M&G: Mr Iyer & Mrs Khurana - CLOSED - Page 42

@ Ramhari: No...not that image...anything but that...😆

The kid has got this forlorn look, that the situation seems beyond repair.

But our case is not so lost you see.

Writing as I post this. Surely will post tonight.

Hasini

Is It so Hasini 😆
Just that i was missing you
I thought of posting missing you
or waiting for update
But that would be like
pleading rather persuading you to write
I didnt want to do that since you were on a break after NY times Marathon.
But couldnt stop myself from posting
And here i go 😃
Will definitely find better pics very soon

Hima

Found one
Hope u like it
Hima

Part 12: The comeback

Had it not been for her relatives buzzing around him like bees from a busted beehive, he would have given her an indulging once over from head to toe. They had been behind closed doors only a few minutes ago and yet he still hadn't figured out how the towel he'd handed her fit into the sari she was wearing. It was easier to tell himself that he only wished to know how the sari ended up looking like a dhoti around her, when his mind was entirely fixated on catching another glimpse of her bare skin her style of clothes had revealed. If only he could once again find himself alone with her, then perhaps he could shift his focus to where the tail end of her sari had disappeared into the folds tucked underneath...her belly button?

Oh! Dear god. He needed all the strength of his forefathers including not to stare her way, as she came down the last of the stairs to sit by his side. How in the world had he ended up a day past his wedding and not know anything about his wife. The days he'd stalked her, conveniently pedaling down the road as one of the few hundred cyclists, didn't count; not when they had been always been a hundred meters between them. At the time when she hadn't known he existed on the face of earth, there hadn't been anything between them that could have been named, except perhaps calling him her admirer. But now that they were married, the distance seemed unbridgeable, their differences far more pronounced.

The ceremony was surreal in a sense that it was 'happening'...the wedding, the rituals that reminded him time and again that they were man and wife. And yet there was everything else that suggested to him that they were still strangers by heart which only puzzled him further when he carried a frivolous air around her.

If he could have his way, he would kidnap her on a house boat and give them all the space and chance to find out about each other. However, it wasn't unbearable either when the air crackled with succumbing electricity as she stayed so close and yet so far.

Her cousins giggled by his ear, as she settled on the wooden plank next to him. He was oddly certain that it was this distance which her relatives factored by keeping them apart that had made the alarming attraction possible.

Besides the restlessness he was thrumming with, he was also plenty self-conscious from the fact that he was shirtless; again. A few lecherous eyes bored at his chest like they were drilling holes and he was sorry for himself it wasn't his wife who was doing it. In the last thirty six hour window, he'd remained shirtless for more than a day. He wondered why her people were eager to keep him shirtless and parade him around as if had to prove he was virile and masculine enough to each one of them before they would bestow their blessings on him as her suitor.

The very thought of the task at hand, tired him mentally.

***

Her hand brushed his upper arm, as she stumbled while sitting down and he met her eyes, as she lowered herself to the ground. She'd seen enough weddings to have dreamt of a few images with her and an imagined husband to be going through those precise moments. But somehow she'd left out the small details that tortured her now. To start with, his bare chest was out for display and in a few seconds, he was about to get dank from the turmeric stained water that would be flowing down the length of this body. And it left her with no doubt that her body would be severely confused from the sight that was to meet her; it wouldn't know if it had to warm her up or cool her down from the vision of him mightily wet.

If all her life had been spent around school, her father and off late her career, her world had turned topsy-turvy now. All of her past week had been spent in worry over being married off to a geek and ever since she'd seen him, her concerns had taken a hundred eighty degree turn to that of attraction to that very same nerd from whom she wanted to run away. A bewildering mixture of agony, lust and desire shook her in violent fits which told her she was possessed by the wrong demons. Her head was filled with him, like she was constantly being shocked to think of nothing else but him. Not having known much about who he was as a person, she'd begun noticing his small gestures. Right from studying the symmetry of his lips, when it curved for a smile, to up until how he brought his fingers awkwardly together for picking food off the banana leaf. She was glad she hadn't begun adoring him for his looks, or for the scrupulous lifting he must have done to keep in good shape and neither for the painstaking grooming he practiced to a have fresh day old stubble every day...and she winced nearly inconspicuously when she reckoned, she'd been doing exactly that. Her survival at this rate was annoyingly hopeless.

