Marry Me, Stranger

by Novoneel Chakraborty

‘Sorry, I can’t,’ a gloomy Rivanah said.

  ‘Can’t? Why?’ Ishita couldn’t believe someone was saying no to her favourite DJ.

  ‘If my parents or my boyfriend found out about it, I’d be screwed!’

  Ishita ogled at her for some time and then said, ‘Are you someone’s pet?’

  ‘It’s not about being a pet. I love them and I’m only respecting their wishes.’

  Ishita didn’t argue any further since she felt it was pointless doing so. Later that night she Whatsapped Rivanah a snap of hers snuggling up with DJ Notti. She was about to delete the snap when she heard a sudden noise. It was too near to have happened outside her flat. She sat up on her bed trying to listen hard. A few seconds later, she heard it again. It sounded like a moan. Rivanah moistened her dry lips feeling a tiny bubble of fear form in her gut. She had fallen asleep in Ishita’s room for a change after talking to Ekansh on the phone. The door of the room was open. And worse was she had watched a horror film with Ishita the night before. All her mind could conjure was a headless figure scampering up to her with a dagger. Her heartbeats gained speed in no time. She didn’t know why but she was anticipating a sound in the stillness of the night. Something fell somewhere in the flat. Had someone broken in? She could feel small beads of perspiration started forming on her forehead and her throat started going dry. She called out, ‘Asha!’

  Rivanah wasn’t even sure if Asha had come home or not. There was no response. She stood up and sneaked toward the switchboard.

  ‘Shit!’ she said pressing the switch. There was a power cut. Or...had someone cut the power off? She swore she would never watch horror films again. She took her phone and dialled Ishita’s number. Nobody picked up. She dialled Ekansh. It was switched off. She wanted to call her parents but didn’t want to disturb them at that hour. She checked her mobile phone’s clock: 2:15 am. Even if her parents’ phone gets a missed call from her at this time, they would go paranoid. She dialled Pooja’s number. Call waiting. What else was she expecting for someone who had made a new boyfriend? Another noise tore apart the dreadful silence. This time she was sure it came from the toilet. The mug must have toppled...but why? She inched toward the window and stood still, prepared to scream her lungs out if she saw something…anything. An hour went by—neither anyone appeared nor any sound came. The strength in her legs were wearing out. It was a Saturday—the only day in the whole week where she could afford to sleep till late in the morning—but for this stupid sound she couldn’t go to her bed either. She was about to sit down on the floor when she heard a meow. She shone her phone’s flashlight toward the door. Another meow. Rivanah feared all kinds of pets; especially cats. If it was really a cat that had come in—from God knows where—then it would not go away easily. She peeped outside the window and saw lights in the nearby apartments. The power is probably back she thought. It gave her an impetus to stand up and amble toward the room’s switchboard. She pressed the switch and the tube light was on within few seconds. She stepped outside the room swallowing a lump and peeked inside the adjacent toilet. Rivanah noticed the small bucket was on the floor along with the jet spray. Also, on top of the flush tank sat a pitch black cat. The way it looked at her made her swallow multiple lumps together. The toilet window was open. It has to be Asha, she wondered, who always leaves it open. Rivanah noticed that around the cat’s neck was a red ribbon which had a white piece of cloth at its centre. The kind she had been receiving for some time now. Rivanah guessed the obvious. She was too scared to go near the cat so she took couple of steps and switched on the toilet’s light. She strained her eyes to read:

  Fear is the most prized illusion that we create for ourselves.

  The cat suddenly flipped and jumped out of the toilet window. Rivanah stepped back with her heart in her mouth. As she relaxed, she found a rage gripping her. She dashed to the toilet window and screamed, ‘You don’t scare me. You can’t scare me, alright!’ Except for a few stray dogs that started to bark, there was nobody else. She calmed down and went to her room where her phone buzzed with a message:

  Time’s up, Mini. Be ready to cry.

  The message this time came from an unknown phone number. She called back but it was switched off.

  ‘Even I want to see how you are going to make me cry,’ she told her stubborn self and then saved the unknown number by the name of ‘Stranger’.

