‘Neha!’ said Tanu di, aghast at her wild get-over-a-guy therapy. ‘We don’t need such drastic measures yet. There are plenty of fish in town.’
‘Whatever,’ said Neha losing interest in my lost opportunity and focusing on hers. ‘I wish I wasn’t engaged,’ she reiterated, gazing wistfully at Deep.
‘He sure is hot,’ echoed Di.
‘I will foot the bill,’ offered Neha kindly. ‘You win hands down.’
‘Your shock is deep-er than ours,’ punned Di, and agreed to split the bill with Neha.
‘Stop it you two,’ I said sharply, bugged by their desperate de(ep) votion.
Even though I didn’t have to pay the bill, I felt miffed. It was not their pity that bothered me. Pity was okay. It was welcome actually. I was irritated that they were regarding my rejection as a big deal because they found Deep overwhelmingly charismatic. Why were these women behaving like he had spiked their drinks with a love potion? I stole a quick glance in Deep’s direction. He was indeed looking sexier, even more than last night. It was not the way he had half tucked his shirt in his jeans, neither was it the voice, for I couldn’t hear him at the moment. It was something else. Something that he had done differently today. Something that I couldn’t put my finger on in my tipsy state. Something that made him look unnervingly appealing. What’s wrong with you? I scolded myself. Jay is a hundred times more handsome than Deep. Why are you salivating for a dussheri when you have an alphonso?
Indignant and embarrassed, I got up in a huff and walked, unsteady in my high heels, but determinedly, towards his table.
‘Hello, Deep,’ I said, tilting my head to a side, smiling at him and fluttering my eyelashes.
‘Hi,’ he said, uneasy at seeing me there.
‘Do you want to taste the raspberry from my lips again?’ I asked lasciviously, leaning slightly forward, for it was hard to be heard otherwise.
My hair fell around my face and hid both our faces from his dinner date. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. I giggled teasingly and pulled away.
‘Er … this is Suhaani,’ he said haltingly, ‘and this is Meeta.’
It was fun watching him falter awkwardly, as he made the formal introductions.
‘Hi, Suhaani. Nice to meet you. Deep was just talking about you,’ she said, unaffected by my intrusion and my insinuation at having kissed Deep.
Her calmness annoyed me. ‘Could I borrow him for a minute? We have some unfinished business to deal with,’ I said with a cold artificial politeness.
‘He is all yours. I was just leaving,’ she replied, not in the least bothered that someone else was hitting on her guy.
With that, Meeta got up, waved goodbye to Deep, winked at him, and said that she would call him later.
This was not a good sign. Meeta’s unconcerned attitude either meant that Deep was crazy about her and she was not insecure or that she was actually not interested in him. The latter seemed improbable given how Deep attracted women like festival sales.
I cast a fleeting look at Neha and Tanu di who were watching my progress with curiosity. They gave me a thumbs-up as I settled myself in Meeta’s seat.
‘Sad that your girlfriend left so suddenly?’ I smirked.
‘No,’ he replied serenely, his discomfort vanishing with Meeta’s departure. ‘I am quite fond of raspberry lips,’ he said, with a playful wink.
I felt my cheeks burn with the heat of his raking gaze.
‘Besides she is not my girlfriend,’ he added.
Although he seemed to have regained his sense of humour, I could vouch on my years of love-affair experience that he had feelings for her. Feelings that were unreciprocated.
‘Is she the reason why you rejected me last night?’ I wondered.
I didn’t realize that I was thinking out loud till I heard him say, ‘I didn’t reject you, but I am sorry if it hurt you.’
When a guy who loves you apologizes, it’s heartwarming, but when a guy who has just dumped you shows kindness, it’s heartwrenching.
Enraged by his superfluous compassion, I retorted. ‘Don’t BS me. Guys love refusing girls in an arranged marriage set-up so that they can boost their ego.’
‘And a girl waits till the guy has fallen in love with her and then crushes his feelings,’ he snapped.
‘Well, I wanted to tell you on day one that I was not interested in you,’ I defended myself.
‘Really!’ exclaimed Deep. ‘Then why didn’t you?’
