Those Same Old Desires (Match Made In Hell Book 2)

by KASI, MV

  Mahi was stunned for a few seconds and then she flew in a rage. Quickly removing her high stiletto heels, she stabbed him hard in his arm.

  Pavan howled in pain and immediately let go of his hold on Chithra's hand. Mahi didn't stop there. She kicked him hard in the stomach. Thanks to her kick boxing classes at gym, it was a powerful kick and he doubled over, falling to the ground.

  "Do you feel manly now? You coward! Think of how this feels, when you tell the court how your soon-to-be ex-wife exaggerated a small pat to her stomach during your minor tiff," she shouted at him as he lay on the floor mewling.

  Soon the security guys came running and took him away.

  "Are you okay Chithra?" she asked gently.

  Chithra just nodded jerkily and then thanked her before leaving in her car.

  The security guys looked agitated since they knew she was with Samrat and thought he would fire them for not responding quickly enough. They were frantically offering to take her to a hospital too.

  "I'm fine. I don't need a first aid or anything. And you guys did great. Thank you for your help," she told the security team.

  *****

  When Mahi arrived at the restaurant, Samrat was shocked and then furious looking at her face. Her cheek was painfully swollen and red.

  "What happened?" he asked, rushing to her side.

  Her friends were worried too and then outraged when she told them about the tussle a few minutes ago.

  "I'm fine guys. I just need an ice pack. Let's continue with my celebration," she said, waving a dismissive hand in the air.

  Later that night, after she and Samrat drove back home, he gave her another dose of pain medication. She leaned her uninjured cheek on his chest while he held her tightly in his bed.

  Samrat had been ranting from the past few minutes.

  "Next time you see a man behaving violently towards someone, call for help and stand back at a safe distance. Do you understand me? You were an idiot. What if he didn't stop with a slap and had a knife or something with him?" he shouted at her finally.

  She smiled to herself and then winced when her cheek hurt like hell. "I'm fine. You should see that guy. He has a hole in his arm and maybe I even broke a couple of ribs," she said proudly.

  Samrat wasn't amused and held her tightly all night. He was pretty clingy for the next few days and barely allowed her to go anywhere without sounding like an overprotective parent.

  *****

  Things went back to normal during the next week. It was a weekend and they just got back from shopping for their weekly groceries. After dinner, Samrat dragged Mahi up hurriedly to his bedroom saying that he wanted to try something interesting.

  A few minutes passed by and Samrat's face held a look of intense concentration.

  "For someone who is a clean freak, you are making one hell of a mess," said Mahi as she raised her head from the pillow to watch him.

  He was still drizzling honey from a small plastic teddy bear shaped bottle over her naked body.

  "This is taking a while and I'm getting a little bored. I need some action now," she said and then sighed.

  He didn't comment.

  "Can this be a talking session? Let's discuss those patterns you are drawing on me. Are they related—" she broke off with a groan.

  He shut her up the only way he knew. He began to clean up the mess he made using his tongue.

  Much later that night, when they lay exhausted, they began to discuss about his father's 60th birthday. It was three months away, but somehow they ended up arguing about the most irrelevant facts.

  "Samrat, I can't sleep in the same room as you while your parents are visiting. It is disrespectful and rude." She was getting annoyed at his insistence.

  "Everyone knows we are together and what we do. Why is that disrespectful? And they'll be here for two weeks. I don't want us to sleep separately for that long," he told her with a frown.

  "Then come to my house during the nights. You stay there sometimes. What's your problem? You always want to argue with me, just for the sake of it," she said, rolling her eyes.

  "Oh please. You are confusing me with yourself. It's you who has to argue constantly with me. Even when you know I'm right, or maybe, especially when you know I'm right. And we barely spent any of our nights at your house during the past nine months. You bed is too small for me and my legs keep hanging out," he complained.

