‘Sure.’
Danny didn’t ask her more. I have something to tell you . . . Rivanah feared the worst. It could either be about Nitya or maybe the stranger had told Danny the truth before she could. Her phone rang again but this time with a landline number. It was from Zeus. Her interview was about to start in a few minutes. Rivanah rushed inside.
She was asked to wait in one of the glass-walled cabins where she would be interviewed. She looked around. Everyone seemed to know exactly what they were supposed to do without a hint of bother on their faces. Rivanah prayed she would get through the interview. Suddenly she sniffed something. Just Different, Hugo Boss. Her heart started racing and precisely then she heard someone say, ‘Hi.’
Rivanah turned her head to see a clean-shaven man with long hair which was tied in a pony, sporting carbon-framed glasses. Before she could notice any other feature her jaw had already dropped. It was . . .
‘I’m Argho Chowdhury. Senior HR at Zeus.’ He extended his hand.
What the hell is he doing here? Isn’t he with Neptune Solutions? Rivanah thought without knowing she was looking stupid. Argho shrugged, waiting for her to stretch her hand and shake his hand. Rivanah slowly lifted her hand. They shook hands. He sat down on a chair right beside her.
Argho took a moment to check all her certificates, payslips and other documents to see if everything was in place. While he was doing so Rivanah kept wondering if the man sitting only inches from her could be the stranger. But why was he acting like he had never seen her before? Was it because he didn’t know she had tracked him to Neptune Solutions before and followed him some time back? Or was he actually a damn good actor?
‘Weren’t you in Neptune Solutions before?’ Rivanah blurted out. Argho stopped leafing through her documents and looked at her. It was obvious what he was thinking: how do you know?
‘I’m sorry. What I meant was I gave an interview for Neptune Solutions too and someone there resembled you,’ Rivanah quickly improvised. It wasn’t convincing enough.
‘I’m sure I’m meeting you for the first time though I did work for Neptune Solutions till a month back,’ Argho said and went back to her documents.
‘I’m sure you are,’ Rivanah quipped, thinking how well he was faking it. And it would be better if she played along too just to be absolutely sure whether Argho was the stranger or not. She was itching to ask him about Hiya as she clearly remembered he had written ‘RIP Hiya di’ on her profile. But she knew this wasn’t the time. One little slip and she could very well spoil her chance of solving the mystery behind Hiya Chowdhury for ever. Perhaps, she wondered, Argho was her only chance.
Argho Chowdhury asked her a few basic HR questions at the end of which he offered her the position of senior programming analyst with a salary hike of 45 per cent over her previous job. He said she would get an email with the offer letter the same evening and she would have to revert by the next evening. The rest of the formalities would follow once she accepted the offer.
‘Have a good day, Ms Bannerjee. Hope to see you here,’ he said and turned his chair around to face the table. Rivanah took her documents and left. Before she left the HR space she turned back to look at Argho. She quickly averted her eyes because he too was looking at her.
Finally, relief! She wouldn’t have to go back to Kolkata just yet. There were two other things she had on her mind. Argho came to this company a month back. And now she would too join. Was it a ploy by the stranger? Or should she say Argho?
Once outside Zeus, she entered the elevator with two men and a lady. The men stepped out on the floor below while the woman stepped out a few floors before ground level. Rivanah was now alone inside the elevator. She was trying to check her email when the 3G connection failed. Then the network too was wiped out. She waited for the elevator to reach its destination. It didn’t. It suddenly stopped and the lights went out simultaneously. Rivanah immediately remembered how the stranger had done the same thing in her Goregaon apartment once. She started banging the closed elevator door with force while crying out for help. She could hear people outside as well. Someone asked her to back off if she was near the door since they were opening it from outside. Rivanah shouted back to them that she was away from the door. The elevator door was manually opened. What she saw was a tall guy in a blue formal shirt neatly tucked into his black trousers. He had a strong jawline, and a sharp nose and chin. His hair was thick. His eyes were a bit greenish. The man was looking at her expectantly. It was then she realized the elevator had stopped at quite some height from the floor. She would have to jump down.
