By Ben Antao

This excerpt is from Blood & Nemesis, a novel published in 2005 about Goa's freedom struggle from Portuguese rule.

“Put something on and lie next to him,” advised her mother, a petite woman of forty-two, with a dark handsome face smooth as custard, without a trace of a wrinkle. “He may want you again.”

Kamala smiled coyly.

The strident chimes of prayer chants tattooed from the distant temple bells, resonated in the night air with ritual insistence, and nudged Kamala from her repose. What had once sounded to her like a sharp and persistent call to prayer now, with ceaseless repetition, mellowed to become plaintive and wistful, like one’s favorite recording playing in the background to the syncopated percussion of lovemaking. She supposed it must be after midnight for it was only then that the bhajans began in the temple; being curious though, she touched Jovino’s wrist and saw in the luminous dial that it was 2:25.

Jovino stirred at her touch and turned around, facing the ceiling, his eyes closed.

At once, Kamala felt a glow of spiritual reverence kindling in her veins; a notion flashed through her mind that she was lying next to a re-born god, and her body quivered with desire to worship at his lingam. Her wish was soon to be granted for his penis began to grow at her touch. And when it did, she mounted him, feeling his fluid entry inside her.

My lord, my lord, she breathed to herself, swaying gently over him. She kept him in, unable to let go of the tight suction until he rose and grappled her upper body in his arms. She closed her legs around him and ground and rocked and undulated to her yoni’s content; her lips tasted his sweaty neck until she grew delirious with sharp sensations of rapture. For what seemed to her like eternity, she lay there with him in that actively engaged pose she’d once seen in the picture book of Kamasutra.

• Ben Antao, 73, is a journalist and novelist. He has published four novels and several short stories. He can be reahed at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it