Posted:
Chapter 2.
SHADOW OF A ROSE...
It was early morning and Khushi yawned sitting up in bed. Gradually as the fog of sleep cleared her mind and she became alert, the now familiar bleakness assailed her yet again. Morning after morning, it was the same with the prospect of living through yet another day causing a feeling of extreme exhaustion to course through her veins.
Through the open window, pale winter sunshine filtered in along with the high pitched tirade of her neighbor directed against her hapless husband . Grimacing as her jarring voice grated on her nerves, she got out of the bed and walked across the spartan, sparsely furnished room to go to the bathroom.
Later as she sat at the kitchen table dunking a piece of rusk in a cup of tea, she reached over to the radio kept on a small table and twisted the knob on.
"This has been the fourth murder in the city within the last two months and it's interesting to note that all four victims were not only women but women who worked in the sex industry. Needless to say, this fact has not gone unnoticed by the police department, who our sources informed us, are investigating the possibility of a serial murderer. The world's violent psychopaths have long favored streetwalkers as victims, dating to even before London's Jack the Ripper went on his infamous spree in the 1880s. The women work in an edgy business, and their clients are not expected to produce references..."
Khushi extended her hand and changed the station...
"Humne dekhi hai, in aakhon mein mehakti khushboo
Haath se choo ke ise rishte ka ilzaam na do, pyar ehsaas hai"
With an impatient grimace, she changed the station again...
Ah, sugar, ah, honey, honey
You are my candy girl
And you got me wanting you
Oh, honey, ah, sugar, sugar
You are my candy girl
And you got me wanting you
When I kissed you girl I knew how sweet a kiss could be
Like the summer sunshine pour you sweetness over me...
Staring down at tiny crumbs of rusk floating on the surface of her cold tea, she suddenly remembered those piercing gray eyes. And his kiss.
"Shouldn't it's memory make my skin crawl? Am I not supposed to feel, disgusted, angry?" Instead all she could think of was how she had unexpectedly come alive in those brief moments. How she had felt like she still had warm blood coursing through her veins.
She was pathetic but at-least not dead, yet, she thought with a bitter little twist of her beautiful mouth. She paused in her train of thoughts for just a few seconds to dwell on what she had heard about him from Lily.
"Another warped, twisted life", she thought, not really caring much.
Someone knocking loudly at the door, snapped her out of her reverie and almost immediately her eyes widened with fear. With her heart thudding, she stood in front of the door and asked in a voice that sounded strange even to her own ears, "Who is it?
It was the mailman.
Probably all of the mail was his, there was nobody to write to her, she mused dispassionately as she took the pile of mail from the elderly mailman and closed the door.
Later that night, as the harsh spotlights and the music were turned on and almost mechanically, she went about the steps and motions of a well practiced routine, she scanned the crowd surreptitiously, whenever she got a chance. After their first memorable encounter, she hadn't seen him inside the bar again.
But tonight, he was here...
Even through the haze of the smoke, she recognized him and her heart lurched unexpectedly before settling in an accelerated rhythm. He sat on a stool, with his back to the dancers but those broad shoulders, that arrogant tilt of his head, the way his arm rested languildly on the counter were unmistakably his.
As if on cue, he twirled his stool towards her right at that moment and their eyes met across the room. The potent, nerve shattering impact of a pair of penetrating, gray eyes wasn't something she had bargained for. Unsmiling and unwavering, indescribably lethal, they seemed to pierce right through her soul and it was only when she faltered in her steps, that he bent his head down to smile amost imperceptibly at his vodka.
Her performance over, she turned to leave for backstage but an invisible force made her pause and turn her head to look over her shoulder. She was dressed in a deep cut, red satin outfit whose sequins glinted and winked in the overhead light. Her long hair arranged in thick curls swayed gently as her heavily mascaraed eyes searched for him.
Swearing under her breath at an unwanted feeling of disappointment, she mentally kicked herself and hurried backstage with a purposeful air.
A pair of thoughtful eyes watched her every move from a corner and transiently lit up with subtle triumph.
Khushi was stopped on the way by her manager again. After handing over her pay in a distracted manner, he hesitated for a second.
"Khushi, wait", he said finally, making her pause and turn back to him with a questioning look in her eyes.
"Be careful..", he said after clearing his throat noisily.
Khushi cocked an eyebrow in puzzlement for a second before realization dawned as to what he had meant by his succinct statement.
"Oh! You're talking about the serial killer who is going around the town strangling wh**es", she said wryly. "I would have definitely tried to be careful, the only problem is that I can't afford to".
"And being careful has never saved anyone's life, anyway. When my time is up, up I'll go, nothing is going to be able to prevent that", she added with a dry laugh.