‘Well … I was waiting … you know … for an opportune private moment.’
‘Fair enough,’ he said encouragingly.
‘And then last night when we were alone in your car, I was about to tell you when …’
‘You kissed me instead,’ he said, cutting me off. ‘Why did you kiss me, Suhaani, when you knew you were going to reject me?’ he asked, looking into my eyes, his voice suddenly serious.
One look into his soul, bared through his honest eyes, and I knew I had misjudged him. He was simply being forthright when he said he wasn’t ready for marriage. He never intended to put me down. It was childish to feel hurt if you apply for a job and get rejected when the company is not even looking to hire.
Unwilling to admit that I indeed wanted to make him desire me before delivering the blow, I blamed the kiss on the social lubricant, namely beer.
‘I had heard of a bear hug before, but I now I have experienced a beer kiss too,’ he said, loosening up and adjusting his hair.
It was then that I noticed the difference. He was wearing a snazzy, black, metal hairband. No! The hairband didn’t make him look girlish or gay. Rather it added a naughty spunk to his personality. Four drinks down, sitting with a kissable, wickedly funny guy, I found myself stranded on an island, in a two-piece polka-dot bikini. I was wearing a hairband around my neck. He was chasing me around to take it back and I was playing hard to get. He caught up with me and held me tight in his grip. I felt threatened and aroused as his fingers traced a gentle circle over my lips. He was about to kiss me when suddenly I heard a beep.
My phone’s SMS tone interrupted my fantasy. ‘Don’t kiss him again,’ read the message from Di. I tried to recall if the guy in my imagination was Deep or Jay but it all seemed hazy. Wary of my heady and intoxicated thoughts, I got up hurriedly.
‘I should be going now,’ I said, gathering my senses.
‘See you on Monday,’ he said, smiling.
My head throbbed and I swayed slightly as I took the first step. He immediately rose from his seat and held me steady with his right arm around my waist. I was reminded of the way Jay would hold me in his arms, his heart warming mine, the familiar scent of his aftershave mingling with my perfume and his tongue softly titillating my earlobes, wreaking havoc in my libido.
Aching for Jay, I spontaneously leaned in, closing the distance between our lips, but he gingerly placed his hand in between and said, ‘Let’s just be friends.’
Before I knew what was happening, I had fallen in Deep’s arms and passed out completely.
Sealed with a Kiss
Jay had just stepped out of the shower after an hour-long game of Frisbee and was wearing only his boxers. His chest gleamed with water dripping from the strands of his hair. With his ripped body and sexy bedroom eyes, he looked like a model any girl would want to drag home. I felt a tingling excitement spread through my whole body as I caught him eyeing my bust. However, the ooohs were soon replaced by urghs as I was overcome with a strong burning sensation in my stomach. A queasy reminder of the large amounts of alcohol I had guzzled in the last two days. The maid came in with a glass of chilled milk and placed it on a table next to the bed. I was craving for my morning cup of tulsi tea, but I knew that caffeine was even more diuretic. Unwillingly, I took a few sips of the cold milk to counter the acids burning my food pipe. The maid smiled coyly on seeing a shirtless gora guy on my laptop screen. ‘He ij yuar by-friend?’ she asked sheepishly. I nodded my head slightly. Her eyes widened in awe and she smiled in obvious appro
val.
‘Who is that?’ asked Jay.
Hearing the picture talk, the maid squealed in surprise, became self-conscious of her own appearance and left in a hurry. I added the idea of movingpictures.com to my growing list of ingenious, innovative business ideas.
‘And where are you?’ Jay wondered out loud, while I was lost in my magically real world. Not a very keen observer, he had just realized that I was not sitting in my own room.
I knew I was at Tanu di’s place, using her laptop, but I had no recollection of how I’d got there! Last I remembered, Deep was talking about beer kisses and I had noticed his black hairband. I strained my memory to extract further details. My heart did a back flip as I recalled how I had thrown myself at Deep, for the second time in the last twenty-four hours. How could I kiss another guy when I was in love with Jay? I would be furious with Jay if he would do this behind my back. Even when he had only been a passive receptor to Denise’s smooch, I had been enraged.
