So here are the new part. I am sorry the nxt chapter has some parts that are not meant for kids. So if you aren't 18 don't read this. I am aware of the rules of the forum but this is very imp for the story. Sorry if I hurt anyone by this
Chapter 2 : what the hell
The atmosphere in the club is so much more laid back than in Mumbai. The music is blaring and people are there more to feel the music pulse through them and feel the sexual charge of the atmosphere, rather than see who the biggest celebrity in the room is. It doesn't take long before I'm on my fourth shot of Patron, just watching the dance floor. No one sees me here, I'm not hunted, and I feel completely free with the music pulsing through me. Almost everyone on the dance floor is either paired up or in a group, but I see one woman dancing alone. She's wearing black skinny jeans and a long sleeved black shirt with a big neck on it. Her eyes are closed and she's sensuously running her hands up and down her body, moving at a slower, more grinding, charged rhythm than the other dancers on the floor.
It feels great to watch, and not be watched. This woman is completely lost in herself, and the music. She's so unaware of her surroundings, just moving with the music, not putting on a show for anyone. I feel like I'm watching something personal, but mind blowing at the same time. I knew something that intense couldn't be left alone on the dance floor for long, and not 30 seconds later, a couple of guys completely invade her personal space and start rubbing their hands up and down her body with her. One was in front of her while the other was behind. She pushes them away but they don't take the hint. I get up and hastily move over there to get their hands off the sensual angel, but mid way there, her moves turn from slow and grinding to quick and sharp. She punches one of them in the throat and with the same arm, thrusts her elbow into the nose of the other guy. They both stumble back and before they even hit the ground, she's back to dancing.
"Are you alright?" I ask as I approach her. She just smiles without opening her eyes.
"Yes, thank you for asking." she says sweetly. Her voice is like ringing bells.
Shit. . She is the sexiest thing I've ever seen or heard. I can see her nose scrunching up minutely and repeatedly, almost like she's trying to keep a ferocious animal caged.
"Are you going to stay there all night?" she asks with her eyes still closed.
If I could, I would.
"Only if it's alright with you" I say slowly.
"Yes" she whispers, barely audible through clenched teeth. Oh God.
"I would like that very much" I reply with the same voice. How this woman has seduced me from across the room, I'll never know. I notice with a very small portion of my brain that the two nuggets from before have scurried away someplace else, which pleases me immensely. I place my hands on her hips and bring her closer to me. With her eyes still closed, a smile spreads across her face, and she puts her hands on my hips. Dancing with this woman is quite simply the hottest thing I've done with clothes on. In a club designed to spin everyone up into the human version of the National Geographic Channel, she maintains the pace she chooses, and it's anything but quick. She uses every part of her body to produce her hypnotic dance and leads me into her rhythm. She puts her hands on my shoulders and deepens her slow grind. Never in my life have I felt this connected to a person. She's pulling me in to her world where she can block out the atmosphere of the club, and she's doing it with her eyes closed.
"Can you feel that?" she asks and finally opens her eyes.
Brown. Fire.
It's all I can see. With how she was moving, I'd thought she was wasted, but it's a pure lustful fire. No sparks in her that tells me she recognize me, no glazed Bollywood wasted look, just pure passion. I can't speak so I nod in response to her question. She in response moves her hands to my back. She doesn't press herself into me, but rather touches me greedily with the same intense burn that is occupying the rest of her body.
"I feel like I'm being pulled towards you. My fingers want to dig into you and my palms want to feel you. My tongue wants your neck and my teeth want your shoulder. It's strange; I've never felt this before. What are you doing to me?"
You would think living in the limelight; I knew what seduction was'I was dead wrong. This woman was fully clothed and seriously driving me crazy. She starts breathing heavier with her mouth parted slightly. I can see her lower jaw and tongue quivering. She closes her eyes, falling into her abyss once more. "I watched you while you danced you know, you're here but you're not. Where are you?" I asked since she was being honest with me, my voice dripping of desire, just as her voice is.
"Where it doesn't hurt anymore; where I can stand it when they look at me." She almost moaned; every pulse of her body, bringing her lips closer to my neck.
Want her. Want her. Want her.
