New York Times Part 31 Updated in Thread 2 - Page 21

Originally posted by: 6th.Element

I'm writing, but unable to finish...Tomorrow for sure.

Part 6: Ouch!

She entered the elevator barefoot with him following her closely. He pressed the button P, which was next to the button that had 60 on it, and keyed in a passcode. That instant, even as the elevator doors were closing, she couldn't for the life of her understand why she wouldn't protest to go down to her floor that was closer to the Gym and relatively more familiar than his apartment.

There had been a subtle coerciveness in his eyes, when he'd looked up from her cut the instant she'd taken support from his shoulder and said, "You have to take care of this right away...Why don't you come with me? I live in the top floor of this building"

He'd caught his gaze for a second longer and then she'd slowly nodded, wincing and looking distracted when in the back of her mind she knew that Meera was already home.

Even as they'd crossed the arched doubled doors of the lobby on the highest floor of the building, there hadn't been much to expect of his place - when she didn't know that there ought to be a natural curiosity for everything grandiose when it came to him. But once she was on the other side of the door, she saw large expanses of white walls that loomed about her, making her eyes widen ever so slightly. Facing her were large oak double doors with inlaid filigree work, which opened as if a ghost had been operating it while they still had been walking towards it. Out came an elderly lady, hurrying on her way out, her silver hair primly tied into a bun, and she could tell, that they were related from the stiffness their erect spines showed and from the assured measured gait they shared.

The elder woman cast an enquiring look at her and then immediately turned to him, her forehead creased with interest as she asked, "Is everything ok, Maan beta?"

"No Daadi..." He said trying to get past the older woman and held the door open before it closed. "Come Geet..." He nodded and gestured her to enter, "Daadima, are you going out? Can you wait for a few minutes?"

His Daadi's eyes flickered to her feet and then she gasped lightly catching sight of the towel that was slowly turning red. "Geet hurt herself in the gym and the bleeding only seems to get worse. I could use your help Daadi" She heard him tell his Daadi from inside the room. While she continued to limp her way to the door, his voice grew distant by the second and yet there was the same urgency in it, laced with a surprising concern that made it all the more new and difficult for her to process.

"Careful beta..." His Daadi caught her by the elbow and took her in. Once indoors, she was thankful she'd her support for with only a few steps past the door, she thought she'd by mistake set foot into another world - a place that opened up to the elements of nature while continuing to keep them at bay with the long panels of glass that ran about 30 foot high on all three sides of the room. For all that she'd learnt to hide, surely, she hadn't mastered keeping the incredulity from reaching her eyes. The amazement seemed unceasing as she took in the vastness of the rooms, the seamless transformation of glass that turned into a white ceiling and extended back to the kitchen, the sleek urbane styles of the white couches and other coordinated furniture and rugs that made up the room as the kind that featured in exclusive magazines of architecture and home dcor.

She came to a grounding halt as the foyer ended and a flush of white carpet began, marking the start of the living room. Her eyes were all over at once and the white in everything seemed to collect a faint glow around it from the last blades of sunlight that drifted over from the ceiling and the wall panels. Tilting her feet around lightly she could see the back of her feet that were stained a shade of red and she hesitated coming any closer to the stretch of the carpet that were mere inches away. Daadima, she concurred, was for more intuitive than most people her age were and having gathered her fumbling, she lightly dragged her in by the elbow that she'd been holding the entire time.

"Come sit here...Don't worry about the carpet" His Daadima said, still looking disturbed and that unsettled her in some ways she couldn't fully identify with.

"Your name?" Daadima asked showing the first sign of her greying age having forgotten that he'd not addressed her once, but twice when he'd swept past her by the entry way. Twice...Her conscious had picked up on that little detail too, didn't it? And that made her sigh inwardly.

"Geet..." She responded just as she haphazardly fell into their couch and fully stretched her feet, resting it by the heel on the ground.

If the structural magnificence and careful accessorizing hadn't already put her in a daze, then there was the view of all of Manhattan ahead of her, with the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges that were beginning to dress up in a twinkle of lights as the night grew darker.