She'd resisted so hard keeping the physical tension between them from showing up on her face, that she hadn't noticed her Susheela athai approaching her husband with a silver bowl of sandalwood paste. Her eyes closed for a second, feeling the touch of imaginary fingers applying the smooth ground paste to her chin, running them down to just below her jaw and then to her...

She wished to run away to be alone so that she could collect her thoughts and somehow purge them free of him. It had been a week then, since when every thought, however nascent had been bewitched to lead to him directly in one form or another. Engaging in a self-affirmation chant, she promised to distract herself enough to sit through the ceremony and the temple visit that was to follow shortly after. Once they would be back home, she was going to have a chat with him and it would be nothing short of the kind customs officers have with suspicious air travellers; with every intention to find reasons to curb the inexplicable infatuation she felt for him.

Before she knew, her athai was smearing the sandal paste on her chin and showering flower petals mixed with pellets of yellow rice on her. To say she hadn't been ready for the cold turmeric water hitting her skin was an understatement. The chill ran six layers deep, instinctively having her shake her head and to palm the hair that had swept onto her forehead away from her face. In all probability, he was just as affected as she was and yet when she felt his eyes rake her form, she couldn't shake the belief, she was paying in more ways than one. Her trembling hand reached her cheek to tuck another wayward strand behind her ear when the hot pink blush she wore then touched the tips of her fingers; the realization only making it another shade darker.

She swore she was going to crack like molten glass if his gaze was to stoke her one more time and to her luck, something took his attention from her back to the group of ladies standing by the pillar.

"Ok now I think this is gone too far...first you make me shower twice" She snapped from the hundred thoughts swirling in her head and instantly gave him the cold stare that clearly told him he was making a show for nothing, when she'd already done so four times.

His sudden words caught the attention of the elderly women, but they decided the son-in-law was in mood for some son-in-law-ranting.

"That and get this...I'm the one who is always half naked...and then again there is this see-through Dhoti" She heard him addressing the women dragging the empty bronze drum to a corner and his boldness got an instant response as a few of them left the drum to wobble as their hands flew to their mouths. Daadima punished him just as he deserved by twisting his ears and calling him "Besharam". She couldn't help the small smile that greeted her lips, while she had her eyes lowered to the ground all the while, catching him hiss in pain from the corner of her eyes. How she wished it was her doing that to him?

"Chodiye Daadima...This is unfair...they pour 9 jugs of ice cold water on me, while she only gets 8" He insisted with no sophistication, crossing the thin line between a prank playing teenager to that of a demanding child.

Susheela athai, jumped to rescue her from the ninth jug of water, he was hell bent on inverting over her head. "Illai Illai (No No...)...we ran out of the turmeric water, so I have sprinkled the last of what remained in the drum on Geetu, so it's all taken care of. Listen Maan, we sometimes have to twist the customs to our convenience and we elders know what we are doing" Her last words were sterner than she expected them to be and that had Geet raise her gaze to gauge her athai's reaction.

Something was amiss that second and before she could put a finger on it, she found her athai stride off in the direction of the kitchen.

As if it was their cue, the younger crowd took over the courtyard, once the women left to prepare the trays of offerings that were to be taken to the temple, after they had instructed the newlyweds to remain in their wet clothes for their impending visit to the temple. Maan had rolled his eyes at the thought of going around the entire village temple in semi nakedness. But before he could counter argue yet another time, Adi chimed in.

"I have to disagree with Susheela athai there...I think it's more of twisting the ceremonies and customs to make it easier on the woman...than on the man..."

"Yes...Yes I agree...How else do you explain it when they favor her always? Even the one time when they made you sit through that hour long homam (havan)" Her traitor of a cousin Naveen added "...And she escaped with the excuse of a phone call"

Maan turned and rested his elbow on Aadi's knee who'd hunkered down beside him, giving her a look that dared for a comeback.

She was unaware of all that and more for she didn't dare look at him. He knew very well, she didn't warrant him an answer, when she'd had no part to play in the so-called injustice that had been met out to him by the women of the house. Not wanting to show she ignored his claim, Geet smiled shyly looking towards Meera and she instantly misunderstood that for a call for help.

In moments the verbal slurs had made the women and men to gang up against each other. Somehow in the commotion - that she was wholly responsible for causing ... everyone had lost sight of them and in-turn she got up to leave the courtyard and wait by the front door. She hadn't calculated her moves right. If not, then why had her brainless head opted to take diversion and stop by the hallway mirror to check if her wet clothes were transparent to the same extent he claimed his dhoti had turned out to be.