  9

  Rivanah unlocked her flat’s door and came in. Instantly a rotten smell hit her. She pinched her nose but could see nothing because it was all dark. She kept the main door open to allow some light from the passage into the room as she went toward the switchboard. Before Rivanah could reach it, the door shut with a loud bang. She turned in a flash and felt trapped in the darkness. She took a few steps to reach the switchboard but felt something around her neck. She touched it with her hands and realized to her shock that it was someone’s feet. She wanted to scream but found she had lost her voice. She ran to the main door but couldn’t open it. There was a chuckle in the air and she saw herself hanging by the drawing room’s ceiling fan. The eyes seemed demonic while the chuckle was vibrating in her eardrums. As she started losing her sense, she heard a rather familiar sound. It was a Skype video call waiting to be answered. Rivanah opened her eyes wide with a jerk on her bed and took some time to understand what was happening. Yet again the same dream, she thought, and hastily took the Skype call on the laptop kept beside her.

  ‘What happened? You look messy,’ Ekansh said appearing on her laptop screen.

  ‘Nothing. I just dozed off waiting for your call,’ she said tying her hair in a bun and regaining her balance.

  ‘I really miss you a lot, Ekansh, especially when Ishita tells me about her escapades,’ Rivanah said. ‘We have to be in the same city soon otherwise I’ll go mad.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell me straightaway that you want to make love to me?’ He was trying to cheer her up.

  ‘Shut up. I only want to be with you.’

  ‘Really?’ Ekansh said with amusement.

  ‘Yes, really. Long distance is a killer.’ She sounded acutely emotional. Ekansh turned serious too and said, ‘Bring your forehead close to the cam.’

  She did and he planted a kiss on his cam.

  ‘I know long distance is a bit trying, but if we can pass this, it will be so good for our relationship,’ he said.

  ‘Hmm. I was wondering that my shift to Bangalore is a far fetched thing as of now. Why don’t you shift to Mumbai instead?’

  ‘Do you think I’m not trying? But the platform I work in isn’t there in the Mumbai office of ours. But still I’m on the lookout. I would grab a change of location on the first opportunity. You wouldn’t have to tell me.’

  ‘I know I don’t have to. But...you know you shouldn’t have come here last time.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘I have started to miss you all the more now. I had accepted our long distance relationship when I was at home but ever since you came to Mumbai, a weird kind of restlessness has invaded me. Also, this stupid loneliness is making me crazy.’

  ‘Why, where are your roomies?’

  ‘Ishita has gone to her hometown to attend a cousin’s wedding.’

  ‘And the other one?’

  ‘I have no clue about Asha. All I know is she hasn’t come home on weekends since the last two weeks.’

  ‘Is she a ghost?’

  ‘Don’t scare me, Ekansh. I stay alone here. Moreover, I have been having this recurrent dream which is really scary.’

  ‘What dream?’

  ‘That I’m hanging from a ceiling fan. I have seen it like four-five times now in the last few months. Only the location changes but rest of it is all same.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He blew a flying-kiss to her via the laptop screen. She kissed him back.

  ‘Even I’m lonely here,’ he said dejectedly. ‘I mean I have friends here but you know what I mean.’

  ‘I do. How I wish you were here with me right no
w.’

  ‘What if I fly down to Mumbai?’ Ekansh said in a tone which meant business.

  ‘When? Tell me before hand so that I can take an off from office.’

  ‘Now dumbo! What if I come down tonight?’

  ‘OMG! Really Ekansh?’

  ‘Wait and watch.’

  The Skype call was abruptly disconnected. It was 8:15 pm. At exactly 3:20 am Ekansh pressed the doorbell of Rivanah’s flat in Malad.

  ‘I don’t believe this!’ she said opening the door. Ekansh came in and kicked the door with his heel. Then he cupped Rivanah’s face and smooched her deeply. She could feel his hunger in the ferocious way his tongue explored her mouth.

  ‘I don’t want you to stop us tonight,’ he said in a whisper breaking the smooch as he took off her top. The urgency in his voice and his demeanour was supremely sexy. They had always discussed it amongst themselves; no penetrative sex before marriage. But that was when they hadn’t stayed away from the other for this long. They hadn’t realized the urge for an emotional union through a physical communion could be this necessary.

