Night in the studio (MB/RK ff!!!) complete

This is my take on the night in the studio episode. Scroll down for parts 2, 3 and 4. Complete. Unbeta'ed, expect typos. MB/RK Apologies for the title changes. People keep telling me all my attempts at title are completely misleading. Hope this one is not a big chunk of fail.

Here is the complete fic at the fanfic forum. Thanks leela9!

https://www.indiaforums.com/forum/fan-fictions/3197883/a-night-to-remember-madhubala-mb-rk

Darkness gave way to light. The yellow, polluted night of Bombay, never fully dark, became visible through the cracks in the curtain. A faint light lit up the furniture and the curtains, flailing in a faint breeze that seemed to have lost its way into her prison.

Madhu had no idea how much time had passed since her mother in law had left her. How rude she had been to the poor woman! How she had flayed her with her own anger and frustration. She had never been this kind of person. Why, Mukund's mother, awful woman, had come and railed at her family in front of their neighbours and she had not reacted to her acid words...

But today had been too much. She could not even think about the events of the party without her skin crawling, without her heartbeat becoming an uncontrollable tattoo in her chest.

Madhu began to pace frantically, her thoughts too rapid to be parsed. All she knew was that she ached inside and had no idea how to right the wrong that had been done her. And she had no-one she could speak with, to cry with. She heard something... the surround-sound explosions of her husband playing one of his endless video games. Then she heard the sound of raised voices. It seems Radha had decided to confront her son after all. Madhu covered her ears with her hands, her face screwed in anguish. She could not bear to hear her grotesque family.

The red light of the giant TV screen beamed like a beacon in the dark, and she switched it on, without thinking, to drown out the sound of the mother and son.

'This footage was shot at an exclusive party--' gloated the anchor, laced in a too-tight satin dress, entirely too chirpy for that time of the night.

Madhu saw herself on the huge screen.

Being dragged around like a rag doll. Being laughed at by staring strangers. The poor light and the shaky camera phone making her look like a badly painted doll, with pink patches on her cheeks. Even her hair was messy. Her husband leered at her, uncaring of her shame.

Xxx

She was in the middle of a road. It was raining. What was she doing here? Where was she? Light glared into her eyes, blinding her. She put up her hand in reaction.

The tuktuk stopped, its interior sheltered by bits of tarp lashed together against the raging storm.

The driver was saying something to her, but she could not comprehend anything through the noise in her head. On autopilot, she got into the blessed dryness.

'Where to, madam?' asked the driver for the umpteenth time.

'Huh?' Madhu fumbled for sense, coming out of a place where coherent thought became nothing but a maelstrom of electrical signals. She gave the first name that came to her, a place she went every day these days.

' Night charge and rain charge, it will be. Ok, madam?'

With difficulty, she brought herself into the world again. 'Ok', she muttered. He had named a figure that was far too high, but it did not register with her. Nothing did. She wished to be moving, leaving her life behind. Nothing else mattered.

Then the wind and rain took over. The wind cut through her soaked sari, the sari he had gifted, had touched. She wanted to tear it off. The cold made her teeth chatter, but the noise of the tuk tuk on the wet road and the rain on the plastic roof made such a din that it drowned out all thought. Hours passed, perhaps years, perhaps her whole life, as her teeth rattled in her skull from the rough ride. Still she preferred this punishment to the velvet silence of her room in her husband's house.

' We are here Madam. Hurry up, I have to get home!'

She must have snatched up her purse out of habit when she left his house, because she was surprised to note that her hand clutched the sodden fabric. She paid the driver, and made her way to the studio gates.

There was a security guard there, but he did not challenge her. He was too used to the eccentricities of RK and his wife. Perhaps he had also seen her humiliation on TV, perhaps he too was looking at her with knowing eyes. She ran, helter skelter, against the rain, against his scrutiny, to the dark bulk of the deserted studio.

Here at last, there was no one. She sank down on the stairs to the main door. And let her face break down, drowning in this strange chaotic world that threatened to swallow her whole.

Xxx

The little plumber ran, jumped ducked and finally won the princess. High score went, once again, to RK.

'Bittuji!'

The cry rang through the house.

