Free Married Woman by Manju Kapur

tired earning for all these children you plan to produce.’
    ‘With you looking like this, never‚’ declared Hemant passionately. ‘A real woman rather than a girl.’
    Astha had heard men were revolted by the way women looked when they were pregnant, but not Hemant. He loved touching her belly and breasts, her breasts especially, sucking on them experimentally, drawing a little milk when hesucked long enough.
    ‘It’s very sweet‚’ he said with surprise.
    ‘It’s called colustrum‚’ she informed him knowledgeably. ‘It comes for the first three days, and is full of nutrients to prevent the baby from getting sick.’
    Hemant smiled, ‘How full of information my wife is‚’ he said. ‘Where did you find that out from?’
    ‘Books.’
    ‘Our baby will be the best looked after baby there is‚’ said Hemant, caressing the taut stomach, gently stroking the raised belly-button, following the linea niger down to her pubic hair with his fingers, before inserting them into her vagina.
    *
    Anuradha. Born in March, after fifteen hours of labour at a private nursing home. Six pounds, eight ounces, nineteen inches. Long delicate nails, a head of thick black hair, pink, wrinkled, foetus like.
    ‘Oh‚’ chorused the new grandparents. ‘Just like Hemant. Same nose and forehead.’
    ‘Such a straight little nose‚’ detailed Astha’s mother, ‘such big eyes. Handsome like her father. Girls who look like their fathers are lucky.’
    Hemant leaned over the tiny baby and kissed her cone-like dome enthusiastically. Astha thought with amazement, he doesn’t see through my mother’s flattery, before tightening her own hold on the child.
    *
    The first time Anuradha put her mouth to her mother’s breast and started pulling, Astha was astonished. Hemant’s own pullings were nothing in comparison, mild as the winter sun. Anuradha meant business. She tugged ferociously, and Astha’s womb in response obligingly contracted, spurting out blood into the pad she wore.
    A month of wet before the blood ceased to come, before the womb had contracted all it was going to. A time of swollen aching breasts charged with milk that dribbled constantly,soaking the towel inside her nursing bra, staining her clothes, a time when she had to beg Hemant to drink from them to relieve the pressure.
    Hemant always willingly obliged, putting a gentle mouth to the tight breast with its blue veins now clearly marked. ‘It’s very watery‚’ he said the first time, surprised once more.
    ‘Is it?’ asked Astha, ‘Let me see.’ She cupped a hand under her nipple to catch a drop of the still-oozing milk, and tasted it. It was sweet and watery, bluish-white in colour. ‘I guess we are used to cow’s milk, which has more fat. That is meant for calves, this is meant for humans‚’ she explained pedantically, her new-found knowledge still burgeoning in her mind.
    Anuradha yawned in her sleep, and made wuffling baby sounds while both parents gazed at the little variations in her movements, with a joy that spilled into each other.
    *
    ‘Darling‚’ said Hemant one night.
    ‘What?’ said Astha preoccupiedly. Anuradha was six months old now, and had just begun to sleep through the night. Astha was looking forward to sleeping through the night too, something she felt she had never appreciated before.
    ‘Where’s the teddy?’
    ‘What on earth for?’
    ‘I wonder how it looks. It’s been a long time since you tried it on.’
    ‘It’s been a long time since I had a figure‚’ retorted Astha.
    ‘You have a figure‚’ said Hemant, gazing upon his wife’s fullness appreciatively. ‘Go on, try it‚’ he urged, pushing her stubborn form towards the bathroom.
    ‘No, no, I don’t want to‚’ expostulated Astha.
    ‘Why? You think because we’ve had a baby, our life is over. I haven’t touched you in months.’
    ‘I know, I’m sorry. Soon it’ll stop hurting. And our life isn’t over, if by that you mean sex, but it’s