Chandni the Matchmaker

'I want it,' she said. 'I want to have aimless, just-for-fun, sex. I want to have it with you. I'm just a bit scared. I'll have to get naked in front of you.'

'I'll have to get naked too, and I guarantee you look a damn sight better in the buff than I do.'

She laughed at that.

'What?' I asked.

She shook her head, but started giggling again. 'Nothing.'

Like hell it was nothing, but it seemed as if I wasn't going to get an answer out of her, so I decided to focus on my nicotine addiction and get that out of the way.

'You mind if I go and have a smoke?' I asked.

'No, of course not,' she said, wiping the tears from her eyes. 'Sorry. I'll stop laughing.'

My smokes were still in my ute. I got them out and while I was there, grabbed my grotty old work Akubra and put it on, in the hopes that it might earn me some more credit with Del. Then, because I'm a jackass, I checked that I wasn't in her line of vision before stripping off. The only things I was wearing was my hat and thongs, and I had a cigarette hanging from my mouth.

I walked around to her side of the ute and grinned at her. 'Hello beautiful.'

Del saw my bare chest and shrieked with laughter. 'Oh no. Oh no, no, no. You're not completely naked, are you?'

'Stick your head over the side and have a look.'

She clapped a hand over her mouth and shook her head.

'Your loss,' I said with a shrug.

I went back to my ute to get a lighter, which of course I'd forgotten when divesting myself of my clothes, then walked a few metres away so the smoke wouldn't blow in her direction. I turned around to see what Del was doing, and saw she was watching me. She turned right around so fast her neck nearly snapped when she realised she was caught, but I didn't say a thing.

It's not as if I have a great body or anything, but without sounding vain, it could be worse. Short I might be, but I have a fairly stocky, muscular build and I'm a show-er, not a grow-er, so I don't mind people seeing my dick in it's flaccid state.

'You have a really nice arse,' Del called out.

'Thanks,' I said. 'You gonna show me yours?'

She laughed. 'Fuck you. I'm in way over my head.'

'I love the way you swear with that accent. Do Indians swear a lot?'

'No! That's a bad habit I've picked up from hanging around you lot. My manager is terrible. He earns half a million a year and swears all the time.'

'Have you worked with him a long time?'

'Fifteen years. He takes me with him wherever he goes. One government department to the next.'

'You must be good at your job.'

'Maybe.'

I finished my cigarette and went back to the ute. Del was laying on her back under the doona watching me, but being extremely careful to keep her eyes focussed on my face. I was amused. The older I've got, the less concerned I've felt about nudity and what women might think about me. They would either like me or they wouldn't. Del seemed to like me, fuck, she'd gone to the effort of having her friend ask me out, and that was a really nice feeling.

It wasn't until I got right up close to her, albeit lying on top of the blanket rather than under it because I wasn't prepared to turn into a hot, sweaty mess, that I saw she was at the very least top half naked. No, not just top half naked, judging by the pile of clothes to her left, completely naked.

I sipped my drink, leant over, and pulled the blanket down to her waist. She blushed and looked away, but there was no need for her to be embarrassed. She had a great body for her age, a little skinny, sure, but really nice. Small breasted with dark little nipples and a flat tummy, and I wanted to see if she shaved her pussy or not, but I figured I'd wait a bit before checking.

'Can I kiss you?' I asked.

She nodded and sat up. 'We should do that. We're naked, so we should at least kiss.'

Her necklace shone against her dark skin, and her hair looked impossibly soft. I leant in to kiss her, telling myself not to be too rough or over-eager. I need to take this as slow as possible. A hard mission when you're used to women being more sexually available, but I could do it.

My fingers curled around the back of her neck, underneath her mane of hair. I kept kissing her, and she kept responding, holding onto my biceps as if to both hold me near and prevent me from getting too close.

I took a risk and pulled her onto my lap. She got tangled in the doona, and I accidentally whacked in the side of the face with my hat. We gently untangled her, and looking rather nervous, she straddled me, and when I took off my hat, she ran her fingers through my hair to fix it.

'You're very cute,' she said.