My mind was being reduced to two word sentences. I knew very well what it was like to not want people to look at you, and oh how I wanted her to show me that place. "Can you show me that place?" I asked while threading my hands in her hair, needing someway to be closer to her.
Her head relaxed into my grip and her eyes met mine "Only if you're willing to take it. I can show you, but you have to want to take it." She leaned her lips up to mine'and I took them. Just like our dance, the kiss was slow and grinding, and it tasted like heaven. I got lost in a haze or lips, tongue, and breath. She broke the kiss and true to her wants, she licked my neck.
"I want the rest of it" she hissed in my ear as I wrapped my arm around her waist.
"Come home with me." I said less a question and more as a suggestion as to how she could get the rest of it, willing her with whatever persuasive methods I had at my disposal. In my lust filled haze, I could think of nothing else.
"Yes" she moaned in my ear. I took her hand, went over to the bar to settle my tab, threw a thousand rupee note at the bartender for my tab, and whatever she had on hers. I hailed a taxi outside the club and told him the address. She kept up the same dance as she had before, the music clearly in her head. I kissed her and felt myself being pulled into her strange mental zone that was capable of shutting the outside world out.
My perception of time ceased when her lips met mine so it surprised me when the cabbie told me we had arrived. I threw another hundred at him, not wanting to bother with any sort of math for a tip at the moment. It was all I could to do pull myself away from this woman to get in my door, but somehow we managed. Seeing her in the light of my home made me realize that she was even more beautiful than I had previously thought. She had on heavy eye makeup but she seemed soft'pliable. Her soft ivory skin glowed in the light.
"What's your name?" I asked around our slow kisses.
"Does it matter?" she asked in a whisper.
"It does to me" I told her honestly. Bringing home a random chick from a club was so not my style.
"Meera" she told me without stopping her assault on my neck.
"Armaan" I replied in kind.
"Armaan?" she asked.
"Yes?"
Four hours later, we were both spent. I laid with her in my arms, smelling her strawberry scented hair, drifting off to sleep.
Beep-Beep-Beep Beep-Beep-Beep Beep-Beep-Beep
The alarm on my cell phone woke me up. I scrambled to turn it off before it woke Meera up. I looked around my surroundings and found that Meera was still here, and was still beautiful. I had no idea what I was going to do with her now. I had to get ready to report to the crime lab, but I didn't want her to think I was trying to get rid of her.
"Meera" I nudged her softly. She didn't respond. "Meera" I spoke again while kissing her neck.
"Mmmmm" she grumbled still asleep, clearly tired from our late night.
"I have to get ready to go but can I see you later?" I whispered into her ear.
"Mmmmm" she grumbled again and turned away from me. I chuckled at her attempt to get more sleep.
"Alright then, how about you just sleep while I grab a shower and we'll talk when I get out." I said and she just hummed in acknowledgement. I chuckled a little more, watching her hide from the waking world. I didn't hurry through my shower, giving Meera more time to sleep, and let the warm water relieve some of the soreness acquired from our night of passion. After the shower, I shaved, brushed my teeth and got dressed in my 'make a good first impression suit'. When I returned to my bedroom, the bed was empty.
"Meera?" I called out'nothing. I checked my living room, kitchen, and everyplace else in the house.
She was gone.
Shit
The woman who had shown me the most amazing night of my life was gone. I looked for a note but found none. I even checked under the bed, hoping that perhaps it just fell from where she would have put it. Giving up wasn't something I was accustomed to but I didn't know what else to do. I took out the directions to the crime lab, put them in my pocket and left for the day. What had been a wonderful morning, had taken a drastic turn and I found myself wanting what I couldn't have.
Meera
I got to the lab where I was greeted by a mid-twenties looking woman at the front desk'who recognized me.
"Armaan Malik?" she asked me incredulously. It seems my trip into anonymous land was short lived.
"Yes but we're trying to keep that a secret" I said flashing her my "dimpled" smile.
"Oh'ummm, of course" she flustered. This was a response I was used to.
"Could you please tell" I checked the name on the information I had been given "Inspector Shashank Gupta, that I'm here to meet him?"
