She saw him standing in the middle of the dance floor, with one hand splayed on the forehead, while the other remained firm in the woman's grasp. But before her eyes could absorb the string of events that followed, the as-full-of-himself-as-he-was-handsome character - who being Daadima's friend's son - in the vicinity pressed her for an opinion on contractor consulting rates in Vancouver when compared with Toronto. Like hell she cared. It took her all her energy to not combust into flames and march her way to her husband to have him dragged back to their apartment by his ear. He sure was making a fool of himself in the presence of their family and she couldn't remember the last time he'd drunk himself into a goof. So much for being proud of her husband for having an exceptionally high social quotient. His infectious charm had come to bite her behind in the most in-opportune moment when her hands were tied.
Her fingers knotted in her dupatta and her words came out with blistering grit that the man unsuspectingly wondered what he'd done to deserve such animosity from her.
Ever since he'd been blocked from her line of sight, she restrained severely from looking in his direction. For a moment there all the events that must have led up to him landing on the dance floor ran through her mind: Undisguised flirtation from her end in mix with his charisma and two shots of tequila and Caipirinha followed by one doleful look from the bombshell must have gotten him to do the pity dance with her. Too bad he'd picked the wrong time to favor the lonely dame at the bar, when she was packing more than necessary arsenal in the looks department to have anyone in the club entertaining her loneliness; especially when she donned more skin on her than clothes.
On a parallel note, almost in a spooky sense, the word flirtation brought back Milan Kundra's words back to her thoughts: a promise of sexual intimacy without a guarantee...It was one thing to imagine the possibility of someone flirting with one's spouse and a whole another to see it for real. There was no comparison to the vicarious rage she'd casually contemplated a long time ago.
A brief pause in the music launched hoots and whistles from the club occupants taking her attention back to him. Seconds later the drum beats came alive in tune with the taps of a tambourine that slowly built the tempo to a Middle Eastern rhythm. The song stirred the crowd with a strange excitement and everyone launched into a "Hoi" along with the male singer's shrill nasal voice that sounded as if he was herding sheep on the side. However, when the words 'Chammak Challo' boomed in the speakers with an extra bass, the frenzy took to another notch and to her surprise, she found her husband break a leg with no one in particular. The woman was gone. Or so she thought for she appeared once again in another ruffling instant tucked away in the swaying crowd, like her very thoughts had conceived the woman back there.
She reminded herself to act poised. Think ice princess...indifference, she chanted mentally, forcing herself into an incredulously boring conversation with the only person she could hold her fortitude. One wavering taunt from her family and she knew, she would break.
In an attempt to cover his back, she saw him move to the edge of the dance floor and gesture Geet to join him there. Maan had just come back from wherever he'd disappeared to and Geet turned to him, as if seeking his permission. Before long, the crowd had parted like the red sea and Geet was hogging the lime light with her undulating hips. Maan ducked his head shyly, covering his eyes with his palms after what seemed like a hopeless nod. Momentarily, she was relieved that he still had some sense in him to call upon a family member to dance along; all though not as his dance partner to be precise. Whatever!
Even amidst the fire of jealously that she burned in she couldn't escape the detail of the fine grace with which her sister-in-law was taking over the dark club. Her steps came off chic on her feet, while the same ones occurred to her as trashy on the women beside her. Rishabh took up the daunting task of giving her steps a macho spin and appeared like he was rehearsing for a school drill. Despite his conscious efforts to amuse himself and others, he couldn't help the suave finishes he at times gave to his strut. What a nutter? And at the thought her lips curled spontaneously.
"What's funny?" The new found buyer for her company asked her.
"Nothing..." She gave him a nod and went on with their conversation, still keeping an eye on him.
Geet came back a little later and Rishabh was too buzzed to realize that his opportunity to bid his good byes to the woman was long past. After a while he didn't care, who he was dancing alongside and that gave her a bit more focus to turn the proposal the gentleman was making into a deal. She didn't expect to find a prospective buyer in the middle of nowhere when she'd least expected. With everything coming through with the offer, she would have no blocks of worry sitting on her mind when she would go back to their Catalina home.
Just as her mind began to ease, regardless of the act he'd put up for the last half hour, her eyes grew wide with shock. Did it just really happen or did her pregnancy hormones have a part to play in the scandalous image that was flashing with red alert on the 70 mm screen of her head? She openly exchanged glances with Geet in mid-conversation with the gentlemen - who hadn't yet dismissed her as a lunatic from the array of expressions that graced her face at intervals. The look on Geet's face reinforced the similar element of surprise she was reeling in. She struggled to keep her bearings together in front of her family and took a deep breath, pressuring herself to remember that she sought ahimsa to himsa. Else he was going to be dead meat, like the ones that came out of meat mincer. Mr. Rishabh Oberoi had to pay this time around and indeed it was a big one.