'You're cuter,' I said, holding her back so I could inspect her body. She really looked the business, very slim and muscular, yet soft and womanly. I kissed her and stroked a breast, feeling the hard little nub of her nipple. 'I want to take this further. Do you?'

She nodded, but cast her eyes down at my cock before giving me a quizzical look.

'Getting old,' I explained. I was half-hard, and normally I got fully hard first time around without needing any stimulation, but going twice with Kelly the night before had taken some stores out of the tank. Fuck, Kelly. Had that really only been last night? Yes, it had. 'Here, give me your hand.'

Del held out her hand. I took her wrist and wrapper her fingers around my cock. Almost immediately, it started getting more rigid. She smiled, amused, and gripped my length and massaged it. My erection grew firmer and firmer until I was as stiff as I was going to get.

'I see,' she remarked, releasing my length and admiring her handiwork. 'I was worried I turned you off.'

'No. Never.' I pulled her in for a kiss. 'You're amazing.'

We kissed and we kissed and we kissed. We kissed until I felt her body first relax, then respond, then engage and move against mine. Her skin was very soft and smooth, and she was warm and wonderful in my arms. The heat of her cunt proved an ongoing temptation and the firm, round cheeks of her arse didn't help, but I managed to control myself.

My cock had softened a little bit, and Del decided to fix what she evidently saw as a problem by rubbing the crown of my prick against her clit. The position she'd moved into in order to make this work meant that one of her tits was pressed against my cheek. I tilted my head, found a nipple and sucked.

Del moaned, gripped my cock and pushed it down a bit. Then she just slid onto me, shoving my prick inside her in one fluid motion.

'Oh shit,' I mumbled. 'Del.'

Del's arms were around my shoulders but her eyes were wide with shock, as if she couldn't quite believe she'd just mounted me without warning. I gently tweaked her nipples and kissed her, not wanting her to have the opportunity to give into self doubt or fear. It felt so right to be sitting here in my ute, my back pressed against the side of the tray, our bodies joined.

I grabbed one of her round, firm arse cheeks in each hand and pulled her up and down.

'Oh my God,' she whimpered. 'We need to stop. I'm not on the pill.'

I nuzzled her neck. 'I'll pull out before I cum.'

She kissed my forehead. 'Thank-you.'

There was no reason for her to thank me; I'd done nothing special and was exactly where I wanted to be, but I didn't comment. I kept my hands on her arse, but didn't exert any real pressure or force her movements. I just wanted her to do what she needed to get off.

Del fucked me slowly, then she sped up, then she went slow again. She asked me if I was close to cumming. I shook my head and whispered no, no, keep going, do whatever you need. Her pussy was slick and hot, and little rivulets of juice were dripping down my balls, but I wasn't going to orgasm, not in this position.

She seemed concerned about her inability to climax, but I took her hands and kissed them, and kissed her arms and face and lips, and told her to take her time. I could have stayed there all night, under the stars, with her.

Del climbed off and lay down. She implored me to join her, and I laid down next to her, my fingers trailing over her torso. I leant over to kiss her, and at the same time slipping a hand between her thighs. Her sex was still wet and swollen, but rather than penetrate, I simply traced my fingers around her cunt and clit, teasing her, taking away the rush, the rhythm, the obligation to cum. All I wanted was to enjoy her.

We were now lying on our sides, facing each other. Del held my wrist and pressed my fingers against her waiting cunt. She moaned and showed me the pattern she wanted me to use. I wanted to feel the inside of her pussy, and with my free hand I reached inside below and pushed a few fingers inside.

With both my hands, and hers on top guiding me, we finger-fucked her. Her lip stick was smeared and her hair was wild, but there was a beauty to her dishevelled state, something that spoke of lust and sex and desire. She was giving her body over to me, not merely out of marital obligation, but because she wanted to. And she trusted in my ability to make her cum, which was a hell of an unspoken compliment.

All of a sudden, Del bit down on my lip and let out a series of cries. She gripped my wrists, and shoved both of my hands into and against her sex, as she gyrated against me. Her moans were pure sex; wild and primitive, and she coated my hands in her juices as she humped them.