Mr. Kishore gazed at her retreating back for a long time, with an undecipherable expression in his eyes. There was something about this new girl that he hadn't been able to put his finger on. Something was not right, not normal.
Khushi walked towards the changing room, the sound of her stilettos resonating in the dark corridor. "Why has there never been a successful female serial killer?God knows, this world is full of men who deserve nothing better than being strangled to death. Or worse" , she mused with black, joyless mirth.
Reaching the room, she had one hand on the gleaming brass door knob, when she felt a strange pricking at the back of her neck. With her body stiffening, she strained her ears to listen carefully but all she heard was the her own heart's pounding. Her hand relaxing on the knob, she took a silent deep breath and turned around with a sudden, swift movement.
He was standing there with his arms crossed relaxedly and his features partially illuminated by the moonlight streaming through a small, rectangular skylight in the wall.
Her heart beating savagely against her ribcage, she put a calming hand over it and glared at him.
"What's with you and your sudden, silent appearances?You scared me again, she said, a frown furrowing her forehead.
Running his slightly hooded eyes lazily over her face, he took his time, answering her question.
"Why are you so easily scared?, he said meeting her eyes for a second before veering back again to her red painted lips, standing out in a face rendered almost pale and ghostly by the silver light.
"I'm not...", Khushi began before saying wearily, "Never mind about that. What are you here?".
He raised his eyes to meet hers again and intently holding her gaze, he slowly walked towards her in a predatory manner. With her heart skipping a beat and her breaths becoming shallow and disjointed, she stepped backwards one step at a time. Almost in tandem with him.
Hitting the wall behind her, she flattened her palms against the wall and gazed up at his face as he came to a stop just inches away from her. Resting his splattered palms on the wall on either side of her head, he gazed down at her taking in her widened eyes, her slightly parted full lips and her heaving cleavage.
"You know very well why I'm here?, he said huskily, his warm breath fanning her cheek and side of neck.
Looking up at him through preposterously long lashes, she could feel the heat emanating from him, even as the minuscule space between their bodies crackled with something like electricity.
"I told you, I'm not that kind of woman..", she said weakly, with the way his incredibly attractive gray eyes looked causing her heartbeats to quicken due to a whole different reason.
She closed her eyes as he bent his head and lightly nuzzled her cheek and ear.
"And I told you, I'm not that kind of man..", he whispered against her ear, his hands still on the wall on either side of her.
With a shiver running down her spine, she removed her hands from the wall and splattered them against his chest. She pushed with all the strength she could muster but she might as well have been pushing against a wall.
"I don't sleep around with people I hardly know..", she bit out angrily.
Raising his head and removing her hands, he looked down at her with his eyes suddenly agleam with the slightest hint of amusement.
"There you are...Jumping the gun again! Who the f*** said anything about sleeping together?Here I am, trying hard to romance a girl in this beautiful moonlight but sadly, her mind is full of filth", he drawled lazily, with a corner of his mouth upturned slightly.
"Really?, she sneered with her voice dripping with contempt.
"Dear me, so you really did fall in love with me!! ", she said sarcastically.
"And of course you wanted to give me a rose too...so here you are!", she continued, the sweetness of her voice a sharp contrast to the bitterness and disillusionment in her hazel eyes and barely noticing him discreetly slip a hand inside his coat front and take something out.
A sudden silence encompassed them as she stared at the single, long stem of red rose, he held in his hand. Her eyes suffused with a strange sadness, she glanced up at his face. She looked at his veiled eyes, the scar beneath one arched brow, the shapely hard mouth that carried a hint of cruelty. A handsome face, hard and scarred, clever and world-wise, bitter and disillusioned.
She wasn't fooled for even a second.
"Son of a b***** is trying to buy with a f****** rose what he can't buy with money".
The velvety head of the rose gleamed in the silver light and her eyes suddenly veered to the floor, where it cast a shadow, long and dark.
'Shadow of a rose', she thought to herself, her eyes fixed on the floor.
"Sounds like the name of a movie".
She didn't even realize that she had said it out loud.
He was staring at her face with it's rapidly changing expressions with a puzzled expression on his face.
"What did you say?, he asked with a frown.
She looked up at him again with a slightly dazed expression on her face. There was a hungry yearning in her eyes and quite unexpectedly, the ghost of a long lost memory that she had ruthlessly killed and buried in the deepest crevice of her heart reared it's unwelcome head once again.
"And how else would he be, Khushu?, her childhood friend, Reema's laughing voice came to her mingled with a refreshing burst of mountain breeze.
"Well, he will have gray eyes, he will be tall and handsome and he will enter my life on a moonlit night and sweep me off my feet with just a single red rose...".
