My Last Love Story

by Falguni Kothari

  And I was married to Nirvaan now. Nirvaan, who didn’t have a sliver of evil in his bones but was dying young all the same. Such was also God’s justice.

  “There’s nothing to talk about, Zai,” I said as I bent my head to the ice cream before forcing a spoonful into my mouth.

  By nightfall, the cramps, with their constant ebb and flow of pain, had made me restless. I huddled and rocked myself, and when it didn’t help, I paced. I tried cat stretches and fetal positions and even soaking in the tub, but nothing helped for long.

  Currently, I was sprawled on a lounger on the deck, hugging a hot-water bottle between my stomach and raised thighs. I rocked back and forth, trying to jiggle the pain away. I’d taken a dose of painkillers again, as per the doctor’s instructions, and I was waiting for it to kick in.

  I’d also encouraged the guys to take the Jet Skis out. They hadn’t ridden them all day, for my sake, and to combat boredom, they’d been video-gaming the silence out of the night. My head had boomed with the sounds of bombs until I’d ordered them to be gone. I’d craved wallow-able peace more than their constant concern.

  Unlike Nirvaan, I was a terrible patient. I didn’t know how to be sick or accept help gracefully. It was because I had a high threshold for pain—physical pain. I’d been like that, even as a child, and I had the scar to prove it.

  I’d gotten the scar during a two-day camping trip from school. Twelve or thirteen, I’d been in the eighth class of an all-girls school. Being a puny girl, I’d often overcompensated my lack of stature with false bravado. On the first day of camp itself, I’d slipped a dozen feet down a brush-strewn slope because I’d taken a steeper path to overtake a bunch of sporty girls in my class. My jeans had torn, and a thin branch had gouged a five-inch slit into my thigh. Mortified, I hadn’t called for help. I’d ignored the burn and the pain and finished the trek. Then, I’d washed the wound and tied a handkerchief around it for the rest of the trip. I’d needed a tetanus shot by the time I got home and a heavy dose of antibiotics, as it had become infected. It was the first and only time my mother had come this close to smacking me.

  Nirvaan thought it foolish to suffer in silence. Not that he was a cumbersome patient, but he didn’t underplay his health or his mental state. Of course, he’d learned not to.

  Zayaan was like me. He could bear pain quietly and would seek help only as a last resort.

  His brother had beaten him with a belt, with a cricket bat, with his fists all through his childhood—a big brother’s due for babysitting his younger sibling. Zayaan hadn’t called it abuse, but Nirvaan had had no such reservations.

  I’d stumbled across the truth only because I caught Zayaan in a weak moment and asked about the scars. The beatings had long stopped by the time I got to know him, but I wouldn’t ever forget the little white worms that marred his back and upper arms. Once Zayaan had grown as big and strong as his brother, he’d fought back. But by then, Rizvaan had found his calling in terror.

  Life was a strange beast, wasn’t it?

  Zayaan’s family had left Pakistan to remove Rizvaan from the influence of bad company. It was always the other who was bad and never your own. But like attracted like, and Rizvaan had quickly gathered a band of nasty men around him in Surat, too. They were destructive, disgusting creatures who’d wreaked havoc wherever they went. I’d known he was vile, but my mistake had been in thinking of him as Zayaan’s brother. They looked alike, so much so that people would ask if they were twins. But that facade of good looks was the only thing they’d had in common.

  I’d been warned to keep out of Rizvaan’s way. Zayaan had kept me under his family’s radar for a long time. But we’d been too close and too joined at the hip not to have at least some interaction with our respective families. I’d wanted to meet his parents right from the first, even before our relationship had progressed to the serious level. I’d hated feeling like an orphan, and so I’d sought whole new families to belong to. Nirvaan’s family was wonderful, and they’d sort of adopted Zayaan and me into their clan. I’d naively believed Zayaan’s parents would be the same. At first, Zayaan’s father had been wary, but I’d won him over. Gulzar Auntie’s overt disapproval was another story. And Rizvaan, it seemed, had always hated me and Nirvaan. He’d hated Zai, most of all.

  Yes, life was strange.