‘You can jump. It’s safe,’ the man said. He had sexy voice. And an infectious confidence. Even if she knew she would be hurt, she would have still jumped because of this man’s confidence. Rivanah bent down slightly, hurled herself into air and landed right into the man’s arms. The way his hands squeezed her muscles while holding her evoked a feeling of desire. The man quickly placed her on the floor.
‘Thank you,’ Rivanah said.
‘You are welcome,’ the man said and walked off briskly. Rivanah couldn’t help staring after him in a schoolgirlish way. Once he was gone she took the stairs this time.
Later in the evening Rivanah reached Hawaiian Shack at Bandra. Danny had told her he would join her there. She didn’t know what it was he wanted to talk about, but her mind was busy with what the stranger had told her: When we hide something from our partner a part of us is never with them. And, to be honest, Rivanah wanted every part of hers to be Danny’s. She felt an arm around her. Before she could turn, Danny planted a kiss on her cheek and took the seat in front of her.
‘Here,’ Danny said and put an envelope on the table. It was way smaller than the one which had the movie contract.
‘What’s this?’ Rivanah said, a little wary of opening the envelope.
‘See for yourself.’ He was still not giving her any clue.
Rivanah slowly drew the envelope towards her and opened it, still looking at Danny sceptically. She looked down and broke into a huge smile. It was a cheque. Danny had officially secured his first film. Rivanah leaped up and hugged Danny tight.
‘Congrats, baby.’ She kissed his cheek.
‘Thank you so much. I was so waiting to see this reaction of yours,’ Danny said, kissing her on her lips.
They settled down in the chairs after a prolonged hug.
‘I am feeling so alive right now,’ Rivanah said.
‘So am I.’
Rivanah picked up the seven-lakh cheque in her hand and looked at it closely.
‘Let’s celebrate by being together. It’s been a long time!’ Rivanah said.
‘I have something on my mind.’
‘Like what?’
‘You’ll see. Get a leave tomorrow. The acting workshop is closed tomorrow but day after I will be busy with it again. So let’s make use of tomorrow.’
As Danny talked on about leave Rivanah quickly checked her email on her phone. There was a mail from Argho Chowdhury: the offer letter. Before reading it herself, she showed the attachment to Danny.
‘New job?’
‘A 45 per cent hike! Do I need to give any other reason?’
‘Double whammy!
‘I was so waiting for this offer to happen.’
‘Now we better celebrate tomorrow our way.’
‘Sure,’ she said and sent a confirmation email immediately. She looked up at Danny and saw he was going through the menu. Should she tell him the truth? Rivanah wondered. They were so happy right now; what if the truth disturbed this state? No, this was not the time to spill out the truth. They drank, had dinner and danced a bit too, all the while Rivanah convincing herself that the time for not right for the truth. When they came out of Hawaiian Shack, they walked for a few seconds to reach a little lane where Danny had parked the car. They got in.
‘Where’s my phone?’ Danny said. Rivanah had no idea.
‘Shit! I guess I left it inside. Give me a second.’ Danny went to
get his phone. Sitting alone in the car in the quiet street Rivanah called her mother and told her that she had finally hopped to a better job with a higher pay package. She also told her about Danny’s success at securing a film. Her father wasn’t in; her mother said she would convey it to him first thing when he came home. As she was talking she heard someone bang the back of the car.
‘Mumma, I’ll call you later.’ Rivanah cut the line and turned. There was nobody. It was the first time she realized how quiet the lane was. She leaned out of the window to get a better view. At that instant someone banged the front windshield of the car. Rivanah turned in a flash. Her heartbeat suddenly quickened. There was a vehicle in front whose headlights were switched on and the light fell right on her and thus she could only see a silhouette in front of the car. Was it Argho? She swallowed a lump, shielding her eyes from the headlight. Was the stranger going to tell Danny the truth? She felt fear tightening up her muscles. And what followed made her go numb. The figure broke Danny’s car’s windshield with one single blow. With squinted eyes she tried to see who it was, pieces of glasses all around her. She shut her eyes again. She knew how to unbuckle the seat belt but she wasn’t able to move. The other car’s headlights went off. There was no figure visible now as Rivanah opened her eyes completely. Rivanah was about to open her seat belt when she noticed a white cloth on her lap.
