The Object of Your Affections

by Falguni Kothari

  “Ye look bonny. Now get dressed so I can start on yer hands.” He’d offered to paint henna designs on my hands.

  Neal was a globally coveted jewelry designer, a metal artiste and an honest-to-goodness lord—he was fourth in line to a Scottish baronage—and as such an expert on beautiful things and luxury lifestyle. He pulled me to my feet and nudged me out of the miniscule bathroom to get on with getting dressed. I stopped in the doorway to thank him with a kiss but he’d already turned to face the mirrored vanity and was putting my makeup bag to rights.

  My pout swelled into a laugh as I watched my husband recap bottles of glitter and gold, click-shut eye shadow palettes, wipe faux-hair brushes with tissue and pack each one of the items into their designated pockets in my cosmetic bag with ferocious care. For a man who dabbled in paint, pencil shavings and liquid metals for a living, Neal did not handle mess well. He tolerated my slovenliness without batting an eye though, and it was one of the million things I loved about him. One of the zillion things I hoped would never change between us.

  I hugged him from behind, pressing a kiss on the nape of his neck, careful not to mess up the fashion-plate paint job he’d done on my face, complete with intricate swirls of a bindi design in the middle of my forehead. It shone like a piece of jewelry embedded into my skin. The women at Lavinia’s three-ring circus were going to hate me—they always did when Neal did my makeup.

  My thank-you left a perfect bow-shaped pink kiss on his bare sandalwood-and-verbena-scented skin.

  “There now, my gorgeous-ship. You’ve been branded as mine like the Fraser sheep on your family’s farms.” I wasn’t a possessive person by nature, but with Neal all bets were off. I continuously did things against my better judgment with Neal, for Neal.

  We were going to have a bairn together! If that didn’t explain how weird my life had become with him, I didn’t know what did.

  Amused, his gorgeous-ship twisted around to shoot me a smug grin. Shirtless and barefoot, he still managed to look sophisticated and sexy. He was turning me on, probably why his smugness didn’t irritate me. And gauging from the height of the tent in his pants, my lingerie-clad state was affecting him too.

  Neal had been away at the Hong Kong gem and jewelry trade fair for the past week and we hadn’t even hugged properly when he’d picked me up from work this afternoon, much less ravaged each other like we usually did after one of his business trips. And, today was our third engagement anniversary. It was our marital duty to put everything aside and celebrate with monkey sex.

  “Fuck henna hands and wedding rehearsals. Let’s fuck.” I slid my hands up his hair-roughened chest to his shoulders, my intent as clear as the day was bright.

  Third engagement anniversary. We’d been together for more than three years already. It baffled me that we’d lasted this long, considering we’d come together in an explosion of instinct and not intellect. After a mere six weeks of dating, Neal had impulsively suggested we get hitched on the night I’d taken the bar and in my post-exam fugue state I’d grunted, “Why not?”

  I’d changed my mind the next morning, after guzzling down a gallon of coffee and sense. And lost them marbles again, a couple of months later, when I’d been giddy with excitement that I’d passed the bar on my first try. We were married within a head-spinning six months of my reproposal. Best impulsive decision of our lives.

  Neal’s hands came to rest on my hips. “Didn’t ye say this weekend is dedicated to yer college friends?”

  “Doesn’t mean I need to be joined at the hip with them. However, you and I can be.” I nudged his hips with mine. “We’ll claim that you were jet-lagged and I was exhausted. Unless, you have your heart set on spending the night flirting with my friends?” I tweaked his ear playfully, confident of his answer.

  “Dally with strangers or shag my wife? Now that’s an impossible choice.” Neal’s lips kicked up in a sexy grin as he took the phone from my hand and set it aside. He freed my hair from the clip holding it up and out of my face. My bra was next, unhooked and tossed over his shoulder. Released from their lacy cage, my boobs thanked him by perking right up.

  I giggled when he swung me up in his arms, and tension drained from my body as he carried me into the barn-style bedroom only slightly larger than the bathroom. It felt roomier though, as evening light poured in through the casement windows that showcased the lovely Hudson Valley and its river. The vegetation was slowly turning to gold outside. Unlike Manhattan, where the trees had only just begun to blush. Fall in New York was breathtaking. The vivid, fiery colors; the perfect weather—bright and crisp and spicy with the taste of pumpkin lattes and sangrias on your tongue. How could I have resisted falling for Neal in New York in the fall?