  "Ookay. Then maybe I can order a bigger bed. Even though my bedroom is too small for a gigantic Cal king sized bed," she offered him generously.

  He sighed impatiently. "Or maybe, like a practical sane adult, you sleep in my bed and not bother about others thinking that we are having wild, illicit sex."

  "I don't care about anyone thinking that. No wait. I want my friends to know some of that because they tell me about theirs. Although theirs is legal and not illicit like mine," she said, grinning.

  Samrat scowled recalling their conversation from a few days ago.

  He and Mahi were meeting Mahi's friends and their husbands during a family picnic outing. After a while, when they had decided to play some outdoor games, Jhanvi and Ashwini began to giggle looking at him. They asked him whether he would be okay to join a game of family Kabbadi since he hurt his knees.

  He was confused by their inquiry, but something about the mischievous twinkle in their eyes, made him find Mahi and corner her.

  "You told your friends about how I hurt my knees when I had sex with you on the game room floor?" he demanded furiously.

  Mahi didn't look bothered by his furious expression. She smiled at him serenely looking lost as though she was recalling those moments that had happened a couple of days ago.

  "Those were our private moments. I trusted you to keep them private and not announce everything we do to the whole world," he growled.

  She smiled, pulling his cheek as though she found his furious expression adorable.

  "I don't tell the whole world about us. Just to my friends. And I don't tell them everything. Only whatever was impressive or memorable," she told him.

  "Everything I do to you is impressive and memorable," he told her with a scowl.

  Mahi raised her eyebrow at his statement. "Mehh...then how come I don't have a bragging right about the usage of honey in an inventive way like Ashu does?"

  "What? No. Don't tell me. I really don't want to know," he gritted.

  Mahi grinned at him. "Relax Samrat. That's what a lot of close women friends do. They share a lot of things going on in their lives. And intimacy is a part of it. I brag a lot about us and so do my friends about theirs. They don't mean anything by teasing you a little."

  His scowl remained.

  "Well, I'm still not comfortable," he said gruffly.

  He was grumpy about it for a while, but eventually he had made peace with the fact that Mahi's friends knew some of their intimate details.

  Mahi was smirking smugly. "See...aren't you glad my friends and I share a lot of useful information? You went and bought the plastic teddy bear shaped honey bottle, even though we had an organic locally grown glass bottle of honey at home."

  He smiled. She was right; after she told him about the honey usage, he improvised a little, making it more interesting with a spill proof plastic bottle. It was less of a mess. "So anyway. As a compromise, I will agree to sleep at your house during the nights if you promise to have all your meals in my house when my parents are visiting," he told her.

  She felt torn. "Samrat, it's your parents' house, not yours. I've shared some meals with them before from the past two months. But I can't simply just be there by default. We are not married," she said in frustration.

  He felt frustrated too. He had casually suggested marriage a few times. He told Mahi that they should get married in a low key ceremony to obtain a piece of paper, announcing the legalities.

  He hated the way some people spoke about Mahi at work behind his back. No one was downright rude to her except that one time when some mad man attacked her in t
he parking structure.

  And even during some of the weddings or other functions they attended together, Mahi was treated with disrespect by some people. Mahi brushed it off and ignored those whispers and rude stares, but it broke his heart, watching her being treated that way.

  He knew they both loved each other deeply, even though both of them weren't the kind to talk or declare it to make an event of it. Instead they preferred to show it in actions or gestures.

  He felt that getting married was the wisest choice for him to offer Mahi the protection and respectability in the society. But Mahi laughed at him whenever he suggested that they marry and called him old fashioned and what not.

  "Fine. We'll stay the nights at your place and you can join my parents and me for some of the meals together," he suggested.

  Mahi nodded and closed her eyes to go to sleep while he kissed her forehead and held her.

  He knew that suggesting marriage was a complete opposite from what he said a year ago; when he warned her saying that he would never marry anyone. But now that she was part of his life and he loved her, he just wished they would come to a stage where she also wanted to get married again.

