Madhumita Leone's evening was definitely starting to look up now. Until the handsome stranger had bought her that first drink at 10:30, she had been starting to think she was losing her touch. It was Saturday night, the party night, on a warm summer's evening and, for the first time in nearly a year now, no one, not a single male, had asked her to accompany him to the Planet Bollywood Club for a night of drinking, dancing, and, as was well known among the public servants of Mumbai city, fornication after it was all over. Not one doctor, firefighter, cop, or ER tech had wanted to experience her charms that night, this despite her well-earned reputation as the woman who willingly gave it up for the price of a night out. What was wrong with her? Was she losing her looks? Her charms? Had they all experienced her enough now that they didn't want her anymore? She had fretted over these questions for most of the previous week, stressing more about her lack of a date than she ever had about her unpaid bills, or her deteriorating relationship with her roommate, or any of the other hundred and five things she should have been worried about.

Still, date or no date, she simply could not stay away from the Planet Bollywood Club that night. The popular dance club in downtown Bombay-a place with an almost infamous reputation-was her weekend home. She never missed a Saturday there, not even the time she'd had the flu. She had even gone the week her father had died, accompanying Varun Kumar, one of the CBI cops, the night before the funeral. And she had fucked him well afterwards, too. Just because no one happened to ask her out for this particular Saturday night, she was damned if she was going to sit home and watch her roommate study.

And so, feeling depressed, dejected, old and used up, the 25-year-old registration clerk from Lilavati Hospital had driven her own vehicle downtown to Planet Bollywood, had walked alone to the front entrance of the club, and had paid her own cover charge for the first time in forever. She was dressed to kill, as was the usual case on weekends, sporting a strapless black mini-skirt that showed off her bulging boobs on the top and her slightly chunky, though well-muscled dancer's legs on the bottom.

The club was its usual loud, semi-chaotic self as she entered. Modern dance music boomed from the sound system while men and women, most between the ages of 21 and 30, most dressed in the latest trendy clothes, bumped and grinded out on the floor. The bartenders behind the large bar at the front of the room worked frantically to keep up with the endless stream of customers. Every cocktail table was filled, many with other regulars like her, men and women she knew well from running into them twice every week. Many of the men had experienced her sexual charms at one time or another. She saw Varun Kumar out there dancing with Pinky Ghosh. She even saw Suresh Salujah, the divorced, reclusive doctor whom she had initiated to this place not so very long before and who had taken her on return trips three times since. He was rubbing chests with Sakshi Sharma, one of the young nurses from the LH-ER's swing shift. Madhumita, just two weeks before, had been the one to suggest they might have a little something in common in the first place. How ironic that Jim the hermit was now here with a date while she was going stag.

Since she did have many friends among the Planet Bollywood crowd it didn't take her long to find a table to sit at and some friendly conversation. All of her friends expressed disbelief at her inability to find a date and seemed to take a perverse delight in mentioning it to her again and again. A few of the regulars asked her to dance and she went willingly with them out onto the floor, displaying her usual tireless grace, but without an official date it just wasn't the same. The regulars she danced with all knew the peculiar set of rules she had established long ago. They could be friendly with her out on the floor, even overly friendly to a degree, but she would only leave the club with her date, would only sleep with her date when the evening was over. As such, her prospects for getting laid tonight seemed dim since all of the men who danced with her kept a respectful distance. Another rule was that she would allow only her date to buy drinks for her. Since no one else in here qualified as her date and since all were well conditioned to this rule, she found herself forced to spend her own money for her Long Island iced teas, and, as such, she drank very little since the fucking things cost 500 bucks apiece.

In truth she had been just about to leave in despair, to make the long drive home alone, almost completely sober and with no prospect for sexual relief except the vibrator in her nightstand drawer. That was when a hand tapped her on the shoulder and asked her if she would like to dance. It was a man she had never seen here before.

