Goddess for Hire (16 page)

DO UNTO OTHERS,
as you would have them do unto you.

Unless her name was Nadia and she was a total bitch.

In that case, you rub your hands in glee and ponder how to use her secret against her.

Hell, maybe I'd just call a press conference?

I'd found a ride. Dr. Saggar was cute, and he drove a BMW. He dropped me off in front of Tahir's complex and sped away with the blank, slightly cross-eyed look that seemed to be a symptom of the Goddess Gaze.

I was about to unlock my car door and get in when I stopped and stared up at Tahir's apartment building.

The old Maya would have gotten in her car and left.

The new Maya had a choice.

Maybe Tahir and I were really over, but maybe we weren't?

I bit my lip. I wanted people in my life. I wanted friends. I wanted Tahir. I had to try.

I had to take a chance.

Entering the lobby was one of the scariest things I'd ever done. Not vomit-inducing scary, but daunting nonetheless.

I took a deep breath and pressed the buzzer.

His voice came through, curt and displeased. “Yes.”

“Tahir…it's Maya.”

Silence.

“There's something I have to tell you.” I stopped. No more words. “Actually,” I amended, “there's something I want to show you. Please, can you come outside?”

Instead of waiting for him to answer, I released the button. If Tahir didn't come down I'd keep ringing the buzzer until he called the police.

After a few minutes he was there, dressed in a T-shirt and sweats. “Well? What's the excuse now?”

“I want to show you who I really am.”

He folded his arms. “Let me guess. You're actually a man.”

“What?” I was horrified. “You've seen me naked!”

He shrugged. “Medical technology has improved by leaps and bounds.”

“This isn't a transgender thing, Tahir. Just watch, please?”

I walked to the middle of the street—prayed no oncoming traffic would spoil the moment—and called the Goddess Within.

Streaks of lightning flashed in the sky as the familiar coil of warmth unfolded in my body. The wind came out
of nowhere and churned around us. Ram had said the word for goddess in Hindi was ‘devi': the Shining One. So I tried something new and visualized a white aura of light surrounding my body. It worked!

Apparently, the meditation really was freeing my mind.

Finally, I chanced a look at Tahir. He was watching me, his expression unreadable.

At least he hadn't peed himself.

Radiant light shone off my hands as I raised them. “I am the incarnation of Kali—the Dark Mother. My dharma is to save the world. So…ah…what do you think about that?”

“I don't think I've ever seen anything so bloody sexy in my life,” he said.

I threw myself into his arms so hard I practically knocked him over.

After a few moments, Tahir said in a choked voice, “Maya, I can't breathe.”

I loosened my grip from around his neck, thought what the hell, and blurted it out. “I love you.”

He smiled smugly. “I thought so.”

“Asshole.”

He laughed. “I love you, too.”

He leaned down to kiss me but I pulled back. “Wait. You don't seem very shocked about any of this Kali stuff.”

“Growing up in India, I saw quite a bit of odd supernatural shit. Swamis levitating off the ground and so forth.”

“Levitate? You're joking, right?” I wonder if Ram knew how to do any of that.

“Sweetheart, you just called up the forces of nature.”

“You have a point.”

He leaned down to kiss me again when I thought of something else. “What about looking for a good Indian wife and mother?”

“You're a good human being, and that's what matters most. That's what I wanted to tell you at the restaurant earlier.” Before I could open my mouth again, he pulled me to him and brushed my lips with his. “Let's go inside.”

Our arms around each other we walked up the drive. He swiped his key card and opened the lobby door. “Is that wind going to die down soon?”

Oops.

I turned back. “Stop!”

Thankfully it did. I would've been so totally embarrassed if it hadn't.

“Brilliant,” Tahir said with admiration.

I grinned. “Tell me about it.”

THE LAST THING
you'd want to think about when you're naked is your mom.

I sat up, pushed the hair out of my face, and squinted at the morning light filtering through the window. “Shit! I never called home.”

“Hmm?” Tahir murmured next to me.

I leaned over him, grabbed the cordless off the bedside table, and dialed. The line was busy. We had call waiting, so after a moment I hit redial. Still busy. I hung up and called my mom's cell phone. Busy as well.

Huh.

I tried my dad's cell. Busy, busy, busy. Thinking they might be at work even though it was Sunday, I called their offices. No answer.

There was another way—thanks to the meditative exercises—and the rates were better than AT&T.

I closed my eyes and called the Goddess Within. I visualized my parents' faces. They were fine. I couldn't see into the house or zero in on what they were doing—this
wasn't divine spy cam. I just got the sense that everything was okay.

Which didn't explain why all the phones in the house were being used.

Tahir yawned. “No luck?”

I looked at him over my bare shoulder. “You realize you are single-handedly destroying my reputation within the Indian community.”