"Sure" she said with a little more composure. She picked up the phone. "Yeah? Ummm, Armaan Malik is here to see you." She nodded her head "Okay, I'll bring him right back." She hung up the phone and stood up. "It seems he's expecting you." She said flustered again. I hope the rest of the people here aren't as star struck as this lady is. I didn't ask her name, I just wanted to get away from her. I walked behind her, through a myriad of rooms with all sorts of technical equipment in them. As I walked by, the number of people stopping what they were doing to stare at me increased. We walked past another receptionist who also stared, so I was relieved when I got to the office door that said "Inspector Gupta". The receptionist knocked and a muffled "Come in" was heard from the other side. The lady opened the door and followed me inside. The office wasn't huge but there was enough room for a row of book shelves, a couple of chairs across from his desk, and a couch off to the side. It defiantly had a modern look to it, just like the rest of the place. There was a man at the desk who was reading something, but he looked up when the receptionist cleared her throat.
He smiled and stood up, but it was a real smile, not that of someone who was star struck. "Hello, I'm Shashank Gupta, good to meet you son." He said casually. He was a little taller than me with dark skin, and lean body. He looked like the quintessential cop. He walked over to me and offered his hand for a shake just moustache less. It wasn't fake, just normal strength.
"It's a pleasure to be here sir. I hope I won't get in your way too much, thank you for making time for this project." I said honestly.
"Oh, you won't be in my way." He smiled back. "How about I give you the tour while we wait for your mentor to get here?" He suggested, I agreed. The lab was in the same building as police headquarters so they shared a gym and locker rooms. He showed me the cafeteria, the ballistics and tool marking labs, the chemical analysis labs, the morgue, trace evidence areas'the whole place. It was much bigger than I expected. This was the lead lab for the entire north India. There were satellite offices around the state but if they couldn't handle something, it was sent here. When he spoke, it reminded me of my dad. He was very matter of fact and was a good distraction from the stares I was getting from everyone we passed. Suddenly, his phone rang. I was silent as he listened to whoever was on the phone.
"Thank you" he said and turned to me. "Time to get back to my office, she's here." He cringed when he said this.
"Alright" I followed. I wondered if it was a boss of his or something that he didn't want to run into in the hallways. We got back to his office and he motioned that I could sit on the couch off to the side.
"So Mister Malik" he started as he sat down.
"Please, call me Armaan" I asked. The last think I wanted here was formality.
"Sure, so Armaan, what do you do for a hobby?"
"Hobby?" I asked.
"Yes a hobby. What do you do when you need stress relief of some sorts."
"Well I play basket ball and the guitar. I can't go out much without getting swamped by fans, so I have more indoor hobbies than outdoor. Why do you ask?"
"Because son, you're going to need it." He said with an apologetic voice.
"Why?" I asked but was interrupted by a woman's voice in the hall.
"I don't give a shit if he's in there with someone." it yelled out and the door flew open.
Holy shit'Meera.
My angel Meera was barging in Shashank's office and storming over to him. "I got your email. What do you mean when you say I have to take some movie star on as a temporary probie?" she yelled at him. This wasn't anything like the Meera I knew. This was a hostile, vile creature.
No. Way. Of all the people!
"Riddhima calm down." He urged her.
Riddhima? Her name is Riddhima?
"I'll calm down when you tell me what the hell I did to warrant this?" she put her hands on his desk and towered over him.
"You didn't do anything wrong" he said back looking her in the eye and speaking calmly "the production studio is paying us a lot of money for us to train him, and they asked for the best, so I'm giving them you."
Meera'I mean Riddhima, wasn't happy at this. "So let me get this straight" she seethed "some arrogant Bollywood type loser, calls you up and says they want us to babysit some spoiled loser, and teach him how to take his sunglasses on and off while standing around a fake crime scene, and your brilliant idea is to offer up me? If the loser has to be here at all, why not let Kumar or Sharma do it?"
If I hadn't seen her last night, I would absolutely despise her. As of now, I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to do. "Riddhima?" Shashank raised his eyebrows, glanced at me, and then returned his eyes to Riddhima. She glanced at me, and then looked back at Shashank.
"Who the hell is that supposed to be?" she yelled again.
Did she not remember?
"That would be Armaan Malik." He said maintaining his composure.
She looked at me again the looked back at Shashank. "Is that supposed to mean something to me?" she sneered.
