by Ananth
She opened the door and stepped in.
‘Hi.’
‘Should we sit on the sofa?’
‘Sure.’
She continued standing there, as I picked up the contact sheets, walked past her and dropped them on the coffee table. I asked her if she’d like a drink.
‘What do you have?’
‘Okay, this is not a bar.’ I turned to smile at her. ‘I have a bottle of rum and some vodka. CD’s office is likely to have whiskey. And there’s ice in the fridge.’
‘Okay, I think I’ll have whiskey. Can I bring it here?’ she asked.
‘Of course. You know CD’s office, right? He keeps the bottles on the mantle on the left.’
Just as she was about to step out, I called out to her. ‘Cara.’
‘Yes,’ she replied, turning back.
I stood there staring at her, not sure if I wanted to ask her about last night, looking instead for any sign of familiarity that might indicate something.
‘Sid?’
I smiled. ‘Nothing. Sorry.’
She smiled back and blew me a kiss as she stepped out, pulling the door shut behind her. I opened the door and looked around to check how many people were left in the office. It seemed quieter than before and I noticed that there was only one person in the crew room.
Cara came back with a bottle of Jim Beam and headed for the bar. She had also brought ice. She poured herself a large drink on the rocks and some rum for me, and turned around to ask what I’d like it with.
‘There’s Coke on the table,’ I replied, organizing the pictures in the order in which I wanted us to go over them, so she could get a sense of what I had in mind.
She brought the drinks and sat down next to me.
‘So?’
I turned to her. The perfume she was wearing was subtle but lovely.
I couldn’t help it any longer. ‘What are we doing? You, what are you doing?’
‘Looking at the pictures?’ she replied, looking straight into my eyes. Her lips curved in a naughty smile, and I felt her hand on my thigh.
‘Cara.’
‘Yes.’
As I leaned towards her to kiss her, there was a knock on the door and the night guard walked in with the pizzas. I got up hastily, took them from him and paid him, trying to gauge from his expression if he had noticed anything unusual at all, but he seemed sufficiently blank. Thank God! I had to stop myself from pushing him out. I rushed back to her side and, holding her by the shoulder, hauled her into my arms. I kissed her with a need that was primeval, like it was the only thing to do with her, her body.
As our lips moved over each other’s, I opened my eyes and looked at her, noticing the curve of her ear, and the soft, light hairs on them, her long, natural eyelashes and the crooked line of her eyeliner. I closed my eyes again, and lost myself in the feel of her lips on mine, and the heady taste of her mouth and tongue. She was almost always warm, warmer than the normal human body. Well, she is hot! I smiled. My lips must have moved involuntarily, because she immediately noticed my distraction and pulled back from the kiss.
‘What are you thinking?’ she asked with a twinkle in her eye.
‘Nothing.’
‘Should we see the pictures?’ she asked.
‘That’s it? One minute we are kissing and the next we sit down and edit pictures?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Isn’t foreplay more sexual than sex itself sometimes? Let’s sit at your desk, just in case the SWAT team at the door walks in again,’ she continued, mocking the overenthusiastic security guard.
I took the contact sheets back to my desk and laid them out. She used that moment to leave the room mysteriously and came back in about five, or maybe three minutes.
‘Okay, he’s not coming back in for a while,’ she said.
‘WHAT did you do?’ I asked, genuinely surprised. ‘I told him we have a conference call with someone in America and didn’t want to be disturbed.’
‘Hmm. Okay, let’s do this. And thank you.’
‘You’re welcome,’ she replied, and came around the table to stand barely an inch away from me and peered over my shoulder.
‘Do you want to pull up a chair?’ I asked. ‘We have a lot to see.’
‘Actually,’ she began and, squeezing herself between the table and me, sat on my lap with her back to me.
‘Cara!’
‘What?’
Whatever I’d meant to say fled my mind. Having her in my lap, her full body leaning against mine, smelling as wonderful as she did, I couldn’t help but lean forward and take a whiff of her, not just the perfume she was wearing.
