Chapter 5

twerping

@twerping

The dreams that came at night to the residents of Mayur Vihar told their own stories. Almost a week had passed since the Bhallas had come over for dinner. 

Ishita was walking along the beach. The sand was warm and the sea stretched at her side, a shimmering mass of silvery light. The sound of laughter and murmuring voices of the crowd mingled with the crashing of the waves. She breathed in the smell of the sea, absorbed the warmth of the sun on her skin and felt she was home. The sand slipped inside her sandle and she let the rough grains rub against her feet. 

A few short steps brought her to the retreating waves and she watched as the water washed off the sand sticking to her feet. With the warm water dancing around her toes, she skirted around the edges of the waves. As she walked, the waves seemed to come towards her more and more until she was wading through knee-deep water. The sea was still glimmering before her but the sound of the crowds no longer reached her ears. The only sound around her was that of the sea. She felt a tendril of something akin to fear creep inside her. Despite her mind telling her to walk away from there, she took a few more unwilling steps. With a rising ominous sense of a fatality awaiting her, she moved forward. And then a huge wave descended upon her.

She felt no surprise. As the water hit her, she knew that it had come for her. She waited for the retreating wave to carry her along. This was her end. This was her destiny. But instead of the water, she felt a pair of hands emerge out of the waves and embrace her. It seemed to pull her out of the foamy sea and she opened her eyes in shock and found herself staring into a pair of eyes. 

The eyes held a glitter that spelt danger and cruelty, pain and anguish-- darkness of the sort that wouldn't go away with a good night's rest. It was like looking into the eyes of a monster that could consume you-- flesh, blood and bones. 

Ishita woke up gasping, the eyes still burning into her mind. Subbu's low snores filled the silence of the room. She turned towards her husband's sleeping form. Those eyes had been haunting her in her dreams for a few days now. Each time she woke up from these nightmares, she would be left with a feeling that if she only tried a little harder, she would know whose eyes she had dreamt of. Once again, that night sleep eluded Ishita as she lay beneath her blanket, hugging herself.

***************

Raman sipped on his coffee. The laptop stood awaiting his attention on the table. His fingers tightened around the mug as he tried to shut out the unruly thoughts invading his mind.

The warmth of her in his arms.

The drops of moisture that clung so decadently to her neck.

The startled eyes.

He took another furious sip from the mug.

The smell of lavender and jasmine that had announced her arrival.

The wet strands of hair escaping from her towel inviting his fingers to play with them.

Her teeth biting into a pair of quivering lips, as she stifled her gasp of shock. 

An image of himself capturing those lips in his own, replacing her bites with his own, arose in his mind, unsolicited, unwelcome.

Raman strode off to the window. It had been seven days since that infernal dinner at the Iyers. Seven hellish days of a mounting struggle against this impossible desire for that woman. Seven days of battling with his own mind that refused to bend to his will. Seven days of being bombarded by her presence every which way he turned.

Ruhi was the centre of his universe. But his daughter was not helping him with her incessant chatter of Ishita aunty's hundred and one exploits. His mother, the incurable gossip, was not helping with her penchant to talk about Mrs. Iyer's 'bahu'. But most importantly, his own mind had turned traitor. 

He turned to look at his laptop. Work awaited him. Work that needed his immediate and undivided attention. 

Raman set his mug down with a thump. He needed to cure himself of this. He knew exactly what it was. Lust. Had it been any other woman, married or not, he would have had her by now. Had her and then forgotten her. Like his each and every affair since Shagun's departure from his life, it would have been to the point and brief. 

It wasn't Ishita Iyer being married that was preventing him from acting upon his desires. Raman by now knew the truth about marital ties and their so-called sanctity. Marriage was just a sham to hide the truth which was that women used it to benefit themselves and when they found you had nothing more to offer, they left you picking up the pieces of your life as they went off in search of greener pastures. And the number of married women who had thrown themselves at Raman Kumar Bhalla since his rise to success simply proved him right. It certainly didn't make a difference whether Ishita Iyer was married or not.

But she was his neighbour. Her mother-in-law was a friend of his mother. He had fought against his mind this long only for this. But now it had started to affect his work. And that would not be tolerated. He needed to do something about it. Nothing was more important than his work. He would get that Ishita Iyer somehow. Raman tried to stifle the sheer excitement that coursed through his mind at the thought of her on his bed, her hair free from that damned towel and spread across his sheets. Yes, by this time next week, he will no longer be plagued by thoughts of that woman. All he needed to do now was to get her alone and make her an offer she couldn't refuse.

In his eagerness to prove to himself that Shagun's loss had been an insignificant footnote in his life, Raman had indulged in unrestrained desires. It was that very lack of restraint which had now come back to bite him. Raman like every other person with a bad habit had suddenly come to realise this in a vague manner but also like every other person with a bad habit was full of excuses to lessen the implications of his current situation with what he thought of as cool reason and a perfect solution.