"Yes Riddhima, that would be your spoiled smovie star probie." He said calmly.
Oh please no!
"Get lost both of you!" she yelled and stormed out of his office.
I wasn't sure what the hell just happened'but it wasn't good. Shashank scrubbed his hands over his face and then looked at me. "Sorry you had to hear that. She'll calm down pretty quick and then I'll take you over and she'll get you set up."
"Sir? Is there any way I could be assigned to someone else? I don't think I can learn anything from Meera." I prayed to whatever deity out there listened that I wouldn't have to put up with whatever just yelled at us for a whole month.
"How did you know her middle name is Meera?" he asked intently.
Shit, I didn't mean to say that.
"I didn't. I actually met her last night and she called herself Meera." His face grew suddenly concerned.
"You saw her yesterday? When, where?" he was eager for my answer.
"I met her last night at a club not too far from here." I answered, leaving out the part where spent the night with his subordinate. He was thoughtful.
"I wondered where she went." He muttered more to himself. "She didn't recognize you from last night." He said more as a statement.
"No she didn't." I replied back.
"How did she look last night?" he asked. I really didn't want to tell him why she was late this morning.
"She was very relaxed, is the best way I can think to put it." I thought of how she looked on the dance floor. He nodded his head.
"Riddhima had a hard day yesterday and wouldn't let any of us go with her. I didn't hear from her until just now. Now I guess I know how she dealt with it." He said sadly.
"Dealt with what?" I asked trying to piece together how Riddhima ended up as Meera in my bed.
"It's not something we really talk about. Come on, let's go straighten this out." He said getting up from his desk. I followed him through the halls until we were just outside an office. My stomach dropped when I saw it was her office. Shashank didn't knock; he just opened the door and walked in. Riddhima was there at a desk similar to Shshank's, just smaller.
"I'm not doing it Mr.Gupta." She hissed before he even got to her desk.
"Yes you are" he retorted.
"If the lab needs money that bad, why not just dress me up like a wh**e and have me work the corner of"
"RIDDHIMA MEERA GUPTA, ENOUGH!" he yelled back and finally the tyrannical creature flinched.
Gupta? Oh shit'She is Mr.Gupta's daughter.
"Now Riddhima, I know yesterday sucked for you but you're not going to take it out on Armaan. As of now you're on half a case load. I'm having you train him because you have the most certifications and you need a break from all this" she opened her mouth to say something but he held up his hand "I know you don't think so but this will be good experience for you to see if you want to go into teaching."
Her posture deflated and she gave up her fight. "Armaan?" Shashank roused me from my staring of Riddhima "It was good to meet you son, Riddhima will take care of you from here on out. If you have any problems, come see me." He said the last part looking at Riddhima.
And then he left me there'with her.
What a nightmare.
So, is the premise realistic and worth going further in?
Enjoy !!!!
Chapter 3: Not what I thought
And then he left me there'with her.
What a nightmare.
"What the hell are you staring at?" she hissed at me from her desk.
"I'm not quite sure Meera" I sneered back at her. My personal angel had become my personal demon.
"Why I don't know why you would call me that, you don't get to call me by my first name either." I thought briefly about telling her who I was, and how I knew why she was late this morning, but decided against it. I didn't want to give this vile creature in front of me the satisfaction.
"What should I call you then?"
"As far as you're concerned, my name is God. I say jump, you ask how high. If I have to babysit you, I won't have you wrecking evidence. I don't want to have to tell some murder victim's family that their loved ones killer won't be brought to justice because some movie star was disobedient and destroyed crucial evidence because he was learning to pretend to play with it." she hissed.
This is going to be harder than I thought.
"Alright" I conceded.
"Alright what!" she yelled. My posture sagged in the defeat of my predicament.
"Alright God" I muttered.
She rolled her eyes "Whatever. So you need to learn how to look like you work for a living and I need to get Inspector Gupta off my back so" she stood up, turned around, walked to a book shelf on the other side of the room, and pulled off three thick, five inch looking binders and pushed them into me. "Read those and come back when you're done. Now get out, I have real work to do."
Not likely.