Certain lanes are so attractively safe that we don’t realize when it leads us to a busy highway. And it is only then that we have to decide whether to cross the highway or not. It is a decision that is seemingly momentary but is actually life-altering. When will you cross the highway, Mini? When will you tell Danny the truth? I won’t repeat my question.
‘What the fuck happened?’ It was Danny. Before saying anything Rivanah grabbed the white cloth with the message, hiding it from him.
21
Rivanah lied to Danny that it was an urchin who had hurled a brick at the car probably assuming there was nobody inside the car. When she screamed the urchin had run away. Though Danny didn’t quite get why someone would do such a thing, he didn’t probe any further. He drove immediately to a service station where they asked him to leave the car overnight so that the windshield could be fixed.
‘Are you sure we shouldn’t report it to the police?’
Rivanah gave Danny a sharp glance, trying to understand if he had unmasked the fact that she had lied to him about the urchin. But she wasn’t sure. Perhaps the fact that she had not let go of Danny’s arm from the time he came back to the car after fetching his phone told him that she was indeed scared.
‘That won’t be necessary.’
‘Hmm, okay. Can’t you stay at my place tonight? We are leaving for Khandala first thing in the morning anyway. We are going to a resort.’
This made sense to her. Staying with Danny would be the perfect cushion for her fear. The aggressive move from the stranger had seriously rattled Rivanah. Was it necessary? She would have anyway told Danny the truth. Would she have?
‘That sounds good to me. Though we will have to go to my place in the morning to collect my clothes,’ Rivanah said.
‘That’s fine,’ Danny said and called out to a cab. Rivanah called Tista but she didn’t pick up. She left her a message that she would come to the flat in the morning.
An hour later she stepped into the same flat from which she had moved out many days ago. It brought back memories for Rivanah. Nitya wasn’t there any more. As she looked around she heard Danny say, ‘Nitya is in Paris with her designer boss.’
She liked the fact that Danny had clarified the matter without her asking the question.
‘Hmm,’ Rivanah said, moving into the bedroom.
‘Can’t we pretend the Nitya episode never really happened?’ Danny said, coming into the bedroom after her.
Can’t I pretend Ekansh didn’t happen to me? Rivanah wondered and said aloud, ‘I have something to tell you Danny.’ She was facing him. He came a tad closer and said, ‘What is it?’
Should she say it now? Rivanah kept looking at Danny hoping that he would simply read her mind and understand her heart without her having to use words to express it aloud. Danny shrugged.
‘I love you’ was all she could come up with.
‘I love you too,’ Danny said and hugged her tight. And in the embrace Rivanah understood that a simple truth carries the potential of destroying a relationship in a far more irreversible way than a complex lie. Sleep was a far cry for Rivanah and she spent the whole night staring at Danny who slept soundly.
In the wee hours of the morning Danny and Rivanah went to her flat. She didn’t see Tista there, which seemed odd to her. She wasn’t the kind of girl who would not come home at night. Maybe she had gone to Ekansh’s place. At least she should have intimated her about it, Rivanah thought, and called her once again while packing her stuff. The call went unanswered while she realized she was yet to get a response to her last night’s message to Tista. Rivanah messaged her again, asking her to call or message back as soon as she read her messages. Done with packing Rivanah left with Danny for the service centre from where they got their repaired car and then drove to Khandala. On the way she kept wondering that on the one hand she loved Danny—she knew it—and on the other she was questioning the authenticity of that love by not sharing an important happening of her life with him. Her only excuse for it: how will he react? What if the truth triggers an emotional landslide? The fear of consequences—is it too part of loving someone with all one’s heart? Or is love about being fearless even it means choosing your own doom? They reached the resort close to afternoon. They freshened up, had a sumptuous brunch and then they were back in the room.
‘I have something to tell you.’ Rivanah summoned all her energy.