  Careful not to jostle the outfit and accessories I’d laid out in one corner, Neal lowered me to the double bed. The coverlet was cool but its textured roughness felt surprisingly good against my skin. I sighed as pleasure spiked and washed away the last of my anxiety and irritation.

  I pushed down my panties and kicked them off as Neal divested himself of his dress pants. We were naked in seconds, and then he was on top of me, crushing me with his large, warm body, my mouth with his. I bowed up and moaned as he slid into me, flesh to flesh, stretching me. Every nerve inside my body snapped like an electric charge. We’d starved for each other for a week, been separate entities for seven fricking days. We didn’t need priming. We needed to devastate. Quick. Desperate. Now! Climax came quickly for both of us.

  Spent, we lay there, breathing hard in the aftermath, hugging, laughing, still joined and shuddering with aftershocks. Perhaps a little disappointed that it was over so quickly.

  Neal pushed up on one arm, but he didn’t get off me. I didn’t want him to. Not yet. He began to rain kisses on my face, nipping my jaw, teasing my ear, licking my collarbone.

  “Better?” he asked, his voice gruff with satisfaction, his face ruddy with love. The scar on his chin, the one he’d gotten in a ski accident years ago, before I knew him, was stark white against the dark red skin where I’d sucked. The rest of him glistened and I felt my pores open too. His blue-blue eyes watched me with humor and a good dose of fatigue. He was the one tired and he was asking whether I was feeling better. Because he knew Naira’s text had upset me.

  Love gushed through me, quicker and stronger than my climax. I was glad I’d taken the time to be with my man, to take care of him. I ran a hand through the jet-black thickness of his hair, which tended to curl just above his shoulder. In three and a half years, he’d become as familiar to me as my own face. Every freckle, every scar, every hair follicle, so very dear. I’d missed him so much this past week, especially with everything that was happening at work. With Naira. With the surrogacy. He was always so encouraging and supportive. He loved me. It was such a wonder that he loved me at all, much less when I was a witch to him.

  “I lo... ACK!” I began in a whisper and ended up shrieking as the room phone screeched into existence. My heart, beeping with affection a second ago, slammed against my chest with the impact of a judge’s gavel. Wildly, my eyes sought out the culprit—a quirky 1980s-style phone on the nightstand that ought to be in a museum, certainly not for use anymore.

  “That is possibly—No! That sound is several decibels worse than the FDNY sirens. Gah! It’s the sound the hounds of hell would make if they’d been forced to skip dinner.”

  Neal stretched out an arm to reach the nightstand—he didn’t have to stretch far—and answered the phone with a brisk “Hullo!” that belied the laughter rippling through his body. Obviously, he didn’t think anyone had deprived Satan’s hounds of their kibble. With a wink and an “Och, aye. Here she is,” he pressed the phone’s receiver to my ear.

  It was Karen, Lavinia’s pregnant maid of honor. It figured.

  “Paris! Is your cell phone on silent? I’ve called and called and left a dozen messages. Are you okay? Not about to pass out fo
r the night, are you? Because Lavinia will kill you if you do. Are you ready to partay? We’re all already here.”

  Yup. I was in hell. In college, I’d run myself ragged trying to graduate summa cum laude in journalism and philosophy with a minor in Latin while making it my personal mission not to miss a single night of partying. Every month like clockwork, I’d collapsed from sheer exhaustion, sometimes passing out right in the middle of whatever I was doing, and would sleep for two days straight. What did it say about me that my friends didn’t think I’d matured since then?

  “We’ll be down in fifteen minutes,” I said coolly. Karen disconnected the phone without another word, apparently satisfied that I was awake and lucid.

  I passed the receiver back to Neal. “I should’ve said I had work to finish tonight. Or, you could have brought back a disease from Asia. Yes! We could both be infected by something sinister and avian right now. Something nasty and contagious. Damn it! I’ve been trained to think on my feet. Why didn’t I think of it?” I wondered if it was too late to try the excuse.

  Neal laughed heartily—I often amused him with hyperbole—sending our joined bodies aquiver again. Now, I was truly sorry I hadn’t thought of an excuse. I needed more than that quickie with him. But I also wanted this night with my friends. It had taken seven years for us—all of us, including Naira—to come together since graduation. It was like a homecoming.

