by KASI, MV
"Why don't we sit down and eat here for a change? The last time we sat down and ate at a restaurant together was on the Pier almost ten days ago. I promise to make up for the lost time, and I've still got a lot of tricks remaining to show you, along with a million other fantasies," she said, trying to lure him to eat out.
"No, we did go out. You took me to that nightclub in the city over the weekend, remember? And we went to that midnight Biryani place later," he said.
Mahi smiled. "Oh please, we ordered food, but you were too impatient to wait. You told me that the music at the night club and my grinding worked you up. We left before our food arrived."
"Grinding? Is that the term used to define, you rubbing yourself all over me on the dance floor?" he asked huskily.
She sighed blissfully. "Yes that's grinding. Oh yeah. We had fun later that night too; I never thought I would enjoy the ocean view bent over the window while you joined me from behind. And what an amazing joining it was...slow and deep and then hard and fast. I walked funny for two days."
Samrat watched her intensely. "How are all these reminders helping me to remain decent at a public place? We can eat out in Las Vegas this coming weekend or anytime during the rest of the five days we have left."
She smiled and got out from the car. "Okay. Wait here. I'll be right back with our food."
Mahi stood waiting inside the restaurant for her order to be ready. She was checking her work emails when a new email with an important notification came up. It was from Samrat.
Stop checking your work emails and come out soon!
She looked out through the glass door and Samrat was watching her with an impatient grumpy look. She smiled at him and blew him a small kiss.
Then smiling contently, she reflected back their last fifteen days. She was dreading to go back to India since she was having the most idyllic time. She hadn't been checking her group messages often since she was busing either getting laid or was at work. Rest of the time she was trying to catch up on as much sleep as possible.
Her friends called the initial period as the honeymoon period, where everything the sexual partner did would seem cute or sexy. She did believe it herself too. Samrat was bossy and demanding, and like a typical man wanted sex multiple times a day. And she often agreed, since she was desperate for him and craved him like an addict.
His other quirks like wanting to keep the table tops clean and the bathroom surfaces clutter free would have driven her crazy any other time. But she found it cute for now, especially since they used the cleared surfaces in many enjoyable ways.
Mahi was still smiling to herself recalling one such episode, when she heard someone call her.
"Mahi?"
Mahi turned and was shocked when she saw her former mother-in-law. She recovered herself and smiled back, genuinely happy to see the woman who had always been kind and friendly with her.
"How are you?" Mahi asked and hugged her.
Even after the divorce, her former mother-in-law called her a few times to check on how she was doing and also sent toys for Aryan.
"I'm fine. I heard you moved back to Hyderabad. You look healthy and great, Mahi."
Mahi recalled the days when she had several eating disorders during her marriage, and she always looked tired and nervous. She binge ate when she was stressed, and Dinesh had always criticized her body and weight gains, making her throw up deliberately to remain thin. Her weight had fluctuated rapidly often drawing concern from her doctors. And from the past five years, she ate what she liked and she knew she was old enough to make healthy choices on her own.
"Thank you. I'm on a work related trip for three weeks. I'm going back in five days. Are you visiting as well?" asked Mahi.
There was a momentary silence. "Yes. Just for the week. Dinesh has married again. I am here with my daughter-in-law. She is waiting near the table there," she said and pointed at a young and pretty woman.
"My parents mentioned that to me a few days ago."
The new wife's hands were fidgeting nervously and her eyes looked lost. Mahi recognized her former self in that young woman.
"Mahi...I have told you this before, but I'm very sorry again. I knew how my son was, and also how he was probably treating you, but I felt helpless. As a mother, I was torn between wanting to help another woman or to remain calm towards my son's faults. Even now—" she broke off.
"No, I have never ever blamed you. Dinesh barely allowed anyone to stay home for longer than a week. There was nothing you or anyone else could do. I was in my marriage willingly. No one else was to blame for what I went through or did," Mahi told her calmly.
Her former mother-in-law held her hand and said, "I hope you live a long and a happy life."
Mahi hugged her. "Thank you. And I wish you the same."
Mahi's order was ready by then. Picking her food containers, she gave one last look to her ex-husband's new wife and left the restaurant.
CHAPTER 9
Samrat was impatient. "What took you so long? And who was that woman you were talking to and hugged?"
"My former mother-in-law," she said softly.
He was surprised, but didn't ask her any other questions.
Later that night she was in a strange mood. Even before they could finish their dinner, she dragged him to the bedroom. She was aggressive and wanted their sex to be pretty rough. Samrat knew something was driving her and indulged her, feeling almost as desperate as her.
After they were done, she slowly told him a little about her marriage. "My ex-husband called me a whore when I wanted to please him, or wanted to be pleased in return. He wanted me to lay on the bed like a lifeless sack while he had his five or ten minutes with me."
She also told him a little about how critical Dinesh had been about everything. "He wanted me to be model thin and called my hair uncivilized. He always made sure I straightened it all the time. Well...I was in my uncivilized hair when he saw me at a wedding and wanted to marry me."
Samrat hugged her close. "I love your curves and your hair. It was the first thing I saw when we were eighteen."