Tahir smiled lazily. “And enjoying every moment of it.” I laughed, then his expression grew serious. “Speaking of phones, have you called the police about this Sanjay fellow? Maybe they can track him down?”

We'd stayed up late last night talking—and, uh, doing other things—and I'd filled him in on the life and times of Maya Mehra.

“If I tell the police about Sanjay, I'll have to answer a lot of uncomfortable questions. Next thing I know I'll be featured in a FOX Special like
Goddess Autopsy
. No way am I going to the police.”

“What about that woman he was with at the Kathak concert?”

“Indira? I don't know her last name or where she works. Ram doesn't either.”

Tahir raised himself on one elbow. “You know, for a goddess incarnate, you're severely limited in what you can do. Have you spoken to Ram about this?”

My eyes narrowed. “Don't even go there.”

He began rubbing my arm in a soothing manner. “Subject is officially dropped. You know in India, it's
quite the scandal for a single woman to spend the night at a man's house. It's practically unheard of.”

“First Sanjay, now scandal, are you trying to get me in the mood?”

Tahir's response was decidedly cocky. “Don't worry about your parents. When they find out you and I are an item, they'll be thrilled.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Consider yourself quite the catch, do you?”

Tahir matched me eyebrow for eyebrow. “Darling, I could be an ax murderer and still have my pick of proposals.”

The goddess inside me stirred. Tahir needed to be taken down a notch.

I lunged.

When I let him up for air a while later, his bottom lip was bleeding.

“I worship you,” he gasped.

I tossed my hair and smiled.

I wasn't going to allow any conversation after that.

 

After eating breakfast, I took a shower and came out of the bathroom in Tahir's robe to discover my clothes were nowhere in evidence.

I was peering under a chair for my apparel when Tahir walked into the room carrying a white plastic bag. “Have you seen my dress?” I lifted the comforter from the bed.

“It's folded and lying on the kitchen table,” Tahir said.

“Do you usually lay out your clothes on the kitchen table?”

“Will you do something for me?”

“Like what?”

He rubbed his chin. “I have this thing. Well I guess you'd call it sort of a sexual fantasy. But I was wondering if you'd be willing to fulfill it?”

“Are you going to ask me to pee on your face?”

He looked taken aback. “No! That's disgusting.”

“What is it? A little S&M?”

“Well you've just clued me in to your realm of fantasy.” He removed the contents from the bag and held it up. A long shimmer of red material swayed before me. The material had a black border covered in sparkling crystal work. “I want to see you in a sari.”

I flopped down into a chair. “Aw hell.”

Tahir held up the blouse. It was a skimpy little black thing with a low-cut neck and back. There was crystal work along the bodice. Actually, it was cute, and I'd have no qualms about wearing it with pants or a skirt.

But a sari?

“I bought this for you yesterday,” Tahir said. “It goes with your nose ring. And look here.” He opened a dresser drawer and pulled out a dark blue velvet pouch. He untied the drawstring and emptied the contents into my lap: gold chandelier earrings, a gold choker, golden bangles, golden anklets, and a gold belly chain.

I was more the antique silver type.

Tahir cupped my face. “Please, for me?”

I sighed. He was seriously asking a lot. If only he weren't so goddamn gorgeous. “I'll do it. But I have a
fantasy, too. It's called the maharani and the naughty Brahmin boy.”

Tahir kissed me and left the room.

Reaching for the sari blouse, I let the robe slip off my shoulders and pool around my feet.

With the low-cut back and front, a bra was out of the question. Wondering about the jiggling factor, I began doing up the hooks in the front. The blouse was a little tight.

Knowing Tahir, he'd probably picked a smaller size on purpose.

I stepped into the red petticoat and secured it around my waist. The jewelry went on next. Retrieving the small makeup bag from my purse, I lined my eyes with heavy black liner. Might as well go all out.

Finally, I picked up the sari and stared blankly at yards and yards of chiffon.

I had no idea what to do.

Struggling to remember the one occasion I had watched my mom tie on a sari for a dinner party, I tucked one end of the material into the waist of the petticoat, then wrapped the remaining material around me like a sarong. There was supposed to be enough cloth to drape across my chest and cascade down my shoulder.

There wasn't.

I untucked the blasted thing and tried wrapping it again. This was not going well.

Tahir poked his head around the door. “Can I see?”

“This is as close to my going ethnic as you're gonna get,” I informed him.

“Then let's take a closer look.” Cupping his chin, he walked around me in a circle.

“Well?”

“Definitely better than the fantasy.”

He then dropped to his knees in front of me and began arranging the folds of material around my waist.

“What are you doing?”

He pressed his lips to my navel and looked up. “Tying your sari.”

This had suddenly turned into my fantasy.

In what seemed like seconds, Tahir had secured the sari around my waist and at my shoulder, creating a perfect fall of red chiffon down my back. I surveyed my reflection in the mirror.