  I also couldn’t let Lavinia down. Not for her wedding.

  “Ye can’t ditch the lass. She came to our wedding and clocked in full attendance.”

  If I’d ever been in doubt that my husband could read my mind, those words cleared it up. But I wasn’t programmed to give in without a fight—the reason I was a damned good prosecutor.

  “The only reason Lavinia came to our wedding was because you paid the air and hotel fare for my friends and family. And arranged for corporate discounts at various hotels for those interested in a Scottish holiday after the wedding. Why wouldn’t she have come?”

  He’d offered Naira the same red-carpet arrangement and she’d still not come. Ugh. Don’t rehash the past. It’s done. Finished.

  “Paris.” My name didn’t sound nice as an admonishment. Sometimes, I disappointed him with my quick criticisms and judgments.

  “I didn’t mean it negatively. But fine. I take it back.” Arguing simply for the sake of having the last word never served any purpose. “I love you to the moon and back. You know that, right?” I took his face between my hands and kissed his mouth, quick and wet. An apology. I kissed him again and again worth several apologies. “Your eyes are red. If you’re tired, I can go by myself.”

  The nonred part of his eyeballs twinkled green and blue and purple in the slanted sunlight. What did I tell you? Wicked charmer. “I slept on the plane. I’m fine for a bit. But, I’ll probably need to crash after meeting yer esteemed friend.”

  He planted a soft kiss on my shoulder, then taking care not to hurt me, he rolled off and sat up on the bed. Even so, my body curved in response to his movement and I gasped as grief welled up inside me. No matter how many times we came together and drew apart, or how, in anticipation of the disengagement, I readied my body for separation, clenching it tight, or scolded my heart to behave itself, I still felt hollow when he left me. Like he’d abandoned me. Cast me out. Rejected me. Have I mentioned I have issues? Obviously, we couldn’t stay joined together like a pair of incestuous conjoined twins forever, but my body didn’t seem to understand it. Knowing this, knowing me, loving me, Neal never withdrew without a heads-up like that kiss on my shoulder.

  We resumed our dress-up dance then, swirling around the room like a pair of professional ballroom dancers. Mid-October temperatures had cooled the room even without air-conditioning and the sweat dried off our bodies quickly. Deodorant took care of the rest. I rice-papered my face, and it was enough to repair my makeup. Last, I slipped a pair of emerald-cut diamond earrings onto my earlobes while checking my appearance in the mirror above the TV unit.

  Neal stood behind me, adjusting his tie. His dark suit complemented my copper-and-blue brocade jacket that I wore over a pale blue summer dress.

  We were always a study in contrasts, whether in or out of clothes. I was tan to his fair, voluptuous to his lean; a frugal vote to his extravagance. His mixed-race heritage and my evidently South Asian DNA had blessed us with bold looks and hardy genes. I liked how we fit—not totally in sync but complementary like the set of decorative vases on the console table by the TV. I adored who we were, together and separately. I valued the person I’d become from loving him.

  “Here, let me help.” Neal took the two-inch thick smaragdine diamond bracelet from my hand. It wasn’t hard to clasp shut, even one-handed, but my mind had been elsewhere and I’d missed the clasp’s opening twice now.

  “The henna would’ve flattered it, but I enjoyed these hands on me better,” he said gruffly, closing the bracelet around my wrist. Then he kissed the back of my hand.

  The bracelet was a Sotheby’s certified Neal Singh Fraser classic. He’d given it to me on our first wedding anniversary. I’d accepted it reluctantly, not wishing to hurt his feelings. Make no mistake, I loved my bracelet. Took delight in it more because Neal had made it himself. Not just designed it or hunted the planet for the perfect stones to set in it, but also fashioned it with his own hands like an old-fashioned goldsmith and not with the help of machines or hired artisans. I couldn’t imagine how he’d done it or how long it had taken him to cast and shape and finesse the train of interlinked pink-gold rings. Each ring in turn was alternatively pavé set in smaragdine—Neal’s brand’s signature emerald green color—and white diamonds. I marveled at his talent. I did. But owning expensive pieces of jewelry did not sit well with me no matter the sentiment attached to it. It was a frivolous indulgence just like a circus wedding. And I disapproved of it.