The pain signals from her calf were barely registering in her head when they were muddled with wonder for the house she was at. Who on earth was this guy? She wanted to ask, before she could let him dress her cut. But, as always, her words didn't quite find a voice when he returned with the first aid kit and a glass of water for her to drink. From the corner of her eyes, she noticed his Daadima look up and then back at her and she couldn't help the cringing that came to be inside her. Whatever message her presence there in his home was giving away then...

"How did it happen?...That is a bad cut, beta" His Daadima said as he handed her the glass. Again, there was that unblinking, binding gaze of his, like he was seeing her in parts and in whole at once, and she had to look away, feeling the memory of such moments from earlier that day skitter around just under her skin.

"Her feet slipped on the exercise bike and she must have overlooked the metal strip that was sticking out from it..." He dragged on a brown square ottoman from the middle of the room until it was directly in front of her and added, "I had asked the office to put an out of order sign over that equipment, Daadi, but those lazy bums don't ever get to anything on time..."

She'd hadn't factored for his Daadima to be present by her side - her eyes appraising - when he would dress her cut. Well, she hadn't factored for anything ever since she'd agree to come to his place. On one end she felt her shoulder burn from his Daadi's sudden curiosity and on the other end, she consciously willed for her leg be insensate then so as to not to sense the cool touch of his fingers when he removed the bloodied towel off her leg.

"And you couldn't tell her before she got on the bike?"

"I didn't see her come in Daadi. Otherwise, you think I would let..." Something had him pause there and he swallowed, without taking his eyes away from her leg and continued, "Yeah! Of course I would have told her"

Although she had never been a wimp when it came to rubbing alcohol, she thought it sting harder when he cleaned her cut. When the first time hadn't done it, he pressed another wet padded tissue to the cut and she hissed low while leaning over and catching her leg just below her knee. This time, she didn't have to look up to know she was fixed in her gaze for that moment; her body had already learnt to single out the feeling of something expanding and spreading through her in those instances and the realization only worried her more - this sharp knowledge of things she wished she were ignorant to.

"And you two know each other before?.." His Daadi, now turned to her, "Do you work out there regularly, beta?"

"No...I'm new here..." She gave his Daadi a small smile, "I just landed yesterday. I'm from Toronto" By then he was applying an odd yellow ointment to the back of her leg and she waited for that minute to pass.

"Achha?" His Daadi's voice grew shrill, her excitement heightened for reasons she was unclear of.

"She works for me Daadi" She heard him falter and she instantly felt the contempt rise from his choice of words, though he soon obliged to correct them, "In my team, actually"

"Oh! That's nice...Now you two are neighbors too, besides being teammates" There was a clear joy in his Daadi's rising tone and it was slowly becoming obvious to her why that would that ever be the case.

"Are you here with roommates, beta?" She thought his Daadi could never be done with her questions and responded with even measure of composure in her voice.

"Haan...With my friend Meera..." She waited a beat and drew in a breath, before she added - waiting for a perverse satisfaction course through her body, "But I have family back in Toronto...My husband"

Most certainly, he'd stopped that instant when his hand went over in a circle to tie the gauze around her leg. But it had been only for that instant and he'd gone about doing just that without another reaction, as if he hadn't heard her to begin with. Daadi's eyes had shot back to her in a surprise artfully concealed, but that mild shock had only softened her eyes all the more. Whatever it was she'd expected to come to her then had never showed itself and her head now felt heavier, her chest, tight with a denseness she couldn't discern. And now there was that question of who she had wanted to tell of her marital status...

"Why don't I get some chai for us?" His Daadi's words drew her back from the blackness she was starting to see in the fringes of her vision - when she'd focused on that one spot on the ground for long.

"Daadi..." He called as if to remind her something.

"Yeah! Yeah!" And she could hear the mild frustration in his Daadi's voice then, "I know. I will get coffee for you"

As she raised her gaze to her feet, she realized he was done with his first aid he'd so politely insisted on.