  After everything that had happened since the night Zayaan had rescued me at Dandi Beach, I still couldn’t regret knowing him. And that scared me because I didn’t want to forget. And I didn’t wish to forgive.

  The chug-a-chug-chugs of the Jet Skis announced the guys’ return. Our patch of the beach was semiprivate, but we had no pier to dock the bikes. After each use, the Jet Skis would have to be dragged over sand, and either left by the deck, weather permitting, or stored in the carriage house.

  I got to my feet and went into the house to grab a couple of thick towels. I’d usually leave a stack on the deck, but I’d forgotten today.

  Nirvaan bounded up the stairs, talking a mile a minute. “Baby, you missed the dolphins versus humans race.”

  “Down!” I yelled, leaping back from him. I pointed at the outdoor shower. “Shower off the sand, hose down the wet suit, hang it to dry. Then, you may join me on the deck.”

  “You’re feeling better,” he said, beaming at me.

  Completely ignoring my orders, he jumped me. I screamed like I was being murdered. My nightgown got soaked, as it was plastered against his wet wetsuit. As I opened my mouth to scream again, his mouth came down on mine, slick with salt and sand and delicious cold.

  “If the neighbors call the homicide squad to report a homicide, I’m skipping town,” said Zayaan. His one-liners weren’t all that shabby either.

  Nirvaan released me and stripped out of his suit as I grumbled and spit the ocean from my mouth. He threw the suit at Zayaan, who’d stripped off his and was hosing it down. Nirvaan made a lewd comment about inviting the cops to join our striptease party before stepping into the shower. Zayaan said something equally crude in return.

  The perfect comeback bloomed in my head. I would’ve said it, too, had my tongue not glued itself to the roof of my mouth. Dear Almighty God. Every day, I’d see the guys in various stages of dress and undress, but tonight, in the sparse light of the moon, combined with the beam of yellow light from the deck, they both looked beyond lick-able.

  Dr. Archer had said my hormones and libido would go nuts while on fertility meds. Apparently, I didn’t need to be drugged to go nuts.

  Water rippled down slick muscles and pooled inside their swimming trunks. Zayaan wore a knee-length pair, riding low on his hips. And Nirvaan—I grinned in delight—wore my favorite pair of cobalt-blue designer swimwear. Any skimpier, and he’d be wearing a thong. His bum muscles flexed and relaxed as he moved, and I admired them with impunity.

  I hadn’t made love to my husband in two years, but I wanted to tonight. I needed to tonight.

  I didn’t want to remember the past. I didn’t want to forget it either. And I would not forgive. Most of all, I wanted to place the dominoes back around my heart.

  Dr. Archer had said that sex might hurt after the HSG, but I couldn’t wait. And I wasn’t hurting now. The cramps had subsided. The medicine had worked.

  “Boys, there are towels by the stairs. You’ve soaked me to the bone, Nirvaan. I’m going to change,” I said over my shoulder.

  Excited by the plan and more than a bit aroused by the swimwear models, I walked into the bedroom and drew the curtain all the way across for privacy. In the bathroom, I stripped off the wet nightgown along with my underwear and wrapped a towel around my body.

  I looked in the mirror. My face, my shoulders, the tops of my breasts were flushed with excitement. I smiled and bit my lip. I could do this. There was no need to be shy or afraid. My reflection shivered even though I wasn’t cold.

  Suddenly, my smile dimmed.

  Shit. Nirvaan would need a stimulant, and I couldn’t remember where I’d stashed the pills. So much f
or spontaneity.

  I opened the medicine cabinet. Not there. I rushed into the bedroom and checked in both nightstands and the dresser and—yes, yes, yes! I found them in a box buried under my birth control pills.

  “Nirvaan,” I called out as I pressed a tablet out of its packet. “Nirvaan, I need you.”

  “Yeah, baby? Whatchu need?” He came in, flinging the curtain aside.

  I yanked it closed again and faced him.

  “Ooh. What do we have here?” He gave a lecherous chuckle and hooked a finger between my breasts, tugging on my towel. He could’ve easily stripped me naked. He didn’t. He joked and teased and leered, but he never stripped me naked anymore.

