11.2 Bikers

On that Wednesday, 21^st of June, she dressed up at seven in her school uniform and came out of the gate at seven twenty-seven. Firasha carried a small paper bag in her hand and she wore black jelly shoes. In the school outfit, a pair of black shoes was not a part of the uniform. Irrelevant to wear anything outside white. However, her parents would not know though people would obviously notice it. If she wore a pair of flip-flops, that won’t be a problem. Lot of students wore them. And when the roads got flooded due to falling rains, flip-flops were allowed.

Muaz motored in before she could cross Night Bloom Road, in other words, ninety feet from the gate to Mesquite. Her mother could be out there watching and in the streetlight. She put on the helmet and glanced back before climbing on his motorbike. At that instant, the call for prayer was heard from the minaret. And they had to pause until it ended. She stood nervously hidden behind the wall wearing the glitter helmet for three minutes until the prayer ended and in fear that someone might see; her mother or father or boyfriend.

Muaz drove to Ranaka Inn avoiding the puddles and both climbed down.

“Hi there! How are you, Muaz?” nodded Shiru.

“We are good,” he said passing the counter with the schoolgirl. He opened the door to a tiny room located deep in the corridor. Almost all the rooms were full and the big room open to the lobby was occupied; the one he stayed with Nisha.

“Do you want a toilet?” he asked Firasha, “Public bath is at the end of the corridor.”

“Yes, I want to change,” she demanded.

“You can change here. I won’t look.”

She picked a silky blue top and bottom from the paper bag she carried. As she slipped her shoulders off the straps, he looked. She giggled, “Don’t look!”

Finally, she turned on her back and pulled down the uniform. She slipped her blue top over her head and corrected it on her body. It only reached her hips leaving a scoop of her red lace panties exposed.

“Where are we going?” she asked correcting her hair with her fingers.

“Olympus or Hakra Fair.”

“No,” she turned, “I do not want to go anywhere close to our place. My mom might go to Hakra Fair if she comes across a friend tonight.”

“We go for a ride,” he suggested few options, “or to Odeon or Baharana Cinema.”

“Where’s Baharana Cinema? I never heard of that place before.”

“It is a small cinema in the market square.”

At the lobby, he negotiated the receptionist who was now a friend, “We are going to a movie tonight.”

“What is the movie?” asked Shiru winding up for the night.

“Baharana Cinema,” he responded.

“Oh my! You want to watch a dirty movie!” Shiru stopped her focus at the young pair, “I think you need to be over eighteen for the night show!”

“She is a big girl now,” they paused at the lobby doorway, “Her father drew her out a starker lying in bed with her boyfriend.”

“Starker!” uttered Shiru shockingly.

He mounted the bike and indicated the girl, “You can sit legs straddled.”

It sparks a rumour in town to ride on a motorbike with a date on the backseat. Particularly, on a motorbike like a horse in a place where cycles are not many and these types of dirt bikes are even fewer. Raleigh bicycles exist in tens of thousands.

Muaz carried Bilqis Adam from school. It stirred no rumour in town because she was a matured woman. Mostly, people thought she was a big sister or a relative. Even friends did not ask about Bilqis Adam.

Tonight, this leggy teen in a blue slip on his bike was noticed and observed by many people. A thin yellow girl flaunting small buttocks and hanging on his back like a backpack. People eyeballed on every corner and under every streetlight. No one knew who she was. A new girl in town. Some of her classmates called her by name and felt jealous; this quiet girl has grown feathers. Firasha dating a guy on a Honda racing dirt bike!

Imagine what school journals would write! Muaz was lucky not to be in school.

On Haveeri Higun, Muaz turned to a narrow lane and parked his bike. The juvenile in a blue slip and black jelly shoes paused at the ticket counter with a tall dark fellow. “Welcome! Welcome to Baharana! Enjoy the show!” a very happy cashier cheered them in.

Soon they were seated in the red hall with black chairs and lit bright. Not too crowded and this row empty except for the two. Muaz dropped his hand on her lap, “It is going to be a very sexy movie tonight.”

“A-a!” She held tight to his arm.

That was cinema.

When they came out, she was wet with sweat.

“Shall we go and eat?” he asked.

“Wow! It’s hot!” Firasha blew to her chest.

They had dinner at Farival near Odeon Cinema. It was a Full Moon night and cloudy in the sky.

On the way, he saw Ashwar on his scooter going to dump the café waste to the dump area. From his focal view it looked like a thick big guy crushing that mosquito on the road. He carried two tubs of garbage on its back. Muaz raced up through the puddles and cut him within inches on his Honda dirt bike. He heard a cry and stopped his bike. The big chubby guy dropped on the ground in a puddle. The scooter rolled away with the tubs, hit a gate in its front and dumped the waste on the threshold. Muaz cracked in laughter.

Ashwar wore a sarong scrambling on his scooter and with shock, tossed a leg over the handlebar as he ran out of control and flipped to the ground, literally, he sat down on the ground.

Muaz turned around the motorbike and reached his friend, “What happened there?”

“Your mother’s fucking mucosa!” he cried, “Why the hell did you do that?”

Firasha helplessly burst in chuckles to hear him curse. Muaz responded, “I wasn’t going to hit you! How would I know!”

“Oh! Come on, Madiri! Look at the mess! All that dump! All the rubbish!”

Firasha couldn’t hide that hilarity.

Muaz kicked off, “Where do we go now?” Do you want to go to the guesthouse?”

“What is the time?” she enquired.

“Eleven-thirty.”

“The concert will end around one o’clock. I must not go home before one-thirty.”

“Do you like to swim?”

“A-a!”

“Can you swim in the deep?”

“Yes, I can swim.”

“I mean, real deep!”

“I can swim very well.”

“I have an idea.”