  ‘I won’t Ekansh. I won’t stop you,’ she responded with another whisper as she got rid of his shirt. She had seen him topless but he had never seen her in a bra. He groped her breasts over her bra and squeezed them hard. Then his hands went behind and unhooked the bra.

  ‘How do you open this stupid strap?’ he gasped. Rivanah managed a short giggle and unhooked the bra looking naughtily at him. Once the bra came off, her instinct was to cover her breasts with her hand while Ekansh pushed her against a wall and pinned both her hands apart on the wall. Her firm succulent breasts were right in front of him in all its nudity.

  ‘Ekansh, leave me,’ she said out of shyness closing her eyes.

  ‘I will but first look at me.’

  Helpless, Rivanah opened her eyes only to find him staring at her. Looking directly at her, Ekansh dived down a bit and took her left nipple in his mouth, sucking it gently at first and then hard to the extent that Rivanah cried out in pleasure.

  ‘You are so loud,’ he said leaving her left nipple and shifting focus to the right one.

  ‘Shut me up then.’ The way she said it compelled Ekansh to smooch her once again, this time mauling her breasts with his grasp. She unbuckled his belt and unzipped the jeans he was wearing. Her hands slipped inside his underwear and grabbed his penis.

  Ekansh broke the smooch and looked deep into her eyes.

  ‘It is so hard.’ She seemed bewildered.

  ‘Now you know what you do to me when I miss you.’

  His hands untied her pyjama and tugged them down till her knees along with her panty. She hurriedly stepped out of both. He put his hands on her vagina, with the tip of his middle finger just about entering it. A moan escaped her as she grabbed his hand.

  ‘You are so wet,’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Now you know what you do to me when I miss you,’ she said jerking her head a bit to let her hair fall sideways to her face.

  ‘Rivanah Bannerjee, I want to make love to you. Right now,’ he said coming out of his shoes and socks. His eyes were set ablaze with a lusty fire whose flame was love.

  ‘Stop talking, start doing me,’ she gasped.

  Ekansh picked her up in his lap and took her to Ishita’s room, where he threw her on the bed and got on top of her. They kissed while he tried to insert his penis inside her vagina with one hand.

  ‘Slowly Ekansh. It is hurting me,’ she said spreading her legs as wide as she could while holding onto him tight.

  And before she knew it, her virginity was gone. The love of her life became one with her. She could have cried at that moment as she felt Ekansh’s penis slowly make its way inside the tight and juicy walls of her vagina and then thrusting his pelvis against hers. Rivanah closed in her legs around his hips, rubbing his butt cheeks with her heel and clawing his back with her nails while kissing him each time the thrusts brought him close to her face.

  Since adolescence, Rivanah had fancied about the moment she would become someone’s the way it has been designed by the cosmos. She only prayed that whenever it happened,the body in the whole process would be a means for her to surrender her heart and soul to that someone. Making love to Ekansh was an oblation from her side to the holy idol that they had both created and named ‘love’. He soon took her legs over his shoulder, bending her a bit and penetrating even deeper. His thrusts turned harder and faster now. She held his arm and dug her nails into the flesh of his arm. In the heart of this pain, there was a pleasure which each thrust was connecting her to. Each time his penis rubbed her vaginal walls, it felt like some forbidden waves were eating away the shores of morality; bit by bit. Soon his body went stiff. He gave three full and deep thrusts, one after the other, and then remained rock still. A prolonged groan escaped Ekansh’s lips as she felt a warm discharge flood her vagina. He collapsed beside her. She could feel an ache in her hip bones as she brought her legs together. They lay still for some time. Next, she slowly cuddled into his arms.

  ‘It was awesome,’ he said.

  ‘Sshhh.’ She put a finger on his lips and said, ‘Just feel it.’

  He kissed her finger and they lay awake naked in the quietude of the dissolving night.

  It was one in the afternoon when Rivanah woke up the next day. She felt sticky in the warm morning sun rays that were falling on her. They had forgotten to switch on the fan last night. Ekansh was still asleep. She sat up arranging her hair in a bun. She climbed down the bed, naked, and went to her room where she checked out this new non-virgin self in the full-length wardrobe mirror. There weren’t any external changes except for a few bite marks around her breasts but she knew she had taken a leap last night. She had never been so happy in her life and so sure of her commitment before.