‘You are heavy for someone so . . . lithe,’ I said, my hands on her thighs.
She giggled. ‘Lithe? My boobs are my secret weapon; they’re what’s heavy. Feel them?’
Instantly, as if her mind were controlling me, my hands moved up her body to her breasts, bringing back memories of last night. I slowly massaged her breasts as she leaned back into me, arching her back, firmly pushing her boobs into my hands. My fingers found her nipples through her dress and I began pinching and rubbing them as they turned hard. She put her left hand over mine and kneaded her breasts harder and with her right guided my other hand down her body to between her legs, spreading them to make room for me. I pulled up her dress – not that it needed much pulling – and slid my hand inside her panties. She moaned, leaning further back into me and, lifting her legs, planted her feet on the edge of the table. When I found her clit, she held my hand in place, firmly pressing my fingers deeper into her.
‘Love that!’
I began rubbing her slowly with my middle finger.
‘Mmm. Oh! Make me come. Yes.’
I began moving my finger in a tight circle.
‘Aah, aah,’ she moaned, and just when I thought she was being recklessly loud, she brought my left hand to her mouth and bit my palm.
I shut my eyes both from the sudden pain and from feeling her wet cunt around my fingers as I pushed two of them in, finger fucking her, moving them in and out rapidly. I pushed them in deeper, finding the rough texture of her G-spot and began to tickle her, slowly at first, and then faster, harder, until I felt her body go tense and push back into me just before she climaxed.
She lay on me like that I held her tightly, waiting for her body to calm down. Eventually her weight on my hard cock began to hurt and I squirmed to relieve some of the pressure. She turned and we kissed and then, pulling back, she gave me a small peck on my cheek.
‘Thank you. I am going to return this favour,’ she said and flashed one of her million-dollar smiles, while stroking my stiff cock through my jeans.
‘I can’t wait,’ I replied.
‘I need to go to the loo.’ She stood up, pulled her panties into place and then yanked her dress down from around her waist, patted it smooth and walked away.
When I got up from the chair, my back hurt from having to balance her while holding the chair firmly in place with my feet. I stretched a bit and walked over to the bar and poured myself another drink. I felt a momentary pang of guilt when I realized that we hadn’t seen the pictures after all. Instead, we had made love again, once more without the usual preliminaries. I wasn’t sure how I was meant to react to that. Obviously, I knew I was incredibly lucky but at some point I had to talk to her about this. She walked back into the room looking fresh. She had brushed her hair and reapplied lipstick.
‘I am hungry.’
‘Yeah, we almost forgot the pizza.’
She brought the pizzas over to the table and we sat down to eat. There were two boxes. One was my favourite Meatzza, and the other a simple Margherita.
‘This one’s for you,’ she said, pushing the one with the meat towards me.
‘Why, won’t you—?’
‘I am vegetarian,’ she explained. ‘This is what happens when you decide to make out with me without even asking me out, or having a proper conversation with me.’ And then she winked.
&nb
sp; ‘C’mon, Cara!’
‘No, think about it. There are guys I have gone out with who haven’t as much as got to kiss me. You, you are the lucky one!’
I had picked up a slice and was about to take a bite, but hearing her say that my hand just hung in mid-air. I didn’t know what to say; I stared at her blankly.
‘But . . .’
She laughed. ‘Sid! I am kidding. When we have to talk about this, we will. For now let’s eat, I am famished.’
And she smiled again.
There are a million reasons one might fall in love, but if I did, with her – if I did – it’d probably be because of the way she smiled. I returned her smile and popped the slice into my mouth. She began wolfing her pizza down too.
‘Is it nice?’ I asked.
‘I’ve had more delicious things in my mouth,’ she replied, and began laughing again.
‘You are incorrigible!’ I said, nearly choking, my mouth full.
An hour later we shut the office and headed home.
‘You didn’t really want to see the pictures. You went through them in a flash and quickly deleted some,’ I began as we walked towards the parking lot, a tad annoyed that she hadn’t run them past me or even discussed what she’d done.
