Fling (2 page)

She came the evening
we had our appraisals in office. I didn’t like my job much but she
had slogged at hers for six months. She had expected an ‘excellent’
rating and wore a green silk sari for the interview. It was the
first time I saw her in traditional Indian attire and she looked
very smart and confident in it. But it also seemed to add nine
yards to the distance between us.

I was reading when she
knocked and my heart leapt. But I delayed opening the door. I
watched her through the peephole. She looked impatient. For me? She
knocked again. I counted to five and let her inside. I spoke
casually, masking my excitement. I wanted to grab her around the
waist and hug her tightly. Her hair always smelled very fresh and
clean and I wanted to breathe it. I wanted to cry, but I never
cry.

I left the door open
like the old times.

“How did it go?” I
asked her, the way I would have five months ago, before our first
kiss. She had stretched the distance between us and it was my
chance to punish her. I wanted her to know I was unaffected by her
absence. I was a man of steel, very firm.

She dropped her bag on
the only chair in my room and sat on the bed, kicking her black
pumps off noisily. She propped my pillow against the wall and slid
backwards. She looked drained. “Please get me some water,” she
said.

And I felt ashamed of
myself, not for the rubber but the way I was behaving with her. It
was no time for drama. I shut the door and fetched a glass and a
bottle of water.

“What’s the matter,” I
asked, “everything fine at home?” Home was the first thing we both
worried about.

She nodded slowly. “He
gave me a ‘fair’.” Not excellent, not very good, not even good, but
fair. Even I had got a ‘good’ that morning.

“Did he tell you
why?”

“He said there are too
many mistakes in my work.”

I took the bottle and
the glass from her and put one arm around her small shoulders. The
smooth silk made her very slippery. She leaned easily on me, and
after a while I felt a wetness on my chest. She was crying
silently. We sat like that for many minutes. I pulled the pillow
from behind her and kept it in my lap. She rested her head on it
and lay inert for almost an hour. The evening was warm but she was
curled up and I covered her with my thick sheet. She seemed to me
like a child, and again I wondered whether I was beginning to love
her.

Night had fallen when
she woke up. She sat up and piled her hair in a loose bun. Then she
leaned towards me and we kissed, lightly. She got off the bed and
the thought of her leaving made me sad. But she was only going to
the toilet. I heard her flush and after a few minutes I heard the
splash of water on the bathroom tiles. She had turned on the
shower. I desired her then but sat fixed. She opened the door just
a crack and the ceiling fan sucked the steam from the bathroom into
the room.

“Aren’t you coming
in?”

I was in sooner than I
thought possible. She was keeping her hair dry but couldn’t after I
caught her around the waist and lifted her off the ground, pressing
my eyes into the softness of her chest. It had been a very long two
weeks. I watched as she rose on her toes and turned around
repeatedly under the shower. The water meandered down her curves in
narrow, glistening rivulets. When we kissed under the water, it was
I who lingered, and the question kept pounding my head: “Do I love
her?”

I dried her with my
towel and carried her to the bed. Her sari was on the towel rack,
and if someone knocked at my door she would have to stay inside the
bathroom till they left because she couldn’t have tied it in less
than 15 minutes. Anyway, we didn’t need clothes then.

I told her about the
condoms, and she said it was alright. We did it the clumsy way and
then lay together with just the sheet over us. She cuddled into me
and dozed off. And after a while I too slipped into dreams. The
room light was on and I woke up with a start around midnight.

“Hey, wake up,” I
whispered shaking her. But she just turned the other way and kept
sleeping. I tried again, and she moaned, “let me stay tonight.” I
raised her bodily, and she clung to me. She was playing now.

“Listen,
darling...”

“Say that again,” she
said opening her eyes wide.

I pinched her bottom.
“I’ll say it when you are clothed like a nice girl.”

“Why can’t I
stay?”

“Because we have to
stay here, among these people, for some months, maybe years.”

I pulled her
underthings on and made her stand so that she wouldn’t keep falling
back on the bed. “Here now, hurry up, it’s very late,” I said
handing her the sari.