"Yeah, my producers aren't paying you for stuff I could have learned in Mumbai, they're paying you to show me what I need to know about Delhi crime scenes. As much as I'd like to never see you again, I'm stuck with you, so drop the act and do your job." I spat back.
"It's not an act, ask anyone here. As for the reading, do you know what a spectrometer or a gas chromatograph is?" she waited for my answer and I didn't have one. "Yeah that's what I thought. You have to read that so when I tell you something, you know what the hell I'm talking about."
Shit, she had me.
"Where am I supposed to go?" I asked trying to retain some amount of dignity.
"I don't care. Now get out before I kick you out."
Ha! I had to laugh at that. I'd been studying various types of martial arts for years. It was one of my indoor hobbies and I had a personal instructor that came to my house to teach me. Rather than engage the sadist known as Riddhima further, I took the massive books and set out to find a corner in the cafeteria to study in.
That was easier said than done.
Person after person interrupted me with the same "Hey you're Armaan Malik" . The ones, who weren't rude enough to interrupt me, still stared at me from across the room. I even tried to study in the locker room before taking my books and just going home. I called Muskaan when I got there.
"Aren't you supposed to be training right now?" she asked surprised at the time of my call.
"You would think that wouldn't you. No, I'm doing the pre-requisite reading, before I can start the training. If I didn't know better, I'd think my mentor was Medusa herself." I lamented. I can defiantly see how she would turn lesser mortals to stone from her gaze alone.
"What happened? I thought you were supposed to be up there shadowing some legendary guy?"
"Yeah that's what I thought too but for whatever reason, Shashank put me with his daughter." I then related the whole tale to her, minus the part where I spent the most amazing night of my life with Meera. It didn't seem to matter to Satan anyway, and it did nothing but confuse me.
"Tough luck bro." Muskaan consoled me. "It's only for a month, right? Then you get to come back and work on the movie with the rest of us. I think the DVD behind the scene extras are going to be of all the pranks Atul is going to try and pull on us." she tried to make me see the positive side of the situation, and it worked. This was going to be the most fun project I've ever worked on. Putting up with Riddhima Gupta for a month was worth it.
"You're right. Hey, I have to get back to my reading. I don't want to give Satan any reasons to yell at me."
"Alright but call if you need to blow off some steam." Muskaan offered and hung up.
I dove into the manuals Satan had given me, and tried not to think of the night Meera had given me. It worked because every time I saw Meera in my mind, Riddhima's face flashed right after it.
I studied for hours about different types of fingerprint brushes and chemicals. Different instruments and machines used to analyze different types of evidence. There were so many different fields in Forensic Science. What you see on CID or CSI is not true. They take the job that 15 different people do, and combine it into one character. As I read more and more of the manuals, I learn what fields I need to learn more about to make my character more believable, and take notes. I'll need to do the actual scene itself of course, but I'll need to learn trace evidence, fingerprinting, and some chemical analysis.
I look up at the clock and realize that it's almost nine in the evening. I've completely missed dinner and I'm feeling it. I make and eat a quick sandwich before I go to bed. I didn't get much sleep last night and I need to be alert and ready for war when I see Satan tomorrow.
"Hello" I greet the receptionist on my way in, whose name I still don't know.
"Good morning Armaan" she says back while batting her eyelashes. I internally laugh at her pathetic attempt at seduction, ignore her, and proceed to Satan's office. I've completed one of the manuals and need to see if there are any others she wants to pile on top of my ridiculous reading load.
"Good morning God" I say as I enter her office without knocking. I know it's rude but if I have to deal with her stuff, she can deal with some of mine.
"There's no way you finished all those in one day." She said pathetically without looking up from what she was doing. It was weird to her not yell about something.
"I finished this one" I plopped one of the three on her desk "and came in to see if there were any other reading assignments you were going to give me." I said in the same tone.
"Put it back on the shelf and finish the other two before you bother me again." she commanded again without looking at me. I did so but couldn't help but antagonize her.
"You know, I don't think you should go into teaching. You couldn't explain snow to an Eskimo." I said sarcastically.
She finally looked up from her computer "And what pray tell do you think I should go into?" she said with'was that a smile tugging at the side of her lips?
"Ummm, human sacrifices?" I reply thinking of the only thing I think she could be good at.
And then against all odds'Satan smiled.