  CHAPTER 25

  It was the first week of June and the summer heat still lingered in the air at nearly nine thirty in the night. Mahi was talking with her friends and Sidhu regarding a reunion for their college group later that year. They were all at Ananya and Samrat's father's 60th birthday celebrations.

  Srishti joined them. "Papa, mummy asked me to tell you that they are going to start dancing in fifteen minutes."

  Sidhu nodded and put his arm around his daughter's shoulders and kissed her affectionately on top her head.

  "Wow Srishti, you look so grown up and pretty cool in your ghagra. I haven't seen you from the past one month. How was your summer trip from school?" asked Mahi.

  Srishti smiled. "It was fun. I had a great time. I wish we could have stayed longer."

  Mahi smiled and was about to ask her more, when Srishti's cousins Abhijeet and Abhinav came towards them. Srishti asked them to give her five more minutes until she joined them on the dance floor.

  "They seem nice. Are they behaving well with you these days or are they still teasing you at school?" Mahi asked Srishti.

  "They have changed a lot in the past few months. After we moved into our new home, I think they felt very bad. Even at school when some other boy was teasing me, they beat him up, saying that no one should ever tease their sister—"

  "What other boy was teasing you? And why didn't you mention it to me or your mummy?" Sidhu demanded with a frown

  Srishti rolled her eyes. "Papa...a lot of people tease each other at school all the time. I'm fine. And if something upsets me, I have my music to soothe me. Even Mahi aunty uses it as therapy sometimes," she said, winking at Mahi conspiratorially.

  "What music therapy?" asked Sidhu.

  "Well...when you feel a little low and don't want to talk to anyone about it, you can listen to some good music and get back some of your groove," said Srishti, grinning.

  "Hmm…is that why you keep listening to some songs on repeat for several hours and sometimes even several days?" asked Sidhu.

  Both Mahi and Srishti giggled.

  Mahi was happy that Srishti had a good and healthy relationship with her cousins.

  Soon they went to the dance floor where everyone was gathered. The DJ had started playing a lot of upbeat songs. The huge makeshift dance floor was filled up pretty quickly with children and couples of all ages. Mahi danced along with her friends and they did some crazy steps that they had created during their college days. After an hour, the music slowed down and the DJ asked all the couples to get on the dance floor while playing some slow romantic songs.

  "Ladies, this is your chance to hold your husband close in the public, and gentlemen, hug your wife tightly using this occasion as an excuse," the DJ announced loudly making the crowd emit loud cheers.

  Mahi took that as a cue to take a short water break and get back when the music picked up again. But Samrat waylaid her.

  She stared at his hand in horror and fascination as he held it out to her.

  "I'm not holding a grenade in my hands, Mahi," he told her with an amused smile.

  "Yeah, but this song is not the dance-dance kind. It’s way too slow to dance apart and it's only for real couples," she said.

  "And?" he prompted.

  "Well, I don't know how to dance slowly."

  "Neither do I. It's not a ball dance or a performance. We just move slowly together. And we are a real couple," he said and pulled her closer.

  They held each other and slowly began to sway to the music that was a slow romantic ballad. For once, she didn't have a smart ass comment. She was feeling a little emotional and had been trying to ignore the conversation she had with Samrat's father early that evening.

  Samrat's parents had just exchanged heavy garlands in a ceremony that was similar to getting married. Samrat's mother had blushed like a newlywed bride when everyone hooted saying that she and her husband just got married again and they should take off on the long honeymoon sponsored by their son.

  "So Mahi. When are you and my son getting married? I'm not getting any younger. I'm already sixty now. I am hoping to have a few grandchildren by the time I turn sixty five or seventy," Samrat's father had asked her smiling.

  Samrat's mother was looking at her quietly, with a small smile on her face.

  She had smiled back at both of them. "You are hardly old, uncle. If only Samrat was half as active or looked half as dashing as you, I would have married him a long time ago."