  Ekansh stayed over the whole of Sunday as well since none of the flatmates returned. They made love again in the evening but it was less intense and more sensual.

  ‘Last night was a dream,’ she said sipping a hot cup of coffee with Ekansh sitting in front of the French window of her flat wrapped in a bed sheet wearing only their inners. They had only one coffee cup from which they were alternating their sips.

  ‘I swear it was,’ Ekansh said.

  ‘What if I get pregnant now?’ Rivanah said looking up at him.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘I’m in my unsafe time of the month. It’s quite possible.’

  Ekansh caressed her forehead and said with a warm smile, ‘Then I would marry you this very moment.’

  She kissed his chin feeling emotional. They continued to sit in silence. She wanted to tell him about the messages she had been receiving since her arrival in Mumbai but she felt the time they spent was too beautiful to even bring up a morbid subject like that.

  The next hour Ekansh left for Bengaluru. Rivanah was passing time by surfing her Facebook profile on her laptop when her phone buzzed with a message.

  Coming Saturday, Cafe Basilico, Bandra. 8:30 pm. Meet me.

  Though it was from another unknown phone number, Rivanah knew only one person could have sent it. The Stranger.

  10

  ‘Come on!’ said Bijoy. He was one of Rivanah’s teammates in office.

  ‘Where to?’ Rivanah asked.

  ‘It’s your boyfriend’s cake cutting time,’ said Shantanu. The two guys giggled among themselves and went ahead. A confused Rivanah put her desk computer on sleep mode and followed them wondering what they were talking about.

  They went to the HR department’s room where there was already a large assemblage of people. As Rivanah entered, everyone looked at her as if she was star of the occasion and they were waiting for her arrival. She had no clue what was going on. There was concealed laughter and a few nudges.

  ‘Let her come in the front,’ one of the HR personnel said from amidst the crowd. Everyone made space for her to come to the front. Rivanah ambled to the centre of the whole hoopla and saw Prateek wearing a designer birthday paper cap, ho
lding a plastic knife, and standing behind a desk with a chocolate cake on top of it.

  ‘I was waiting for you,’ Prateek said with a grin.

  Rivanah felt like a fool. Everyone started clapping and singing the birthday song as Prateek sliced out a piece of the cake and offered it to Rivanah. With everyone around staring at them, she couldn’t refuse and reluctantly allowed Prateek to stuff the piece of cake in her mouth. Someone captured the moment on his camera phone. As the two moved aside, everyone else jumped on the cake. Some ate it while others smeared the cream on Prateek’s face. Rivanah slowly severed herself from the crowd and stood at a corner in the room waiting for Prateek to be free. So this is what Prateek had been up to all along! Labelling her as his girlfriend to all his colleagues.

  A few minutes later, when Prateek went toward the washroom to clean his cake smeared face, Rivanah caught hold of him.

  ‘Did you tell people you are my boyfriend?’ She sounded livid.

  ‘No! Why would I?’ Prateek feigned innocence.

  ‘Then why would my teammates tag you as my boyfriend?’

  A moment later Prateek slowly hanged his head down in guilt.

  ‘Why would you do such a stupid thing Prateek?’

  ‘I love you Rivanah.’

  There! He knew next to nothing about her but he loved her. When will men stop interpreting attraction as love, she thought and said, ‘Does that mean you will go around telling people we are a couple? Did I ever tell you that I love you too?’

  ‘I didn’t know it will reach your ears.’ He was still staring at the floor.

  Rivanah’s jaws dropped. She understood she was talking to a crazy person with whom one couldn’t talk sense. Did he really think the rumour won’t reach her and if it did, would compel her to make him her boyfriend? And all this after knowing well enough that she was committed. Zero tolerance was the only way of keeping this lunatic off her, she decided.

  ‘I want you to go and announce it in front of all your colleagues that you are not my boyfriend.’

  ‘Please Rivanah.’ Prateek looked up at her pleadingly. ‘They will make fun of me.’