She turned to her left first and then twisted her ankle to see to her right...lost in the process of covering the parts of her sari that had slid down from the gallons of water she had sat under. Her skin tingled abruptly from an uncanny change in the air and that is when she caught him leaning on the wall, with his hands folded, watching her with a stillness that was nothing short of adoration for her moves.

And then it happened...slowly, almost intuitively, as if her body had come alive with wariness that matched a hunted prey, her foot fell backwards, one at a time...She didn't have to turn and look to know that he was lacing her steps with his. If she had managed to not meet his gaze all this while, then she was certain, she could keep up until she'd collected enough words to stop this dangerous game they were playing with each other.

Before long, she found her feet tracing the path by the side of the house that led to the pond in the backyard. Then when it came to the point she realized she'd been utterly foolish in choosing to get away from all, including him, he'd already cornered her, pinioning her between him and the wall.

His body lingered close and the smallest gap ever possible still remained unabridged, setting off the air between them with strange imaginary sparks that lit her body from the inside. The sensations were bearable at first when he only watched her struggle to fix her gaze anywhere but at his eyes. Eventually though, the inaction on his part induced a frenzied tension, wishing he would do something...anything to her.

Her head felt like a vortex, absorbing every passing moment like it never had existed to start with, while another part of her strived to hold onto the fading image, as if every gesture, every movement from his end contained the secret key to the mystery she was trying to solve.

It wouldn't be half bad if he attempted to make something of the time they got on their hands, but he was acting as he breaking the promise to her about the kiss would cost him his life. She fought the urge to brush her lips against his and then when she saw him fight the same desire as she did, it became clear to her that the sexual tension between them is what made the moment that much more endless and ephemeral all at once.

In the haze she was wrapped in, she felt the cool paste on her waist and it did nothing to awaken her addled senses. Her eyes closed...taking in the feel of his fingers there, making a mental map of the pressure and the gentleness with which he dragged his fingers down to the center of her belly. She seemed to be vibrating with a new energy that rose from her core and it was only obvious when even that lay beyond her control and she quivered as a leaf when his fingers lifted off her waist while his index finger reluctantly stalled to stay close to her belly button.

It was a mistake. He would have given anything to wipe out her mindless action, by turning back in time. She'd just then held the wet sari fold between her finger tips and gingerly lifted them up to take a peek at what he'd done there. Lord! It wasn't any of the skin that he got to see then, that drove him crazy as a mad man, but the action itself and the look she'd carried on her face while she'd done that had ignited a profound yet meaningless reaction in him that he didn't understand. Her eyes had shown him a fragileness that evoked a warm...almost entirely alien feeling inside him that seemed to come from a deep place. As though he had to protect her from his own devilish intentions, he gathered her close and she jerked on top of him.

"Maan..." She whispered when all words failed her and she finally found the courage to meet his eyes.

She was floating now; literally too. One instant she'd been on the ground and the next she found herself bunched up in his arms. Shortly after, her eyes stung from the water that came flooding through her eyelids. He'd flung her into the pond without missing a beat. She gasped and rose to the surface trying to make sense of the impulsive motion when he bent down to draw himself nearer to her floating form.

"Well that was for the entertainment you had at my cost...while I sang despite knowing how close I come to a braying donkey in a desperate measure to safeguard my modesty" Having said that, he turned and strode towards the front of the house as if his feet had caught on fire.

That moment, he didn't care what she made of his actions, but he was sure he'd done everything in his reach to stay away from her. How could he tell her, he'd been this close in revealing his secrets away...that she did things to him that was beyond his comprehension and that he'd thrown her in water with her best interests in mind...that he was willing to sell his soul to the devil if he could have that one kiss from her...

In the end, it was lost on him, whose comeback it was, when the one on dry ground was drowning far deeper than the one who was trying to stay afloat, making him wonder if she'd seen through it all the entire time.

This was an effort to remind you all the state of being we had left them in 😆...And the games continue...Keep posting and commenting.

great update...

H, welcome back to Iyer vs Khurana, you were missed! :)

You wrote my fav! 'mangalasnanam' scene, and here I am going 'gaga-gigi' over it! If only Geet would have seat in Maan's lap! ;) Though I like your Mr. Iyer for being so considerate of Mrs. Khurana . 😆

Let the fun begin!

good to see you back on this one

yippeee...we r getting updates on my fav one...