It didn't last long but it was defiantly a smile, and it wasn't a fake smile either. It touched her eyes but her lips remained closed in her effort to suppress it. After a couple of seconds, her fight to suppress the smile won, and her face returned to the mask of Satan.
"Very well, ask me if you have any questions and try not to embarrass yourself when you do." she said returning to her previous apathetic tone. I didn't need any more instruction to know that she wanted me the hell out of there'and I was happy to oblige. I thought of returning home but thought I should at least ask Shashank if they had a spare room around here I could hide in. I went to Shashank's office but his receptionist was nowhere to be found, so I knocked.
"Come in" his voice called out. When I opened the door, he looked up and smiled.
"Armaan, I see you're still alive. What can I do for you?"
"Well sir, I was wondering if you had a place I could study. Satan gave me these huge binders to read but kicked me out of her office. I tried to study in the cafeteria yesterday but kept getting hounded, so I called abort mission and just went home. I figured I'd at least ask you if you had a place to stash me before I just went home again."
"Satan?" he asked.
Oh shit
"Ummm, I mean Riddhima." I corrected myself. He chuckled.
"I guess that title fits her as well as anything. Come on, you can use her office. She's not normally in there anyway." He walked out of his office and I followed him. We got there and true to his word, Satan was not there. I was still carrying the two binders but put them down when I realized what he was doing. He started rearranging her office so that there was room for a small table. He then guided me to a storage room where he pulled out a table that would work for what I needed, and I helped him carry it to Satan's office.
"Now if she gives you any trouble, just tell her that the Inspector said you could stay in here." He pulled rank for me.
"I appreciate it" I told him while putting down my books on my new space. He left me to my studying. A few hours had gone by when I heard the door open.
"What the hell are you doing in here?" Satan hissed.
"The reading you told me to." I replied smugly. I had rank on my side and I wasn't going to waste the opportunity to use it.
"I don't care if you get the reading done while Upadhayay is being friendly with you in her office, you can't stay in here." She spat in her normal vile tone.
"Inspector Shashank said I could." I said happily back. Her face fell in what we both knew to be her defeat.
"He said you could study in here, it's my lunch time so get lost for an hour." Without another word, I happily complied. I headed down to the cafeteria trying to make sense out of Satan. She didn't remember that amazing night so I don't know what I could have done to warrant such anger on her part. According to Shashank, she's like this to everyone, so I guess I should be pleased she's not treating me any different than any other poor guy to cross her path. I get a slice of pizza and lemonade, and then sit in the far corner of the cafeteria. It doesn't take long for this really plastic woman to sit with me.
"Hi" she says with a chirp in her voice "I'm Shreya Upadhayay She holds out her hand for me to shake.
According to Satan, this is the office's friendly with every guy girl.
"Hi" I say back, not wanting to engage her in any conversation.
"So, how'd you get stuck with Riddhima?" she asks with a sneer in her voice. I may not like Satan, but this chick looks all kinds of fake. I knew her type well.
I shrugged "Inspector Gupta says she's the most qualified."
"Well you know, I'm over in trace evidence; if you want, I could talk to Shashank and ask him if he could switch you over to me. That way you'd at least get away from CSW." She laughed while she tried shamelessly to flirt.
"Leave him alone Shreya" a deep male voice said from beside me. "Inspector made his call, and I'm sure it was for a good reason." I turned to see this standing behind me. Shreya was glaring at him.
"Anyway Armaan" she called me by my first name, despite me not giving her permission to do so "You know where to find me." She said sickly sweet. She got up and left and the guy took her chair.
"Sorry about that, Inspector Gupta told me to look out for you." He said kindly while unwrapping his sandwich.
"You know Inspector Gupta?" I asked interested. I liked Shashank and if he sent him, he couldn't be that bad'and he rescued me from Shreya.
"Yeah, he and my dad go way back. I'm Shubhankar Roy" He said casually while offering his hand. "So I hear Riddhima is being Riddhima."
I had to laugh "Yeah that's one way of putting it. I don't even know why Mr.Gupta paired me with her. I was supposed to be training under some forensic legend and he stuck me with Satan." I still didn't know why he threw me under the bus like that.
