Yesterday was Thanksgiving. I have nothing this year to thank for except my family. But I am thankful for them everyday. Thanksgiving is no different. My ex-boyfriend (no, not the one I have been planning to break up with yet haven't so far. That is another blog not this one) invited me over for a Thanksgiving dinner. Two lonely exies (I just coined that) on a family day tried to recreate a nonexistent togetherness. I accepted in a text message. I promised to bring butternut squash, an onion, dried cranberries, and two croissants. A traditional side-dish is all I offered. He accepted via text message. I reached just before 5 p.m. His apartment is three avenues from the 1 train station. Not a very pleasant walk on a chilly evening. But a good walk to drum up a hunger for good food. I had forgotten what a clean and organized man he is--just like I am. He had the table set. The appetizer plate was ready with a  combination of figs, Manchengo cheese, walnuts, pieces of sour dough bread, and prosciutto slices. He had opened a bottle of italian wine that tasted and ran like silk on the tongue. Sauteed brussel sprouts and mushrooms glistened on the plate wrapped in cling foil. There was what looked like kale salad in another bowl. I was impressed. From my time with him, he cooked all but once--breakfast for me on the day I was leaving for New Jersey to start my first job. For the next 10 years, I think I prevented him from getting anywhere near the kitchen. I over eagerly took care of everything. Rarely making it incumbent on him to show me he cared about my gastronomical desires. I was a good Indian girl, quite like her mother--always ready, always prepared, and always eager to please "her" man. I was also that girl who resented lack of reciprocity even as she blocked its passage to her. All that prepared, beautifully presented food made me realize a problem called "me."

We chatted, we ate, we drank, we watched the Thanksgiving football games. It was an easy 4 hours on a Thursday evening. And then he said he got me something. What?!! Why? He had recently been to Istanbul. He had sent me pictures of Sophia Hajia and the blue mosque by night. He knew I would appreciate it all. I did. He knew. I was pleased that he knew. I got the most beautiful pashmina stole with a silver pendant of the "evil eye" or the "lucky eye" also a refrigerator magnet. This was the evil eye year. I needed an evil eye to absorb all the negative energy surrounding me. And my ex found me exactly that. He understood my pain and he soothed it. Irony. He ignored my pain all the time I was with him. He didn't care whether I lived or didn't. He didn't want to appear vulnerable in his exhibition of emotion for me, his only family here. Now that I wasn't family but someone he knew who didn't live in his home, I was once again precious, deserving of consideration. Irony. For the first time in the last two year since our break up, I didn't feel sad. I was happy to receive. I wasn't elated either. I was just happy to receive. Reciprocity happened, finally. And this time I took as if I was deserving of it.

Before leaving, he cut me a piece of his pumpkin pie and lay of dollop of ice cream, vanilla, atop it. He knows I like sweet and vanilla is kind of a favorite flavor. When you live for that long with someone, even when you are not paying attention you are paying attention. He was paying attention. It was plain to see now. I took my leave. He hugged me like he never had. Tight and close. And then he asked me if I had everything, if I forgot something. I had always asked him this as he left the house early mornings on his way to work. That evening, he asked me back. Reciprocity is a strange thing. It appears when least expected or at least when you stop expecting. You let it go. As soon as I let go, there it was. And there he was--my ex, standing at his door, seeing me off like he didn't want to, asking me to see him before we both left for her winter holidays to Austin and Toronto respectively.

My cousin had bought me this short tunic from Ghana. It was bright and happy. I wore it tonight for him for the first time. It brought me happy. I plan to wear it more often.

My boyfriend betrayed me. I am still with him.

Let me explain.

I met my short, white, animated-personified, jewish boyfriend on Okcupid. Ok, he found me. In his first email to me, he said, "wow, your personal profile is so warm" but the reason he decided to write was because I didn't want kids. Right. It had nothing to do with my pretty face that got his dick's instant attention. I gave him that knowing that he might not write again if I was short and curt in my reply. He replied. And each time he got my attention. He wasn't trying too hard or seemingly getting impatient to see me in person so he could do the penis test following which he could stay or vamoose. Then one day he said, he loved Ganesh--the pot-bellied, elephant-nosed Hindu god. I was in. I bought him a Ganesh for our first meeting. His first kiss was a thank you but it had nothing to do with gratitude. It was predatory. It pulled at my vagina. turning it into knots like the challah bread. There was fire here waiting to be lighted. We sat on bench in Central Park that first evening. I looked at him and without a thought called him beautiful. He sidled as close to me as was possible. I reached to touch his scruffy chin. He twitched like a happy dog. When I stopped because the angle of the my wrist was getting stressed, he protested like a happy dog who wanted his pleasure to continue. At the train station, he took my face in his hand and called me pretty, softly, gently, imperceptibly. My vagina squeezed again. And I simply nodded before walking away from him.

