[Will edit later]
If nothing, I intend to get him placed in a mental asylum for the terminally ill. How dare the bas***d introduce himself to Binoy as my best friend? I might have overlooked all else had he not put himself between Binoy and me in the car, claiming it was tradition that the bride and groom not sit together before their wedding day. If only I could fill his head with images of the lewd, lascivious things Binoy and I had done, but that was going against the grain for me and the pervert that he is, just about might begin enjoying those bawdy accounts. I let out a sigh and decided that it was time I gave him a piece of my mind. But, as expected, his voice mail was all that was willing to be at the receiving end of my temper.
In the time I planned to give before I dial him up again, I wanted to try my Sangeet ensembles that were back from the last fitting. Though I had been reluctant at first, about moving back to Purana Makhan for the last week prior to my wedding, so Binoy could feel at home in my apartment instead of having to stay at a hotel, I was pleased to find myself in the midst of old comforts. The large tilting mirror fixed to the ornate wooden frame being one, which did not require me to jump up to glean a full view of my preened self, like I would have at the torso length bathroom mirror in the apartment.
Not bad! I said after drawing up the blouse over my shoulder and twisted from side to side to gauge how the lehenga sat around my waist. But the feeling of disposed satisfaction that came from a well-fitted ceremonial robe, which was usually hard to come by these days, was short lived when I heard my window fall open from the outside and saw him climb into my room.
"You couldn't...stay without talking to me for two minutes, could you?" He grunted as he hoisted himself over the sill.
Dusting off his palms, he said, "I was just halfway up when you called. That damn tree, needs some trimming."
It came to me as no surprise that he was here when it was only natural he would follow me until I would give in and speak to him. If he had traced out my whereabouts that night I had left him with nothing but the remnants of a kiss, I was certain he had my life history in his palms by now. After we had seen to Binoy's needs and settled him at my apartment, I had kept my silence for the entire time we rode the elevator to the garage. With Binoy gone from the picture I didn't put up with the best friend act and drove myself back here, leaving him in wait for his own car to pick him up.
I did need some answers from him - for the overnight best friend I had become and more - but before I could so much as utter a word to him, I needed to sift through my thoughts alone, which I was far from doing in his presence, with his musky cologne assailing my nostrils; or with the stench of his orgulous ego. However, with his sneaking in, I realized, he was in more of an hurry to find me than I was to reach him over phone.
"What's going on?" I asked, and looked for a dupatta to cover myself without any show of histrionics that he was in my room, while I was half naked, given how the tassels on either side of my blouse were still undone. To that effect, his lips kicked up amused to one side, and that told me he'd hoped nothing less from me.
"Exactly my question...What is going on?" He took a step toward me with his hands shoved in his pockets, "I hear you are getting married and I'm not invited? That just sounds like a marriage without its share of drama. Like a bollywood musical without singing and dancing..."
"You cannot just walk in and out of my life..." I said without meeting his eyes and pushed up the dupatta that was sliding down my shoulder.
"Or for that matter climb trees and slip into your room to catch you in that polka dot nightwear that didn't do shit about your assets..." He bent down, tilting sideways to catch my gaze.
"On that note," he said and I took a step back to escape having his breath fall on my face, "I could take you out shopping...I have a few female friends who have a high reach in the world of lingerie fashion..."
Too bad! I wanted to tell him, that he couldn't put them to use for his own good.
"Although, I will admit that this one does..." His eyes traveled down the length of my form and I wanted to turn around and walk away then, but there was the case of my open blouse that I did not want to draw his attention to and that had me standing there while he drawled to a finish. "More justice to..."
His eyes dropped to below my neck.
"Rishabh!" I prompted to keep him from stating his grand opinions about which part of my body was flattered with the cut of my clothes.
"Calm down, Madhu," he said with that trademark shake of his head, " I meant to say Indian attire agrees with you," and before I could broach the subject that we both knew had to be discussed, he tugged me by my wrist and had me leaning on him in no time, my arms braced against his forearms for support.
Of course, I'd had my back to the mirror.
I felt the tip of his fingers move around my back, twisting the tassles in any which way to knot them and my back curved to keep his fingers from touching my skin. Again it was one second too late before I reckoned I had thrust my chest deeper into his clinch and with that surmising my breath hitched in my throat.
My eyes closed, while my ears warmed from his slackened exhales.
This moment. This thing. Was it just as accessible to him as it was for me?
And when it would have been understandable to shove him off, I didn't find my will to do so.
What must have been awkward was intimate. What I must have despised, gave a strange comfort in its tacit acceptance. When he must have been distant after having gone for all those months, his one touch could not have permeated farther inside me had he been around for that time.