I watched her
spellbound as she tied it slowly. She looked beautiful and I didn’t
want her to go. I also wanted to make love to her properly. I was
in love with her then.

We went down the
stairs, and then she became very alert. “Now you go back,” she
said. “I don’t want the guard to see us together at this hour.”

I couldn’t sleep the
rest of that night.

***

There was less
passion the next time we were in my room. I didn’t feel in love
with her. We just satisfied each other, quickly. A job well done.
And then we drank coffee and gossiped. She had been to see an old
friend, a male friend, who had relocated that week, and was looking
forward to spending a lot of time with him. I felt jealous, I
wondered whether he too were a ‘friend with benefits’.

“Cool, I can have some
time to myself now,” I said archly and then tried to laugh it
off.

“What do you mean?”
she said.

“Nothing, forget
it.”

“No, tell me,” she
persisted setting her mug on the floor and crossing her arms.

“Oh, at the rate we
are going, it won’t be long before you fall in love with me.”

“ME, fall in love with
YOU!”

“It can’t be the other
way round, you know it,” I countered.

She got up.

“Stay, you will come
back to me crying after two weeks.” I was being vicious but I
couldn’t help it.

“This is the last
time,” she said slowly, “thank you for the coffee”.

“And the rest?”

“You’ve got more than
you’re worth.”

“Yeah, I’ll give you
better than ‘fair’.”

Mean, Mean, Mean. Our
eyes were locked throughout that spat.

It was all over
between us. Finally. Crudely. We were sworn foes from that day. But
only outwardly.

I missed her the next
evening. And the next, and the one after, and the whole week
ahead.

Diwali was round the
corner and I was very homesick. It was the only festival I cared
for but I wasn’t going home. The office was closed and I had lost
the only person I could talk to. She had many friends, and wouldn’t
be lonely, and I hated her all the more for that.

But it was a festival,
and I could apologize and patch up. She was moody, though, and
might insult me in front of her landlady. And there might be a
dozen guests at her landlady’s place.

I tried to sleep late
but couldn’t. I tried to remain in bed but the birdsong and the
cool November breeze and the thought of breakfast made me stir. It
was only 7 o’ clock. I went out to buy milk and eggs, and walked
slowly hoping to see her come jogging round the corner of the
block. She jogged everyday. I paused at the gate, the minutes
rolled by. I quickly glanced up at her window and saw her running
clothes hung out to dry on a string. The sight of them filled me
with desire.

I tried to read all
morning, and then wrote for a while. I turned on the radio and put
off lunch till 3 o’ clock, but the day seemed to have more hours
than usual.

At 6 o’ clock, she
knocked. I was boiling milk for coffee.

“Happy Diwali,” she
said. She had brought candles and a box of chocolates.

I didn’t move out of
her way so she pushed me aside and came in.

“What’s this, you
haven’t cleaned your room!”

She started folding my
clothes and I went into the kitchen and turned off the stove. She
wasn’t getting any coffee.

“You want me to make
it while you shave?” she called from inside.

Damn! She had a knack
for making me feel cheap.

I picked another mug
from the shelf but filled hers only halfway up. “Leave the door
open,” I said handing it to her. “For how long?” she challenged me
and burst out laughing. I tried but couldn’t help smiling myself. I
took her mug and kept it on the table, wrapped an arm around her
and pounded her with the pillow. She just clung to me quietly.

When we had finished
in bed, we gulped down the coffee.

“What a waste,” I
said, “with you I can’t even have a proper mug of coffee.”

She just smiled. “Now
are you going to shave or do I have to do it for you?”

“You do, I am sure
you’ve had much practice,” I said.

That hurt her, but she
really went to the bathroom to get the things. I said sorry, took
them from her and quickly lathered. She sat on the bed and watched
me. She had picked out some clothes from my wardrobe, and when I
came out she told me to hurry up, we had to set the candles.

“Why bother, this
isn’t home,” I said.

“Oh, it is,” she
said.

“Not yours, you aren’t
my wife.”

