New York Times Part 31 Updated in Thread 2 - Page 30

It was 3.00 PM and she needed that coffee that Meera had been behind her to grab from Peet's for the last one hour. As expected after lunch Meera had come by to chat up on everything else - about the groceries that were due and the laundry that needed to be done before the weekend. When it had been clear that Meera wouldn't touch on the morning's topic again for some unknown reason, she'd plucked the nerve to ask her about it.

"Why were you upset this morning?" She'd asked, looking down at the twisting fork that swirled a few strands of the noodles in her lunch box, "You didn't sound like your usual self at all..."

"I was just..." Meera had started, then paused a moment, had drawn a deep breath and then after seeming to collect herself had gone about explaining one such personal experience with Maan.

"I don't know if I have told you this, but MK is almost always right when he quotes numbers" She'd shrugged then as if she didn't care that he was reliable with numbers, "Don't get me wrong...he is a nice person to work with. He never screams. Or shouts like those other old loose cannons in the executive floor. But if someone is not on top of their game, especially when quoting factuals, he will make sure they are out of his team before they could even see it coming. He usually doesn't waste his time coaching new interns if they are not sharp enough for him"

Meera had placed an arm on her shoulder, "I didn't want you going back to Toronto, that's all. It wasn't fair...Nothing is fair when it comes to you..." Her eyes had worked up a latent anger and she knew that Meera was not making a reference to her job anymore. She'd smiled then, a weak one that she'd managed at that time and gone back to work.

Now, after an intense two hours of rote memorizing all the details in the power point, she could no longer sit in that chair for another second. Trailing down to Meera's cube and gathering a few other women who were also craving their caffeine replenishments, she made it down to the street collectively along with a group of three women excluding Meera.

The rush of fresh air seemed to awaken without caution, the part of her that she'd suppressed for the time she'd been in front of her system. Walking out of the gold trimmed revolving doors, she found herself catching her reflection in the black of the building glass that appeared to stretch up endlessly to the heavens. Even if only for a moment, as she gazed at her face, her eyes drew up to the one spot she had avoided giving any attention until then. And the unfamiliar and slight tingle around the top of her left ear intensified as if it was a burning spark and she looked away instantly.

Her hand fisted to her side as she began walking towards the coffee shop, with Meera bantering away with the other ladies. They waited to cross over at the light and when she was on the other side of the road she again caught her image in the tinted glass of the diner, lining the corner. This is over the top, she thought as her eyes drifted to the left side of her face and she forcibly took a heavy step to blindly to follow Meera.

Her chest heaved from the deep breath she dragged in and she vaguely noticed that she passed a high-end body piercing saloon.

If he'd been plain difficult without giving her one clue about how he'd perceived that morning's incident, then there was her own body betraying at the most difficult of times. She couldn't perceive if everything was as quiet, simple and uncomplicated as they appeared to be or if there was more to how her thoughts always came back to him - work or otherwise. Her feet halted at the looming question and she turned back until she came to stand directly in front of the saloon entrance. Tipping her head back, she squinted at the board that glinted off the slant afternoon beams of the sun, reading: Zing - Body piercing saloon.

There it was her face again, split across the opening and closing doors as someone came out of the place and she felt the renewed spread of softness under the skin that folded into her ear. It continued traveling down by the side of her neck and down her chest as it began its slow descent into her belly and she quickly shut her eyes willing for it to cease at its wake. When it felt everything was beyond her control then, she didn't think two beats before she opened the door to enter the saloon.

"May I help you Ma'am?" A man - or could be a woman for all she knew - with a Mohawk hairdo awaited her at the entrance before she could fully take in the neat and modernly arranged saloon chairs with a few motors whizzing in the background. It took her a moment to realize that it also served as a tattoo parlor.

"Yes...I needed..." She hesitated not knowing how to ask what she wanted and the light twist of the Mohawk guy's lips was a clear indication that he was largely amused to see a woman dressed in grey pencil skirt, black heels and a tucked in formal blue shirt, which by all means came nothing short of boardroom dressing, come into a body piercing saloon. She realized that he must think it was a dare or that she was seriously kidding herself.