I feared that it was agreeable to both of us, that we could leave each other for a decade and then come back to where we had left without having any measure of change in us matter to the other. For this part of me, and I liked to think for him too, was always that same one touch away from awakening.
*
While his hands were still in the process of knotting, I drew them away from me and moved to stand in the shadows. Turning around to have my back out of his view, I tied the blouse and hoped he would leave before Naanaji or the others returned home - from their last minute wedding details they were working on.
"Rishabh," I called to him as I looked over my shoulder to reach for the last of the tassels, "If this is about the book and the media, you should know it wasn't intended at all..."
"For the record," His voice hovered from above me and I refused to look at him, keeping my gaze fixed behind me, "Let's be clear that you brought it up..."
"Congratulations," I said and a mild surprise made me pause for a beat as I heard myself soften to a whisper, "You just made it past the mental maturity of a 5th grader, by quoting that disclaimer..."
"And the games begin..." He bit out his words and hauled me by my elbows to pull me against him once again. Ruffian!
He had to stop doing that, but oddly, I was convinced that speaking of such objections will only fetch me an outcome of an opposing nature and so, I took his hands off me, showing as little of my annoyance as possible.
"You know what? I don't even care anymore," I said.
"Don't care because what you wanted has been accomplished?" He followed me as I found one dupatta to fold into a clothes pile, his voice raising to a crescendo as did his ire, "Tainted my name and now, it will forever remain in question that I was the bas***d son of some bitch who gave me away"
With his allegation, it was as if all my livid fears that I had failed to acknowledge after hearing the media frenzy, were realized.
"Rishabh!" I spun around and shook him, as if that would allow for him to hear my reasoning without judgement, while I still had the dupatta in my grasp, "Don't tell me you believe that."
I scoffed as his eyes gathered a sardonic look. "I'm beginning to doubt you would care even if it were to be true," I said. Well, in that moment of distrust, he'd proved what was of material to him,"You are just bitter that the scandal has managed to maim that damn thing you hold dearest than anything on this earth...Your name..."
"So this is where you tell me you said so?" It was his turn to jolt me into feeling his animosity,"That its payback from fate for the night I kissed you...For all those scorned curses you sent my way"
"Correction: the night you assaulted me." I said averting my eyes with as much disgust as I can muster.
"Fine," He was yelling then,"Let's set the record straight then. I assaulted you and you kissed me back..."
He was quiet after that outburst. Whatever it was that had made him look at me for a long minute in silence had also mellowed him.
"Just answer a few questions for me, Madhu and then I will let you go," He said when I tried to break his hold around my arms and instead, with some force raised my chin to him, "Was the man, this chap, in your mother's diary a new assistant and from Shimla. Was there a name mentioned too?"
It was the last thing I expected him to ask; to run facts by me.
"No name but yes, he was from Shimla," I said, unwilling to avow when he spoke to me with a steady vehemence, "Why do you ask?"
An inhale and then he closed and opened his eyes in quick, as if in prayer; a desperation suddenly came on into his steely glare.
"And you did your share of looking into the production books that were kept from that time?"
"Yes...Rishabh we did," My words sounded piqued when his line of questioning was nothing short of harassment, "But what are you trying to get at?"
Something changed in his eyes then and his eyes remained fixed on me, a sharp disgust bared itself in the manner he narrowed his one eye.
"Then, stop acting like a bitch!" His grip tightened as if there was every intent for it to hurt and the next second, he pushed me with such exertion, that I hit the wall and tripped to fall over the base of the bed. "Rishabh!" I cried, rubbing my elbow.
But, he wasn't there and was leaving the room already. Only, this time he exited my bedroom through the door and padded through the hallway.
"No!" Getting to my feet, I cried.
"Rishabh! Stop!" I ran after him, "You are going through the front door. Stop!"
With my dupatta grazing the floor along the way and my lehenga hiked up to enable with my running, I made it to the front door just in time to find him fling the doors open and cross the threshold to come face to face with Naanaji, Maira aunty and Trishna.
He stopped there, but it was also then my legs buckled under me and I slumped against the wall closing my eyes down.
All sounds faded in my ears, for it was apparent there had been a grave mistake with the details he'd asked about. If only I had overseen everything, myself...
Now, this was one more thing I would have to see to its end, before I left for France. Surely, I could make him see reason, when I have enough proof to show that I had not brought about the scandal as revenge for his torments.
Oh! I held my chest as I felt a burn flay my insides. Torments...
Despite that initial affirmation, beyond redeeming it appeared and I saw that from the discretion he no longer wished to keep when he'd chosen to take the front door. The man who had climbed in through the window, was perhaps long gone.
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