Within five minutes Bittu was in the room, blinking sleep from his reddened eyes.

'Yes chief? Do you want me to call up the video game people again to let us know the cheat for the next level? They are on speed dial now, chief!' Bittu knew RK had been in a foul mood after the party, made fouler by the closed door conversation he had with Auntyji, so he was very eager to please indeed.

'Call Biwi!' came the pre-emptive command.

'Chief!' protested Bittuji, his voice trembling. 'She may be sl--'. He looked at the expression in his boss's eyes and withdrew quickly from the room.

Ten minutes later he was back, face gleaming with cold sweat.

'Bahbhi ji is not in the house, chief! The guard saw her walk out of the building at 1130.' His voice trailed off as he saw the devil enter the boy before him.

RK hitched his head to one side and looked at his secretary speculatively. He didn't threaten violent consequences. Instead, he spoke in a voice that was all honey and ermine, one that made women break into hot flushes at twenty yards, but which ensured that Bittuji's intestines had constricted into painful knots by the time he finished: ' Find her, Bittuji.'

Please leave detailed feedback! Thanks muchly!

The next hour was one of the most horrific periods that Bittu had spent in RK's penthouse. And he had been there when the Anti-Terrorism Squad had come calling about the Veyron gifted by that Dubai-based don.

Bittu had known his chief mad, had known him sulking, known him raging, and known him drunk. But never in his ten years with the boy had he seen him white-lipped and trembling with a slow-burning fury as he did now. Ranks of servants stood at attention around them, waiting for command, knowing full well that a wrong breath would send them into unemployment or worse. Radhaji had been woken up by the turmoil in the household, but Bittu was relieved that the Namoonas had decided to sleep through the drama. He did not think this powder keg of a situation could have taken the spark of fury that Kukku always kindled in RK.

'--where did she go, Bittuji? She did not tell me? I left her in her room---,'Radha ji wept, and Bittu wished for the umpteenth time that she realised that tact was an actual thing that existed in this world, and people had been known to practice it for centuries.

Mercifully, for him and for her, his phone rang at the exact moment RK raised his eyes from the contemplation of the ugly crystal vase that had been gifted him by an Arab sheikh.

He listened to the cracked voice at the other end. The news made his heart sink, and he feared for his own safety as well as for that of the vase.

'Ch-chief,' he stuttered. ' Bhabhiji is at the studio. The guard who locks up after the last shift let her in. He's gone home now. She's locked in.'

'Get me the keys. And get my car ready!'

'Chief, it's raining really hard. Let me handle this, I will make sure she gets home safely. They say the roads are closed beyond Bandra due to the rains, chief. You know how the roads get waterlogged. Remember how last year you stopped shooting for two weeks and the producer had to bribe the MMC to--'

'The keys, Bittu ji.

Radha ji made some protesting noises, but RK has already put on a jacket and his shoes. Bittu gave up the night as a lost cause, and prepared for the worst.

XXX

She must have dozed off leaning against the metal railing that edged the stairs. The rain had continued unabated. There was no one about. The night closed in around her, primeval and fierce, unaware that it swathed a modern metropolis. Her feet felt cold. She looked down to see water swirling around them, sweeping her sari into glutinous folds.

She got up, her body protesting in every pore, and dragged herself into the little shelter that the door lintel provided. Perhaps her life was meant to end in this darkness, for even now her brain did not struggle to find a way out, but merely watched her predicament in a bemused fashion from within a thick blanket of uncaring fatigue. Lightning coursed through the sky in a silent spectacular drama, washing everything in brilliant white. Her attention focussed on a small leaf,

visible in the weak porch light, which was being driven hell for leather to its doom into the gutter sluice.

Lightning flashed again, only this time it did not go away. She looked up into the light and saw a demon silhouetted against the white. It had come to bear her away to hell.

Madhu staggered backwards as she made out the angelic face of her husband looming over her.

'N-not you!' she cried. 'D-demon better,' and fainted dead away.

Originally posted by: luvya4ever

wow! great work bud! Really loved your writing style... and impeccable grammar too! yay! and the story is very intriguing... hopefully you will update soon... are you planning to send PMs when you update?! if yes, I'd like one :)