I was not ready for this request but I felt as if she was vicariously alluding to the drinks which I had already consumed. I tried to compose myself and said, “Sure…” I stammered,” but you will have to come upstairs, not in the shop.”

“Why not?”She jumped to her feet, even before I could come out of the momentary shock that I had felt.

I bolted the main door and guided her upstairs, “Be careful…it is dark up here.”

“Actually I have to buy lots and lots of cosmetics from your shop before I go,” She tried to convince me that she was grateful to me for all that I was going to do for her, and in return she wanted to purchase goods from my shop to return my obligation.

After one drink with her, I felt encouraged and I decided to sit beside her on the sofa. Evidently, she did not mind, for she quickly refilled my glass and smiled at me. I was ecstatic beyond description, thinking that the chance which, perhaps, every married man wants to come by was at hand, but afraid that my extravagant physical approach might offend the lady and I didn’t want to take any risk staking my prestige in the neighbourhood. I feared that it could be a ploy to rob or blackmail me. But, after about half an hour and a few drinks with her all my doubts proved to be unnecessary, for she began to behave as if she had known me for ages.

The night passed in the acts which do not necessarily need a description, for every adult can guess what might have happened between a man and a woman in that dark room, without anyone to interfere and with the support of the whiskey which we were swallowing in glassfuls. Any further mention of the physical proximity between us and the ensuing advances towards each other is sure to make this story hateful and vulgar to the readers who don’t want explicit sexual narratives in their way of some serious literature that seems full of promise and demands what next…

However, during our union in that dark room, I surely felt on one or two occasions that she was not what she appeared to be but in the ecstasy of the moments I decided to overlook the concepts and signs which indicated something else. Intoxicated mind and sexual pleasure served on a platter can definitely make a man blind and insane. The room was pitch-dark. Sometimes, her voice seemed to be emanating from a deep dry well and sometimes her body felt as if it was too rigid and miserly fleshed for her young appearance. It was a mixed sensation of extra-marital sex and fear which however I tried to convince myself was not ready to evaporate.