‘No I did, but it is just impossible to work with you standing around looking at me,’ she replied. ‘I believe every word I said in the meeting, by the way. Show them the colour, go traditional and keep the girl. Pout or not. And that’s what I did. Your work is not too difficult to edit because this is stock work and you knew what you wanted when you shot these pictures. I tried as much as possible to keep to the brief.’
‘Okay. Can I look through this again in the morning then?’
‘Of course, though you needn’t. It’s not the kind of work that will carry your personal credit; it’s going to say Alpha. Learn to take a step away from your work sometimes.’
I looked at her, head cocked to one side, wondering if that was something I wanted to hear from an intern, and then reconsidered what she had said.
When we reached my car she went around and got into the passenger seat. I buckled myself in and drove out of the lot. For a while I was quiet, as was she, engrossed in her smartphone. When we stopped at the first intersection, I took that moment to turn and look at her.
Cara. Beautiful, divine, intelligent, young, sex goddess, funny even. And I began to wonder again, for the nth time, what was she doing in my life? And where had she been all this while?
8
When I walked into the office the following morning, later than usual, everyone seemed quite busy already. As I sat down at my desk I noticed the Post-it on my monitor.
Client meeting at 3
I called Aanya to find out whom it was with.
‘Your insurance shoot,’ she replied.
Shit! I hadn’t seen Cara’s edit yet. I walked over to the crew room to check the photos. Kunal wasn’t in and Aman, who usually sits next to him, said, ‘Cara was here in the morning, she’s approved the final cut and the images are ready. I believe the client is coming in at three.’
I was surprised, but didn’t show it. ‘Okay.’
When I stepped back into my room the empty pizza boxes sticking out of the bin reminded me of last night’s activities and involuntarily I looked down at my fingers; they’d loved where they had been. But I couldn’t linger on such pleasurable thoughts as the computer screen popped up with a calendar reminder about the GoaFest planning meeting at four.
Somebody else will have to sit in with the client then, I thought.
The GoaFest always reminded me of Nat, because it was at one of its editions that I had first met her. I called Nat and asked her if she wanted to grab a bite and she said yes immediately. We went to our favourite Tibetan restaurant.
Sitting across from her while she read the menu even though she knew it by heart, I remembered that day. CD and I had just signed on the dotted line and it was important that I be in Goa to touch base with everyone I knew, introduce Alpha and sign up some long-term projects. That year the festival was at Fort Aguada. I was hanging around at the back near the bar during the opening event because the two emcees on the stage were loud, driving everyone nuts, or at least me. CD was lost somewhere in the crowd and I had come away to get myself a much-needed refill. I turned around, drink in hand, and was scanning the crowd when this guy I knew from Ogilvy came over with Natasha. She was wearing a flowing off-the-shoulder cotton dress and looked very pretty.
‘Hey, Sid, how are you, man?’ he yelled. ‘Meet Natasha, she’s with JWT,’ and, leaning over, he whispered, ‘and is looking to move.’
‘What’s wrong with you, Ram?!’ she objected. ‘Hi,’ she half smiled at me.
‘Hi!’
‘So what’s happening with you?’
‘Nothing, Ram. I just broke out and started my own stock photos stroke ideas agency. It’s called Alpha.’
‘Yeah, I know, I heard,’ and he clinked his glass against mine. ‘Cheers!’
‘Congratulations,’ Natasha added.
‘Thanks! I’m looking for work now. My numbers are the same, we should talk,’ I told him, and smiled at her.
‘Of course, anything for you, my friend!’ he said and that reminded me why I hadn’t stayed in touch with him. I hated people who kept saying ‘my friend’, real friends don’t do that. Fortunately for me someone hollered his name and he slipped back into the crowd, leaving me alone with Natasha.
I smiled uncomfortably, wondering what to say.