"Dude, Riddhima IS the legend. We call her CSW." He said with a chuckle in his voice.
WHAT?
Chapter 4: Head spinning Revelations
"Dude, Riddhima IS the legend. We call her CSW." He said with a chuckle in his voice.
WHAT?
I just gaped like a fish out of water. "What? How? She's so young! What did she do, sell her soul?" all my assumptions rolled out of my brain.
Shubhankar didn't laugh back "Well I don't know if she has a soul left, but she most defiantly didn't sell it." He shook his head like he was ridding himself of an unwanted thought. "Anyway, she finished school at17 with 2 years of research experience under her belt and graduated with a degree in forensic science when she was 19. She got hired on at the lab and earned the most certifications in the shortest amount of time ever. By the time she was 21, she was certified on almost everything in this building, which is extremely rare but it wasn't until she went to the field that we all saw her real talent, which is why we call her CSW." He informed me.
"CSW?" I inquired.
"Yeah, Crime Scene Whisperer. She can walk into a crime scene and just know where to find evidence. Think if it this way if you had to find one fish in a pond, what would you do if you had no idea what it ate or what depth it lived in?"
"Uh, drag the pond with big net?" I answered.
"Right, but in that process you'd bring up hundreds of fish you didn't need or want and have to sort through them and hope you found what you were looking for. Now imagine your boat in only so big so you can only cast your net a couple of times before you sink your boat with your haul, how good are your chances then?"
"I think they'd be bad." I said honestly.
"Now imagine that you could just know where that fish was. You could step up on the side of your boat, fire an arrow in the water and retrieve the fish speared on it'and it's the fish you're looking for." I nodded for him to continue "That's what Riddhima can do. She just looks at a scene and knows where to find stuff other scene techs would have overlooked. You can't bring every piece of a crime scene back to the lab so there is always the possibility that something is missed. Riddhima doesn't miss anything and with her history, she is impervious on the stand, no defense lawyer can claim she gives the cops a free pass."
Oh'my hopes of getting transferred away from Satan to the legend were dashes.
"So she's a genius?" I asked weary of the hold Satan had over these people.
"Yes, but she's not snotty about it. Just keep your head down and your shoulders up around here and you'll do fine."
I let out a breath in frustration. "Thanks man, I appreciate it." I left to resume my studies. I was in luck because when I got back to her office, it was empty. I spent the rest of the day in silence as I finished the second binder.
One more to go'
When I got home, I called Muskaan and told her about my day. She had been informing the rest of the family on what was going on here, and they were all placing bets on when Satan was finally going to attack me. I told her to put me down for 1000 for a week from now. I started in on the last monster of a binder, hoping to get ahead of the curve. There was no way I needed all this information just for a movie role. Thank God I had a really good memory, honed by years of remembering little details from scripts I read, or this marathon of information absorption would have killed me. I didn't need all this but this had become more than just training for a project; this had become a pissing contest, and I was determined that Satan wasn't going to break me.
I got into the office the next morning bright and early. I was going to finish this last binder today before lunch if my life depended on it. Unfortunately, Satan had also already arrived, dressed in her normal cast iron suit. I walked in to the office just in time to see her down a whole load of pills. After she had swallowed, she glared at me before hastily opening her desk drawer and pushing what looked like at least 4 prescription bottles into it, and closing it.
"What the hell are you doing here so early?" she hissed after hiding her pills.
"Ummm" I stuttered not quite knowing what to say after watching Satan pill popping "I just wanted to get this binder done before lunch." I finished sounding a little more put together.
"Don't skim, there will be a test after lunch. If you fail, you'll read the material again until you pass. I won't have some uneducated ilk around my equipment messing it up." She said a little less hostile'but still. Satan didn't wait for an answer but left to go sharpen her pitchfork somewhere else. When I was satisfied she wasn't coming back for a while, I opened her desk drawer. There must have been 20 prescription bottles in there.
Midazoliam
Paroxetine
Diazepam
Alprazolam Intensol
Alzapam
Escitalopram Oxalate
Meprobamate
I got on her computer to look up what the English terms for these drugs were.
Versed
Ativan
Xanax
Valium
Paxil
Lexapro
Equanil
All sedatives, depression, or anti-anxiety meds; and all of which can cause memory loss when combined with alcohol, or shit, even each other.