What was he thinking, giving her a hug as he finally decided to make his way back to the table and what of the silly grin he shot back after the parting kiss she'd pecked on his cheek...
***
The words were barely heard as she gasped mid-sentence "Hai! Babaji..."
"What h..." His words trailed as he caught sight of the scene that had frozen her abruptly.
She slowly snapped her eyes at the pair and the corners of her mouth kicked up into an amused smile, when Maan spoke again. "Tell me you didn't have anything to do with this..." He sounded accusatory.
"Hell no...It was all circumstantial" Her haughtiness disappeared the same instant and she was pouting now to add "Here I was struggling to light a spark...and you think I opened a forest fire?"
He rolled his eyes and broke into a laugh. She joined him as her quick mind calculated the sly couple's next moves. There was nothing left to be done after tonight, she concurred, except put up her feet and watch all hell break loose between the two.
***
By the time food slid down to his stomach, the fuzz dissolved and the gravity of all that had happened in the dance floor hit him like a bomb. Perhaps he'd gone overboard teasing her. Naini had made some excuse over her health and the Khurana's had left before the clock had struck 9.00 PM. He held his head and let out a disgusted grunt as the noise from the club shielded him over. Oh! Dear lord, he didn't mean any of this to happen and how would he even begin to explain to her. He would tell her that he was misguided and his sanity overtly tainted by the abundance of alcohol in his blood. His built on his reasons and his opening speech sounded reasonable that instance and so he made it back to his car, hoping he would survive whatever mine field he was about to walk into that night.
21 missed calls, 3 coffees down and still there was no answer. When he was on the verge of giving up during the 33rd try, he heard the ringing cease and absolute deadly silence preside over the call.
"Come to the balcony" she ordered and before he could respond the line went blank.
He ran like his life depended on it. She was already there and the minute he drew himself into the open space, he least expected a tiny flower pot of African violets to be flung at him from the top floor. He ducked out of the pot's trajectory and thanked his stars for her flawed aim.
"Before you throw another one..." He shielded his hand over his head and addressed her in an audible whisper "...at least hear me out" He pleaded. Her teeth ground out the unspoken words and her face contorted in a raw anger.
"17th floor...I will be there...please baby, come on down only for 5 mts" He tilted his head back, removing his hand and took her absence for a positive sign. He raced to reach the sit-out before she could.
Obviously, he was the first one to reach and it was another 20 mts before she gave in and trudged in reluctantly. Wrapping her arms around her body, like she didn't trust herself to be with him in any other way, she stood close, looked away and refused to sit by the lounge chair.
"I can't tell you..." He started only to be cut off by her.
"I was ready to let go of everything...even the drinks and the dance, but you couldn't stop there...could you? In front of our family Abhi?" She bit out her words in a rampage, still unable to believe all that had happened over the course of the night.
He ran a frustrated hand through his hair and moved forward to hold her. She stepped back. Drawing a ragged breath, he sorted out the facts in his head once again. In no way could he be at fault for something that the woman had done as a grateful gesture. He sighed and began his justification, desperately praying she would lend him a patient ear. All she'd to do was to hear out to him once and then he was certain she would calm down in no time.
"I felt sorry for her. Her boyfriend had broken up with her and left her alone in the place" He paused trying to gauge her response to the plight of the woman. Nothing. However, she didn't interrupt and it gave him a bout of fresh confidence to plow through the rest of what he had to say.
"Above all I was drunk...And coming to the kiss part, Hey! I wasn't the one who asked for it"
She gazed at him, taking in his impassive shrug. "Of course you led her on...Are you kidding me?"
"Oh! common baby...She is like an elder sister...like..." He searched for an appropriate word that would sound convincing and instead ended up with the one that brought out the worst of her rage, "like...an aunty"
His helplessness tickled her underneath and she struggled to contain the laugh that was triggered by his innocent claim. Instead of breaking up into a smile, she settled to double over on her spiteful expression.
"Tell me about it Abhi...romancing an older woman seems to be all the rage now"
He didn't expect that and when her remark caught him off-guard, he decided to make light of the situation. "Shame on you Naini...after all these years, you still didn't know that I would never flirt with anyone above 25"
"Too bad, I'm not a teeny bopper anymore" She said caustically making a face at him. He knew right then that the wind beneath her fight was all gone.
"Oh! baby..." He lowered his voice to a husky whisper "you will always be my oh!-so-fine teen goddess I fell in love with" He took his chances and moved to hold her waist.