This is how it began. But it got better. I mean the sex got better and better and better and better. We didn't copulate. We made love, rather he made love. He lighted a candle. He put on Rufus Wainright's Imaginary Love. He went down on me like it was his only source of water in a desert--for straight four hours. He said he had only done it once before--in school while on acid. This it time he was high on my eyes. I loved that he loved sex as much as I did. I loved that he called himself post-orgasmic or that he enjoyed me the best when I was gushing like a geyser during my period. I didn't understand how a guy didn't come during our marathons was okay with the fact that all the pleasure was mine! I was asked not to be guilty about the inequality of pleasure in inverse. I tried. I accepted, delightedly. Then I demanded it and he gave every time with such boy-like pleasure it left me teary-eyed, at the brink of love.

He came to Austin during the December break. He stayed with my family for 10 days. He cooked dal and squash soup to die for. Except for my brother, everyone else liked him. On new year's eve, I wrote in my note: I hope he is my "one," please let him my one. I prayed.

He left for NYC on January 2. On January 6, his email suddenly lay miraculously open before me. Do not ask how or how. The inbox was open. I couldn't help but do a cursory look. There it was. An email to Bachelorette.com outlining his resume and a conversation that said "betrayal."

My hands shook, my mind scrambled, my vagina sewed shut. I called him to call him out. I ended it. Just like that my one had become someone. What followed was endless minutes of deconstructing him and reconstructing him as a ruthless con-artist. While everyone tried to dismiss him as a blip on my romantic radar, I had no words. I had nothing to defend him with. He led me with nothing. One moment he was going down on me twice a day for 4 hours each and the next I had become an ex--just like that. I had mixed his lust for me as love. He hadn't. He couldn't taste me enough and then he had enough.

I came back from Austin, sat on my bed and cried like my heart had finally broken into a million pieces.

So how am I still with him? Am I being serious? Seriously? Yes, seriously. Next weekend, I am going to end it. I have needed his lust to carry me through my break-up with him. I healed from his betrayal while having him go down on me like he had never left my crotch. I reeled him in knowing he was a man and as a man was weak if I just knew how to play him to retain my sanity. I am sane now. I know I am what I got. If I keep him in my life, I will forever look over my shoulder waiting for the next time he blind sides me. And I know he will. I will suspect it even if he doesn't, especially if his dick falls off his curly mass of hair. This is no way to live. It is a sure way to die. And I'd like to live a bit longer. Not in the hope that he changes or I find someone else. I have no option. He gave me no option. I had to come back to me. My only home.

I was out with my ex last evening. I am alone in NYC and he is the closest to being the only familiar face in this lonely city. He is also generous. He buys me dinner without asking me to pay the tip as my part of the deal. I like that because I am generous too. We always have the strangest conversation--it skids from one topic to another--one moment we are talking about Djnago Unchained, its unflinching look at complicity in racism, and the next moment we are bringing down a friend who considers himself a white man underneath the brown skin, quite unflinchingly. We found ourselves Totto Ramen, a fast-food Japanese eatery, after a class of red Malbec and fennel bread (he got me bread so I wouldn't have to drink my wine empty, he remembered!). Over a bowl of soup with ramen noodles drenched in mushroom granata infused chicken broth, alongside thin chicken pieces and thin slices of green onions, I decided to bring up his cruelty towards me while we were in a marriage like dating situation. He protested but didn't snap as he always did when he disagreed with me while in our relationship. I am brave now. I am not with him. Now I can say things to him that I couldn't before. Now, I don't care about repercussions. I get to go to my home after the dinner not to his bed or his space. There is something powerful about this material fact. And then I asked him---"when will "good" become "fabulous" in your vocabulary?" He didn't know. But he said--"I am one of the 20% who are optimistic; I believe tomorrow is going to be better than today." Okaaay. I am not. I told him. I also told him that I hope never to find my soul-mate. He doesn't exist. Never did. So I just have to find a new direction--what I want to do with my life without having to wait for the one since there isn't one. His eyes were blank. He didn't quite know what to make of me. How can you be in America, in NYC and be pessimistic? You can create your happiness here. You are never lonely here even if you are alone. Here, I was not playing the psychological game. In my hand was a virtual pin pulling pricks into the invisible bubble most Indian "brown sahibs" carry like a child in this white colony. I burst mine yesterday.

I then told him what/ who he is looking to be with--a white woman with blond hair, and an English accent who wears spikes that raises her 5'10'' height to 6". But the moment he brings her home and they sit on the couch, she becomes a person who doesn't like TV or sports. She doesn't understand the madness he surrounds himself with every day. Therein lies trouble. They will already not make it. He may go down on her or hold her hand in public because that is what boyfriends with white girlfriends do, but if she wants to talk at 8:00 a.m. when Manchester United is playing, she is half way out in her underwear no less. Yes, I played his therapist and got a dinner in return. Oh, and he did say--maybe if we are single at the end of the next decade, we could . . . ?

I knew my bother was right--women have all the power. I am finally not being a martyr.