  It wasn’t the first piece of jewelry Neal had given me but it had become the last. Maybe that was why I was partial to it. A few weeks after our anniversary, I’d told him that such presents made me feel uncomfortable instead of happy, and I couldn’t enjoy them as he meant me to. He’d stopped giving me expensive trinkets after that. Instead, he planned special things for us to do on our special days in addition to donating large sums of money to Right is Might—our NGO of choice and the reason we were together.

  Neal understood my soul. He cared about the betterment of humanity. He might not be as politically driven as I was, but he cared. And that was another one of the zillion things that made him amazing.

  “Henna my hands tomorrow,” I said by way of compromise.

  My husband liked to pretty me up, and I indulged him when I could. It was what marriage was about, wasn’t it? Knowing each other’s peccadilloes and loving that person anyway? Working out a compromise where one could? Like I’d compromised my stance about not ever having children, and he had compromised his by having only one, and with a surrogate.

  Then, before I got too analytical or anxious again, and before Karen sent out a search party for us, I took my husband’s hand and dragged him down to the wedding rehearsal dinner, where unsurprisingly Naira didn’t show. My best friend had become adept at breaking her word.

  “No amount of rehearsing prepares you for marriage,” I told Lavinia later that night as part of my bridesmaid’s duties. “You have to wing it just like you do everything else in life.”

  How I was going to wing being a mother though, I had no fucking idea.

  chapter two

  Naira

  Hope glittered like morning dew across the lawn of Lavinia’s wedding venue. Crisp and cool, it soaked into my shoes, tugged at the hem of my peach-and-gold tissue sari as I jettisoned out of the taxi on a patch of green at the edge of a full parking lot. Hope was the only emotion I clung to these days. Hope, and the desperate desire not to quit.

  I was late for Lavinia’s wedding. Not the fash
ionable make-an-entrance sort of late, but Indian Standard Time–late—meaning monstrously late. I’d be lucky to catch the tail end of the wedding ceremony.

  I’d overslept. In fact, I’d slept for thirty-six hours straight, and that was after zoning out for most of my sixteen-hour Mumbai to New York direct flight. I felt wonderfully rested. The grogginess in my bones, the listlessness of mind that had debilitated me of late was gone. The fruits of a deep, dreamless sleep—or of not being under my family’s watchful thumb?

  I started forward, the world sparkling before me. Bright white tents rose along the length of a converted barn to the right, and fields of grapevines dotted with trees strung with mirrored balls and fairy lights rolled for miles to the back and the left. The sun burned above it all, saturating the land with its golden joy. There was a paddock on top of a rolling hill beyond the parking lot and a group of dapper wedding guests were gathered there, clicking selfies and groupies with a pair of tuxedoed cowboys on horseback. Rather adventurous guests, I thought. Also, I’d missed the ceremony if people were spreading out and taking photographs. Or, maybe not. These days clicking the perfect selfie was more important than watching the main event itself.

  I increased my pace, meandering through a garden-like area toward an enormous tent from which a sizable number of guests poured out, some with heaped plates and some without. More guests were clustered around the garden, nibbling on hors d’oeuvres or sipping bubbly or cappuccinos. Everyone was chattering animatedly as if discussing something magical. Yup. I’d definitely missed the ceremony.

  I couldn’t believe I’d gone to sleep on Thursday night—I’d landed at JFK only that afternoon—and woken up straight on Saturday morning, completely missing Lavinia’s rehearsal dinner. I hadn’t slept through the night in more than three years, let alone through two nights and a day. I hadn’t even woken up for food, and only once to use the bathroom. I hadn’t heard my phone vibrate at all. Shocking, when every sound it had made for three years had affected me on a visceral level. I’d finally woken up this morning to a gazillion missed calls and texts, mainly from my mother and mother-in-law—everything from “Are you ill?” to “Have you been kidnapped?” I’d replied that I was fine and getting ready for the wedding. But I hadn’t called them back. I didn’t want to speak to them. Not yet. I didn’t want to get sucked back into the quicksand of my problems. I didn’t want to think about my life. I needed a break. I wanted one month to myself. One week. Just one day. To be free. And I wanted to spend that time salvaging my college friendships and my sanity.