‘Have you never ever felt a strong desire for physical contact with someone other than me?’ Jay had asked me once, and I had proudly preached to him that it was human to feel attracted to more than one person, but the power of love lay in restraining oneself from succumbing to these temptations. How had I, a strong believer of love, then lost self-control?
A sharp pain shot through my forehead and I flinched. I was having a really bad hangover. Feeling horribly sick and guilty, I wanted to tell Jay all about it, but my inner voice stopped me. ‘You do truly love Jay,’ it assured me and ascribed my libidinous actions to excessive drinking. Solemnly swearing never to get smashed again, I told Jay briefly about how I had got very drunk last night and had to come to Tanu di’s house.
‘You look beat, hon,’ remarked Jay, noticing my smudged mascara and puffed eyes. ‘Should we talk later in the day?’ he offered courteously.
‘No, I am fine,’ I said, smiling despite the throbbing pain in my head. So much had happened since I last chatted with Jay, a week ago, that I was feeling disconnected from him. I desperately wanted to stay online with him. I needed him to tell me that he loved me, that all will be fine, and that my love story will have a happy ending.
‘Cool then. I have something important to tell you,’ said Jay with unusual seriousness.
‘I am sure you would agree that it’s hard to keep the romance alive in a long-distance relationship,’ he was saying. ‘Every day I jog past your apartment and look up at the window, I imagine you standing there waving back at me. The first faint rays of sunlight dancing upon your face, contouring the delicate curve of your cheeks and adding an ethereal glow to your eyes. Every evening as I sit all by myself in front of the TV watching Friends, I miss the warmth of your body next to mine. I miss the crunching sound of chips that you used to eat and I miss telling you the calories it has. Everything here reminds me of you and leaves a deep void in my heart. This existence seems too painful to endure and yet when I think about being one with you, I tell myself it’s all worth it.’
OMG! Something was very wrong with Jay. Why was he doing all this pre-climax-type sweet talk? He was not the kind to express his love through words. He was more a man of physical than philosophical love. Could this be a build-up to a break-up? I knew he had been to another one of Ashraf’s wild parties. Maybe he met Denise there, wearing a sexy, skimpy dress, and she invited him to undo her strings. What if he wants a way out of our no-walk-only-talk relationship? The thoughts boggled my mind as Jay kept on murmuring the mushiest things he had ever said to me.
‘I know things have not been smooth for you at home and I behaved like a jerk last time,’ I heard him admit and then he began to sing in his not-so-melodious yet full-of-feelings voice.
Oceans apart, day after day
And I slowly go insane
I hear your voice, on the line
But it doesn’t stop the pain
If I see you next to never
how can we say forever
I heard the song I will be right here waiting for you playing on his laptop. Jay was singing along with Bryan Adams, his eyes boring into mine and his arms entwined around me in a virtual embrace. This was the most lovey-dovey, Romeo-like thing he had ever said or done. Moved by his unexpected romantic gesture, I found myself crying and longing for his arms.
The guilt weighed even more heavily on my mind and I felt even more scared to confess my deceit for I didn’t want to lose him.
‘I am sorry that I don’t know your language or can’t become your bridge partner, but I love you and I will be right here waiting for you,’ he said as the song ended.
‘I love you too, Jay,’ I said, my voice choking with emotion and tears of joy brimming in my eyes. ‘Did you plan all this by yourself?’ I asked with unmitigated surprise.
‘Nope. I borrowed the idea and the speech from Ashraf,’ he said frankly. ‘But the chips and the calories were mine,’ he added with a childish pride.
‘I wish I could tell you how much this means to me, Jay,’ I said, all starry-eyed and swayed by his lovelogue.
‘You could if you wanted to?’ he challenged teasingly.
‘How?’ I asked, eager to play my part as his Juliet. I could see him watch the gentle rise and fall of my breasts as I breathed in and out.
‘Virtual sex,’ he whispered, his hazel eyes glowing with excitement.
I knew Di had gone out to the market to run some errands and would take at least an hour to get back, but the maid was in the house.
‘Why don’t we take off our clothes and chat for a while?’ Jay suggested, sensing my hesitation.