  "In my day and age, things were different. Women were very determined. Samrat's mother literally tied me up, until I agreed to marry her—" Samrat's father broke off when his wife nudged him hard.

  They had all laughed. Samrat had told her about his parents love story. Apparently Samrat's mother and father were childhood sweethearts. But when Samrat's father's family didn't agree to their match, Samrat's mother kidnapped him and held him hostage until he agreed to marry her.

  Samrat's father was disinherited by his family, but he had always told his wife and children that he didn't ever regret the choice he made.

  She rested her cheek on Samrat's chest as they swayed to the music. She had been feeling slightly guilty since Samrat's father mentioned grandchildren. She kept thinking that maybe if she hadn't been in Samrat's life, he would have found someone more suitable to marry, to live a happy and a complete life, while also providing his parents with grandchildren to pamper.

  During the past eleven months since they had been together, she had similar thoughts on some days. But then she had been selfish, wanting Samrat for herself, even if she couldn't give him all the things he needed. And when she mentioned that to him, he brushed it off, asking her not to worry, saying that he was happy with how things were progressing.

  "By the way, did I tell you that you look pretty sexy in this red sari?" he asked huskily.

  "Several times, during the last few hours. And we already have a dirty date later this night, where you have a free pass to do as you'll with me, while I'm still in my sari and jewelry," she whispered, looking up at him with a smile.

  He held her closer. "Just checking to see if it is still on, because you might claim to be tired from socializing and dancing tonight."

  "Nope. And I don't want you to change either, when you come to my place later this night."

  "Deal."

  Soon someone came looking for Samrat and he had to leave the dance floor to perform his host duty.

  After a while, Mahi waved goodbye to the last of her friends and went to find Samrat. He was talking to Ananya and her friends who were with their families. He was interacting with a little boy.

  As she went closer, she could hear their conversation.

  "Did you have a great time Varun?" Samrat was asking the toddler.

  "Yes, I did. My mummy even let me stay up very late because I am
a big boy now."

  "Varun is the best behaving boy. His teachers are always telling us that he is the smartest child in the class too. He is also the bravest boy," gushed an older woman who was probably his grandmother.

  "Ma please. Varun is quite normal for his age," Preethi intervened, looking slightly embarrassed.

  "Yes grandma is right. I am brave. I fell down when I rode my cycle and got hurt on my head, but I didn't cry much. I just cried for a second," said Varun.

  Samrat laughed and tousled Varun's hair.

  "That is brave of you, Varun," he said and gave him a high five.

  Varun's grandmother was beaming with pride and happiness. "You are so good with children Samrat, you should have one soon. Someone like Varun," she said with a smile.

  "I definitely will aunty. I'm just waiting for my prospective wife to agree to marry me first," he replied.

  Everyone laughed, except Mahi. She had a small uncomfortable smile when some of them from the group looked towards her.

  It has been close to one and half years since her son passed away. And when she moved to India last year, she had promised herself to remember only their happy times together. But even then, it was still really difficult to see other healthy and happy toddlers who were around Aryan's age.

  Seeing Varun, and listening to the talk about how brave he was, triggered some of her most painful memories.

  It was one of the last emergency hospital visits and the doctors had told Mahi that her son wouldn't make it through more than a couple of days. She had broken down completely, but she tried to pull it together in front of Aryan. She tried her best to keep a happy expression on her face, but her tears wouldn't stop.

  "Mommy, please don't cry. You know it makes me feel sad. These pokey needles don't hurt me at all. See... I don't have any tears in my eyes," he told her with a weak smile from the hospital bed.

  During most of his short four year life, he had been in and out of the hospital emergency rooms. And each time they placed his tiny body on the hospital bed to poke and prod him, he was quite brave. He had gotten so used to the poking and prodding that he didn't even bother to flinch or complain anymore.