Malaal Ongoing G

Malaal- Chapter 15

Published On Tuesday,Aug 11, 2020 18:01 PM GMT-06:00

CHAPTER 15:

Rashi was putting makeup on her dark circles, and her deliberate dark smoky eye makeup also helped hiding these stains of her past living under her eyes.

She picked her phone and called one of the only people she ever called everyday.

“Ishan, I’m going to the Getaway, want to join?”, she asked him.

“Not today Rashi, I’m a bit busy you know.”, he replied. Rashi smiled and shook her head.

“Yeah, treat the girl right.”, she said and laughed.

“Oh yeah I would, bye!”, Ishan said excitedly and cut the call.

Rashi smiled, sadness managed to creep in. It was that hour of the day when she would be the real her. When she would dance until she cried, drink until she got unconscious, only to be brought to her home by Ishan. She straightened her black dress, looked at herself in the mirror and walked out of her huge room. It had been almost two and a half years since she had smiled her real smile. Much had changed. She quietly walked in the hall of her beautiful house, whose interiors matched her soul pretty well. Modern ideas forcefully embedded in vintage colours. Bright chandeliers hanging in dark interiors. The silence making huge noises. Rich and lonely. Like her. The steady tik tok of her heels were narrating the stories of these years. How Rashi Shah became THE Rashi Shah of fashion circles, how she dressed up young models, seeing a nervousness in them, which she had long lost herself. The excitement in the eyes of leading fashion designers when they greeted her at parties, and the casual hookups with men that were a little too lucky. Little did the lucky men know, that she wasn’t touching them, she was instead looking for a familiar touch, of a familiar man, in every man’s touch. That she wasn’t give the place of Jigar to any man, but waiting for any man to become Jigar. Which they couldn’t. Because they weren’t the man she had loved.

“Gaayu, I am leaving.”, she said loudly so that one of her househelps, and the best of them, Gaayu, would listen.

“Okay Rashi Di.”, she replied.

Rashi kept on smiling. That’s what she would always do till she would reach the bar. Because the time taken in getting to the bar was the only time that she left herself idol and conscious. At every other hour, she would be either working like crazy or intoxicated enough to avoid the pain that was always there.

She drank carefully because she had to go home by herself. A cute stranger approached her.

“Hey lady, how you doing?”, he asked. Rashi smiled.

“He’s one of those over enthusiastic young guys looking for some action. Let’s tease him.”, she thought to herself.

Rashi held the collar of his black jacket and pulled his face towards her.

“I’m doing fine. You may make it better though, isn’t it?”, she asked seductively. Although she was heavily drunk, it was nowhere close to her routine. The guy smiled as if he had hit a lottery.

“That’s probably the first time a girl has talked to him like that.”, Rashi thought and laughed internally. She wished she had Ishan around for a high five.

“Let’s go to my place.”, the guy said impatiently, trying hard to keep his flirting skills up. Rashi nodded and pulled him up. She leaned on him as he walked her out of the bar, imagining his night ahead. His car was parked just outside. Just when he was about to open the door, Rashi pinned him slowly to his car.

“I have to tell you something darling.”, Rashi whispered in his ear. The guy shivered, he was completely turned on by now.

“What is it?”, he asked, anticipating some wild fantasy that he might have to fulfill today.

“I..”, she whispered.

The guy nodded in anticipation.

“Am..”, she continued.

“Yeah?”, the guy asked, excited.

“On my period.”, Rashi said and smiled.

The guy’s face was worth watching. His mouth dropped open as he clenched his fists. He face felt like a little child who had just been pranked. He felt like banging his head on his car bonnet.

“You-“, he was about to say.

“Bye darling.”, Rashi replied and slowly pushed him inside his car. She waved her hand slowly as he drove off, and laughed to herself. Her body was a bit off balance.

She turned her head smiling when she saw them.

Everything inside her came down in one moment. Everything she had buried came back at her from the dead. Each waterfall of a tear that didn’t fall wanted to break all dams suddenly.

She didn’t say a word to the two women standing in front of her. It seemed that nothing in them had changed even a bit. One bright face, light makeup and a humble vibe. Other dark eyes, a certain confidence, a dark saree and an intriguing interfering vibe of dominance.

“Rashi.”, both women’s voices choked as they saw her, looking at her distraught face, her uneven stance, her proximity to a stranger man and a new, dark confidence in her eyes.

The alcohol helped Rashi get to talk without showing that she was suddenly weak. That she felt like crying. That she felt that everything that she had put in, in leaving behind her past, was going to waste.

“Hey what’s up ladies?, she said.

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