  I showed him the pill. If I hadn’t been staring at my husband’s face, I would’ve missed the flare of panic in his eyes. His wolf-smile slipped for half a second and bounced back full force.

  “What’s that? I’ve taken all my medication,” he said carefully.

  He knew bloody well what was on my palm, and it bothered me that he was pretending otherwise.

  “I want to make love to you,” I said clear and loud so that there was no misunderstanding.

  I didn’t know of any husband who’d hear his wife say those words and take a step back from her. Mine did. He kept smiling though, as if I’d made a great joke.

  But I wasn’t going to back down. Not tonight. I was bold tonight.

  I stepped closer.

  His eyes grew round and huge. “What about the cramps?”

  “I’m fine.” I put a hand over his heart. It was racing as wantonly as mine.

  Nirvaan used to have whorls of hair all over his chest. Now, the mat was sparse and patchy, his skin almost translucent in spots, through which his ribs showed. He had scars from the surgeries and PICC line, but there was strength in him still. His skin was almost always cold to the touch now, but I was about to warm him up.

  I smiled, thinking I should just tug his towel off and get started on my knees. He used to love that opening.

  He darted a glance to the curtain separating us from the rest of the house. “Baby, we can’t. What’ll Zai think?”

  “I’m sure it won’t come as a shock to him that married couples have sex.”

  Nirvaan’s chest expanded, and he shuddered out a breath in lieu of a laugh at my cheekiness. He stared at me then, a riot of emotions flying across his face. I knew the idea of Zayaan knowing…maybe even listening in…appealed to him. My husband was into kinky sex—or had been before we’d gotten married. And I was guilty of taking that freedom away from him.

  “What? It’s not like he hasn’t heard us or seen us do stuff before. Have you forgotten what the three of us got up to during those summers in Surat?” I pressed my thumb to his nipple.

  He pressed his hand on top of mine to stop my thumb from worrying his nipple. “We were kids, Simi. We didn’t know whether we were coming or going back then.” Nirvaan ran a hand through his hair. A line of sweat had beaded up along his upper lip.

  “What about these last few weeks when you’ve constantly talked of those days, reliving our glory days and wild nights? More than once, you’ve thrown Zayaan and me together in awkward situations. What has it been about then?” I curled my hand under his. I wanted to rake it down his chest for making me crazy.

  “It’s not been about a threesome, Simi.” He looked…unhappy.

  With me?

  “I know that. Khodai. But I thought, maybe, you were feeling better…that you wanted me.”

  God, I’d misread the signals on purpose. He really didn’t want to make love…because of Zayaan?

  I yanked my hand free from his grip, my cheeks burning—from anger this time.

  I recalled Zayaan’s expression from this morning as he’d stood by the door. I’d thought he was angry at whatever Nirvaan had said, assumed it’d been something about my uterus. What if it hadn’t been anger but embarrassment making his ears red?

  “What have you told him?” I asked my husband. “Did you tell him about our bedroom problems? Does he know you haven’t touched me in two years?”

  When he didn’t answer, all my insecurities, my guilt, my regrets came flooding back. My husband didn’t want me as a lover. Even worse, Zayaan, the man I’d rejected, knew it. It didn’t matter that they talked about everything under the sun. This was one thing Nirvaan should’ve kept between us, kept sacred.

  I’d never felt more betrayed in my life.

  I didn’t know what to think or how to feel, so I locked myself in the bathroom and counted to fifty. I ignored Nirvaan’s knocks and apologies.

  “Don’t be upset, baby. We can do it if you want to. Just come out.”

  Wow. Just wow.

  I blew out a breath and counted backward to zero while Nirvaan offered up a dozen different ways we could do it to try to make up for his obvious rebuff.

  I stripped off my towel and hung it on the rail to dry. Then, I yanked open the bathroom door. Nirvaan stood there, mouth open, fist raised, ready to knock again. I brushed past him into the walk-in closet and pulled on underwear, sports bra, and my cropped yoga pants.

  He came up behind me, slipped his arms around me, hugging me tight. “Simi, please.”

  I didn’t know what he was begging for.

  Please, Simi, let’s make love, or, Please, Simi, try to understand why I can’t.