My breathing quickened and my nipples hardened in anticipation, as he slowly lowered his shorts and let them drop on the floor.
I quickly got up to shut the bedroom door and drew the curtains across the balcony window. I came back and felt the heat radiating from the laptop as though it could sense the sexual tension in the room.
Uncertain, I listened to my hormones and morals battling it out with each other whether I loved or hated his royal blue, low rise, sheer mesh designer briefs that left almost nothing to the imagination. Conscience-stricken for having given into my de(ep) sire, I agreed to having Skype sex with Jay as a penance. I took off the salwar suit I had worn to the pub last night, but left the bra and the panty on.
Jay’s tongue slid unconsciously over his lips as he saw the little heart pendant around my neck, slide down the inviting crevice of my cleavage. Realizing that I was feeling conscious of the webcam, Jay told me to shut my eyes and relax. I did as he said even though I was far from being relaxed.
‘Visualize that I am massaging your shoulders like I always do,’ he said in a seductive voice, ‘and my fingers accidentally brush over the swell of your breasts.’
I found myself arching my back so that my breasts were pushed forward and my thick brown nipples poked at the delicate fabric that was trying desperately to hold together my modesty.
‘Now imagine that you are enclosed in my arms and I am blowing warm kisses in your earlobes, nibbling and working my way up to the top of your ear,’ he said huskily.
All of a sudden, I was reminded of last night, when I had pictured this very same setting and leaned towards Deep to kiss him. Disturbed by my own reckless behaviour, I opened my eyes.
The heartburn had become better after a few gulps of cold milk, but I could sense a new queasiness developing in the pit of my stomach. I knew I had to do what was right.
‘Jay, I have something to tell you,’ I said softly.
‘I am licking your breasts now and you are melting in my arms,’ he whispered, moving his tongue in a circular motion and continuing to fantasize.
‘The guerrilla guy whom my dad wanted me to marry is my boss,’ I said a little more loudly, somehow controlling the excitement that was threatening to rip me apart.
This time Jay stopped the licking action midway.
‘I am really sorry, Jay,’ I apologized.
‘That’s unfair. That arranged sui
tor gets you to work under him and kiss his ass while I have to make do with cyber sex,’ he said slyly.
I was so wrapped up in my remorse that his pun was lost on me. ‘I didn’t mean to do it. I was too drunk,’ I mumbled, almost crying, scared that I would lose him forever.
‘Hold on, hon,’ said Jay, rolling his eyes, feeling somewhat irritated at the interruption. ‘What exactly happened? Did you go to bed with him?’
‘Heavens, no!’ How could Jay even contemplate something like this? Sitting on Tanu di’s bed in my undergarments, I truthfully recounted the highlights of the kiss-n-dump episode, where I had kissed Deep and he had dumped me, and its repeat telecast at the girls’ night out yesterday.
‘Cool,’ said Jay.
‘Cool? Aren’t you angry?’ I asked baffled by his phlegmatic attitude.
‘No. I am actually quite turned on,’ he said with a salacious grin.
I too baffled to react! Should I have been relieved that Jay was indifferent about, or should I say aroused by, me kissing another guy or I should I have been worried that my kissing another guy did not upset him.
‘So you still love me?’ I asked incredulously.
‘I never stopped, baby,’ he said, getting hornier by the minute.
‘But you should be angry,’ I insisted, concerned that he may take this incident as a carte blanche to kiss other girls, especially Denise.
‘Just don’t make a habit of this,’ he warned playfully, ‘or you will have to pay for it.’ He was sexily sucking on his middle finger to keep the mood going.
Sometimes we end up encouraging what we know is wrong. Chalta hai, we tell ourselves. If you have ever been caught for talking on your mobile phone while driving and then bribed the traffic police guy or offered chai-paani to the address verification officer so he would expedite your passport processing, you would know what I mean. Tanu di would perhaps have warned me against Jay’s casual disposition but I decided to let the matter rest.
I could hear the aching desire for me in his voice. Absolved of my kis-sins, I responded by cooing, ‘Arrest me officer. I have been naughty.’
Arranged Love Page 11