"No! Please..." She jumped up from the couch and wobbled from the sudden movement her weak leg still wouldn't handle for another day, "Perhaps, another time...I have to go now. Meera will be waiting for me" His Daadi didn't press her to stay back like most elders did and she was thankful for that.

"Let me walk with you..." He said, his reluctance more open in how he still remained seated on the ottoman.

"No!" There was that shrillness in her voice again; a mix of incomprehensible rush and dislike in her blood that made her sing like that, "I don't want to bother you more...Thank you. You really didn't have to..."

He shrugged and struggled to place a casual smile on his lips; his eyes now straying anywhere but her and even that measured indifference pinched her.

"Thank you..." She nodded and he nodded in kind, "Thanks Daadi...Hopefully, we will meet again. Do come over to our apartment. We are in the 32 floor. Apt 3236"

His Daadi smiled, her eyes still liking that idea, "Sure beta. I'm sure we will run into each other...soon" And now she'd set everything in stone - the unspoken social contracts that she'd introduced and to have them abide by; from having her placed in an apartment nearly 30 floors below, where she lived with her friend Meera, while her husband lingered in her life as he continued to live in Toronto.

She walked out then with nothing but a chiding voice in her head, asking her to run back to Meera's apartment without so much as a second glance. There was that usual regret and censure as the elevator shot down as a bullet for the next 30 floors. Oh! She just shouldn't have...

"Are you ok? What happened?" Meera came flying towards the door seeing how she had a thick strip of reddening bandage on her leg and her step measured a bad limp. Either he'd wound it too tight or her leg was swelling around the cut or both. Closing the door behind, she took in a deep breath wanting that repose of silence, before she fell into narrating all that had led to her ending up in his home. Well, almost everything that Meera needed to know.

"He took you to his apartment?..." Meera raised a very thin disbelieving brow at her, "I thought there was a first aid kit in both the Men's and the women's bathrooms there. It wasn't filled?" Meera asked as she was locking the front door while they were on their way to the urgent care. She flushed, her hands tangling into a knot and she looked on at Meera without a response, wondering if she would ever come up with an answer for that. All until Meera with a flick of her head had slapped on forehead lightly and said, "Oh! Yeah...you wouldn't have known that there were bathrooms in the first place"

Her smile had come up then, unsure, a disquiet in her eyes. Meera's words had remained with her all through their drive in Yash's car and in the waiting room. When she felt Meera's implying would never leave her, the Nurse had brought a syringe out, its needle tip dotted with a small blob of whatever concoction it was filled with and then another dread surfaced then, her face shrinking with disgust for the prick she would soon feel on her behind. "Ouch...Ouch...Ouch..." was all she could chant thenceforth.

***

Posting the pics as requested

Awww Poor Dadi! She was heart broken to hear that Geet is married!

Thanks for the updates! Sorry Hasini I m not one of you analyst or critic! So don't expect any big comments ! Just a simple fan who will read what ever being served in the plate by you!

Thanks for the amazing update...

The emotions are better expressed here. It may be too premature to judge, but the first version solely concentrated on Maan and Geet's expressions to a situation, but I have a feeling that this version will have everyone other involved peoples emotional / verbal contributions as well... Eg. Meera, Yash, u know, saying the right things at the right time sorts... Makes a better story. I am loving it.

I am thoroughly enjoying this version's narrative. Also I do enjoy visuals- and love these as well.

Thanks for adding the pics😊

Nice update. Awesome description of Maan's apartment. If I was in Geet's place would definetly forget my manners and hope on one leg to the window ledge to get the view of the city below.

You guys have no clue, how apprehensive I'm about posting the new version, because everytime I write I'm doubly questioning if it will be accepted and secondly I don't want to change much on the their thoughts and feelings that I had failed to convey in the first posting. It's seriously taking a toll on me...

amazing part hasini... loved the way she conveyed to him that she s married n so better stay away away from me ... 😊 loved it 😊