She squared her shoulders ignoring the guy's look and raised her hand to her left ear, "I need a ring..." She touched the top of her ear and added, "Exactly here"

He pointed to a board with rings of all sizes and shapes. "Pick one ring and sit in the second chair from the left. Daisy will be with you shortly"

She scooted up into the chair, facing the other side of the mirror and gingerly adjusted her skirt. But before she could have a moment to change her mind about what she was doing then, a stubby man in black jeans too tight for his waist and a t-shirt too large for him came to stand by her chair. His eyes had thick dark kohl lining and the redness in the white of his eyes strangely told her that he would be seriously pissed if she was to go back on her decision now - after he'd made serious efforts to come out of his deep afternoon nap.

"Where?" He asked sounding gruff and his eyes had a slight scowl as if it would make too little of him to exchange pleasantries with her and took the ring from her hand.

"Here" She said holding her top left ear - somewhat to the side where it curved - and her eyes scrunched close anticipating the pain that would pierce through the constant tingle that remained there. First she felt the cool of the alcohol pour more awareness at the same spot she couldn't seem to shake off her focus from and soon after there was the pointed nose of the gun that punched a tiny hole, sending a sharp shaft of pain that drifted inside her, chasing down the wisps of spirals and made her hiss loudly. Bringing it all to a close even before she could take one full breath, Daisy's thick fingers threaded the ring around the top of her ear and vehemently pressed a wad of cotton as he closed down the lock of the thin ring as if he was sealing the piercing that begun there to remain with her for a while. All this, she felt with her eyes closed, patiently waiting for that pervasive softness to die down and be replaced by the zing that the shop promised to deliver.

She paid at the reception, tipped Daisy generously for granting her an afternoon of pain and exited the shop to find Meera standing outside with her hands on her hips, her face rounded from an unyielding anger.

"What the hell are you doing, Geet? Have you gone crazy? We were waiting at the shop and here you are enjoying a piercing"

She felt the urgent need to laugh, "You are making me a sadist...It hurts alright, but it's only a zing as the store claims"

"What was the need to get it done today? Now...that too during office hours" Meera was relentless and she needed reasoning at best for everything and so she gave it straight to the face, keeping in line with the omission of the truth tactic that she seemed to have picked up ever since she'd moved to NY.

"I just needed something to remind me that I was in NY..." Her eyes darted to the ground as she continued, "that I was far from home and can't afford to wander off here"

"Huh!" Her face jerked forward further puzzled, "Ask yourself if you are making any sense at all?"

"Oh! Meera...Get me that coffee first and I will explain it all when I get home..." She said throwing an arm over Meera's shoulder and dragging her along in the direction of Peet's, "Coffee first"

Once they had given the lengthy complicated orders and settled with their coffees in one of the tables by the door, they began talking about the upcoming fall party that was to be hosted at the gym sit-out of their apartment building.

"It's one of the add-ons that come with paying the price a condo for a two bedroom" Meera said and smiled at her. She nodded listening as the other women joined in with their own gripes of the apartments they lived in.

The pain kept her occupied more than she liked as she laughed hard at their jokes and it would be much later when she would discern that the zing called her attention permanently to that one spot despite the continued presence of the soft tingle that would eventually turn into a savoring mix of burning, but smoothing pain.

For a second there, when she'd gazed at her reflection on the saloon door, it had seemed there had been no living outside that moment, like she was stuck there for eternity and it had been the horror from the reckoning that had propelled her into the shop.

Well, she'd at least tried, however foolish, to displace the memory of his touch from her skin, but then who would have thought that it would leave a mark forever...calling her to question her irrationality over her actions - whether she'd done it all because she'd revered the one intimate moment in the flow of time so much so that, that she saw her sufferance from the zing as her only road to return back to her moral high-grounds.

"Oh! What the hell...Zing or not, it sure does look pretty on you" Meera had added when she'd failed to understand all that she'd struggled to cook up in the short time the accompanying women had left for the bathroom.

Originally posted by: honeygrape

i dont remember reading ths in the last version...😕