Indian Barbie had met her match.

Tahir came up behind me, wrapped his arms around my waist, and kissed my neck. “You are stunning.”

I leaned my head back to give him greater access to my neck. “I know.”

His hand slid across my chest and began undoing the hooks of the blouse.

“What are you doing? After all the effort it took to tie it on, you want to take it off?”

His hand slid over my breast. “Well…yes.”

I closed my eyes. “Just checking.”

“Tahir Varun Sahni!”

My eyes flew open to see a massive heaving bosom with a woman attached. I recognized the swarthy features and squat figure from the picture.

Tahir's mother.

My mouth went dry as the most formidable woman I'd ever seen moved menacingly toward me.

Tahir removed his hand and stepped back. “Ma! Your flight wasn't due in until tomorrow!”

I was frozen.

I'd never been this terrified in my life. I went from hot to cold to hot again. My stomach lurched.

Nostrils flaring, eyes shooting sparks, she stood in front of me.

Well, her bosom was in front of me. Her body was actually a few steps back.

Didn't matter.

This wasn't a woman.

This was a dragon.

“Ma, this is Maya,” Tahir said.

I opened my mouth to say something, anything.

And puked all over her.

SUPERMAN HAD X
-ray vision.

I had projectile vomiting.

As soon as Tahir had ushered his stunned mother into the bathroom, I'd grabbed my bag and fled in my sari, feeling like an escapee from
The Jungle Book
.

Maybe I was demonstrating a shocking lack of manners, but I didn't think Mrs. Sahni wanted me to stick around. What would I have said to her anyway? “So you're Tahir's mom? Aunt Dimple has said the nicest things about you. Oops, you missed a chunk of upchuck. So you saw your son fondling my breast? Wasn't that funny? Ha. Ha.”

So I jetted.

By the time I hit the 73 South, I'd calmed down a bit.

How weird was it for Tahir's mom to show up like that? How the hell did she get in?

Oh right. She huffed and puffed and blew…

That was mean. I shouldn't think so negatively about the woman. I loved Tahir. He loved her. So it followed that I should—

Nostrils flaring.

Bosom heaving.

My palms suddenly became sweaty.

Seriously, I hadn't seen anything that terrifying since
The Ring
.

Okay, I needed to concentrate on work—on anything besides Tahir's mother. It was time to form some sort of game plan regarding Sanjay.

I'd cruise home, shower, then conduct a stakeout. Of course I didn't know the first thing about “stakeouting.” I was a
Law & Order
fan, but it wasn't like I'd studied each and every episode. Then again, I didn't even know which location to stake out. I highly doubted Sanjay would return to his apartment. What did that leave? Radio Shack? Circuit City?

Or Sanjay's girlfriend, Indira.

There had to be some way to find her. I knew she was a chemical engineer, but that was about it. Ram knew even less.

Speaking of Ram, if he tried to pull me into another meditation session, I'd have to blow him off. Sure, I'd been able to do that cool-white-light-aura-skin-thing stuff, but once again…

Pretty much a useless power.

I pulled into my street and stopped, staring in shock. Both sides were lined with cars. I coasted by the house. Our three-car driveway currently had four cars crammed onto it.

Were my parents having a party?

In the middle of a Sunday afternoon?

I was forced to execute a Y-turn and nearly banged into the bumper of a Rolls Royce with a license plate that read: INDIA 1. I knew that car. It belonged to my aunt Renu, the radiologist. She lived in San Jose. What was she doing here?

I finally found a parking spot a few streets down.

Fuming, I walked barefoot up the sidewalk. I'd left my precious Manolos back at Tahir's.

As I approached the house I caught a whiff of incense. By the time I reached the front door I was bathed in a cloud of it.

That should have been my first clue.

In another odd development, stacks and stacks of shoes, bereft of feet, were piled up on the doorstep.

That should have been my second.

I opened the door and nearly tripped over the person sitting right in front of it. He was one of many seated bodies packed into the foyer.

They all looked up at me and stared.

Huh.

Stumbling through the sea of faces, I made it to the entrance of the living room and stopped.

Most of the Mehras had congregated in there. Ram was in the thick of things, presiding over a small fire in the center of the room. My parents were tossing what looked like herbs into the flames. Everyone was chanting. Including the Marshalls from next door.

“
Om kali kali mahakali kalike
.”

Aunt Dimple saw me and let out a shriek. Nadia, seated in the corner looking bored, turned my way and frowned.

Everyone stopped chanting.

Mrs. Marshall grabbed a handful of rose petals and threw them in my direction. Aunt Gayatri nudged her and mouthed the word “later.”

Ram threw out his arms. “Jai Ma Kali.”

In a rippling motion that started from one end of the room, they all threw themselves forward and touched their foreheads to the ground.

The cat was out of the bag.

At least I was dressed for the part.

Fucking A.