  Can’t or don’t wish to, I added, savagely yanking on a sweatshirt.

  I turned in his arms and wrapped my own arms about him, hugging him back equally hard. “It’s okay. We don’t have to. You certainly don’t have to make me feel good like that. You make me happy in so many other ways.”

  I squeezed him once more and stepped out from under him, walking out of the closet. I picked up my phone and earphones.

  “I’m not upset. Truly,” I said, glancing at him, as he stood in the closet, frowning fiercely at me. “I’m going for a walk.”

  “Simi.”

  I hardened my expression just like he’d done when he rejected me. “I’m going for a walk on the beach. I’ll be back in half an hour.”

  Then, I ran out of the house before my anger ran down my cheeks.

  Nirvaan knew me well enough to leave me alone until I’d gotten my mad under control. He didn’t follow me, but as I marched away from the house, I heard him shout from the deck that if I wasn’t back in half an hour, I’d regret it.

  Ha. Regret it. You bet I regret…something. I just wasn’t sure what.

  I couldn’t believe I was turning myself inside out trying to have his baby, and he couldn’t do this one thing…one thing for me. I didn’t care that he couldn’t physically do what I wanted without aid. We had the aid. But we’d had performance issues even with the aid before…and maybe that was what worried him?

  “Argh. Stop making excuses for him!” I shouted into the night.

  I came to a stop by the edge of the water and tried to calm down. After ten breaths, I continued onward at a more sedate pace. I didn’t want the cramps to come back.

  The wind whispered against my face and hair, cooling my anger-hot cheeks. It was late at night, but the beach wasn’t dark and scary—not like Dandi. The scattered houses along the turf were mostly occupied, and if not fully lit from inside out, they had at least a couple of lights switched on to give me direction. I walked along the shallow, cold water.

  Thick clouds of thoughts whirled in my mind. Nirvaan’s unhappy face floated to the forefront like a gathering storm. I couldn’t believe he’d refused to make love to me. Usually, it was the other way round. And I couldn’t believe he thought I wanted Zayaan in our bed.

  Ha. Like I’d ever now.

  I slowed the pace, letting my toes dig into the sand for purchase. We’d never had a proper threesome. We’d come close to it though because of me, my choices, my greed. Our trifecta existed because of me. It had begun with me and ended with me, never mind that it was Nirvaan who’d suggested we consummate it first.

  He’d flown down for his cousin’
s wedding during his senior year Christmas break. He’d been feeling randy and hungover, possibly jet-lagged, after the bachelor party. I remembered him bringing up The Threesome Pact the very next afternoon at our favorite daytime hangout place—Nanubhai’s Pizza Parlor.

  “We’re going to be eighteen freaking years old in less than six months. College awaits us. Fucking adult life awaits us. We have to do something spectacular this year,” he’d said, pulling me into his armpit for a boisterous hug. “Let’s do the threesome.”

  We’d stared at him, speechless—me in growing excitement, Zayaan in insufferable irritation. We’d been putting off The Threesome Pact for years because of Zayaan. For once, the smell of fresh oven-baked pizzas hadn’t ruled our stomachs like the conversation had.

  “Let’s not,” Zayaan had barked out, from which had ensued a prolonged three-way debate.

  Zayaan had been dead set against a threesome involving me.

  “It might cause problems between us to have sex together,” he’d warned.

  He’d loved me and was disinclined to share me anymore. The declaration hadn’t shocked Nirvaan. We’d discussed love and marriage in front of him before—sometimes, in jest, and sometimes, not. But Zayaan hadn’t been joking that day.

  “Look, Sims, I’m serious about marrying you. I’m in love with you. This isn’t a joke.”

  “You bet it’s not a joke. Did you seriously, seriously, just propose to me in a pizza joint?” I’d asked, delighted and terrified and intrigued all at the same time.

  I’d been drowning in my love for him, deeper every day with every breath. But I’d wanted the threesome for so long. I’d wanted to eat my cake and have it, too. I’d wanted them both that day.

  Nirvaan had laughed and slapped Zayaan on his shoulder. “Yeah, man. Have some clue as to what a girl wants.”