She didn't think too much of him at first. He was tall and reasonably good-looking, though obviously a bit squarer than what she was used to. He was dressed nicely, in a pair of navy blue slacks and a yellow shirt, and he was a little older than the majority of the crowd, seemingly in his mid-thirties. His brown hair was cut short and styled in a corporate professional sort of way. On his left ring finger was an expensive looking gold band.

She accepted the dance, since she accepted almost any dance on general principals, and, much to her surprise and delight, he danced rather well, much better than she would have thought based on first impressions. He moved his body perfectly in time to the beat, always seeming to put his hands in exactly the right spot. They stayed on the floor through three different songs, until both of them had a slight sheen of sweat on their foreheads. They didn't talk during this time, just enjoyed the motion and the rhythm. After that third song faded away her opinion of him went up considerably when he said the words she had been waiting all night to hear: "Can I buy you a drink?"

Of course she gave the appearance of playing hard to get. "You sure your wife won't mind?" she asked slyly, pointing to the ring on his finger.

He chuckled a little. "She doesn't seem to be making any objections, does she?"

Madhumita had to agree that she wasn't, and so, with the token protestation of flirting with a married man out of the way, she told him that she would love a drink.

She accompanied him to the bar, of course, never letting her drink pass through his hands. That was just a common sense safety precaution in these days of date-rape drugs. He either didn't notice her diligence in this or pretended not to. They found two empty chairs to sit at while she sipped at her fresh Long Island and he sipped from a rum and coke.

"I've never seen you around here before," she told him.

"I'm from Delhi," he said. "I'm only in Bombay for a few days on business. I fly out tomorrow morning."

"How'd you end up in the Planet Bollywood?"

"My hotel is right across the street," he said. "Since all my business has been done I thought I'd slip over here and check out a little of the nightlife."

"I see. So you're staying at the Oberoi Suites then?"

"That's right."

The Oberoi Suites was a four-star hotel, arguably the nicest in the Bombay metropolitan area. Standing 36 stories tall and overlooking the sea, it was the hotel that visiting dignitaries usually stayed in, including the Prime Minister on those rare occasions he visited the state. The cheapest rooms there ran 11,00 rupees a night for weekday rates. "Nice place," she said, impressed.

He shrugged, disinterested. "It's all right," he told her. "The view is the best thing about it. My room is up on the 33rd floor."

"Thirty-three, huh?" she said, even more impressed now. Though she was not quite a member of high society she was savvy enough to know that the cheap rooms would not be located on the 33rd floor. She was also savvy enough to know just why he was mentioning his room across the street and his view. He was a married man, far from home on a business trip, and he had hopes of luring her up there to check it out in person. She was not exactly opposed to this idea. As a rule, she stayed away from married men-there were just too many single men around who were willing to fulfil her considerable sexual appetite-but, like many other rules in life, she had been known to break it on occasion. If it turned out that he was a nice guy and if he continued to buy her Long Island iced teas at seven bucks a pop... well, why shouldn't she accompany him up to his room for a little fun? It wasn't like she was ever going to see him again. And there was one thing she had learned about sex from her many encounters-another general rule so to speak. Men who either were married or once had been tended to be much better in bed than men who had always been single, probably from the regular practice they got with a steady partner.

They finished their drinks and hit the dance floor once more, heading out there by unspoken consent. He wasted little time in letting her know he was interested in her body. His hands began to touch her a little longer, in more strategic places. His fingertips would glide down her flanks and onto the top of her ass, giving gentle strokes from time to time as they moved to the music. His legs would brush frequently against hers, the material of his slacks whispering against her bare thighs. His chest would bump gently into hers, allowing him to feel her large boobs against his body. She encouraged these touches the best she could, silently sending him the message they were not unwanted.

It was a message he received very well it seemed. Soon he was even closer to her, unabashedly rubbing himself against her, his hands now straying down onto her ass, giving it quick squeezes, even dipping down to the back of her thighs on occasion and stroking the skin there.