I think she wanted to
throw something at me then, but a few minutes later we were fixing
candles on the window sill with wax.

“What did you eat for
lunch?” she said.

“Candles,” I said, and
she laughed.

“You are such a
baby.”

“Why waste your time
when there are men in town?”

She stopped. “So
that’s what is eating you, silly boy?”

“Fuck off, don’t boy
and baby me.”

“No bad words, please,
it’s Diwali.”

“Okay, enough candles,
we don’t want to set the house on fire. Besides, you won’t come to
scrape off the wax tomorrow.”

“Ask me nicely and I
will.”

“Did I ask you to come
today?”

She placed a finger on
my lips, rose on her toes and kissed me. The fight went out of me
for a while.

She had planned out
our evening. We rode in an auto to see the lights. The city was
decked up, even the moonless sky glowed orange with the lights and
the smoke from crackers. “Aren’t you happy I came to show you the
lights?” she said.

“Actually you came to
see me,” I said.

She asked the driver
to stop at the seaside and we went down to the rocks. We watched
the crackers shoot up and burst in the sky, and the lights on the
buildings looked like gems in a necklace.

“Don’t you wish every
night were as beautiful as this?” she said.

“I would choke to
death on the smoke.”

“Why are you being
such a grouch?”

“Why are you trying so
hard to get me?”

“Get you!”

“What else, right from
that afternoon you came to knead my head.”

She didn’t reply, she
didn’t cry, just stood up and started walking towards the road. I
was afraid she would take an auto alone at that hour. I rushed
after her and gripped her hand tightly, not letting her shake it
off. I would let go only if she made a scene.

“Sorry, I said it to
hurt you, and you can carry on alone once we’ve reached home
safely. For now, just let me see you back,” I said.

“I can take care of
myself,” she protested.

“I know,” I said and
bundled all 45 kilos of her into the first auto that stopped.

When we got back,
children were lighting crackers on the street and everybody was
outside. To hell with them, I thought, and leaving her to her
misery I returned to mine.

An hour later, another
knock, and I got up surprised because it was the first time I had a
visitor other than her. But it was her.

“What happened?”

“Too many guests at
aunty’s place. Have you prayed?”

She came in and turned
around surprised: “You haven’t lit the candles!”

I told her to go
ahead.

“Now let’s pray to
Goddess Lakshmi,” she said when she came back inside.

“As man and wife?”

“Shut up!”

“As brother and
sister, mother and son, what?”

“Can’t we just pray
together like good friends?”

So we prayed, and
afterwards gave each other the benefits.

***

By Christmas I had
found a girl I liked. She was a very quiet girl, always absorbed in
her work. And she was beautiful beyond words. That rare, pure
beauty from which cosmetics only detract. I think one half her
charm was her devotion to work. But that was also a hurdle in
getting to know her. She didn’t mingle outside her project team. I
would steal a glance at her and sigh but my breath didn’t carry my
heart’s message to her. I had become withdrawn, aloof and SHE
noticed it.

“You’ve been
off-colour for some time,” she remarked one evening. We had just
sat and gossiped but not got down to our business in bed. The past
few times I had stopped before she told me to. My heart wasn’t in
it anymore. In fact, I felt guilty, not towards her but the new
girl, whom I saw as my first true love in years.

“You are in love,” she
said and I jumped, almost. Had she read my thoughts?

“Who is it?”

“Who is what?”

“Out with it, you
cannot fool me.”

“Shut up,” I said and
tried to turn the talk around to office, but it was a weak
attempt.

“WHO IS IT? Someone in
office? Tell me or I won’t leave you tonight.”

I told her. She knew
her. They had worked together briefly on a project.

“She’s a very nice
girl,” she said, “congratulations!”

“Hey, it’s just my
fancy, she doesn’t know about it.”

“Why don’t you tell
her?”

“Tell her what? How?”
It wasn’t a question to her. I was thinking guiltily about all the
evenings in my room. The benefits. Had I just been telling this
woman about the girl I loved? Where did that leave her? What was
her place in my life now? What was she doing in my room at that
moment? What was she thinking?