, that had stood across the room, but a warm and scented, voluptuous goddess. She has metamorphosed into a real woman. Now she's enveloping them both in her aroma - her sensual being has become flesh and blood.

Jennifer is instantly aroused as never before. Soon darting fingers, wet tongues and hard nipples are touched and brushed. Arms and legs entwine. Fingers probe. Mouths engage. Yonis alternatively rub and merge; feverishly accepting and consuming Bruce's engorged 'lingam'. 

Their bodies are re-enacting the scenes depicted in the Kama-sutra, that they had seen, illustrated in tiles, in that zenana. Passions peak, lull and rise again. When will it stop?  When will they finally be sated?

After a lifetime, and one last urgency, they fall back separately, completely bathed in perspiration. 

As she recovers, Jennifer opens her eyes.  What is Parvati doing?  She's wiping down her body, now wet with sweat and their secretions. The volume she has gathered is amazing. It seems to be growing.  It's dividing and multiplying.  She's growing a baby in her hands, just as she had done to make Ganesh, fifteen hundred years ago. 

All this time Parvati has not said a word but has sung in that weird Indian way, as she did during the lovemaking.  But now in a beautiful Indian accent she's begun to sing for a noble soul, mahatma, to come into her creation and give it life.  A soul that had passed from one life to another, advancing through the great wheel, the Mandala, until it had reached this state of bliss. This soul is now ready to enter the body of the new being, that they had helped make, in the hands of the wife of Shiva. 

'Shiva!  Oh!' Jennifer suddenly remembers him. 

Last time Parvati made a child without telling him, Shiva became infuriated and chopped off its head - before relenting and replacing it with the first animal head he found - that happened to be an elephant.  With which of his three visages might he look upon this latest creation?  Will he accept this new child benignly; as a benefactor or; as the destroyer?

With a blinding flash Shiva’s light fills the room.  Jennifer sits up with a jolt.

“Jesus that was good!” says Bruce, standing by the switch. “Which one of these is the bloody bathroom light? 

“What got into you?  You were like an animal. I didn’t know you liked some of that stuff! You must really get off on that sandalwood perfume you bought!” 

Jennifer is still in shock and says nothing. He plays with the panel.

“Can you still hear that bloody singing?  I turned the music down earlier but how do you suppose we turn it right off?”

“You just woke me up”, says Jennifer peevishly. “I was just dreaming that Parvati had come to life and was reaching for a soul for a new baby she was making”.

“Well, that was a bit bloody weird!” says Bruce, who has no soul of his own.  

He goes into the bathroom and makes his usual revolting noises, before coming back to bed and falling sound asleep.

Jennifer is now angrily awake, looking at the great lump.  Then furious, she yells at his inert body:

“You have no soul!”  

After that she turns her back to him, and with her finger tips she tries to recover the shattered dream.  “But he was damn good, for a change” she admits, as she does her best to recreate her earlier exhilaration.  And then, with a little cry, all is forgiven; and she falls into a deep satisfied sleep.