I could smell the scent of her cunt, and of her perfume and the light scent of sweat. She was stretched out taut as her climax controlled her, leaving her jerky and desperate and bestial. The sheer, raw, beauty of her movements appealed to my baser desires, providing a deep seated sense of satisfaction.

She went limp afterwards, all of her energy gone. I held my hands up to my face and stared at them. They shone in the moonlight and carried the unmistakable scent of womanhood.

I suddenly grew crazy, desperate. I near leapt up, spread her legs and grabbed the base of my cock. I wanted to fuck her senseless. I needed to be inside her.

'Hold your legs apart,' I muttered. 'Hold your legs wide open for me.'

Del grabbed her legs and spread them wide. I wasted no time pushing deep inside and starting to thrust. It wasn't overly comfortable; the sheet Del had put down had slipped and the lining of my ute liner was composite rubber, not the best thing for knees, but certainly no impediment if you're horny enough.

Del was bouncing around, moving up and down as I ploughed into her, her tits jiggling and that bright gold necklace of her now right up around the middle of her neck. Sweat dripped from my body onto hers, and she kept wiping my forehead, smiling at me, and touching my face.

When I grew dangerously close to cumming, I pulled out.

'Ready?' Del asked me.

I nodded mutely, not trusting myself to speak coherently.

'Lie down on your back,' she requested.

I complied, again wordlessly, not knowing or caring what she might be planning. I was almost in physical pain I wanted to come so bad.

Del leant over at a ninety degree angle and took my cock into her mouth. Only then did I speak.

'Don't stop,' I pleaded. 'Don't stop, don't stop.'

She didn't stop. She had herself in a funny little position but she somehow managed to wank me, suck me, and fondle my balls. It was incredible, a full on sexual assault in which I played no active part. I was just laying there, staring at the night sky, my vision blurred.

She started rubbing her tongue against my frenulum, which has always been a particularly sensitive spot, and that was it. I reached underneath her to grab one of her tits just before I came, and I heard myself grunting and bellowing as I filled her lovely mouth with a full load of jism.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Dalaja and I cautiously and awkwardly attempted a relationship, but ended up splitting six months after our first date.

It all just seemed too hard. I'd expecting people to be surprised, but I hadn't anticipated the hostility. And I'd thought that either or both of us might have trouble convincing our children to accept the arrangement, and I was partly right, but what I hadn't anticipated was that Del would shy away from my kids, making them ask 'why doesn't she like us?' When I was stressed about something I wanted her to be near me as much as possible. When she was stressed, she took it out on everyone around her, yelling at me to get away and telling me I'd never understand her.

But despite the problems, I still loved her, and she still loved me. We couldn't keep away from each other and after two weeks apart, I called her and asked how she was doing. She burst into tears and said she missed me.

Second time around it was much better. I understood more about her. I knew she was scared of being around my children in case she grew to love them, only for me to end the relationship, and that she had no idea how to deal with stress because previously she'd just bottled it up. And I got to work on my faults, too, and stopped expecting her just to automatically know I was in a bad place because I was following her from room to room. As for other people, we just ignored their criticism. Fuck them. It wasn't their life.

Del moved in and we talked marriage so much we ended up deciding to do it, and I bought her an engagement ring. What style of wedding to hold was a mystery to both of us, and when Kelly invited us to her hastily-organised nuptials, we thought we'd go along and see if low key bogan would work for us. Del had been to Australian weddings before, but they'd always been the more upmarket kind. Kelly's was the 'you have five week's notice, it'll be in my backyard, bring your own chair if you live locally, and don't dress up too much'.

Kelly had been labouring under the assumption that owing to the short notice, and the fact that she was from a town two hours' west and her Asian jailbird husband was raised in Victoria, guests would be thin on the ground. But the RSVP's had come flooding in, as I knew they would, because her husband's family wanted to check her out, her Ipswich friends were a rough bunch of girls who could drink most men under the table and wouldn't miss a free night on the piss, and it was dryer than dead dog's balls out west and no one in the midst of a drought wants to hang around a struggling town licking their wounds when they can travel somewhere well away from their problems to find out whether or not the ex-town slut was or wasn't pregnant.

