After setting the party ablaze with his larger than life image, literally too when he'd set fire to a thin stream of tequila over the bar counter in his flamboyant, but misguided notions of having fun, he set out to drive by Marine drive before he went back home. Drinking wasn't always his thing, but he liked to hide under the name of stupor, under the pretense of stupidity to carryout the grandiose conceited acts that was asked of the Super Star, RK!; not Rishabh.
He'd had a few shots at the party, but there was no mistaking that he saw her; that she was only human and not a slyph from another world - leaning over the stonewall that lined the waterfront with her heels slung over her shoulders.
Her pale yellow scarf fluttered in the air, and he stopped there as if that was some sign to bring his life to a grinding halt.
"So you need a ride?" he walked to stop right behind her, her halter top curved low to reveal much of her arched back, a sheen on her ivory cream skin made his fingers curl up from a tingle, all together surprising him.
"Or not..." she turned, least taken back with his presence, ruffling her green floor length chiffon dress as the wind molded it to her body and he saw that she curved and flattened at all the right places.
But it was her eyes that made him go still, black as a veil and yet bearing a translucence which hid much of her secrets just as it did give away she was affected by him that instant, having recognized him only then.
The song played on while he held her eyes and she averted her gaze a moment later to open her clutch and grab her phone to answer it.
"Ok...I will wait here," she spoke in hushed tones and finished the call curtly without a goodbye to the caller and tucked her cellphone back into her gold purse.
"That's an odd choice for a ringtone," he asked, "What? From the 60s?"
"It was my mom's favorite from the movie Malika Salomi released in 1953," she shrugged, "Its a shame they don't write such simple love songs anymore..."
"Is that your fondness for period films or a dislike for modern age cinema?" he asked with his trademark tilting shake of his head.
She turned back to the ocean , "A bit of both," she said and he stepped around to stand by her side, "I say, you should insist for that charm in your films"
"All that nonchalance and I was beginning to think you didn't know who I was." He appeared smug.
"Oh! I know you all right and if I'm not wrong the self-aggrandisement was anytime coming," she nodded in agreement, "Trust me, I was at your party when you set the bar counter on fire..."
"I see...", he nodded back, a smug smile lit up his features, "And yet here I am, lacking in my host manners, in not recognizing my own party guests. You are, Miss?"
"No one important," she said with a wave of her hand.
The wind was a dark whisper, maddening when it conspired with the sounds of her laugh.
"You shouldn't dismiss your name like that. Its your brand and symbol in this industry"
"I'm not from your industry," she looked at him, slightly raising her brows, she smiled.
"Yes, I figured that much, but I cannot be sure either," he contemplated a name and dismissed it, "You look quite familiar..."
She laughed and a whiff of her perfume shot up into the air, "I get that a lot..."
"You only choose to punish me by keeping me in the dark," he tied his hands behind him and bowed a courtesy asking her join him in a walk, "A name would be nice..."
"Oh! who is asking? RK or Rishabh?" She moved with him and they soon fell in step.
He raised a questioning brow at her, "A trick question that I decline to answer..."
"Then so do I..."
There...there...that smile again; cavalier; amused, keeping her name a secret from him.
A chotu came bearing chai in an aluminum cask and he called to him.
"Chai?" he asked and she agreed to partake in his offering of late night refreshments.
"Without a name, you are making it difficult to continue this conversation," he paid the boy taking two plastic cups from him and handed one to her, "That just leaves the job of christening you to me."
"I don't need a name, unlike others who revel in it," She looked at him from under her lashes, taking a sip and she needn't tell him in so many words, who she had in mind then, "A name is more transitory than the light that shifts through the day...I rather not be known now, only to be forgotten later..."
"Who are you?" he had a quizzical expression on, intrigued by the air of mystery that surrounded her.
"A blue blood!" his surprise settled, "I presume you are from one of those old film families " he concluded without doubt after a few seconds and scoffed, "Only you are afraid to use your name."
"May be I'm just tired of being in the limelight..." she spoke without looking at him.
Oh! she did not just say that, he sighed. His one tipping point that reminded him of all the lost opportunities, he'd been given and taken, because another star kid needed a launch pad.
"Sometimes," he spoke every word with a measured distinctness, "I hate when you spoiled glitter babies would slight the privileges that come with your name," his voice had a sardonic tone, "Here you are running from it, but the movie world will only continue to fawn at your feet and ignore all those others who are willing to pay in blood for the smallest credit in an end-reel"
"Oops!" she titled her head to one side, her voice tainted with sarcasm, "Did I open old wounds, RK?"
"No!" he ground out his words, "I just decided that its time you pay up for the disdain you show towards your name"
He threw the glass and caught her by her forearms while her glass fell from her hands.
"Rishabh...leav..." she spoke in alarm, her eyes glassy from the fear that she finally revealed. But before any of her smallest reactions - her disappointment or an unseen expectation crumbling in her eyes - could register, he crushed his lips to hers, the soft mound of her mouth immovable as he waded with his to part them.
Her hands bunched his shirt in a faint protest, "Rish..." his name escaped her throat and its shortening sounded as an endearment, intensifying his need to taste her mouth; his fingers left the grip on her arm and tightly circled her waist by the small of her back.
A clinking against the sidewalk and then her hair fell over, covering his hand as black muslin.
There was no yielding from her and she struggled to get away from him. In that moment, when he heard the making of disgust in her grumbles, he softened on her just like that, his one hand smoothed its way up her arm and held her face, a murmur of an apology in the short gentle kisses he gave her lips.
But it was also when he expected her to pull back any moment, her hand to slide down his shirt and push him off her body, he sensed her lips respond, a small cleaving of her lips that gave way for a suckle of her lower lip.
His insides turned liquid and a real fire began then. Perhaps, there was something astoundingly relieving in a woman's willful acknowledgement of a man. With that thought, he realized, his urgent wanting to have his act affirmed by her and still, he didn't even know her name, this alluring puzzle piece of a stranger. The dazzle that surrounded him was boundless, intimidating even, and along with it came an anxiety to end the kiss. However, when he felt her drawing away from his lips, with it also rose a dread that she would walk away from him, if he were to let her go.
Although, it was another beat before she shoved him and caught her breath. "One day you too will pay Mr Kundra, for your name. You will regret too that its spread so far and wide that you can't hide from it anywhere you run..."
Even as she was addressing him in a voice that was tinted with a mix of anger and animosity, hinting at a pardon that he will never be granted, a Mercedes pulled up next to the curb.
"Is something the problem, Madam?" The driver got out of the car in horror. "No!..." She said, her tone firm in her denying and she stared at him for a second longer, like she was drawing up a personal sketch of his face for her memory and drifted off towards the back seat of her car; her long dress pulled back as a green flame in the sea breeze.
He couldn't help the smirk that came up his lips when not one sane reason in his head justified what he'd done then. It was as if he'd been possessed by a spirit and could think of little else, except covering her mouth with his, to chasten her inciting tongue.
Ravens, he thought - the slow unwinding of her hair that came as a vision of a hundred black ravens in flutter, when the pin had fallen to the ground - spread their own black magic at night. He smiled, picking up her pin and began tapping it on his palm as he watched the car disappear like white smoke around the curve. Much to his disbelief, this too happened one night...
Book Talk