"That's all I ask for, moonlight and a single red rose"
"Are you alright?, he was shaking her shoulders, gently.
Her eyes focussed on his face again and she had a sudden reckless urge to play along with him. Play Make-Belief. Make herself believe in whatever lies he planned on telling her. Just for a little while..and see where it leads to..
"Yes, I'm fine...", she smiled suddenly, her long lashes veiling her eyes and casting intriguing shadows on her cheeks.
"I'm just surprised to see that rose", she said coyly.
With a small triumphant smile lifting the corner of his mouth, he snaked his arm around her waist and pulled her flush against him.
"Why did you bring me that rose?, she flirted, grasping the lapels of his coat with both hands and boldly meeting his piercing gaze.
"Because...", he said cupping her neck with his free hand and leaning in, "Your eyes have intoxicated me, they don't let me sleep, they haunt me everywhere I go".
As his hard lips touched hers lightly and his warm breath caressed her senstitized skin, she whispered against his lips breathlessly, "And?
"I feel like I've had a drink too many", he mumured before hungrily capturing her lips with his.
"That's probably because he has really had a drink too many. F*cking liar", she thought drily as he weaved his fingers in her curls and deepened the kiss.
A moan escaped her throat as he pinned her body hard against the wall with his and continued with his frenetic, passionate onslaught on her mouth. Feeling the hardness of his body moulded perfectly with her soft contours, a hot molten fire ignited deep inside her and she finally released his lapels to throw her bare arms tightly around his neck. With a groan, he caressed her back with urgent movements and it was only when she felt his arousal against her that she came to her senses.
"Now if he pushes you in a room and rapes you, it would serve you right, you s*ut", a cold sober voice deep inside said to her.
As he came up for air, he looked down at her with his eyes suffused with desire and his breaths ragged.
"I..", he began only to be interrupted by Khushi.
"That's enough 'Moonlight Romancing' for one day. I'm very tired, I have to go home now..", she said without looking at him.
She was surprised, very surprised when he stepped back without a demur. Turning the doorknob, she was about to enter her changing room when she heard him say, "What's your name?
"Khushi", she said unsmilingly without looking back at him.
"I'm Arnav", he said equally impassively.
She turned suddenly to look at him, "Major Arnav Singh Raizada. Sorry, Ex Major Arnav Singh Raizada. Who doesn't know you?, she said sweetly, ignoring a sane voice inside her head telling her to stop playing with fire.
The next few days were marked by Major Raizada's absence from Ritz, a fact that caused Khushi to feel a strange contrasting mix of relief and disappointment. A full-moon, bitterly cold night, one week later, Khushi emerged out of Ritz changed in her street clothes and with her face devoid of all makeup. Soon she was walking down the familiar road, feeling just a little apprehensive by the thickening fog.
She was half-way to her home and passing a particularly desolate stretch of the road, when she heard the faintest of foot falls behind her. With her whole body breaking out in goosebumps, she paused for a moment and looked back. She could barely make his form out, half hidden as it was in the darkness and the fog. But what caused her heart to leap in her chest was the menacing way, he stopped walking too, when she had stopped.
He was stalking her, there was not an ounce of doubt left in her mind.
She jumped when the sound of the clock mounted high on an ancient brick tower reverberated in the narrow alley, striking eleven times with an almost menacing precision. With a pounding heart, Khushi hurriedly walked down the narrow lane, shrouded in semi darkness and swirling fog. Her heels made a high pitched staccato sound that blended with that of the clock.
With her eyes wide with raw fear and her forehead beaded with sweat, she glanced over her shoulder again with a quick, desperate flick of her head..
He was still following her.
Silently, she screamed inside her mind, a powerful wave of panic rising up from her stomach and almost choking her..
Pausing for a second, she bent down and tried to take her stilettos off with badly trembling hands. After several unsuccessful attempts, she was able to take them off and carrying them dangling in one hand, she glanced back at the lurking shadow one more time, before starting to run. And run fast..
Her breath was raspy, her throat achy and her whole body covered with perspiration when she ran straight into the hard body of a person.
As she made to scream, a strong hand covered her mouth..
"Shhh...It's me Khushi".
Chapter 3 https://www.indiaforums.com/forum/post/95272031
Hey Friends,
As I had earlier said, this story is going to be very different from anything I've written on IF so far. Happy ending is a constant in all my stories, that won't change...Though it might be a different happy..:)
If you guys feel this story is not suitable or appropriate for IF, please let me know..:))
The storyline might be disturbing to some, so readers' discretion advised.
Please share your feedback with me, especially need it for this story !
Love you all,
Jenny:)
Love Friendship Dating and Relationships
270