On the day of the wedding I left the kids with Del and went over to Kelly's house to give everything one final mow and blow down. It wasn't going to be a posh wedding, but I thought it would be a nice enough one. A happy one. Kelly had long forgiven Jack for choosing the most inopportune time to confess his past sins, and to give the bloke credit, he worshipped the ground she walked on. We all make mistakes. Some of us make several of them.

I would still think about the accident, and the dead woman and boy, but not every day. It didn't consume me. If I caught myself driving a few kilometres over the speed limit or made some other small error, I didn't spend days dwelling on the 'what ifs'.

Del know about the accident. She'd said she didn't understand death, but she understood regret, and if she could go back in time, maybe she'd choose not to agree to marry her ex-husband, someone who she said she felt almost obliged to marry because he was of a higher caste and from a much better family, and everyone said she should be flattered that his family would allow him to marry a dark-skinned girl who played too much sport. But maybe she would have chosen to marry him anyway, because she loved her kids, even though they still didn't want to live with her.

When I was finished tidying the yard, I went inside to have a quick shower and change. It took me all of ten minutes, which was quick even by my standards, but given I'd finished lawn mower man duties and was about to start my next job, directing people where they could park and where to sit, where the bathroom and port-a-loos were and generally organising stuff, I wasn't dawdling.

Kelly - who was a good five months pregnant and showing much more than she realised - was in the kitchen with her father, Jack, and Jack's parents.

'Half an hour to go,' Kelly said. 'Have a drink with us, Cody. I'm stuck with lemonade, but everyone else has whiskey.'

'Nah, people will stop showing up soon,' I replied. 'Good luck. I'll go wait outside and have a cigarette.'

No sooner had I finished speaking than I heard a car pull up outside and I knew, just knew, it was all about to start happening.

I directed traffic and people while waiting for Del and the kids to arrive. There were quite a few different demographics of guest, but I didn't spot a single Indian. I couldn't see her standing amongst the men who had screwed Kelly in her wilder, younger years and were curious about her new husband, and she wasn't with the Melburnians, all of whom were far better dressed than the rest of us, and nor was she with Kelly's mates.

I ended up finding the kids first. They were carrying on like mad idiots with some other kids. Owen had already lost the suit jacket I knew Del would have made him wear, and Willow was sporting more gold jewellery than all the other kids wore put together. Less was not more in Del's eyes when it came to jewellery, and fuck me, the woman had a lot of it. I'd literally had a safe put in our house I was that worried about what she had getting stolen. Willow had obviously taken a loan. I prayed she wouldn't lose anything.

After another minute or so, I spotted Del speaking to a woman I vaguely recognised from work and a man I didn't recognise at all, but based on the clothing, was someone Kelly knew from 'back home'. They were talking government grants. Del, as I'd found out over the past year or so, had learned a lot during her time in the public service. She could write grant and funding applications in her sleep. That was why the cricket club had such a banging assortment of equipment, and why it was just weeks off getting a new tractor.

I'd asked Del if she could operate a tractor and she'd shook her head and said 'no, but I'll learn'. Gary had long since left the club, and we were onto our second groundsman since then. He was as shit as Gary's first replacement. Most evenings Del and I were down at the club doing one thing or another. I figured within six months she'd be a pro on her new toy.

It seemed rude to approach, so I snuck off for a cigarette and admired my lover from afar. She was wearing a red cocktail dress and her hair was pulled back in some fancy arrangement and she looked fucking gorgeous. Really, really beautiful, and I was immeasurably glad that I'd been stupid and naïve and hopeful enough to call Chandni.

I shoved my hand in my pocket just to ensure I hadn't lost the envelope. Thankfully, it was exactly where I remembered it. Inside was a card and two hundred and fifty dollars cash. It was the money I had owed Chandni, the money she'd regretfully told me that Del would never forgive her if she accepted, and the money she'd told me to give to another couple in love to keep the good luck moving.

Del spotted me and smiled. I smiled back. The ceremony was about to start. It was time to round up the kids and for the four of us to take a seat.

I felt no regrets, none at all, but goddamn, if I could have changed one thing, I wish I could've been half the cricketer Del was. It really sucks having a partner whose batting average is three times yours. No one lets me live that down, no one.

The end