She smiled. "Really? All that I remember was some dorky neighbor staring at me holding something in his hand."
"I was holding my first prototype of a solar heated lunch bag. Anyway, this dork stared at you and had some extremely dirty dreams that involved me fisting your hair, and pulling it closer to me."
Mahi laughed. Lying on his chest she thought about how Samrat satisfied her both physically and emotionally. Even though they hadn't made any promises or commitments to each other, he was always receptive to her emotional needs.
Then after sometime, "Do you still hate me for what I did to you and Ananya during our college days?" she asked softly.
"Do you think it's fair to ask me that when we are naked in bed and I'm completely worn out and relaxed?"
Mahi didn't reply back with a joke like he expected her to.
Samrat sighed. "I don't hate you, Mahi. I'm thirty five years old, not an impulsive boy driven by his hormones. I have been attracted to you for a while, but I wouldn't have done something about it if I still hated you. Over the last few months, I have reluctantly come to respect you, and acknowledged the fact that you are no longer destructive like before."
Instead of being content with the answer, she got up and turned on the night lamp and then looked at him seriously. "It was Tarun who was cheating that day. I knew it because I saw it, but I deliberately accused you since you were sitting right next to him and I held a grudge against you. I was mad at you because I felt humiliated when you told me that you would never like someone like me."
"Mahi, you don't have to do this now. I told you, I let it go. It was fourteen years ago. We were both too young."
She shook her head and paced about in the bedroom. "No. I ruined your life. Even if you eventually ended up being a successful entrepreneur, you could have achieved all this after having acquired your PhD like you wanted. I feel you received the raw end of the deal here
, while I got you in spite of my past behavior."
"Come back to bed you crazy woman. I told you I have forgiven you already," he told her frustrated.
"Well you shouldn't!" she replied. "Okay wait. Maybe there is something we can work out...How about I grant you a wish that you can use on anything you want me to do? Obviously it has to be something that is possible. It can be a big or a small wish, you get to choose."
He sat up on the bed with his arms folded behind his head and smiled. "You mean like some sort of magic lamp genie wish? Only sexier?"
She rolled her eyes. "For that you don't have to squander your wish, whatever we are doing with each other is already covering every possible sexually deviant base. No, something bigger...like apologize in a national newspaper or...to quit my job at your company...Anything you want. I will do it without asking a lot of questions, even if I hate it or don't want to do it."
Samrat thought about what she was offering. "I would never ask you to quit your job. But maybe you are onto something with the wish. I'll use it sometime soon. Now get back here," he ordered.
She went to him, and slowly climbed on top of him to run her fingers on his unshaven scratchy face. "I like how your dirty mind was thinking about the sexy genie wish," she said in a sultry voice. And then she kissed him gently on his lips. "I really hope we can indulge in all of my remaining fantasies during whatever brief time we have left," she said softly, thinking of their really short time ahead.
Samrat was about to roll her on her back, but he paused and looked at her. "Brief ? Is that what you want? You want this to end soon?" he asked her intently.
She looked uncertain. "No. Not even close. But I thought that's what we agreed on."
"I want this to continue until both of us are satisfied and one of us wants an out. Right now, I want all of you. We spend all of our spare time together either in bed or outside it," he stated gruffly.
"Yes sir!" she answered him with a smile before she got flipped on her back.
*****
On their last night in San Francisco, Samrat lay on the bed next to Mahi, stroking her back gently while she held him.
"Mahi...Don't ever change. Not for your family, not for you career, not for the society. And most definitely, not for me. You are perfect just the way you are," he said softly.
Mahi smiled sleepily and hugged him closer, feeling content, but a little scared inside. Samrat's words slowly wiggled into her heart, creating a want and need that she wasn't prepared for. And even though he was right next to her, she was already missing him.
Missing his closeness, his talks, his quirks, everything. And for her, it was slowly changing from being an uncomplicated friends-with-benefits deal to something more.
CHAPTER 10
They landed in Hyderabad early in the morning and drove back home in Samrat's SUV. Samrat helped her unload her bags and placed them inside her house. Then he simply stood staring at her.
"You should go now. Aren't Srishti and Ananya coming to visit you in a few minutes?" Mahi reminded him softly, feeling her chest tighten a little, making it difficult to breathe easily.
He nodded, but still waited inside her doorstep watching her. "I'll see you later this evening or maybe later tonight when I'm back. I have to finish up some pending work," he said softly.
"Okay. I need to meet my cousin, aunt and my friends today too. So yeah, we can meet tonight maybe," she tried to sound casual, as though it wouldn't make any difference if they were not able to meet that night.
He brushed his finger on her cheek and kissed her softly on her lips. And then giving her one last lingering look, he walked across the street and went into his house.
Meantime, she felt the reality of what they had done hitting her hard. Sure they had laid out the terms of their deal pretty clearly and she was onboard with most of the rules. But what she hadn't anticipated was slowly falling for Samrat during their time together. She had naively thought that she wouldn't miss him every minute of the day when they got back to their real lives where they had separate family and friends to cater to.
"I'm a big girl. I don't need him joined at my hip always. I can handle being alone again," she muttered.
