Arhi FF: Kalarikkal House (Thread 2 link posted) - Page 30

Originally posted by: -publicenemy-

Malayali tanne :)

"Seriously? No power and no cell phone reception? How do you guys live here?"

The girl looked at him as if he was a strange bee that she had just happened upon in her daily walks and turned to her sister to say, "Ee India kanatha mahananu nammade veedu vilakedukkan vannekunne." ("This Mahan who hasn't seen India is the one who has come to buy us out!")

^😆 this rocks...

Chapter 6 – Violence Begets Violence

He looked up at her ascending form in disbelief as he struggled to get up from where he had fallen.

He took a step up gingerly and found that he had broken nothing. It was a f**king miracle!

He took another step up and found that he could walk after all. He was going to feel the aches and pains tomorrow, but for now he had a volatile homicidal she-devil to catch! He took the steps two at a time and caught up to her just as she was about to turn the corner to the next set of stairs. He caught her around the waist and pulled her back to him just as his other hand grabbed the lamp in her hand and took it in his own before she tried to throw it in his face again.

He set it down a few steps up as she spluttered in surprise and just as she opened her mouth to scream, he slapped his palm over it and pulled her back even more tightly against him as he whispered harshly in her ear, "I don't think you quite appreciate the situation that you find yourself in. Your father has borrowed a significant sum of money from the State Bank and has put up this house as collateral, seeing as how he lacks any other assets. Having met his children, I can only surmise that you're not in the asset, but the liability column. Whatever redeeming qualities your sister has has been lost by slaving away in this house. If you are both so f**king educated, why don't you actually work for a living instead of living in this historical artifact and indulging your father's decidedly foolish whims at every turn?"

She went still in his arms for a moment but he wasn't foolish enough to trust her. She was like a snake, striking at lightning speed when you least expected it.

"And if you push me down the stairs again, I swear, I will..." he didn't get to finish before she elbowed him in the gut. He didn't know how she quite managed it.

She turned around and pushed him next, but he was anticipating it and caught her hands and slammed her back against the side of the stairwell.

She winced, but only for a moment, before she attempted to knee him in the groin. Thank God he had thought that she would play dirty and just when he felt her fidget, he pressed in against her until he had rendered her completely immobile.

"I am stronger than you, both physically and mentally." He bit out with some effort as he felt her nails dig into his hands where he was holding onto her.

"You are a bully!" she said in English before she reverted to Hindi and said, "Let me go!"

"If you find that you can't control your homicidal impulses in the future, I will not stand by idly and excuse you as a woman. I can fight dirty too."

Her response was to try to bite his hand that he could already see was bleeding from where her nails had raked in and done the damage. It was the last straw! If she could use her nails and teeth, he could use what he had at his disposal. He pulled his hand away from her teeth and when she turned to go for the other hand, he didn't give her a chance before he crushed his mouth over hers.

On a personal note, he was not a man who had ever had a voracious appetite for sex. It was what it was. And no one in their right mind would ever accuse him of being romantic in the least bit. So, what he did in that moment could only be construed as misogynistic; except in his mind, it had nothing to do with hatred towards women despite what she had accused him of before. He had gotten into physical tussles when he was young, but the last one had been when he had been in middle school and that too with boys, never with girls. He didn't know what to do with a female who fought like she did. Maybe kissing her wasn't the best recourse. But it was what he did. And if that made him join the ranks of the sick f**ks the fem libs would rave against, then so be it. They hadn't met this particular strain of their sex to pass judgment on him.

As he had anticipated she would, she went deathly still and he felt her entire body go lax in his hold. He had never done this before with anyone, much less a virgin, and he had no doubt in his mind that she was; it was not just her wildness, but it was also her complete lack of wiles, she had no idea about how to interact with a man because she had no experience with understanding her power over the opposite sex. God forbid the day she found out. But for his purpose, he would take whatever advantage he could get in the moment.

He pulled back and stared at her with a blank expression, hoping against hope that she would act like a regular girl for once and not...

f**k!

It was the last thing he expected! She was crying!

What the f**k! The girl had not one predictable bone in her body.

She blinked her eyes rapidly but there it was still... the tears were leaving a wet track down her face and when she started struggling again, he finally noticed that he was still holding onto her hands and let go.

She wiped the tears away angrily and as he thought of what to say, not that there was really anything to say except apologize and hell would freeze over before he apologized, she spoke, "How much?"

It caught him off-guard and he looked at her in confusion.

"How much what?"

"How much does my father owe the State Bank?"

"About 35 lakhs."

He heard her shocked gasp as she drew back against the wooden paneling of the stairwell.

He had wondered if she knew; evidently she had not.

"From when?" she asked.

"2002. He had borrowed around 50 lakhs then. You didn't know?"

"I was only 15 then. He..." she paused and then he saw the tears start again, although she turned away from him to take the lamp in her hand again.

"He?" he questioned.

"He must have borrowed the money to send my brother to medical school." She answered.

"You have a brother?" he asked in surprise.

"I had a brother. He died during his 3^rd year in medical school." She said as she started climbing the stairs again.

He followed her, two steps behind, gathering her need for space and his own need to put distance between other people's tragedies and him.

The rest of the walk was quiet until they reached the room that he had been given.

She walked in to the far end of the room and he saw her retrieve what looked like a spiral green stick and light the end of it; it started burning from that end, releasing a single swirling stream of smoke. He could only assume that it was to keep away the mosquitoes.

When she walked to the windows to light another one on the table next to it, he finally said, "This property is worth at least 3 and a half crores, Khushi. 35 lakhs and 3 crores are not even comparable sums. Your father has already defaulted on 4 months of payments and he has been irregular in his payments for close to a year now. The bank has excused him until now because the manager has a personal relationship with him. But even that's not going to save him now. They will take the house for the remaining sum in a month's time if he doesn't produce what he owes them."

"Ah, so in true scavenger fashion, you swoop in to collect your pickings while our corpses are still fresh." She answered, looking out the window.

He shook his head in frustration. There was no winning with the girl. Logic was as alien to her as feminine wiles.

"A house is just a bunch of wood and frame, Khushi. It stops being a home when it starts leaking your life and joy from you and you start living for it rather than in it."

"I don't need philosophizing from the likes of you, Mr. Raizada. When you have been under threat of having your home taken from you, then we can talk."

He chose not to answer as she turned around and walked towards the door. Just before she closed the door behind her, she paused and looked at him, "My name is not Khushi; it's Kashi. Not Happiness, but the Holy City that you call Varanasi. Call me Kaveri if you find that you have to address me. Kashi is the name that my loved ones call me. And people who try to make my family homeless do not count in that list."

Then she was gone.

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