So that's why she doesn't remember.
Shashank had said "so that's how she dealt with it" which leads me to believe that something really bad must have happened that day, and it drove Satan to drink at a club after having taken too many meds. I suddenly feel guilty calling her Satan. Who knows what she's seen on the job? I think I may just have to call her Riddhima now. I hear yelling at someone down the hall, so I quickly close out of the internet window and take my position at my desk. The door flies open just after I open the binder to where I left off.
"You done with that yet?" she says surprisingly calm for herself, and now I know why I could get a smile out of her yesterday morning.
Medication.
Thank God I'd found her pill popping because her current demeanor would have made me thing that someone, somewhere in the world had divided by zero, and ripped a hole in the fabric of the universe. "Yes God, I was just reviewing some pertinent information." I lied smoothly.
"Very well" she pulled some papers out of a file cabinet and handed them to me "Answer these questions, if you pass, I'll get you set up." I nodded and looked at the questions. They weren't nearly as hard as I thought they were going to be, some were even multiple choice. She didn't leave me to do it by myself though but rather just pulled out her lunch and ate it. If you could even call that lunch, it was more like a snack. It was only flavoured yogurt and a banana. With the pharmacy she has swallowed this morning, you'd think she'd need more than that. By the end of the hour, I had finished the test and eagerly awaited the results.
I jetted to the cafeteria quickly, making sure not to stand in one place too long, lest the population inundate me again. I quickly grabbed a chicken sandwich and returned to the office where I find my test graded and on my desk. I feel like I'm in college again, waiting for my grade to be posted. I look at my test and find very little red ink on it. When I get to the last page I see my score'98/100 and the words "Good Job loser" written underneath it.
Well, at least it's something.
I look over to Satan'I mean Riddhima, and see that she's reading something on her computer with ear buds in.
"Riddhima?" No answer. I try again but relent and just knock on her desk. She looks up at me, clearly annoyed "What do you want?" she asks while pulling out an ear bud.
"Did I pass?" I motion to my test.
"No, I congratulated you because you didn't pass. Yes you passed." She said condescendingly.
"Thank you for your heart felt congratulations." I replied sarcastically "So what do you mean when you say getting me set up?"
She didn't say anything but rather just got up from her desk and walked out of her office. I didn't really know what I was supposed to do until I heard her yell out "You coming loser?"
Perhaps I should go back to calling her Satan.
I quickly caught up with her and she led me to a storage room with shelves of boots and clothes. "What are we doing in here?" I asked.
"What's your shoe size?" she barked.
"10 and a half." I say shortly. Without a further look, she walks over to a shelf, pulls down a pair of boots and shoves them at me. The pulls me to another shelved section with navy blue clothes
"Turn around" she commands. I feel weary because you're taught never to turn your back on an enemy. I feel her holding up some clothes to my back before spinning me around again. "These are your uniform. You don't touch, taste, smell, or see a crime scene without them." I just nod my head. "Come" she commands, and walks out of the room. We get to Shashank's office and again, she doesn't wait for permission to enter.
"Riddhima and Armaan, what a surprise." Shashank says kindly. I really wish he would train me.
"Your pet needs a locker." She hisses and without anything further, she leaves me with Shashank.
"I'm sorry to bother you again; I didn't know she was going to leave me here. Are you sure you wouldn't rather pair me with someone who won't make me bother you so much?" I ask him. It's not his fault his daughter is a hitler.
He just laughed "Yeah because you've run into so many people who aren't completely star struck who are capable of doing what you require. Shubhankar told me about Upadhyay's request." I cringe at the idea of having to follow her around.
"What about Shubhankar? He seemed like a nice enough guy." I lightly plead.
Shashank shakes his head apologetically "Shubhankar is in automotive, from what your producers told me, that's not what you need, otherwise, I would."
Damn
"Alright, show me where this locker is." I concede defeat.
While we're walking to the locker room, I ask the question I've been dying to. "Sir, why is Riddhima so angry at me? I mean, I've never done anything to her."
His shoulders slump'
"Riddhima wasn't always like that. She's been like that since the accident."
Edited by ranv_rules - 14 years ago
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