Meantime, her heart was pounding inside her as though it was saying, I want him and I miss him so much already while her brain kept screaming, do not fall for him, you fool! Her brain and heart were having a fist fight in which she hoped to god that her brain would win that match.
*****
Mahi met her aunt and her cousin Rajeev for a few hours, before heading to Jhanvi's house where the rest of her friends were also gathering.
Entering a well-kept gated community, she saw a lot of kids playing in muddy puddles in a grass lawn. One of the perks of living in India was that the kids didn't need an adult monitoring them all the time.
Sighing, she walked to Jhanvi's house and knocked on the door. Jhanvi greeted her and informed her that rest of the gang was there already.
When Mahi sat down, she heard someone rushing down the stairs shouting in excitement.
"Mom! Mom! I finished my book report. Now I want to—" an eight year old boy said in excitement before Jhanvi interrupted him.
"Arjun, first say hello to my friends. You have met everyone before except one. This is Mahi aunty," Jhanvi told him.
Mahi and others greeted him.
"Hello," Jhanvi's son Arjun greeted them back halfheartedly before looking at his mom in excitement. "Mom, can I play outside in the big playground with Rishaan and others? The stupid stinking rain has stopped a few hours ago."
"Arjun, how many times should I remind you, not to use any bad words? And yes, you can play now. But make sure you are back in two hours. I'm watching the clock. I want you back by five in the evening to finish practicing your piano and then complete your homework before we go to your friend's birthday party at seven in the night. Okay?" Jhanvi asked Arjun.
"Okaaayy mom. You always make me practice every day. And why can't I do it later tonight when we get back?" Arjun whined.
"Arjun. You'll either finish your jobs first or we can stay home tonight. You decide." Jhanvi told him sternly.
"Fiiinee. I'll do it. Can I go now?" Arjun asked rolling his eyes.
Jhanvi shook her head. "Go. First drink milk and then grab a banana. And don't forget to take your water bottle along. It's still a little hot outside."
As soon as Arjun stepped out with his stuff and the door was closed, Jhanvi burst out.
"So how was it? Give us the scoop you lucky bitch. Was Tarzan good in the sack and did you guys do it all the time? I want all the dirty details," she said
Mahi smirked. "Jhanvi! Don't be a little hypocrite by using bad words!"
"I know. Jhanu the mom would whack Jhanu the eager girlfriend pumping information on her friend's sex life," said Ashwini.
Everyone burst out laughing and Jhanvi rolled her eyes. "Tell us!"
Mahi looked dreamy. "The sun shone brighter, the stars exploded in the sky and the earth shook. The last three weeks were perfect."
"Good god! Mahi is being poetic. Samrat must be packing something special or must have really good moves," remarked Ashwini.
Mahi grinned. "Yes to both."
"Dirty. We want all the dirty details! So spill," insisted Jhanvi.
"Ohh okay...on the scale from one to ten, he was a hundred! He can bring the dead back to life with that tongue of his and he sure as hell brought back my libido," said Mahi, and then told them a slightly cleaner version of last three weeks trying to keep most of it PG 13, and also leaving out the messy emotional toil she felt right now.
Everyone was silent.
Parvathi fanned herself. "Whoo. It's getting hot in here."
"Why didn't you reply to our messages?" demanded Ashwini.
"Helloo, I was busy. Short of shooting a tranquilizer in Samrat's ass, there was no way I had a free moment in the past three weeks. We both were like the energizer bunnies, going at it all the time," Mahi grinned.
>
Jhanvi sighed. "Oh the honeymoon phase. I miss those days."
"What the hell Jhanvi? Srinu is always chasing you with his tongue hanging out and grabbing you all the time," remarked Parvathi.
"Well. I meant the honeymoon days when I had the same energy and drive to be able to do it often in a spontaneous way. I love my kid, but I could use some alone time without having to keep my ears cocked just in case he called out or needed me while I'm in bed with my hubby. We just have a day here and there, when we are truly alone," said Jhanvi.
"That's why couples need to take a few work-from-home options on same days on school days. Hubby calls them booty call days," said Ashwini, wiggling her eyebrows.
Everyone laughed.
"But Mahi. Are you sure you want to keep it casual? What if he falls in love with you or you fall for him, and one of you wants to take it to the next step?" asked Parvathi.
"Luckily both of us want the same thing; an uncomplicated relationship not leading to marriage or babies. We have both been there and done that. I don't want it for sure and he told me that he feels the same way. And in these past three weeks we have gotten close as friends too and shared some personal things about each other," Mahi told them.
Smitha gave her a knowing look.
Mahi felt a little uncomfortable as she remembered Smitha's warning that for women, it was more difficult to keep a relationship a purely physical one, and not want to bond with their partner or want more.
Just then they heard someone open the door.
"Honey...I'm home," a very tall man announced with a big grin. His shoes were pretty muddy and he was holding a bag with golf sticks poking out.
Mahi smiled as she remembered the conversation between Srinivas and Jhanvi, when he proposed to Jhanvi in front of everyone in their college.
"I won't look like this in a few years Srinu. Both my mother and grandmother are larger women who are almost obese. You'll regret it then," Jhanvi had warned Srinu.