‘It’s okay, Sid,’ she laughed gently. ‘You don’t have to be polite with me. If you came here to be alone I’ll go find somebody else to hang out with. I’m sorry we barged in on you like this. You know Ram!’
‘Actually, because you said that, I want to be nice to you and if I may, I like you already,’ I said, with complete candour.
It was her turn to smile.
‘I like that we can hear the sea,’ she spoke again after a brief pause.
‘Yeah, I love coming here. It’s the best place in the world for a late evening walk.’
She nodded.
‘Are you guys showing any work here?’ I asked, genuinely curious.
‘Yes, of course, and we might win too. Have you heard of Ms Moonshine?’ she asked.
‘It doesn’t ring a bell, but tell me.’
‘You haven’t heard of Chandramukhi Chaurasia?’
‘Of course! Who hasn’t!’ I had heard that name before but wasn’t sure about the connection.
‘Right, so that’s Ms Moonshine. Everyone hates her.’
‘And why is that? What does she do?’
‘Well at the moment she is the chairperson and that means she can throw her weight around at JWT, and, most important, walk up and collect any award on our behalf. Have you seen her? Or met her?’
‘No.’
‘She’s around, let’s go find her,’ and, pointing her glass in the direction she was going to take, asked if I was coming. I said yes.
Drinks in hand, we wove our way slowly through the crowd, past the swimming pool and into the lawn with the mock chessboard.
‘There she is,’ Nat pointed out.
Standing amongst a group of men, dressed in jeans, a red checkered shirt and boots, looking unfashionably burlesque, was a short and – no other way to say this – fat woman with salt-and-pepper hair worn in a severe military cut. THE Chandramukhi Chaurasia. She had a peculiar way of using both her hands while talking, waving them around in the air like she was conducting music.
‘That’s some woman,’ I said, turning towards Nat.
‘Yes. And have you noticed her hands are empty? That’s coz one of the men in that group will follow her all night carrying her drink for her, usually a large twelve-year-old Macallan on the rocks.’
‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’
‘No, really.’
We stood there trying to figure out which man it was but it was difficult because almost everyone had
a drink in their hands, until Natasha found this one guy, standing a few feet behind Ms Moonshine with two glasses. It was obvious his right hand was frozen stiff from holding her drink while he was using his left hand to gingerly sip his own. We both laughed.
‘You know there are so many stories about her. She is married to a good man, who comes to the annual office parties, is very polite to everyone . . . overall Mr Nice Guy. But the way she treats him is just sad, making him fetch drinks and hand out her visiting cards as if she’s royalty. What’s funny is she always dresses in this jeans-and-shirt routine,’ Natasha said, pointing to Chandramukhi again. ‘The woman is a tartar, will pick up the phone when she sees an ad she doesn’t like and call the creative director – and this could be anyone in any agency – and give them an earful. She was asked if she wanted to sign off on the million-dollar plus accounts, and she gave them an earful saying it was not her job. She yells at new kids, reducing them to tears right there in front of the whole office – it’s sport for her.
‘And the joke is that when she summons the guys, they usually say, time to pull the pants down and bend over!’
Natasha went on in this vein, and I kept looking at her. We were standing near a coconut palm which had garden lights at its base and her long, dark hair was backlit by the glow. She was talking animatedly and laughing in between her own anecdotes; clearly Chandramukhi provided plenty of entertainment to everyone in JWT. Natasha was an extremely attractive woman, full bodied (there I go again – you might think I am sizeist, but it doesn’t matter, I mean size does matter in my case!) and about as tall as me, if I could be called tall. Just about. Which, for that evening, I attributed to the heels she was wearing. I noticed the rock on her finger. Married? Engaged? Or, dare I hope, single? (Can one tell that just by looking at someone?) She leaned towards me often, touching my forearm or elbow when making a point or sharing a particularly funny moment. What I liked most about her was the fact that she was incredibly pleasant and spoke in a voice that could never be confrontational.
‘Isn’t that funny?’ she said.
I hadn’t heard a word of what she had said.