She continued to look away, arms folded and all, but didn't fight their nearness either. In all these years of their coming together, he'd never given her a chance to complain about being even mildly flirtatious. Despite whatever she argued, she was never more sure, that he could ever look at another woman with desiring eyes. And tonight had been enough proof of that too.
Her eyelids lowered, almost defensively from meeting his gaze and he immediately felt her tense posture ease up beneath his palms.
"I know you are not mad about me in reality" He said as if he was reading her mind word for word.
"It's my image that you are worried about, aren't you?" He asked and she eased on his shoulder, slowly going limp in his embrace.
"Not really...but of course it's true...I don't want anything to go wrong when you come and talk to them" She said softly, sniveling a bit from the self-thought foreboding. He tucked her head under his chin and held her tight, reckoning the need to respond to her concern with a kiss on her forehead.
"I can't believe that you don't suspect your folks for a moment" He said as she pulled back to face him "...for all you know they could be setting me up" She smiled at his theory. Even so, she still didn't suspect he knew anything at all.
He sat back on the lounge chair and pulled her between his legs. Firm arms encircled her body and she let out a shiver as the warmth from him swept through her.
"You are forgetting who you are talking to" She turned and flashed him a smug smile "I know them like the back of my hand"
He teased her nose with his and gave a gentle dash to her forehead.
"You give Maan bhaiya a cell phone and a laptop... he will forget that he has a family, let alone figure out his sister is sneaking up on him" She clucked her tongue "No chance Mr. I'm-the-one-shouldering-all-of-Khurana-business showoff will ever have time to play with us"
"Accha?" He drew a lazy line over her nape with his nose and she melted into his arms.
"Then comes Geet, but hullo!" She waved the flat of her hand as if she was enacting to an audience "She's in the verge of having a mid-life crisis trying to decide where she belongs...SF vs NY. And the only time she spends here...she turns into this women from the lineage of sati savitri and starts doing jap of Maan bhaiya's name"
He cocked up an inquisitive brow at the sudden burst of uncharacteristic analysis coming out of her and he silently listened in with occasional "Hmm"s and "Aaah"s.
"She is one step short of composing hymns in the name of Maan bhaiya...perhaps we should call her Geetabai?" She thought about it for a while and shook her head "Nah! That sounds nasty" He laughed and pressed his lips to her cheek and trailed them down her neck. Her eyes closed on its own accord and she reveled from the sheer intimacy of the moment.
"Daadima? I'm sure she already knows" He asked and she took his bait.
"Queen of kitty parties...I say she is more obsessed with getting Geet pregnant than her own grandson. No I don't think so. She doesn't have enough time going over soap opera re-runs and discuss them with her kitty friends. I doubt she will set you up with anyone"
"What about Meera and..." She interjected before he could finish his question.
"Oh! Common Ms goody two shoes and Mr Yash who flirts with anything in skirts? You can't really think chota chatri's like them can actually read into our expert sneakiness"
The corners of his mouth tipped upwards, working its way into a full blown laughter, while his lips stayed buried into the crook of her shoulder. It tickled her and she drew the bend of her arm close to his jaw and cuddled farther into the confines of his body.
"So that leaves only one person who could be behind all this..." He said with a mischievous smile and felt her go completely still in his hug. It was all the affirmation he'd needed and before she could defend herself she was floating in the pool.
She gasped for air "When..." then more puffing "When did you find out?"
"You forgot that she is listed on your facebook list" He said, hunkering down by the edge of the pool.
"Oh!" She slapped her forehead and worked up a fake anger, her hands flying to perch akimbo "Don't you think that the kiss was a bit too much? And all that dancing..."
"And you don't think the whole prank was a little too much?" He countered.
"Sorry" She batted her lids at him with a long face "There was too much time to kill and I couldn't be with you either. And later when I saw her in the bathroom, it seemed like too good an opportunity to pass"
He twisted her ear, just the way Daadi usually did and leaned in to brush his lips over hers. "Ouch!" She yelped and as the kiss deepened he lost control of himself, entirely surrendering himself to the madness in her.
Thud. She waited for no one or nothing when it came to retribution and she had him wet to the bone, dripping just as she was even before the minute was over.
"You..." He drawled and swiftly used his arms as rudders to swim over and caged her. Hugging her from behind, he bent his head to leave a red mark just below her shoulder.
"Arrgh!" she screamed...loud enough to have the five souls hiding behind the wall - at the entrance of the sit-out - to shield their ears from her shrill passionate cry.
As for the last scene, its my favorite scene from a telugu movie. And those who have seen it. would already figured it by now. I wrote up a long one after an extended break. Hope you all like it. Do let me know your comments. At the very least, don't forget to press the like button.
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