‘What is it, honey?’ Danny said and came to rest his head on her lap, looking at her directly. All of Rivanah’s resolve went away.
‘I love you,’ she said, disappointing herself.
‘I love you too,’ Danny said and kissed the tip of her nose, raising his head a bit and closing his eyes. As Rivanah caressed his hair he said, ‘Life seems so peaceful right now.’
Should she tell him the truth and rob him of the peace? Rivanah wondered and looked down to realize Danny was asleep. She rested her head back while continuing to run her fingers through his hair. Rivanah slept like a log. When she woke up she found herself lying on the bed alone. She sat up. The sound of water was audible to her. She looked around but Danny was not in the room. The digital clock in the room displayed the time—11.15 p.m. Shit! I slept for ten hours. Rivanah got down from the bed and, putting on her slippers, went towards the balcony from where the sound of water was coming.
Rivanah stepped outside the room. It was relatively quiet. The distant view was of covered mountains and a silence which had a sheath of moonlight over it. There was nobody in sight except for Danny taking a bath under the open sky shower at the edge of the balcony. A naughty smile escaped Rivanah as she saw the water from the shower cascade down Danny’s naked back. The next moment Danny turned around.
‘I knew you would come,’ Danny said with a tempting smile that Rivanah read as an invitation to join in. The sight of Danny showering alone stark naked aroused her after a long time. She moved towards the shower and stopped. Their eyes remain locked while their faces had a tinge of naughty amusement. The steam around the shower area told her the water was warm. The way it was trickling down Danny’s naked body made her already slightly wet between her legs. A small light was on right above the shower which covered that particular area with a bluish light. Rivanah could see the details of Danny’s nudity. It had been some months since she had seen him this naked. With eyes fixed on Danny, Rivanah first stepped out of her slippers. The ground below was cold. It added to the sensual feeling which from a brisk wind had turned into a storm now. She raised her arms next and took off the black top she was wearing, to expose her black bra to Danny. The top was dropped on the ground. She tilted her head, unbutto
ned her white capris and pulled them down seductively. She stood there, looking teasingingly at Danny. With a sexy pout Rivanah took her hands to her back and unhooked her bra. Before she could drop the bra on the floor Danny came out of the shower. He came to her, smooched her hard and then, kneeling down, tore her panty off. Then he rose and picked her up. He took her under the shower. Rivanah by then had surrendered totally to him.
The extreme passion with which Danny made love to her under the shower was something she had never experienced before. It was as if he was sucking the soul out of her and making it a part of his. Since it was an open shower, there was no wall for support on either side. They were each other’s support and it made the sexual act all the more intimate. With Danny’s hands supporting her butt she wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. As he finally penetrated her, she reached the zenith of pleasure. In the distance she could see the mountains, moon, some clouds, trees . . . darkness beyond them. And each of them seemed to be talking to her.
You love Danny . . . you should tell him the truth . . . you love Danny . . . you shouldn’t tell him the truth . . . tell him the truth . . . shouldn’t tell him the truth . . . the truth . . . truth . . .
‘Will you marry me, Rivanah?’ Danny said, pushing himself deep in her and digging his teeth into her shoulder. It was the most intense marriage proposal she knew of. She yelled out in pleasure and pain and said, ‘Yes, Danny . . . I will, Danny. I will.’
A prolonged moan and a grunt escaped both Rivanah and Danny respectively as they climaxed together. By then she had scratched his back to her heart’s content. He had even bitten her lips, sucking the blood from it. Finally, as he came inside her, he let her feet down on the floor. They stood in a quiet embrace with the warm water gushing over their intertwined bodies. Sometime later Danny broke the embrace, saying, ‘I’ll wait for you inside.’ And he ambled away to the room. Rivanah switched off the light, shivering a bit in the coldness of the night. She was about to move out when a light fell on her. For a moment she thought the shower light had been switched on but in a flash she realized it was not the case. The light that was on her came from a distance beyond the fence of the resort where there were some dense bushes. Rivanah was quick to cover her privates with her hands.
All Yours, Stranger: Some Mysteries are Dangerously Sexy Page 13
